And that’s pretty much all they’d told me. You don’t demand answers from Malcolm and Maud.
Hugo was the only one who saw what happened. He said I flew into the apartment in such a rage that he hid behind the Claes Oldenburg sculpture and watched me kick the hell out of Robert, screaming, “They killed her. They killed her!” My foot crashed through Robert’s screen with the force of a wrecking ball, he claims.
How could I do that? I’d need almost superhuman strength. When I asked Matthew, he shrugged and said only: “It’s a piece of art, Tandy. It’s not industrial strength.”
More important, though, was why I would do that. Could I really have been talking about my dead sister, Katherine?
Was I accusing Malcolm and Maud of killing their eldest daughter?
And why don’t I remember it at all?
5
Caputo was still pacing and coughing, giving us the evil eye and warning us that if we crossed into the no-go zone of the penthouse suite, he would have us removed from the apartment.
“I’m doing you a favor, letting you stay downstairs. Don’t make me sorry.”
I stared back at the menacing detective and remembered what it had been like growing up here in the Dakota—a gated island on an island. It was one of the few places in the world where I felt secure.
Yet Malcolm and Maud Angel weren’t the first people to be killed at the Dakota. Everyone knows that Mark David Chapman gunned John Lennon down right at the front gates, where the police cars were now parked. And just two floors below us, the actor Gig Young killed his wife and then shot himself.
Now my parents had been murdered in their own bed by an unknown killer for a reason I couldn’t imagine.
Or maybe I could… but I digress. Those are very private thoughts, for later.
As I sat beside Harry, under the withering gaze of Sergeant Caputo, crime-scene investigators trooped through the private entranceway that very few New Yorkers had ever seen, even in photographs. They crossed the cobbled courtyard and used the residents’ elevators to come upstairs, which was strictly forbidden by the cooperative’s bylaws.
Sergeant Caputo had banned us from our parents’ suite—but I lived there. I had rights. And I had already taught myself basic criminology.
I learned all about JonBenét Ramsey when I was six, the same age she’d been when she was murdered. She had been an adorable little girl, seemingly happy and unafraid and loving. I was so moved by her death that I wrote to the police in Colorado, asking them why they hadn’t found her killer. No one wrote back. To this day, her killer has not been found.
The unsolved Ramsey case had inspired me to read up on the famous forensic pathologists Michael Baden and Henry Lee. I had consumed practical guides to homicide investigations, so I knew that the longer it took to solve a crime, the more likely it was that it would never be solved.
I wasn’t one to trust authority. Who knows, though—maybe Caputo and Hayes were decent cops. But my parents were just a case to them. That was all they could ever be.
Malcolm and Maud were my parents. I owed them. I owed it to myself, and to my siblings, to try to solve their murders.
The fact is, I was the ideal detective for this case. This was a job that I could—and should—do. Please don’t think I’m completely full of myself when I say that. I just knew that my doggedness and personal motivation would trump any training these guys had.
I am an Angel, after all. As Malcolm always said, we get things done.
So as I sat in the living room that night, I took on the full responsibility of finding my parents’ killer—even if it turned out that the killer shared my DNA.
Even if it turned out to be me.
You shouldn’t count that out, friend.
6
Are you familiar with the phrase unreliable narrator? Maybe from English-lit class? It’s when the storyteller might not be worthy of your trust. In fact, the storyteller might be a complete liar. So given what I just said, you’re probably wondering: Is that me?
Would I do that to you? Of course I wouldn’t. At least, I don’t think I would. But you can never tell about people, can you? How much do you really know about my past?
That’s a subject we’ll have to investigate together, later.
For now, back to my story. I was about to begin the investigation of my parents’ murders. While the two detectives conferred in the study, out of sight, I climbed the stairs to the long hallway in my parents’ penthouse suite. I flattened myself against the dark red wall and averted my eyes as the techs from the medical examiner’s office took my parents away in body bags.
Then I edged down the hall to the threshold of Malcolm and Maud’s bedroom and peered inside.
An efficient-looking crime-scene investigator was busily dusting for fingerprints. The name tag on her shirt read CSI JOYCE YEAGER.
I said hello to the freckle-faced CSI and told her my name. She said that she was sorry for my loss. I nodded, then said, “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
CSI Yeager looked around before saying, “Okay.”
I didn’t have time for tact. I’d been warned away from this room and everything in it, so I began to shoot questions at the CSI as if I were firing them from a nail gun.
“What was the time of death?”
“That hasn’t been determined,” she said.
“And the means?”
“We don’t know yet how your parents were killed.”
“And what about the manner of death?” I asked.
“The medical examiner will determine if these were homicides, accidents, natural deaths—”
“Natural?” I interrupted, already getting fed up. “Come on.”
“It’s the medical examiner’s job to determine these things,” she said.
“Have you found a weapon? Was there any blood?”
“Listen, Tandy. I’m sorry, but you have to go now, before you get me in trouble.”
CSI Yeager was ignoring me now, but she didn’t close the door. I looked around the room, taking in the enormous four-poster bed and the silk bedspread on the floor.
And I did a visual inventory of my parents’ valuables.
The painting over their fireplace, by Daniel Aronstein, was a modern depiction of an American flag: strips of frayed muslin layered with oil paints in greens and mauve. It was worth almost $200,000—and it hadn’t been touched.
My mother’s expensive jewelry was also untouched; her strand of impossibly creamy Mikimoto pearls lay in an open velvet-lined box on the dresser, and her twelve-carat emerald ring still hung from a branch of the crystal ring tree beside her bed.
It could not be clearer that there had been no robbery here.
It shouldn’t surprise me that the evidence pointed to the fact that my parents had been killed out of anger, fear, hatred…
Or revenge.
7
As I stood outside my parents’ bedroom a shadow fell across me and I jumped, as if I were already living in fear of the ghosts of Malcolm and Maud. Many ghosts in my family already haunt us, friend, so it helps me to know that you’re here.
Fortunately, this shadow just belonged to Sergeant Caputo. He pinched my shoulder. Hard.
“Let’s go, Tansy. I told you, this floor is off-limits. Entering a crime scene before it’s cleared is evidence tampering. It’s against the law.”
“Tandy,” I said. “Not Tansy. Tandy.”
I didn’t argue his point; he was right. Instead, I went ahead of him down the stairs and back to the living room, arriving just as my big brother, Matthew, stormed in from the kitchen.
When Matthew entered a room, he seemed to draw all the light and air to him. He had light brown dreadlocks tied in a bunch with a hank of yarn, and intense blue eyes that shone like high beams.
I’ve never seen eyes like his. No one has.
Matty was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt under a leather jacket, but anyone would’ve sworn he was wearing a bodysuit with an
emblem on the chest and a cape fluttering behind.
Hugo broke the spell by leaping out of his chair. “Hup!” he yelled at Matty, jumping toward his brother with outstretched arms.
Matthew caught Hugo easily and put a hand to the back of his baby brother’s head while fastening his eyes on the two homicide detectives.
Matthew is six-two and has biceps the size of thighs. And, well, he can be a little scary when he’s mad.
Mad wasn’t even the word to describe him that night.
“My parents were just carried out of the building in the service elevator,” he shouted at the cops. “They were vile, but they didn’t deserve to be taken out with the trash!”
Detective Hayes said, “And you are…?”
“Matthew Angel. Malcolm and Maud’s son.”
“And how did you get into the apartment?” Hayes said.
“Cops let me in. One of them wanted my autograph.”
Caputo said to Matthew, “You won the Heisman last year, right?”
Matthew nodded. In addition to having won the Heisman and being a three-time all-American, Matthew was a poster boy for the NFL and had a fat Nike contract. The sportscaster Aran Delaney had once said of Matthew’s blazing speed and agility, “He can run around the block between the time I strike a match and light my cigarette. Matthew Angel is not just a cut above, but an order of magnitude above other outstanding athletes.” So it didn’t surprise me that Caputo recognized my brother.
Matty was sneering, as if the mention of his celebrity was offensive under the circumstances. I kind of had to agree. Who cares about his stupid Heisman right now?
Fortunately, Hayes was all business. “Look, Matthew. I’m sorry we had to take your folks out the back way. You wouldn’t have wanted them carried around the front so the rubberneckers could gawk and take pictures, would you? Please sit down. We have a few questions.”
“I’ll stand,” Matthew said. By that point, Hugo had climbed around Matthew’s body and was on his back, looking at the cops over his brother’s shoulder.
Caputo went right into hostility mode. “Where have you been for the last six hours?”
“I stayed with my girlfriend on West Ninth Street. We were together all night, and she’ll be happy to tell you that.”
Matthew’s girlfriend was the actress Tamara Gee. She’d received an Academy Award nomination the previous year, when she was twenty-three, and was almost as famous as Matty. I should have realized he would be at her apartment, but I really had no way of contacting him there. I met Tamara the one time Matty brought her home to meet our parents, and while she was certainly pretty in real life, and maybe an order of magnitude above other actors in smarts, I understood easily from her posture and way of speaking that she wanted nothing to do with us. She certainly wasn’t passing out her phone number in case I ever needed to call my brother at her apartment. Especially in the dead of night, to inform him that our parents had been murdered.
My father, on the other hand, seemed to admire Tamara’s obvious distrust of us, and later remarked to me that she was the last piece of the puzzle to make Matthew’s future all but certain. You see, he wanted Matty to run for president one day. He was certain Matty would win.
Incidentally, Malcolm also thought that Matthew was a sociopath. But, except for Harry, all of us, including my father, had been called sociopaths at some time in our lives.
“My siblings will tell you that I haven’t set foot in this place, or even seen my parents, for months,” Matthew was saying to Detective Hayes.
“You have a problem with your parents?” Hayes asked.
“I’m twenty-four. I’ve flown the coop.” Matthew didn’t even try to disguise the fact that he had no use for Malcolm and Maud.
“We’ll check out your alibi soon enough,” Caputo snapped. “But listen: We all know you could have left your girlfriend in the Village, killed your parents, and gone back to bed before your twinkie even knew you were gone.”
It was just short of an accusation, obviously meant to provoke a reaction from Matthew. But my big brother didn’t bite. Instead, he turned to Hugo and said, “I’m going to tuck you into bed, Buddy.”
Caputo hadn’t gotten anything from Matty, but he’d forced me to face my own suspicions. My brother hated our parents. He was a 215-pound professional football player, a cunning brute.
Was he also a killer?
CONFESSION
I have pretty bad associations with the Heisman. My therapist, Dr. Keyes, has done a lot to help me forget that night, but every now and then, a memory will pierce my mind’s eye.
It was after the celebration, after we’d returned to the apartment from dinner at Le Cirque. Malcolm and Matty had both had more than a few drinks at that point, and Malcolm said, “So, let me hold the Angel family Heisman now, son.” He latched on to the trophy, like Matty should hand it over. “Remember, you owe everything to us,” he went on. “Your speed, your strength, your endurance. Your career. Your money.”
That did not go over well with Matty. To say the least.
“I didn’t ask for what you gave me,” he said through clenched teeth. He slammed his fist on the glass dining table and I jumped as a crack appeared, sure his fist was going to get sliced to ribbons. Matty was so angry I don’t think he would have even noticed. “You created each and every one of us to live out one of your freakish childhood fantasies! We’re Malcolm’s puppets. Maud’s baby dolls. Malcolm and Maud’s precious little trophies.”
And that’s when he hurled the Heisman trophy through the living room window, less than two inches above my head.
He could have killed someone walking down below. He could have killed me. Would he have regretted it?
They didn’t call us sociopaths for nothing.
8
Now that I’ve told you that memory, I’ve got to get it out of my head, and quick. That’s one thing you should know about me: My head is a strange—and maybe a little dangerous—place to be for too long. So I’m just going to give you little bits and pieces at a time. Because I want you to like me; I need a friend. Someone willing to be right here with me and feel the horror of the night my parents died. Can you do that for me?
I could feel the floorboards shaking as Matthew stormed out of the room, but Sergeant Caputo wasn’t intimidated. He barked at the rest of us, still sitting around the fireplace, “Who was the last person to see Mr. and Mrs. Angel alive?”
It was a fair question, and I considered the possibilities. Samantha, my mother’s live-in assistant, went off-duty at six. She hadn’t been invited to the dinner that had been served in our dining room at eight, for my parents’ guest, the ambassador from the Kingdom of Bhutan.
Hugo had also been excluded from our dinner with the ambassador and had gone to his bedroom at seven.
Harry and I had been at the table for the entire spectacle, and when it was over, Harry had gone to his room and, as usual, locked the door.
My parents had shown the ambassador to the elevator, and when I last saw them, in the study an hour later, they were in perfect form. Maud was poised elegantly on the edge of her favorite leather chair, and I saw that she had changed out of her silk pantsuit and into one of her favorite embroidered Tunisian tunics. My father was sitting in his own leather chair, sipping his customary glass of scotch. Neither of them looked even the slightest bit agitated.
In answer to Caputo’s question, Samantha, who had taken over Hugo’s seat in the Pork Chair, said, “I saw them last. Maud texted me about some documents in need of signatures, so I reported to her at eleven thirty.” Her voice wobbled the smallest bit when she said Maud’s name, but hearing her familiar, gentle voice calmed me slightly.
“How did she seem to you?”
“Perfectly Maud,” said Samantha.
“What does that mean?” Caputo followed up. He wasn’t about to use his imagination.
Samantha brushed a loose lock of sandy hair out of her eyes and stared at Caputo. “It means exactly tha
t. Perfect. Not a hair out of place, not a worry line to be found. Calm. Collected. Ready to take on whatever came next.”
Caputo dismissed this and barreled ahead. “Who stands to profit from the deaths of these people?”
Samantha deflected the question. “Please remember that I’m having a hard time right now,” she said, the wobble returning to her voice. “I loved these people and am still in shock that they’ve been ripped from our lives forever.”
I thought I understood what Caputo was doing. When murder suspects are stressed, they sometimes make mistakes and tell the cops a story that might later become evidence against them.
Caputo asked again, “Miss Peck. Who stood to profit from the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Angel?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Can’t say or won’t say?”
“I don’t know,” Samantha said. “I can’t imagine someone could want them dead. They may have had some… unorthodox quirks, but they were good people.”
Between coughing fits, Caputo grilled her on her whereabouts that evening and got information on the friend Samantha had gone to dinner with at Carmine’s Trattoria on the West Side. He asked about her relationships with all of us, to which she responded succinctly that while Maud was her employer, each of us kids was like family to her. She had been a part of our lives for years, initially as the photographer who took our family portraits—she’d taken hundreds of beautiful photographs of the family over the years, many of which were hung around the apartment, equal to the Leibovitz portraits we owned—and then, after proving her ability to be totally discreet and loyal, as Maud’s personal secretary. I couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t with us, and as she told Caputo, she would do anything for us.
When Caputo was finished jotting down everything Samantha had to say, he turned his narrow, peevish eyes to Harry.
Harry was openmouthed and breathing thickly, leaning against me, sitting as close as if we were still nestled together in the womb.