Mistaken Identity (25 page)

“You have it wrong. I’m doing everything in my power to get her off, and in this case, I happen to have one more weapon than usual.”

“That’s a rationalization. You’re telling yourself you’re going through all of this for professional reasons, but you’re not.” Grady examined her face, determined. “Listen, Connolly walks into your life and you don’t know which end is up. The worst thing you can do is to lie to yourself.”

“I’m not lying to myself. I’m representing my client.”

“Her interests aren’t the only ones at stake.” Grady held her bare shoulders. “Slow down. It’s one thing to walk into a dark room where you’re familiar with the furniture. You can wander your own house with safety, navigate the space without seeing. But this isn’t just the furniture getting rearranged, the whole landscape is changed. You’re in a hotel room, in a new city. And the building’s on fire.”

“Oh, Christ, Grady.” Bennie broke the embrace, more brusquely than she felt. She hated being naked right now and reached for the towel, snapping it from the rack and wrapping it around her body like armor. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“It’s not dramatic, it’s realistic. You’re getting yourself into a position where there are no foundations for your emotional response. You’ve taken on the defense of a woman who might be your identical twin. Imagine that at the end of the trial, Connolly is found guilty of murder. Worse, she gets the death penalty.”

“I thought of that already. I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Bennie turned away and waved a hand under the shower to test the water. It was ready, and so was she. “I won’t lose.”

“You could. You have to admit, you could. Cutting your hair, dressing like Connolly. You’re destroying the emotional distance you need as her lawyer and at the same time telling yourself it was there all along. You’re not in control, you’re just telling yourself you’re in control.”

“Grady, I have to take a shower, I really do. I don’t have time to discuss this.” She dropped the towel, stepped inside the tub, and rolled the shower door shut. Water coursed over her head and she closed her eyes to Grady’s wavy outline on the other side of the old Plexiglas.

“Ask Connolly about the DNA test,” he called over the sound of the water. “Bet you twenty bucks she won’t take it.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Ask her today. Prove me wrong. We’ll talk tonight.”

“I won’t be home tonight.” Water sluiced down Bennie’s strong shoulders and down her slim tummy. “I have to work.”

“I’m not letting you off the hook,” Grady said, then left.

It wasn’t until Bennie was toweling off after her shower that she permitted herself to think about whether Grady was right. Something in her resisted the notion and even counseled against considering it for too long, like a jinx. Bennie had to run Connolly’s trial and direct her defense. To win, she’d have to control the courtroom, command the attention of the jury and the respect of the judge. She had to believe in herself absolutely and couldn’t afford to have her confidence shaken. She combed out her hair quickly and hurried to dress, but didn’t once look in the mirror.

—Herman Melville,
Moby Dick

J
oe Citrone wrapped his plaid bathrobe around his lean frame and opened his front door just before breakfast, satisfied to find his newspaper delivered on time for a change. God knows what kept that kid half the time. When Joe was young he got up in the middle of the night to deliver the paper. The
Philadelphia Inquirer
was the morning paper then and the
Evening Bulletin
was what his father read when they sat down to dinner. Now Joe’s father had passed and only the
Inquirer
was left. Half the time it didn’t get delivered until after Joe’s eggs.

He picked the paper off the stoop and straightened up, stiff again.
DOUBLE TROUBLE: TWIN DEFENDS TWIN IN COP MURDER
, read the headline. Joe shut the door and skimmed the newspaper story until he got to the only paragraph that interested him.

Strike one. It happens. They’d try again next time up at bat. Joe had options, plenty of them, but he didn’t want to resort to them if they weren’t necessary. The game had to be played an inning at a time.

Joe flipped to the sports page and scuffed into the kitchen as he read. The new rookie for the Phils was looking good, like he might pull the team out of the basement. The kid’s name was on top of the stat sheets in eleven categories, including home runs and RBIs. Joe sat down at the head of the table, the sports page in front of him. In a minute, Yolanda would serve his scrambled eggs, runny the way he liked them, and he could already smell the coffee brewing for his first cup. He could study the stats in peace.

Joe believed in the stats, in numbers. They were scientific, exact. As a young man, he had wanted to be a businessman, maybe an actuary, when he grew up. The old man was against it. Didn’t want his kid growing up better than him, the old Italian way. So Joe became a cop instead of a businessman. Then he found out they didn’t have to be two different things.

He nodded when he heard the clink of a porcelain plate hitting the table on the other side of the newspaper. The egg smell wafted up, and Joe reached for his fork behind the paper. Next he heard the gurgle of coffee splashing into his cup. The paper said the rookie played like a vet, reminding everybody of Yastrzemski. Shit. Yaz. Suddenly the telephone rang, a jangling sound that disrupted the silent kitchen. Joe heard his wife hurry to the wall phone.

“Yes,” Yolanda said. “Hold on. He’s right here.”

Joe kept reading. He knew who was on the telephone. He was in no hurry to get it. He waved a fork in the air.

“Can he call you back?” Yolanda asked into the receiver.

The phone call would be from Lenihan. He’d be all worked up about Rosato still being on the Della Porta case. Lenihan was too emotional. He would never play like a vet.

“He’s in the middle of breakfast, Surf,” Yolanda said. “It’ll be only ten or fifteen minutes.”

Joe shook his head.

“Maybe half an hour,” Yolanda added, translating.

Joe frowned at the grainy photo of the rookie making an airborne catch. Kid had legs like a colt and he was tall. Statistically, taller men made better athletes. You name it, any sport. Also, tall men were more successful. It was true. Joe was tall.

“Okay, sorry, thanks. Yes … yes … I’ll make sure he calls.” Yolanda hung up the phone. “That was Surf,” she said needlessly, and went back to the sink.

Joe nodded. Surf had nothing to worry about, because in the end, the stats held true. Joe always came out on top. He was a vet. He held the sports page to the side and scooped a forkful of buttery eggs into his mouth, where they melted.

Across town in an apartment, Surf Lenihan slammed the phone into its cradle on the nightstand. “Fucker!” he said, so loudly that his girlfriend stirred in her sleep and dragged a pillow over her head. She’d slept like the dead last night, but Surf hadn’t caught a wink. He’d watched Howard Stern on the E! channel both times, because the Scores strippers were on, and then he caught a war movie before the early local news. It had the story about Rosato getting her license reinstated on the Connolly case. They had tape of her going in and out of her office. Fuck!

Surf climbed out of bed and pulled on the navy-blue pants of his summer uniform. He knew he shouldn’t have left it to Citrone. The old man had gone about it all wrong. Got her license taken away. Leaked the twin story to the press. Like publicity would scare off a lawyer.

Surf slipped his shirt on and buttoned it up hastily. He couldn’t let Citrone and the others fuck this up. He couldn’t wait around for them to get it straight. He grabbed his gun holster off the doorknob, looped it around his shoulder, and buckled it on as he headed for the apartment door.

L
ou Jacobs had done his share of scuba diving, so he figured he knew something about being dropped in the middle of a completely different world. He’d swum with stingrays off the Keys, hung with barracuda during a wreck-dive, and once eyeballed a green-and-black octopus fluttering on the sea floor. But he had never entered a world as foreign as this one; it was all women. There wasn’t another man in the joint, not even a messenger.

Lou gave his name to a receptionist with her hair in a tight braid, wondering if women could be as good lawyers as men. Sol Lubar, from the Thirty-seventh, had a woman lawyer for his divorce and she was a bitch on wheels. Lou should have had a lawyer that good when it came his turn. He’d lost the house, half his pension, and the friggin’ cat. And it was Laurie who cheated on him. Lou shook his head, still pissed off sixteen years later.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Jacobs?” the receptionist asked, unsmiling.

Lou thought she needed to loosen up. A joke, maybe. “Hey,” he said, “you know why divorce is so expensive?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s worth it.”

The receptionist didn’t smile, but Lou didn’t give up easy.

“Okay, you don’t like that one? Here’s another. What’s the difference between a lawyer and a prostitute?”

The receptionist blinked at him.

“A prostitute stops screwing you when you’re dead.”

The receptionist blanched. “That’s disgusting.”

It was his best joke. Lou thought it was funny as hell, but he decided to clam up and let the fish have the whole goddamn ocean. Later, when the receptionist told him Rosato was ready for him, he followed his nose to Rosato’s office, leaned in the doorway, and tried again. “Rosato. Stop me if you heard this one. What’s the difference between a lawyer and a prostitute?”

“A tax bracket?” Bennie said, looking up.

“No, but that’s good.”

“How about ‘nothing?’ ”

“Better.” Lou laughed gruffly. “That was a test. I guess I’m reporting for duty.”

“Wonderful!” Bennie eyed him, in his crisp navy-blue blazer, dark pants, and a white business shirt. The only dissonant note was a brown tie of shiny artificial fibers. “What is it with cops and ties?”

“What is it with women and hair?”

“What?”

Lou made a circle with his finger. “You changed your hair. Why do women do that?”

“To confuse cops.”

Lou’s eyes went flinty. “I’m here to take the job, Rosato, so don’t start with me. Bad enough you got a buncha hens up here.”

“They didn’t bite, did they?”

“No, but they didn’t laugh either. It’s a great joke, admit it.”

“I admit it.” Bennie smiled. “Now, let’s get started. Why don’t you sit down?”

“I like to stand up.” Lou folded his arms.

“Suit yourself. I’ll begin at the beginning.” Bennie gulped some coffee and briefed Lou on the case, holding back her suspicion that Della Porta may have been crooked. She wanted to follow up on that lead herself and didn’t know Lou well enough to trust him. In her experience, a cop’s sense of loyalty was even worse than an Italian’s. “You were a uniformed cop, right, Lou?”

“For forty years, until last year.”

“That’s quite a career. You just retired?”

“Yep, and hating every minute of it. That’s why I got the security job.”

“What was your district?”

“The Fourth.”

“That’s South Philly. So you’ve canvassed neighbors before.”

Lou smiled. “In my sleep.”

“Good.” Bennie sipped her coffee, which never seemed hot enough. “That’s your first assignment. I want you to meet Della Porta’s neighbors. Find out what they saw Connolly do that night. Get the details, too, like what Connolly was wearing. I want to know what they’ll say on the stand.”