I forced myself to read every word of the tortured, dense Victorian poem all over again. A delaying tactic. How much did I want to find what else Maud might have tucked into this folder?
I could delay no further when a newspaper clipping fell out. Before I could read the headline, I saw a face in the accompanying photo.
Now it was no longer a hazy face in my memory, struggling to come into focus. It was plain as day, the handsome face of the young man I’d run away with. Dark blond, longish, straight hair—and the smile that had in an instant taken me in. Won me over. Made me believe in him. In fact, it had been the only thing I believed in, for that short period of time: that he would save me. That we could save each other.
There it was, in black-and-white. He was a real person. He was beautiful, yet frightening to me somehow. And he was missing.
SON OF STORIED FINANCIER, 18, DISAPPEARS UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES.
My hands were shaking so hard they crumpled the paper. Or maybe I was crumpling it up on purpose. I didn’t want to read any more.
Buck up, Tandy. Read it.
I took a deep breath, opened the clipping, and got only as far as the first two words:
James Rampling.
72
I’m going to apologize to you, friend—with a true heart. I’m getting better at that, aren’t I?
I just want to say that I’m sorry if I’ve been confusing you. I don’t mean to; it’s just that I’m confused myself. And if I could ask a favor, please? I need you to help me understand my own story, even if it takes a little time. Or a long time.
Okay. Now that I know you’re on my side, I think I can go on.
I uncrumpled the paper and smoothed it out over and over again, almost as if I were stroking the mysterious face of James Rampling, hoping it would tell me something.
For countless minutes, I didn’t even read the article. I just felt myself fall deeper and deeper into those eyes.
Slowly, hypnotically, they took me back to the night of the party.
CONFESSION
I didn’t go to normal teenage parties—just adult events, or parties where their kids happened to be around. I stopped getting invited to real parties some time ago. But a while back, I heard about a no-adults party a senior was throwing in celebration of his early-admission acceptance to Harvard. It was a silly reason for a party as far as I was concerned, but I decided that I was going to try to go to it. And enjoy it.
Almost as if it were an experiment, or a test.
You see, at school I’d been learning about freedom movements all around the world, from the American Revolution to the Arab Spring, and I’d been thinking a lot about the benevolent dictatorship in which I was being raised. I’d been questioning how benevolent it was. And I was pretty sure I wanted out. At least, that night I was sure.
I saw all the other kids at the party drinking whatever they could find, and in order for this to be a true experiment, I had to do what they did. So I drank, first with caution, then with abandon. I don’t even know what it was. Given that I was already under the influence of Malcolm’s special cocktail of pills, who knows how it all might have interacted.
It was in the most mundane of places that I met James: standing by a keg. He appeared to be staring at my chest, which didn’t exactly make me comfortable.
“Sorry,” he said with an embarrassed smile, once he realized what he was doing. “Really. I swear. I was just noticing your necklace.” Before I could reply with a skeptical comment, he proved himself honorable. “From Tibet, right? Have you been there?”
“Bhutan, actually,” I said, stunned to be meeting a guy who knew even the first thing about Southeast Asian art. My interest was immediately piqued.
“It looks like a zhi stone,” he went on. “My mother started collecting them when we first went to Tibet. Did you know it’s supposed to have protective powers?”
“Of course.” I laughed. “It was a gift from my parents.”
His eyes flashed a little mischievously. “Who needs a zhi stone when you have the legendary Angel guardian angel?”
And so from the very beginning, James Rampling seemed to uncannily know just about everything about me, and to love everything I loved. Within a few minutes we found ourselves talking about the Arab Spring, and then Southeast Asian politics. This continued for at least an hour. By then we’d moved away from the crowd and were sitting halfway up a flight of stairs.
He leaned in closer and gently pushed the hair out of my eyes. “Tandy Angel,” he said, in an almost reverential, hushed way. “Where have the tigers been keeping you?”
“In a cage,” I said. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” He stroked my hair again, pushing it behind my ears so he could look straight into my eyes. I instinctively tried to look away, but he took my chin and turned my face back toward his. He wouldn’t let me look away.
“I think,” he said, “that you need to be let out. The world needs you. I think that you’re exquisitely beautiful… and exquisitely smart…. And you shouldn’t be hidden away in a cage.”
As I worked through the memory, I replayed that incredible moment in my mind several times. It was the first time I’d been touched by a boy. And not only were his hands touching my face, but his eyes were touching me, too.
A part of me that had never been touched before.
His eyes lit up suddenly. “The caged bird’s ‘wings are clipped and his feet are tied,’ ” he began reciting, not letting his eyes stray from mine. “ ‘So…’ ”
“ ‘So he opens his throat to sing,’ ” I finished, staggered by James Rampling once again. He was quoting from my favorite poem at the time, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou. It was a poem that seemed to reflect how I felt about my life up to that point. I was surprised that James even knew it.
All the more reason why what happened next seemed like pure magic. As I jumped on the next line, he joined in.
And then we recited the whole poem. Together.
Would you laugh at me, friend, if I said it almost felt like we were reciting wedding vows right there, in the middle of the party? Can you blame me for believing I’d just met the one person in the world I was meant to be with? Who was meant to save me?
The rest of the world had fallen away by that point. James leaned in closer, ran his fingers down the cord that held the pendant around my neck, and let his fingers slowly caress the zhi stone—my “protection”—lying against my chest.
I reached up and rested my hand on his.
The sensation of that connection was almost too intense for my system to handle. I sucked in my breath as I saw him come even closer to my face.
And that’s when laws of physics stopped working. Time slowed down as his lips touched mine, so very, very sweetly.
That’s where the memory ended. I hit replay.
It was real. The kiss I’d written about had been real. This time, though, I could feel it, in every bone in my body.
Replay.
Replay.
Replay.
Each time, I hoped the memory would go a little bit further. I know it went further. Much further. Beyond one kiss. Beyond one night at a party. Beyond a mere fantasy of being touched, embraced, adored by a boy who actually understood me.
Something told me Dr. Florence Keyes had stolen almost every other memory I’d had of James Rampling. And someday, I was going to make her give them all back to me.
But right now, I had this one. I was going to enjoy it, savor it, this rare electric moment when my life had felt real and simple and joyous and free.
Reading the rest of that article could wait. Indefinitely.
73
I put the folder away. I had made real progress on one front. Now I was going to have to take the bull by the horns to make some headway in my primary investigation: my parents’ murders.
I called Matty, Harry, Hugo, Samantha, and Philippe together for another family meeting. We gathered in th
e study, where my parents had worked every day when they were alive. It was eerie to see Philippe Montaigne behind my father’s desk.
I took my mother’s chair, and my three brothers and Samantha took seats around the room.
“First things first,” I said to Philippe. “No offense, but seriously—are you our lawyer? Or do you work for Uncle Peter?”
“I work for the Malcolm Angel family—that is, all of you. And I’m your lawyer, too, Samantha.”
“Even though I’m moving out of here tomorrow?”
“You’re still my client. I also work for Peter, but I cannot and will not represent anyone besides the four Angel kids if there is a conflict of interest.”
“Thank you, Phil,” I said. “And if I understand correctly, everything that is said in this room will remain confidential?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay. Now that we’re officially lawyered up, let’s get started,” I said.
I ran the first part of the meeting as if I were a particularly hard-edged prosecutor. I accused everyone of murdering our parents, asking them tough questions and not giving them time to think or lie. They might hate me for what I was doing, but there was no other way. In the end, everyone stuck to their original story. Stuck hard. And I found no holes. Not one.
So I said, “Let’s do a secret ballot and see where we stand.”
I ripped out a sheet of note paper and passed around the pieces, saying, “Write down who you think killed Malcolm and Maud.”
It was very quiet in the room as names were scribbled down and papers were returned to me. I shuffled the ballots, hoping for a breakthrough of some kind.
Then I read the ballots out loud, one at a time.
“Uncle Peter?”
“Peter.”
“Uncle Piggy.”
“Uncle P. But maybe not.”
“I don’t know.”
That last one was mine. Everyone at least suspected that Peter had or could have killed our parents. But why weren’t the police investigating Peter if it seemed so obvious to us?
“And he’s living right here,” said Matthew. “Who says he won’t kill again? I’m bunking with Hugo indefinitely. Okay, little bro?”
“Are you kidding?” Hugo said. “I’d pay you to do that.”
Just then, Philippe answered a phone call—and life as we knew it took another nosebleed nosedive.
“Turn on the TV,” he snapped.
74
The TV reporter Anthony Imbimbo’s face appeared on our fifty-two-inch screen, and he had breaking news for all the world to hear.
“Under Suspicion has just learned that actress Tamara Gee is dead. Arthur Boffardi, doorman and superintendent of the building where Ms. Gee has lived for the past three years, found the body just one hour ago. Mr. Boffard—”
“Artie.”
“Artie. Can you please tell us what happened?”
I whipped around to look at Matthew, but he was stalking out of the room. At the same time, I heard the intercom buzzer blaring. I ran to catch up with Matty, but he opened the door before I reached him.
He never got out the door.
Sergeant Caputo advanced on Matthew, backing him up as he said, “Matthew Angel, you’re under arrest. Put your hands behind your back.”
“No way,” Matthew shouted, “I did nothing. I did nothing wrong!”
“Put your hands behind your back.”
Three police officers had gathered in our foyer behind Caputo, and it looked like all hell was about to break loose. Matthew’s eyes were blazing, and his fists were clenched in front of him. He wasn’t going without a fight, and I knew that would only make things worse.
Matthew’s scientifically enhanced muscles bulged and rippled under his shirt. The Giants’ number one son was going Hulk, right then and there. And nothing could stop him. He bellowed, “Go ahead. Make me put my hands behind my back.”
Hayes and Caputo drew their guns. These were real guns, with real bullets, and it occurred to me that cops only draw when they’re prepared to shoot somebody.
Caputo shouted in a no-bull way: “Turn and face the wall. Do it now.”
Matty tightened his fists and swung his head from side to side, as if he were looking for an opening in the defense line. Gun muzzles leveled at his chest. I could hear the gunshots in my head. “Matthew,” I whispered, “be smart.”
He stopped, turned slowly, and put his hands behind his back. He looked as though he might cry.
Detective Hayes cuffed Matty’s wrists and said, “Matthew Angel, you’re under arrest for the murder of Tamara Gee. You have the right to remain silent—”
“My lawyer is on the way,” Matty said in an unusually subdued voice.
“He can meet you at the Twentieth Precinct.”
“My client means I’m right here,” I heard Philippe say.
I stood frozen with my hands over my mouth as Philippe came around the corner into the foyer. I’ve never seen Phil lose his temper, but at that moment he looked like a twister about to touch down.
“What are you doing?” he asked Caputo. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Angel here is under arrest,” said Caputo. “His pregnant girlfriend was killed yesterday. Need I say more?”
“I didn’t see her yesterday,” Matty blurted out. “I didn’t even talk to her. I called her, but she didn’t answer.”
“Don’t say anything, Matthew,” Philippe warned him.
“Phil. Ask the kids. I was with them all day yesterday. We went to Pharma together.”
“Matthew, I’ll meet with you privately, and you can tell me everything.”
Matthew said, “But this is a setup. I’m being framed.”
Caputo actually laughed as he turned to Hayes, saying, “Golly. I’ve never heard that one before.”
Matty continued to detail where he’d been over the last twenty-four hours: at Angel Pharma, then interviewed by ESPN, and then at home for dinner with us. I was nodding emphatically to corroborate everything he was saying, until my jaw dropped when he added something new.
“After the kids went to bed, I went out to play poker with three of my teammates. They’ll tell you. I’ll give you their names.”
Really? Had Matty gone out while we were all asleep?
“Listen to your lawyer,” Hayes said, patting Matty on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Phil said, “I’m coming with my client.”
Phil got his own coat out of the hall closet, as well as one for Matty, which he draped over my older brother’s shoulders.
I stood under the UFO chandelier as the front door slammed. When Harry and Hugo put their arms around me, I was still standing there like a block of stone, looking at the door.
Just when I was starting to think that our dysfunctional little family was making some progress, my big brother once again became the number one suspect.
75
I was sleeping next to Hugo when a loud crack sounded in the dark of night. We both shot up out of bed, and Hugo clutched my arm.
“Tandy. Was that a gun?”
“Give me your phone,” I said.
“It’s in the study, I think.”
“Mine’s there, too. Stay here,” I said. “Stay. Right. Here.”
“Okay.”
Hugo scrambled out from under the covers and grabbed onto a fold of my pajama top.
I hissed, “Stay here.”
“Okay,” he said again. He was still hanging on to me as I moved toward the doorway.
“It’s probably Samantha,” I said. “She probably just came home.”
“Came home and fired a gun?”
“It wasn’t a gun,” I said, feeling my way in the dark.
The sound had been sharp, like lightning striking a tree or something really heavy dropping to the floor. Like maybe an iron. But who in this house would be using an iron?
Hugo whispered, “Samantha always stops in to see me when she comes home.”
I ope
ned Hugo’s door just a hair.
“Look,” Hugo said, breathing loudly.
He pointed to a thin line of light coming from under the laboratory door. I gripped the key hanging from the chain around my neck. The laboratory door locked automatically when it was closed, and I thought I had the only key.
Clearly, I was wrong. So who had gotten inside Malcolm’s lab?
My thoughts were scattered, my focus gone. I had gone too long without a full night of sleep. I found myself thinking that there was an intruder in the house. Only it might be worse than an intruder. It just might be the killer.
The sound we’d heard had been the lab door slamming, hadn’t it?
I had to get to a phone and call, of all people, the police.
I was sneaking past the lab with Hugo when the door opened and the light coming from the lab showed the intruder in silhouette. He was a man I knew almost better than I knew anyone.
I screamed, “Father!”
76
The silhouette looked like my father’s—I swear it did.
But when the man said my name, I realized that the dark—and my fear—had tricked me.
The man in our hallway was my father’s only brother, Peter, and the expression on his face told me that he was as freaked out as we were. I could make out the shadow of another figure behind Uncle Peter, which disturbed and disoriented me more. Who would he be bringing into our home at this time of night?
He said, “Hugo. Tandy. Everything is okay. Everything is fine. It’s almost three in the morning. Go back to bed.”
Uncle Peter was holding a laptop that looked like the one Harry and I had tapped into the day before, the one with the memos about drug protocols that had passed between the Angel brothers. We’d hardly begun our real investigation of those files, and now Uncle Peter was taking away the data that could tell us the formulation and purpose of each of the drugs. There could even be information on that computer that would expose the killer’s identity. Had Uncle Peter belatedly realized that it held evidence that would prove that he had murdered our parents?
Confessions of a Murder Suspect Page 16
