Fool Me Once

“Just let me finish, but I’ll skip the mights if you don’t mind. I, Joe, would set it up. I would have blood capsules or something like that. So it looks real. Joe was the one who liked that spot in the park, right? He knew the lighting situation. He knew it would be dark enough so you wouldn’t see exactly what was going on. Think about it. Do you really believe those two punks just happened to be there? Wasn’t that odd to you?”

“Wait, that’s the part you find odd?”

“That whole robbery angle…” Shane shook his head. “It always felt like nonsense to me.”

Maya sat there. Kierce had already proven that the robbery angle was nonsense when the ballistics test told him that the same gun had killed both Joe and Claire. Obviously Shane didn’t know that.

“Suppose it was all a setup,” Shane said, warming up to his outlandish conspiracy theory. “Suppose these two punks were hired to fire blanks and make it look like Joe was dead.”

“Shane?”

“Yes.”

“You realize how crazy that sounds, right?”

He kept plucking that lower lip.

“The cops were there too, Shane, remember? People saw the body.”

“Okay, let’s take that one at a time. First off, the people who saw the body. Sure. If you were the only witness, it wouldn’t be enough. So Joe lies there with the fake blood or whatever. In the dark. A few people see him. It’s not like they took his pulse or anything.”

Maya shook her head. “Are you kidding?”

“Do you see a problem with my theory?”

“Where to begin?” Maya countered. “What about the cops?”

He spread his hands. “Didn’t you yourself tell me that a payoff had been made?”

“To Kierce, you mean? Your new buddy who you liked and seemed to follow the rules?”

“I could be wrong about him. Wouldn’t be the first time. And maybe Kierce made sure he was on duty when the murder happened. If it was a setup, Joe would know the when and where. So Kierce made sure his name came up in the rotation. Or maybe, I don’t know, the Burketts also paid off the chief or captain or whatever so Kierce’s name came up and he was first on the scene.”

“You should make one of those YouTube conspiracy tapes, Shane. Was 9/11 an inside job too?”

“I’m giving you possibilities, Maya.”

“So let me get this straight,” she said. “They were all in on it. The punk kids who Kierce arrested. The cops at the scene. The medical examiner. I mean, if Joe is carted off as dead, there’s an autopsy, right?”

“Hold up,” Shane said.

“What?”

“Didn’t you say that there was some kind of issue with the death certificate?”

“A bureaucratic snafu. And stop plucking at your lip, please.”

Shane almost smiled. “There are holes in what I’m saying. I admit that. I could ask Kierce to see the autopsy photos-”

“Which he won’t give you.”

“I can be pretty resourceful.”

“Don’t be. Oh, and if they went to this much trouble, who’s to say they couldn’t doctor up some autopsy photos too?”

“Good point.”

“I was being sarcastic.” Maya shook her head. “He’s dead, Shane. Joe is dead.”

“Or he’s messing with you.”

Maya mulled that over for a few moments. “Or,” she said, “someone is.”

Chapter 18

Soccer Day was like something out of a nostalgic American movie that was just a little too perfect, too Norman Rockwell, to be authentic. There were tents and booths and games and rides. There were laughs and cheers and referee whistles and music. Food trucks offered up burgers and sausages and ice cream and tacos. You could buy pretty much anything in the town’s green-and-white colors-T-shirts, caps, hoodies, polos, decals, water bottles, coffee mugs, key chains, fold-out chairs. Even the bounce house and inflatable slides were green and white.

Every grade had set up their own activity booth. The seventh grade girls applied temporary tattoos. The eighth grade boys had a radar gun and goalie net so you could see the speed of your kicks. The girls’ sixth grade had set up a face-painting booth.

That was where Maya and Lily found Alexa.

When Alexa spotted them, she dropped her paintbrush and ran toward them yelling, “Lily! Hey!”

Lily, who had been holding her mother’s hand, let go now. She giggled and covered her mouth with her tiny hands and quivered with that level of anticipation and joy that only little children can reach. The quivering and giggles grew as Lily’s cousin barreled toward them. The giggles grew into shrieking laughs when Alexa scooped Lily off the ground.

Maya stood there, a definite spectator in this greeting, and smiled.

“Lily! Aunt Maya!”

It was Daniel now hurrying toward them. Eddie trailed behind his son, a smile on his face too. The scene felt so unreal to Maya, almost obscene in the middle of the personal chaos, but that was okay. The world has lines and fences. More than anything, Maya wanted to keep these three children on the right side of them.