Fool Me Once

She told Joe to meet her in that spot in Central Park. She arrived early and cased the area. She spotted two street punks-she would later learn their names were Emilio Rodrigo and Fred Katen-walking past Bethesda Fountain. She could see from the way Rodrigo moved that he was carrying a weapon.

Perfect. Fall guys who could never be convicted.

When they met up, she gave Joe every chance.

“Why did you kill Claire?”

“I thought you said you have proof, Maya. You have nothing.”

“I will find proof. I won’t rest. I will make your life hell.”

It was then that Joe pulled out the loaded Smith and Wesson 686 he’d found in the safe’s hidden compartment. He was smiling at her. That was what she thought anyway. It was probably too dark to see that and her eyes were drawn to the gun. But right now, as she relived what had happened, she could swear Joe was smiling.

He aimed the gun at the center of her chest.

Whatever she had thought before-all that talk about what she knew-it fled out the window at the sight of the man she’d pledged to love forever pointing a loaded gun at her. She had known, and yet she hadn’t believed it, accepted it, not really, it was all a mistake, and somehow, forcing his hand like this would show her what she had missed, how she got it wrong.

Joe, the father of her child, wasn’t a murderer. She hadn’t shared her bed and her heart with a killer who tortured and murdered her sister. There was still a chance that somehow it could all be explained away.

Until he pulled the trigger.

Now, sitting in that foyer in the dark, Maya closed her eyes.

She could still remember the look on Joe’s face when the gun didn’t go off. He pulled the trigger again. Then again.

“I removed the firing pin.”

“What?”

“I took the pin off the hammer so it couldn’t fire.”

“It doesn’t matter, Maya. You’ll never prove I killed her.”

“You’re right.”

That was when Maya took out her other Smith and Wesson, the same one Joe had used to kill Claire, and shot him three times. She intentionally missed killing him with the first two. She was an expert markswoman. Most street-punk robbers were not. So death from a single shot would be too obvious.

Kierce: “The first bullet hit your husband’s left shoulder. The second hit landed in the right tangent of his clavicle.”

She’d worn a trench coat and gloves she’d bought for cash at a Salvation Army store. That was where any powder residue would end up. She ripped them off and threw them in a bin over the wall and onto Fifth Avenue. They wouldn’t be found, but if they were and someone decided to test them for powder residue, big deal-they couldn’t be traced to her. She bent down now and hugged Joe as he died, making sure to get plenty of his blood on her shirt. She put both guns in her handbag. Then she stumbled back toward Bethesda Fountain.

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

No one searched her. Why would they? She was a victim. At first, everyone was concerned with her possible injuries and finding the killers. The confusion paid off. She had been prepared to dump the handbag somewhere-there was nothing in it but the weapons-but in the end, there had been no need. She just held on to them and eventually took them home. She dumped the murder weapon in a river. She put the firing pin back on the hammer of the registered Smith and Wesson and put it back in the safe. That was the one Kierce took and tested.

Maya knew that the ballistics test would confirm her “innocence” and confuse the police. The same gun had killed Joe and Claire. Maya had a rock-solid alibi for Claire’s death-she was serving overseas-ergo there was no way she could be the killer of either. She didn’t like the idea of putting two innocents-Emilio Rodrigo and Fred Katen-through the police rigmarole, but one of them had indeed been carrying. She also knew that, with her own testimony about them wearing ski masks, the charges would never stick. They would never go down for the crime.

Compared to what she had done in the past, the collateral damage to those two was negligible.

The case was all an unsolvable mess, which is what she wanted. Claire had been murdered, and her murderer had been punished. The end. It was justice of sorts. Maya didn’t know everything, but she knew enough. She and her daughter would be safe.

And then that nanny cam video changed everything yet again.

From her seat in the foyer, Maya heard the car pull up. She stayed in the chair. The front door opened. She could hear Judith talking about how boring the event had been. Neil was with her. So was Caroline. The three walked in together.