Confessions: The Private School Murders (10 page)

I woke up with my heart pounding
like I was being chased by a herd of blank-eyed, gaping-mouthed walking dead. I’d had a bad dream, but of what? Dead girls? Snakes? The white rooms at Fern Haven?

As I clutched my blanket to my sides, I remembered. It was about Matthew.

Matthew’s trial was starting today.

I rousted my siblings, and we chowed breakfast down while standing around the kitchen island. Then we pooled our resources and cabbed it downtown to the Manhattan Criminal Court at 100 Centre Street.

The streets were knotted with morning traffic. We spent long minutes sweating in the backseat of the cab, catching
every single red light as commercial vehicles and herds of pedestrians blocked the roadways.

I was frustrated and mad at myself for oversleeping. What was with the new slumber-loving me? Was it another side effect of not taking my parents’ drugs? And why today of all days? Philippe had warned me that if we were late, we would be barred from the courtroom until the lunch recess, and that just wasn’t acceptable. I wanted Matthew to see that we were there to support him.

Our cab did the stop-and-go thing for several more minutes, and I thought Hugo might burst with impatience. When we were finally within walking distance of Centre Street, Harry paid the fare, and we leapt from the cab.

Together we ran toward the biggest building around. The courthouse was an imposing seventeen stories high, faced with granite and limestone, topped with an Art Deco ziggurat crown. It took up a full New York City block.

We zipped between the large, free-standing columns guarding the entrance and entered the swarming marble lobby, where we were funneled into a security line. A man with a wand checked us for weapons, and then we charged toward the elevator banks. As we crammed ourselves inside with a dozen others, Hugo pushed the button for the ninth floor.

I tried to gather strength from the proximity of my
brothers, but still, my newly awakened emotions were roiling. My feet tapped impatiently beneath me while I watched the numbers light up over the door in what felt like slow motion.

Today New York City’s star prosecutor, Nadine Raphael, would give her opening statement, and then our family friend and attorney, Philippe Montaigne, would give his. Phil was a good lawyer and our family has trusted him for years, but criminal defense was not his area of expertise. Given our current financial constraints, we decided he was our best bet. But Nadine Raphael, on the other hand, was a Harvard-trained viper.

The elevator doors opened into a hallway that was jam-packed with lawyers and court workers by the hundreds. There was also a shifting phalanx of reporters jostling for a lead like a pack of hounds on the scent of a rabbit.

You have to understand: Our family was like raw-meat kibble for these oh-so-friendly, super-awesome, totally polite, not-at-all-invasive paparazzi. You can just imagine how many plays on words the brainiacs at places like TMZ had come up with for our name so far.
Fallen Angels. No Angels Among Us
. And my personal favorite, the one that almost inspired me to set the kiosk at the corner of Fifty-Seventh and Seventh on fire—the huge headline the
Post
slapped over Matthew’s mug shot:
ANGEL OF DEATH
.

So when the pack of reporters spotted us, they attacked. What could possibly be more exciting for inquiring minds?

A reporter I had seen hanging around the Dakota was the first to speak. “Hugo. Hugo! Why did Matthew kill Tamara? What did he tell you?”

Hugo snapped his head around. “Matthew is innocent! Get it right.”

Not that I didn’t enjoy a good stampede, but I’d had enough. Harry, Hugo, and I managed to get through the heavy wooden door to the courtroom a split second before the bailiff slammed it closed. The slam echoed ominously.

We three younger Angel children stood at the back of the courtroom in one tight line as every single person in the gallery turned to stare. If things went as predicted, Matthew’s trial would be nasty, tawdry, and totally fascinating for the public at large.

My poor brother. The media beast was hungry, and Matthew Angel was the appetizer, the main dish,
and
the dessert.

Harry reached for my right hand. Hugo reached for my left. I squeezed both.

The very least we could do was stick together.

17

The courtroom was paneled
top to bottom in mahogany, had twenty-foot ceilings topped with carved gargoyles and angels, and was totally imposing. The twenty-two rows of high-backed benches, a lot like church pews, were almost completely filled.

My brothers and I made our way toward the front of the room, where railings and a gate separated the audience from the well, the enclosed area where the lawyers, the jury, and the judge would be putting on the trial.

The judge’s bench was high above the courtroom floor, backed by flags and the New York State insignia. I looked at the table where Philippe and Matthew would be sitting;
it was empty. Across the aisle, Nadine Raphael’s team was setting up at the prosecution table.

People in the fourth row slid over and made room for us. I gave the seat on the aisle to Hugo so that he could see the action. My usually boisterous, optimistic brother sat down, the picture of solemnity. I think he knew this was the center of the no-kidding-around universe.

Hugo straightened up and grabbed my knee when Matthew came in with Philippe. Whispers flew up from the gallery like pigeons.

There he is.

There’s Matthew Angel.

Oh my God. He looks awful.

Do you think he did it?

Phil was handsome as always, shaved head, expensive tailoring, tidy with a capital
T
, an urban lawyer in command. My brother was wearing a suit that looked loose on him, and his expression sagged.

He didn’t see us, but I hoped he could feel that his siblings had his back.

A lot of business was conducted in the next hour. Chubby-cheeked Judge Bradley Mudge addressed the people in the gallery. He told us the rules of order, and when the jury came in, he spent a long time instructing them on trial procedure.

I studied the faces and body language of the jurors and alternates. The people who would decide my brother’s fate looked like a bunch of average Joes and Janes, none any more remarkable than the last.

But then I snuck another look at the prosecutor whose job it was to keep Matthew in jail, and goose bumps chilled my skin.

That woman was scary.

18

I craned my head
to get a good look at prosecutor Nadine Raphael. She was almost six feet tall, with a powerful build, like an Olympic swimmer. Her broad shoulders and narrow hips were encased in a tight red Armani suit, and her black hair was short and swept back, tucked behind her ears, highlighting her beautiful, angular face. She could have been a modern-day Greek goddess—the severe and statuesque Pallas Athena, to be exact.

Ms. Raphael stepped out from behind the prosecution table and click-clacked smartly to the lectern in the center of the courtroom. About two hundred pairs of eyes followed.

She said hello to the jury, held up a photograph, and
launched her opening statement. I glanced at Harry and held my breath.

“This is one of the victims in this case, Tamara Gee. A sweet young woman of twenty-four, generous, funny, and if she looks familiar to you, maybe you’ve seen her on television or in the movies. But I don’t want to focus on her career.”

Sure you don’t
, I thought.
Reminding everyone of how universally beloved Tamara was won’t help your case at all.

“Tamara was a real person, a citizen of this city, an exemplary soul, and an expectant mother of the other victim in this trial. That victim was her unborn child. A child she called Trevor. A boy who never drew a single breath or opened his eyes. He died inside his mother’s body.

“Until three months ago, Tamara lived with the defendant in the Village, in a nice apartment in an old building with an Italian restaurant downstairs.

“She liked to read mysteries until late at night, wake up early, and go for a run on the empty streets of Tribeca. And she was in love with Matthew Angel.”

My mouth went dry. This woman was good at her job.

“Not surprising. Matthew is one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. But I’m not here to praise Matthew Angel. Let’s just say that Tamara loved him and
trusted him and was dreaming of the future, when she would have their baby.

“Sometime on the night of October twenty-second, or in the early-morning hours that followed, Matthew came home and went to bed with Tamara. According to his statement to the police, Matthew had been drinking. Had he also been brooding, harboring anger as well? Was he enraged that the baby Tamara carried might be his
brother
, not his
son
?”

Harry’s grip on my hand tightened. I gripped him right back.

“We don’t know what was in Matthew’s mind. We only know that on the morning of October twenty-third, Mandy Shine, the housekeeper employed by Matthew and Tamara, knocked on the door, and when no one came to answer it, she went into the apartment, as was her custom.

“What she saw that morning caused her to run screaming into the street, prompting the doorman to investigate and immediately call the police.”

Nadine Raphael spun on her designer heels, returned to the prosecution table, and exchanged the glamour photo of Tamara for another one. I tried to see it, but the prosecutor held it against her body.

Then she said, “This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Ms. Shine saw.”

Nadine held up a horrible bloody picture of Tamara Gee lying faceup on a big white bed, a sheet covering her baby bump. Bright red blood was sprayed and spattered on every surface of the room, contrasting Tamara’s pale skin and blond hair. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling faint.

Jurors gasped at the sight of the grotesque tableau. The foreman, a large sunburned man, covered his eyes with the palms of his big rough hands. The brassy-blond woman sitting next to him doubled over and groaned. Another juror, a woman about Tamara’s age, covered her mouth with her fingertips as tears filled her eyes.