Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben Page B

Claire’s husband, your brother-in-law . . .” He started searching through his papers.
    “Eddie.”
    “Right, Edward Walker.”
    “He wouldn’t do it. He loved her.”
    “Well, they cleared him,” Kierce said. “But now we need to take a closer at the home life. We need to take a fresh look at everything.”
    Maya saw it now. She smiled, but there was no humor or warmth. “How long, Detective?”
    He kept his head down. “Excuse me?”
    “How long have you known about the ballistics report?”
    Kierce kept reading the file.
    “You’ve known about it for a while, haven’t you? About the same gun killing Joe and Claire?”
    “What makes you say that?”
    “When you came to my house to check out my Smith and Wesson, I assume it was to make sure that it wasn’t the murder weapon—to make sure it didn’t match either murder.”
    “That doesn’t mean anything.”
    “No, but you said you no longer suspected me. Remember?”
    He said nothing.
    “That’s because you already knew I had the perfect alibi. You knew that the same gun had been used to kill my sister. And youknew that I was overseas when Claire was shot. Before then, well, you hadn’t found the two guys with the ski masks. I could have made that up. But once you had that ballistics report, you only had to double-check my whereabouts with the military. You did that. I know the procedure. That’s not one phone call. So how long have you had the ballistics report?”
    His voice was low. “Since the funeral.”
    “Right. And when did you find Emilio Rodrigo and Fred Katen and get confirmation I was in Kuwait?”
    “Late last night.”
    Maya nodded—just as she had thought.
    “Come on, Maya, don’t be naïve. Like I said, we looked hard at your brother-in-law when your sister was murdered. Here’s one time when there’s no sexism. Think about it. You’re the spouse. You’re alone in a park. If you were me, who would be your number one suspect?”
    “Especially,” Maya added, “when that spouse served in the military and is, in your eyes, a gun nut?”
    He didn’t bother defending himself. Then again, he didn’t have to. He was right. You always suspect the spouse.
    “So now that we got all that out of the way,” Maya said, “what do we do now?”
    “We look for connections,” Kierce said, “between your sister and your husband.”
    “The biggest being me.”
    “Yes. But there are more.”
    Maya nodded. “They worked together.”
    “Exactly. Joe hired your sister for his equities firm. Why?”
    “Because Claire was smart.” Just saying her name stung.“Because Joe knew that she was hardworking and reliable and trustworthy.”
    “And because Claire was family?”
    Maya considered this. “Yes, but not in a nepotistic way.”
    “What way then?”
    “The Burketts are big on family. It’s old-world clan-like.”
    “They don’t trust outsiders?”
    “They don’t
want
to trust outsiders.”
    “Okay, I get that,” Kierce said, “but if I had to work every day with my sister-in-law . . . ugh, shudder. You know what I mean?”
    “I do.”
    “Of course my sister-in-law’s a world-class, Olympic-sized pain the ass. I’m sure your sister—” He caught himself now, cleared his throat. “So their working together, Joe and Claire—did it cause any tension?”
    “I worried about that,” Maya said. “My uncle, he had a business. Very successful. But then other family members wanted in and he let them and it all went to hell. Family and money is never a good mix. Someone is always going to feel resentful.”
    “But that didn’t happen here?”
    “Just the opposite. Claire and Joe had this fun new connection. Work. They’d talk business all the time. She would call with ideas. He would remember something that needed to be done the next day and text it to her.” She shrugged. “But then again . . .”
    “Then again?”
    Maya looked up at him. “I wasn’t around a whole lot.”
    “You were deployed