Harlan Coben - Fool Me Once

Kierce opened his mouth, but Maya, taking a page from Miss Kitty, stopped him with a hand gesture.

“And before you give some bullshit excuse, we both know that’s not why I’m here. And before you ask how I know that, we are in Newark, not New York City. We are in the jurisdiction of Curly here — sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“Essex County detective Demetrius Mavrogenous.”

“Great, do you mind if I stick with Curly? But let’s stop wasting all of our time, shall we? If this was about Joe’s murder, we would be in your Central Park Precinct, Detective Kierce. Instead, we find ourselves in Newark, which is Essex County, the jurisdiction for Livingston, New Jersey, which was where the body of Tom Douglass was located last night.”

“Not located,” Kierce said, trying to regain any kind of momentum, “but found. By you.”

“Yes, well, that’s not new information, is it?”

She stopped and waited.

“No,” Kierce finally said. “It isn’t.”

“Great. And I’m not under arrest, am I?”

“No, you’re not.”

“So stop with the games, Detective. Tell me what you found that led to my being here this morning.”

Kierce looked at Curly. Curly nodded.

“Please look at the screen to your right.”

There was a flat-screen television hung on the wall. Curly picked up a remote, turned it on, and a video came to life. It was from a CCTV security camera at a gas station. You could see one gas pump and, in the background, the street and a traffic light. Maya couldn’t say where this gas station was located exactly, but she had a pretty good idea of where this was going. She sneaked a glance at Kierce. Kierce was watching her for a reaction.

“Hold up,” Curly said, “right here.”

He hit the pause button. He started to zoom in, and Maya could see her car at the red light facing right. The camera focused in toward the back of her car. “We can only make out the first two letters, but they match your license plate. Is that your car, Mrs. Burkett?”

She could argue and say that there were probably other BMWs with license plates that started with those two letters, but what was the point? “It appears to be.”

Kierce nodded at Curly. Curly lifted the remote and pressed the button. The camera moved toward the passenger-door window. All eyes fell to her.

“Who is that man in the passenger seat?” Kierce asked.

There was too much glare on the window to see more than a baseball cap and a smudge that was unmistakably a person.

Maya did not reply.

“Mrs. Burkett.”

She stayed silent.

“You told us last night that you were alone when you found Mr. Douglass’s body, isn’t that correct?”

Maya looked at the screen. “I don’t see anything here that contradicts that.”

“You’re clearly not alone.”

“And I’m clearly not at the body shop where the body was found.”

“Are you telling us that this man—”

“You sure it’s a man?”

“Pardon?”

“I see a smudge and a baseball cap. Women wear baseball caps.”

“Who is this, Mrs. Burkett?”

She was not about to tell them about Corey Rudzinski. She had agreed to come here with them because she wanted to know what they had. Now she knew. So again she asked, “Am I under arrest?”

“No.”

“Then I think it’s time I left.”

Kierce grinned at her. She didn’t like the grin. “Maya?”

No more Mrs. Burkett.

“That’s not why we brought you in.”

Maya stayed where she was.

“We spoke to Mrs. Douglass, the widow. She told us about your visit.”

“No secret there. I told you that last night.”

“And so you did. Mrs. Douglass told us that you came because you believe that your sister, Claire, had questioned her husband. Isn’t that correct?”

Maya saw no reason not to admit this. “As I already told you.”

Kierce gave her the head tilt. “How did you know your sister visited Tom Douglass?”

That she didn’t want to answer. Kierce had clearly expected that.

“Did you get another anonymous tip from a mystery source?”

Maya didn’t answer.

“So, if I have this right, you got a tip from a mysterious source about Claire reaching out to Tom Douglass. And then you got a tip from a mysterious source about Tom Douglass’s storage unit. Tell me, Maya: Did you back up either of those tips on your own?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you have any proof your mystery source was telling the truth?”

She made a face. “Well, I know that Claire did visit Tom Douglass.”

“Did she?”

Maya started to feel a niggling at the back of her neck.

“And while I agree Tom Douglass was indeed at the storage shed — that was certainly a good tip — your mystery source kind of left you holding the bag, wouldn’t you say?”

Kierce rose and walked toward the television screen. “And I assume,” Kierce said, pointing at the baseball cap smudge, “that this is your mystery source?”

Maya said nothing.

“I assume that this man — just for the fun of it, let’s say it’s a man; I think I see facial hair — was the one who led you to the storage shed?”

Maya folded her hands and put them on the table. “And if he did?”

“He was clearly in your car, correct?”

“So?”

“So” — Kierce came back over, placed his fists on the table, and leaned toward her — “we found blood in the trunk of your car, Mrs. Burkett.”

Maya stayed perfectly still.

“Type AB-positive. The same blood type as Tom Douglass. Do you mind telling us how it got there?”

They had a blood type, but the DNA test confirming that the blood in the trunk of her car belonged to Tom Douglass was still pending. There wasn’t enough to hold her.

But they were getting close. Time was running out.

Kierce volunteered to drive her home. She accepted this time. For the first ten minutes of the ride, they both sat in silence. Kierce finally broke it.

“Maya?”

She stared out the window. She had been thinking about Corey Rudzinski, the man who, in a sense, started this all. Corey had been the one who released the copter combat video that started her tailspin. Again she could go back even further in time, to her actions on that very mission, to her decision to join the military, all of that. But really, what started her world unraveling, what had directly led to the deaths of Claire and Joe, was releasing that cursed tape.

Had Corey the Whistle played her?

Maya had been so anxious to get him to trust her that she had forgotten that maybe it wouldn’t be wise to trust a man who had done so much to destroy her. She replayed his words in her head. Corey had said Claire had come to him, that she had reached out via his website. Maya had accepted that. But was it true? Think about it for a second. It did in some ways make sense that Claire would contact Corey and try to stop him from releasing that audio. But it also made sense, just as much sense, maybe even more sense, that Corey would reach out to Claire, that he could use the audio to either manipulate or straight-out blackmail her into gathering information on the Burketts and EAC Pharmaceuticals.

Had Corey manipulated Maya too?

Had he gone so far as to manipulate her into taking the fall for Tom Douglass’s murder?

“Maya?” Kierce said again.

“What?”

“You’ve been lying to me from day one.”

Enough, Maya thought. It was time to turn the tables on him. “Caroline Burkett tells me that you’ve been taking bribes from the Burkett family.”

Kierce might have smiled. “That’s a lie.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I just don’t know if Caroline Burkett lied to you” — he gave her a quick glance and then had his eyes on the road again — “or if you’re lying now to distract me.”