“How did you know that? I didn’t know I’d win.”
“Oh, I know all about you. You and Alice. I take care of you both.”
“You do?” Bennie would have found it funny, if it weren’t her life. “How? I never met you before.”
“I take care of my girls. I step in when I’m needed.”
His girls? Bennie didn’t reply. “Alice and I are twins, right?”
“Yes, quite right.” Winslow peered at the shelf and slid out a book, then put it back. “No, not Robert Penn Warren. I can’t take the Warren. Oh, well.”
“My mother left you.”
“A long time ago.” Winslow picked a book off the shelf, rubbed nonexistent dust from the cloth cover with his fingertips, then brought the volume back to the box. “Only room for one more.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Seemed to think I wouldn’t make a good father. Always told me that.” He snorted softly, his head bent as he wedged the book into the box. He had a growing bald spot and his hair, once blond, had thinned to gray and was slicked down, curling over his tight collar. “She had lots of ideas like that. Her own ideas.”
“Was she right?”
“Ask her.”
The statement, coldly delivered, struck bone. “You know I can’t do that,” Bennie said, dry-mouthed.
“No, and so you’ll never know. It’s a lot more complicated than you think, not that it matters now.” Winslow straightened up, went back to the bookshelf, and removed one more book. He seemed to know which one he wanted, and he placed it in the box with an attention Bennie found infuriating.
“I think it matters. I want to know. How could my mother give up a child? How did she do it, even, and how could you let her? Why didn’t you fight for us, or at least take Alice?”
“You’ve made a success of yourself, and Alice is out of jail. All’s well that ends well. Help me with these books, would you? Pick the box up from your side and put it on the couch.” As if he hadn’t heard her, Winslow bent over and lifted the box, but Bennie snatched it from his hands and stood back in anger.
“Stop and answer me,” she said. The heavy box pulled at her shoulders, but she was strengthened by a bitterness she didn’t know she harbored. “Why didn’t you take Alice? Why didn’t you try to see us?”
“Give me my books.” Winslow stretched out his arms, callused palms up.
“Answer me first.”
“Give me my books.” His voice went stern and hard. “My books!”
“Here.” Bennie shoved the box at him, and he stooped slightly as he absorbed its impact. He struggled to set the box down on the couch, a fact Bennie noted with only a smidgen of guilt. “You have your books, now answer me.”
When Winslow straightened, his face was red with effort. “You’re angry.”
“An understatement.”
“You expect me to justify myself,” he said, though his tone remained harsh. “You think I don’t care for you, or Alice.”
“Right. It’s a matter of fact, as the lawyers say. You weren’t there for us and you didn’t try to be.”
“You didn’t need me. You were doing fine. You never gave anyone any trouble. But Alice I had to watch more closely. She would fall in with the wrong men. I had to step in. When I was needed, I was there.”
“What do you mean?”
“When she was sixteen, there was a young man … well, I stepped in. I took care of her. She never knew it was me, I wasn’t looking for credit. I saw the situation that arose, and I dealt with it.”
“How?” Bennie didn’t understand, but she didn’t like the sound of it. “What are you talking about?”
“The details aren’t your concern. I dealt with the situations that arose. When her most recent situation arose, I dealt with that, too.”
“What recent situation?” Bennie asked, too edgy to be exasperated.
“With that detective, that Della Porta. He was bad for Alice. A hypocrite, a thief. The worst of a bad lot.” Winslow shook his head righteously, but Bennie felt stunned.
“What are you saying?”
“I saw that Alice was falling in with Mr. Della Porta and those others. You were right about them. You figured it out. They were selling cocaine and they involved Alice in their dirty business. They corrupted her.”
Bennie listened, astounded.
“I went to try to convince Mr. Della Porta to let Alice alone. He wouldn’t listen. He refused to let her go. He called me names. He called Alice filthy names, too. Filthy. He said she did horrible things, things I knew no daughter of mine could ever do.”
Bennie thought back to the trial. The fighting that Mrs. Lambertsen had heard. It hadn’t been Della Porta and the cops. It had been Della Porta and her father.
“So I shot him. I didn’t plan to. There was no other way. He would have ruined her. He’d choke the life from her if I let him. Like a weed.”
Bennie felt a wrenching deep within her chest. She wasn’t sure if she could speak. She didn’t try.
“Don’t let it upset you, child. He was destroying Alice. I had to take care of her. I’m her father.”
Bennie shook her head, uncomprehending. “You killed a human being.”
“For Alice, I did it for Alice. To save her.”
“Save her? You put her on the hook.”
Winslow’s upper lip twitched slightly. “I didn’t know she’d be charged with the murder.”
Bennie could barely imagine it. “But you let your child be charged with a murder you committed.”
“That’s why I showed myself. Told her to call you. I knew you’d prove her innocent.”
“But what if I hadn’t?” Bennie exploded, bewildered. “I almost didn’t, don’t you realize that? It took everything I had — everything — and I almost got killed! You killed a man. You almost killed both of your children!”
Winslow looked at her without batting an eye. “If you hadn’t won, I would have come forward. They wouldn’t have sent Alice to jail then.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? They wouldn’t have believed you. I barely believe you!”
“Oh, they would have believed me. I kept the gun. The murder weapon.”
The statement shocked Bennie into silence. The only sound in the still cottage was the shallow huff of her own breathing.
Winslow closed the box and looked to the window. “Too bad it’s dark outside, I’d show you my garden. The foxglove is in and the rudbeckia just blooming. It took decades to make that garden. It needed to be weeded, tended. Gardens, they need tending.”
Bennie’s mind reeled. She felt almost dizzy, sick to her stomach. She didn’t know what to do, what to say. She had wondered about her father her whole life but couldn’t bear to be in his presence a moment longer. He made her skin crawl. He was crazy, insane; he had to be. She swallowed her rising gorge, turned on her heel, and hurried to the door of the cottage. She banged open the screen door, heard it sham behind her, and didn’t look back. She ran to the Saab, twisted on the ignition, and drove off in a cold, scared sweat.
It took Bennie all the way to the Pennsylvania border to calm her stomach and begin to understand her reaction. It only became clear because the farther she drove from Winslow’s cottage, the easier she breathed. Her heart rate returned to normal. Her viscera stilled. Her tongue tasted vaguely of bile, but she gritted her teeth, stiff-armed the Saab, and steered into the night, racing to lay down as much mileage as possible between her and Winslow.
A lifetime of distance.
Bennie’s hair whipped from her face and she hit the gas. The Saab responded as soon as its winded turbos allowed. The car was almost ten years old and Grady had bought it used, but he took care of his car. She thought about Grady then. He took care of things he loved, like his ancient Saab, and her. He made Bennie coffee, held her when she needed it, even backed off when she didn’t. Grady was a caretaker of things that caused trouble, talked back, and fell into foul and selfish moods. Of things that
could hurt and wound. Of things imperfect.
Of human beings.
Bennie floored the gas pedal when she spotted the orange lights of the airport that marked Philadelphia’s southern perimeter. Oil refineries encircled the airport and spewed billows of pollution into the summer night. The air hung a hazy orange and smelled like dry-cleaning chemicals. Still, Bennie felt the urge to go faster, to get to Philly. To a city that smelled like a catalytic converter. To a house that had boxes for furniture and exposed lath for wallpaper. To a man who loved her and took care of her when she needed it. To a dog that would never, ever come when he was called.
Bennie wanted to go home. So she drove as far as she could from her father, as fast as she could go, and sped home, there to meet her family.
For the first time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I found out about my sister. Technically she’s a half-sister, but when we first met she struck me instantly as a twin — close in age and very much alike in looks, temperament, and manner. I am only now starting to know her and come to admire the journey she took to make her way to me. She is obviously not the twin depicted in Mistaken Identity — that much must be crystal clear — but it should come as no surprise that authors often cannibalize their own lives for the truth that makes fiction. My meeting her suggested the gravamen of this novel. For her bravery and heart, as well as her openness and honesty, Mistaken Identity is dedicated to her, J.
Special thanks, as always, to my agent Molly Friedrich for her on-the-mark improvements to this manuscript, as well as her expertise, support, and kindness. Thanks to Carolyn Marino, my editor at HarperCollins, who has steered me through six books with this one, yet her support and grace never flags. Thanks also to A. Paul Cirone, for his help, Robin Stamm, for hers, and a bear hug to Laura Leonard at HarperCollins, friend and publicist, who is always cheering for me.
As usual, I got lots of help on the technical aspects of this book, and any mistakes in that regard are my own. Heartfelt thanks to the detectives of the Two Squad of the Philadelphia Police Department, who remain helpful and supportive and serve my hometown in every way. Thanks again to criminal lawyers Susan Burt and especially Glenn Gilman, for superb legal advice in the clutch. Thanks to Nina Segre and Karen Senser, for their insights into women-owned law firms, and their kindness. Thanks to Bob Eskind of the Philadelphia prison system, whose information and access helped me create the fictional prison herein.
Thanks for her time and help to Dr. Jeanne Paulus-Thomas, Ph.D., and her colleagues at the Center for Medical Genetics, Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation. Thanks to Doug and Cindy Claffey, who are great friends and who helped with the twin research, firsthand.
There are also great and informative books about twins, reared together and apart, which informed my novel, and for those who want to read more, see Torrey, Bowler, Taylor, and Gottesman, Schizophrenia and Manic-Depressive Disorder, HarperCollins (1994); Farber, Identical Twins Reared Apart, Basic Books (1981); Loehlin and Nichols, Heredity, Environment and Personality, University of Texas Press (1976); and Juel-Nielsen, Individual and Environment: Monozygotic Twins Reared Apart, International Universities Press (1965); Schwartz, The Culture of the Copy, Zone Books (1996).
Thanks to the folks at a certain gym in Philadelphia, who helped so much with the boxing details and gave me boxing lessons, which I’m sure will come in handy in an alley. Thanks to my anonymous boxer, who gave me insight into the men (and women) who box.
Thanks to the leadership and the librarians of the Free Library of Philadelphia, who let me run wild through the stacks and who have been so supportive of my books over the years. And to Dr. Paul Bookman.
Thanks to my readers, who have been so kind and whom I always remember when I write, and to my many “online editors” who participated in a wonderful experiment to improve the first chapter.
Final thanks and all my love to my family, my parents, and my husband and daughter.
About the Author
Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times best-selling author and former trial lawyer. She has won the Edgar Award, the highest prize in suspense fiction, and the Distinguished Author Award, from the Weinberg Library of the University of Scranton. She has served as the Leo Goodwin Senior Professor of Law and Popular Culture at Nova Southeastern Law School, and her novels are used by bar associations for the ethical issues they present. Her books are published in over twenty languages. She lives with her family in the Philadelphia area and welcomes reader email at www.scottoline.com.
Also By Lisa Scottoline
The Vendetta Defense
Moment of Truth
Rough Justice
Legal Tender
Running from the Law
Final Appeal
Everywhere That Mary Went
Mistaken Identity Page 45