James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

He started to pull out his phone, but I stopped him, suddenly remembering my visit with Mrs. Hauser two days earlier.

“Harry, listen to this. Mrs. Hauser heard Malcolm and Maud fighting the day they died. Malcolm was saying he wanted to make some ‘new financial arrangements.’ And Maud was really mad.”

“New financial arrangements? Like… for a certain incoming member of the family? You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Harry.

If Tamara and Malcolm really were involved—and the very thought of it nearly made me gag—Matthew had an undeniable motive to commit murder. It would be called a crime of passion.

To be perfectly honest, I find that phrase a little incomprehensible. I mean, I get it—but I don’t really get it.

CONFESSION

There’s a famous phrase from Shakespeare you might have heard at some point: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

That was me, saying this horror couldn’t be true. Because you know what? I really wasn’t sure that Tamara was lying. At all.

After all, there had to be a concrete reason I’d never trusted Tamara; I generally don’t react to people emotionally. I analyze them.

At the same time I was accusing Tamara of lying, an image flashed into my mind. Setting: our kitchen. Suspects: my father and Tamara Gee. Malcolm is leaning in toward Tamara, gently nudging her against the fridge… or maybe she is pulling him against her; I can’t be sure. What I am sure of is that there were no unwilling participants in this affair.

If you saw your father whispering sweet nothings into the ear of your brother’s girlfriend, and if you saw her giggle in response and nuzzle your father’s face and neck, and if you saw him smile and laugh and basically encourage the whole disgusting exchange, it would freak you out, right?

What would you do? Would you pretend you didn’t see it and just barge in, saying, “Excuse me, I need to get into the fridge!” Or would you say, “What the hell are you doing ?” Would you hold them accountable for their actions? Would you turn around and quietly leave? Would you tell your brother?

I didn’t know what to do. And thanks to Dr. Keyes and her great skill in teaching us to shatter our crippling memories, the flicker of this particular memory is so faded and gray, I’m not certain it ever actually happened. I could easily have dreamed it.

And since I will only ever act on the facts, I’m sure I never told Matthew.

But… I should have, shouldn’t I?

48

Harry looked beaten down. Actually, stomped might be a better word. As if Matthew’s football-playing teammates had used him as the playing field.

He took a carton of milk out of the fridge and poured himself a drink with a shaking hand, sloshing the liquid over the glass, onto the counter and the floor. Harry stared at the puddle of milk as if it might be the one tiny thing that would finally break him completely—the last straw, as they say.

He took his inhaler out of his pocket and sucked at the mouthpiece. Then, with a wheeze in his voice, he said, “Last night. It was like trying to sleep in hell.”

“At least hell would have been warmer,” I said, remembering the cold of my cell.

“I didn’t sleep the night before, either. Did you?”

“In thirty-second winks, between hours and hours and hours of staring up at the ceiling.”

“I’m taking this,” Harry said, holding up a square red pill. He tossed it back and chased it with the milk. Then he said, “I’m going to bed now, and no one had better bother me, because if I don’t sleep I’ll go over the edge. And I might not come back.”

“Which pill is that?” I asked sharply.

“Angel Pharma’s red pill for sleep and sweet dreams. I think it’s hibiscus. You want one?”

I was sorely tempted. Suddenly I became aware that my hand was starting to shake. Life was easier on the pills, somehow. And sleep sounded like such a heavenly, peaceful escape from this nightmare.…

But no. I needed to meet Tandoori Angel—the real one. The one who wasn’t molded, beaten down and perked up, and supernaturally enhanced by drugs.

“I want to get off the pills,” I forced myself to say. “All of them. And you should, too. I thought you told me you were quitting.”

“What, do you want me to die, too, Tandy? Like our parents? Because I’m telling you, I can’t live without sleep right now.”

I resisted the urge to slap him, an urge I’d never felt before. I hated it. Hated it. Was this the real Tandy?

I decided to go back to the Tandy I knew. FOF Tandy.

“Tamara Gee’s probably lying,” I said, changing the subject.

“Actually, I believe her,” Harry said. He put up a hand, then coughed and coughed, trying to get a good breath. After his coughing fit, he set his empty glass on the counter and slouched out of the kitchen.

“Sleep like a stump,” I called after him.

I hit the rewind button on the DVR and watched Laurie Kim’s interview with Matty’s so-called girlfriend, Tamara Gee, again. It was impressive. Tamara made good eye contact with Ms. Kim. She didn’t fidget. She looked confident—and truthful.

But Tamara Gee is an actress.

She could probably lie convincingly about how many thumbs she has. And if she was lying about being pregnant with my father’s baby, the only reason that made sense was that she hoped to land a big settlement from the overstuffed Angel estate.

And then a new thought came to me, like a train pulling into Grand Central Terminal: Had my mother known of this affair? If she knew, she would have borne the pain—and hidden it completely, of course—in order to keep our family intact and avoid public humiliation.

Maud had few friends, but she had a confidante in her assistant, Samantha Peck. If Maud had known about Malcolm and Tamara, she might have told Samantha.

And Samantha had, after all, told me that my mother was a woman of many secrets.…

Was this one of them?

I was going to try to find out.

49

Not only was Samantha intelligent, but I truly believed she genuinely liked my mother. If Maud had told Samantha that my father was having an affair, Samantha would have kept her confidence as a matter of principle.

I left the kitchen and went down the hall to Samantha’s room. I knocked, and when she didn’t answer the door, I turned the knob, entered her very organized room, and got to work.

Half of the space was a tidy pink bedroom; the other half was an efficient little office with a bank of file cabinets, a wooden desk that held a laptop and a printer, and a swivel desk chair.

I was not surprised to find that the computer was password-protected and my random guesses wouldn’t get me in.

Aside from the computer and printer, there were only a few items on Samantha’s desk: a heavy-duty stapler, a set of Russian nesting dolls, and a crystal bowl filled with peppermint candies.

I unwrapped a peppermint and sucked on it as I opened the desk drawer.

Apparently Samantha liked little boxes, as the top drawer was full of them: candy tins, enameled pillboxes, porcelain heart-shaped containers, and a sturdy little box made of stone.