Harlan Coben - Fool Me Once

“Then again?”

Maya looked up at him. “I wasn’t around a whole lot.”

“You were deployed overseas.”

“Right.”

“Still,” Kierce said, “none of it adds up. What would make someone kill Claire, hold on to the gun for four months, and then give it to this Katen guy to kill Joe?”

“Yo, Kierce?”

It was another cop in the station. The younger man stood across the room and beckoned for Kierce to come toward him.

“Excuse me a moment.”

Kierce headed over to the cop. The young cop leaned in, and the two men started whispering. Maya watched. Her head was still spinning, but her thoughts kept returning to something that didn’t seem to concern Kierce in the least.

The nanny cam video.

That was natural, she supposed. He hadn’t seen the actual images. He was preoccupied with the facts, and while he didn’t completely dismiss what she said as the ravings of a delusional nutbag, he probably figured that it was the work of an overactive imagination or something in that realm. To be fair, even Maya had to consider that possibility.

Kierce finished up the conversation and came toward her.

“What’s wrong?”

He grabbed his suit coat and threw it over his shoulder like Sinatra playing the Sands. “I’ll drive you home,” he said. “We can finish this conversation on the way.”

Ten minutes into the ride, Kierce said, “So you saw me talking to that cop before we left, right?”

“Yes.”

“That was about your, uh, situation.” He kept his eyes on the road. “I mean, what you said about the nanny cam and the pepper spray and all that.”

So he hadn’t forgotten. “What about it?”

“Well, look, I’m going to ignore for now what you said about the contents, okay? Until I see and we can both analyze the video, there’s no reason to discredit or, uh, confirm what may be on that... What was it again, a USB drive?”

“An SD card.”

“Right, the SD card. There is no reason yet to deal with intangibles. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do.”

“I’m not following.”

“You were assaulted. That’s a fact. Check that: You were clearly hit with pepper spray or some agent in that family. Your eyes are still red. I can see that you are still dealing with the residual aftereffects. So whatever else we want to believe, clearly something happened to you.”

He made a turn, sneaking a glance at her as he did.

“You said that it was your nanny, Isabella, who assaulted you, right?”

“Right.”

“So I sent a man out to her house. You know. To check out your claim.”

Her claim. Nice lingo. “So did your man find her?”

Kierce kept his eyes fixed on the road. “Let me ask you a question first.”

She didn’t like that reply. “Okay.”

“During this altercation,” he began, speaking with more care now, “did you threaten or choke Isabella Mendez?”

“Is that what she told you?”

“It’s a simple question.”

“No, I did not.”

“You didn’t touch her?”

“I may have touched, but—”

“May have?”

“Come on, Detective. I may have touched her to get her attention. The way two women might.”

“Two women.” He almost smiled. “So now you’re playing the woman card with me?”

“I didn’t hurt her or anything.”

“Did you grab her?”

Maya saw where this was going. “So your man found her?”

“He did.”

“And she, what, claimed that she pepper-sprayed me in self-defense?”

“Something like that. She said that you were acting irrationally.”

“In what way?”

“She said you were ranting about seeing Joe on a video.”

Maya tried to think how to play this. “What else did she say?”

“She said that you scared her. She said that you grabbed her by the shirt, near the throat, in a threatening manner.”

“I see.”

“Is she telling the truth?”

“Did she mention that I played the video for her?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“She said the screen was blank.”

“Wow,” Maya said.

“She said that she worried you were delusional. She said that you served in the military and that you often carry a gun. She said when you add all that up — your background, your ranting, your delusions, your assault of her first—”

“Assault?”

“By your own admission, Maya, you touched her.”

She frowned but kept still.

“Isabella said that she felt threatened, so she used the pepper spray and ran.”

“Did your man ask about the missing SD card?”

“He did.”

“Let me guess. She didn’t take it and knows nothing about it.”

“Bingo,” Kierce said. He hit the turn signal. “Do you still want to press charges?”

But Maya could see how this would play out. A gun nut with a controversial past in the military screams about her murdered husband playing with their daughter on a video, grabs the nanny by the lapels — and then accuses the nanny of, what, unjustified use of pepper spray? Oh, and stealing the video of her dead husband.

Yeah, that’ll play.

“Not now,” Maya said.

Kierce dropped her off at the house. He promised to stay in touch about any new developments. Maya thanked him. She debated picking up Lily at day care, but after one quick look at her new phone app — it was story time, and even from the odd angle of the camera, Maya could see that Lily was riveted — she decided that it could wait.

Dozens of messages and texts were on her phone, all from Joe’s family. Oh, damn. She had missed the reading of the will. She didn’t much care for her own sake, but Joe’s family must have been livid. She picked up the phone and called Joe’s mother.

Judith picked up the phone on the first ring. “Maya?”

“I’m sorry about today.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Maya said.

“And Lily?”

“Fine too. Something came up. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Something came up more important than—”

“The police found the shooters,” Maya interrupted. “They needed me to identify them.”

Maya heard Judith gasp. “Were you able to?”

“Yes.”

“So they’re in jail? It’s over?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Maya said. “Right now, they don’t have enough to hold them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They wore ski masks, so I never saw their faces. Build and clothing isn’t enough.”

“So... so they just let them go? The two men who killed my son are free to walk the streets?”

“They have one on a weapons charge. Like I said, it’s complicated.”

“Maybe we can talk about it when you come by tomorrow morning? Heather Howell felt it best if we wait until all parties are present before we read the will.”

Heather Howell was the family attorney. Maya said her good-byes, hung up, and stared at her kitchen. Everything was sleek and new, and God, she missed that old Formica kitchen table in Brooklyn.

What the hell was she doing in this house? She had never belonged here.

She walked over to the nanny cam picture frame. Maybe the SD card was still inside it. Maya couldn’t imagine how that would happen, but she was pretty much open to any interpretation. Had she really seen Joe on that video cam? No. Could he somehow still be alive? No. Had she imagined the whole thing?

No.

Her dad had been a big fan of detective fiction. He used to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Maya and Claire at that Formica kitchen table. How had Sherlock Holmes put it? “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Maya picked up the picture frame and looked in the back.