Fool Me Once

Chapter 24

Another horrible, flashback-filled night.

Even in the midst of it, even while the sounds ricocheted through her skull like hot shrapnel, Maya tried to slow it down and see whether Wu was right, whether she was just having flashbacks or if she was hearing things that she had never heard before. Hallucinations. But every time she got close, as in any sort of nocturnal voyage, the answer became smoke, elusive. The pain from the sounds grew, and so, in the end, Maya just held on until morning.

She woke up exhausted. She realized it was Sunday. No one would be at the Franklin Biddle Academy to answer her questions on a Sunday. Growin’ Up Day Care was closed on Sundays. Maybe that was for the best. A soldier takes advantage of downtime. If you have a chance to rest, you do so. You let the body and mind heal whenever you can.

All of this horror could wait a day, couldn’t it?

Maya would take the day off from death and destruction, thank you very much, and just spend a normal day with her daughter.

Bliss, right?

But Shane showed up at 8:00 A.M. with two guys who gave her a quick nod and got to work sweeping for possible listening devices or cameras. As they started up the stairs, Shane picked up the nanny cam in the den and checked the back of it.

“Wi-Fi is switched off,” Shane said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning there’s no way anyone could spy on you with this, even if the technology somehow exists.”

“Okay.”

“Unless, of course, there’s some kind of back way in. Which I doubt. Or someone came in and switched it off because they knew we’d be checking.”

“That sounds unlikely,” Maya said.

Shane shrugged. “You’re the one having your house swept for bugs. So let’s be thorough, shall we?”

“Okay.”

“First question: Besides you, who has a key to this house?”

“You do.”

“Right. But I’ve questioned me and I’m innocent.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks. So who else?”

“No one.” Then she remembered. “Damn.”

“What?”

She looked up at him. “Isabella has one.”

“And we don’t trust her anymore, do we?”

“Not even a little.”

“Do you think she’d really show up again and play around with that picture frame?” Shane asked.

“I would say it’s unlikely.”

“Maybe you should get some cameras and security,” he said. “At the very least, change the locks.”

“Okay.”

“So you have a key, I have a key, Isabella has a key.” Shane put his hands on his hips and let loose a long sigh. “Don’t bite my head off,” he said.

“But?”

“But what happened to Joe’s?”

“Joe’s key?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he have it with him when, he, uh—”

“Was murdered?” Maya finished for him. “Yes, he had his key on him. At least I assume he did. He usually carried a house key. Like everyone else in the free world.”

“Did you get back his belongings?”

“No. The police must still have them.”

Shane nodded. “Okay then.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay whatever. I don’t know what else to say, Maya. It’s so goddamn bizarre. I don’t get any of this, so I’m asking questions until maybe something becomes clear. You trust me, right?”

“With my life.”

“Yet,” Shane said, “you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I am telling you what’s going on.”

Shane turned, looked at himself in the mirror, and narrowed his eyes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Seeing if I really look that dumb.” Shane turned back to her. “Why were you asking me about that Coast Guard guy? What the hell does Andrew Burkett, who died in high school, have to do with any of this?”

She hesitated.

“Maya?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But there could be a connection.”

“Between what? Are you saying that Andrew’s death on the boat has something to do with Joe’s murder in Central Park?”

“I’m saying I don’t know yet.”

“So what’s your next step?” Shane asked.

“Today?”

“Yes.”

Tears almost came to her eyes, but she kept them in check. “Nothing, Shane. Okay? Nothing. It’s Sunday. I’m grateful you guys came over, but here’s what I want to happen: I want you guys to finish sweeping this place. Then I want you all to leave so on this gorgeous autumn Sunday I can take my daughter out for a classic, cliché-ridden mommy-daughter day.”

“For real?”

“Yes, Shane, for real.”

Shane smiled. “That’s so cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you two going to go?”

“To Chester.”

“Apple picking?”

Maya nodded.

“My parents used to take me there,” Shane said with a lilt in his voice.

“You want to come?”

“No,” he said in the gentlest voice she had ever heard. “And you’re right. It’s Sunday. We’ll speed this up and get out of here. You get Lily ready.”

They finished up, found no bugs, and with a kiss on the cheek, Shane was gone. Maya packed Lily into her car seat and started the day. Mother and daughter did it all. They took a hayride. They hit the petting zoo and fed the goats. They picked apples and ate ice cream and found a clown who dazzled Lily with balloon animals. All around them, hardworking people spent their valuable day off laughing and touching and complaining and arguing and smiling. Maya studied them. She tried to stay in the moment, tried to just disappear into the joy of an autumn day with her daughter, but again it all felt so elusive, distant, as though she were just observing and not really experiencing it for herself. Her comfort zone was protecting these moments, not participating in them. The hours passed, the day ended, and Maya wasn’t sure how she felt about any of it.

Sunday night was no better. She tried the new pills, but they did nothing to quiet her ghosts. If anything, the sounds seemed to feed off whatever she was taking, the volume amplified.

When she woke up with a sharp gasp, Maya quickly reached for the phone to call Wu. She stopped herself before hitting send. For a moment she even considered calling Mary McLeod, Judith’s colleague, but there was no way she would do that either.

Deal with it, Maya. It won’t be much longer now.

She got dressed, dropped off Lily at Growin’ Up, and called into work to say that she wouldn’t be able to make it.

“You can’t do this to me, Maya,” Karena Simpson, her boss and fellow former Army pilot, told her. “I’m running a business here. You can’t cancel out a lesson at the last minute.”

“Sorry.”

“Look, I know you’re going through some stuff—”

“Yeah, Karena, I am,” she said, interrupting her. “And I think I may have rushed coming back. I’m sorry to leave you high and dry like this, but maybe I just need more time.”

It was part lie, part truth. She hated looking weak, but this was also necessary. Maya knew now that she wouldn’t be coming back to that job. Not ever.

Two hours later, she entered Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and drove past the trimmed hedges and stone sign reading “Franklin Biddle Academy.” The sign was small and tasteful, and in the lushness of this fall afternoon, it could easily be missed. That was, of course, the point. As she pulled past the green quad and into the visitors’ lot, everything around her screamed pampered, patrician, privileged, powerful. All the Ps. Even the campus had a sense of entitlement about it. You could smell the crisp dollar bills more than the fallen leaves there.

Money buys seclusion. Money buys fences. Money buys various degrees of insulation. Some money buys the urban world. Some money buys suburban neighborhoods. Some money — big, big money — buys a place like this. We are all just trying to get deeper and deeper into a protective cocoon.

The main office was housed in a Main Line stone mansion called Windsor House. Maya had decided not to call ahead. She had looked up the headmaster online and figured that she would just surprise him. If he wasn’t in, so be it. She would find someone else to talk to about the subject. If he was in, she was sure that he would see her. He was a prep school headmaster, not a head of state. Plus, there was a Burkett Dormitory still on campus. Her last name was sure to open most closed doors.

The woman at the reception desk spoke in a hushed voice. “May I help you?”

“Maya Burkett here to see the headmaster. I’m sorry, I don’t have an appointment.”

“Please have a seat.”

But it didn’t take long. Maya had learned online that the headmaster for the past twenty-three years was a former graduate and then teacher named Neville Lockwood IV. With a name and pedigree like that, she expected a certain look — ruddy face, aristocratic features, receding blond hairline — and she got not only that from the man who greeted her now, but also wrap-around-the-ears wire-rimmed glasses, a tweed jacket, and, yes, an argyle bow tie.

He took both her hands in both of his.

“Oh, Mrs. Burkett,” Neville Lockwood said with that accent that again said more about class than geographical location, “all of us here at Franklin Biddle are so sorry about your loss.”

“Thank you.”

He started to show her toward his office. “Your husband was one of our most beloved students.”

“That’s kind of you to say.”

There was a large fireplace stacked with gray logs. To the side was a grandfather clock. Lockwood sat behind his cherrywood desk, offering her the plush chair in front of it. Her chair was set slightly lower than his, and Maya figured that was no accident.

“Half the trophies in the Windsor Sports Hall we owe to Joe. He still has the career scoring record in soccer. We were thinking... Well, we were thinking of doing something in memoriam to him in the field house. He loved it so there.”

Neville Lockwood gave her a somewhat patronizing smile. Maya returned it. These sports reminiscences could be an entry to an ask for money — Maya wasn’t good at picking up on such things — but either way, she decided to push ahead.

“Do you know my sister, by any chance?”

The question surprised him. “Your sister?”

“Yes. Claire Walker.”

He considered it for a moment. “The name does ring a bell...”

Maya was going to say that Claire had visited here approximately four or five months ago and was then murdered not long after, but something that serious would stun him and probably close him down. “Never mind, it’s not important. I wanted to ask you some questions about my husband’s time here.”

He folded his hands and waited.

She had to tread gently. “As you know, Headmaster Lockwood—”

“Please call me Neville.”

“Neville.” She smiled. “As you know, this academy is a source of both great pride... and tragedy for the Burkett family.”

He looked appropriately solemn. “You’re talking about your husband’s brother, I assume?”

“I am.”

Neville shook his head. “Such a terrible thing. I know the father passed away a few years back, but poor Judith. Losing another son.”

“Yes,” Maya said, taking her time. “And I don’t know how to raise this exactly, but with Joe dead, well, in terms of this school, that’s three members of the same soccer team.”

The color in Neville Lockwood’s face started to drain away.

“I’m talking now about the death of Theo Mora,” Maya said. “Do you recall that incident?”

Neville Lockwood found his voice. “Your sister.”

“What about her?”

“She came to campus asking about Theo. That’s why the name was familiar. I was off campus at the time, but I heard about it later on.”

Confirmation. Maya was on the right track.

“How did Theo die?” she asked.

Neville Lockwood looked off. “I could send you away right now, Mrs. Burkett. I could tell you that the school has strict privacy laws and that it would be against school policies to reveal any details.”

Maya shook her head. “That would be unwise.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because if you don’t answer my questions,” Maya said, “I may have to involve less discreet authorities.”

“Really?” A small smile toyed with his lips. “And that’s supposed to frighten me? Tell me, is this the part where the evil headmaster lies to protect the reputation of his elite institution?”

Maya waited.

“Well, not me, Captain Stern. Yes, I know your real name. I know all about you. And not unlike the military, this academy has a sacred honor code. I’m surprised Joe didn’t tell you about it. Our Quaker roots call for consensus and openness. We don’t hide things. The more one knows, we believe, the more one is protected by the truth.”

“Good,” Maya said. “So how did Theo die?”

“I will ask, however, that you respect the family’s privacy.”

“I will.”

He sighed. “Theo Mora died of alcohol poisoning.”

“He drank himself to death?”

“It happens, sadly. Not often. In fact, it was the only time in the history of this campus. But one night, Theo binge-drank. He was not known as a partier or anything like that. But that’s often how it happens. You don’t know what you’re doing and you overdo it. Theo probably would have been found and saved in time, except he ended up stumbling into a basement. A custodian found him the next morning. He was already dead.”

Maya wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Neville Lockwood put his hands on his desk and leaned forward. “Could you tell me why you and your sister are asking about this now?”

Maya ignored the question. “Did you ever wonder,” she began, “about having two students from the same school and on the same soccer team dying so close together?”

“Yes,” Neville Lockwood said. “I wondered about it a great deal.”

“Did you ever consider the possibility,” Maya continued, “that there could be a connection between Theo’s death and Andrew’s?”

He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “To the contrary,” he said, “I don’t see how there could not be a connection.”

That was not the answer Maya had been expecting.

“Could you elaborate?” she asked.

“I was a math teacher. I taught all kinds of courses in statistics and probabilities. Bivariate data, linear regression, standard deviation, all that stuff. So I look at things as equations and formulas. That’s how my mind works. The odds that two students from the same small, elite all-boys prep school die within months of each other are very slim. The odds that those two boys were in the same grade make the odds slimmer still. The odds that both played on the same soccer team, well, again, you can start to rule out coincidence.” He almost smiled now, raising one finger in the air, lost as though back in the classroom. “But when you add the final factor into the equation, the possibility of coincidence is lowered to almost zero.”

“What final factor?” Maya asked.

“Theo and Andrew were roommates.”

The room fell silent.

“The odds that two seventeen-year-old roommates at a small prep school would both die young and not in some way be related... I confess that I don’t believe in odds that long.”

In the distance Maya could hear a church-like bell sound. Doors began to open. Young boys began to laugh.

“When Andrew Burkett drowned,” Neville Lockwood continued, “an investigator came by. Someone from the Coast Guard who dealt with any sort of deaths at sea.”

“Was his name Tom Douglass?”

“Could have been. I don’t remember anymore. But he came to this very office. He sat right where you are now sitting. And he too wanted to know about the possibility of a connection.”

Maya swallowed. “You told him you saw one.”

“Yes.”

“Could you tell me what it is?”

“Theo’s death was a tremendous shock to our community. How it happened was never reported in the papers. The family wanted it that way. But as much as we were all shocked by what happened, Andrew Burkett was Theo’s best friend. He was devastated. I assume that you met Joe well after Andrew died, so you didn’t know Andrew, did you?”

“No.”

“They were very different, the two brothers. Andrew was a far more sensitive boy. He was a sweet child. His coach used to say that was the quality that held Andrew back on the soccer pitch. He didn’t have to be victorious in battle, like Joe. He lacked the aggression, that competitive edge, that killer instinct that you need in the trenches.”

Again, Maya thought, with the inane war metaphors to describe athletics.

“There may have been more issues with Andrew,” Neville Lockwood added. “I really can’t say or reveal more, but all that matters for the sake of this discussion was that Andrew took Theo’s death very hard. We closed campus for a week after the death. We had counselors at the ready, but most of the boys headed home to, I don’t know, recuperate.”

“How about Andrew and Joe?” Maya asked.

“They went home too. I remember your mother-in-law rushing down with Andrew’s old nanny to pick them up. Anyway, all the boys, including your husband, returned to campus. All the boys — except one.”

“Andrew.”

“Yes.”

“When did he come back?”

Neville Lockwood shook his head. “Andrew Burkett never came back. His mother felt it best if he took the semester off. Campus life returned to normal. That’s how these things are. Joe led the soccer team to a great season. They won their league and were prep school state champions. And after the season ended, Joe took a few of his teammates to celebrate on the family yacht...”

“Do you know which boys?”

“I’m not sure. Christopher Swain for certain. He was co-captain with Joe. I don’t remember who else. Anyway, you wanted to know about the connection. I think it’s obvious now, but here is my hypothesis. We have a sensitive boy whose best friend tragically dies. The boy is forced to leave school and perhaps, theoretically, has to deal with depression issues. Perhaps, again theoretically, the boy has to take antidepressants or other mood-altering drugs. He is then sailing on a yacht with people who remind him of both this tragedy and what he missed and loved about campus life. There is a raucous party on board. The boy has too much to drink, which mixes badly with whatever medications he might be taking. He’s on the boat in the middle of the water. He goes up to the top deck and looks out at the ocean. He’s in tremendous pain.”

Neville Lockwood stopped there.

“You think Andrew committed suicide,” Maya said.

“Perhaps. It’s a theory. Or perhaps the mix of alcohol and medications caused a loss of equilibrium and he fell over. Either way, the proof, if you will, is the same: Theo’s death directly led to Andrew’s. The most likely hypothesis is that the two deaths are thus connected.”

Maya just sat there.

“So now,” he said, “that I’ve told you my theory, perhaps you can tell me why this is relevant today.”

“One more question if I may.”

He nodded for her to go ahead.

“If two deaths from the same team are that unlikely, how do you explain three?”

“Three? I’m not following.”

“I’m talking about Joe.”

He frowned. “He died, what, seventeen years later?”

“Still. You’re the probability guy. What are the odds that his death isn’t somehow connected?”

“Are you saying that your husband’s murder is somehow related to Theo and Andrew?”

“Seems to me,” Maya said, “like you already said it.”