Corrupted (45 page)

Bennie didn't know how to respond. She'd had friends and business acquaintances, but she'd never had a true girlfriend. She'd always been on her own. Even back in college, rowing crew, she always rowed a single scull. She just wasn't a team player, and it had never bothered her before. She'd always believed that life was an individual sport, until now. “No, thanks, I'm fine.”

“You don't sound fine.”

“I am, or I'm going to be.” Bennie's attention was drawn to the next sentence in the article:

Phil McGeer, President of the Criminal Section of the Philadelphia Bar Association, stated, “Certainly, it would be a violation of our Canon of Ethics for a criminal defense lawyer to undertake a defense for a personal reason of his or her own, or for any other reason other than advocating the best interest of his or her client …

Bennie cringed. She'd known Phil for thirty years. They'd served in the Young Lawyers' Section together. Now he knew about Declan and was being bothered for dumb quotes to give credibility to snark. She closed the webpage in disgust and navigated back to the videos. “Okay, my pity party's over. I have to get back to work. There's too much at stake in this case to worry about dumb stuff.”

“Are you sure you don't need me? I can do research, draft briefs, prepare witnesses, whatever you need.”

“DiNunzio, you did help me. Thanks for talking me through it. I really do feel better. I want to move on.”

“That's the spirit!”

“Thanks. Now, let me go.” Bennie clicked on the first video.

“Good luck and call me if you need me, any time of day or night.”

“Good-bye, partner.” Bennie heard the words coming out of her mouth with new warmth. She ended the call and set the cell phone down and clicked on the first video, starting over.

Bennie found herself engrossed in the video, though she had seen it so many times before. It was the first film that the Commonwealth had turned over, and the lighting and resolution were good enough to see a fair amount of detail, though there was no audio. She watched as Richie and Stokowski left the bar, walked to Stokowski's car, then Stokowski got in the car and drove away. Richie took a right turn and walked down the street, raising his cell phone to his ear. He must have been talking to Zimmer, his girlfriend, whom he was going to meet later. Bennie remembered that Zimmer had testified that Richie sounded happy and upbeat on the phone.

Bennie froze the video, remembering something strange. The video that Martinez had shown today had begun when Richie was on Dunbar Street. He hadn't been talking on the phone then. So Martinez had chosen a video from when Richie wasn't on the phone, though he put Zimmer up to testify about a phone call that Richie had made to her. Bennie thought it didn't square. She pressed P
LAY
and watched the video of Richie walking to the end of Pimlico, then turning the corner onto Dunbar. Bennie noticed something she hadn't before; Richie swiped the screen with his thumb, without breaking stride. She recognized what he was doing only because she had just done it herself with Lou, when Mary's call had come in.

Bennie rewound the video, then hit P
LAY
, and watched carefully. Richie's action was unmistakable. He'd swiped the screen of his glowing phone with his thumb. He had been on the phone, but another call had come in, and he had taken the call. She got up, hurried around to the other side of the table, and rummaged through the evidence boxes until she found a copy of Richie's phone records, which Martinez had turned over to her. She'd read them over when she first got them, but now they took on a new significance.

Bennie scanned the phone records, which were a corporate iteration of a common phone bill, issued pursuant to a Commonwealth subpoena, with a list on the right of the times of the incoming or outgoing calls, their duration, and the phone numbers of the caller. She scanned the list until she got to the bar fight, which occurred at 11:00, then Richie was thrown out, and Bennie could see that there was an outgoing phone call at 11:04. She scanned across for the phone number—267-555-1715. That was the first call that Richie made coming out of the bar, and the record showed it lasted five minutes. There was a second phone call at 11:09, but it was incoming, lasting three minutes. The phone number of the second call was 215-555-2873. The Philadelphia area code was 215, and 267 was given to more recent cell phone numbers.

Bennie blinked, mulling it over. So there had been two calls, not one, before Richie was killed. One of those calls had been to Renée Zimmer, who testified on the stand about it, but Bennie didn't know who the other caller was. It could have been anyone, even his killer. Maybe Jason really had been framed. She hustled the phone records back to her laptop, watched the video, and matched the time of the first call to the phone records, by using the time clock on the video. Richie pressed his phone at the very moment the 215 call came in, ending the first call to the 267 area code. Bennie had been correct.

She didn't know whether the 215 or the 267 number was Renée's and thought about calling them to see who answered, but then she'd be busted. Then she remembered that Renée had testified that Richie had called her earlier, at seven o'clock, so Bennie scanned the earlier calls and spotted an outgoing call to the same number, 215-555-2873, at 7:02
P.M.
That meant the 215 number was Renée's, and the 267 call was the unknown caller.

Bennie got online and found a webpage for a reverse cell phone lookup. It wasn't a free service, so she went digging in her purse for her credit card, plugged it into the website, and searched the 267 number. The answer popped onto the screen. Declan P. Mitchell, Esq.

Bennie blinked, surprised. It wasn't what she'd been thinking, but it made sense. Declan was probably the only other person who knew the true significance of Richie getting into a bar fight with Jason, so Richie would probably call Declan right after the bar fight. Doreen would have known as well, but Richie wasn't close to her, no matter what she'd testified to in court.

Bennie processed the information. Martinez had put Renée on the stand to testify that Richie was upbeat after the bar fight, thus refuting that he was in a murderous state of mind. But Renée wasn't the only person Richie had spoken with, and she wasn't even the first person, facts that Martinez deliberately omitted. On the contrary, Martinez had implied the opposite to the jury. Bennie would almost have admired the sharp practice, if it hadn't been against her client.

Bennie reasoned that if Martinez hadn't called Declan to the stand, then Declan must have had a different conversation with Richie. But there was only one way to find that out, and it was risky. Besides, she didn't know if she had the heart for it, especially after the online revelations about them. The office phone started ringing on the credenza, interrupting her thoughts. It had to be the press calling, undoubtedly in response to the news story about her and Declan. She ignored the call, returned her attention to the laptop screen, and got back to work.

She worked through the night, reading and rereading the file, reviewing every exhibit, grisly crime-scene photographs, and expert and police reports, trying to see if there was anything she had missed. The office phone rang and rang, and her email bin filled with reactions to the article about her and Declan, but she ignored the issue. She drank a fresh pot of coffee and she got a second wind until Lou reappeared, coming into the conference room.

“Well, well, well, is this a sex goddess of the Philadelphia Bar Association?” Lou said wearily. “You saw that you and Sergeant Right are all over the local Internet news. You gotta love the media, don't you?”

“I know, right?” Bennie checked the laptop clock: 4:45
A.M.
“Any luck?”

“No. I'm sorry, Bennie, I tried.” Lou eased heavily into the chair beside her, sighing. He wiped his face, which looked slightly greasy, and his shirt was limp. “I talked to a couple of my buddies and looked at video from the other surveillance cams. None of them showed anything better than the ones we already saw or the one we have on Yearling Street. I brought them for you anyway.” Lou leaned over, fished in his pocket, and pulled out a plastic zip drive. “The problem is that Yearling isn't as commercial as Dunbar. There's a lot fewer video cams, and the lighting is too crappy to see a damn thing.”

“Thanks.” Bennie picked up the zip drive. “What about earlier videos from Dunbar Street? Were you able to get any of those, so we could see somebody entering the alley, much earlier?”

“I got two, and they're both on the zip drive, but there were people walking up and down the street all afternoon. Remember, the L stop is at the end of the street? You can't tell who goes into the alley and who doesn't.” Lou gestured at the zip drive. “Fire it up. Check it out yourself.”

“I will, just in case.” Bennie inserted the zip drive into her laptop.

“But I'm telling you, bottom line, I got
bupkis.
”

Bennie waited for the zip drive to open, making a decision. “If that's true, then I have a Plan B.”

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Morning came too soon, and they headed to the Criminal Justice Center in heavy foot traffic. Bennie felt tense after a night of no sleep, an office shower, and a spare khaki suit she kept at work. Her topknot was slightly wet, but she girded herself for the day ahead. White TV news vans clogged the street, their microwave towers spiraling into a clear blue sky, and reporters thronged in front of the courthouse.

“Here goes nothing.” Bennie glanced at Lou.

“Don't let them get to you, kiddo.”

The reporters, photographers, TV people, and stringers came running toward them. “Bennie, Bennie!” they hollered on the run. “Look up, look up! Over here!” “Just one picture!”

Bennie ignored them, plowing forward, and Lou took her arm. They couldn't move fast carrying the trial bags, though she had a roller bag of files, which she considered using as a battering ram. She didn't know where all these reporters had come from, then she realized that gossip had replaced real news and she was looking at the usurpers. Cameras snapped all around her and video cameras were shoved at her face, their rubbery black lenses like so many eyes.

“What's going on with you and Declan Mitchell?” “Any comment on the story?” “Is this revenge or a legitimate case?” “Look up for a picture! On the right, on your right!”

“No comment,” Bennie answered, shaken. She'd been bothered by the press before, but not like today. She felt newly vulnerable, with an irrational fear that if they knew one of her secrets about Declan, they could know the secret that really mattered. The secret that even Declan didn't know.

Lou tugged her along, parting the crowd. “People, stand aside. We're coming through, coming through!”

The crowd of reporters ran backwards, calling out questions. “What's the story, Bennie?” “Were you and Mitchell engaged?”

Bennie powered through the crowd, though she could feel her face aflame. It was so strange to hear Declan's name coming out of the mouth of complete strangers. She assumed that he would run the same gauntlet when he came to court.

“Come on, you've given us a comment before!” “If the story isn't true, just say so!” “Why did you lie?” “Why did you really take the Lefkavick case?” “Don't you want to tell your side of the story?”

Bennie and Lou pushed their way into the Criminal Justice Center, joined the attorneys' line, and hustled through to the metal detector. Bennie felt heads turning to look at her, but that could've been her paranoia. They grabbed a crowded elevator, and when they reached the ninth floor, ignored the reporters waiting outside the courtroom door, hoping for comment.

Bennie and Lou entered the courtroom, and the court staff looked up when she headed for counsel table, their gaze lingering. She assumed they had read the article, if only because of the hubbub. The court stenographer lifted an eyebrow, but the court clerk only smiled slyly. The gallery was filling with reporters, yammering to each other, glancing at her, and taking out their skinny notebooks and smartphones. A courtroom artist set up in the front row, opening up his long sketchpad, with its characteristic darkened paper.

Lou leaned over to unbuckle the roller bag. “Looks like we got an audience,” he said under his breath.

Bennie felt too tense to reply, unpacking her laptop and plugging it into the court's AV system. Suddenly there was a commotion in the gallery as reporters turned to see Martinez entering the courtroom with Declan, Doreen, the twin boys, Renée Zimmer, Stokowski, and his wife. Bennie kept her head turned away, busying herself with unpacking their files.

Lou unpacked beside her. “Plus, did you see we got a sketch artist? We're coming up in the world. ‘I must be in the front rooooow.' Do you know who said, ‘I must be in the front roooow'?”

“What?” Bennie asked, preoccupied, but when she saw the crinkly warmth in Lou's gaze, she realized he was trying to help. “No, who?”

“Bob Uecker. Mr. Baseball.”

“Who's that?” Bennie unpacked the rest of her stuff, side by side with Lou. She ignored Declan telling the reporters “no comment” as they squeezed into the gallery. Martinez sat down at counsel table, the staff went to their desks, preparing for court to begin.

“Bob Uecker made a great beer commercial in the seventies. He gets thrown out of his seat in the ballpark, but they put him back in the nosebleed section, not in the front row.”

“Really.” Bennie grabbed her legal pad and pen, then sat down in her chair, beginning to get her act together. She reminded herself that she was at home in a courtroom and she had the trial experience to pull a defense out of a hat. Or her butt.

Lou placed a hand on her shoulder. “You can do this, honey. Good luck.”