Mistaken Identity (36 page)

“She was afraid of the cops. She had good reason.”

“Only bad guys are afraid of good guys.” Lou’s eyes stayed on the outside mirror. The BMW was sweet, and behind it he could almost make out the driver of the TransAm in the streetlights. A blond kid, good-looking. Lou remembered when he was that young. He owned a used Chevy Biscayne, two-tone, turquoise and white, with a push-button shift on the dash. They didn’t make cars like that anymore. Tanks.

“I agree. Connolly’s as bad as they come, badder than bad, but I don’t think she killed Della Porta. Too much else is going on. Too much I can’t explain.”

Lou didn’t say anything. He’d heard about the twin thing. He figured Rosato was getting manipulated by a con. She wasn’t the first lawyer; she wouldn’t be the last. Somebody like Rosato, she wanted to believe, inside. The Ford turned onto Tenth Street, and the blond kid in the TransAm turned, too. Keeping his distance, farther back than he had to. It was standard surveillance procedure, Lou recognized it instantly. “Take three right turns, Rosato,” he said quickly.

“What? That’s a circle.”

“Old cop trick. Humor me.”

Bennie blinked, but steered the Ford right at the next street. “We being followed?”

“Tell you in two right turns.”

She took a right and glanced in the rearview. A convertible sports car. Then a black TransAm. “The sports car?”

“The other,” Lou said, eyeing the TransAm as it followed them to the next corner and turned right. “It’s still on us.”

Bennie’s fingers tightened on the wheel as she coasted to the corner and took another right. The BMW stayed straight and so did the TransAm, behind it. Her mirror went clear. “They’re both gone,” she said, relieved.

“There you go. It was nothing. So why are we going to the crime scene?”

“You’re my investigator. You gotta investigate.” Bennie was choosing her words carefully. She was taking Lou to the apartment so he could find the money under the floor. She couldn’t testify about finding it because she was a lawyer, but Lou could. She didn’t want to corrupt his testimony, so she had to let him find the money on his own.

“You want me to investigate the crime scene, almost a year later?” Lou frowned. “Should be clean by now.”

“Should be.”

“Shouldn’t be anything there.”

“Shouldn’t be.”

“For this you got me in a tie? On a Sunday night? I’m
shvitzing.
”

“I’ll turn up the air.” Bennie racheted up the Ford’s air-conditioning and pretended she was paying attention to her driving, and Lou laughed softly.

“You’re a lousy liar, Rosato.”

“The worst in the bar association.”

“I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“I could tell, from all the wrinkles,” Bennie said, and turned onto Trose Street. She double-parked and Lou got out, checking for the TransAm. It wasn’t in sight. Kid was probably cruising for girls. Oh, to be young again, he thought, and followed Bennie to the rowhouse.

“So what do you want me to see?” Lou asked, once they were upstairs. His eyes narrowed as he entered the apartment and looked around, appraising it with a professional eye.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Where am I supposed to see it?”

“Can’t tell you that either.” Bennie closed the door and leaned against it, getting her second wind. It felt almost good to be out with Lou. Doing something; not thinking about her mother. “That’s why you make the big bucks.”

“Ha.” Lou stepped into the center of the room. “Am I warm?”

“No. And I thought you were so smart.”

“No, just handsome.” Lou walked to the left side of the room, where the blanket chest was askew, the way Bennie had left it, to conceal the hole in the floor. “I’m getting warmer, aren’t I?”

“You tell me,” Bennie said. She felt a shiver of excitement as Lou bent over and slid the chest aside with an audible grunt. His testimony would be terrific at trial. He was so credible, so clearly loath to find evidence that pointed away from the accused cop killer. Bennie could only imagine the jury’s reaction when Lou testified about the money he found under the floor of a highly decorated detective. It would be enough evidence of illicit dealing to permit Bennie to prove that Della Porta was killed by competing drug dealers, whether they were police or not. Bennie suppressed her excitement.

“I think I’m getting warmer,” Lou called back as he squatted and pulled up the floorboards Bennie had replaced.

“It’s entirely possible.” Bennie remained at the door, keeping her distance. She wanted his testimony absolutely pure. “Not just another pretty face, are you?”

“Not me.” Lou tossed a strip of stained floorboard aside and it landed with a clatter. “Here we go.”

“Did you find anything?”

“I think so.”

“What is
it?
”

“A hole.”

“What’s in the hole?”

“
Bupkes.
”

“What?”

“It’s Yiddish. It means ‘nothing.’ ”

“I know what it means.” Bennie hurried to Lou’s side and stood stricken over the open floor. The hole in the floor was completely empty. The money was gone. Her mouth dropped open. “I left a package of money there. Five hundred thousand dollars, at least.”

“Five hundred grand?”
Lou squinted, astonished, from his haunches. “Here? You gotta be kiddin’.”

“No, I found it. I swear.” Bennie’s thoughts raced ahead. What would she do without the money? She couldn’t prove police corruption at trial now, not without Connolly’s testimony, and there was no way she’d put Connolly on the stand. What would Bennie do for a defense?

“Rosato, you feelin’ okay?” Lou rose and brushed down his khakis, wrinkled at the knee like an elephant’s knees. “Your mom, and all. It’s a tough—”

“No. There was money there. I found it and then put it back.”

“When?” Lou asked, and Bennie told him the whole story, everything she knew and everything she had learned. Her defense was falling apart, and it was time to trust someone. Lou’s face fell into grim lines as she spoke, his expression changing from surprise to suspicion. When Bennie finished the account he said nothing, but walked to the wall and flicked off the light overhead, plunging them both into darkness.

“What are you doing?” she asked, as Lou crossed the living room to the window.

“Come here,” he said urgently, and Bennie joined him. A line of cars was parked at the curb on the other side of Trose Street, and she followed Lou’s finger to the one at the end.

A black TransAm.

—A boxing maxim

T
he Criminal Justice Center was built as a replacement courthouse for City Hall because the City of Brotherly Love had so many criminals, City Hall couldn’t try them all. A slim column of blond sandstone with modern art deco touches, the new Criminal Justice Center stood like the pretty younger sister across the street from the Victorian dowager that was City Hall. Courtroom 306 was the largest courtroom in the Justice Center, and the only secured one. A wall of clear plastic, bulletproof and soundproof, spanned its width and divided the bar of court from the gallery, which was packed with reporters and spectators. A trio of sketch artists sat together in the front row, one armed with tiny brass binoculars.

Bennie waited at counsel table for trial to begin, hating that the lawyers, judge, and court personnel were behind glass. It made her feel uncomfortably as if she were on television and the gallery were a studio audience; not that she could point a finger, considering her trial strategy of the “twin defense.” Since the other night, however, Bennie had discarded any plan of looking like Connolly at trial. She wore her hair unstyled this morning, had on no makeup, and her suit was the navy one she always wore to court. Except for the haircut, she looked almost like her breezy, confident self again, though she didn’t feel that way inside.

Her mother’s death was a pain that Bennie felt more acutely, like a wound that grows more sensitive to the touch. She had never been so aware of her aloneness in the world, and it made her vulnerable, shaky. The thought would cross her mind to call her mother’s doctor, a reminder sent for so many years from the tickler file in the back of her brain, and each time Bennie got the message, she recalled anew that it was a phone call she no longer had to make.

Her gaze fell on the blank legal pad in front of her, refocusing her on the task at hand: Try this case and win. Bennie had come to believe that Connolly, though hardly innocent, hadn’t committed the murder for which she stood trial. Somebody else had, and that person was getting away with murder. It was wrong, and that Connolly deserved to be punished didn’t make it right, because the next defendant wouldn’t. For Bennie, justice was always about the next defendant. And in this case, it could also be about saving her mother’s other daughter, as loathsome as she was.

“Let’s get started, ladies and gentlemen,” said Judge Guthrie, taking a quick sip of water from a tall glass. The judge wore a bow tie of Stewart plaid with his robes and slipped off his tortoiseshell reading glasses. His sharp eyes focused on the courtroom deputy, and if he recalled his meeting with Bennie at all, it didn’t show. “Please bring in the defendant, Mr. Deputy.”

The deputy hurried to a door on the side of the modern courtroom, which was concealed behind a mahogany panel. The judge looked expectantly at the closed door, and the spectators turned their heads as one. The district attorney, Dorsey Hilliard, sneaked a glance, and Bennie arranged her face into a professional mask. The paneled door opened and a cop in a black windbreaker entered the courtroom, followed by Alice Connolly.

Bennie almost gasped at the sight.

Connolly had performed a makeover in reverse, to look like Bennie. She had dyed her hair a pale blond color that matched Bennie’s and it hung as unstyled as Bennie’s. She wore no makeup, uncharacteristically; and her royal-blue suit and white shirt complemented Bennie’s own navy suit and white silk shirt. No wonder Connolly had opted not to be present for jury selection; she had wanted to preserve her surprise. Connolly must have realized that after the prison murders, Bennie would lose heart for the twin defense, and had evidently decided to stage it herself, with a vengeance. When Connolly crossed the courtroom, it was as if Bennie were watching her reflection in a true mirror, seeing herself walk in her own direction.

She felt blindsided, suddenly thrown off-balance. The defendant had become the lawyer; the twins had traded places. It was as if Connolly were trying to steal her position, her reputation, her very self. Bennie had created a monster and it was her. Looked like her. Walked like her. Then the monster sat in a seat next to her at counsel table, faced the front of the courtroom, and awaited the beginning of the trial like a seasoned litigator.

Bennie looked quickly around. At the prosecution table, Hilliard was reading papers, undoubtedly hoping not to draw attention to the similarity, but everyone in the courtroom had eyes. The deputy nudged an already surprised court reporter. Judy and Mary, sitting at the bar of court behind counsel table, were exchanging looks. Judge Guthrie peered over his glasses at Connolly and Bennie, then frowned deeply at the gallery.

Crack! Crack! Crack!
“Order, ladies and gentlemen,” the judge said into a black stem of a microphone, which would carry his warning through hidden speakers to the gallery. “There must be order in this courtroom throughout these proceedings. We may not be able to hear you through the glass, but the same rules of decorum still apply. Anyone who doesn’t abide by them will be ousted.”
Crack!
Judge Guthrie banged the gavel. “Kindly escort the jury in, Mr. Deputy, and let’s begin.”

Bennie forced herself to relax, preparing for the only opinion that mattered: the jury’s. The twelve people who would have Connolly’s miserable life in their hands. She recrossed her legs, then noticed that Connolly was recrossing her legs the same way. Bennie would have said something, but the jurors began filing in, shuffling through the door. She watched them with a stony face, waiting for their reaction. Jurors always looked cowed when they entered a courtroom for the first time and this jury was no exception. They walked into the jury box with their heads down and found their seats as self-consciously as late theatergoers.