Confessions of a Murder Suspect

22

And that’s just what I did this time, too, as Harry’s earlier question echoed in the room: Have you forgotten, Tandy? Have you?

I looked away and didn’t answer.

I lay next to Harry in his bed, watching the changing light reflect on the painted angels peering down from the ceiling. Harry had been inspired by Michelangelo’s timeless masterpieces in the Sistine Chapel, and had invented his own special effect so that the angels’ wings seemed to shimmer in every color against a lightning-struck pink and gold sky.

My mother found Harry’s work sentimental. Maybe it was, but like his music, I found his paintings evocative, endearing, and curious. I didn’t really connect to them in the way I think Harry hoped I might, but that was just a genetic issue. He and I had talked about how odd it was that we were called “twins” when we were really nothing more than siblings who happened to grow in the womb together at the same time. Fraternal twins come from two totally separate eggs, and the differences between us were obvious: I got all the scientific genes, and Harry got all the artistic genes.

Which made me wonder: Was Maud or Malcolm really an artist at heart? Were the Angel children their sculptures, their canvases, their creations to be put on display for all the world to see and admire?

Almost any other parents would have been proud of Harry. It was a mystery to both of us why his painting wasn’t valued in this family. Maybe because it represented something missing from our lives. Or at least my life. Magic… soul… light?

Or love? Yes, maybe that was it. The experience of true, passionate love that had been snatched away from me just when it had been in my grasp—

Nil satis nisi optimum, interrupted my father’s voice, booming inside my head. Crushing the thought as if it were vermin.

Nothing but the best is good enough.

He meant no one but the best is good enough.

It doesn’t matter anymore, I reminded myself. Only one thing matters now.

“I’m going to find out who killed them,” I said to my sleepy twin.

Harry laughed. “I was wondering when you’d decide you were the most qualified person to solve the crime. And that you could do it without a forensics lab.”

“There were detectives before there were crime labs, you know.”

“Fair point.”

“Furthermore, I believe that Maud and Malcolm were poisoned.”

“In your opinion.”

“In my opinion,” I said. “Based on my research.”

Harry sighed and looked at me with his big, searching eyes. “You know, Tandy,” he began. Then he stopped.

“What?”

“Even though you were the last one to get the Big Chop, I don’t think you could have killed Malcolm and Maud. And I don’t think you have to prove it wasn’t you by solving the murder.”

Did no one in this family understand me? I wasn’t trying to prove my innocence. I was trying to bring whoever committed this crime to justice, even if it turned out to be me.

“The chop wasn’t so bad,” I said. “You just concentrate on the good times, like your Grande Gongos, and get through it.”

I immediately regretted my words.

Harry had never been awarded the Grande Gongo. The rest of us had won it at least once—even Hugo, who was six years younger than Harry and I. He’d won it three times already. Hugo had also gotten one of the biggest chops in the history of the family, but that was another story.

As I was thinking about Hugo, he came into Harry’s room and did a flying leap onto the bed, almost bouncing us out of it.

“You’ve got to get dressed, Harrison Weepyface.”

Harry groaned and turned over, pulling his pillow over his head.

“He’s got to get dressed,” Hugo said to me. “He’s going to be late.”

I went to the closet and took Harry’s tuxedo out of the dry cleaner’s plastic. Then I half coaxed, half badgered him out of his bed and into the shower.

I left Harry in Hugo’s care and called Samantha and Matthew on the intercom. Then I called Virgil, our driver and sometime bodyguard. He was fifty, and he was huge. Almost as big as Matthew. He wore a diamond in his ear. He was a poet who wrote raps in his spare time. Virgil was also very kind to all of us kids.

“I’m very sorry about the terrible news, Tandy. I’m very, very sorry,” he said when he saw me. He was a big bear of a man who didn’t think twice about offering me a hug in the face of this tragedy. I accepted it awkwardly. Not because I didn’t appreciate Virgil’s gesture, but because hugs were a rather strange and rare phenomenon in our house.

“I’ll bring the car around in about five minutes,” he said.

Only moments later, I was wearing a black dress and heels, and Harry had been transformed from a waif in baggy clothes to the smartly dressed boy prodigy that we knew him to be.

My three brothers and Samantha rode down in the elevator with me. I held Harry’s hand. He could have canceled, but even he knew that he would feel better once he poured himself into his work and was applauded for it.

It was a big day for Harry. He was playing a piano concerto at Lincoln Center.