It was a breaking news report by someone called Laurie Kim, a young, ambitious TV reporter sitting eagerly behind the anchor desk. Behind her perky face was a full-screen video of Matthew making a touchdown on the Giants’ home field.
“What’s this about?” I asked.
“Watch,” Harry whispered.
The reporter was saying, “Tamara Gee, the actress best known for her starring role in The Good Girls and for her love relationship with football star Matthew Angel…”
Laurie Kim continued her celebrity-reporter-style blather as the screen behind her cut to footage of the stands, where Tamara Gee cheered as players carried Matthew off the field on their shoulders.
“… But you can’t always judge a relationship by its appearance. Earlier today, I had an exclusive interview with Ms. Gee in the apartment she shares with her ‘Matty.’ ”
The producers cut to another video clip, this one of Tamara Gee speaking with Ms. Kim in a perfectly decorated living room with plump pillows in tropical colors.
Tamara’s beautiful face was positively aglow when she said, “I don’t want to deny it any longer. I am pregnant with my first child, and he is an Angel. The baby’s father is Malcolm Angel, the man I loved—the man who was just murdered.” Her face contorted in what I immediately identified as well-rehearsed grief.
A photo of my father appeared in the corner of the screen as Ms. Kim asked, “Just to be sure we all understand, you’re saying that Matthew Angel is not the baby’s father?”
“That’s right. Malcolm Angel was my lover, and he is my baby’s father. Sadly, my child will never know his daddy.”
My hands flew to my head as I screamed, “Hold it! This is complete crap. I don’t even understand it. She’s saying Malcolm fathered her child. That he cheated on Maud? With her? That’s a lie. It can’t be true.”
“I don’t believe it,” Harry said, his voice faint. His face looked positively ashen.
“She’s a liar, and we need to call Philippe right now,” I said.
“Why would she lie?” Harry asked me.
If she was lying, it was a crime against my father. Defamation. If she was telling the truth, and my father had cheated on my mother with Tamara Gee, it was a crime against our family, and a double crime against poor Matty.
“I can think of about a hundred million reasons, but only one that matters,” I said. “Money. That’s usually the reason for almost everything adults do, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but… I can’t… quite… absorb… all this….” Harry was starting to go white again. “I’ve got to call Matty….”
He started to pull out his phone, but I stopped him, suddenly remembering my visit with Mrs. Hauser two days earlier.
“Harry, listen to this. Mrs. Hauser heard Malcolm and Maud fighting the day they died. Malcolm was saying he wanted to make some ‘new financial arrangements.’ And Maud was really mad.”
“New financial arrangements? Like… for a certain incoming member of the family? You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Harry.
If Tamara and Malcolm really were involved—and the very thought of it nearly made me gag—Matthew had an undeniable motive to commit murder. It would be called a crime of passion.
To be perfectly honest, I find that phrase a little incomprehensible. I mean, I get it—but I don’t really get it.
CONFESSION
There’s a famous phrase from Shakespeare you might have heard at some point: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
That was me, saying this horror couldn’t be true. Because you know what? I really wasn’t sure that Tamara was lying. At all.
After all, there had to be a concrete reason I’d never trusted Tamara; I generally don’t react to people emotionally. I analyze them.
At the same time I was accusing Tamara of lying, an image flashed into my mind. Setting: our kitchen. Suspects: my father and Tamara Gee. Malcolm is leaning in toward Tamara, gently nudging her against the fridge… or maybe she is pulling him against her; I can’t be sure. What I am sure of is that there were no unwilling participants in this affair.
If you saw your father whispering sweet nothings into the ear of your brother’s girlfriend, and if you saw her giggle in response and nuzzle your father’s face and neck, and if you saw him smile and laugh and basically encourage the whole disgusting exchange, it would freak you out, right?
What would you do? Would you pretend you didn’t see it and just barge in, saying, “Excuse me, I need to get into the fridge!” Or would you say, “What the hell are you doing?” Would you hold them accountable for their actions? Would you turn around and quietly leave? Would you tell your brother?
I didn’t know what to do. And thanks to Dr. Keyes and her great skill in teaching us to shatter our crippling memories, the flicker of this particular memory is so faded and gray, I’m not certain it ever actually happened. I could easily have dreamed it.
And since I will only ever act on the facts, I’m sure I never told Matthew.
But… I should have, shouldn’t I?
48
Harry looked beaten down. Actually, stomped might be a better word. As if Matthew’s football-playing teammates had used him as the playing field.
He took a carton of milk out of the fridge and poured himself a drink with a shaking hand, sloshing the liquid over the glass, onto the counter and the floor. Harry stared at the puddle of milk as if it might be the one tiny thing that would finally break him completely—the last straw, as they say.
He took his inhaler out of his pocket and sucked at the mouthpiece. Then, with a wheeze in his voice, he said, “Last night. It was like trying to sleep in hell.”
“At least hell would have been warmer,” I said, remembering the cold of my cell.
“I didn’t sleep the night before, either. Did you?”
“In thirty-second winks, between hours and hours and hours of staring up at the ceiling.”
“I’m taking this,” Harry said, holding up a square red pill. He tossed it back and chased it with the milk. Then he said, “I’m going to bed now, and no one had better bother me, because if I don’t sleep I’ll go over the edge. And I might not come back.”
“Which pill is that?” I asked sharply.
“Angel Pharma’s red pill for sleep and sweet dreams. I think it’s hibiscus. You want one?”
I was sorely tempted. Suddenly I became aware that my hand was starting to shake. Life was easier on the pills, somehow. And sleep sounded like such a heavenly, peaceful escape from this nightmare….
But no. I needed to meet Tandoori Angel—the real one. The one who wasn’t molded, beaten down and perked up, and supernaturally enhanced by drugs.
“I want to get off the pills,” I forced myself to say. “All of them. And you should, too. I thought you told me you were quitting.”
“What, do you want me to die, too, Tandy? Like our parents? Because I’m telling you, I can’t live without sleep right now.”
I resisted the urge to slap him, an urge I’d never felt before. I hated it. Hated it. Was this the real Tandy?
I decided to go back to the Tandy I knew. FOF Tandy.
“Tamara Gee’s probably lying,” I said, changing the subject.
“Actually, I believe her,” Harry said. He put up a hand, then coughed and coughed, trying to get a good breath. After his coughing fit, he set his empty glass on the counter and slouched out of the kitchen.
“Sleep like a stump,” I called after him.
I hit the rewind button on the DVR and watched Laurie Kim’s interview with Matty’s so-called girlfriend, Tamara Gee, again. It was impressive. Tamara made good eye contact with Ms. Kim. She didn’t fidget. She looked confident—and truthful.
But Tamara Gee is an actress.
She could probably lie convincingly about how many thumbs she has. And if she was lying about being pregnant with my father’s baby, the only reason that made sense was that she hoped to land a big settlement from the overstuffed Angel es
tate.
And then a new thought came to me, like a train pulling into Grand Central Terminal: Had my mother known of this affair? If she knew, she would have borne the pain—and hidden it completely, of course—in order to keep our family intact and avoid public humiliation.
Maud had few friends, but she had a confidante in her assistant, Samantha Peck. If Maud had known about Malcolm and Tamara, she might have told Samantha.
And Samantha had, after all, told me that my mother was a woman of many secrets….
Was this one of them?
I was going to try to find out.
49
Not only was Samantha intelligent, but I truly believed she genuinely liked my mother. If Maud had told Samantha that my father was having an affair, Samantha would have kept her confidence as a matter of principle.
I left the kitchen and went down the hall to Samantha’s room. I knocked, and when she didn’t answer the door, I turned the knob, entered her very organized room, and got to work.
Half of the space was a tidy pink bedroom; the other half was an efficient little office with a bank of file cabinets, a wooden desk that held a laptop and a printer, and a swivel desk chair.
I was not surprised to find that the computer was password-protected and my random guesses wouldn’t get me in.
Aside from the computer and printer, there were only a few items on Samantha’s desk: a heavy-duty stapler, a set of Russian nesting dolls, and a crystal bowl filled with peppermint candies.
I unwrapped a peppermint and sucked on it as I opened the desk drawer.
Apparently Samantha liked little boxes, as the top drawer was full of them: candy tins, enameled pillboxes, porcelain heart-shaped containers, and a sturdy little box made of stone.
Inside the stone box was a bunch of small keys. Was this it? Far too easy. Working quickly, I opened the thirty file drawers, one at a time. What were my mother’s secrets? Would there be a record of them here?
I thumbed through a lot of files filled with paid bills, memos, and tax returns. I found receipts for furniture and for artwork, and I came across a file of birthday cards from all of us kids to Maud. I thought it was uncharacteristically sentimental of her to have saved them.
I spotted my self-conscious nine-year-old handwriting in one card:
Dearest Mother,
Happy Birthday. May you find today productive and fulfilling. I will spend the day working on my Latin and learning how to construct the perfect birthday cake with Father. We will all enjoy it together when you come home.
Sincerely, Tandoori
Even I could tell that was not normal. Not in the least.
Then I found a whole standing file case relating to my mother’s company, as well as full drawers concerning Royal Rampling, the man who was suing Maud. Did he have an interest in seeing my mother dead? It was certainly my investigative responsibility to study these files in painstaking detail.
But I wasn’t ready to do that yet. Please don’t ask me why.
Instead, my fingers started nervously flipping through the folders, my eyes scanning faster and faster until I got to the back of the bottom drawer. I halted when I spotted some familiar writing. I recognized it as having come from my own hand. The folder was labeled J.R.
Did I want to look at this?
Yes, Tandy, a little voice told me. Go ahead.
I can’t call what was in front of me “my” handwriting per se, because it was done in calligraphy. At least a hundred pages, all written with an old-fashioned flat-nib pen and a bottle of ink. I’d copied the more than ten thousand words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem “Maud.” In Germanic gothic script. It had been a wicked Big Chop, I remember that much.
But for what? The whole point of a Big Chop was to make certain that you would never, ever again make the mistake you made to merit the chop.
What had I done to deserve this specific punishment?
I wasn’t ready to go back to that place yet.
I quickly flipped through the first fifty pages, scanning the poem. Many of the words themselves chilled me: “Villainy somewhere! Whose? One says, we are villains all….” But what chilled me even more was remembering how I’d felt when I wrote those words: like a traitor.
Shivers started shooting up and down my spine to the point that I felt nearly paralyzed.
I shut the folder and slammed it back into the drawer.
Not now, Tandy. This is distracting you from the real mystery, I reminded myself. Leave it alone.
50
Despite all the searching, I discovered nothing concerning Malcolm and Tamara’s alleged affair. I threw myself into Samantha’s chair, propped my feet up on her desk, and took a long look around the room.
My detecting instincts were telling me that I was missing something important here about Malcolm and Maud’s relationship.
I was, I was, I was—until I wasn’t.
As I swiveled in Samantha’s chair, my shoe hit the desk, which shook the egg-shaped set of Russian nesting dolls. The toy tipped over and rolled toward the edge of the desk, but I managed to grab it before it fell. Then I gave it a closer look.
Like many nesting dolls, this set was wooden, hollow, and brightly painted to look like a Russian peasant woman. It was made so that the outer doll could be taken apart to reveal the next, smaller doll inside. The largest, outermost doll had a painted red scarf. The next doll inside held a bouquet of daisies.
I kept opening the successively smaller dolls until I was holding the sixth and smallest one. I shook it and heard something rattle inside that didn’t sound like another doll. It sounded metallic. Another key?
I twisted open the smallest doll and found a folded paper. And inside the paper was a lump of gold.
I pulled out the lump and straightened out a delicate gold chain that held a heart-shaped locket with a brilliant-cut center diamond.
I turned on the desk lamp, then opened the locket.
Inside was a tiny snapshot of my mother and Samantha, both of them smiling broadly.
I had to squint to read the inscription on the back of the locket, but it was legible.
SAMMY, LOVE FOREVER—MAUD
My heart banged inside my chest like a racehorse trying to kick down its stall.
What was this?
Sammy, love forever—Maud.
My mother wasn’t an air-kisser. She would never say “love forever” casually. I don’t remember my mother ever telling me that she loved me.
I held the locket in my sweating hand and tried to make sense of the new shape my ideas were taking. My mother and “Sammy.” Love forever.
Was my mother actually having a love affair with Samantha? How could I not have known, with both of them living under this roof? And was this why my father might have had an extramarital affair of his own?
Or had Maud and Samantha’s bond been strengthened, even transformed, after my mother learned of my father’s dalliance with a woman young enough to be his daughter?
It didn’t matter. At that moment, all I could see was that both of them were traitors. And liars. To each other, to their family. To me.
No wonder they were both dead.
It was starting not to seem so very shocking anymore.
51
The first thing I did was wake up Harry.
Harry didn’t like being woken up one bit, of course. He shoved me aside and pulled the covers over his head. “Go away, Tandy. Get out of here. I’m not kidding.”
“I’m sorry, but YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!”
I yanked down the blankets and opened one of his eyes with my fingers.
He batted my hand away. “Are you crazy?”
“Look at this, then you tell me.”
I switched on the light next to Harry’s bed and gave him the locket.
I bit down hard on my lip as he opened the heart and looked at the picture. Then Harry did as I had done; he flipped the locket over and read the inscription.
He read the engraving a sec
ond time, then handed me the locket, fell back onto his pillow, and pulled the covers over his face again.
I poked his arm. “So, what do you think?”
“Think? I can’t think anymore. I can only feel pain. What is going on around here? I mean, what was going on?”
Focus on the facts, Tandy. “Both our parents were probably having affairs. Only Maud’s looks like was going on inside our home.” I swallowed. “That’s pretty sad.”
“Sad? I call it sick! I call it outrageously disrespectful to every other Angel in the house.”
“Well, I call Malcolm screwing around with a girl young enough to be my sister—who is ALSO MY BROTHER’S GIRLFRIEND!—probably even more outrageously sick and disrespectful.”
“That, too,” said Harry. “Let’s face it, our ’rents were pretty despicable. No wonder they’re dead.”
My thoughts were blooming like poisonous flowers, bright and noxious and irrepressible.
“Harry, think about this. I’m just trying out a theory, okay? What if Samantha wanted to go public with the love affair? What if she wanted Maud to leave Malcolm? What if Maud refused? People have been killed for less rejection than that.”
“Be careful, Tandy. All you have to support this theory is an inscription on a locket.”
“It’s a lead. It’s a clue.”
“We’ve got to trust Samantha until we know that we can’t.”
“Trust?” I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not something that makes a whole lot of sense right now, Harry. The only person I trust at this moment”—I paused to think about it—“is you.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed Samantha’s number.
“I’m right around the corner,” she told me. “I’ll be home in five or six minutes.”
Harry and I were waiting for her when she came through the door, looking oh-so-pretty in pink.
“Tandy! I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, wrapping me in a huge hug. “Are you okay? Did Philippe bring you home? I can’t imagine you trapped in that terrible place!” She finally let me go and stepped back to look at our faces. “Oh, dear. What’s wrong now?” she asked as she set her Hermès bag on the floor.