Dead Ringer

by Lisa Scottoline

  “I have to go.” The runner leaned down and gave Bear a final pat. “You’ve got a great dog here. You should take better care of him.”

  “No, wait, it wasn’t me, I swear.” Bennie would go crazy if this mistaken-identity thing kept up. At least this time she could prove it. “Think about it. You know it wasn’t me throwing the ball because I wasn’t wet before. How did I get so wet? And I wasn’t wearing these clothes before, was I, when you think you saw me? How did I change my clothes?”

  The runner looked Bennie up and down. Listening, not leching.

  “I’m not the person you saw with the ball. It really was my twin in the baseball cap. We look exactly alike. She ran away, toward the parking lot.” Bennie eyed the lot, but it was too far away. Her eyes welled up with stress and fatigue. “I have to get to a phone and call the police. Do you have a cell?”

  “Not on me.”

  “Shit! She’ll get away again!” Bennie glanced around, but the runners were sprinting and the cyclists were cycling. No necking students who might have cell phones were in the vicinity. “I have to get back to the boathouse. I want to call the police, at least to report her.”

  “You’re telling the truth? Your own sister would kill your dog, on purpose?”

  “Evidently.” Bennie ran a hand through her hair, wet and tangled with leaves and crap from the river. She doubted that it was a good look for anyone but Swamp Thing. But she had to get going. She had to call the cops. “It’s only one of the very nice things she’s done lately, but it’s not your problem. I owe you a reward for saving my dog. He’s the sanest member of my family.”

  The runner smiled, showing teeth that were white and even, and he put his hands on slim hips. He looked like Superman in that pose, but it could have been the fact that he’d saved Bear’s life. “I’m David Holland,” he said, extending a large hand, and Bennie introduced herself and shook it. His handshake felt strong, sure, and slightly rough. “So where is your boat, Bennie?”

  “Capsized, I guess.” Bennie turned back to the river. She spotted one of her oars rowing merrily down the stream. The old skiff from her boathouse was speeding upriver, toward the spot where her scull had been. “This is probably the recovery operation now. I should go over and see if I can help. Maybe they have a cell phone too.”

  “I’ll join you,” David said matter-of-factly, and strode toward the riverbank. Bear trotted after him in adoration. Bennie’s socks squished with each step. Her black shorts stuck to her butt. Swamp Thing with back.

  “I wonder how you pick up a boat. They probably have to dredge it up, like the Titanic,” she said to him. On the river, the skiff was nearing the spot where the scull had sunk, and the skiff’s Evinrude throttled down to a throaty rumble. Three men from the rowing club rode in the skiff, and they shot Bennie a collective women drivers look. David picked up his pace. Bennie straggled after him. “I mean, how do you get a boat off the bottom of a river?”

  “Tell you in a sec,” he called back, and when he reached the edge of the water, he swung his muscular arms together, bent quickly at the knees, and dived in. Bear barked at the ripples he left behind, then came scampering back to Bennie, wagging his butt and feathery tail and looking up at her with plaintive brown eyes.

  “Not unless you walk him,” she told the dog.

  It was past eight-thirty and already dark by the time Bennie and Bear arrived home, given a ride by David in his khaki brown Jeep, which was neater than any man’s should be. Other than that, Bennie couldn’t see that he had any faults. He had saved Bear’s life. He was hunky, gorgeous, and polite. He’d helped tow her scull to the boathouse, bailed it out, and set it upside down on its rack, almost good as new. Bennie was willing to believe he could have built her a new one with Popsicle sticks. And he liked Steely Dan, which she liked almost as much as Bruce Springsteen, and “Night by Night” was playing softly on the Jeep’s CD system. She was trying not to idealize the man, but it was difficult. After all, he was her hero. Or at least Bear’s, which was basically the same thing.

  David steered the Jeep into a parking space on the block just as a white police cruiser pulled up, double-parking a little ahead of them. It had to be Detective Maloney, whom Bennie had called about what had happened. Meantime, Bennie worried about her house. What had Alice taken? Or had she simply destroyed the place? Trashed it? Bennie boosted herself up in the passenger seat to see her house, but in the half moonlight all she could make out was its flat roofline. At least the place was still standing.

  “Well, the cavalry’s here,” she said, turning to David. It felt strange being in such close quarters with him, and even though their clothes were almost dry, the Jeep’s interior smelled of brine and industrial pollution. “Thanks for everything, and most of all, thanks for saving Bear.”

  “I thought I’d stay until the cops left, to make sure you were safe.” David cut the ignition, leaving them in awkward silence, now that “Night by Night” had gone.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Bennie said, and Bear thrust his slobbery muzzle between them from the backseat.

  “Bear wants me to. He feels safer with me here.” David got out of the Jeep, and Bennie didn’t have time to fight about it. She wanted to get into the house. She climbed out, holding on to Bear’s collar, and two uniformed officers were emerging from the cruiser.

  “Over here, Officers!” she called out, struggling to hold on to the dog as he jumped excitedly at the police, wagging his tail. Nobody else had gotten out of the squad car. “Isn’t Detective Maloney with you?”

  “The detective sent us out, Ms. Rosato,” the first cop said. His voice sounded middle-aged and slightly weary, and he looked heavyset in the dark, the light blue of his shirt puffy at the girth. “I’m Officer Leighton, and this is my partner, Officer Banneman.”

  “Well, thanks for coming, gentlemen.” Bennie introduced herself and tried to prevent Bear from jumping up on his new friends. The dog tugged her this way and that. “But isn’t the detective coming? He said he’d be here. He knows about this case, with my sister.”

  “The detective got held up. He filled us in. It’s a B & E, right, and you suspect it was your twin?”

  “I know it was my twin. I saw her at the river with my dog. She set me up on theft charges yesterday.” Bennie felt David shift beside her and realized this would be news to him. She half expected him to run screaming, but instead she felt him taking the rambunctious dog from her hands. “My door is broken because the cops just searched my house. It’s still nailed shut, so you have to go around the back. She must have broken in through the backdoor, taken my dog, and tried to kill him. God knows what else she’s done, inside.”

  “We’ll check it out, Ms. Rosato,” Officer Leighton said brusquely. “Please, step aside and let us do our job.” The cops switched on long-handled black Maglites, making instant pools of jittery light on the gritty city sidewalk, and aimed them at the house. The light circles chased each other up and down, but the splintered wood of the front door looked untouched, just as broken as before. Bennie found it hard to think of it as progress. Officer Leighton tsk-tsked. “It is nailed shut. How do we get around the back?”

  “This way,” Bennie said, and led the cops, the flashlights, David, and the dog down the street to the alley, and to the wooden gate in the back of her tiny cement patio, not ten feet by ten. She opened the latch of the gate, wishing now she’d made the time to put a lock on it. They went through the patio to the French doors in the back of the house, when the cops stepped in front of Bennie and shone their Maglites at the French door.

  “I don’t see any signs of a forced entry,” Officer Leighton said. “It’s locked.”

  “It is? How could it be locked?” Bennie asked, surprised.

  “Did you leave it that way?”

  “Yes, but since then it was broken into, okay?” Bennie couldn’t keep the irritation from her tone. “We know this because my dog was taken, and he didn’t lock it after himself.”
r />   David said, “Do you leave a key with a neighbor?”

  “No, the only spare is in the office.”

  “You have your key on you, Ms. Rosato?” Officer Leighton asked.

  “Yes, hold on.” Bennie shoved her hand into her purse, fumbled for her keys, and handed them up with the house key drawn. “Maybe she picked the lock.”

  “Ms. Rosato, please wait here until we secure the premises.” Officer Leighton took the key and said to the other cop, in low tones, “I’m primary.” He unlocked the door, and it swung open wide in the jittery cone of light. Then he reached inside the door, and the anteroom light went on inside the house, illuminating Leighton’s profile. The middle-aged cop had a brushy mustache and a worried expression. “Let’s go, Mike.”

  “Right behind you,” the other cop said, and they hurried into the house.

  Bennie held her breath. She almost expected gunfire, but all she got was silence. Then talking, then low laughter. Next to her, David was listening intently, even as Bear sat panting, his tail happily brushing the cement. Goldens love new games, even when tennis balls aren’t involved. The three of them waited outside while light after light went on in Bennie’s house; first the ground floor, then the second floor, and then she heard their heavy shoes pounding down her stairs and back again into the dining room.

  “Come on in, Ms. Rosato!” called out one of the cops, and Bennie grabbed Bear’s collar and hurried inside, followed by David.

  Bennie crossed the threshold, anxious and uncertain, and held her breath, preparing herself mentally for what she might see. She didn’t exhale until she’d entered her house and looked around. Her dining and living room were just the way she’d left them that morning, after she’d cleaned up the cops’ mess: couch against the wall, bookcases against the other wall, CD and DVD players all in place. Nothing smashed or upended, nothing destroyed or vandalized, not even any scary scrawled writing in red lipstick. But Alice had been here. She had to have been, to steal the dog, and part of Bennie could just feel it. That dark vibration.

  Officer Leighton switched off his Maglite, and Banneman’s hand hung loosely at his side, no longer cocked at his holster. “The premises are secured, and we didn’t find any evidence of a B & E, even at the backdoor, Ms. Rosato. Everything looks in order upstairs, too. You’ll walk through with me, but everything looks fine.”

  “That’s not possible,” Bennie said, confused. Frustrated and angry. Alice was smart. She was fooling them. It was a game for her, a prank with a deadly edge. Bennie had to figure it out, figure her out. “The dog didn’t let himself out and drive himself to the river.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t?”

  “Of course not!” Bennie exploded. A long day of drama and wet underwear was coming to a head. “What do you think, I’m making this up? I have a twin, it’s a matter of record!”

  “You don’t understand what I’m telling you, Ms. Rosato. There’s no evidence that any crime has been committed here. You claim that somebody took your dog out of the house, but the backdoor wasn’t even unlocked. And the front was nailed shut.”

  “She exists! Ask him!” Bennie gestured at David, who was already stepping forward.

  “Everyone settle down,” David said, spreading his large hands palms down. He addressed the cops, but Bennie knew he was talking to her, since she was the only one throwing a hissy fit. “Officers, my name is David Holland and I was running along the river when I saw her twin intentionally endangering the dog.”

  “Tell you what,” Officer Leighton said with a slow sigh, like a tire deflating. He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a skinny notepad. “Mr. Holland, you give me the statement for my report while my partner takes Ms. Rosato on a walk-through. This way we get this over with, we file a complete report, and Ms. Rosato makes sure that nothing of value was taken from the premises.”

  “Fine with me,” David answered. “Bennie? Okay with you?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Bennie stalked to the staircase and went upstairs, going straight to her bedroom. If Alice was going to steal something, it would be here. She entered the bedroom, which looked inviolate, and experienced the same eerie tingle she had downstairs. Alice had been here, too, she just knew it. But not by looking. Everything was in absolute order, or least a completely familiar disorder, only partly due to the local constabulary.

  She hurried to her dresser, a three-drawer chest made of pine, and checked her jewelry box on top. She didn’t have much—a tangle of gold chains from when they were the new thing, a few pairs of gold hoops, and three bangles—but all of it was there. She rifled quickly through her drawers—undies, unmatched socks, tattered jeans, and faded T-shirts—but they were the in same mess she’d left behind. She went to the closet, but it was fine. Then she remembered. Her gun.

  She hurried to the closet and shoved aside old running shoes to get to the orange-and-brown Nike box, tearing off the lid. There it was. The brown case, a canvas triangle. Bennie unzipped it with shaking hands but was reassured by the weight alone. Her Smith & Wesson revolver lay untouched. She zipped it closed and tucked it safely away.

  She closed the closet door with relief and hurried past the cop to her office, a second, smaller bedroom just off the hall. An old Bianchi bike leaned against the wall in the corner, and clutter covered her daybed and her IKEA workstation. Her computer was still there, and a Bose radio/CD player. She’d left the only things of value. Bennie didn’t get it.

  “It all here?” Officer Banneman asked, and Bennie nodded slowly, wondering.

  How the hell did Alice get in? And get out with Bear?

  She couldn’t think of an immediate answer and returned downstairs with the cop.

  17

  Bennie did a double take when David came into the kitchen wearing her ex-boyfriend’s clothes. It wasn’t only the confluence of past and present men; it was the way the clothes fit, or more accurately, didn’t fit. Grady’s old Duke sweatpants were puffy Capris on David, and the leftover T-shirt stretched tight across his chest and biceps, making him look like an oddly butch ballet dancer.

  “These were the clothes you left outside the bathroom door,” David said, holding out his arms with a faint smile. The armholes rolled up along each mound of shoulder cap. “You were joking, right?”

  “Sorry, I thought they’d fit.” Bennie had always thought that her ex was big, but David was bigger. She could tell because she had to look up to see his eyes, qualifying him as one of the two men on earth taller than she. It wasn’t the worst feeling in the world, standing oh-so-close to a handsome, muscular hero, but even Bennie sensed she was getting ahead of herself, if not entering the zone of what they used to call “on the make.”

  “Oh, well, at least they’re clean,” David said. “Thanks.” He’d taken a shower, and the wet sheen of his hair caught the light of the overhead lamp. He leaned down to pat Bear, who had curled into a cinnamon doughnut on the rag rug in front of the sink.

  “Want coffee?” Bennie asked, pouring him a cup and handing it to him. “I have no food in the house, I’ve been kind of busy. I do have cream and sugar, if you want dessert.”

  He smiled. “I take it black.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Bennie touched her hair, suddenly self-conscious. It was wet from her shower, too, but she was dry again in her favorite work shirt and loose khaki shorts. He didn’t seem to notice one way or the other, though he stood sort of close and she could smell the fresh soap smell clinging to his skin. She tried not to inhale. It had been a long time since she’d had a soapy man in her kitchen. “So how do you know all that stuff?”

  “What stuff?”

  “How to save dogs and boats.”

  David sipped his coffee. His eyes were kind and intelligent, with a sort of benevolent reserve about them. “Good coffee.”

  “My goal in life. So what do you do for a living?” Bennie asked. “I already confessed to being a lawyer.”

  “I’m taking some time off.”

&nbs
p; “From what?”

  “From work.”

  “What kind of work?”

  “Nothing important.” David leaned against the counter, sipping his coffee. His eyes were intense and brown, his nose long and straight, and he had a squarish chin. He was easily the most handsome man she’d ever had in her hemisphere, much less her kitchen, but he was hardly the most animated, especially in Capri pants. And he was clearly avoiding the question. He drained his cup and set it down, and Bennie felt a sudden twinge of nervousness coming out of nowhere. She really didn’t know much about him, and she’d let him into the house.

  “Forgive me, but who are you and what do you do? I may sound paranoid, but someone is out to get me.”

  “I should have thought of that. Sorry.” David grinned easily. “I was assistant director of the SEAL/BUDS command. I’m an instructor. I’m taking some time off.”

  “You’re a SEAL?” Bennie asked, astonished even though she wasn’t sure exactly what that was. She just knew that it was something cool. “Okay, what’s a SEAL?”

  “SEALs are a division of the Navy. BUDS is basic underwater demolition training.”

  “And who do you instruct?”

  “Cadets.”

  “Where did you instruct them?”

  “California.”

  “What did you instruct them to do?”

  “Become sea-air-land commandos.”

  Eek. “How long does it take to become a SEAL?”

  “If you make it, twenty-seven weeks.”

  “Do a lot of people drop out?”

  “If they don’t drown.”

  Bennie was pretty sure he was kidding. “Do I have to take your deposition, or can you tell me a little more about yourself?”

  “I would, but there’s not much more to tell. I’m a Navy captain, graduated class of eighty-four.”

  “From the Naval Academy?”

  “Yep. The Southern Maryland School of Boat and Barge. Went to BUDS in Coronado, southern California. Served two years in Central America, then Desert Storm, instructed for three years, then went operational again in the Middle East. Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia.”