Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

“No, of course not.” Connolly sat down. “They’ve been calling here, but your secretary got me a message that said not to talk to the press. Not that they’d let me take those calls anyway.”

Bennie thought about it. It was true, calls in and out of the facility were limited. “Did you tell any friends in here who could have blabbed it?”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“How about on the outside?”

“Like I said.”

Bennie scrutinized Connolly to see if she was telling the truth. Her eyes, another set of Bennie’s eyes, were alert with what looked like genuine surprise, and she sat tense on the edge of the chair, her hands clasped on the counter. A tiny crease in her brow betrayed her anxiety; it looked like the kink that Grady always kidded Bennie about in her own brow. “You have no idea how the press found out?”

“No, not unless somebody in your firm told them.”

“No.” Bennie laced her fingers into a fist over the counter. “Let me ask you another question. Why didn’t you tell me about Lyman Bullock?”

Connolly’s mouth twitched and anger flickered across her features. She leaned back as if absorbing a blow, then seemed to compose herself. “Bullock,” she said with a sigh. “So you know about him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I shouldn’t have to. You’re supposed to tell me everything, and I decide what’s important for the case. You don’t make that decision, I do. I’m your lawyer.”

Connolly’s temper flared. “That doesn’t mean you’re my boss, lording it over me.”

“It’s not about who’s the boss.”

“The fuck it isn’t.”

Bennie bristled. The similarity between her and Connolly’s reaction to authority no longer struck her as a complete surprise. Still, she had a defense to stage. “Look, you called me to represent you, I’m trying to represent you. Knocking myself out to represent you, in fact, and so are my two best associates. Cooperate or die, okay? That incentive enough for you?”

Connolly sulked. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Except who you really are.”

Bennie straightened in her chair. “I know who I am.”

“No, you don’t, because you don’t know who I am. I change who you are, and you don’t like that one bit.”

“About the case.” If Connolly was playing a mind game with Bennie, she wouldn’t win. “We’re talking about the case.”

“You don’t like your cage rattled, huh? Well, deal with it.” Connolly stood up, and her chair squeaked noisily on the gritty floor. “That you’re on that side of the table, with your suit and your briefcase, so full of yourself. You think you can come up here and tear me a new asshole, then get back in your car and go home. You don’t want to believe that you’re my twin, huh? That you could have had the lousy luck. That you could have been here. You could have been me. ”

“Lyman Bullock,” Bennie said evenly. “Sit down and discuss Lyman Bullock or I leave. When did you start seeing him?”

Connolly’s lip twisted. “October, that year,” she answered after a minute, and fell defiantly into her chair.

“Where did you meet him?”

“On the street. A hot dog stand.”

“A preppie lawyer, at a hot dog stand? Try again. The truth.”

Connolly didn’t bat an eye. “We met at the hot dog stand in front of the library. He pulled up in the car, to grab a dog. We got to talking.”

“Then what?”

“We had an affair, okay? Surprised I got a man like that?”

Bennie retrieved a legal pad and ballpoint from her briefcase. “Where did you go with him during the day?”

“An apartment he kept on the side. I wasn’t the first.”

“You have a key?”

“No, I met him there.”

“How many times a week?”

“In the beginning, once or twice a week. When he could.”

Bennie made a note. “You had sex.”

“No, we played Nintendo.” Connolly didn’t laugh and neither did Bennie. “I’d hang in the apartment, work on my book. It was nicer than the library. The place was loaded. Big-screen TV, nice CD player. Fast computer, a screamer.”

Bennie set down her pen. “So, you were cheating on Della Porta.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Connolly shrugged, her expression impassive.

“I thought you were a woman in love.”

“You thought wrong.” She laughed abruptly. “You got the degree, but I got the brains.”

Bennie didn’t react. “Explain Bullock so I can make it credible to a jury, if it comes out.”

“I lived with Della Porta but I didn’t love him. I told you I didn’t like being alone. I didn’t love Bullock either. They were just men. I cared about them, but it wasn’t like love, in love songs and all.”

Bennie thought she sounded adolescent. If songs were the standard, we all were screwed. “When did it end between you and Bullock?”

“A month before Anthony was murdered.”

“Did you end it or did he?”

“We both did. He was traveling all the time on business, for a big case out in Arkansas. He just stopped calling.”

“You didn’t call him?”

“No. I wasn’t that interested, and then Anthony got killed.”

Bennie felt sick and hollow. For Connolly’s life, so empty, and for her defense, in deeper trouble than before. She couldn’t prove that Connolly and Della Porta were lovebirds now, and hoped the D.A. didn’t know that. Maybe she could try another tack. “Bullock knew about Della Porta, right? Wasn’t he jealous of Della Porta?”

“No. Bullock wanted to buy a share of Star. Wanted me to fix it with Anthony. ’Course, I couldn’t exactly do that.”

“Buy a share? What do you mean?”

“Fighters need backers. Anthony was the manager and he got a group of businessmen to put up money for Star. If Star made money, they made money.”

“Could there be a connection between Bullock and Star?”

“No way. Bullock didn’t need the coin, believe me.”

But Bennie was thinking. There was a problem here and it wasn’t that the Bullock theory wouldn’t fly. It was that Connolly wouldn’t fly. Any jury, given half a chance, will find for a defendant they like, but they weren’t going to like Connolly, even if she never said a word in court. The D.A. would be savvy enough to get Connolly’s life, morals, and attitude into evidence, and it could kill her, even if she were innocent of the murder.

Bennie’s stomach tensed. She had to find some way to sell Connolly to the jury. She looked at Connolly, and the inmate looked back at her with those matching eyes, outlined with eyeliner. It gave her an idea. A gamble, but it was Connolly’s only chance.

The black plastic hand on the kitchen clock hovered at 5:30, and Mary sat with satisfaction over a plate of steaming spaghetti and bumpy meatballs, with a salad of iceberg lettuce and vinegar-and-oil dressing. The DiNunzio family ate dinner at the same time every night and served pasta four nights a week, except for fish on Fridays, still. Mary felt reassured when things stayed the same, and her parents’ home, which she visited every Wednesday for dinner, was the Church of Things That Stayed the Same. She had brought Judy home for dinner because Mary’s parents adored her, treating her like the tall child they never had. Judy returned the affection, marveling at each visit that Italians really acted Italian. Mary had no defense for it. Some stereotypes rang true for a reason.

The DiNunzios’ brick rowhouse in South Philly was laid out in a straight line from living room to dining room to kitchen, the rooms strung one after the other like the slippery beads on a favored rosary. The sofa in the living room sagged in the center, its shiny green quilting protected by doilies her mother had crocheted decades ago. The room’s maroon carpet had been worn in a strip down the middle, a missal’s ribbon made by years of walking through the dining room, which was used only on Christmas and Easter. Even as a child, Mary knew something really good had to happen to Jesus Christ for the DiNunzios to eat in the dining room.