Dead Ringer

by Lisa Scottoline

  Crak! The flag flapped in a sudden gust, and Bennie started, glancing around. She didn’t see Alice, but there were fewer people around her now, since only those heading toward her Fairmount neighborhood would be going this way. She felt exposed. Vulnerable. She picked up the pace and found herself on her street in no time, jogging to get to her house. As she got closer, she could see that her front door had been broken. She hustled to her stoop, and the sight hurt her heart.

  Wood splintered from two long cracks in the varnished oak of her front door, running almost its length. The cops had sledgehammered the lock to get in, then had nailed the door shut to secure it. Bennie gritted her teeth. She climbed up the stairs, stuffed her briefcase and bag under her arm, and ran a finger over the splintered oak of the door, which she had hung and varnished herself. It had taken almost all day, with Grady’s help. Goddamn it! Doggy scratching broke her spate of self-pity, and Bennie felt her smile return. The cops didn’t have to break the door; Bennie had a golden retriever who would have unlocked it for them and fixed meat loaf.

  “Hang on, Bear!” she said, then stopped. She couldn’t get in the front; she’d have to go around the back. So she climbed down the steps, went around to the alley, and hurried back to her house, slipping a key into the back French door. Bear jumped on her instantly with his rag-mop front paws, wondering if this was some new game.

  “Bear! No! Bad dog!” she said, but they both knew her heart wasn’t in it. She dropped her stuff, closed the door, and scanned her dining room with dismay. Her stereo system in the corner had been torn apart, the cardboard backs taken off the speakers, and the CDs spilled from their teak racks and left all over the floor. The kitchen cabinets hung open, every one, and all of her groceries—cereal boxes, flour and sugar bags, cans of peas, and even a box of baking soda—had been dumped on the counters. All the kitchen drawers had been pulled out, the silverware reshuffled and knives slid from the knife rack. Even the dishwasher was open and the blue plastic racks rolled out. The search warrant had authorized the cops to look in everything, since an item like earrings was so small. She didn’t want to think about what they’d done to her mustard.

  She walked into the living room, where the scene was the same. The cushion on the sofa had been upended, novels had been torn from the bookshelves, and magazines and newspapers lay scattered on the coffee table. It would take hours to put the place back together, and she hadn’t been upstairs yet. Her bedroom. Her bathroom. She even had a tube of Clearasil in her medicine chest. At her age, it was humiliating. Bear bounded obliviously over the debris, a hundred pounds of fur carrying a denuded tennis ball. His wetly pink tongue lolled out behind the ball, challenging both the laws of physics and the rules of etiquette.

  “Good boy, good dog,” she said, scratching the dog’s soft cinnamon head. He responded by scampering on the books, wagging his heavy butt in the air, and setting the tennis ball squarely between her pumps. He wanted to play, and he needed to go out anyway. He didn’t care what the house looked like, or that Alice was screwing up her life. Who could say he was wrong?

  “You got it, handsome.” Bennie bent down and picked up the ball, which set the golden dancing and sliding on the books. She grabbed his red leash and the pooper scooper and hooked him up, and they left the house together through the completely inconvenient backdoor, with Bear holding his ball delicately in his mouth, his lips draped over it on either side like velvet curtains.

  Once she got outside onto the street, Bennie glanced around. The street was deserted because most of her neighbors had returned home in this residential section of the city; she hoped they’d been at work when the police went on their treasure hunt. The rowhouses were low here, none taller than three stories, leaving lots of sky. The sun had dropped behind the houses, leaving behind a lovely royal blue wash with undertones of deep rose. It was still light, and would be for about an hour, with spring coming on full bore. Just enough time for a quick game of fetch. Bear trotted alongside her as they walked, stopping only to relieve himself with a tennis ball between his teeth. It was his best trick.

  She gave him a pat, feeling herself almost relax in the process. Lights were already glowing through the windows of the rowhouses, and the cooking aromas wafted down the block. “Chicken,” she decided, and Bear looked back in agreement as he tugged her along.

  The Lame Dog Park was just a few blocks away, so named not because it was for lame dogs, but it was such a lame park. It contained not a single blade of grass, but was simply an abandoned square of rubble and trash leftover where a few houses had been torn down and reconstruction had yet to begin. The dog owners in the neighborhood had picked out all of the glass and dangerous trash, and had taken to using the open lot to run the dogs because it was so convenient and secluded. Bennie wished she could take Bear someplace nicer—Rittenhouse Square, Taney Park, or the Schuylkill River—but they didn’t have time before dark. Bear set the ball at her feet, and she picked it up and gave it a good toss. She glanced around but no one appeared to be watching.

  Bear came cantering back with the ball, his gait rocking back and forth, his tail wagging. His round eyes were like brown marbles, bright and alert, and he smiled broadly, panting up at her. Bennie felt a rush of warmth for the animal, marveling at how happy he could be with so little. He didn’t need anything but an old tennis ball and a trash-strewn vacant lot. There was a lesson in it, even for a woman with two Ivy League degrees: Best not to become too attached to things, even to houses. But then again, the dog didn’t employ three young lawyers, in one of the toughest job markets ever.

  She threw the ball, preoccupied. She couldn’t live her life looking over her shoulder. She wanted to know where Alice was. She knew that Alice wouldn’t be found if she didn’t want to be, not by conventional methods. There was one way she could track her down, but she hadn’t wanted to find her enough before to resort to it. But as distasteful as it was, the time was now. It was the night of last resorts, after all.

  Half an hour later, Bennie had consumed a sandwich and was driving out of the city, steering her old white Saab into the dark night, heading southwest onto I-95. She would be there in under an hour, sans driver’s license, but she doubted that was a felony. Traffic was light because the rush hour had passed, and the road opened up ahead, its asphalt smooth and dry.

  The Saab whizzed past exits for the Philly airport, then the Red Roof Inn, oil refineries, and lighted billboards that had sprung up around the Tinicum Nature Preserve, engulfing it with catalytic converters. Bennie hadn’t come this way for about two years, since the last time she saw her father. Which was also the first time she saw her father. Bennie hadn’t known any of her own history until Alice surfaced two years ago, and her mother had been too ill by then to speak, much less explain their past, or her secrets. But what Bennie learned when she uncovered the truth made her understand why her mother had kept it a secret. In particular, the truth about her father, William Winslow.

  Bennie gritted her teeth at the memory. Two years ago, Bennie had traced Winslow to the Wilmington area, where he worked as a gardener for a wealthy family on a country estate. His blond hair had thinned and turned gray, and his eyes were a light blue color that matched hers exactly, but for the odd chill behind them. He’d kept track of her and Alice in his own crazy fashion, and he was Alice’s only tie to Philadelphia. If anyone would know where Alice was, he would, but first Bennie had to find him. She had tried the last phone number she had for him before she’d left, but there had been no answer. She didn’t know if he still lived in Delaware, but maybe the family would, and stopping there had helped her last time.

  “Ready or not, here I come,” she said aloud, not terribly surprised at the anger underlining her tone. She probably should have gone to therapy about her feelings, but she’d been too busy, then too broke. She’d read self-help books about dysfunctional families, but she wasn’t self-helped.

  Her fingers tensed around the hard steering wheel, and she noticed her speedo
meter jitterbugging at eighty miles an hour. She passed a red Miata, then a long McDonald’s truck with a mile-high hamburger on the side. She was feeling more nervous the closer she got to her father. She accelerated, ignoring the speedometer and the other cars. She felt as if she were a bullet streaking toward a target, the trajectory flat, straight, and true. She would see her father and go right through to Alice.

  She checked the Saab’s clock: 8:22. She’d be at his house in half an hour. She whipped past strip mall after strip mall, their neon signs glowing in the dark, the way she had remembered it. Soon the landscape would change to the lovely countryside right outside Wilmington. The estate her father lived on was in the middle of gorgeous horse country, with acres of rolling hills and rustic split-rail fences. Bennie remembered the last time she visited; it had been almost twilight then, and scattered bay horses had been grazing the pastures, the feathery edges of their black tails flicking at invisible flies. She had resented the fact that her father had lived amid such beauty while she and her mother had gone from block to block in the city, chasing lower rents. Her poor mother.

  God rest her soul. Bennie ached inside, missing her, and knew that if she permitted that pain to stay, she would be lost. She’d have to pull over and cry, and she wasn’t sure if or when she would stop. There were many nights she didn’t, at home in her bed, and the notion seemed fitting. Her mother had sacrificed so much for her, Bennie owed her a few sleepless nights. It was all she could give her now.

  Go, a voice said, and Bennie wasn’t sure if it was hers or her mother’s. She didn’t know if her mother would approve of this mission. But she knew she would understand. And Bennie obeyed.

  Over a half hour later, she’d arrived at a large white sign that stood where her father’s mailbox used to be. HUNT COUNTRY ESTATES, it read in Olde English letters, and a curved brass horn flanked the words. Bennie got out of the Saab, dismayed. She looked behind her, then ahead. Fake Victorian gaslights illuminated the place. She had the right street. This was the place. She’d circled and circled and ended up here. But where was her father’s house?

  She blinked, trying to remember the place two years ago. There had been a gravel road right on this spot, with a fork on the left that led to her father’s cottage and garden, and an almost paved road on the right, tree-lined, that had led to the main house. The main house of the estate had stood on the hill—a huge white mansion with colonial shutters and separate wings, like an embrace. A maid who had answered the door had helped Bennie, the last time.

  But Bennie stood now on a smooth single road with too high curbs and iron grates for public water. The new road was lined with bright streetlights and curled to a guardhouse and a grand entrance with its tall iron gates fixed open. Through the gates lay about two billion brick, stone, and stucco-fronted houses, with sculpted terraces and lighted water fountains. The houses looked brand-new, and the slim trees planted on the perimeter were hardly leafy, with lights illuminating the slimmest of trunks, still paper-wrapped for protection. The land had to have been developed right after she’d seen her father. How could so much have changed so fast? They had taken away the hunt country and built the Hunt Country Estates.

  Bennie strode to the guardhouse, of white clapboard with a cedar shake roof. On its front a small sign read Master of the Hunt in the same Olde English letters, and inside the guardhouse sat a young man watching baseball on a portable TV. He was dressed in a fake riding helmet and red hunt jacket. Even foxhunters loved the Phillies.

  “Tallyho!” the young man called out when he spotted Bennie at the window, and gave a white-gloved wave.

  “Tallyho?”

  “They make me say that. Doesn’t it blow?” He twisted a toothpick in his teeth, and an eyebrow pierce peeked subversively from under his velveteen brim. “This is the dumbest job I ever had.”

  “I used to waitress in a green dirndl. I had to say ‘Welcome to Little Tyrol.’” Bennie shuddered at the memory. Even being a bankrupt lawyer was better.

  The young man smiled. “You lost or something? I-95 is up there three blocks, then take a right.”

  “I’m not lost, but didn’t there used to be a big estate here? A huge white main house, a white cottage, and at least fifty acres of land. In fact, this whole area used to be horse farms.”

  “I dunno. I just work here.”

  “Damn! When did you start?”

  “Six months ago. It’s still not sold, all the way. They’re asking a million bucks for these cribs.” The young guard’s attention was diverted by an onyx Porsche Carrera rumbling through the gates, and he gave his little wave and called out, “Tallyho!” Then he turned back to Bennie.

  “So you don’t know the name of the people who owned the farm, do you? Or where they moved to?”

  “A farm that used to be here? No way, sorry. I didn’t even know a farm used to be here.”

  Bennie thought a minute. A neighbor might know where the family had moved, but there were no neighbors in sight. And the post office might have a forwarding address, but they’d be closed now. She got another idea. “Who’s the developer of these homes?”

  “Simmons Brothers.” The toothpick twisted. “They’re outta Jersey.”

  “Where in Jersey, do you know?”

  “Someplace fancy.”

  Bennie avoided the Jersey joke. Bruce Springsteen was from Jersey, so she loved the entire state. “Princeton?”

  “Princeton! That’s it.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.” Just then a yellow Hummer squeezed through into the gate. “Tallyho!” Bennie and the guard called out in unison, and they both waved.

  She scooted back to the Saab, grabbed her cell phone, and called Princeton information. They found the number and connected her to Simmons Brothers Developers. The developer would know from whom they’d bought the tract of land, and if they wouldn’t tell her, she’d have to go to the office of the recorder of deeds. The owner would be public record. She waited nervously for the call to connect, then got a recording: “You have reached the headquarters of Simmons Brothers Developers. Our office hours are eight to five. . . .”

  Bennie pressed End and tossed the phone aside. She’d have to wait until tomorrow.

  She threw the Saab into gear and took off, cruising to make sure there were no neighbors left. Night had fallen, but Bennie could see how much the terrain had changed. Streetlights lined the newly paved roads, and large homes rose from formerly verdant horse pastures. Chandeliers shone through curved Palladian windows in the darkness, and the air didn’t smell of manure anymore, which wasn’t necessarily an improvement. The shiny brown horses had been replaced by shiny brown Jaguars. She took a left and right, then stopped at a light. She signaled for a right turn and was about to head toward the highway when she saw a handmade sign stuck into the new curb by the side of the road.

  MACK’S TACK SHOP CLOSEOUT—EVERYTHING MUST GO, it read, with a hand-drawn picture of a horse. Bennie considered it as the Saab’s breathy engine idled. A tack shop was where they sold stuff for horses, wasn’t it? The family that had owned the farm where her father had lived had owned horses. Maybe someone at the tack shop would know the family, and maybe even where they’d moved. Also Bennie’s father had been their caretaker. Maybe he’d gone in there for hay or whatever food horses eat. It was possible. Bennie switched her blinkers to signal left, and when the traffic light turned green, followed the hand-drawn arrow on the sign.

  Giddyap!

  12

  Bennie got to the tack shop fifteen minutes before nine o’clock, the closing time on the door. It was a small and chummy store; three small rooms joined together, with a plain green rug, and no-frills fluorescent lights on the ceiling illuminating a dwindling supply of horse supplies. At least, Bennie assumed it was horse supplies, since she was from Philly. A golden retriever was the closest she’d come to wildlife.

  “Be with you in a minute!” called out a young girl in a green polo shirt that read MACK’S TACK. Her dark ponytail swi
nging, she hit the keys on the cash register with a rhythmic beat, hunka-hunka-hunka, and was concentrating too hard to look up. “I’m just cashing out. Can you hang in there for two minutes?”

  “Sure,” Bennie said, and looked around to kill time. To her left, on a wall of Peg-Board hooks hung a few ropes of leather straps looped around horse bridles, and to her right, the Peg-Board held a group of silvery metal things she guessed must be the bits, some qualifying as cruel and unusual punishment. Orange crates of shiny stirrups lined the floor, and a funny odor emanated from an open basket of weird brown cookies.

  The cashier behind the counter glanced up. She had intelligent blue eyes behind her glasses and her nametag read Michelle. “Thanks for being so patient.”

  “No problem. You’re the first person perceptive enough to call me patient.” Bennie crossed to the counter, a rectangular wooden affair beside a magazine rack filled with titles like Dressage, Practical Horseman, and Equus. Next to the cash register sat a bin of clear soaps labeled Soapy Ponies, apparently because little toy ponies were cryogenically frozen inside. Bennie picked the last one up with a pang. This could be her business in a few weeks. “So you’re going out of business, huh? All the horse farms gone?”

  “Yeah,” the girl said with a sigh. “The county got a new board of supervisors and everybody sold. The land goes for two hundred thousand dollars an acre now. No horses, no tack.”