How to Lead a Life of Crime

by Kirsten Miller

  I argued and pleaded. I wanted her to see that what my father had told her didn’t make any sense. He claimed that he’d staged my mother’s death. The sedative in the syringe had knocked her out. But the dose wasn’t enough to kill her. He swore he was trying to protect her from Lucian Mandel. Even up to the very last moment. Even when I was on the verge of beating him to death. He would have gone to his grave before he’d let Mandel know that my mother was alive.

  But like the rest of my dad’s stories, it was all a big lie. Why would he have gone to such trouble to save a life he’d tried so hard to ruin?

  “I don’t know,” Joi admitted.

  “And even if he did hide her away, why did she stay? Why did she let him remarry and father a son? Why didn’t she try to find me?”

  “I don’t know,” Joi said. “But if your mother’s alive, you need to ask her.”

  • • •

  The address my father gave Joi belonged to a Victorian mansion set on a lush, rolling lawn.

  “Do you know the name of the people who live here?” Joi asked the cabbie who’d picked us up at the train station.

  “It’s not a house, miss,” he said as he turned up the drive. “It’s a mental institution.”

  The lady at the front desk shook her head when I asked to see Elizabeth Brennan. “We don’t have any patients here by that name.”

  I took a step back, but Joi didn’t budge. “What was her maiden name?”

  “Chapman,” I said.

  The woman’s brow furrowed. “What’s your relation to Beth Chapman?”

  Joi nudged me when I didn’t speak. “I’m her son.”

  “Excuse me for a moment.” The woman slipped out of her chair. A few seconds later, she returned with a nurse.

  The nurse didn’t seem pleased to see me. “You say you’re Beth Chapman’s son?”

  “Yes, my name is Jonathan Brennan.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she announced. “Beth’s sons are both dead.”

  That’s why she never tried to find me. He must have told her that I was gone too.

  “His brother, Jude, was the one who died,” Joi informed the nurse.

  “I was . . . I was . . .” I couldn’t get the rest out.

  “He’s been away at school,” Joi said. “He just discovered that his mother is here.”

  “Don’t move,” the nurse ordered. “I’ll be right back.”

  There was a framed picture in her hand when she marched back into the lobby. The nurse glanced down at the photo of me, Jude, and my mother. When she looked back up, she was smiling.

  “Well, what do you know?” the nurse marveled. “Beth told me a few days ago that her son would be coming. She’s been waiting for you ever since. The doctor thought her condition had worsened. I wonder what he’ll have to say about this.”

  “Can I see her?” I croaked.

  “I don’t know why not. After all, she’s expecting you. Follow me. Beth’s room is right down the hall.”

  “Why is she here?” I asked as the nurse guided us through a security door. “What exactly is her condition?”

  “Chronic hallucinatory psychosis.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Joi was the one who answered. “It means she speaks to people no one else can see.”

  My hands were trembling when I opened the door. I was terrified of what I might find on the other side. A padded room. A lunatic strapped into a straitjacket. A madwoman babbling away at the walls. But I saw a bright, sunny chamber filled with furniture my mother might have chosen herself. A small, blond woman sat by the window, watching as sprinklers watered the endless green lawn. She wore chinos and red espadrilles. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her linen shirt was the color of the sky.

  “You’re here!” She was in my arms before I had a chance to say anything. She sounded elated. But she didn’t seem surprised.

  “Who told you I was coming?” I asked when she finally let me go. “Was it Dad?”

  She answered with a smile. A real one.

  “Was it Jude?” I bent down and whispered into her ear. “Do you speak to Jude, Mom?”

  “Not anymore,” she replied. “Jude’s in Never Land now.”

  • • •

  That night at the colony, Jude sent me one last dream. Peter Pan wasn’t in it. This time Jude was just a kid in a T-shirt and jeans.

  “You gonna be okay?” he asked me.

  “Yeah,” I told him. “You?”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” he promised.

  “Then I guess I should go. I’ll miss you, Jude.”

  “You know where to find me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I gave him a hug and left him behind. I could hear announcements being made, and I could see strangers milling about in the background. Then I realized I was at JFK Airport, about to board a plane to Savannah. It was the day I left for military school.

  I looked over my shoulder. Jude was standing beside my mother, waving at me. I’d forgotten how happy he’d seemed the last time that I saw him. And I suddenly knew why Jude had sent me the dream. That’s how he wanted to be remembered.

  When I waved back, we both knew what it meant. I’d finally said my goodbye.

  • • •

  In the weeks since the Mandel Academy went up in flames, the whole world has turned upside down. The billionaires and bigwigs who once sat on the school’s board of directors are being hounded by the press and the police. The academy’s instructors have all been hauled in for questioning. None of them have been charged with a crime yet, but few people believe they could have been ignorant of the atrocities committed in the basement of their workplace. A shadow has fallen over the other Mandel alumni as well. Arthur Klein has visited every news show in the country to warn the public about the dangers of Exceletrex—and to denounce the people who would have profited from poisoning millions of children. A reporter from the New York Times is investigating the drug company’s links to the Mandel Academy, and most of the school’s graduates are now keeping low profiles or hiding out in their homes. Even those who don’t need to fear the police or the newspapers are probably quite keen to avoid the Wolves.

  Eight of the academy’s top students left with files on the fifth of July. Seven alumni were forced to hand over fortunes. Then New York’s latest millionaires began living large. Two Wolves quickly wound up in jail—Austin for assault and Julian for drug possession. Five continue to spend their days providing fodder for the city’s tabloids, which are filled with breathless accounts of their extravagant shopping sprees, drunken fistfights, and endless displays of debauchery.

  The eighth escaped Wolf showed up at the colony.

  “How did you find us?” Joi asked.

  When Leila grinned, she could have passed for a regular girl. “One of the teachers at the academy asked me to check out a virus created by some kid named Lily. The instructor thought there was something strange about it. She was right. She just wasn’t smart enough to figure out what it was. I saw the message you sent to Tina. So the first thing I did when I got out was find Tina. Then I followed her here.”

  “You knew about the message?” I asked. “You could have had us killed.”

  “For plotting to set us all free? What kind of person do you think I am, anyway?”

  I didn’t know how to answer.

  “Never mind,” Leila said. “I guess I was pretty awful. God knows what all that Exceletrex has done to my brain. But at least I’m trying to change. That’s why I’m here. I brought you a present.”

  • • •

  I hoped Leila would be our last unexpected visitor. For a while, the whole world seemed convinced that the academy’s students had all perished in the fire. But the only bones discovered among the debris belonged to Lucian Mandel. When the newspapers noted the absence of charred human remains, the police began to look for the school’s missing students. But we never thought anyone would discover the colony. T
hen my father’s attorney appeared at our door. He was there to tell me that my dad had revised his will so that his fortune would be split between his two living sons. The first thing I did was demand a copy of the document. All I wanted to see was the date. The changes were made the day after I’d been arrested at JFK.

  I used my inheritance to buy an apartment for my mother. The doctors say she may be well enough to move in soon. Then I purchased a building on Essex Street, which is already filled with Ghosts, Androids, and Urchins. I donated the rest of the money to Joi’s new charity. The Lower East Side Children’s Fund.

  Life is more comfortable now, but it’s no less dangerous. If an attorney can find us, so can the Mandel alumni. They must think we managed to get our hands on their secrets. Otherwise, a few would have declared war by now. Joi and I are still searching for Mandel’s files. But we’ll find them. And right before we send most of the alumni to jail, we’ll put Leila’s present to use. She’s given us access to every graduate’s bank account. Joi’s already decided where the funds should go.

  • • •

  I’ll always regret that my father chose to die like he did. But these days I have too many good things to enjoy—and too little time to waste on regrets. If I find a free hour, it belongs to my little brother. Frank’s mother had always been told I was dead. But when she saw me standing outside her door, she knew I wasn’t an impostor. Her son is the spitting image of his two older brothers.

  She’s selling the mansion in Connecticut. Now that she knows the truth, she says it’s too haunted to occupy. Before the brokers descended on the house, she insisted that my mother and I take whatever I wanted. I would have asked for the Rothko, but that wall was already empty.

  So my mother and I picked out a few little treasures that belonged to Jude. After he died, his possessions had been packed away and consigned to a dark corner of the attic. That’s where I found the box. Inside was a green felt hat, a wooden sword—and every story ever written about Peter Pan.

  I gave the box to Frank. When he opens it ten years from now, I’ll be there to tell him all about Never Land—and our very own brother who was able to fly. Because Peter Pan can never die. And as long as I’m around, there will always be someone here who believes in him.

  Addendum

  The following material was found on a flash drive that had been taped to the underside of a desk belonging to Marcos Lauder. A reporter for the New York Times, Lauder was reported missing on January 3, 2013.

  Lucian Frederick Mandel

  Born 1975 in Manhattan

  Mother: Beatrice Mandel (b. 1942, d. 2007)

  Father: Unknown

  Sibling: Marjorie Mandel (b. 1973, d. 2007)

  Rumor has it that the father of Marjorie and Lucian Mandel is a living graduate of the Mandel Academy. My sources believe that the man may have been employed by the school when Beatrice was first named headmistress. However, Beatrice never publicly identified the father of her children, and he appears to have played no role in his son’s life.

  Lucian was enrolled at the Dalton School in Manhattan until November of his fourth grade year, when another child accused him of intentionally injuring a class pet. At that point, Lucian abruptly transferred to College Alpin Beau Soleil, a boarding school in Switzerland. Before the age of fifteen, he made regular trips to visit his mother in New York. The travel appears to have stopped in Lucian’s sophomore year. He did not leave Europe throughout his junior and senior years.

  By all accounts, Lucian’s relationship with his mother became increasingly tense as he grew older. This seems to support the idea that she may have discovered his macabre habits. It’s also possible that Beatrice Mandel suspected that her son’s crimes were not limited to defiling the dead.

  Lucian’s time in Switzerland coincided with the disappearance of at least five teenagers from the nearby city of Geneva. Most of the children were long believed to be runaways. However, the recent discovery of several jars of preserved organs in a wooded area not far from College Alpin Beau Soleil has proven that at least one of the teenagers met a grisly fate. There is no physical evidence to link Lucian Mandel to the crime, but the MO fits the one described by Henry Brennan.

  Throughout his youth, Lucian Mandel made very few friends, but his money often bought success with girls. Those relationships, however, were extremely short lived. None of the ex-girlfriends I’ve located are willing to discuss him. Most seem to refuse not out of loyalty, but fear.

  Mandel graduated from Harvard in 1995. Despite an unimpressive academic record, he was accepted to the John Hopkins School of Medicine where he earned an MD. In 2007 he was awarded a PhD in genetics.

  Less than a week after Lucian returned to New York, Beatrice Mandel died of a cerebral aneurysm. Her daughter, Marjorie, died the following month in an automobile accident on the West Side Highway. Neither death appears to have been investigated. Autopsies were never performed.

  “Gwendolyn”

  Real name: Tiffany Hager

  Mother: Rhonda Hager

  In 2008, Tiffany Hager was a patient at the New Hampshire State psychiatric hospital. Her juvenile criminal records are sealed, but her mother’s name links her to this account from the New Hampshire Union Leader.

  INVESTIGATORS CLEAR MOTHER, FOCUS ON DAUGHTER

  Shortly after the body of an eighth man was pulled out of Spectacle Pond on Friday afternoon, Croydon police abruptly shifted the focus of their investigation. The woman who was the prime suspect in the killings has now been cleared of most charges. New information, including forensic evidence uncovered by the Sullivan County Coroner, appears to incriminate the former suspect’s underage daughter.

  Computer records show that all eight victims had scheduled sexual liaisons at the home of thirty-year-old Croydon native Rhonda Hager on the nights they disappeared. However, security camera footage has placed Ms. Hager at a Sunapee drinking establishment on every evening in question, giving her a solid alibi for the times of death.

  Police have not ruled out the possibility that Ms. Hagar may have helped dispose of the bodies, but the woman’s thirteen-year-old daughter has become the lead suspect in the case. Bite marks found on three of the bodies appear to match the girl’s dental impressions.

  Sources close to the investigation are now beginning to doubt that the case will ever come to trial. The girl, herself a victim of abuse and neglect, has a long and well-documented history of psychiatric problems.

  “Ella”

  Real Name: Dorelle Duncan

  Transcript of my telephone call with Jed McKinley, the zoo employee who discovered photographs that showed the assassination of Christopher Jones, the one-time Chicago drug lord. The photos were confiscated by the Illinois State Police. They cannot be located at this time. The police claim they are no longer in evidence.

  Q: OK, the recorder is running. Can you please give me your name and the name of your employer?

  A: My name is Jed McKinley. I work for the Lincoln Park Zoo.

  Q: In Chicago.

  A: Yes.

  Q: Can you tell me a bit about the work you were doing in Marquette Park in 2011?

  A: I was part of a project to assess the biodiversity of the Chicagoland area. We set up hidden wildlife camera traps in multiple parks across the city to see which species were present.

  Q: You thought you’d be filming squirrels and birds and such.

  A: Yeah. And coyotes and other animals that are pretty good at avoiding humans. That’s why we used cameras.

  Q: So the cameras were well hidden and activated by motion sensors.

  A: That’s correct.

  Q: You ended up filming more than squirrels. Please tell me what you discovered on the morning of September 13, 2011.

  A: I was checking the footage that had been taken in Marquette Park the previous night. There was a camera trap in an overgrown section of the park that would usually snap some great pictures of opossums and raccoons. So I went through those photos first. Halfway
through the camera roll, I found about a dozen pictures of a middle-age man and a girl with a gun.

  Q: Describe the two for me if you will.

  A: Well the man was Christopher Jones. They never released the girl’s name. She was African-American. Maybe sixteen or so. Pretty—but hard looking. Her hair appeared white in the photos. She had diamond rings on her fingers.

  Q: How many photos did the camera take of the pair?

  A: Six. It didn’t actually capture the girl shooting Jones. Just a few seconds before and a few seconds after.

  Q: But there was no one else there who could have killed the man.

  A: No.

  Q: Anything else you remember about the photographs? Any details you think might be important?

  A: The girl was crying.

  Q: Crying?

  A: Yeah. In every picture.

  Glenn Sheehan

  Congressman, Illinois, 14th District

  In January 2012, he called for a congressional inquiry into the development of Exceletrex. In March 2012, Sheehan withdrew his support for the investigation. The abrupt shift raised a few eyebrows in Washington.

  There were rumors that Sheehan was conducting an extramarital affair at the time. Evidence of the relationship could have been used by Mandel alumni to blackmail the Representative. There may be no way to prove or disprove such speculation.

  “Lucas”

  Real Name: Brian Ascher

  Born: February 18, 1985

  Died: Date unknown, 2012

  Lucas’s family history is well documented and easy to verify. His mother, father, and sister were killed on April 17, 2001, in the crash of Sunshine Airways Flight 2882 from Los Angeles to Atlanta.