Fool Me Once

NYPD homicide detective Roger Kierce drops by Maya’s house as Eileen is leaving. Appraising him, Maya thinks, “Kierce had something of a caveman thing going on” (15). He compliments the house, making sure to point out that it is owned by the Burketts. He asks to run through the events of Joe’s murder once again. Maya says that she doesn’t recall whether she called Joe or vice versa, but they met at a secluded part of the park that they had previously visited. Kierce corrects Maya—Joe didn’t call her. Maya shrugs it off and then confirms her detailed description of the build and attire of the attackers: two men in ski masks. According to her previous statement, they tried to rob Joe, but he hesitated, frozen by the gun. Joe was shot in the shoulder and then clavicle, and neither shot was fatal. Maya ran before the third shot to call for help. Kierce attempts to comfort her, reassuring her that she’s not to blame. Maya brushes him off.

Kierce continues his questioning, noting that her astute description of the assailants’ weapons is due to her being an expert markswoman and a proud gun owner. When he tries to poke holes in her testimony, noting that a witness saw her emerge from the secluded section of the park minutes, not seconds, after the shots, Maya reminds Kierce that she wouldn’t have needed three shots to kill Joe. Opening the gun safe in the basement, Maya shows Kierce her registered Smith and Wesson 686, the same model as the murder weapon, noting that the safe can be opened only by her or Joe’s fingerprints. Though Kierce doesn’t have a requisite court order, Maya hands over the Smith and Wesson for testing. Maya knows that Kierce isn’t telling her something, and he just promises to be in touch.

The next morning, Isabella arrives to take care of Lily, her eyes red from crying. The Mendez family, including her brother Hector, the Burketts’ gardener, seem to have taken Joe’s death quite hard. Lily is thrilled to see Isabella, to Maya’s ambivalence. Despite Maya’s vetting of a local daycare, Joe insisted on hiring Isabella. Maya, who was being deployed overseas at the time, had little leeway to protest. Although Maya is a very wealthy widow even in spite of the prenup that she signed, Maya returned back to work right after Joe’s death, teaching flying lessons. She was not built for the “coffee klatches with her fellow moms [who] slow-bragged with genuine interest about their own child’s mundane development” (29). These social engagements thrust Maya into memories of the battlefield, with the carnage she witnessed and the danger she relished—even longed for—in her new life as a suburban mom.

After a flying lesson, Maya sees an earlier text from Daniel saying that Alexa doesn’t want to go to her soccer game. Her protective nature kicks in, and Maya rushes to the field to confront Coach Phil who rules his tiny realm of intramural soccer like a spoiled king. When he cites league rules to favor his own daughter’s playing time, Maya gets in his face, and she pulls down his pants in a fit of rage. Coach Phil physically threatens her, but Maya stands her ground. Though her actions were childish, her aim was to signal to her niece that she has her back. Alexa smiles at Maya.

Driving Daniel and Alexa home, Maya spots a red Buick seemingly following her, but she shakes it off for the time being. Eddie’s house has fallen in disrepair since his wife’s death, the once homey fixer-upper now clogged with boxes of Claire’s belongings meant for storage. She smells mouthwash on his breath to cover up alcohol consumed. Eddie takes Maya to task for her behavior at the soccer game, but she says that she will stand up for Alexa because he won’t. Eddie’s anger dissolves into sadness: Maya, the fighter, can no longer protect her loved ones. Maya swears that she wouldn’t let anything happen to Daniel or Alexa, but Eddie tells her to get out of his house. He says, “Death follows you, Maya” (40), a refrain that haunts her.

A week later, the red Buick is back on Maya’s tail. However, she’s not convinced yet that she isn’t seeing things. When she goes home after work, Maya asks Hector, who picks up Isabella after her shifts, if he could do some work at Claire’s house. She volunteers to clear it with Judith since working for someone other than the Burketts seems to make him uncomfortable. Alexa texts about her upcoming soccer game, but Maya comes up with an excuse, heeding Eddie’s order to stay away for the time being. Maya flashes back to when she got the call from Joe about Claire’s murder when she was stationed in Afghanistan. Maya was used to being on the other end of these calls when “voluntold” by the military to inform a service member’s loved one of their death. Her world shattered with one phone call.

Shane brings over pizza so that they can talk after putting Lily to bed. As the head of the local branch of the military police, Shane knows that there is a brief circulating about Corey Rudzinski possibly being back in the US. Maya is unmoved—he can’t hurt her anymore. Shane is not so sure, as the audio of the leaked tape was never released. Even though he doesn’t know how damning it could be for her, he knows Maya well enough to understand its gravity. He posits that Joe’s death could be a convenient time to do more damage and maximize publicity. Shane is concerned about Maya’s non-reaction and asks what is really going on. Before Joe was killed, he ran a ballistics test on a bullet for Maya under the table—an illegal act that could have severe consequences. He assumes that she is going after Joe’s killers herself, but Maya tells him to let it go. However, she also gives him the plate of the red Buick to run, to which he begrudgingly agrees.

Maya works out in the fitness room that Joe built her to assuage her discomfort in a house that was fancier and bigger than they needed. Later, Maya pulls up Corey’s website and finds the video. After four American soldiers were killed and two pinned down by enemy fire, Maya and Shane flew in to rescue survivors. While waiting for the order to take out the SUV, the Joint Operations Command radio went in and out. Maya shot a missile at the SUV, saving the lives of the remaining two soldiers. However, the SUV carried civilians, including a mother and children. Maya maintains that she did what she had to: “At the time, it had all seemed pretty righteous” (53).

Judith calls, reminding Maya that family attorney Heather Howell will read Joe’s will at Farnwood in the morning. She considers checking the nanny cam’s SD card but is too tired to bother. As she heads to bed, a PTSD episode creeps up on her, and the visions and sounds of the incident “rip[] through her brain tissue, shredding her dreams and thoughts and wants like hot shrapnel” (55). She takes anti-anxiety medication to ride it out.

Maya gets up at around five o’clock like clockwork, her military training unshakeable. She debates making breakfast for herself, deriding her female friends’ obsession with cooking as “a menial task given to lowly servants” (57). She checks the nanny cam, noting Isabella’s sunny demeanor throughout the recording, which concerns Maya since Isabella shows affection for Lily but is otherwise stoic. She wonders if Isabella knows about the camera; Maya herself is cognizant of being filmed whenever she is in the living room.

Maya is interrupted by Lily asking her to read, a request she reluctantly accepts, but the video playing on her computer draws her attention. On the monitor, the image is blocked by someone standing in front of the frame, someone too tall to be Isabella. It’s a man in a forest green shirt, someone to whom Lily—who is not good with strangers—reacts positively. When he crosses to the couch, the man smiles at the camera; it’s unmistakably Joe, and “[t]here, on the computer monitor, Maya watche[s] Lily crawl onto the lap of her dead husband” (63).

Stunned, Maya questions Lily about seeing her father, but Lily is confused and then scared by her intensity. She takes her daughter upstairs and heads to the closet to look for the specific green shirt that Maya had gifted her exacting husband. It’s gone.

When Isabella arrives, Maya questions her, asking if she left the house at any point the day before or if a man was in her home. Upon her denial, Maya shows Isabella the video. Isabella takes offense at the existence of the nanny cam but then gets scared; she doesn’t see a man, let alone Joe, on the recording. Maya grabs Isabella’s lapels, releasing her only when Lily comes into the room. Isabella rubs her neck “far too dramatically” for Maya’s taste (73). Isabella agrees to answer more questions but first requests a glass of water. When Maya goes to hand it to her, Isabella sprays her with mace. Isabella runs. Maya scolds herself: “Turning her back on the enemy. Amateur hour” (75).

Detective Kierce appears. To explain why her nanny pepper sprayed her, Maya goes to show the video to him. However, the SD card is gone; she assumes it was taken by Isabella. Maya stays calm, weighing her response in order to “have the best intel before making any sudden, life-altering moves” (77). Maya tells Kierce that she saw Joe in the video. He assumes that it’s an old recording, and Maya is unable to convince him otherwise without evidence. Kierce changes the subject; he has come to take Maya to the station.