“We caught a break,” Bennie told them. “The super lives on the first floor.”
“How do you know?” Judy asked.
“It says so.” Bennie pointed to a nameplate: J. BOSTON, SUPER.
“Ace detective work,” Judy said, but Mary wasn’t laughing.
The super was short and wore a dirty T-shirt, baggy pants, and a grizzled, apathetic expression. When he spoke, a scotch-scented wind wafted toward Bennie. “No, I didn’t hear nuthin’ the night Ant’ny got killed,” he rasped in a voice sandpapered by cigarettes.
“But you live downstairs,” Bennie said. “You heard the gunshot, didn’t you?”
“The cops already axed me that. I told ’em, I don’t hear nothin’ at night.”
“Even a gunshot?”
“I didn’t hear nothin’. So I’d had a few. That agains’ the law?”
“Did you ever hear Connolly and Della Porta? Talking, arguing, anything?”
The old man’s watery eyes lit up. “Anything? You mean anything?”
“Fine. Anything.”
“No.” He burst into laughter that ended in a hacking fit. Judy and Mary exchanged glances, standing in the hallway in front of his apartment. The television, specifically Oprah Winfrey’s theme song, blared from behind a white door grimy with fingerprints. “I hardly ever saw ’em. They was never around. Him bein’ a cop and all, I figgered he was busy.”
“Did they have a lot of visitors?”
“Hell if I know. I stay in my place. My brother-in-law, he owns this dump, he likes it that way. Any way he likes it is fine with me.” The super squinted. “You say you’re a lawyer? All a youse are gal lawyers? Do they have that?”
Bennie let it go. “Does that sign out front mean that Della Porta’s apartment is vacant?”
“Hell, yes. That apartment’s nothin’ but trouble. I could show it all day, ain’t nobody gonna rent it. Nobody want a place with a man got shot, even furnished and all. Plus he’s askin’ too much.”
“The apartment’s been vacant since the murder? With the original furniture?”
“Sure. Got everything ’cept the rug. I throwed that out when the cops was done with it.”
Bennie sighed. Trace evidence would be long gone. “Is the furniture the same as it was? You didn’t rearrange it, did you?”
“I don’t get paid enough to move nothin’.”
“I need to see that apartment. Can I borrow the key?”
“What the hell.” The super fumbled for his pocket and dug around inside. “Who you think cleaned that mess upstairs? Yours truly. Who you think took up the g-d rug, had blood all over it? Yours truly. Who sanded the floors? Repainted the bloody wall? Packed all their shit up and put it in the basement?”
“Yours truly?” Judy said, and the super grinned in toothless appreciation.
After they got the key, Bennie charged up the stairway with the associates to the second floor. The stair was long and skinny, covered by a dirty red runner, and on the second floor was a door without a sign or number.
Bennie unlocked the door. “Keep your eyes open,” she said, stepping inside the apartment. “Take note of the layout of the place. Look at the orientation of the rooms, the furniture. Check views from the windows, lighting. Try to remember what you see, no matter how insignificant it seems now. Got it?”
“Yep,” Judy answered. She snapped a photo, but Mary lingered at the threshold, unnoticed.
Bennie scanned the apartment. The large room had two windows that faced the street, a northern exposure, and contained a table with four chairs to the right, making up a dining area on the east side. On the left side of the room a couch sat flush against the wall and in front of it was an oak blanket chest. A Sony Trinitron sat on a TV cart between the windows and an oval mirror hung on the wall. Bennie made a note of the brighter squares in the textured wallpaper where pictures had been hung, and there was a light square in the center of the floor where a rug had been. “Take a picture from this spot, Carrier,” Bennie said. “Take a bunch.”
“Gotcha.” Judy clicked away as Bennie crossed the room to the couch.
“Here we go. Here’s the bloodstain.” Bennie strode directly to a discolored patch in the hardwood, which was glossy in uneven patches, the refinishing sloppy. Della Porta’s blood must have seeped through the rug. She remembered from the police file that the bullet had been a .22 caliber. It had made a small hole in Della Porta’s forehead and blasted through the back of his skull. The loss of blood had been significant.
“Jeez.” Judy walked over and took a picture. “No wonder the super hasn’t rented the place. Nobody sweeps blood under the rug.”
“Which way did the body fall? Where’s DiNunzio?” Bennie asked, and both heads snapped to the doorway where Mary stood rooted. “DiNunzio, what are you doing? Come over here.”
“Coming.” Mary walked over as purposefully as she could and looked down. On the floor was a dark brown stain shaped like France. Her stomach flipped over. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Della Porta was found face-up,” Bennie said. “Was his head tilted east or west?”
“East? West?” Mary couldn’t think clearly. A man had died here, shot in the head. She visualized a slug of hot lead tearing apart the soft wetness of his brain. Destroying what should have been inviolate.
“West is to your left, east to your right.”
Mary couldn’t take her eyes from the bloodstain. She’d seen the autopsy photos and the mobile crime unit photos. So much blood in a line of work that was supposed to be bloodless.
“Which is it? East or west?”
“Can I … check the file?” Mary slid the accordion from under her arm.
“No. You read it, didn’t you?” Bennie snapped, and Judy touched her sleeve.
“What’s the point, Bennie? It’s hard for her—”
“Quiet, please. Mary doesn’t need a lawyer, she is a lawyer.” Bennie was doing this for a reason, but she didn’t need to broadcast it, and she even knew the answer, which didn’t matter anyway. “DiNunzio, this is a murder case, so blood is a prerequisite. Don’t think of the body, think of the file. Think of the paper. It’s just another case. Now, was he facing east or west?”
“West,” Mary said, the answer materializing from a police photo she didn’t know she remembered.
“Good girl. What did the coroner have as the time of death?”
“The coroner said between seven-thirty and eight-thirty. It was in his report.”
“There you go. Now, Connolly told me she was at the Free Library on Logan Circle. She left at six-thirty and walked home. The shooter was somebody Della Porta buzzed in, and the murder took place almost immediately after. Della Porta was standing at the time and was shot point-blank. He crumpled and fell backward, face-up. It’s all consistent with the M.E.’s report, that’s what they’re going to say. You think I’m right, DiNunzio?”
“That’s what they’ll say.”
Judy looked puzzled. “You know what I don’t get? It’s a long walk here from the library, an hour or more. Why did she walk? There’s buses, cabs, everything.”
“I don’t know, maybe she likes to walk.”
“Then she has no alibi. If she left at six-thirty, she could still be walking home at the time of the murder.”
“I’m aware of that.”
Judy swallowed hard, then risked job termination. “Did she do it?”
“She’s our client, Carrier. Whether she did it or not is beside the point.” Bennie checked her growing annoyance. “Legal Ethics 101. It’s not prosecutors on one side and defense lawyers on the other, with equal and opposite functions. That’s sloppy thinking. The roles are different in kind. The prosecution is supposed to seek justice, and the defense is supposed to get the defendant acquitted.”
“You don’t think Connolly’s guilt is relevant? What about justice?”
“Connolly is my client, so I have to save her life. My job is about loyalty. Is that noble enough fo
r you?”
Judy cocked her head. “So it’s a conflict between justice and loyalty.”
“Welcome to the profession.”
Mary heard the edge to Bennie’s voice and recognized it as anxiety. If Bennie and Connolly were the twins they appeared to be at the emergency hearing, Mary could imagine the strain Bennie was feeling. Judy, who hadn’t been at the hearing, was missing the point.
“Then I’m confused,” Judy said. “If we’re not solving a murder, why are we here?”
Bennie looked at Judy directly. “We need to understand the D.A.’s case and develop a credible theory of what happened that night. When we get into that courtroom, the jurors have to look to us as the font of all knowledge, so they take that confidence in us into the jury room. Shall I go on?”
“No, but—” Judy started to say, and Bennie waved her off.
“We don’t have time to discuss this any longer. Connolly has a right to effective counsel, so get effective. Take pictures.” Bennie glanced around the living room, bothered. Carrier’s question had been nagging at her from the beginning. Did Connolly do it? Bennie didn’t think so, but why? She suppressed the thought. “This place is too fucking clean. Let’s start with the kitchen, DiNunzio, and check through in an orderly way.”
“Okay,” Mary said, though Bennie was already at the threshold to the kitchen, hands on her hips.
It was a small galley kitchen with cherrywood cabinets, new appliances, and a fancy Sub-Zero refrigerator. Bennie opened the cabinets, which were empty except for one stocked with heavy white dishes. She double-checked the others, which were bare, then went to the window. “Who called 911 about the gunshot, DiNunzio?”
“Mrs. Lambertsen, from next door. She testified at the prelim. She also saw Connolly run by, and so did other neighbors. Three or four, I remember reading.”
Bennie nodded. “Assume 911 dispatch gets the call and radios it out right away. Who was the first patrol car to respond?”
“I have to check that.”
Mary slid out the accordion, pulled out a folder, and thumbed through it with Bennie at her shoulder. Yellow highlighting striped every page, evidence of DiNunzio’s careful work, and Bennie thought the associate would make a fine lawyer if she’d just get out of her own way. “Here it is,” Mary said. “Patrol Officers Pichetti and Luz.”
“Not McShea and Reston?” Bennie thought a minute. “Where were Pichetti and Luz when they got the call?”
Mary ran her finger down the page. “A couple blocks away, at Seventh and Pine.”
“What we need to know is where Reston and McShea were and why they were so close to Della Porta’s apartment.”
“The file doesn’t have a report from them.”
“I’m not surprised, but there must be one. That’s the report we want. We have to find it. It should have been in the police file or the file from Jemison, Crabbe. Check that when we get back to the office.”
“Okay.” Mary was starting to feel useful and she couldn’t see the stain anymore.
“Good. Let’s look at the other rooms.” Bennie left the kitchen, walked through the living room, and entered the bedroom, which was as nondescript as the kitchen. A queen-size bed frame and box spring sat against the wall between two windows, and a walnut veneer dresser against the far wall, with three drawers. Bennie crossed the room and opened the drawers. Nothing.
“Here’s the bathroom.” Mary waved a finger behind her, and Bennie nodded.
“Have a look. I’ll take the other bedroom. I wonder what they used it for.”
Bennie walked to the spare room and stood dumbstruck at the threshold. It was a home office and it looked like a replica of Bennie’s — even the furniture in it was arranged like Bennie’s. Around the walls was a lineup of file cabinet, bookshelves, in the far corner a computer table, then another bookshelf. The table matched Bennie’s; a tall, white workstation from IKEA, with two shelves above the table and pullout trays on each side. Bennie used her trays all the time. Did Connolly?
Bennie walked over to the computer table and pulled the right-hand tray, which slid out with a familiar, gritty sound. Centered on the tray was a brown circle. Bennie knew what it was because hers had one, too: a ring left by a coffee mug. Her gut tensed. Did it mean anything? Logically, no. Most people drink coffee while they work and arrange their home offices the same way. And the lines at IKEA are endless.
“Nothing in the bathroom,” DiNunzio said from the door.
Bennie shook her head. Without knowing why, she crossed the short distance to the door. “There’s a peg here,” she said, and closed the door, revealing a peg stuck from the top panel.
“How did you know that?” Mary asked.
Bennie had a peg in the same place, but she didn’t want to explain that to DiNunzio yet. She needed to know more about Connolly before she gave any credence to this twin business. “Everybody has a peg on the door, don’t they?” she said casually.
“I’m just surprised Connolly did. She never used it. This office was a sty.”
Bennie pivoted in surprise. “How do you know that?”
“The photos, in the file. They were in an envelope from the mobile crime unit.”
Of course. She had forgotten. “Let’s see them.”
“I don’t have them with me.” Mary’s attack of usefulness vanished. “We’re not allowed to take originals out of the office, remember?”
Bennie gritted her teeth. It wasn’t the kid’s fault, so she couldn’t strangle her. “What do the photos show?”
“The apartment with all their stuff in it. You can see how they decorated it. It’s pretty much the same, except for this room. The apartment was neat, but Connolly’s office was a mess.”
“I want to see the photos tonight. Remind me when we get back.”
“Okay, sorry. I didn’t understand.”
“Forget it.” Bennie raked a hand through her hair. Connolly’s home office was a revelation, raising more questions than it answered. It was time to find the answers. “Get Carrier,” she said suddenly. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Downstairs to see the super. I’m renting this apartment.”
“You want to rent this place?” Mary was appalled. “But this is a crime scene.”
“Understood.”
“A man was killed here.”
“There are worse ideas than renting a crime scene,” Bennie said, but Mary couldn’t think of a single one.
15
Judy sat across from Mary in the conference room, typing a pretrial motion on her laptop while Mary organized the Connolly file. They had worked this way forever, holed up in a war room until late at night, readying for trial on a conference table dotted with open law books and take-out lo mein. “You’re nuts,” Judy said as she hit the ENTER key.
“You weren’t in court today, I was.” Mary pressed an orange label onto the coroner’s report and marked it Exhibit D-11. “I saw it. Her. Them. I’m telling you, Connolly is Bennie’s twin.”
“I don’t believe it.” Judy stopped typing. “Bennie never mentioned she had a twin. She’s private, but not that private.”
“All I can tell you is, Bennie and Connolly are twins. Same basic face, same height, same eyes. Not just sisters, either. They’re twins, I can feel it.”
“How?”
“Because I’m a twin. Twins know these things.”
“You’re starting to sound like me.” Judy cocked her head and her Dutch-boy haircut fell to the side. “You’re getting a twin vibe, is what you’re saying.”
“Catholics don’t believe in vibes. Just take it from me, they’re twins.”
“If they look that much alike, how come nobody else in the courtroom saw it?”
“Nobody was really looking at them, they were following the proceeding. And Connolly and Bennie look different. Connolly is thin and her hair’s red. She wears makeup, she’s pretty. Foxy. Bennie’s hair is such a light blond, messy, and she always looks like she put
on whatever she grabbed first, like a jock.” Mary finished choosing and labeling the defense exhibits. “And the cues weren’t there. My God, Bennie’s a big-time lawyer and Connolly’s a state prisoner. One’s a winner and one’s a loser. Nobody made the connection.”
“What do you mean? Either Bennie and Connolly look like twins or they don’t.”
“Not necessarily. It’s like with me and Angie. There was a time, I don’t know if you remember, really early at Stalling? I was a second-year associate. I lost twenty pounds. My face was sunken in, I broke out constantly, and I looked like shit. The worst I’ve looked in my life.”
“Worse than now?”
“As I was saying, I remember Angie was entering the convent. We were allowed to go to the ceremony and watch from behind a carved screen. Wasn’t that big of them?”
Judy smiled. “Without your religion you’d have nothing to bitch about.”
“Yes, I would — what about my job? Anyway, I took pictures of me and Angie that day, and you could never tell we were identical twins from them. There’s Angie, looking all happy and serene. Relaxed, fulfilled. On a first-name basis with the Holy Spirit.”
“The Holy Spirit has a first name?”
“Al, of course. You can call him Al. Now will you shut up and let me tell the story? In the picture, I looked the worst I ever looked and Angie looked the best. She was becoming a nun and I was becoming a burnt-out associate. She was serving God, I was serving Satan.”
“I get it,” Judy said, though Mary remained undaunted.
“You know those ads with the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures? I looked like the ‘before’ picture and Angie looked like the ‘after’ picture. Especially with me in the suit and her in the nun costume.” Mary sipped cold coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “It doesn’t help when you dress differently, like Connolly and Bennie were, in court. It’s not only in the way you look, anyway.”
“How so?”
“I can tell in other ways that people are twins. I knew fraternal twins in school. They sat closer together than other people. When they talked to each other, they stood nearer. They were just used to being physically close. They gravitated to each other, like meatballs in a bowl. Angie and I used to be that way.”
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