Fool Me Once

Chapter 7

The same young smiley thing was on duty at the Growin’ Up Day Care Center.

“Oh, I remember you,” she said. She bent down toward Lily. “And I remember you too. Hi, Lily!”

Lily said nothing. The two women left her with blocks and moved into the office.

“I’m ready to sign her up,” Maya said.

“Terrific! When would you like to start?”

“Now.”

“Um, that’s a little unusual. We usually need two weeks to process an application.”

“My nanny quit unexpectedly.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but—”

“Miss... I’m sorry, I forget your name.”

“Kitty Shum.”

“Right, Miss Kitty, sorry. Kitty, do you see that green car out there?”

Kitty looked out the window. Her eyes narrowed. “Is that person bothering you? Do we need to call the police?”

“No, see, that’s an unmarked police car. My husband was murdered recently.”

“I read about that,” Kitty said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. The thing is, that police officer needs to take me to his precinct. I’m not sure why. He just stopped by. So I have a choice. I can bring Lily with me while they ask me about her father’s murder...”

“Mrs. Burkett?”

“Maya.”

“Maya.” Kitty still had her eyes on Kierce’s car. “You know how to download our phone app?”

“I do.”

Kitty nodded. “It’s best for your child if you don’t have a big emotional good-bye.”

“Thank you.”

When they reached the Central Park Precinct, Maya asked, “So can you tell me now why we are here?”

Kierce had barely spoken a word the entire ride over. That was okay with Maya. She needed the time to think everything through — the nanny cam, the video, Isabella, the forest green shirt.

“I need you to do two lineups for me.”

“Lineups of what?”

“I don’t want to prejudice your answers.”

“It can’t be the shooters. I told you. They wore ski masks.”

“Black ones, you said. Just eye and mouth holes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, good. Come with me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ll see.”

As they walked, Maya checked out the Growin’ Up Day Care’s app. The app allowed you to pay your bill, sign up for hours, review your child’s “curriculum of activities,” get bios on all the caregivers. But the best part of the app — the reason she’d been drawn to Growin’ Up in the first place — was one specific feature. She clicked on it now. There were three choices: the red room, the green room, the yellow room. Lily’s age group was in the yellow room. She clicked on the yellow icon.

Kierce opened the door. “Maya?”

“One second.”

The screen on her phone came alive, giving her a live feed of the yellow room. You would think Maya would have had enough with the surveillance videos for one day. But no. She turned her phone on the side to make the picture bigger. Lily was there. Safe. A caregiver — later Maya could look her up and read her bio — was stacking blocks with her and a boy about Lily’s age.

Maya felt relief course through her. She almost smiled. She should have insisted on putting Lily in a place like this months ago. Having a nanny left you dependent on one unsupervised person with few checks and balances. Here, there were witnesses and security cameras and socialization. It had to be safer, right?

“Maya?”

It was Kierce again. She closed the app and put the phone in her pocket. They both stepped inside. There were two other people in the room — a female DA assigned to the case and a male defense attorney. Maya tried to focus, but her mind was still swirling from the nanny cam and Isabella. The lingering effects of the pepper spray were still playing havoc with her lungs and nasal membranes. She sniffed like a coke addict.

“I wish to once again put my protest on the record,” the male defense attorney said. He had a ponytail halfway down his back. “This witness has admitted she never saw their faces.”

“So noted,” Kierce said. “And we agree.”

Ponytail spread his hands. “So what’s the point?”

Maya was wondering that too.

Kierce pulled the cord and the shade came up. Kierce leaned into a microphone and said, “Bring in the first group.”

Six people walked into the room. They all wore ski masks.

“This is silly,” Ponytail said.

Maya had not expected this.

“Mrs. Burkett,” Kierce said, speaking up as though he was being recorded, which, she figured, he probably was, “do you recognize anyone in this room?”

He looked at her and waited.

“Number four,” Maya said.

“This is bullshit,” Ponytail said.

“And how do you recognize number four?”

“‘Recognize’ might be too strong a word,” Maya said. “But he is the same build and same height as the man who shot my husband. He is also wearing the same clothes.”

“Several other men in there are wearing the exact same clothes,” Ponytail said. “How can you be sure?”

“Like I said, they’re the wrong build or height.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Number two matches the closest, but he’s wearing blue sneakers. The man who shot my husband was wearing red.”

“But just to be clear,” Ponytail continued, “you can’t say for certain that number four is the man who shot your husband. You can say you recollect that he’s relatively the same size and build and is wearing similar clothing—”

“Not similar,” Maya interjected. “The same clothing.”

Ponytail tilted his head. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t possibly know that, Mrs. Burkett. There must be more than one set of red Cons out there, am I right? I mean, if I put four red Cons out there, are you going to be able to tell me for certain which ones the assailant was wearing that night?”

“No.”

“Thank you.”

“But the clothing isn’t ‘similar.’ It isn’t as though he’s wearing white Cons instead of red. Number four is wearing the exact same outfit as the shooter.”

“Which brings me to another point,” Ponytail said. “You don’t know for certain it’s the shooter, do you? That man in the ski mask could be wearing the same clothing and be the same size as the shooter. Isn’t that correct?”

Maya nodded. “That’s correct.”

“Thank you.”

Ponytail was done for now. Kierce leaned into the microphone. “You can leave. Send in the second group.”

Six more men came in wearing ski masks. Maya studied them. “It’s most likely number five.”

“Most likely?”

“Number two is wearing the same clothing and is nearly the same height and build. My recollection would be that it’s number five, but they are close enough that I couldn’t swear to it.”

“Thank you,” Kierce said. Again he leaned into the microphone. “That’s all, thank you.”

She followed Kierce out.

“What’s going on?”

“We picked up two suspects.”

“How did you find them?”

“Your description.”

“Can you show me?”

Kierce hesitated, but not for long. “Okay, come on.” He brought her to a table with a large-screen monitor, probably thirty inches, maybe more. They sat down. Kierce started typing. “We searched through all nearby CCTV cameras the night of the murder, looking for two men who fit your description. As you can imagine, it took some time. Anyway, there’s a condo building on Seventy-Fourth and Fifth Avenue. Take a look.”

The CCTV shot the two men from above.

“Is that them?”

“Yes,” Maya said. “Or do you want me to give the legalese about just matching the build and clothes?”

“No, this isn’t on the record. As you can see, they aren’t wearing ski masks. We wouldn’t think they would on the street. That would draw attention.”

“Still,” Maya said, “I don’t see how you got an ID from that angle.”

“I know. The camera is so damned high. It’s so annoying. I can’t tell you how many times we get this. The camera is set ridiculously high, and the perps just keep their chins tucked or wear a cap and we can’t see their faces. But anyway, once we had this, we knew that they were in the area. So we kept looking.”

“You spotted them again?”

Kierce nodded and started typing again. “Yep. At a Duane Reade half an hour later.”

He brought up the video. This one was in color. It was shot from the side of the cash register. The two guys’ faces were clear now. One was black. The other looked lighter-skinned, maybe Latino. They paid in cash.

“Cold,” Kierce said.

“What?”

“Look at the time stamp. This is fifteen minutes after they shot your husband. And here they are, maybe half a mile away, buying Red Bulls and Doritos.”

Maya just stared.

“Like I said, cold.”

She turned to him. “Or I got it wrong.”

“Not likely.” Kierce stopped the video, freezing the two men. Yes, men. They were young men, no question about it, but Maya had served with too many men that age to call them boys. “Take a look at this.”

He hit an arrow button on the keyboard. The camera zoomed in, blowing up the picture. Kierce focused in on the Latino. “That’s the other guy, right? The one who wasn’t the shooter?”

“Yes.”

“Notice anything?”

“Not really.”

He zoomed in closer now, with the camera focused squarely on the guy’s waist. “Look again.”

Maya nodded. “He’s packing.”

“Right. He’s carrying a gun. You can see the handle if you zoom close enough.”

“Not very subtle,” she said.

“Nope. Hey, I wonder how all your open-carry patriot buddies would react to these two guys strolling down their street strapped like that.”

“I doubt it’s a legally purchased gun,” Maya said.

“It’s not.”

“You found the gun?”

“You know it.” He sighed and stood. “Meet Emilio Rodrigo. Got an impressive rap sheet for a young punk. They both do. Mr. Rodrigo had the Beretta M9 on him when we arrested him. Illegally owned. He’ll serve time for it.”

He stopped.

Maya said, “I hear a ‘but.’”

“We got a warrant and searched both of their residences. That’s where we found the clothes you described and identified today.”

“Will that stick in court?”

“Doubtful. Like our ponytailed pal in there said: They’re red Cons. Lots of people own them. There was also no sign of ski masks, which I found odd. I mean, they kept the clothes. Why throw out the ski masks?”

“Don’t know.”

“They probably dumped them in a garbage can. You know. Right away. They shoot, they run, they rip off the masks, they dump them somewhere.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yeah, except we searched all the nearby garbage cans. Still, they could have found a place, maybe a sewer or something.” Kierce hesitated.

“What?”

“Thing is, we located the Beretta, like I said. But we didn’t find the murder weapon. The thirty-eight.”

Maya sat back. “I’d be surprised if they kept it, wouldn’t you?”

“I guess. Except...”

“Except what?”

“Punks like these guys don’t always dump the gun. They should. But they don’t. It has value. So they reuse it. Or they sell it to a buddy. Whatever.”

“But this was a pretty big case, right? High profile, lots of media?”

“True.”

Maya watched him. “But you don’t buy that, do you? You have another theory.”

“I do.” Kierce looked away. “But it makes no sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

He started scratching his arm. A nervous tic of some kind. “The thirty-eights we took from your husband’s body. We ran them through ballistics. You know. To see if the bullets matched any other cases in our database.”

Maya looked up at him. Kierce kept scratching. “I’m guessing from your expression,” she said, “that you found a match.”

“We did, yeah.”

“So these guys. They’ve killed before.”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you just said...”

“Same gun. Doesn’t mean the same guys. In fact, Fred Katen, the one you identified as the shooter, had a stone-cold alibi for the first murder. He was serving time. He couldn’t have done it.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When was the first murder?”

“Four months ago.”

The room chilled. Kierce didn’t have to say it. He knew. She knew. Kierce couldn’t meet her eye. He looked away, nodded, and said, “The same gun that killed your husband also killed your sister.”