Confessions of a Murder Suspect

14

After our little family meeting, we decided it was best to try to get some sleep and keep talking in the morning. But it felt like only seconds after I drifted off that I was awakened by the sounds of loud pounding and crashing somewhere in the apartment.

I didn’t have a shotgun, so I grabbed a lacrosse stick that was leaning against the wall and ran from my room toward the noise.

Was someone else being murdered?

I found ten-year-old Hugo in his room. He was still wearing his Giants sweatshirt, and he was using a baseball bat to break up his four-poster bed.

As I entered the room, he swung the bat for the last time, splintering the headboard, then began working on the bed frame with karate kicks.

“Hey. Hey, Hugo,” I said. “Enough. Stop. Please.”

I dropped my lacrosse stick and wrapped my arms around my little brother. I dragged him away from the bed and more or less hurled him toward the cushy, life-size toy pony that Uncle Peter had given Hugo when he was born.

We collapsed together onto the pony, my arms wrapped tightly around him. He could easily pick me up and toss me into the closet, but I knew he actually wanted me to keep him still and safe.

“What is it, Hugo? Tell me what exactly has made you go bug-nuts.”

Hugo heaved a long sigh that could have stirred the posters of Matty up on the wall. Then he put his head on my lap and started to talk.

“I didn’t hear anything, Tandy. I should have. Something horrible happened in there, and I totally failed them! If I’ve ever done anything to deserve the Big Chop, this is it. I was supposed to protect them. Malcolm said that would always be my job.”

“Hugo, it wasn’t your fault.”

I stroked my little brother’s hair and told him about crimes that had happened without anyone knowing intruders were in the house. One of the stories was about a family that had lived in Florida in 2009.

“They were very kind parents,” I told Hugo. “They had adopted a lot of children with disabilities, and had a total of sixteen kids.”

Hugo listened attentively.

“Eight of those children were asleep in the house when three intruders broke in, and in just a few minutes shot the parents to death and escaped. They weren’t caught. And no one knows why they committed that horrible crime.”

I realized that I was talking to myself, suddenly aware of the fact that maybe someday some other big sister out there would be telling her little brother about the great unsolved Angel Family Murders.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Soon, I noticed that Hugo’s breathing had slowed. He wasn’t in a state anymore.

“It was late, Hugo, and you were asleep. Whoever killed them was intent on being silent and invisible. If Malcolm and Maud had screamed, you would’ve been right there. All of us would have.”

A few minutes later Hugo was asleep, half on me, half on the unloved stuffed pony. And he left me alone with a question:

Why hadn’t my parents screamed?