Mistaken Identity

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Also true.”

  “Where did you get this energy?”

  “Drug of choice,” Mary said, and passed her the Doublemint.

  79

  Drizzle darkened the night, and Bennie and Lou stood next to the concrete stoop of a closed luncheonette. The cop showed up in a makeshift disguise, a Phillies cap and sunglasses, and Bennie could make out only some of his features in the calcium-white halo of a distant streetlight. His silvery sideburns were shorn close to his head and his laughlines were pronounced. His mouth, set low above a receding chin, twisted with suspicion when he saw Bennie with Lou.

  “Why’d you bring her?” the cop asked with contempt.

  “I told her not to come,” Lou said. “She don’t listen.”

  “I’m the one Lenihan tried to kill,” Bennie told the cop. “I’d like to know why, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t know why,” the cop said. He wore a black nylon jacket with the collar turned up. His pants were dark, as were his shoes. “Either of you carryin’?”

  “I am,” Lou said, and the cop stepped forward and patted him down.

  “Checkin’ for a wire,” he said, and when he was finished, turned to Bennie. “Lady, you’re here, you’re gettin’ patted down.”

  Lou groaned. “That ain’t necessary, buddy. I vouch for her.”

  The cop shook his head, a single swivel of the baseball cap. “Sorry, I can’t take chances.”

  “Fine,” Bennie said uncomfortably. The cop’s hands quickly traveled her body and she talked her way through it. She did the same thing at the gynecologist’s. “What do you know about Anthony Della Porta’s murder?”

  “Nothin’,” the cop rasped. Bennie smelled cigarettes on his breath as he finished the pat-down and turned to Lou. “Why is she askin’ me questions? I thought I was talkin’ to you. You’re Jacobs, right?”

  “Sure, buddy. Lou Jacobs.”

  “You’re the one from the parkin’ lot. Shootin’ your mouth off. Looked like you was havin’ fun.” The cop emitted a snort, and Lou laughed with him.

  “Time of my life.”

  “You got it. We ain’t dead yet.” The cop’s smile faded. “I asked around about you. They say you’re okay.”

  “I’m more than okay. Who are you anyway? What’s your name?”

  “You gotta know that? Maybe we’re all better off I don’t tell you.”

  “Have it your way. Why’d you call?”

  “There was this job, last year. It was at the projects, in town. A small-time rock dealer named Brunell, nothing special. A snitch told me about Brunell, so I ran it down. My partner and I get there, we’re makin’ the collar. Brunell is comin’ along, no problem. We got him unawares and the dope is in plain view. Ziplocs on the coffee table, pipes and paraphernalia all around. You know, Lou.”

  “Sure.”

  “So we’re about to take him in and the door opens and in comes Citrone and his partner. Not the new one, Vega. Latorce, the old partner, a black guy. You know him?”

  “Never met him, but the name sounds familiar.”

  “So Citrone comes in and throws us out, just like that. ‘Get the fuck out,’ he says. Latorce don’t look too happy about it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We got the fuck out. I figured Citrone wanted the collar, I know he’s got seniority, but my partner, he was scared. He said he’d heard shit about Citrone, we should get out and shut up. So we did.” The cop paused to wet his lips. “Then we get out, and I figure the report will come in any day. Only it never comes in. There’s no report, no collar. Brunell wasn’t booked and that’s not the worst of it.” The cop looked around, making sure they were alone. The street was black and still, the drizzle steady. “A week later, Latorce gets killed.”

  “Bill Latorce?” Lou remembered the name then. He’d seen it in the obits. “He was killed in the line of duty. He responded to a 911 call, a domestic.”

  “Bullshit. Latorce goes in first, figures it’s hubby knockin’ the wife around. No report of a gun, nothin’, so Citrone, he’s takin’ his time gettin’ out of the car, which already ain’t procedure. Latorce knocks on the bedroom door and catches one in the head, point-blank. What’s the odds a cop that experienced would fuck up a domestic like that?”

  “Cops make mistakes,” Bennie said, and the cop’s head snapped in Bennie’s direction.

  “What do you know, honey? I know, I’m a cop, thirty-two years on the force. You learn a lot over time on this job. Latorce was no dummy. If he thought somethin’ was goin’ down, the hubby had a gun, he wouldn’ta gone in by himself. Latorce got killed because he didn’t like what went down with Brunell the week before. Somethin’ went wrong, with me and my partner bein’ there. So Citrone set him up.”

  “Jesus,” Lou said. A bad feeling started in his stomach and seeped into his blood. “His own partner.”

  “You got it.” The cop shifted his feet as if it were a winter night. “Listen, I gotta go.”

  “Sure,” Lou said, but Bennie spoke up.

  “Do you know anything about Della Porta’s murder?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You know anything about cops named Reston or McShea?”

  “Never heard of McShea. Reston, he used to be in the Eleventh.”

  “Was he dirty? You ever hear anything about that?”

  “No, I wasn’t in the Eleventh when he was there. I transferred from the Thirty-second.” The cop glanced over his shoulder. “I gotta go. Don’t screw me, Jacobs. I’m givin’ you this to get those suckers. Don’t name me, man.”

  Lou nodded. “Got you covered.”

  “See you.” The cop walked off stiffly, his pants legs flapping, his Phillies cap down, and in the next second he’d disappeared into the darkness of the slick city street.

  80

  Several hours later, Judy had fallen asleep in the chair beside Mary, who had skimmed almost three hundred cases, each going back in time earlier than the last. Though she hadn’t read each one completely, Mary had gotten a thorough overview of Dorsey Hilliard’s career as a prosecutor. He had won many more than he lost and his legal arguments were right on the money. He’d never been found ineffective as a lawyer, the most common grounds for collateral appeal, and many of the judicial opinions referred to the clarity of his closing, which didn’t bode well for the Connolly case.

  Mary had found endless cases that Hilliard had tried and several in which he had appeared as a witness, to testify about the effectiveness of other counsel. She had even found a civil case he had brought against an insurer on his own behalf, for expenses relating to physical therapy for his handicap. The insurer had balked at reimbursing Hilliard, and at twenty-one years of age he had sued them for it and won. Mary found herself cheering inside. Hilliard hadn’t even been to law school at the time. How long had he wanted to be a lawyer? How long had he lived with his disability?

  Mary remembered the little boy on the white pony, being taught to ride by her classmate. His dark eyes, waiting for her answer. He understands more than you and me, Joy had said. Mary sensed that she had let him, and Joy, down, but part of her wasn’t ready to let go of the law. It wasn’t that she enjoyed being a lawyer, but she had become intrigued in this case after they’d attacked Bennie. It was that part of Mary that made her punch the ENTER key and read on, into the night.

  81

  “Mike and Ike still behind us?” Bennie asked, boosting herself up in the passenger seat to check Lou’s rearview mirror.

  “Sit down, they’re back there.” Lou braked at the light in his Honda. Rain pelted the windshield but the wipers didn’t clear the view, and he switched on the defroster. “Told you it wasn’t a setup. Cop spilled his guts.”

  “You don’t know that, Lou. It could still be a setup.”

  “How?”

  “It could have been bad information to throw us off. Or get us killed.”

  Lou looked over. “Come on, it was legit.”

  “Als
o, somebody could have been watching us.”

  “Nobody was watching us. We woulda seen it, or the cop would have.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Bennie snorted. “We had Mike and Ike following us, and your cop friend didn’t pick them up.”

  Lou moaned, even over the sound of the defroster. “Christ, Rosato, check it with Mike and Ike. They woulda seen if somebody was watching us.”

  “Somebody could still be watching us.”

  “You drive me nuts. You’re gettin’ paranoid now.”

  “Maybe because a cop tried to kill me, and my Ford is dead.”

  Lou didn’t say anything for a minute. “I think we got some good info there. He was a real stand-up guy, that cop.”

  “Yeah, but it won’t help the case.”

  Lou glanced over. “Nothin’ you could use? Latorce was killed the same way Della Porta was, a shot to the head.”

  “That doesn’t get you far, you know that.”

  “What about the fact that the Brunell collar never happened? Can’t you use that, to show evidence of corruption?”

  “By Citrone, who, on this record, has nothing to do with Della Porta’s murder? No, in a word.” Bennie peered through her window, watching the traffic. Windshield wipers flapped on overtime and the asphalt street glistened. The rain was endless, and since Harting’s testimony, Connolly was lost.

  “You’re worried.”

  “An understatement.”

  “I’ll run down the Brunell lead.”

  “No, it’s dangerous.”

  “What if there’s a connection between Brunell and Reston? That would be likely, since Reston was in the Eleventh.”

  “It’s too dangerous. It’ll come too late anyway.”

  “I’ll make something happen.”

  Bennie looked over. He sounded like her. “You can’t fix everything, Lou.”

  “Rosato, shut up.” Lou sighed, and the Honda accelerated smoothly. “Where you goin’, back to the office?”

  “No, I’ll work at home.

  “Your boyfriend will like that.”

  Bennie felt a twinge. “If he’s awake, which I doubt,” she said, and looked out the window into the rain.

  82

  Mary checked her desk clock. It was five-thirty in the morning, almost dawn. The sky was a grayish-blue outside her window and she could already see the beginning of the city’s stirring. She kept her eyes on her computer screen. She was down to the last ten cases. Judy had gone home a long time ago to get ready for court, but Mary would shower and change at the office. She hit the key and skimmed the ninth case from the last.

  Hilliard trying a case for aggravated assault. It had to be his first major case. A barroom fight. One guy slashing another, too close to the jugular for a lesser charge. Nothing untoward about the case, and Hilliard won. Good. By now, Mary was on the prosecutor’s side, picturing him as a handsome young black man, arguing from the heart, propped up by crutches that scarcely seemed necessary. She hit the key for the eighth case.

  Almost fifteen years ago. A simple assault. Hilliard wins. Nothing strange in the case. Nothing connected with Guthrie, Burden, or Connolly at all. Mary sighed. She’d been here before. Fruitless all-nighters. She was even out of gum. She hit the key for the seventh case, then skimmed it. Then the sixth, and the fifth, and so on down.

  LAST CASE, read the screen.

  Mary blinked. It was hard to believe she was at the end. The last of a thousand-odd cases. Only an idiot would come this far. She hit the key and the case popped onto the screen. Its date was in the sixties, a full twenty years before the previous case. Hilliard would have been a toddler then, if not a kid.

  Mary shook her head. A computer glitch. Dorsey Hilliard would have nothing to do with such an old case. “Commonwealth v. Severey,” read the caption, and Mary skimmed the headnote summary with disappointment. The defendant, Andre Severey, had been convicted of murder in the death of a kid stepping off a SEPTA bus. Severey had been aiming at a rival gang member on the street, and a stray bullet had killed one child and wounded another.

  Mary sat up in her seat, her body tensing as she read. The bullet had cut the spinal cord of the wounded child, who had lived only a block away. Mary’s eyes raced to the end of the sentence. The child’s name was Dorsey Hilliard.

  Mary sat still at the keyboard. My God. That was how Dorsey got his injury. She hit the key for the next page, though she guessed what she’d find. Under the prosecution was a single name:

  Henry R. Burden, Esq.

  Mary read it over and over but it didn’t change. It had to be Burden’s first case in the district attorney’s office; he was only an assistant then. What did it mean? Burden had convicted the man who put Hilliard on crutches. Gotten a life sentence, without parole.

  Mary thought about it. Severey was convicted of murder, though it smacked of overcharging. It was a heinous crime, but not premeditated enough. Was Hilliard beholden to Burden for the conviction? Mary felt she would be. Was there a connection here that was germane to the Connolly case?

  Mary reached for the phone to call Bennie. Then she thought a minute. It was early to wake Bennie up, and Mary had one short assignment to go. It was a legal research question, slightly off the point, but Mary had a hunch it might come in handy. Fueled by adrenaline, she let the receiver go and hit the key to begin a new search.

  83

  The courtroom fell silent as Shetrell Harting entered, took her seat in the witness box, and was reminded by the judge that she was still under oath. “I understand, Your Honor,” Harting said, settling her slim form into the black bucket seat.

  “Ms. Rosato, you may begin your cross-examination,” Judge Guthrie said, without looking up, and Bennie strode to the podium, instinctively wanting to keep the inmate at arm’s length.

  “Ms. Harting, you are currently an inmate at county prison, is that right?”

  “Yeah.” Harting had changed her outfit and wore a light, white cotton sweater with her blue jeans, but her expression remained as remote as yesterday.

  “And you testified yesterday that you were serving time for possession and distribution of crack cocaine, is that right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That conviction wasn’t the first time you’ve broken the law, was it?”

  “No.”

  “You have another conviction, two years before that, also for drug dealing, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And several before that, for solicitation.”

  “Uh, yes.”

  “In fact, three times in a two-year period you were convicted for solicitation, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  Bennie checked the jury, alert this morning, listening tensely. The videographer had edged to the front of his seat, as had the librarian. They wanted to see what Bennie could do to Harting, which only confirmed the lawyer’s theory about the impact of her testimony. “Now, Ms. Harting, you testified yesterday that you and Alice Connolly were friends, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you testified about a conversation you had with Alice Connolly after computer class one day.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you testified that Alice Connolly told you that she had killed Detective Della Porta, is that right?”

  “Yeah, I said that, but I’m thinkin’ I should tell the truth today.”

  Bennie blinked. “Pardon me?”

  “I’m goin’ to tell the truth today.”

  Bennie thought she’d misheard. “The truth?”

  “I mean, that was wrong, what I said yesterday.”

  Bennie fumbled for her bearings. “You mean that Alice Connolly did not tell you that she killed Detective Della Porta?”

  “Yeah.” Harting’s eyes flickered a flat green. “Alice never tol’ me nothin’ like that.”

  Bennie hid her bewilderment. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Judge Guthrie cocking his head, his reaction restrained, and most of the jurors looked confuse
d. Dorsey Hilliard’s face morphed into a horrified mask. She remembered what DiNunzio had told her this morning about Burden’s prosecuting the man who had injured him, and concluded that Connolly was payback for the conviction.

  “Ms. Harting,” Bennie asked, “do you mean that your testimony of yesterday, that Alice Connolly told you that she had killed Detective Della Porta, was false?”

  “Yes. I lied on her yesterday.”

  “Objection!” Hilliard said, snatching his crutches and rising to his feet almost before they were completely supporting him.

  “On what grounds?” Bennie asked.

  Hilliard looked over, his mouth open slightly. “The question was leading.”

  “It’s your witness,” Bennie shot back. “This is cross, remember?”

  “Order!” Judge Guthrie barked, reaching for his gavel. “Mr. Hilliard, please take your seat. Ms. Rosato, please address your questions to the witness.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Bennie said. She had no idea why Harting was recanting, but she had to pin down this testimony. “Ms. Harting, were you lying when you testified that Alice Connolly told you she killed Anthony Della Porta?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you lying when you testified that Alice Connolly said she thought she’d get away with the murder because she was too smart for everybody?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ms. Harting, is it your testimony today that everything you said on this stand yesterday was false?”

  Judge Guthrie leaned toward the witness, his mouth set in a grim line and his forehead wrinkling deeply. For the first time in this trial, his plaid bow tie looked askew. “Ms. Harting, it is incumbent upon the Court, since you appear without counsel in this matter, to inform you that perjury, which is the making of a false material statement under oath, carries a heavy penalty in Pennsylvania. Do you understand that, Ms. Harting?”

  “Yeah,” the witness answered, and blinked once. It was the only reaction evident on her face. “Alls I said yesterday was a lie. I lied on Alice and I’m sorry.”