Confessions of a Murder Suspect

29

So what do you think so far, reader? Am I missing any clues? Am I doing a good enough job in my investigation? Would Malcolm and Maud be proud of my work?

That last question is an easy one. No. They wouldn’t be proud until I had achieved my goal, and I was still so far from it.

Nathan Beale Crosby lives next door to us. In fact, his duplex apartment is an absolute mirror of ours. The big man with the red-framed glasses is a documentarian of note, making him one of the more famous residents of the Dakota. He has made a number of shocking and successful films, including Meat Cage, Terror on the Street Where You Live, and Party Animal. His work has won him an Oscar, a bunch of Emmys, and some other awards that I don’t pay much attention to. (I don’t like most movies. I’m a reader. I read a lot. In my humble opinion, the prescribed story structure, the limited length, and the other restrictions inherent to film cause the truth to be treated as a handicap. Manipulating the audience is considered good form. But that’s neither here nor there; my focus was on murder, not movies.)

Nathan Beale Crosby comes across as a very nice man, but he actually isn’t. Unlike Morris Sampson, though, Nate pretends to be friendly.

A year ago he had a quiet dinner with my parents. He said he wanted to make a film about them, and he assured them that it was going to blow up the perception of wealthy entrepreneurs as predators and show the Angels as “American heroes.”

Malcolm had said to Maud, “Sure, I believe Mr. Crosby. And Sarah Palin should believe Michael Moore if he tells her he wants to interview her for a puff piece on the Tea Party.”

So, in other words, my parents declined the opportunity to be the subjects of a Nate Crosby film. Some time later, I found a film treatment on Crosby’s website. A sketch, really. It was called “Filthy Rich.”

It was about the Angels, to be sure, but I couldn’t tell if Crosby was going to savage us or if the title was a setup designed to seduce viewers before overturning their preconceptions.

At any rate, the film project never happened, at least not to my knowledge. Nate Crosby continued being friendly, and my parents liked him as much as they liked anyone at the Dakota.

But for the purposes of my investigation, it didn’t matter if my parents liked him or not. I was a detective. And since some of Crosby’s rooms abutted ours, he was an obvious person to interview. Had he heard anything the night “my folks”—as Detective Hayes called them—were killed? Did he have any theories about the murders?

I put my ear to his front door and heard faint sounds coming from inside. I pressed the doorbell, counted to thirty-five, and then pressed it again.

Finally I heard the metal clanking of the latch being turned, and then the door opened.

“My goodness, Tandy Angel! The spitting image of your mother, God rest her soul. We have so much to talk about. Please, come right in.”