“This is what?” I asked, looking up toward the tip-top of the building.
“Our appointment.”
C.P. led me inside and over to the doorman behind the desk.
“We’re here to see Mrs. Henderson,” C.P. said with authority. “She’s expecting us.”
68
“Mrs. Henderson?” I hissed as we stepped into the elevator. “Are you serious?”
“Why not go straight to the source?” C.P. replied.
As we crawled skyward, my stomach lurched and clenched. I wasn’t sure if this was a fantastic idea or a terrible one. Mrs. Henderson had endured the death of her husband and the murder of her daughter and had probably been grilled by the police several times over. And now she was about to get a visit from Tandoori Angel, girl detective, and her trusty sidekick, C.P., brother dater? I’d be surprised if she didn’t toss us out of her apartment in less than two and a half seconds.
The apartment door opened, and a red-haired woman of about forty smiled weakly at us. She wore a black dress and a silver cross on a long velvet cord.
“Tandy? C.P.? Come in. I’m Marla’s mom. Please call me Valerie.”
We stepped over the threshold, and Valerie clasped my hands and gave C.P. an impulsive hug.
“I can’t tell you how good it is to have visitors who want to talk about Marla,” she said, leading us into the airy cream-colored living room. “Most people are afraid they’ll make me cry. It doesn’t take much to make me cry these days.”
C.P. said, “We’re so sorry about what happened to Marla.”
“Thank you.”
Valerie sat on a sofa in front of a marble fireplace and nodded at us to sit. C.P. and I chose a pair of soft love seats across from her.
“We’re here because we want to do something to help find whoever did this to Marla,” I began, speaking quietly. “We’ve been interviewing people she knew—kids from her class, really—but we were wondering if you could answer a few questions, too.”
Marla’s mother shrugged. “If you think it might help.”
As C.P. asked Valerie some preliminary questions, my eyes naturally traveled the room. There were dozens of family photos grouped on the table behind the couch. I saw family snapshots taken in the Caribbean, as well as more recent pictures of Marla playing soccer, accepting an award at Brilling Day, and sitting atop a horse in full riding gear.
But the picture that kept pulling me in was an oil painting over the mantel. It depicted a young Marla blowing out seven birthday candles. Her parents were behind her, bent close as if they could help make Marla’s wish come true, their faces lit with candlelight.
The painting was draped with swags of black crepe.
Valerie saw me staring. “Larry and Marla were so close. My daughter was absolutely devastated when he died. He had a heart attack, completely unexpected.”
I cleared my throat. I knew something about unexpected deaths. I decided it was time to focus before my head and heart went off the rails.
“Mrs. Henderson, C.P. and I go to All Saints,” I told her. “A friend of ours was recently murdered.”
“Adele Church?” Mrs. Henderson said. “I read about her.”
“Yes. Adele. She was shot just two days before Marla died, and we think there may be a connection,” I said. “When we started looking into Adele’s case, we found out two other girls who went to private schools on the Upper West Side had died recently as well, also by gunshot. Lena Watkins and Stacey Blackburn. Did Marla know any of them?”
“Not that I know of,” Mrs. Henderson said. “Most of her friends were from Brilling, and she would have told me if she’d met anyone new.”
“Did Marla have any enemies? A stalker, maybe? Or a jealous friend?” I asked.
“I really don’t think so,” Valerie said, sounding tired. “If you check out her Facebook page, you’ll see. She had so many friends.”
“Valerie, if it’s okay, may we see Marla’s room?” I asked.
She nodded. “Sure. It’s just the way she left it.”
Then she put her face in her hands and started to cry.
69
Marla’s room was painted in tangy tangerine, with smart white molding and white furniture. I saw a pair of short brown leather boots, similar to the ones I was wearing, lying by the side of the bed as though Marla had just tugged them off and dropped them there. The bed was unmade.
C.P. went to the closet and, after riffling through Marla’s wardrobe, pronounced, “You know what? Marla had style.”
Photos were stuck in the frame of Marla’s vanity mirror: snapshots of sports events, a class play, and three separate pictures of Marla with boys our age, their arms around her shoulders.
There were also pictures of Marla and her father at a varsity basketball game, and one of Larry Henderson dancing with Marla at someone’s wedding.
My thoughts veered to my own family, and I know this is awful, but I felt a twinge of jealousy. I didn’t have family photos like these. Marla’s parents loved her and participated in the things she liked. My parents demanded excellence and forced us to do what they wanted us to do. What I wouldn’t give for just one photo of me and my now-dead dad looking casual, happy, and unstressed. Really alive.
“You okay, Tandy?” C.P. asked, coming up behind me. “You went all radio silent all of a sudden.”
“I’m fine,” I told her, dragging my brain back to the task at hand. Over her shoulder, I spotted the open bathroom door. “Why don’t you get on the computer while I check out the bathroom?”
“You got it, boss,” C.P. joked.
She tapped into Marla’s computer with the password Valerie had given her, and I made a beeline for the medicine cabinet. The tiny shelves were packed with zit cream and nail polish and contact lens solution. On the bottom shelf was an amber-colored plastic bottle with a label from Giuseppe’s Pharmacy, only five blocks away.
Paxil. An antidepressant. I shook the bottle. It was almost full.
Valerie poked her head into the bedroom. “Girls, come have some tea and biscuits.”
“We’ll be right there, Mrs. Henderson,” I called out, pocketing the bottle and quietly closing the cabinet door. I rejoined C.P. in the bedroom. “Anything?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Other than the fact that she’d written like four dozen short stories about horses? Nope.”
“Girls! The tea is getting cold!” Mrs. Henderson called. I think she really missed having teen girls around.
Together we walked to the kitchen. Valerie had brewed a fragrant pot of tea and arranged a plate of scrumptious-looking cookies on a crystal platter. As she poured the tea, C.P. settled in and looked around.
“This kitchen is huge,” she said. “Is that a pizza oven?”
“My husband loved to make pizza,” Valerie replied.
“So cool,” C.P. said. I smirked as I munched on a butter cookie. When C.P. got excited she sometimes reminded me of Hugo, like a ball of childlike energy. “What’s that little door over in the corner?”
“Oh, that? That’s a dumbwaiter,” Valerie replied, sipping her tea. “It’s like a little elevator. It’s not in use anymore, but it used to be for bringing up food from the kitchen downstairs.”
“I need one of those in my room,” C.P. joked.
I’d seen dumbwaiters before. The Dakota once had an enormous common kitchen in the basement, where servants worked on meals together and sent the steaming dishes up to their employers’ dining tables. The old out-of-service dumbwaiter in our apartment had long been walled up behind plasterboard, but in some of the other apartments, they were still exposed.
My mind flashed to Matthew’s apartment and I almost dropped my teacup.
“Oh my God,” I gasped.
“Tandy? What’s wrong?” C.P. asked.
I got up, putting my cup down with a clatter. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Is everything okay?” Valerie asked, alarmed. “Sweetie, you look pale.”
“No. I jus
t… there’s someplace I have to be.” I grabbed C.P.’s arm, my mind crackling with excitement. “It’s about Matthew,” I whispered.
“Oh my God. Well, then, go,” C.P. whispered back. “I can finish up here.”
“Thank you!” I hugged C.P. quickly, waved good-bye to Valerie Henderson, and bolted for the door.
I was about to blow this case wide open.
70
I hadn’t forgotten what it was like to see Matthew behind that horrid Plexiglas. Hadn’t forgotten what he’d said, what he believed he might have done. Every time I thought about it, my jaw clenched and I felt like I wanted to hit someone. Mostly because I felt like there was nothing I could do to help him.
But now I knew otherwise. Matty had said that if he could go back to his apartment and look around, maybe he’d remember something about Tamara’s death. Well, he couldn’t go there, but I could.
I got off the subway at Christopher Street and walked quickly to West, where Matthew had lived with Tamara. The streets of the Village were humming with neighborhood denizens: blue-collar workers; smartly dressed, highly paid professionals; artists; and kids who lived with their families in the dozens of former commercial lofts, now reconfigured as roomy apartments. More movie and rock stars live in the Village than anywhere else in New York.
But at that moment, I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d careened face-first into the entire cast of The Walking Dead, because all I was focused on was the building where Matthew had lived. It was the former home of the Merchant Seaman Society, with a blinking red neon sign over the door of the Italian restaurant on the ground floor.
Matty’s doorman was leaning near a discarded armchair at the curb, watching pedestrian traffic while he enjoyed a smoke. He jumped up when he saw me.
“Tandy, how you doing? How’s Matthew?”
“Hi, Paulie. It’s a slow news day,” I told him. “I have to go into Matty’s place to check on something.”
Paulie’s eyebrows rose. “I believe that place is still considered a crime scene.”
“Didn’t you hear about how I beat the NYPD at their own game after my parents died? Come on. I know you did.” Paulie looked dubious and hesitant. “I’m family, Paulie.” I jangled Matty’s spare keys in front of him. “You can trust me.”
He sighed. “Go on, Tandy. But make it snappy. And I want to warn you. It’s not pretty.”
I took the elevator to the third floor and paused. It was the first time I’d been there without Matty waiting for me in his open doorway. Trying not to dwell, I took a right turn and went down the carpeted hallway until I reached 3F. I stood in front of my brother’s apartment door gripping his keys in my hand.
Just last night I’d stuck keys into a lock and opened a door to hell. What was I going to find behind door number two? I took a deep breath, then worked the keys into the locks and opened the door.
71
The locks on Matthew’s apartment door were working, and I saw no sign that they’d been forced, just like the cops had claimed. The living room looked just the way it had when I’d seen it last—a huge white space with high ceilings, black leather seating, and six flat-screens grouped on the longest wall so that Matthew could watch several football games at once.
I had the briefest flash, maybe it was even a hallucination, of Matty sprawling on the leather sofa with the TV clicker in his hand. He turned and said, “Hey, sis.”
My eyes filled with tears. God, I wanted him out of that hellhole. No matter how twisted and complicated he was, I loved Matty. I just wanted him back.
I knew I had to go into his bedroom. I had to see where Tamara had been killed. I could hardly think of anything I wanted to see less, but I put one foot in front of the other and walked along the hallway. The walls were lined with glamour photos of Tamara, action photos of Matty, and photos of them together, in love and clinging to each other, not so long ago.
It was unbelievable, how quickly and completely everything could change.
When there was no way to go but forward, I made the turn into the bedroom and was faced with a crime scene that had been frozen in time. It was like a museum exhibit of a terrible slaughter.
I’d seen the gory photo Nadine Raphael had held up for the jury, but standing in this room was far more immediate, more real, and more horrifying than any photo. There were bloodstains on the walls and spatter on the floor. The bed had been stripped by the cops, no doubt, but the mattress still showed the crusty brown remains of Tamara Gee’s life draining out of her veins.
So much blood.
I could almost see Tamara fighting to survive this attack and to save her baby. Had my brother really killed her, here in this bed? How could he have done it?
The Angels were crazy, but could any of us be that crazy? How could anyone not remember this?
I thought of Fern Haven, of Dr. Narmond and Dr. Keyes, and of James, and snapped myself out of my daze. There was work to do.
I searched for anything the police might have overlooked, perhaps the murder weapon. But judging by the clouds of fingerprint powder on the walls and the markers still in place beside the constellations of splattered blood, it seemed that the crime-scene unit had done a thorough job.
I peeked under the dressers and the bed for good measure, and then I went to the spot I’d been intending to visit all along. Like the Century and the Dakota, the Merchant Seaman Society building had once had a large commercial kitchen on the ground floor.
I left the bedroom behind and retraced my steps. When I got to the living room, I hooked a left turn to Matthew and Tamara’s kitchen. It was glittering and modern, with glass-tile counters, hardwood floors, high-tech stainless steel fixtures, and copper-bottomed pots hanging from ceiling racks.
There were no knives, of course. I was sure that anything that could slice, dice, or puncture had gone along with the sheets to the forensics lab. But I wasn’t looking for a weapon here. I was searching for access to this apartment, a secret entrance that the cops hadn’t even known to look for.
I went over every surface, looked inside every cabinet, then did it all again.
Nothing. My heart sank to my toes. It had only been a theory, but I’d been so sure.
I glanced around the kitchen one more time and spotted the broom closet. Saying a silent prayer, I approached. The door had a spring catch, so I poked it with the heel of my hand and it jumped open.
Inside the door was an attached rack of hanging brooms and mops. Two slop buckets, some cleaning supplies, and a vacuum occupied the floor. I found a light switch on the wall and a dim bulb flickered to life.
My breath caught. There, on the back wall, was an old elevator call button. I blinked to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, and yes, it was still there. The call button was to the left of a dark metal frame, about four feet high by two feet wide, surrounding a pair of guillotine-style double-hung doors.
It was a dumbwaiter, and not a small one.
I held my breath and pulled up on the door handle. The double-hung doors split, the top one sliding up, the lower one sliding down.
Behind the sliding doors was the mini elevator shaft, complete with cables running from top to bottom to carry the elevator car from floor to floor. But that wasn’t all.
Inside the dumbwaiter, I saw proof that Matthew hadn’t killed Tamara.
Not only that, I knew for a fact who had.
72
I stood like a block of stone in Matthew’s kitchen, staring into the broom closet at the evidence Tamara’s killer had left behind. I double-checked and triple-checked what my eyes were telling me, and I was sure.
I saw what I saw, and I knew what it meant.
Shaking from head to toe, I phoned Sergeant Capricorn Caputo and got the operator at the Twentieth Precinct, who insisted that I leave a message for the sergeant.
“Sarge is so busy, he hasn’t seen the sun all day. Spell your name for me, miss, and I’ll be sure to get him the message.”
“This is Tandoori Angel
. A-N-G-E-L!” I shouted, my voice quavering. “I have evidence of a murder. Put Caputo on the phone.”
“Please hold.”
Many long seconds later, Caputo picked up.
“Hey, Pandora—”
“I know who killed Tamara Gee,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ve got proof. And just FYI, it wasn’t Matthew.”
I told him what I’d discovered and instructed him to get to Matthew’s apartment. Caputo said that even if he put the sirens on, it would take him twenty minutes to get there.
“Then jack up the sirens and step on it!” I shouted.
I hit the off button and paced. Would Caputo take me seriously? Would he hurry? And what the hell was I supposed to do in Bloodbath Central for twenty freaking minutes?
I sat down on Matthew’s couch and called Philippe. He didn’t answer, so I texted him and then C.P. and then Harry. None of them replied.
What the hell were C.P. and Harry doing that they wouldn’t answer a text announcing that Matthew was innocent?
Oh. Right. Ew. I didn’t want to go there. I tried calling Philippe again. Still no answer.
Finally, I couldn’t take the waiting anymore. I grabbed my stuff and went downstairs to wait for Caputo.
You understand that I was manic, right? I could not sit still. My mind was churning with anxiety, hope doing battle with despair.
Would this unbelievably solid clue give Phil the slam dunk he needed to get Matthew out of jail? Or would the new evidence be inadmissible because I’d walked around in the former crime scene? Would Matty go free? Or would he come this close to exoneration before being locked up for life?
I breezed past Paulie on my way out the door and was about to call Caputo again when I heard the sirens.
Thank God.
The unmarked car squealed to a stop four feet from the stoop I was standing on.
Caputo got out and buttoned his black jacket. “I put a hot murder investigation on ice, Tweedledee. You’d better not be wasting my time.”
Confessions: The Private School Murders Page 17
