James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

Inside the stone box was a bunch of small keys. Was this it ? Far too easy. Working quickly, I opened the thirty file drawers, one at a time. What were my mother’s secrets? Would there be a record of them here?

I thumbed through a lot of files filled with paid bills, memos, and tax returns. I found receipts for furniture and for artwork, and I came across a file of birthday cards from all of us kids to Maud. I thought it was uncharacteristically sentimental of her to have saved them.

I spotted my self-conscious nine-year-old handwriting in one card:

Dearest Mother,

Happy Birthday. May you find today productive and fulfilling. I will spend the day working on my Latin and learning how to construct the perfect birthday cake with Father. We will all enjoy it together when you come home.

Sincerely, Tandoori

Even I could tell that was not normal. Not in the least.

Then I found a whole standing file case relating to my mother’s company, as well as full drawers concerning Royal Rampling, the man who was suing Maud. Did he have an interest in seeing my mother dead? It was certainly my investigative responsibility to study these files in painstaking detail.

But I wasn’t ready to do that yet. Please don’t ask me why.

Instead, my fingers started nervously flipping through the folders, my eyes scanning faster and faster until I got to the back of the bottom drawer. I halted when I spotted some familiar writing. I recognized it as having come from my own hand. The folder was labeled J.R.

Did I want to look at this?

Yes, Tandy , a little voice told me. Go ahead.

I can’t call what was in front of me “my” handwriting per se, because it was done in calligraphy. At least a hundred pages, all written with an old-fashioned flat-nib pen and a bottle of ink. I’d copied the more than ten thousand words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem “Maud.” In Germanic gothic script. It had been a wicked Big Chop, I remember that much.

But for what? The whole point of a Big Chop was to make certain that you would never, ever again make the mistake you made to merit the chop.

What had I done to deserve this specific punishment?

I wasn’t ready to go back to that place yet.

I quickly flipped through the first fifty pages, scanning the poem. Many of the words themselves chilled me: “Villainy somewhere! Whose? One says, we are villains all.…” But what chilled me even more was remembering how I’d felt when I wrote those words: like a traitor.

Shivers started shooting up and down my spine to the point that I felt nearly paralyzed.

I shut the folder and slammed it back into the drawer.

Not now, Tandy. This is distracting you from the real mystery , I reminded myself. Leave it alone.

50

Despite all the searching, I discovered nothing concerning Malcolm and Tamara’s alleged affair. I threw myself into Samantha’s chair, propped my feet up on her desk, and took a long look around the room.

My detecting instincts were telling me that I was missing something important here about Malcolm and Maud’s relationship.

I was, I was, I was—until I wasn’t .

As I swiveled in Samantha’s chair, my shoe hit the desk, which shook the egg-shaped set of Russian nesting dolls. The toy tipped over and rolled toward the edge of the desk, but I managed to grab it before it fell. Then I gave it a closer look.

Like many nesting dolls, this set was wooden, hollow, and brightly painted to look like a Russian peasant woman. It was made so that the outer doll could be taken apart to reveal the next, smaller doll inside. The largest, outermost doll had a painted red scarf. The next doll inside held a bouquet of daisies.

I kept opening the successively smaller dolls until I was holding the sixth and smallest one. I shook it and heard something rattle inside that didn’t sound like another doll. It sounded metallic. Another key?

I twisted open the smallest doll and found a folded paper. And inside the paper was a lump of gold.

I pulled out the lump and straightened out a delicate gold chain that held a heart-shaped locket with a brilliant-cut center diamond.

I turned on the desk lamp, then opened the locket.

Inside was a tiny snapshot of my mother and Samantha, both of them smiling broadly.

I had to squint to read the inscription on the back of the locket, but it was legible.

SAMMY, LOVE FOREVER—MAUD

My heart banged inside my chest like a racehorse trying to kick down its stall.

What was this ?

Sammy, love forever—Maud.

My mother wasn’t an air-kisser. She would never say “love forever” casually. I don’t remember my mother ever telling me that she loved me .

I held the locket in my sweating hand and tried to make sense of the new shape my ideas were taking. My mother and “Sammy.” Love forever.

Was my mother actually having a love affair with Samantha? How could I not have known, with both of them living under this roof? And was this why my father might have had an extramarital affair of his own?

Or had Maud and Samantha’s bond been strengthened, even transformed, after my mother learned of my father’s dalliance with a woman young enough to be his daughter?

It didn’t matter. At that moment, all I could see was that both of them were traitors. And liars. To each other, to their family. To me.

No wonder they were both dead.

It was starting not to seem so very shocking anymore.

51

The first thing I did was wake up Harry.

Harry didn’t like being woken up one bit, of course. He shoved me aside and pulled the covers over his head. “Go away, Tandy. Get out of here. I’m not kidding .”

“I’m sorry, but YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!”

I yanked down the blankets and opened one of his eyes with my fingers.

He batted my hand away. “Are you crazy?”

“Look at this, then you tell me.”

I switched on the light next to Harry’s bed and gave him the locket.

I bit down hard on my lip as he opened the heart and looked at the picture. Then Harry did as I had done; he flipped the locket over and read the inscription.

He read the engraving a second time, then handed me the locket, fell back onto his pillow, and pulled the covers over his face again.

I poked his arm. “So, what do you think?”

“Think? I can’t think anymore. I can only feel pain. What is going on around here? I mean, what was going on?”

Focus on the facts, Tandy. “ Both our parents were probably having affairs. Only Maud’s looks like it was going on inside our home .” I swallowed. “That’s pretty sad.”

“Sad? I call it sick! I call it outrageously disrespectful to every other Angel in the house.”

“Well, I call Malcolm screwing around with a girl young enough to be my sister—who is ALSO MY BROTHER’S GIRLFRIEND!—probably even more outrageously sick and disrespectful.”

“That, too,” said Harry. “Let’s face it, our ’rents were pretty despicable. No wonder they’re dead.”

My thoughts were blooming like poisonous flowers, bright and noxious and irrepressible.

“Harry, think about this. I’m just trying out a theory, okay? What if Samantha wanted to go public with the love affair? What if she wanted Maud to leave Malcolm? What if Maud refused? People have been killed for less rejection than that.”