Free Confessions of a Murder Suspect by James Patterson

lights on an airfield at night.
    He was heading through the open doorway when Sergeant Capricorn Caputo stepped into view. He put out his hands to stop Matthew from bulling into the apartment.
    “You don’t have to call the police, Ms. Peck. We’re already here. We still have a search warrant, and we’re executing it.”
    The police had entered our house when we weren’t there. It was another scandal in a day of many.
    Uncle Peter was sitting on the red couch, his cell phone in hand. When he saw me, he covered the mouthpiece and said to me, “They’re authorized, Tandy.” Then he went back to his phone call.
    The uniformed cops inside the apartment ignored us, coming and going through the kitchen and using the service elevator, taking cartons of foodstuffs with them.
    “What the hell are you people doing here?” Matthew shouted.
    I ignored Matty’s outburst. “Have you gotten back the medical examiner’s report?” I asked Caputo as calmly as possible. “There’s only one conceivable option: My parents were poisoned.”
    “There’s a backlog of bodies at the morgue, Tookie. So save us some time, why don’t you. What poison did you use?”
    “I did some research and found that a black tongue is caused by arsenic and by heparin,” I said. “That help you any?”
    “Arsenic poisoning is very painful,” Caputo said. “It was probably a very bad death. Do you understand me? The killer showed no mercy.”
    No mercy.
The words echoed in my mind. And that’s when a very strange thing happened.
    I suddenly felt as though my head had filled with helium. Caputo went in and out of focus. I felt Matthew’s hand at my back. And then I heard people calling my name.
    I opened my eyes and I realized that I was flat on my back on the floor. I recognized the pattern on the carpet. It was definitely our carpet. I had
fainted
.
    I had passed right out in front of the cops.
    I had totally disgraced myself.
    Mother, Mother, I’m so sorry.
    Please forgive me.

25
    Samantha was only an inch or
so from my face. “Tandy, say something,
please
.” She offered me a glass of water, but I shook my head.
    “I’m… okay. I don’t know what… It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
    Caputo’s smirking features loomed in my vision. He squatted down next to me and said, “Let me tell you something, Tootsie. This could be your best chance to get ahead of what you did by confessing.”
    “Do you have any other suspects?” I asked him, getting to my feet. “Or is it the Angel kids and no one else?”
    “We like the direction the case is going. Based on my conversations with your uncle, I think your parents mighthave had an inkling about which of you was out to get them,” said Caputo. “Not to mention that I hear from multiple sources that you’re the smartest kid in the family. I think that
you
thought you could get away with it. Why? Did you want their money?”
    If I were a different person, I would have pointed out how absurd that last part was. What did I need money for? I was practically born in a bank vault. From day one, I had access to as much money as I could ever want.
    Just not as much access to light, air, and freedom.
    I ignored the impulse to berate him, because more than anything, I wanted to hear what Caputo knew. As Harry had pointed out, I didn’t have a crime lab at my disposal. Right now, Caputo was my best source of information. I would have to draw him out. This was
my
Q&A, not his.
    I said, “Sergeant, what prompted this new search? You’ve already torn the penthouse apart.”
    “We found a bottle in the trash room, Sassy. Inside that bottle was a trace of poison that matches the poison we found in a water glass we took from your parents’ bedroom.”
    The cops had forensic evidence; that was news. I knew the glasses he was referring to—the handblown Venetian-glass tumblers Malcolm and Maud had kept beside their bed.
    “So are you saying that someone made them drink the poison, then threw the bottle