Lisa Scottoline - Think Twice

“Carrier, how are you? You look upset.”

“I’m fine, too.”

Marshall gave Mary a sympathetic hug. “It looked like Alice was yelling at you. I thought she was going to attack you. What happened?”

“She was just ranting and raving. The Rothman guys had her.”

Alice sensed something was still bothering them, but she couldn’t defuse it until it was out in the open. “DiNunzio, what did Alice say to you?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Like what? Tell me.”

“What we discussed, like she’s Bennie and you’re really Alice. That she owns the building and we can’t keep her out, the whole nine.”

“Nice try.” Alice fake-laughed. “More mind games, eh?”

“Exactly.”

Marshall laughed. “You’d think if she was going to try to be Bennie, she’d at least dress the part.”

Grady nodded, smiling crookedly. “What, you never saw my girl in a bra, in public?”

They all laughed, including Mary. “Grady, she went ballistic when she heard you were up here. She must think you’re hot.”

Grady nodded. “Of course she does. She has good taste. It’s in the DNA.”

“Very funny.” Alice faked a final smile. “As if she could fool you, or any of you, for that matter.”

“Not me, I’m smarter than I look.” Mary squared her shoulders, and Alice gave her a pat.

“DiNunzio, it’s just what you said. She’s trying to run a scam that she’s me, and your restraining order worked like a charm. Thanks, partner.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Now let’s go get ready for Rexco. They’ll be here in twenty minutes. We have a big client to reel in, yes?” Alice got Mary moving toward the offices, with Grady following. Marshall went to the reception desk to answer a ringing phone.

Judy brought up the rear, dragging her feet. “The only thing I don’t get is what Alice gains by making a scene in front of our building.”

“You’re right, Carrier.” Alice kept moving, her tone casual. “She gains nothing.”

“Then why does she do it?”

“She just wants to jerk me around, and that’s enough for her. She’s so jealous, she can’t control herself or forward her own agenda, like find a job on her own, or get a life. She thinks everything I have, I got at her expense.”

Mary shook her head. “Plus, it does hurt us. Wait until what happened out there hits the TV news and the Internet. It’s such bad publicity for the firm. I bet we get calls from the clients.”

“You’re right.” Alice gave her another pat on the back. “But don’t worry about it, DiNunzio. She can’t keep us down. Let’s go get ready for Rexco.”

“Let’s do it!”

Alice could feel everybody cheer up as they walked back to their offices.

Everybody, that is, except Judy.

Mary went back to her office with Judy on her heels, closing the door behind them. She had a million things to do and they had discussed this already in the elevator, but Judy stood in front of her desk like a dog with a bone.

“Mare, don’t you get it? Fiorella said, ‘ That is a good woman,’ and she pointed to Alice, outside. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“No, like I said, Fiorella’s Italian. She’s dramatic. Ever hear of Verdi? Rossini? Puccini? See a pattern? I should know, I have the same infection.”

“No.” Judy shook her head. “It’s amazing that she said that, and she was looking right at Alice, or Bennie. Nobody out there would’ve said that was ‘a good woman.’ Every single person thought Alice was crazy.”

“Fiorella’s the crazy one.” Mary rubbed her eyes irritably. She’d never even disagreed with Judy, much less argued with her.

“Listen, I hear you. I didn’t think anything of it, either, at first.” Judy shrugged. “I mean, I know that Fiorella isn’t a witch queen, even if she cured me.”

“Good, we agree on something.”

“But she is intuitive.”

“She’s a woman. It comes with the ovaries.”

Judy didn’t laugh. “So it got me thinking. What if?”

“ ‘What if’ is meaningless. You’re smarter than what if.”

Judy frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means this is speculation, not fact. You’re usually the logical one, not me.”

“Hear me out, one last time.”

“Fine, shoot.” Mary glanced at the phone messages scattered in a sliding pile on her desk. All of them were from her clients, individuals with small matters, and on these child-size blocks, she had built a client base that had made her a partner. None of the messages was from Anthony, nor had he called on her cell.

“Let’s say something happened over the weekend, something we don’t know. Bennie, or Alice, or whoever was out there, said that Alice tried to kill her. I heard that, you heard that.”

“Yes, I heard it. It’s part of her scam. It’s a lie.”

“No, assume for these purposes, that’s not a lie. Assume it’s the truth.”

“Okay.” Mary’s gaze fell on her stack of correspondence, all the tri-folded letters neatly opened and paper-clipped to their envelopes, a three-inch stack of tasks that needed her attention. She could work all day and night and never do them all.

“So what if Alice tried to kill Bennie over the weekend, but she didn’t succeed and then she came back to take her place?”

“Who came back to take whose place?”

“Alice. Alice came back to take Bennie’s place.”

“First question.” Mary didn’t have time for this. Rexco would be here in fifteen minutes. The phones at reception were ringing nonstop. “Bennie has all her stuff. Messenger bag, phone, clothes, keys.”

“Alice could’ve taken it from her, and did you notice she doesn’t seem all that sad about Bear?”

“Bennie’s not the type to blubber all over at the office. It would be unprofessional.” Mary couldn’t take the conversation seriously when there was so much real work to be done, and she felt the weight of her new responsibilities. “Look, of course she’s Bennie. She looks like Bennie, she walks like Bennie, she talks like Bennie.”

“Sometimes your own mother can’t tell the difference between you and Angie.”

“Grady would know the difference. Do we need to go there?”

“He hasn’t seen her in a while, so it wouldn’t be that hard to trick him.” Judy’s eyes narrowed. “What if Alice is taking Bennie’s place, right here, before our eyes?”

“Second question. Why would Alice do that? Why would she want to be a lawyer? Nobody wants to be a lawyer. Lawyers don’t even want to be lawyers!”

“I don’t know, but neither do I know why Alice would be outside, trying to ruin Bennie’s business. I don’t know anybody who would risk arrest just to destroy somebody else.”

“I do. Alice. She’s self-destructive.”

“Not really. Alice is all about self preservation. She fought tooth and nail not to be convicted of murder. Besides, she and Bennie had reconciled. So why would she give Bennie a hard time now? Did you ever think about that?” Judy leaned farther over the desk. “You know what I saw on her face, out there? Desperation. Didn’t you see it, too?”

“Yes, I did. Alice is desperate to ruin Bennie.” Mary started when the intercom buzzed on her phone, a signal that Rexco had arrived. She grabbed a fresh legal pad. “I have to go.”

“How about if we think of a test?”

“What you mean?” Mary searched on her desk for a pen without teethmarks. Partners didn’t chew their pens. She could tell Rexco that she had a puppy.

“There’s years of things that Bennie knows about and Alice wouldn’t. We all have a history, a shared history, and it excludes Alice.”