Fool Me Once

Chapter 11

Maya had the strangest dream about the reading of Joe’s will. The dream was surreal, one of those through-the-shower-stall nocturnal visions where you really can’t remember what was said or where exactly you were or any of that. She only remembered one thing.

Joe was there.

He sat in an opulent burgundy leather chair, wearing the same tuxedo he’d worn the night they met. He looked handsome as hell, his eyes fixated on a fuzzy figure reading a document. Maya couldn’t hear a word the figure was saying — it was like listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher — but she knew somehow that the figure was reading the will. Maya didn’t care. Her entire focus was on Joe. She called out to him, tried to get his attention, but Joe would not turn her way.

Maya woke up to the sounds again — the screams, the rotors, the gunfire. She grabbed the pillow and wrapped it around her head, covering her ears, trying to muffle the terrible noise. She knew, of course, that it would do no good, that the sounds were coming from inside her head and, if anything, her efforts would keep them locked there. But she did it anyway. The sounds rarely lasted long. She just had to close her eyes — another bizarre move: closing your eyes when you are trying to drown out sounds — and ride them out.

When the episode subsided, Maya got out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and then wisely decided to open the medicine chest so at the very least she didn’t have to look at her gaunt expression. The small brown pill containers were there. She debated taking one or two, but she would need to be sharp today, what with the reading of Joe’s will and facing his entire family.

She took a shower and chose a black Chanel pantsuit Joe had picked out for her. Joe had liked to shop for her. She’d tried it on for him, loving the feel and cut, but she’d pretended not to like it because the price was obscene. But she hadn’t fooled Joe. The next day, he went back to the store and bought it. It had been lying on the bed, just as it was now, when she came home.

She slipped on the suit and woke up Lily.

Half an hour later, Maya dropped Lily off at Growin’ Up. Miss Kitty wore a Disney princess costume Maya didn’t recognize. “Do you want to dress as a princess too, Lily?” Lily nodded and went with Princess Miss Kitty, barely bothering to wave good-bye to her mother. Maya got back in her car and booted up the Growin’ Up app. She checked the in-room camera. Lily was slipping into an Elsa-from-Frozen costume.

“‘Let it go,’” Maya sang to herself as she started driving to her in-laws’.

She flipped on the radio to get her own voice out of her head and replace it with whatever inanity was on the morning drive. People who host morning radio programs cannot believe how funny they are. She moved it to AM — did anyone listen to AM anymore? — and put on the all-news channel. There was comfort to the almost military precision and predictability. Sports on the quarter hour. Traffic every ten minutes. She was distracted, half listening at best, when a story caught her attention:

“Notorious hacker Corey the Whistle has promised a treasure chest of new leaks this week that he claims will not only embarrass a leading official in the current administration but also will definitely lead to resignation and, most likely, prosecution...”

Despite it all, despite what she said about being out of Corey the Whistle’s awful reach, Maya still felt a fresh shiver surge through her. Shane had wondered why Corey hadn’t released it all, if he was just biding his time to drop the bigger bomb — and yes, the word choice was worthy of a sad ha-ha — on her. She had, of course, wondered that too. Maya Stern was old news now, but the potential was there. Big secrets don’t stay secret. They have a way of coming back when you least expect them, rippling and reverberating and causing — again she recognized how often military lingo slips into our regular vocabulary — massive collateral damage.

Farnwood was an old-school rich-people estate. Before Maya met Joe, she had assumed such places were the stuff of history books or fiction. They are not. She drove up to a gate manned by Morris. Morris had been working the gate since the early eighties. He lived in the same workers’ compound as Isabella’s family.

“Hey, Morris.”

He scowled at her, as he always did, reminding her in his own way that she had just married into this family and really wasn’t blood. There might have been more to Morris’s scowl today, something that could be explained by either lingering sadness at the death of Joe or, more likely, the gossip surrounding Isabella and the pepper spray attack. Morris grudgingly pressed the button, and the gate opened so slowly it was hard to see with the naked eye.

Maya drove up the rolling hill, past a grass tennis court and a full-size soccer field (“It’s called a pitch,” Joe had told her), neither of which Maya had ever seen used, and arrived at a Tudor mansion that reminded her of Bruce Wayne’s on the old Batman TV show. She half expected a bunch of men dressed for a fox hunt to greet her, but instead, her mother-in-law, Judith, stood alone by the door. Maya parked by the stone path.

Judith was a beautiful woman. She was petite with big round eyes and dainty, doll-like features. She looked younger than her years. There had been some work done — Botox, maybe a little something around the eyes — but it was tasteful, and most of her youthful appearance was due either to genetics or her daily yoga routine. Her figure still drew second glances. Men were drawn to her big-time — looks, brains, money — but if she dated, Maya didn’t know about it.

“I think she has secret lovers,” Joe had told her once.

“Why secret?”

But Joe had just shrugged it off.

She was rumored to have been a West Coast hippie back in the day. Maya believed it. If you looked closely, you could still see a hint of something untamed in the eyes and the smile.

Judith came down the stairs but stopped on the second to last one, making her and Maya about the same height. They exchanged a cheek kiss, Judith looking past her the whole time.

“Where is Lily?”

“In day care.”

Maya waited for some surprise to register on her mother-in-law’s face. None did. “You need to work it out with Isabella.”

“She told you?”

Judith did not bother replying.

“So help me work it out,” Maya said. “Where is she?”

“My understanding is Isabella is traveling.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. In the meantime I suggest you use Rosa.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You know that she used to be Joe’s nanny.”

“I do.”

“And?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So you’ll keep her in day care?” Judith shook her head in disapproval. “Years ago, I was involved in day care facilities, professionally speaking.” She was a board-certified psychiatrist and still saw clients twice a week at an office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. “Do you remember all those child-abuse cases in the eighties and nineties?”

“Sure. What, you were called in as an expert?”

“Something like that.”

“I thought they were all found to be bogus. Child hysteria or something.”

“Yes,” Judith said. “The caregivers were exonerated.”

“So?”

“The caregivers were exonerated,” she repeated, “but maybe the system wasn’t.”

“I’m not following.”

“The children in the day care were so easy to manipulate. Why?”

Maya shrugged.

“Think about it. These kids came up with all these horror stories. I ask myself why. Why were these children so eager to say what they thought their parents wanted to hear? Maybe, just maybe, if their parents had given them more attention...”

That, Maya thought, was quite a stretch.

“The point is, I know Isabella. I’ve known her since she was a little girl. I trust her. I don’t know or trust the people at day care — and neither do you.”

“I have something better than trust,” Maya said.

“Pardon?”

“I can watch them.”

“What?”

“Safety in numbers. There are plenty of witnesses, including me.” She held up the app, pressed the button, and there was Lily in her Elsa costume. Judith took hold of the phone and smiled at the image. “What is she doing?”

Maya took a look. “Based on the way she’s spinning, I’d say she’s dancing to Frozen.”

“Cameras everywhere,” Judith said with a shake of her head. “It’s a new world.” She handed the phone back to Maya. “So what happened with you and Isabella?”

It would not be smart to get into it now, especially when they were gathering to hear Joe’s will. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“May I be blunt?”

“Are you ever not?”

Judith smiled. “In that way, we are the same, you and I. Well, in many ways, we are. We both married into this family. We are both widows. And we both speak our minds.”

“I’m listening.”

“Are you still seeing your doctor?”

Maya said nothing.

“Your circumstances have changed, Maya. Your husband was murdered. You witnessed it. You could have been killed. You are now raising a child on your own. When you stack all these current stresses on top of your previous diagnosis—”

“What did Isabella tell you?”

“Nothing,” Judith said. She put her hand on Maya’s shoulder. “I could treat you myself, but—”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Exactly. It would be wrong. I should stick to my roles as doting grandmother and supportive mother-in-law. My point is, I have a colleague. A friend really. She trained with me at Stanford. I’m sure the VA psychiatrists are competent, but this woman is the best in her field.”

“Judith?”

“Yes?”

“I’m fine.”

A voice said, “Mom?”

Judith turned around. Caroline, her daughter and Joe’s sister, was there. The two women looked alike, you could see that they were mother and daughter, and yet where Judith always looked strong and confident, Caroline always seemed to be midcower.

“Hello, Maya.”

“Caroline.”

More exchanged cheek kisses.

“Heather is waiting for us in the library,” Caroline said. “Neil is already there.”

Judith’s expression turned grim. “Come, let’s go then.”

Judith stood between Caroline and Maya, letting them both take her by the arms. They walked in silence through the grand foyer and past the ballroom. There was a portrait of Joseph T. Burkett Sr. above the fireplace. Judith stopped and stared at him for a moment.

“Joe looked so much like his father,” Judith said.

“He did,” Maya agreed.

“Another thing we have in common,” Judith said with a hint of a smile. “Same taste in men, I suppose.”

“Yep, tall, dark, and handsome,” Maya said. “I’m not sure that makes us stand out.”

Judith liked that. “So true.”

Caroline opened the double doors, and they all entered the library. Maybe it was because Maya had just seen little girls dressing up, or maybe it was because she had recently watched Beauty and the Beast with Lily, but the library reminded Maya of the Beast’s. The room was two stories high with built-in bookshelves of dark oak from floor to ceiling. The carpets were Oriental and ornate. A chandelier hung from the ceiling. There were two rolling ladders set on cast-iron rails. A large antique globe opened to reveal a crystal decanter of cognac. Neil, Joe’s surviving brother, was already having at it.

“Hey, Maya.”

More cheek kissing, though sloppier. Everything with Neil was sloppy. He was one of those pear-shaped guys who looked sloppy no matter how meticulously tailored a suit he wore.

“Want one?”

He gestured to the decanter.

“No, thanks,” Maya said.

“You sure?”

Judith’s lips were pursed. “It’s nine in the morning, Neil.”

“But five P.M. someplace. Isn’t that what they always say?” He laughed. No one joined him. “Besides it’s not every day you get to hear the reading of your brother’s will.”

Judith looked away. Neil was the baby, the youngest of the four Burkett children. Joe was firstborn, followed a year later by Andrew, who had “died at sea” — that was how the family always put it — and then came Caroline and finally Neil. Oddly enough, it was Neil who ran the family empire now. Joseph Sr., never one for sentimentality when it came to money, had placed him in charge over his older siblings.

Joe had shrugged it off. “Neil is ruthless,” he’d told her once. “Dad always liked ruthless.”

“Maybe we should all sit,” Caroline suggested.

Maya looked at the chairs — the opulent burgundy chairs — and flashed back to her dream. For a moment, she could see Joe in that tuxedo, legs crossed, cuffs creased, looking off, unreachable.

“Where’s Heather?” Judith asked.

“I’m right here.”

They all turned to the voice in the doorway. Heather Howell had been the family attorney for the past decade. Before that, Heather’s father, Charles Howell III, worked for the Burketts. Before that, her grandfather Charles Howell II held the post.

No word on the first Charles Howell.

“Fine,” Judith said. “Let’s get this started.”

It was an odd thing with Judith, how easily she slipped from warm maternal figure to professional shrink to, as she was right now, starchy old-world matriarch complete with a British-tinged accent.

They began to take their seats, but Heather Howell stayed standing. Judith looked back at her. “Is there a problem?”

“I’m afraid there is.”

Heather was one of those attorneys who exude confidence and competence. You wanted her on your side. The first time Maya had met Heather Howell had been immediately after Joe’s marriage proposal. Heather had called her into this very room and slapped down a prenup agreement. In a no-nonsense yet not unfriendly tone, she had told Maya, “Signing this document is nonnegotiable.”

Now, for the first time, Heather Howell looked a little lost or at least out of her comfort zone.

“Heather?” Judith said.

Heather Howell turned to her.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m afraid we will have to postpone the reading of the Last Will and Testament.”

Judith looked at Caroline. Nothing. She looked at Maya. Maya just stood there. Judith turned back to Heather. “Do you care to explain why?”

“There are certain protocols we have to follow.”

“What kind of protocols?”

“It’s nothing to worry about, Judith.”

Judith did not like that reply. “Do I look like I’m in the mood to be patronized?”

“No, you don’t.”

“So why can’t we read Joe’s will?”

“It isn’t that we can’t read it,” Heather said, weighing each word before allowing it to leave her mouth.

“But?”

“But there has been a delay.”

“And again I ask: Why?”

“It’s paperwork really,” Heather said.

“What do you mean?”

“We, uh, we don’t have an official death certificate.”

Silence.

“He’s been dead almost two weeks,” Judith said. “We had a funeral.”

Closed casket, Maya suddenly remembered.

It hadn’t been Maya’s decision. She’d let Joe’s family handle that one. It hadn’t mattered to her. Death was death. Let them perform whatever ritual eased their pain the most. Closed casket had, of course, made perfect sense. Joe had been shot in the head. Even with the best work a mortician could do, you probably wouldn’t want to see that.

Judith’s voice again: “Heather?”

“Yes, of course, I know, I mean, I was at the funeral. But this probate requires a death certificate, some kind of proof. It is an unusual case here. I’m having one of my associates check through the case law. Because Joe was, well, murdered, we need verification from official authorities within the police department. I was just informed that it will take a little more time to secure the proofs.”

“How long?” Judith asked.

“I really can’t say, but I hope it won’t be more than a day or two now that we are on it.”

Neil spoke for the first time. “What do you mean, proofs? You mean like proof Joe is dead?”

Heather Howell started fiddling with her wedding band. “I really haven’t gotten all the facts yet, but before we can enter probate, this... Let’s call it a snafu, shall we?... This snafu just has to be untangled. I have my best people on it. I’ll be in touch soon.”

With everyone momentarily stunned silent, Heather Howell quickly spun and left the room.