Mistaken Identity

by Lisa Scottoline

  “No, not since this morning.”

  “He hasn’t called in?”

  “I checked the messages.”

  Bennie’s mouth made a grim line. “I don’t like the sound of that. He should be here. Did he tell you where he was going when he left court?”

  “No, he didn’t say.” Mary frowned, and locked eyes with Bennie.

  “Five more minutes, I call his house again.”

  Mary nodded. “I’ll remind you.”

  “Where do you want these?” Judy asked, holding a file of trial notes.

  Bennie looked up from her work. “Stick ’em in the last folder.”

  Judy wedged the manila folder into the last red accordion file. Fifteen accordians sat in three rows of five on the conference room table, their manila folders straight. Almost all of the exhibits and transcripts cluttering the conference room had found their way into one of the accordians. Bennie wondered if anything else in her life would come back together so easily.

  “How long do you think the jury will be out?” Judy asked, stuffing the correspondence file away.

  “Not tonight, either way.” Bennie checked the small desk clock sitting behind the telephone. 4:32. Only five minutes since the last time she’d looked. “They haven’t been sequestered that long, so they’re not that antsy, and it’s a major case. They’ll sleep on it, then decide tomorrow or the next day.”

  “Sunday? You think they’ll go ’til Sunday?” Judy rubbed her neck. “It’s not like there’s a lot of physical evidence to go over. Either they believe the cops or they don’t.”

  Mary nodded. “People don’t like to work on Sundays. I bet they’ll come back tomorrow, then go home and rest on Sunday.”

  Judy squinted outside the large windows of the conference room. The sky was gorgeous and sunny, the humidity mercifully low. “It’s supposed to be a nice weekend. They get the weather report, don’t they?”

  Suddenly the intercom buzzed on the credenza, startling Bennie, who reached for it. The associates froze where they stood. It would be Marshall, the receptionist. “Rosato,” Bennie said when she picked up. “Are they back?”

  “No, relax,” Marshall said. “Turn on the TV. The news is on Channel 10, and we’ve been getting tons of calls. Something’s happening out there.”

  “Thanks.” Bennie hung up and leaned over to switch on the small color Trinitron in the corner of the conference room. “It’s not the jury, it’s the TV.”

  “What?” Judy said, as she and Mary gathered around.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Bennie said, turning up the sound.

  On the screen flashed a series of still photos of police officers hurrying from a cemetery. A voice-over said, “The funeral service of Officer Lenihan was disrupted by reporters today, and Philadelphia’s top cop has requested that immediate action be taken against members of the press.” The next scene was a head shot of the Police Inspector, his distinguished features marked with undisguised scorn. “I’m shocked by what I heard happened today,” he said. “It is an absolute abomination that Officer Lenihan’s family was disturbed in their most difficult hour, by a media that seems to know no bounds and have no decency.”

  A woman TV reporter stuck a bubble microphone in the Inspector’s face. “Do you have any comment about the allegations of corruption against certain members of the Eleventh and Twentieth Districts, Inspector?”

  “We have no further comment at this time. An investigation of the districts has been commenced today and will be fairly conducted. Thank you.”

  “Specifically, are you aware that certain allegations have been made involving members of the police force taking cash payments for protecting drug dealers?”

  “I repeat, I have no comment on the particulars,” the Inspector said, and walked off-camera as the TV reporter turned and flashed a capped smile.

  “That’s all from the Roundhouse. Back to you, Steve.”

  Bennie switched off the television to the sound of the associates laughing and clapping. “Did you hear that?” Judy said, delighted, and Mary’s face lit up.

  “The word is out! How did that happen?”

  Bennie looked grim. “A sailor man we know?”

  “Lou?” they both said in unison, but Bennie’s eyes were pained. Lou wasn’t as young as he thought and whatever he was doing would threaten some very dangerous characters, enemies known and unknown. If they were going down, it wouldn’t be without a fight.

  “Where the hell is he?” Bennie asked, but nobody had the answer.

  “Enough with the lecture,” Lou said, exasperated, in his chair, but Bennie wasn’t finished.

  “Lou, the trial may be over, but the conspiracy isn’t. They have a business to run, a very lucrative business. You’re hitting them where it hurts, threatening not to let up even after the case is over. They’ll take you out, Lou. They will.”

  “Let them try,” Lou scoffed, and winked at Mary, who sat off to the side, looking worried nonetheless.

  “Bennie’s right, and not just because she’s the boss,” Mary said. “They tried to kill her. They’ll try to kill you.”

  Lou sighed. “Is this what I came back for? To get nagged? At least men lawyers don’t nag you.”

  “Fine.” Bennie stood up. “I’m not going to nag you about it. For the next couple of days, you take Ike.” She gestured to the opposite conference room, where the bodyguards thumbed through the newspapers. “I’ll keep Mike.”

  Lou looked over his shoulder at the bodyguards. “Split up the kids? Bennie, we can’t do that.”

  But Bennie wasn’t laughing.

  They worked into the night preparing the death penalty phase of the case, transforming the conference room into a telethon headquarters. Bennie worked the phones and interviewed potential character witnesses, and the associates and Lou called any leads they could reach. No new witnesses could be raised, and the phones outside the conference room’s private lines rang until all hours. It was the press, but Bennie wasn’t answering. She had to focus on this last part of the trial. It was hard enough, working on the assumption that Connolly had already been convicted of capital murder.

  “I’m whipped,” Mary said, brushing her hair from her eyes, and Judy looked tired.

  Even Lou, previously battery-powered, had come down from his high. He hung up the phone from his last call, beat. “Let’s call it a night.”

  “Agreed,” Bennie said. “You all go home. Come back tomorrow morning, around seven.”

  “What about you?” Judy asked, picking up her bag.

  “I’m staying for a while,” Bennie said. She was exhausted, but she had paperwork to prepare. “I have a few things to finish up. Lou, you and Ike take the girls home, and you keep Ike.”

  Lou folded his arms. “No, I’ll put the girls in a cab with Ike, who will take the girls home and come back for you. I’ll take care of my own ass.”

  “Lou, we’re not discussing this again.”

  “You’re right, we’re not. You’re nagging, and I’m ignoring you. It’s my marriage all over again.” Lou stood up and gestured to the bodyguards across the way, who slipped into their sportjackets.

  “Lou—”

  “Oh, will you shut up? See you tomorrow. Let’s go, kids.” Lou left the conference room and met Mike and Ike in the hallway.

  “Shit,” Bennie said, and went after him. She had hired the guards, she could direct them. “Ike,” she said, pointing, “you go with Lou. You follow him home whether he wants you to or not, and you sit outside his house if you have to. Keep him alive tonight, so I can kill him tomorrow. Understand?”

  “No can do,” Ike said. “Lou’s not the client, you are.”

  “What?”

  “We can’t protect Lou. We have to stay with you. It’s in the contract.”

  “What contract? I didn’t sign any contract.”

  “Our contract with the security company, and the security company’s contract with the insurance company. We’re only insured to protect yo
u. If something goes wrong, we have to be with you or our company gets sued.”

  Bennie laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  Mike shrugged shoulders like the continental shelf. “That’s what they told us. Stay with the designated client.”

  Lou smiled. “See? It’s lawyers, Rosato. They complicate everything. Can’t even jump off a diving board anymore because of lawyers. Lady lawyers, probably. They nag you, then they sue you.” Lou hit the elevator button in a jaunty way, and the doors opened. He stepped inside and took the associates in with him. “Come, ladies. I left my car at home, I’ll escort you home in a cab. See ya, Rosato,” he said as the doors shut.

  “He’s so damn stubborn,” Bennie said, staring at the closed aluminum doors, and Mike nodded.

  “They all are.”

  “Who? Old people?”

  “Men,” Mike answered, and Ike looked over.

  91

  Judy and Lou dropped Mary off in the cab, then continued down Pine Street in silence. Judy looked out the window, too sleepy to make conversation, which was fine with Lou. He unbuttoned his jacket and relaxed in the torn seat. His car would have been comfier but he’d left it at home in case it had been made at the cemetery or the police station.

  Lou watched the cardboard tree swing from the rearview mirror. Funny. All the cabs had those trees, but none of them smelled like pine. The air in the cab stank of cigarettes regardless of the round NO SMOKING sticker, and in the light from the car behind, Lou could see greasy smudges on the plastic separating them from the young driver.

  Lou looked idly out the window. Antique shops lined the narrow street, and it was too late for anyone to be on the sidewalks. The cab stopped at a traffic light, and Lou read the sign of one of the shops, MEYER & DAUGHTER. A skinny wood chair sat in the window. “That an antique, Judy?”

  Judy nodded. “I bet it’s early American. That’s all they have in there, real Colonial pieces. The chair probably cost a thousand dollars.”

  “Get out. Hardly wide enough for a tush.”

  “Colonial tushes were smaller.”

  “Ha!” Lou shook his head. “I love it. For old chairs, we pay through the nose. For old people, we can’t be bothered.” The cab lurched forward, its interior brighter than before from headlights behind. The car in back of them was tail-gating. But why, at this hour of night? With no other traffic? Lou stiffened instinctively and twisted around.

  The sight shocked him. There was a patrol car on their bumper. The lights on its roof blazed to life, filling the cab with red, white, and blue. Patrol car number 98.

  Fear jolted Lou to alertness. It was Citrone, alone. No siren to attract attention. A cop on a night stop could get away with anything. Lou had seen it happen.

  The cab was slowing down, and Lou pounded on the plastic divider. “Keep driving!” he ordered. “Go, go, go!”

  “You nuts?” the cabbie asked, recoiling. “It’s the cops.”

  Judy looked back at the lights, the patrol car. “Lou?” she asked, panicky.

  “Stay calm,” Lou ordered. He would’ve locked the doors but he wanted Judy out of the picture. The cabbie pulled to the curb and got out. A white spotlight seared through the back window. Beside it stood a tall silhouette whose arm ended in a gun. Citrone was coming at them. Lou’s heart fluttered. He was packing, but couldn’t chance anything until Judy was free.

  “Get out of the car!” Citrone shouted. He pulled open the back door and yanked Lou out of the cab, jamming the revolver into his sternum.

  “Relax, Citrone.” Lou flattened against the cab, momentarily breathless. The gun bored into his chest. In a second he could be dead. He’d had a good run, it wouldn’t be the worst thing. But there was Judy. “I’ll go with you. Leave the kid.” Lou took a step forward, but Citrone drilled him back with the gun barrel.

  “Get out of the car, counselor!” Citrone called to Judy. “Make it fast!”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Judy said, her heart in her throat. She slid from the backseat and gasped when she saw the gun. She edged away reflexively, her back bumping into the cab, staring openmouthed at Citrone. His face became angles and shadows in the blinding light. His eyes were merciless black slits. He would kill them both. Judy struggled to think through her terror.

  The astonished cabbie put up his hands. “I stopped at the light, Officer, I swear. I came to a full stop.”

  Citrone’s gaze darted sideways while he kept the revolver flush against Lou’s shirt. “Get lost or you’re dead,” he told the cabbie. “Come back for the car.” The driver’s eyes went wide and he ran off, his legs pumping.

  “Nice police work,” Lou said. “Now let the kid go. She won’t say anything.”

  “Let her go? She attacked a cop on a routine traffic stop. The cab had a broken taillight.” With a swift kick Citrone shattered the cab’s brake light. Red plastic shards clattered onto the street.

  “Come on, Citrone,” Lou said. “Everybody knows about the parking lot at the Eleventh. They gonna believe you killed us on a routine stop?”

  Citrone laughed quietly. “Me, kill you? I’m not even here. My friend should be along any minute. A state trooper.”

  Judy forced herself to think. Citrone would shoot them as soon as the trooper got there. What could she do? She didn’t have a gun. Then she remembered the boxing she’d watched at the gym. She had surprise on her side, if not expertise. Suddenly she lowered her stance, planted her feet, and threw the first punch of her life, aimed point-blank at Citrone’s jaw.

  “Ahh!” Citrone cried out. The blow landed badly, but knocked the cop off-balance. The revolver went off with an ear-splitting crack!

  “No! Lou!” Judy screamed as Lou’s shoulder exploded into bright red blood and tattered fabric.

  Lou didn’t feel the pain. He threw himself against Citrone’s arm and grabbed his wrist, struggling to shake the gun free. It clattered to the street while Lou pinned the stunned cop to the wet asphalt. Judy watched dumbstruck, then realized she had to act. She ran for the gun, snatched it off the street, and raised it with both hands. Her right hand throbbed from the punch, but she looked down the gun’s sight to Citrone and braced herself.

  “Freeze, Citrone!” Judy shouted, her voice strong with newborn authority, and Lou was already rolling off of the crooked cop, leaving him exposed in the gutter.

  “I’ll be all right,” Lou said, drowsy from the anesthesia. It would hurt if he could feel anything, but he couldn’t. He’d never caught one in all his years on the force. His retirement, he had to get shot. Like a schmuck. He eased back on the thin hospital pillow. The bullet had been removed and his shoulder packed and splinted. Nagging him from the foot of the bed, like three harpies, were Judy, Mary, and Rosato.

  “You’ll be fine.” Bennie patted his foot. “Because I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “Me, neither,” Mary said. “Not until the entire Eleventh District is behind bars.”

  “We got ’em, didn’t we?” Lou smiled, his words faintly slurred.

  Judy grinned. “Oh yeah, we’re all over the television.” Her right hand was bandaged and sore. She had broken a finger punching Citrone, who didn’t have a scratch. Judy needed remedial boxing. “They’ve stepped up the investigation of the Eleventh.”

  Bennie nodded. “It’s only a matter of time before they call in McShea and Reston, and the cops start diming on each other. The D.A.’s office will make the best deals with whoever comes forward first. The cops know the drill.”

  Still, Mary couldn’t feel happy about it. “Not a great way to do it, though, Lou. Putting yourself in harm’s way.”

  Lou chuckled softly. “Talk to Judy. She threw one of the worst punches I ever saw.”

  Judy bowed. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “She saved my life,” Lou said, his sentence trailing off. He wanted to thank her, but didn’t have the strength to hug her. It was probably for the best. You weren’t allowed to hug women anymore. It was against federa
l law.

  “Told you I could box,” Judy said. “I’m going twice a week, after this verdict is in.”

  The verdict, Bennie remembered. She’d been so worried about Lou that she rushed from the office and hadn’t thought about it since. Remarkable, considering that the Connolly case had occupied her every thought for days. Lou’s surviving the attack had dealt a deathblow to the conspiracy and it would all come tumbling down, starting with Citrone on up, with luck extending even to Guthrie and Hilliard. But the jury would be deliberating under sequestration, isolated. They wouldn’t know the police conspiracy had been proved true. They’d return with the verdict, innocent or guilty.

  When?

  92

  Bennie got the call from the Clerk of Court at 10:15 the next morning, and the defense team was at the Criminal Justice Center barely ten minutes later. The lawyers and bodyguards emerged from two cabs, their faces taut as the cab doors opened and the press swarmed, swinging boom mikes overhead. Bennie screened it out. All she could think about was the verdict.

  “Get out of my way!” she shouted at the mobbing reporters. She plowed through the crowd and trusted that Mike and Ike had the associates covered. They fought their way into the courthouse, into the elevator, and finally down the hallway to Courtroom 306. The lawyers pushed through the gallery to the bulletproof shield. For the first time Bennie felt relieved to have the goddamn wall of plastic between her and the rest of the world.

  On the silent side of the barrier, Judge Guthrie sat atop the dais, apparently reading documents. Courtroom personnel bustled about, getting ready for the verdict. A woman hurried by with what Bennie recognized as an Order Sheet, remanding Connolly to the custody of the prison system until the date of her execution. Bennie looked away and reminded herself the order was just a contingency. Like her, the court had to prepare for either verdict. She put her briefcase down on the counsel table, her mouth dry.