Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

“Mr. Winslow is on vacation this week and the next two. He takes three weeks every year.”

Bennie wondered if it was a coincidence. “Do you know where he went on vacation?”

“No. Shall I tell him you called?”

“I was wondering, how long has Mr. Winslow worked here?”

“Let me see. Mr. Winslow and I came to the family about the same time, almost thirty-nine years ago.”

Bennie hid her reaction. All her life, he had been here. “So you must know him well.”

“Well, no.”

“In almost forty years?”

The maid’s eyelids fluttered. “I have my duties in the house, and Mr. Winslow works the grounds. He does like his privacy.”

“Does he have any family?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“Any children?”

“No. I must say, I know nothing about that, and I’m terribly uncomfortable discussing Mr. Winslow’s personal business any further. Please call again when Mr. Winslow returns.” The maid closed the heavy door with a solid brass click, leaving Bennie on the outside with her questions.

It was a feeling she was getting used to.

By the time Bennie got home, her bedroom was dark and Grady was sound asleep. It was just as well. She didn’t want to explain about her trip to Delaware or her lease of a crime scene. She had never done anything like that and didn’t know a criminal lawyer who had. Bennie sensed she was crossing a line, but decided to go with it. Coming so late to Connolly’s defense called for pulling out all the stops.

She undressed quickly in the darkness, piling her skirt on top of the exercise bike and stepping out of her pumps. She felt exhausted and there was still so much work to do. She padded to the bathroom, followed by Bear, and stopped halfway in the dark hallway. Her home office was on the right, still unpainted.

Bennie stood at the doorway and looked in. Moonlight streamed through the window, casting a cool white square on the messy files and law books. She scanned the configuration of the room: file cabinet, with the top drawer left open, overstuffed bookshelves, computer table with right-hand tray slid out, then another bookshelf, as unkempt as the first. Last night’s coffee mug still sat on the table tray; it would have a thick, sticky ring on its bottom. Her office was the lived-in, under-construction equivalent of Connolly’s.

Bennie picked her way through the clutter on the floor, unpacked files and wallpaper books, down the narrow path to her computer table. Bear followed and nestled into his customary circle under the table as she sat down, accidentally nudging the cord for the computer mouse. The monitor came to life with a prickly electrical sound and drenched the room in vivid cobalt. Bennie moved the mouse to the Microsoft Word icon and clicked a white page onto the screen. She faced the blank page and wondered what it would be like to be a writer like Connolly. Bennie had always wanted to be a writer, but had never admitted it to anyone.

Bennie clicked off the blank page and dialed up the Internet, then plugged “twins” into the search engine. She came up with a list of webpages and surfed the sites, most of them made by twins for other twins. She clicked on a photo of little girls with identical grins and matching orthodonture, feeling a surprising stab of envy.

She went back to the search engine, typed in “adoption,” and got lists of websites about the subject. She skimmed the first few stories about how adoptees had found their birth parents and researched companies that located birth parents and siblings, with endorsements from satisfied adoptees. None of the endorsements were from the newfound parents or siblings. Why?

She eased back in the chair. Being found was at best an ambivalent experience, not the stuff of short, poignant testimonials. Bennie knew from experience.

She had never felt so lost until Connolly found her.

The first thing Wednesday morning, Bennie hurried along Twentieth Street to the Free Library of Philadelphia, swimming upstream against the businesspeople striding to work in lightweight suits and dresses, smelling of mousse and determination. Noisy rush-hour traffic flooded the Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the start of the business day and swirled around Logan Circle, clogging the four lanes into the city. The sun burned hot; it felt muggy even at nine o’clock in the morning, setting horns honking.

Bennie reached the arched facade of the Free Library, a massive, columned edifice of marble, sitting majestic as a lion at the foot of the Parkway. She climbed the steps and pushed open the brass door as soon as the blue-shirted security guard unlocked it for business. Bennie needed to find a defense witness, someone who remembered the clothes Connolly was wearing the day Della Porta was murdered.

She hustled into the entrance hall with its grand staircase, a chamber as hushed and elegant as she remembered from her childhood. Glistening glass display cases lined the huge room, the high ceiling was vaulted, and the marble floor was fawn-colored, inlaid with malachite. Bennie dug. in her briefcase, retrieved her legal pad, and skimmed her notes. Connolly had said something about the pretty wrought iron in the library. One pretty room with ironwork, coming right up.

Bennie ducked into a large room on the right under a sign for Lending Library. Two desks flanked the front door and the main area contained shelves of new releases. A wrought iron balcony ringed the room, but the room wasn’t pretty, and she guessed it would be the busiest room in the library. Not the best place to become an author. Bennie left and went back to the entrance hall. On its other side was another large room, its entrance under a sign for Music Department. The room was dim, owing to the odd green tint of its windows, and the requisite wrought iron was scarce.

Bennie crossed to the grand staircase, also of tan marble, running her fingers along a sleek banister of polished brass. She hustled past a bronze cast of the library’s founder and a bizarre Victorian candelabra of carved marble set on lion’s claws, which looked like a lamp with toes. She chugged to the top of the staircase and entered the first room. The Social Sciences room contained a bank of computers, but it was dark because the curtains were closed. She left the room, betting it failed the pretty test, and walked out to the staircase landing again, where she spotted a pebbled sign that read LITERATURE.

Sounded pretentious enough.

Bennie strode down the marble corridor and slipped inside the room. It was a city block long, three stories high, and ringed by curly wrought iron balconies. The plaster ceiling was carved with elaborate Victorian curlicues, swirls, and figures. Indirect sunlight shone from the windows, falling softly on the vacant tables, and a row of computers sat off to one side. Standing by the bookshelves, Bennie ran a finger along the plastic-covered volumes. Milton. Pope. Tennyson. Thomas. She experienced a vague déjà vu of her father’s cottage in Delaware. Had Connolly written in this room? Could she be drawn to books for the same reasons Bennie’s father had been? Was it in their genes, and hers?

Bennie heard the sound of a chair being pulled out, and looked around. A librarian was returning to her desk. “Excuse me,” Bennie said, walking over. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Certainly.” The librarian was a slim, middle-aged woman with brushy silver hair, punctuated on either side by onyx dot earrings. She wore a loose, light-blue dress and red sailcloth espadrilles, and her smile was pleasant.

“Do you know a woman, a library patron, named Alice Connolly? She used to come here to write, every day until about a year ago.”

“I don’t recall that name.” The librarian turned and faced an old gray computer monitor, then hit a few keys. “There are twenty Alice Connollys listed here as members.”