Bennie shook her head grimly as she bustled forward. “More specific than that. See if they worked the same case, like that. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I want you to find it.”
Mary smiled crookedly. “Gotcha,” she said, and Judy glanced at her friend.
“What are you going to do about your parents, Mare?”
“It’s time I grew up,” Mary said, and for a second, she almost believed it.
67
The next witness for the prosecution, Jane Lambertsen, perched on the stand, well dressed in a flowered spring dress, chic gold jewelry, and a sweater the color of Granny Smith apples. Her raven hair had been gathered back into a thick ponytail, emphasizing her youth and freshness. Lambertsen contrasted in every way with the cops who had testified the day before, and Bennie figured that Hilliard had reshuffled his batting order after Lenihan’s death.
The courtroom was quiet, the court personnel occupying themselves with official duties, and the jury presumptively ignorant of the events swirling outside the courthouse walls. If they thought Bennie looked a little puffy around the face, they’d ascribe it to a late night at the office. Only Bennie knew open war had been declared, as she and the entire courtroom sat fully focused on the next witness for the Commonwealth.
“Yes, I did hear them arguing that night,” Mrs. Lambertsen testified.
Hilliard straightened at the podium. “That is, you’re testifying that you heard Alice Connolly and Anthony Della Porta arguing before his murder on the night in question?”
“Objection,” Bennie snapped. “The prosecutor is testifying again.”
Judge Guthrie fiddled with a bow tie that was already straight. He seemed completely preoccupied to Bennie since their meeting in chambers. Perhaps the knowledge that his cohorts weren’t fellow Quakers had sobered him. “I’ll allow it,” the judge ruled. “You may answer, Mrs. Lambertsen.”
“That’s right,” the witness said. “I heard arguing that night, a little before eight o’clock. I was trying to put the baby down. To bed, you know. Her bedtime was at seven forty-five then, and I was watching the clock.”
A woman juror in the front row nodded, and Lambertsen caught her eye and smiled back. Bennie thumbed through her papers for her notes; her head hurt too much to remember the jury sheets. The juror was Libby DuMont, age thirty-two, homemaker, mother of three.
“Mrs. Lambertsen,” Hilliard said, “you’ve already testified that you lived in the rowhouse next door to Detective Della Porta and the defendant. Does that mean you shared a common wall?”
“Yes, and it’s a thin wall, too. You can hear sounds, kind of muffled. I used to worry all the time that they’d hear the baby crying. I did hear them argue, a lot.”
“How often would you say the defendant and Detective Della Porta argued, Mrs. Lambertsen?”
“Well, she moved in in September, I think. I would say the arguing started in October.”
Beside Bennie, Connolly shifted unhappily in her seat. She was wearing the same blue suit as yesterday, which matched Bennie’s, and looked like a lawyer with her cultured pearls. Bennie hadn’t spoken to Connolly since Lenihan’s attack and had to assume she didn’t know about it. As much as she loathed Connolly, Bennie had to admit that Connolly had been telling the truth about the police conspiracy. It made Bennie credit Connolly’s story, even if, paradoxically, she couldn’t abide sitting with her.
“Did their fighting have a pattern you could discern?” Hilliard asked, and Bennie didn’t object. Judge Guthrie would permit Hilliard to lead, on direct.
“It seemed like they fought at night, mostly,” Lambertsen answered.
“Could you make out anything they said during these fights?”
“Objection, hearsay,” Bennie said, half rising. Her side hurt but she ignored it. “The question is vague, irrelevant, and assumes facts not in evidence. There’s been no proof that these voices belonged to the defendant or to Mr. Della Porta.”
“You may want to rephrase that, Mr. Prosecutor,” Judge Guthrie said after a moment, which Bennie regarded as a small victory.
Hilliard paused to act exasperated. “Without telling the jury what the words were, Mrs. Lambertsen, could you make out who was speaking?”
“Only sometimes, when they really yelled. I tried not to listen, I didn’t want to invade their privacy. I just heard voices shouting at each other.”
“In general, again without telling us the words, whose voice was generally louder during these fights, the defendant’s or Detective Della Porta’s?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Bennie said, half rising again.
Hilliard held up a hand, flashing a large class ring of garnet and gold. “I’ll rephrase. Mrs. Lambertsen, when you heard arguing coming from the apartment shared by the defendant and Detective Della Porta, whose voice was generally louder, the woman’s or the man’s?”
Bennie objected on the same grounds but Judge Guthrie denied it. Mrs. Lambertsen testified, “The woman’s voice was usually louder.”
“Thank you,” Hilliard said. “Now, going back to the night of May nineteenth, how long did the argument last?”
“Fifteen minutes, at the most.”
“Do you recall what happened after the argument?”
“I heard a noise. Sometimes after they argue I hear a door slam. This time it was a gunshot.”
Two of the jurors looked at each other and several stiffened in their seats. Hilliard paused to let it register. “What did you do after you heard the gunshot?” he asked.
“I went to the door to see what was going on. I have one of those chains on the door, so I left it on and peeked out.”
“Wait a minute, why did you go to the door, Mrs. Lambertsen?” Hilliard asked, apparently spontaneously, and Bennie reflected that the question demonstrated why he was such a good lawyer. Hilliard asked witnesses the questions that would occur to jurors, reinforcing his logical nature and aligning him with the jury.
“I’m not sure exactly,” Lambertsen admitted. “The gunshot came from next door, but I couldn’t go next door, so I went to my door and opened it a little. Just to see what was going on. Like, a crack.”
“What did you see when you went to the door?”
“I saw Alice, Alice Connolly, running by. She ran right by my door.”
The jury shifted, though Connolly remained still. Bennie willed herself to stay calm. She’d known this testimony was coming. It would only get worse, as each of the neighbors corroborated. Hilliard looked grave. “Mrs. Lambertsen, how did the defendant appear to you as she ran by?” he asked.
“Worried, scared, kind of in a panic. Like you’d look after a fight, but worse.”
The jurors listened to every word, caught up in the story. Bennie wished she could break it up with an objection, but it would cost her more in credibility than she’d gain. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder at the gallery, which looked rapt. Directly behind her sat Mike and Ike, solid as fence posts at either end of the front row. No cops watched from the back row, where Lenihan had sat. It was hard to believe he was there only yesterday, watching her. Bennie flashed on him falling in horror over the wall and found herself wondering when his funeral would be. She knew just how his family would feel, picking out the casket. Sick. Horrified. Dazed.
“Mrs. Lambertsen, after you saw Alice Connolly run by, what did you do?”
“I called 911 and told them what I had seen, and the police came.”
Hilliard continued by eliciting the details of the 911 call and found an excuse to take Lambertsen again through the gunshot and Connolly’s running down the street, to emphasize it to the jury. It was a slam-dunk direct examination of an appealing and critical witness.
Bennie rose to her feet, wincing from hidden injuries and knowing that she had to attack Lambertsen’s testimony without attacking the witness. And she had to do it without getting bollixed up by what had happened last night. Near-death experiences didn’t make for productive workdays.
But she couldn’t think about that now.
68
Bennie stood beside the podium and addressed the young mother. “Mrs. Lambertsen, thinking back to the night of May nineteenth, you say you heard arguing, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear male and female voices arguing, or did you just hear voices raised in argument?”
Lambertsen thought a minute. “I guess I just heard voices.”
Bennie sighed inwardly, with relief. Funny thing about the truth. It enabled a lawyer to ask a question she didn’t know the answer to, because she knew what the answer had to be. “Now, Ms. Lambertsen, there came a time when you saw Alice Connolly running down the street. Do you remember what she was wearing?”
“Uh, no.”
“Do you remember what type of shirt she had on?”
“I didn’t notice, or if I did, I don’t remember.”
“And you didn’t see what she was wearing on the bottom, jeans or shorts, did you?”
“No.”
“Was she carrying anything?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice that either.”
Bennie nodded. No white plastic bag? She had almost made the point and sensed not to push it. “Now, you testified you were trying to put your baby down at seven forty-five that night, isn’t that right?”
“Yes. It was always a fight then, it still is. She doesn’t want to miss anything.” Mrs. Lambertsen smiled, as did the young mother in the front row. It was a warm moment, and Bennie decided to prolong it. There was precious little warmth in the world, of late.
“Mrs. Lambertsen, how old was your baby on May nineteenth of last year?”
“About two months old. She was born on March twenty-third, so she was a newborn.”
“And what is her name, by the way?” Bennie asked, to loosen up the witness, who obviously welcomed talking about her child. Bennie’s only point of reference was her dog and she could talk golden retrievers for hours.
“Molly’s her name.”
“Okay, Molly. You were with Molly. Now, what time was it when you heard the gunshot?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“You know that how?”
“I looked at the clock. Molly hadn’t napped that afternoon and she needed to go down. On days like that, you have an eye on the clock.”
“Now, when did you look at the clock, in relation to when you heard the gunshot?”
Lambertsen thought a minute, pursing lips lipsticked a light, feminine pink. “I looked at the clock right after I heard the gunshot.”
Bennie paused. It was a crucial point. She had to prove that more time had elapsed between the sound of the gunshot and when Lambertsen saw Connolly running past her door. If Bennie’s theory was true, whoever shot Della Porta had gotten out just before Connolly arrived home. “What kind of clock do you have? Is it digital?”
“No, it’s a small, round one on the oven front. You know those?”
“Sure. So you have to read it, like the old days?”
The witness smiled. “Yes.”
“Mrs. Lambertsen, what did you do after you looked at the clock?”
“I went to the door, opened it, and looked out.”
“Did you? Let’s go back over the exact sequence of events.” Bennie walked around the front of the podium and leaned on it, wincing as her shoulder flexed. If she had to develop her defense as she went along, so be it. She’d always thought that was the worst trouble a lawyer could get into, but that was before last night. “Mrs. Lambertsen, where in your house were you when you heard the gunshot?”
“I was in the kitchen.”
“What were you doing in the kitchen?”
“Rocking the baby, trying to get her to settle down.”
Bennie nodded, wishing she had done the interview of Lambertsen herself and finagled her way into that house. “Where is your kitchen in relation to the front door?”
“The kitchen’s in the front of the house, to the left of the front door.”
“How large is the kitchen?”
“It’s long and skinny. About twenty feet long.”
“So, Mrs. Lambertsen, you walked through the kitchen, about twenty feet, to get to the front door?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Bennie visualized the scene and imagined a mother’s instinct. “You didn’t take the baby with you to see about the gunshot, did you?”
“God, no. I put her down.”
“Where did you put Molly?”
“In her baby chair, on the counter. One of those portable chairs, with a handle. It was in the kitchen.”
“So you put Molly in her chair. Did you strap her in?”
“Yes. I always do. She’s wriggly. Wiry.”
“Did she sit in the seat willingly?”
Mrs. Lambertsen burst into light laughter. “Molly doesn’t do anything willingly. She has a mind of her own.” The jurors laughed, too, relishing the baby talk, which Bennie knew was only apparently a frolic and detour.
“Did Molly cry in the chair?”
“A little, and kicked. Fussed, you know. Molly was kind of clingy at that age. She didn’t like it when I left the room. She’d kick and cry.”
“So you had to settle Molly before you went to the door, right?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do to settle her?”
“Gave her a pacifier, then patted her. Smoothed her hair, she likes that.”
“Did she settle down then?”
“No. I think I gave her a toy, too. Her favorite toy then was Rubber Duckie. I gave her Duckie.”
Judge Guthrie smiled benevolently from the dais. “You’re a very good mother, Mrs. Lambertsen,” he said, and the witness blushed at the praise.
“I agree,” Bennie said. She suppressed thoughts of her own mother. “Let’s see, Mrs. Lambertsen, before you went to the door, you put Molly in her chair, fastened the strap, gave her a toy duck and a pacifier, and you patted her and smoothed her hair, is that your recollection?”
“Yes.”
“Where was the rubber duck, by the way?”
“It was in a plastic bin on the kitchen counter.”
“Were there other toys in the bin, Mrs. Lambertsen?”
“There are toys everywhere in my house. Fisher-Price is our decorator,” she answered, and the jurors laughed again.
“So you had to root through the toy bin to find the rubber duck, is that right?”
“Right.”
“How long would you say it took for you to do all those things that good mothers do — that is, put Molly in her chair, fasten the strap, find her a toy duck, give it to her with a pacifier, and pat her and smooth her hair?”
“How much time? Uh, maybe five minutes, maybe more.”
Bennie guessed the witness was underestimating, albeit unintentionally. “How much more? As much as ten minutes?”
“Maybe, but more like seven.”
Bennie had made progress. Seven to ten minutes was almost enough time for a killer to escape and Connolly to arrive, but close. “And that was before you went to the door?”
“Uh, yes.” Mrs. Lambertsen glanced regretfully at Hilliard, taking notes at counsel table.
“Mrs. Lambertsen, after you got Molly the duck, did you walk or run the twenty feet to the door?”
“Walked.”
Bennie reconsidered the scenario. It was hard to think, with her jaw aching. She should have taken more Advil. “Wait a minute. You said Molly’s chair was on the counter in the kitchen. Can you see the baby from the front door?”
“No.”
“So you had to leave Molly out of sight, on the counter, while you went to the door?”
“Yes.”
“And she was kicking and crying, in one of those baby chairs?”
“Yes.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bennie saw the young mother in the front row frown just the slightest bit. It gave Bennie her cue and she walked stiffly from the podi
um to the witness stand, instinctively closing in on a point even she didn’t understand yet. “Mrs. Lambertsen, when you left Molly on the counter to go to the door, kicking and fussing, weren’t you worried she would fall off the counter?”
“Objection!” Hilliard shouted, his voice booming from the prosecution table. The sound had the intended effect of interrupting the good vibes Bennie was nurturing. “What could be the possible relevance of these details?”
Bennie faced the judge. “This is an entirely proper exploration of the events of the night in question, Your Honor.”
Judge Guthrie leaned back in his chair, touching his teeth with the stem of his reading glasses. “Overruled.”
Bennie turned to the witness. “Mrs. Lambertsen, weren’t you worried about Molly when you left her on the counter to go to the door?”
“Yes, I was. I should have put the chair on the floor, but I didn’t. I was so distracted by the gunshot and all. It was like two things happening at once.” The witness paused, thinking. “Now that I think of it, I ran back to check when I was halfway there.”
Bennie nodded. It was a break. “Considering that, how long do you think it took you to get to the door? Maybe three to five minutes?”
“Yes, probably.”
“So would it be fair to add three to five minutes to the time you saw Alice Connolly run by?”
“Yes.”
“Would that bring us to a total of ten to twelve minutes between the time you heard the gunshot and the time you reached the door and saw Alice Connolly?”
“Well, yes.”
Bennie paused, pleased, then thought back through Lambertsen’s testimony. It always surprised her that information witnesses volunteered during their testimony assumed significance in context. “Mrs. Lambertsen, you mentioned earlier that Molly needed a nap. When was the last time that day that she had slept?”
“Objection, Your Honor.” Hilliard half rose from his chair. “This line of questioning is totally irrelevant and calls for the witness to speculate.”
“Your Honor,” Bennie said firmly, “the relevancy of the questions will become clear, and I don’t think Mrs. Lambertsen is speculating. She’s obviously very attentive to her child, as you yourself noted.”
Mistaken Identity Page 32