Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

“I’m just surprised Connolly did. She never used it. This office was a sty.”

Bennie pivoted in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“The photos, in the file. They were in an envelope from the mobile crime unit.”

Of course. She had forgotten. “Let’s see them.”

“I don’t have them with me.” Mary’s attack of usefulness vanished. “We’re not allowed to take originals out of the office, remember?”

Bennie gritted her teeth. It wasn’t the kid’s fault, so she couldn’t strangle her. “What do the photos show?”

“The apartment with all their stuff in it. You can see how they decorated it. It’s pretty much the same, except for this room. The apartment was neat, but Connolly’s office was a mess.”

“I want to see the photos tonight. Remind me when we get back.”

“Okay, sorry. I didn’t understand.”

“Forget it.” Bennie raked a hand through her hair. Connolly’s home office was a revelation, raising more questions than it answered. It was time to find the answers. “Get Carrier,” she said suddenly. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Downstairs to see the super. I’m renting this apartment.”

“You want to rent this place?” Mary was appalled. “But this is a crime scene.”

“Understood.”

“A man was killed here.”

“There are worse ideas than renting a crime scene,” Bennie said, but Mary couldn’t think of a single one.

Judy sat across from Mary in the conference room, typing a pretrial motion on her laptop while Mary organized the Connolly file. They had worked this way forever, holed up in a war room until late at night, readying for trial on a conference table dotted with open law books and take-out lo mein. “You’re nuts,” Judy said as she hit the ENTER key.

“You weren’t in court today, I was.” Mary pressed an orange label onto the coroner’s report and marked it Exhibit D-11. “I saw it. Her. Them. I’m telling you, Connolly is Bennie’s twin.”

“I don’t believe it.” Judy stopped typing. “Bennie never mentioned she had a twin. She’s private, but not that private.”

“All I can tell you is, Bennie and Connolly are twins. Same basic face, same height, same eyes. Not just sisters, either. They’re twins, I can feel it.”

“How?”

“Because I’m a twin. Twins know these things.”

“You’re starting to sound like me.” Judy cocked her head and her Dutch-boy haircut fell to the side. “You’re getting a twin vibe, is what you’re saying.”

“Catholics don’t believe in vibes. Just take it from me, they’re twins.”

“If they look that much alike, how come nobody else in the courtroom saw it?”

“Nobody was really looking at them, they were following the proceeding. And Connolly and Bennie look different. Connolly is thin and her hair’s red. She wears makeup, she’s pretty. Foxy. Bennie’s hair is such a light blond, messy, and she always looks like she put on whatever she grabbed first, like a jock.” Mary finished choosing and labeling the defense exhibits. “And the cues weren’t there. My God, Bennie’s a big-time lawyer and Connolly’s a state prisoner. One’s a winner and one’s a loser. Nobody made the connection.”

“What do you mean? Either Bennie and Connolly look like twins or they don’t.”

“Not necessarily. It’s like with me and Angie. There was a time, I don’t know if you remember, really early at Stalling? I was a second-year associate. I lost twenty pounds. My face was sunken in, I broke out constantly, and I looked like shit. The worst I’ve looked in my life.”

“Worse than now?”

“As I was saying, I remember Angie was entering the convent. We were allowed to go to the ceremony and watch from behind a carved screen. Wasn’t that big of them?”

Judy smiled. “Without your religion you’d have nothing to bitch about.”

“Yes, I would-what about my job? Anyway, I took pictures of me and Angie that day, and you could never tell we were identical twins from them. There’s Angie, looking all happy and serene. Relaxed, fulfilled. On a first-name basis with the Holy Spirit.”

“The Holy Spirit has a first name?”

“Al, of course. You can call him Al. Now will you shut up and let me tell the story? In the picture, I looked the worst I ever looked and Angie looked the best. She was becoming a nun and I was becoming a burnt-out associate. She was serving God, I was serving Satan.”

“I get it,” Judy said, though Mary remained undaunted.

“You know those ads with the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures? I looked like the ‘before’ picture and Angie looked like the ‘after’ picture. Especially with me in the suit and her in the nun costume.” Mary sipped cold coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “It doesn’t help when you dress differently, like Connolly and Bennie were, in court. It’s not only in the way you look, anyway.”

“How so?”

“I can tell in other ways that people are twins. I knew fraternal twins in school. They sat closer together than other people. When they talked to each other, they stood nearer. They were just used to being physically close. They gravitated to each other, like meatballs in a bowl. Angie and I used to be that way.”

“That’s so cool.” Judy straightened in her swivel chair, and Mary felt suddenly special. It was good to feel special about something, even if it was an accident of birth.

“There are things about twins no one would mistake. No one knows how to look for it like a twin. When I look at Angie, I see me. It’s not only how she looks, it’s how she acts.”

“How?” Judy asked, though she had a rough idea. She didn’t know Angie that well, but she’d noticed it, too. It was as if Mary’s twin were an echo of Mary. The same person, but not the same. A physical clone, but emotionally a different person.

“You know Angie’s body language? She sits like me. She always tucks her right leg under her butt, like me. Plus she talks too fast, like me. My mother has to ask her to repeat herself. I’m the only one who can understand her.”

Judy scoffed. “That doesn’t count. You both have South Philly accents. Nobody can understand either of you.”

“I’ll ignore that. It’s the tone of voice. And the gestures, the way she talks with her hands.”

“You’re both Italian.”

“Guilty as charged.” Mary thought a minute. “We like the same clothes. When we go shopping, we fight over the same dress. It used to happen all the time.”

“That doesn’t count. You were raised together. You’ve developed the same taste in clothes. Didn’t your parents even dress you alike when you were little?”

“True, all the time. Same birthday party, same toys. Until we were three we called each other by whatever name was handy. Angie, Mary, it didn’t matter to us.” Mary thought harder. “But there’s other things. Nature, not nurture. Stuff that you couldn’t learn. I finish her sentences.”

“We finish each other’s sentences.”

“That’s because you’re always talking about food. It’s not the same thing.”

Judy pitched a paper clip at her. “Like what, then?”

“Well, sometimes, I know what Angie is thinking. I knew when she was unhappy in the convent. I knew when she was worried about me, or about my father. I know when she’s thinking about calling me. Lots of times, I’ll pick up the phone to call her and it’s busy because she’s calling me.”

“Maybe you call each other at the same time, as a habit.”

“We don’t. It happens at all times.” Mary’s voice softened. “When she got into paralegal school, after she left the convent, I knew she got in. I could just feel how happy she was. I knew it the very minute she did. I was in the library, working on a brief. All of a sudden I felt something inside, like a rush of great feeling. Like I accomplished something. The minute I felt it, a voice inside me said, ‘I got in.’ Not ‘Angie got in.’ ‘ I got in.’ It was like I was having her thoughts.”