James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

TO THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS, AND TO THE CITY THAT GOES TO SLEEP AT EIGHT

1

I have some really bad secrets to share with someone, and it might as well be youa stranger, a reader of books, but most of all, a person who cant hurt me. So here goes nothing, or maybe everything. Im not sure if I can even tell the difference anymore.

The night my parents diedafter theyd been carried out in slick black body bags through the service elevatormy brother Matthew shouted at the top of his powerful lungs, My parents were vile, but they didnt deserve to be taken out with the trash!

He was right about the last partand, as things turned out, the first part as well.

But Im getting ahead of myself, arent I? Please forgive me. I do that a lot.

Id been asleep downstairs, directly under my parents bedroom, when it happened. So I never heard a thingno frantic thumping, no terrified shouting, no fracas at all. I woke up to the scream of sirens speeding up Central Park West, maybe one of the most common sounds in New York City.

But that night it was different.

The sirens stopped right downstairs. That was what caused me to wake up with a hundred-miles-an-hour heartbeat. Was the building on fire? Did some old neighbor have a stroke?

I threw off my double layer of blankets, went to my window, and looked down to the street, nine dizzying floors below. I saw three police cruisers and what could have been an unmarked police car parked on Seventy-second Street, right at the front gates of our apartment building, the exclusive and infamous Dakota.

A moment later our intercom buzzed, a jarring blat-blat that punched right through my flesh and bones.

Why was the doorman paging us? This was crazy.

My bedroom was the one closest to the front door, so I bolted through the living room, hooked a right at the sharks in the aquarium coffee table, and passed between Robert and his nonstop TV.

When I reached the foyer, I stabbed at the intercom button to stop the irritating blare before it woke up the whole house.

I spoke in a loud whisper to the doorman through the speaker: Sal? Whats happening?

Miss Tandy? Two policemen are on the way up to your apartment right now. I couldnt stop them. They got a nine-one-one call. Its an emergency. Thats what they said.

Theres been a mistake, Sal. Everyone is asleep here. Its after midnight. How could you let them up?

Before Sal could answer, the doorbell rang, and then fists pounded the door. A harsh masculine voice called out, This is the police.

I made sure the chain was in place and then opened the doorbut just a crack.

I peered out through the opening and saw two men in the hallway. The older one was as big as a bear but kind of soft-looking and spongy. The younger one was wiry and had a sharp, expressionless face, something like a hatchet blade, or no, a hatchet blade is exactly right.

The younger one flashed his badge and said, Sergeant Capricorn Caputo and Detective Ryan Hayes, NYPD. Please open the door.

Capricorn Caputo? I thought. Seriously? Youve got the wrong apartment, I said. No one here called the police.

Open the door, miss. And I mean right now.

Ill get my parents, I said through the crack. I had no idea that my parents were dead and that we would be the only serious suspects in a double homicide. I was in my last moment of innocence.

But who am I kidding? No one in the Angel family was ever innocent.

2

Open up, or my partner will kick down the door! Hatchet Face called out.

It is no exaggeration to say that my whole family was about to get a wake-up call from hell. But all I was thinking at that particular moment was that the police could not kick down the door. This was the Dakota. We could get evicted for allowing someone to disturb the peace.

I unlatched the chain and swung the door open. I was wearing pajamas, of course; chick-yellow ones with dinosaurs chasing butterflies. Not exactly what I would have chosen for a meeting with the police.

Detective Hayes, the bearish one, said, Whats your name?

Tandy Angel.

Are you the daughter of Malcolm and Maud Angel?

I am. Can you please tell me why youre here?

Tandy is your real name? he said, ignoring my question.

Im called Tandy. Please wait here. Ill get my parents to talk to you.

Well go with you, said Sergeant Caputo.

Caputos grim expression told me that this was not a request. I turned on lights as we headed toward my parents bedroom suite.

I was climbing the circular stairwell, thinking that my parents were going to kill me for bringing these men upstairs, when suddenly both cops pushed rudely past me. By the time I had reached my parents room, the overhead light was on and the cops were bending over my parents bed.

Even with Caputo and Hayes in the way, I could see that my mother and father looked all wrong. Their sheets and blankets were on the floor, and their nightclothes were bunched under their arms, as if theyd tried to take them off. My fathers arm looked like it had been twisted out of its socket. My mother was lying facedown across my fathers body, and her tongue was sticking out of her mouth. It had turned black.

I didnt need a coroner to tell me that they were dead. I knew it just moments after I saw them. Diagnosis certain.

I shrieked and ran toward them, but Hayes stopped me cold. He kept me out of the room, putting his big paws on my shoulders and forcibly walking me backward out to the hallway.

Im sorry to do this, he said, then shut the bedroom door in my face.

I didnt try to open it. I just stood there. Motionless. Almost not breathing.

So, you might be wondering why I wasnt bawling, screeching, or passing out from shock and horror. Or why I wasnt running to the bathroom to vomit or curling up in the fetal position, hugging my knees and sobbing. Or doing any of the things that a teenage girl whos just seen her murdered parents bodies ought to do.

The answer is complicated, but heres the simplest way to say it: Im not a whole lot like most girls. At least, not from what I can tell. For me, having a meltdown was seriously out of the question.

From the time I was two, when I first started speaking in paragraphs that began with topic sentences, Malcolm and Maud had told me that I was exceptionally smart. Later, they told me that I was analytical and focused, and that my detachment from watery emotion was a superb trait. They said that if I nurtured these qualities, I would achieve or even exceed my extraordinary potential, and this wasnt just a good thing, but a great thing. It was the only thing that mattered, in fact.

It was a challenge, and I had accepted it.

Thats why I was more prepared for this catastrophe than most kids my age would be, or maybe any kids my age.

Yes, it was true that panic was shooting up and down my spine and zinging out to my fingertips. I was shocked, maybe even terrified. But I quickly tamped down the screaming voice inside my head and collected my wits, along with the few available facts.