Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

Her eyes swept the block when she finished, thinking about possible witnesses to the comings and goings at the rowhouse. The south side of Trose Street, where Della Porta’s house was, contained several rowhouses between it and the alley. They would be the houses from which most of the witnesses would come and, as such, they’d be the primary focus of the defense in the next few days.

Bennie pivoted on her heel. Across the street, directly facing the Della Porta rowhouse, was a newly constructed apartment building. All but four rowhouses had been demolished to make room for the building, eliminating the possibility of witnesses who would have had the best view of the Della Porta house. A plastic banner on the building read NOW LEASING FOR SEPTEMBER, and Bennie remembered the construction that Connolly had mentioned in their interview.

With the Nikkormat in front of her face, Judy snapped photos of both ends of Trose Street, until she realized Mary hadn’t gotten out of the truck. She sidestepped to the half-open window. “Mare,” she whispered. “Mare, come on out.”

“No.” Mary sat in the backseat. “I’m not coming.”

“What? What do you mean you’re not coming?”

“I’m not coming. Which word don’t you understand?”

“Are you kidding?”

It was a good question, and Mary wasn’t exactly sure. “I’ve never been to a crime scene before. I don’t want to go to a crime scene now. Why do you think they put up all that yellow tape? Because crime scenes are not good places to go.”

“Mary, it’s your job.”

“No shit.” The associate’s head popped from the window and she blinked against the rain. “I know it’s my job, why do you think I hate it? If my job was making chocolate eclairs, I wouldn’t hate it.”

“Are you crazy? Get out of the car.”

“If my job was buying clothes, I wouldn’t hate it. Or reading books. Also I like to eat. Maybe I could get a job eating. Are there jobs like that, Jude?”

“What’s the matter with you? You want to get fired?”

Mary brightened immediately. “Why didn’t I think of that? Then I could collect unemployment, like the rest of America.”

“Carrier! DiNunzio! Let’s go!” Bennie shouted, the impatience in her tone impossible to miss. She was already climbing the front stoop of the rowhouse.

“Come on, she’ll fire me, too.” Judy opened the Ford’s door and grabbed the sleeve of Mary’s suit. “You’ll be fine, you’ll see,” she said, yanking out her friend and slamming the door behind her. They walked together to the front door, outdistanced by Bennie, who had slipped inside the entrance and already had her finger on the buzzer under a dented aluminum mailbox.

“We caught a break,” Bennie told them. “The super lives on the first floor.”

“How do you know?” Judy asked.

“It says so.” Bennie pointed to a nameplate: J. BOSTON, SUPER.

“Ace detective work,” Judy said, but Mary wasn’t laughing.

The super was short and wore a dirty T-shirt, baggy pants, and a grizzled, apathetic expression. When he spoke, a scotch-scented wind wafted toward Bennie. “No, I didn’t hear nuthin’ the night Ant’ny got killed,” he rasped in a voice sandpapered by cigarettes.

“But you live downstairs,” Bennie said. “You heard the gunshot, didn’t you?”

“The cops already axed me that. I told ’em, I don’t hear nothin’ at night.”

“Even a gunshot?”

“I didn’t hear nothin’. So I’d had a few. That agains’ the law?”

“Did you ever hear Connolly and Della Porta? Talking, arguing, anything?”

The old man’s watery eyes lit up. “Anything? You mean anything ?”

“Fine. Anything.”

“No.” He burst into laughter that ended in a hacking fit. Judy and Mary exchanged glances, standing in the hallway in front of his apartment. The television, specifically Oprah Winfrey’s theme song, blared from behind a white door grimy with fingerprints. “I hardly ever saw ’em. They was never around. Him bein’ a cop and all, I figgered he was busy.”

“Did they have a lot of visitors?”

“Hell if I know. I stay in my place. My brother-in-law, he owns this dump, he likes it that way. Any way he likes it is fine with me.” The super squinted. “You say you’re a lawyer? All a youse are gal lawyers? Do they have that?”

Bennie let it go. “Does that sign out front mean that Della Porta’s apartment is vacant?”

“Hell, yes. That apartment’s nothin’ but trouble. I could show it all day, ain’t nobody gonna rent it. Nobody want a place with a man got shot, even furnished and all. Plus he’s askin’ too much.”

“The apartment’s been vacant since the murder? With the original furniture?”

“Sure. Got everything ’cept the rug. I throwed that out when the cops was done with it.”

Bennie sighed. Trace evidence would be long gone. “Is the furniture the same as it was? You didn’t rearrange it, did you?”

“I don’t get paid enough to move nothin’.”

“I need to see that apartment. Can I borrow the key?”

“What the hell.” The super fumbled for his pocket and dug around inside. “Who you think cleaned that mess upstairs? Yours truly. Who you think took up the g-d rug, had blood all over it? Yours truly. Who sanded the floors? Repainted the bloody wall? Packed all their shit up and put it in the basement?”

“Yours truly?” Judy said, and the super grinned in toothless appreciation.

After they got the key, Bennie charged up the stairway with the associates to the second floor. The stair was long and skinny, covered by a dirty red runner, and on the second floor was a door without a sign or number.

Bennie unlocked the door. “Keep your eyes open,” she said, stepping inside the apartment. “Take note of the layout of the place. Look at the orientation of the rooms, the furniture. Check views from the windows, lighting. Try to remember what you see, no matter how insignificant it seems now. Got it?”

“Yep,” Judy answered. She snapped a photo, but Mary lingered at the threshold, unnoticed.

Bennie scanned the apartment. The large room had two windows that faced the street, a northern exposure, and contained a table with four chairs to the right, making up a dining area on the east side. On the left side of the room a couch sat flush against the wall and in front of it was an oak blanket chest. A Sony Trinitron sat on a TV cart between the windows and an oval mirror hung on the wall. Bennie made a note of the brighter squares in the textured wallpaper where pictures had been hung, and there was a light square in the center of the floor where a rug had been. “Take a picture from this spot, Carrier,” Bennie said. “Take a bunch.”

“Gotcha.” Judy clicked away as Bennie crossed the room to the couch.

“Here we go. Here’s the bloodstain.” Bennie strode directly to a discolored patch in the hardwood, which was glossy in uneven patches, the refinishing sloppy. Della Porta’s blood must have seeped through the rug. She remembered from the police file that the bullet had been a.22 caliber. It had made a small hole in Della Porta’s forehead and blasted through the back of his skull. The loss of blood had been significant.

“Jeez.” Judy walked over and took a picture. “No wonder the super hasn’t rented the place. Nobody sweeps blood under the rug.”

“Which way did the body fall? Where’s DiNunzio?” Bennie asked, and both heads snapped to the doorway where Mary stood rooted. “DiNunzio, what are you doing? Come over here.”

“Coming.” Mary walked over as purposefully as she could and looked down. On the floor was a dark brown stain shaped like France. Her stomach flipped over. “Is that what I think it is?”