Harlan Coben: Fool Me Once

“Why did you and Joe meet up in Central Park?”

“He asked me to.”

“On the phone, right?”

“Yes.”

“Was this normal?”

“We had met up there before, yes.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. A bunch of times. I told you. It’s a nice area of the park. We used to spread out a blanket and then we’d have lunch at the Boathouse...” She caught herself, stopped, swallowed. “It was just a nice place, that’s all.”

“During the day, yes. But it’s a little secluded at night, don’t you think?”

“We always felt safe there.”

He smiled at her. “I bet you feel safe most places.”

“Meaning?”

“When you’ve been where you’ve been, I mean, in terms of dangerous places, I guess a park must rank pretty low.” Kierce coughed into his fist. “Anyway, so your husband called you and said, ‘Let’s meet there,’ and so you did.”

“That’s right.”

“Except” — Kierce checked his notepad, licked his fingers, started paging through it — “he didn’t call you.”

He looked up at her.

“Excuse me?”

“You said Joe called you and said to meet you there.”

“No, you said that. I said he suggested we meet there on the phone.”

“But then I followed up with ‘He called you’ and you said, ‘That’s right.’”

“You’re playing semantics with me, Detective. You have the phone records for that night, am I correct?”

“I do, yes.”

“And it shows a phone call between my husband and me?”

“It does.”

“I don’t remember if I called him or he called me. But he suggested that we meet at our favorite spot in the park. I could have suggested it — I don’t see the relevance — and in fact, I might have, had he not suggested it first.”

“Can anyone verify that you and Joe used to meet up there?”

“I don’t think so, but I don’t see the relevance.”

Kierce gave her an insincere smile. “Neither do I, so let’s move on, shall we?”

She crossed her legs and waited.

“You describe two men approaching you from the west. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“They wore ski masks?”

She had been through this dozens of times already. “Yes.”

“Black ski masks, am I right?”

“You are.”

“And you said that one was about six feet tall — how tall are you, Mrs. Burkett?”

She almost snapped that he should call her captain — she hated being called missus — but that rank wasn’t apropos anymore. “Please call me Maya. And I’m right about six feet tall.”

“So one man was your height.”

She tried not to roll her eyes. “Uh, yes.”

“You were pretty precise in your description of the assailants.” Kierce started reading from his notepad. “One man was six feet tall. The other you estimated to be about five eight. One wore a black hoodie, jeans, and red Converse sneakers. The other wore a light blue T-shirt with no logo, beige backpack, and black running shoes, though you couldn’t tell the brand.”

“That’s correct.”

“The man with the red Cons — he was the one who shot your husband.”

“Yes.”

“And then you ran.”

Maya said nothing.

“According to your statement, they wanted to rob you. You said that Joe was slow to give up his wallet. Your husband also wore a very expensive watch. A Hublot, I believe.”

Her throat was dry. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“Why didn’t he just hand it over?”

“I think... I think he would have.”

“But?”

She shook her head.

“Maya?”

“Have you ever had a gun jammed into your face, Detective?”

“No.”

“Then maybe you don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“The muzzle. The opening. When someone is pointing it at you, when someone is threatening to pull the trigger, that black hole grows impossibly large, like it’s going to swallow you whole. Some people, when they see that, they freeze.”

Kierce’s voice was soft now. “And Joe... he was one of those people?”

“For a second.”

“And that was too long?”

“In this case, yes.”

They sat in silence for a few long moments.

“Could the gun have gone off by accident?” Kierce asked.

“I doubt it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Two reasons. One, it was a revolver. Do you know anything about them?”

“Not a ton.”

“Because of the action, you either have to cock it back or squeeze very hard. You don’t accidentally fire.”

“I see. And the second reason?”

“More obvious,” she said. “The gunman fired two more times. You don’t ‘accidentally’ fire three bullets.”

Kierce nodded and checked the notes again. “The first bullet hit your husband’s left shoulder. The second hit landed in the right tangent of his clavicle.”

Maya closed her eyes.

“How far away was the gunman when he fired?”

“Ten feet.”

“Our ME said neither one of these shots was fatal.”

“Yes, you told me,” she said.

“So what happened then?”

“I tried to hold him up...”

“Joe?”

“Yes, Joe,” she snapped. “Who else?”

“Sorry. Then what happened?”

“I... Joe dropped to his knees.”

“And that was when the gunman fired the third shot?”

Maya said nothing.

“The third shot,” Kierce repeated. “The one that killed him.”

“I already told you.”

“Told me what?”

Maya raised her eyes and met his. “I didn’t see the third shot.”

Kierce nodded. “That’s right,” he said too slowly. “Because you were running away by then.”

“Help... please... someone... my husband’s...”

Her chest started to hitch. The sounds — gunfire, the whir of helicopter rotors, the screams of agony — rushed her all at once. She shut her eyes, took a few deep breaths, kept her face composed.

“Maya?”

“Yes, I ran. Okay? Two men had guns. I ran. I ran and left my husband behind, and then somewhere, I don’t know, maybe five, ten seconds later, I heard the blast coming from behind me and yes, now, based on what you told me, I know that after I left, the same gunman put the gun against my husband’s head while he was still on his knees, pulled the trigger...”

She stopped.

“No one is blaming you, Maya.”

“I didn’t ask if anyone was, Detective,” she said through gritted teeth. “What do you want?”

Kierce started paging through the notes. “Besides very detailed descriptions of the perpetrators, you were able to tell us that the one with the red Cons carried a Smith and Wesson 686 while his partner was armed with a Beretta M9.” Kierce looked up. “That’s pretty impressive. Identifying the weaponry like that.”

“Part of the training.”

“That would be your military training, am I correct?”

“Let’s just say I’m observant.”

“Oh, I think you’re being modest, Maya. We all know that about your heroics overseas.”

And my downfall, she almost added.

“The lighting in that part of the park isn’t great. Just a few distant streetlights.”

“It’s enough.”

“Enough to know specific gun makes?”

“I know firearms.”

“Right, of course. You are, in fact, an expert marksman, is that correct?”

“Markswoman.”

The correction came automatically. So did his patronizing smile.

“My bad. Still it was dark—”

“The Smith and Wesson was stainless steel, as opposed to black. Easy to see in the dark. I could also hear him pull back the hammer. You do that on a revolver, not a semiautomatic.”

“And the Beretta?”

“I can’t be sure of the exact make, but it had a floating barrel in the style of Beretta.”