Six minutes later, an ambulance tore through the front gates, and while it left its engine running, waiting to receive the decaying corpse of Ernest Borofsky, a platoon of green-uniformed men and women piled out of their official SUVs and surged up the fire stairs to the tenth floor.
I didn’t follow them up. I was pretty sure I was never going to the tenth floor again. Soon we could hear banging and scraping overhead, plus a few shouted curses and one unpleasant scream. I guessed the uniforms were caging and bagging critters, tearing off moldings and dismantling cabinetry to find hiding places, and sealing up any egress points to prevent further snake and spider leakage.
Thank God.
Not long after that, the doorbell rang and the chandelier bonged. Jacob opened the door for the investigator from the New York City Department of Health, plus two uniformed cops.
The investigator said his name was Captain Kaplan and gave Jacob his card. The cops introduced themselves, and we all gathered in the living room and were questioned. Even though Harry, Hugo, and Jacob were there, most of the questions were directed at me.
“Did you know Mr. Borofsky?”
“Only slightly,” I answered. “Like, hello in the elevator. That kind of thing.”
“Did you know about the snakes and other animals in his apartment?”
“Are you high?” Hugo asked Captain Kaplan.
He was answered with a serious death glare.
“No,” I said. “Never.”
“Could he have had any accomplices?” one of the cops asked, directing a pointed look at Hugo.
“Me?” Hugo grinned. “You think I was an accomplice?”
Clearly, Hugo liked that idea.
“Seriously?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“Was anyone helping him subsist illegally in his upstairs apartment?” the officer clarified.
“We didn’t know him,” said Harry. “He was just the grumpy old dude who lived at the end of the hall. That’s all.”
“Any ideas? Anyone?” the cop asked.
“I’ve got nothing,” I said. “But obsessive collectors can be psychologically unbalanced. Or so they say.”
“Tandy. What you did took guts,” Captain Kaplan said. “You ever want a reference from the New York City health department, you call me. Your neighbors owe you, big-time. You may have saved lives here, and you certainly made it possible for us to wrap up this whole deal to everyone’s satisfaction. So thank you.”
I smiled. “You’re welcome.”
Kaplan stood, walked over to the Pork Chair, and shook my hand. Then Jacob escorted them all to the door.
“I don’t think I can take being woken up in the middle of the night like this anymore,” Harry said, scratching at the back of his head as he rose from the sofa. “Seriously, Tandy. Could you just stay asleep?”
“I kinda like it,” Hugo said, bouncing on his toes. “It’s like living in a movie.”
“To bed. Both of you,” Jacob said, returning from the door.
The boys scattered, leaving Jacob and me alone.
“That was sincere praise from the captain,” Jacob said.
“I know,” I replied, knocking my fists together. “I’m actually kind of proud of myself.”
I felt an itch on my cheek and slapped at it. Jacob’s brow knit.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Sure.” My leg squirmed as a phantom snake slid over my toes. “Fine.”
He narrowed his eyes but didn’t press it.
“You were reckless, Tandy. But you were selfless,” he said. “I’d say that’s a pretty good definition of heroism. I don’t have a Seal of Approval for you, but I want you to have this as a token of your bravery.”
He pulled a key ring out of his pocket and detached his keys. The key fob was a silver coin.
“This is a French five-franc piece, quite an old one,” he told me, letting the coin dangle between us. “It belonged to your grandfather Max. He died before you were born, of course, but I think he would have liked you to have this, to keep it with you.”
I took the coin almost reverently. “Thank you so much, Jacob,” I said, running my thumb over the coin’s rough surface. “How did you know my grandparents?”
“I’ll tell you some other time. It’s a good story, but a long one.”
“Promise?” I asked.
He smiled. “Promise.”
I hugged him and went to my room clutching my grandfather’s coin. This had been one of the weirdest nights of my life—ranking up there with the horrific night my parents were found dead. I would never have thought that this one would end with me being really proud of myself.
But not so fast, Tandy. The night wasn’t over yet.
64
Sleep was impossible.
I lay in bed staring at my plain plastered ceiling and imagined making banana bread from scratch, hoping that going through the steps one by one would lull me to sleep. It didn’t.
Because banana bread was one of my favorite treats, but the person who really loved it was Matthew. Subconsciously, I was always thinking about him.
“Matthew, even if you are a murderer, you’re still my brother,” I said aloud. “And I still love you.”
I should have said that to his face when I had the chance. Now I just sighed. Since I was already talking to people who weren’t there, my next imaginary conversation was with my dead classmate, Adele Church.
Adele wore a peach-colored strapless Hunter Dixon minidress, and she told me that, yes, she had been very sad lately because she missed her sister, but that she had been taking medication for depression.
“Who killed you, Adele?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
Then a gunshot split the air. My eyes flew open and I sighed, loud and long.
“Chill, Tandy. Just calm down and go to sleep.”
I closed my eyes again and started to doze off, but suddenly my subconscious flooded with writhing snakes and skittering spiders.
Yep. Still awake.
After half an hour of flopping around in bed, trying to shut off my brain, I finally threw off my covers and went to my desk. I turned on my computer, thinking I would answer some mail, maybe do a Google search to see if there had been any new developments on the schoolgirl shootings. But the second my e-mail screen came up, I saw a name that obliterated every other thought in my mind. For a split second, I swear my vision went black, but when I came to, the name was still there.
An e-mail message from Royal. [email protected]. And the subject line read: Tandy, I regret to inform you.
Nothing could be more ominous. Telegrams from commanding officers to dead soldiers’ next of kin began that way.
I regret to inform you.
My hands started to shake.
Please, God. Please don’t let James be dead.
65
I was fixated on my computer screen. On the name Royal Rampling. At that moment, there could have been a thousand snakes slithering down the walls, a serial killer breaking into the apartment to take out his next depressed private school girl, and a stealthy reporter sneaking up behind me to ask whether I thought Matthew had really killed Tamara Gee, and I wouldn’t have seen, heard, or sensed any of them.
I stared at my in-box; then, with a trembling hand, I clicked on Royal Rampling’s message.
The e-mail from James’s father filled my screen.
Tandy,
It has come to my attention that you are searching for James all over Europe. You will never find my son. And if you persist in this juvenile and deluded quest, I will unleash cease and desist orders and a few European legal remedies that you can be sure will be unpleasant.
My eyesight blurred. Rampling’s threats bounced off me like Ping-Pong balls. Because beneath them, he’d revealed the only fact that mattered.
James was alive.
I took a breath and blew it out, tears of relief filling my eyes. Then I got up and walked slowly to the bathroom, wh
ere I splashed water on my face again and again until I was sure I wasn’t dreaming.
Only when my hands had stopped shaking did I sit down again in front of my computer and continue reading the e-mail where I’d left off.
Here’s a little incentive, Tandy. If you stop this delusional hunt for my son, I may leave you and your brothers a small sum from your wretched parents’ estate. If you continue on your mad quest, I won’t leave you a dime.
By the way, Tandy, I regret to inform you that James doesn’t know that you’re alive. Actually, he doesn’t remember you at all. The memory of your ill-conceived adventure has been deleted from his mind. He wouldn’t know you if he was sitting right there with you now. But don’t worry. His incredibly attractive, highly sophisticated girlfriend, Natasha, makes him very happy.
Take this word to the wise.
I mean it.
Sincerely,
Royal Rampling
66
One thing was clear. Royal Rampling had no respect for James, for me, or for my family. I saved his e-mail, thinking that his threats might be grounds for a lawsuit, but even as I stewed and seethed and wrote furious replies in my mind, I knew that a sixteen-year-old girl taking legal action against an international mega-tycoon’s legion of high-powered lawyers and winning would be impossible. The idea was hilarious, actually. I let out one short private laugh.
And then the pain flooded in.
James was out there somewhere, but Royal Rampling was determined to keep us apart. He’d hit on the one thing that could have trumped my overwhelming need to see James again—the safety, security, and financial stability of my family. If there was any chance that Rampling would leave me and my brothers something to live on, I had to do what I could to ensure that it happened. I wouldn’t have Harry and Hugo thrown out on the street for anything. Nothing.
Not even a reunion with the only person I’d ever loved. The only person who might ever understand me and my insane family enough to love me back.
I flopped face-first onto my rumpled bed and just let myself cry. And then, when I got sick of feeling sorry for myself, I reached under my pillow for James’s postcards.
He had written two of them in small writing unlike his usual tall scrawl. The back of the one I picked up now was so cramped that my name and address were almost pushed onto the picture side.
Dear Tandy,
I read this last night in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.
“Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars—all the beauties of creation.”
I haven’t forgotten you. I never will.
James
Was that still true? Or had Royal Rampling done the same thing to him that my parents had done to me? Had I really been deleted from his mind? Had a girl named Natasha filled my empty place? I imagined James holding some exotic, dark-haired beauty in his arms, walking with her along a beach on the other side of the Atlantic. Imagined him lifting her face to be kissed… it was too much.
“Enough, Tandy,” I said to myself, shaking my head to clear the images.
I knew what my mother would say if she knew what I was doing right now. This was not productive, this pining over what might never be. And when it came down to it, aside from saving the Dakota from infestation, I hadn’t done anything productive since being flooded with these new memories of James. I hadn’t completed any of my schoolwork. I hadn’t done a thing to help Matthew. I hadn’t avenged Adele Church or even worked on finding her killer.
I stood up, walked to the nearest mirror, and stared myself in the eye.
“You have to stop obsessing about James,” I told myself firmly. “It’ll be better for everyone.”
Of course, the second I made this declaration to myself, my mind was filled with him.
Dropping onto my back on my bed, I pulled the covers up under my chin, plugged in my earbuds, and cued up a recording of Harry playing the solo part from one of Bach’s concertos. It would have been a perfect sound track for my dreams of James.
But I couldn’t let myself go there anymore.
Instead, I concentrated on the ebb and flow of the music until finally, mercifully, I drifted into sleep.
67
Something was tickling my feet. I woke up with a start, already screaming, and kicked my legs like crazy. My heel hit C.P. right in the forehead and sent her sprawling.
“Oh my God! C.P.! Are you okay?” I demanded, scrambling to the edge of my bed.
“Damn, girl. You should go out for Team USA soccer. What the hell was that?” she asked, rubbing her head.
“Sorry. Today is not the day to wake me up by tickling,” I told her, shivering. “I saw a lot of spiders last night. A lot a lot.”
C.P. winced and sat up. She was wearing a green jacket over a white T-shirt and rolled-up jeans with flats. “Yeah, Harry told me. I guess I should’ve thought of that.”
I yawned and looked around at my bright, sunlit bedroom. “What time is it?”
“Twelve thirty,” she replied, standing up and dusting off the back of her jeans. “Harry and I have been up for hours.”
“You’re kidding! I slept all morning?” I asked, shoving myself out of bed. “Why didn’t anyone get me up?”
She shrugged. “It’s Saturday. They figured you had a long night.”
I glanced at my computer screen, remembering the evil e-mail from Royal Rampling. They had no idea.
“Anyway, the men have gone downtown to see Matthew, and we have work to do.” She picked up a sweater from my window seat and tossed it at me. “So get dressed. I’ll meet you in the kitchen. We got bagels.”
I groaned but pulled on the long striped sweater and dug some leggings out of a drawer. As I shoved my feet into my favorite suede booties, I twisted my hair into a low ponytail. Satisfied that I didn’t look like I’d been up half the night crying—not to mention battling poisonous creatures—I joined C.P. in the kitchen.
“Here. Cinnamon raisin,” she said, handing me a plate with a bagel slathered in butter.
As I munched on my food, I wanted to tell her about the late-night bombshell courtesy of Gmail, but it meant I’d have to catch her up on the entire story of James, which I’d actually never told her. How could I? Until very recently my memory bank of him had been shot full of holes.
“Coffee to go?” C.P. asked, handing me a full paper cup as I got up from the kitchen island.
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” I said, taking a sip.
C.P. grinned. “That seems to be the consensus around here lately.”
It took a few seconds for her words to sink in. We were already in the elevator when it hit me. I narrowed my eyes and looked at C.P. as she rocked back and forth from her toes to her heels, watching the lights flash as we headed toward the lobby.
“What did you mean before when you said, ‘Harry and I have been up for hours’?” I asked.
“Did I say that?” she asked, blushing.
She was saved from further interrogation when the elevator came to a stop on the main floor and the doors clanked open. Standing there, waiting for the elevator, were a half dozen tenants, all of whom thanked me for putting a stop to the Attack of the Exotic Creatures.
“No problem,” I said with a modest laugh. “Apparently, whenever anything weird happens, you should just call me.”
C.P. darted through the lobby and out the door. I excused myself from my new fan club and chased after her.
“You didn’t say ‘Everyone has been up.’ You said ‘Harry and I,’ ” I reminded her when we reached the sidewalk. “Start talking, Claudia Portman.”
“Okay, okay!” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “I like Harry. A lot. And oddly enough
, he likes me back.”
“Are you kidding me?” I brought my free hand to my forehead. “Oh my God. Were you here last night? When the… with the…”
Her face said it all.
“I hid in Harry’s bedroom. He was afraid Jacob might kill us both if he found me,” she said. “This morning I snuck out and then rang the doorbell like I was just showing up.”
“Oh, God! Have you two…?” I closed my eyes and shook my head. “I can’t even think about saying it.”
C.P. nodded, then covered her face with both hands.
“I’m seriously going to be sick, C.P.,” I said, and turned away. “Hey, serial killer dude!” I called toward the street. “You can come get me now! I can’t live with the image that is now burned on my brain.”
“Tandy! Take that back!” C.P. said.
“Okay, fine. I take back the part about wanting the serial killer to come get me,” I told her. “But the rest? This is insane. I can’t believe it. You and my twin brother. Freaksome.”
C.P. rolled her eyes and hooked her arm through mine. “Come on, Tandy Angel, PI. We have an appointment to get to.”
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
On our way down the avenue, C.P. told me all about how she and Harry had started out—taking the odd lunch together, him teaching her piano basics, her “updating his look,” as she put it.
“Just swear you will never, ever share with me any intimate details of your sex life,” I said as we crossed Sixty-Second Street. “I think my brain would completely implode.”
C.P. laughed. “I solemnly swear.”
She stopped in front of an upscale Art Deco apartment building called the Century, four times larger than the Dakota. It was also less fancy, less spooky, and somewhat less stuck-up, but still on prime Central Park West real estate facing the park.
In fact, the building had a view of the Bow Bridge, where Marla Henderson had been shot to death.
“This is it!” C.P. announced.
Confessions: The Private School Murders Page 16
