Confessions of a Murder Suspect

81

Hugo opened Nate Crosby’s front door from the inside and made a dramatic, goofy bow to me and Harry. “Welcome to my humble home.”

“You think this is funny?” I said to my youngest brother. “You could have died, Hugo.”

“Gone splat on the street,” Harry added. “Like pigeon poop.”

Hugo laughed.

I stooped, grabbed him by both shoulders, and looked right into his eyes. “Dying is permanent,” I said. “You don’t come back.”

“I know.”

“And by the way, you’ve definitely broken the law.”

Hugo grinned—another Angel family member without remorse.

I couldn’t deal with babysitting this nut on top of illegally breaking and entering, so I gave Hugo five dollars and asked him to go to the store for some Ding Dongs. Amazingly, he didn’t hesitate—I guess our stop at the bodega for forbidden foods had made him hungry for more. As soon as he was gone, I took what would probably be my only chance to investigate Nate Crosby’s home.

I was thinking it all through again as I crossed through Crosby’s sparsely furnished living room. Nate Crosby had wanted to make a film about my parents. When they said no to his proposal, he probably got angry. And nursed a grudge.

Crosby had been inside our apartment when he interviewed Malcolm and Maud; maybe he’d had an opportunity to plant the cameras then. If he didn’t do it himself, he might have paid the super, or even our housekeeper, to do it for him.

Crosby’s film-editing room was right off the living room. He had an L-shaped desk and a top-of-the-line computer. There were several monitors on the long wall, and a huge TV and DVD player across from the desk. Next to the TV was a stack DVD jewel cases.

I went to the cases and saw that they were color-coded and labeled ANGEL—and they were dated, going back a number of months.

I think I stopped breathing as I examined them. I knew the discs were very important, that maybe they even contained evidence of murder. It came to me that each jewel-case color represented a different camera.

When my hand fell on a case marked ANGEL: MASTER BR and dated a week ago, I could hardly believe what my eyes were telling me.

Crosby had footage of my parents’ bedroom from the day they died.

Had he captured my parents’ killer on videotape?

I shouted, “Harry! Come in here. Please.”

My twin came through the door and I handed him the disc. He switched on the TV’s DVD player and pushed the disk into the tray. The video started playing.

This couldn’t be true—but it was.

We were looking at Malcolm and Maud in their bedroom on the last night of their lives. My mouth went dry, my scalp tightened, and my hands started to shake.

Oh my God, oh my God.

“Turn it off. Harry, turn it off.”

He did and we stood there, blinking at each other, shocked to the core. I tried to quiet my panicked mind, but it was flailing like an animal caught in a trap.

Harry was wheezing. He said, “We have to see it through.”

I nodded, and Harry pushed play again.

We watched the video to the end, and during those ten minutes of hell, we witnessed things we shouldn’t have seen and would never forget.

All sensation left my body.

When the video ended, I reached for Crosby’s phone and dialed a number I knew by heart.

“Sergeant Caputo, this is Tandy Angel. You have to come to unit sixty-four in the Dakota right now. The mystery has been solved.”