Mistaken Identity

by Lisa Scottoline

  Judge Guthrie frowned. “Mrs. Lambertsen, please don’t speculate or guess at your answers. Feel free to say so if you don’t remember.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Mrs. Lambertsen said. “I know Molly’s schedule. Even then, she kept to a schedule.”

  Hilliard sat down heavily as Bennie sent up a prayer of thanks. “Mrs. Lambertsen, the question was, when was the last time that day that Molly had slept?”

  “She had been awake since her morning nap. She woke up at about six in the morning, then went right back to sleep. She woke up at about ten-thirty, in those days. She didn’t even take an afternoon nap, or if she did it lasted like an hour.”

  “So on May nineteenth, she was up from about ten-thirty in the morning until when she eventually went to sleep, is that right?”

  “Right.”

  “Take us back a bit, to the day before May nineteenth. You said Molly was two months old at the time. If you can recall, what was her schedule then?”

  Hilliard sighed audibly, but refrained from making an objection. His cranky growl got him the interruption he wanted anyway.

  “Oh, God. It was hell, sheer hell,” Mrs. Lambertsen said, rolling her eyes. “She would start fussing late in the day, when she was really too tired to stay awake. She would fall asleep at about nine o’clock, then wake up at about midnight. We’d watch Jay Leno together.”

  “If you remember, did Molly go right back to sleep after the Jay Leno show on the night of May eighteenth?”

  “She never went right back to sleep,” Mrs. Lambertsen shot back, so flatly that the jurors laughed. “She always wanted to play after she’d nursed. She was happy, well fed, and had my attention.”

  “When was the next time Molly did go back to sleep, the night of May eighteenth?”

  “She didn’t go back down at all. We were both up all night.”

  Bennie couldn’t imagine it. She thought of her mother’s devotion, with a pang of fresh grief. She paused a minute and hoped the jurors attributed it to her next question. “Mrs. Lambertsen, had you napped that day, on May nineteenth?”

  “Not since the morning. I always napped when Molly napped or I wouldn’t have survived her first year. Somebody in my playgroup told me to do that and it was good advice.”

  “So in the night before May nineteenth, you had a total of three hours sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  Bennie thought about how she felt without a good night’s sleep for a week. “Doesn’t sleep deprivation affect your concentration?”

  “For sure. I’m one of those people who need a lot of sleep, nine hours a night. Once I took Molly to the doctor, she had an ear infection, and I couldn’t remember whether the doctor told me to put drops in her ears or mouth. Another time I bought diapers and left them on the counter.”

  The jurors smiled, and Bennie waited before her next question. “Did you ever think you read something, and read it wrong?” she asked.

  “Objection!” Hilliard said as he rose and reached for his crutches. He knew where Bennie was going and it wasn’t baby talk anymore. He slipped strong forearms into the aluminum handles of his crutches. “The question calls for speculation and is vague. I think this entire line of questioning is totally irrelevant and a waste of the Court’s time.”

  Judge Guthrie was caught cleaning his reading glasses. “I think not, Mr. Hilliard,” he ruled, and Hilliard took his seat heavily.

  Bennie glanced at the judge, thankful. If Judge Guthrie had been ruling against her yesterday, he was playing fair today. Too bad she almost had to get killed to get his attention. “Mrs. Lambertsen,” she said, “you may answer the question.”

  “I guess I remember reading the directions on the bottle over and over. Even out loud.”

  “Thinking back to the night of May nineteenth, recall that you’re trying to get Molly to calm down, you’re working on three hours of sleep and you hear a gunshot. Then you run to the door, come back, and read the clock. How can you be sure you read the clock right?”

  Lambertsen looked away, apparently reconsidering. “I think I did.”

  “You’re sure your perceptions were correct that night, even though you were working on three hours’ sleep?”

  “I am.”

  Bennie slipped her hands into her pockets. Maybe she was pushing it, but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know what had happened that night. “But other perceptions of yours were off that night, weren’t they, Mrs. Lambertsen?”

  “Like what?” the witness asked thoughtfully, and Bennie could feel the jurors faces as they turned toward her. If she could come through, she sensed they’d shift to her side. Bennie felt it like an undertow tugging at her ankles, threatening to drown her if she didn’t swim hard.

  “Well, Mrs. Lambertsen, when you looked out your front door, you didn’t perceive what Alice Connolly was wearing for a shirt, did you?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “And you didn’t perceive what Alice Connolly was wearing on the bottom, jeans or shorts, did you?”

  “Well, no,” she answered, a tremor of doubt in her tone, and Bennie felt the tide begin to turn. Mrs. Lambertsen was an intelligent, reasonable person, bending over backward to be honest in her testimony. In Bennie’s experience, they made the worst witnesses ever.

  “So isn’t it possible, Mrs. Lambertsen, given how tired you were and all that was going on, that you’re not exactly sure what the clock said when you read it? Police records show you didn’t call 911 until 8:07.”

  Mrs. Lambertsen straightened in her chair. Bennie held her breath, and Hilliard his objection. Judge Guthrie craned his neck over his papers as the silence lengthened. The jury focused completely on the young mother, waiting for her answer.

  Finally Mrs. Lambertsen said, “I guess I can’t really be sure if it said eight o’clock.”

  Bennie’s body sagged suddenly with the release of tension. “I have no further questions,” she said, and returned to her chair behind counsel table.

  “Your Honor, I have redirect,” Hilliard said, rising and holding up a finger, but Bennie relaxed in her chair. She knew he couldn’t erase Lambertsen’s testimony.

  Connolly leaned over and tapped Bennie’s sleeve. “Way to go, counselor. There’s not many lawyers who could kill a cop, then kick ass in court the next day.”

  Bennie’s face flushed with shame. She looked over, stung, but Connolly had turned away, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

  69

  It was the lunch break at trial, and Bennie faced Connolly in the courthouse interview room. Bennie was so angry she couldn’t feel her assorted aches and pains. “How did you know about Lenihan?” she demanded.

  “How could I not know?”

  “You’re incarcerated, for one thing.”

  “That never stopped me before. Impressed?”

  Bennie folded her arms. “Who are you in contact with on the outside? Is it Bullock?”

  “Relax.” Connolly sat back and smiled. Her wrists lay handcuffed in her lap, incongruous with her suit and pearls. “One of the guards showed me the newspaper. I told you the cops were behind it. Lenihan, McShea, Reston, they’re all out to get me. Now do you think I’m telling the truth?”

  “About them, yes.”

  “So you know I’m innocent.”

  “You didn’t kill Della Porta. We’ll leave it at that. Did you know Lenihan or not?”

  “No, I told you that.”

  “You never heard anyone mention him? He almost killed me last night. What’s his connection to you, or them?”

  “No idea.”

  Bennie grew only more determined. “Why does the judge want me disabled on this case? Do you know?”

  “So I’ll get railroaded.”

  “Why? How’s he connected to this conspiracy?”

  “I don’t know how, I told you.”

  “What about the D.A., Hilliard? What about him?”

  “I don’t know what the connection is, I said.”

&n
bsp; “You don’t know anything that can help us out?”

  “Us? I’m touched.”

  “Us is me and my associates.”

  Connolly laughed. “Can’t help you, girlie. It’s your show.”

  “Show’s over. See you in court.” Bennie reached for the doorknob and walked out. But it wasn’t as easy to turn away as it should have been.

  Bennie left Connolly upset and walked into the courthouse conference room while DiNunzio and Carrier finished eating. The associates were seated in the same chairs as at the last break, like a family at a dinner table. Mary was having her customary Greek salad, and the crust of an impossibly large sandwich lay in waxed paper in front of Judy. The scene almost managed to soothe Bennie’s spirit.

  “We got you some chicken soup,” Judy said, pushing a plastic container across the table. Her eyes were bright, her hair shiny, and her large frame jittery with energy in a loose-fitting navy smock. “Mary thought you could use it, for medicinal purposes.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Nobody’s fine after a night like last night.”

  Bennie slipped into her seat and didn’t move to uncap the soup container. “How’d we do with Lambertsen?”

  “Awesome.”

  “That a term of art? How’d the jury take it?”

  “They got it, I think.”

  “Good. You guys figured out the next witness? Another neighbor, to shore up Lambertsen? What are their names?” Bennie struggled to remember, but Mary jumped in.

  “There’s Ray Munoz, Mary Vidas, and Ryan Murray,” she said, her answer firm. “Also a Frederick Sharp. All of them saw Connolly running by that night.”

  Bennie nodded, pleased. “Good for you, DiNunzio.”

  “I studied,” Mary said with a wry smile. “Munoz is the main neighbor we have to worry about. But something tells me Hilliard won’t put up another neighbor after Lambertsen.”

  “I agree,” Judy said. “Hilliard just put up a girl and got killed. Babies, pacifiers, neighbors — it’s girl testimony. Also, he doesn’t have anybody to address the time issue. He needs something objective, harder to impeach. Boy testimony.”

  Bennie thought it was an odd way of looking at the world. “So who is it? The coroner? A blood expert?”

  “That’s my bet. Can you handle it? You feel okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Bennie said, but she had hardly finished the sentence when Mary began clearing her throat, loudly.

  “I could take a witness,” the associate said. “If you want.”

  Judy’s mouth dropped open. “Mare?”

  “You would?” Bennie asked with a smile.

  Mary nodded. “I could try. I’m good on boy stuff, whatever that means. Math, science, bicycles with bars down the middle. I think I could do it.”

  Bennie shook her head. “Before last night, I would have let you, but not now. I don’t want you on the firing line.” A soft knock sounded on the conference room door, and Bennie looked over. “We expecting anybody?”

  “Mike and Ike?” Mary offered.

  “Ooh, I feel safer already,” Judy said. “Big, strong men protecting me.”

  Mary smiled. “They’re gay, you know. Ike told me.”

  “For real?” Judy asked.

  “If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”

  Judy laughed. “What did you say? You never say things like that.”

  “Sometimes I do.”

  Bennie was opening the door onto a short, elderly couple, standing close enough to each other to be huddling against a blizzard. They smelled faintly of mothballs in their cloth coats and looked vaguely familiar. “I’m sorry, this is the attorney’s conference room,” Bennie told them.

  “I can read English!” the old woman snapped, though an Italian accent flavored her words. She glared through thick glasses that magnified milky brown eyes. “We come to make sure our daughter is safe!”

  “Oh, no,” came a loud moan from the conference room, and Bennie turned to see DiNunzio leaping to her pumps.

  Lou flipped up the collar of his dark-blue windbreaker and kept his head down against the drizzle. The sidewalk was wet and raindrops dotted the pebbled surface. Soggy trash clumped in the gutter, blocking the sewer. Lou couldn’t remember the last time it had been sunny in this goddamn city. Maybe the last time somebody had cleaned up South Philly. He was in a foul, foul mood. Investigating one of his own. A killer.

  Lou shook his head, jingling the change in his pockets. He’d told Rosato last night he’d follow up on Lenihan, and he had started as soon as he got home, making phone calls. Lenihan was in the Eleventh, and Lou used to have buddies in the Eleventh. One of his buddies had died, prostate cancer, and the other, Carlos, had moved to Tempe, Arizona. For the air, Carlos had said, when Lou called him long-distance last night.

  What, we don’t have air in Philly? Lou said.

  Lou and Carlos shot the shit awhile, dime a minute, and it turned out Carlos’s kid joined the force, also the Eleventh. Maybe the kid could give him the skinny about Lenihan and drug dealing. Lou had asked Carlos to set it up, and Carlos had said yes. Lou lowered his head and watched unhappily as rain pelted his leather loafers, making a wavy water line around the edge of the toe. Shit. The back of his collar felt clammy. He tried to shake off the drops, but couldn’t. It wasn’t the rain bothering him anyway.

  It was Rosato. She’d almost got whacked right under his nose. He hadn’t seen it coming. What was the matter with him? He was a cop, for Christ’s sake. Maybe he really was getting old.

  Lou reached the corner and looked down the street, blinking against the drizzle. A patrol car was coming on, a half block away, probably on its way to the precinct house. The car looked like a new one with a factory-fresh white paint job. Red, white, and blue lights shiny on the roof, like the flag.

  Lou jogged across the street, trying to jump the gutter and falling short. Christ. He was getting old. He remembered the first time he got into a squad car, he twisted the wheel back and forth like a kid. But what he felt like was a man. Responsible. Not just for himself, for his wife and family, but for everyone. To protect and to serve. It had meant a lot to Lou.

  The drizzle came heavier, and Lou picked up the pace. A bank of rowhouses lined the cross street, then a corner bakery. Nobody was inside the bakery, but its shelves were full. Old glass display cases heaped with butter cookies that were covered by pink cellophane hay. Trays of soft pinwheel cookies with sticky red jam in the middle. Lou shook his head, hurrying by. All those old-time bakeries would be gone soon. Everybody wanted everything new nowadays. Good-bye, little white boxes tied with string.

  Lou spotted the precinct house straight ahead, on the left. You’d never know it was a police station from the outside. The sign was small and the yellow brick poorly maintained for a municipal building. Steel cages covered the windows and the flag was at half-mast. It was because of Lenihan, though the kid wouldn’t be getting the hero treatment. The Department would want the whole thing to blow over, and so would the mayor.

  Lou got closer. Squad cars were piled like goddamn cookies around the place. Never enough parking around any precinct house; never enough cops, never enough cars. Nobody could keep up with the scumbags, the drugs so plentiful they blanketed everything, cheap as baker’s flour. Not a soul in the world could stop it. Lou knew that in his head, but it didn’t stop him from trying. He was stupid that way. He climbed the front steps of the station house and went inside.

  Behind the desk was a young black woman with her hair tucked up under her hat and a smile covered with braces. She asked if she could help him, like it was a bakery shop, and Lou smiled. “Lookin’ for Ed Vega,” he said.

  “You just missed him. He’ll be right back.”

  “Damn,” Lou said. “I’ll wait. He was supposed to meet me for lunch.”

  “You’re not a reporter, are you?” she asked, her eyes narrowing, and Lou laughed.

  “Hell, no. I’m — I used to be — a cop.”

  70r />
  The witness, Dr. Liam Pettis, was bald, with a silver-white tuft of hair above each fuzzy ear, and his smile was flanked by the softest of jowls. He wore a seersucker suit of sky-blue stripes that fit his small, pudgy frame as if it had been bought many years ago. In response to Dorsey Hilliard’s questions, Dr. Pettis recited a laundry list of expert qualifications — degrees, publications, and awards — yet still managed to sound slightly surprised when Judge Guthrie qualified him as an expert.

  “Dr. Pettis,” Hilliard continued, “in addition to being a professor and a licensed physician, you are also an expert in blood spatter analysis, are you not?”

  “I am.”

  “Briefly explain what blood spatter analysis means, in layman’s terms, if you would.”

  “Blood spatter analysis, or bloodstain pattern analysis, means simply that when blood is acted upon by physical forces, it will deposit itself on items at a crime scene or on the clothing of a perpetrator in a certain pattern. By understanding these patterns, we can learn much about the manner in which the murder was accomplished.”

  Bennie caught a glimpse of the gallery. Sketch artists rushed to get a drawing and reporters made rapid notes. Mike and Ike remained in position and behind them huddled the DiNunzios. Mrs. DiNunzio glared at her, and Bennie wondered who were more protective, bodyguards or Italian parents. Still, she didn’t resent Mary’s mother, who reminded her of what her mother could have been, had she been well.

  “Dr. Pettis,” Hilliard asked, “could you describe for the jury the type of injury Detective Della Porta sustained in relation to the blood spatter you examined?”

  “Certainly. In this case, a gun, a .22 caliber weapon, was fired into the decedent’s lower forehead. Here.” Dr. Pettis pointed a furry finger at the middle of his brow. “The skin over the bone exploded, the cranium was pierced, and blood and matter in the cranial vault were blown forward. The bullet lodged in the back of the skull and made a small hole in the forehead. Its geometry was quite round, which suggests that the weapon was fired directly at the victim, point-blank. Considering the blood spatter on the walls and furniture of the apartment, which I examined through photographic evidence, I would say the weapon was fired from a distance of three to four feet.”