Fool Me Once Read Free Page B

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