Mistaken Identity (20 page)

Lou shook his head. “You can’t use the freight. It’s against the rules.”

“Christ, Lou, don’t give me the rules. You want rules or you want reporters? Your choice, bucko.”

Lyman Bullock leapt to his wingtips behind his mahogany desk, his light eyes wide and his small mouth partly open, emphasizing his cleft chin. His pale skin reddened and his neck bulged over a stiff white collar, fastened by a collar pin that threatened asphyxiation. The lawyer’s demeanor told the truth, though he never would. “I don’t know anyone named Alice Connolly,” Bullock said firmly.

“You obviously do, you’re not even a good liar. Didn’t you go to law school?”

“I thought you said you wanted to see me about a case.”

“I do, Alice Connolly’s case.” Bennie hadn’t told Bullock the purpose of her visit when she’d telephoned. She’d just said she was a lawyer in need of ethics advice, with a possible case referral. “We need to talk, Lyman. By the way, is anything short for Lyman?”

“No.”

“Listen, Lyman. I’m not here to disrupt your life or to pry. May I sit down?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Thank you.” Bennie slipped into the Windsor chair across from Bullock’s desk. His office was large and sunny, with English antiques arranged conventionally on a blue patterned Sirook. The ethics business had evidently been good to Lyman Bullock. Lucky for him, lawyers were getting less ethical every day. “We need to talk about Alice Connolly. The man she lived with was murdered and she was charged with the crime. Her trial is next week. I’m her lawyer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bullock remained standing, his back stiff as a Chippendale chair. Behind his desk, twin diplomas hung on the wall, evidencing law and accounting degrees, and framed photographs of his family rested on a cherrywood credenza. His wife, with frosted hair and graduated pearls, smiled untroubled from a photo in an engraved silver frame. “I told you,” he repeated, “I don’t know anyone named Alice Connolly.”

“I have reason to believe you do. You were seen picking her up at the Free Library. You drive a late-model brown Mercedes.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He bent from the waist, only far enough to pick up the phone. “Martha, call security. There’s an intruder in my office.”

“It’s in your best interest to talk to me. If you’ll talk here, we won’t have to chat in court, where there’s an almost criminal lack of good taste.”

“Think twice before you consider serving me with a subpoena. I wouldn’t make a very good witness at all.” Bullock let the telephone receiver clatter to its cradle. “I have a terrible memory. I couldn’t answer any of your questions. It would make you look foolish in front of the jury.”

“You and Alice were having an affair.”

“I don’t know any Alice and I’m offended by such an accusation. I’m a married man.”

“What were you doing then, picking her up at the library?”

“I never did any such a thing.”

“I have an eyewitness.”

“Your witness must have seen someone else.”

“Christ, who are you kidding?” Bennie rose, her anger sparked, as a security guard burst through the door, a blur of black uniform with a revolver drawn.

“Mr. Bullock?” the guard said, looking around for the terrorist he’d been told to expect and finding only a pissed-off blonde.

Bullock waved a soft hand in Bennie’s direction. “Get this woman out of my office immediately. She’s creating a disturbance.”

Bennie knew when she was licked, if only temporarily. “You were Connolly’s lover for a year. She could get the death penalty.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you care about her at all?” she asked, hating the emotion in her voice, but her question was mooted by the security guard, who propelled her from the office.

Back in her building, Bennie stepped off the freight elevator and ran into Lou Jacobs, the security guard. She put up her hands. “Don’t shoot. I won’t do it again, Officer.”

“I don’t give a damn what you do,” Lou said grimly. He carried a cardboard box that held pictures of his grandchildren and the blue squeeze ball he palmed most of the day. “My days of baby-sittin’ you are over.”

“You going somewhere?”

“Looks that way. I’m retired again.”

“You hate being retired. Why did you quit?”

“I didn’t. I got fired.”

“Fired? Why?”

“Breach of company policy. Step aside, please. I got freight.”

Bennie felt stricken. “They fired you because of me?”

“Forget about it. Move over.” Lou edged past her and walked into the elevator cab, draped in blue quilting. He hit the
DOWN
button, but Bennie held the elevator door.

“But what are you gonna do?”

“I told you. Retire. Take the boat out. Go diving. Ride my bike. Fish.”

“Fish?”

“You know, those things that swim in water.”

“You won’t get another job?”

“It’ll take time. Not many jobs for men my age, even as good-lookin’ as I am. Now step aside,” Lou said, but Bennie didn’t see it that way.

“Lou, I need an investigator. You want the job?”

“You’re kidding.” He smiled dryly.

“No. Not at all.” Bennie nodded toward the entrance where reporters thronged. “You see what I’m dealing with. I need you.”

“On Della Porta? Forget it, he was a cop. Besides, it ain’t like you and me get along.” Lou hit the
DOWN
button, but Bennie kept a strong hand on the elevator door.

“It ain’t like you and me are getting married.”

“I don’t need your charity.”

“I’ll work your ass off.”

The elevator beeped loudly, and Lou winced. “I’ll think about it. Don’t take it personal.”

“You want it, it’s there. Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock in my office. I’ll match your salary.”

Beep.
Lou frowned. “It’s all women up there, isn’t it?”

“Only if you’re all man,” Bennie told him, as the elevator doors closed.

M
ary remembered Joy Newcomb as aloof and reserved at law school, which was the last time Mary had seen her. At school, Joy had always worn her dark brown hair back in the same low ponytail and dressed in pressed jeans with white turtlenecks and Fair Isle sweaters, authentically threadbare in the elbows. Joy had gone to Harvard undergrad and was therefore, in Mary’s thinking, automatically smart. Mary felt that almost everyone else in her law school class was automatically smart, and never doubted that Joy Newcomb would make partner, again automatically, in any top-tier firm in the country. So Mary was doubly surprised when she tracked Joy to here.

“So, you just
quit
?” Mary asked, astonished as she strode beside Joy, who led a white pony named Frosty. Atop the pony perched a little boy who was about four years old, with densely black bangs. His thick glasses were slightly crooked under a black riding helmet and he clutched a spray of coarse white mane with a small fist as he bumped along. The four of them—pony, boy, and two lawyers—walked around in circles in a riding ring in an unassuming cinderblock arena. “
You
quit law?” Mary repeated.

“Yes,
I
quit. I’m allowed, aren’t I?” Joy smiled. Her hair swung free and her expression was more relaxed than Mary remembered, though her clothes remained the same. White turtleneck and jeans, but no crease ironed down the middle.

“Why did you quit? You were so … good at it.”

“You know how being a lawyer is. It was too many hours, too much stress, and too little fun. Clients want everything yesterday, the world hates you, and you can’t please anyone. So I just quit.”

Quitting. The thought made Mary dizzy, but it could have been the walking in circles. She thought about quitting every day, but had never met anyone who had actually done it. “How did you do it?”

“I wrote a memo and said, ‘I resign. Take my federal rules and shove it.’ Now I do this, which I love.” Joy led the pony to the left by a pink nylon halter. Sunlight streamed through the open window, catching her hair and setting it aglow. The air was fresh and clean and swallows chirped from a tall oak outside the window. They were in the horse country of Chester County and the only other sound was the steady
clump clump clump
of the pony’s hooves on the soft footing. “It’s not that hard to quit. You just have to take a risk.”

“Did you have this job before you quit?”

“No, but I’d been riding since I was little. I knew I could teach it. To teach these kids, you have to learn all over again, though. It’s not the same.” Joy coaxed the pony to a cartoon-red mailbox set improbably beside the ring and patted the little boy’s leg. “Go for it, Bobby!” she said, and the boy bent over, opened the mailbox, and extracted a beanbag. He giggled and held it up in triumph, though he said nothing. “Good for you!” Joy told him. “Now put it back, just like yesterday, remember?”

The child bit his lip while he held the pony’s mane, squeezed his legs into the sheepskin saddle pad for balance, and thrust the bag back into the mailbox. Then he flipped the lid closed. Joy gave him a hug, which went unreturned. “You’re the best, you know that?” she said, though the boy didn’t answer. When Joy turned around, her face was flushed with happiness. “Yesterday he couldn’t do that. Today he can.”

“Congratulations.”

“Bobby did it, not me.” Joy clucked to the pony and they began walking again. “Why don’t you congratulate him?” she asked, so pointedly that Mary realized she’d been avoiding the child altogether. Why, she didn’t know, but whatever the reason, she felt instantly guilty about it. On many days, Mary woke up guilty.

“Congratulations, Bobby,” Mary told him, but she couldn’t determine if he’d heard. “Does he understand?”

“He understands more than you and me,” Joy answered tersely, then looked over. “When you called, you said you needed to talk to me about Jemison, for a case. You didn’t drive all the way out here to talk about quitting.”

“No? I mean, no.” Mary stopped daydreaming and remembered the Connolly case. “You were at Jemison when Judge Guthrie was there, weren’t you?”

“Sure. He was one of the gray hairs, in litigation. He was there from forever. He took care of all the old-line house clients. His billings were huge, all of it inherited from the gray hair before him.”

“Did you work for him?”

“Only a little, and I wasn’t even on the briefs. He was a nice man.”

“Then he became a judge.”

“Yes.” Joy nodded, keeping a hand on Bobby as the pony walked.

“Were you at Jemison when Henry Burden was there? He was a former D.A.”

“Sure. He’d been there a year or two when I got there. I never worked for him. He was
muy macho.
I didn’t need it.”

“Did Burden work for Guthrie at all?”

“Sure. He was Guthrie’s boy, totally.”

“So they were friends?”

“Not really. Guthrie was a loner in the firm, not political. He was into his family and was always the legal scholar. He wanted to be a judge for a long time. He even published while he practiced and wrote all the articles himself. How incredible is that?”

Mary put her head down, mulling it over. Dust covered her pumps as they marched next to the pony’s hooves. The
clump clump clump
was helping her think. “So at some point, Burden comes over from the D.A.’s office. Burden is very connected in city politics, but has no client base. Guthrie has a client base, but isn’t connected in city politics. Guthrie wants to be a judge, but you can’t be a judge without connections. Not in Philadelphia.”

Joy smiled at Bobby. “Sit up, buddy. Try to sit straight as a board.”

“So they formed an alliance,” Mary said, thinking aloud. “Burden got Guthrie a judgeship, and Guthrie turned over his clients. As a result, they owe each other, and they also owe a lot of powerful people in the city. Isn’t that interesting?”

“No, not at all. This is interesting. Ho, Frosty.” The pony halted next to a toy hoop mounted low on the cinderblock wall. Joy handed a lightweight basketball to Bobby, who squinted over his glasses and pitched the ball at the hoop. It veered wildly off course, arced into a wall, and rolled into the center of the ring. Joy ran to fetch it. “Put your hand on Bobby’s leg, Mary!” she called back.