Lisa Scottoline - Dead Ringer

Oh my God. Bennie’s mouth went dry. It was Alice . Alice had stolen the earrings. Alice posing as Bennie. First the Chinese restaurant, and now this. Bennie knew it in her very marrow, the bones and blood she shared with her twin. The realization shocked her into silence.

“The perpetrator shoved the security guard out of her way, and he fell into a glass display case of Elsa Peretti jewelry, whatever that is. The other security guard gave pursuit down Broad Street, but he lost the perpetrator, who ran down into the Broad Street subway and disappeared.”

Bennie’s thoughts tumbled over one another in confusion. How had Alice done it? Why had she done it? What the fuck? This wasn’t mischief with credit cards or even tainting her reputation with the judges. These were felony charges. They could ruin her. Alice was upping the ante.

“What evidence do you have that my client committed this robbery?” Carrier was asking, and the detective scoffed.

“Other than the whole shebang on surveillance tape? Tiffany had three cameras on that counter, and your client is on each one.”

“I wanna see that tape!” Bennie blurted out. She had to see it for herself. With her own eyes.

Carrier cleared her throat. “Detective, may we see the videotape?”

“Fine.” Detective Maloney opened the accordion file and extracted a black Fuji videotape. He got up holding the tape, brushed down his dark slacks with a practiced hand, and walked over to the TV cart with the ancient VHS machine. He slid the tape inside, turned on the TV, and pressed Play.

Everybody turned toward the screen, which showed a busy main room in Tiffany: a grainy view of lush carpeting, attractive shoppers, and display cases full of diamond bracelets and earrings. Suddenly a woman entered from the left side of the picture and threaded her way through the customers. Her face wasn’t visible, because her back was turned from the surveillance camera, but the woman was fully as tall as Bennie, her shoulders equally square, and she was wearing the same suit Bennie had on today, her trademark khaki. The woman’s hair was Bennie’s shade of honey blond, and it had been pinned up in a carbon copy of Bennie’s messy twist. She stopped in front of a display case, her back still to the camera.

“The beauty shot is in one, two, three,” Detective Maloney counted down, and the woman turned on cue and faced the security camera dead-on for several seconds, as if she were posing for a photograph. The detective snorted. “There you are, Ms. Rosato.”

“That’s her,” Bennie said, voicing her thoughts aloud. It was Alice. She had come back. Here was proof positive. Bennie felt stunned. “That’s my-”

“Please be quiet and watch the tape, Bennie,” Carrier warned, and Bennie looked over. On-screen, Alice was putting on the diamond earrings and examining her face-Bennie’s face-in a square mirror sitting on the glass counter, tilted up. An older woman with a cane dropped a shopping bag, spilling its contents of wrapped boxes, and a security guard went to help her. The saleswoman turned away for a moment, and all of a sudden Alice bolted from the counter, knocking over a customer in the process. She punched the guard by the door before he could move to stop her, sending him sprawling backward against a display case, and flew out the door.

Bennie shifted her gaze to the top of the screen, where a black band ran with a date and time. It was today’s date, and the time ticked off: 10:30:10, 10:30:11, 10:30:12. Her heart sank. She had no alibi. At that time, she had been walking back from the federal courthouse, alone. Tiffany lay between the courthouse and her office, on the way. It was more than possible for Bennie to have been there at ten-thirty, stealing diamonds. Alice couldn’t have planned it that way, could she? Did she have people helping her? And who was that older woman who dropped her shopping bag at the exact right moment? Was she in on it, too?

Detective Maloney reached over and turned off the TV. “Let’s get real, Ms. Rosato. It’s you on the tape, I can see that with my own eyes. The manager IDed you positively and two of the eyewitnesses recognized you from TV. You’re wearing the clothes you have on in the video. Your hair is the same too.” He put his hands on his hips. “So cut the shit. Give the earrings back, you’ll get a couple years’ probation-”

“Detective,” Bennie interrupted, “the woman on the tape isn’t me, it’s my twin. I didn’t take the earrings, she did.”

Carrier clamped a hand over her client’s. “Bennie, please don’t make any more statements. You know better than to-”

“But that’s not me on that tape!” Bennie knew Carrier was right, but she couldn’t help herself. Alice had turned her life upside down. She appealed to Maloney as the bald detective took rapid notes. “Detective, I have a twin, an identical twin, named Alice Connelly. This is criminal impersonation, clear and simple. Alice Connelly is pretending to be me. I want these charges dropped!”

Carrier squeezed her hand. “Bennie, please let me handle this. You’re not going to convince him. We should just end this interrogation.”

But Detective Maloney was looking directly at Bennie, amused, if not intrigued. “Ms. Rosato, are you telling me it’s not you on the tape, it’s your twin? ”

“It’s a matter of record, Maloney. Her name is Alice Connelly.”

Carrier leaned forward. “Detective, this interview is over. My client isn’t answering any more questions. Let’s get her arraigned so I can post bail and get her out of here.”

Detective Maloney snorted. “You really have a twin, Rosato?”

“I do, I defended her on a murder charge, two years ago. It was in all the papers. Her prints are on file, too. If you had just investigated for two minutes before you-”

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know, exactly. In town.” Bennie turned to her pissed-off associate. “Carrier, did you have any luck in finding her?”

“I’m not discussing this here. You want me to waive attorney-client privilege?” Carrier’s eyes flared. “I said, the interview is over!”

“Where does she live?” Detective Maloney was asking Bennie.

“I don’t know.”

Carrier cleared her throat, interrupting. “Bennie, please, that’s enough. Detective Maloney, as I said, it’s time to end this interrogation.”

Maloney addressed Bennie again. “But she lives in Philly, your sister?”

“I don’t think so.”

Maloney frowned. “You don’t know where your own twin sister lives?”

“We weren’t raised together. But she’s in town. She’s running around town, posing as me.”

Carrier jumped to her feet and made a show of gathering her papers. “Bennie, Detective Maloney! Really! This interrogation is over. It’s time to-”

“Where does she work?” the detective asked Bennie.

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of car does she drive? We can run a DMV check.”

“I don’t know.”

“Voter’s registration? You don’t know.” Maloney’s eyes narrowed. If he’d believed Bennie at first, he was beginning to doubt it now. “Let me get this straight. Your twin did the crime, but you can’t tell us anything about her. And we have a positive ID on you, a coupla eyewitnesses, and you got no alibi.” Maloney shook his head. “If I were you, I’d give us a complete statement right now, because after we see what the search of your house and office turns up-”

“Search of my house and office? ” Bennie felt stricken. “You have to be kidding! I just told you, I had nothing to do with it! My twin did it! You’re not searching anything!”

“We’re already conducting the search, Ms. Rosato.”