Harlan Coben - Fool Me Once

“As you know, we recovered three bullets from your husband’s body. Thirty-eight calibers, consistent with the Smith and Wesson.” He rubbed his face as if in deep thought. “You own guns, don’t you, Maya?”

“I do.”

“Would one of them happen to be a Smith and Wesson 686?”

“You know the answer,” she said.

“How would I know that?”

“New Jersey law requires that I register all weapons purchased in state. So you know all this. Unless you’re a complete incompetent, Detective Kierce, which you are definitely not, you checked my gun records immediately. So can we stop playing games and get to it?”

“How far would you say it is from where your husband fell to Bethesda Fountain?”

The subject change threw her. “I’m sure you did the measurements.”

“We did, yes. It’s approximately three hundred yards with all the twists and turns. I ran it. I’m not in as good a shape as you, but it took me about a minute.”

“Okay.”

“Well, here’s the thing. Several witnesses said they heard the gunshot but then you emerged at least a minute or two later. How do you explain that?”

“Why would I need to explain it?”

“It’s a fair question.”

She didn’t so much as blink. “Do you think I shot my husband, Detective?”

“Did you?”

“No. And you know how I can prove it?”

“How?”

“Come to the range with me.”

“Meaning?”

“Like you said, I’m an expert markswoman.”

“So we’ve been told.”

“Then you know.”

“Know what?”

Maya leaned forward and met his eye. “It wouldn’t have taken me three shots to kill a man from that distance if I was blindfolded.”

Kierce actually smiled at that. “Touché. And I’m sorry for the line of inquiry because no, I don’t think you shot your husband. In fact, I can pretty much prove you didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

Kierce stood. “Do you keep your guns here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you mind showing me?”

First, she took him to the gun safe in the basement.

“I guess you’re a big fan of the Second Amendment,” Kierce said.

“I don’t get into politics.”

“But you like guns.” He looked at the safe. “I don’t see a combination wheel. Does it open with a key?”

“Nope. You can only access it with your thumbprint.”

“Ah, I see. So it’s set that only you can open it.”

Maya swallowed. “It is now.”

“Oh,” Kierce said, realizing his mistake. “Your husband?”

She nodded.

“Anyone else besides you two have access?”

“No one.” She placed her thumb on the opening. The door opened with an audible pop. She stepped aside.

Kierce looked inside and whistled low. “What do you need all these for?”

“I don’t need any of them. I enjoy shooting. It’s my hobby. Most people don’t like it or get it. That’s fine with me.”

“So where is your Smith and Wesson 686?”

She pointed into the safe. “Here.”

His eyes narrowed. “May I take it with me?”

“The Smith and Wesson?”

“Yes, if it isn’t an issue.”

“I thought you didn’t think I did it.”

“I don’t. But we might as well eliminate not only you but your gun, don’t you think?”

Maya took out the Smith and Wesson. She was, like most good shooters, OCD when it came to cleaning and loading/unloading her weaponry, which just meant you always check again to make sure it is unloaded. It was.

“I’ll give you a receipt for it,” he said.

“I, of course, could ask for a court order.”

“And I’d probably be able to get it,” he said.

True enough. She gave him the weapon.

“Detective?”

“What?”

“You’re not telling me something.”

Kierce smiled. “I’ll be in touch.”

Isabella, Lily’s nanny, arrived at seven the next morning.

At the funeral, Isabella’s family had been among the most animated of the mourners. Her mother, Rosa, Joe’s childhood nanny, had been especially distraught, clutching a handkerchief and continually collapsing on her own children, Isabella and Hector. Even now, Maya could still see the tinge of red in Isabella’s eyes from yesterday’s tears.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Burkett.”

Maya had asked her several times to call her by her first name, not Mrs. Burkett, but Isabella would just nod and continue to call her Mrs. Burkett, so Maya let it go. If Isabella was more comfortable with formality in her work environment, who was Maya to force it?

“Thank you, Isabella.”

Lily hopped out of her kitchen chair, the cereal still in her mouth, and ran toward them. “Isabella!”

Isabella’s face lit up as she swooped the little girl into her arms and gave her a big hug. Maya felt the quick pang of the working mother: grateful that her daughter liked her nanny so much while ungrateful that her daughter liked her nanny so much.

Did she trust Isabella?

The answer was, as she had said yesterday, yes — as much as she would trust any “stranger” in this situation. Joe had hired Isabella, of course. Maya hadn’t been sure about it. There was this new day care center on Porter Street called Growin’ Up, which Maya read as a small homage to the old Bruce Springsteen song. A pretty, young smiley thing named Kitty Shum (“Call me Miss Kitty!”) had given Maya a tour of the clean, sleek, multihued rooms of overstimulation, with all kinds of cameras and security procedures and other young smiley things and, of course, other children for Lily to play with, but Joe had been insistent on a nanny. He reminded Maya that Isabella’s mother had “practically raised me,” and Maya had jokingly countered, “Are you sure that’s a résumé enhancer?” But since Maya had been heading overseas for a six-month deployment at the time, she really had little say in the choice — and no reason not to embrace it.

Maya kissed Lily on the top of her head and headed off to work. She could have taken a few more days and stayed at home with her daughter. She certainly didn’t need the money — even with the prenup, she would be a very wealthy widow — but classically doting motherhood was simply not for her. Maya had tried to dive into the whole “mommy world,” the coffee klatches with her fellow moms where they discussed toilet training, top preschools, stroller safety ratings, and slow-bragged with genuine interest about their own children’s mundane development. Maya would sit there and smile, but behind her eyes, she would be flashing back to Iraq, to a specific blood-filled memory — usually Jake Evans, a nineteen-year-old from Fayetteville, Arkansas, getting the entire lower part of his body blown off yet somehow surviving — and trying to somehow come to terms with the unfathomable fact that this gossipy coffee klatch existed on the same planet as that blood-soaked battleground.

Sometimes, when she was with the other moms, the sounds of the rotors more than the gruesome visuals would come roaring back. Ironic, she thought, that this in-your-face, never-back-off parenting was nicknamed “helicoptering.”

They all just didn’t have clue.

Maya assessed her surroundings as she headed to the car in her own driveway, looking for places where the enemy could hide or spring an attack. The reason for doing this was simple: Old habits die hard. Once a soldier, always a soldier.

No sign of the enemy, imaginary or not.

Maya knew that she suffered some textbook mental malady from being over there, but the truth is, no one comes back without scars. To her, that malady felt more like enlightenment. She got the world now. Others didn’t.

In the Army, Maya had flown combat helicopters, often providing cover and clearing for advancing ground troops. She’d started by flying UH-60 Black Hawks at Fort Campbell before logging enough miles to apply for the prestigious 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) in the Middle East. Soldiers routinely called helicopters “birds,” which was fine, but there were few things more grating than when a civilian did the same. It had been her plan to stay in the service, probably for life, but after that video had been released on the CoreyTheWhistle site, that particular plan was blown up as though it too, like Jake Evans, had stepped on an IED.