Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

“You’re pulling out on me?”

“Not completely. I’ll be there watching you from the front row, but I can’t be trial counsel, not now. My mother died. She deserves to be mourned.”

“And what do I deserve?” Connolly spat back, and Bennie leaned forward, angry.

“This isn’t about you. This is about a woman who you claim bore you. How come your own mother’s death doesn’t even faze you?”

“Please forgive me for not crying.” Connolly’s mouth twisted bitterly. “My mother never gave a flying fuck about me. She abandoned me as soon as she saw me. You’re the one she cared about. You’re the one she kept. So you’ll understand if my only concern is my own ass. I’m selfish as sin. I get it from my mother.”

Bennie flinched, shaken to the core. She couldn’t bear to hear anybody talk that way about her mother, especially now. Suddenly she felt no more like Connolly’s twin than she had the day they met. She rose stiffly and went to the door. She wanted Connolly out of her sight.

“You’re not getting out of this case now, Rosato,” Connolly shouted. “I read the papers, I see the news. We’re the lead story. The media is eating it up and the jury will, too. Nobody can pull off the twin defense but my twin.”

Bennie felt sick inside, trapped. “Guard!” she called through the door, though she knew the guard would be watching her.

“Fuck you!” Connolly shouted as the guard appeared, and the curse reverberated inside Bennie’s skull all the way back to the office.

Bennie switched on the lights in her firm’s reception area and walked past the empty secretaries’ desks. The printers and fax machines had been turned off, as had the associates’ office lights, and Bennie could see from the brushed nap of the carpet that the cleaning ladies had come and gone. It was good to know that her law firm took care of itself, because right now she couldn’t take care of another thing.

She entered her office and sat down at her desk. Her business correspondence was covered by a pile of sympathy cards in shades of pink, lavender, and gray. The sight made her throat feel thick, and she set them aside without opening any. She didn’t want to feel sympathy right now. She didn’t want to feel anything.

Under the cards lay the letter to Judge Guthrie that Carrier had drafted, requesting a continuance. Bennie crumpled it up and pitched it into the waste can, shaking her head. Never had her decision-making been so screwy on a case. She shouldn’t have undertaken the representation in the first place. She had been wrong, terribly wrong, and she had to straighten it out.

Bennie punched a key on her computer and started drafting a motion, requesting that she be permitted to withdraw from the representation and also argued an alternative, as most lawyers did, for a postponement of a week because of a death in her family. She’d leave it with directions for Carrier to file ASAP and explain to the associates later why the boss had flip-flopped. After she finished the motion, she drafted and faxed letters to the two best criminal defense lawyers in Philly, offering them the Connolly representation. Both would jump at the chance to take on the high-profile matter.

But Bennie felt nothing like relief as she handed Connolly’s fate to another.

Almost as soon as Bennie opened the front door to her house, Grady swept her into his arms. He had clearly waited up for her, still dressed in his work clothes, a rumpled white oxford shirt and wrinkled suit pants. “Jeez, babe, I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “I’ve been trying to reach you everywhere. Are you okay?”

“I guess,” she said, though the words sounded hoarse, even to her. She remained in his embrace only reluctantly, not so much because she didn’t want to be held by him, but because she didn’t want to be held at all. “I think things are pretty much under control now.”

“I should have been there. I’m so sorry.” Grady squeezed her tighter and she could hear him groan. “I was in a meeting over this stupid merger. I didn’t get to make any calls and I didn’t get your message until late.”

“It’s okay, there wasn’t anything you could do anyway. I picked out what I had to, and Hattie was with her, at the end.” Bennie squirmed in Grady’s arms but he held fast.

“It’s good Hattie was there.”

“Yes,” Bennie said, having suddenly run out of conversation. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to be touched. She wanted only to go upstairs, lie down, and feel miserable. Maybe treat herself to another good, long cry. “Can I go now?” she blurted out, and Grady laughed abruptly and released her.

“Sure, honey, I’m sorry.”

“I’m just tired. I need to lie down.” She felt a nudge against her leg and looked down at the golden retriever leaning into her, his tail down. Bear’s body warmed her thigh, and she scratched the flyaway hair behind his ear. “Dogs are good,” she said, her voice thick.

“Let’s go upstairs. I’ll tuck you in.”

“I can tuck myself in.”

“Whether you know it or not, you need me now. I’m taking you upstairs and putting you to bed. Understand?”

Bennie smiled, though somehow even that hurt. “Okay,” she said, and permitted herself to be led upstairs to bed and tucked in like a very small girl.

Early next morning, Judy stood in the sunny conference room and read the faxed order again and again, as if that would change the result: “IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Defense Counsel’s Motion for Withdrawal and, In the Alternative, for a Postponement is hereby DENIED.” “I don’t get this,” Judy said. “How could he deny it?”

“Guthrie denied our motion, in its entirety? No withdrawal? Not even a continuance?” Mary, standing next to her, flipped over the top page of the order. “There’s not even an opinion. There’s no explanation at all.”

“He doesn’t have to explain anything, he’s a judge.”

“This is a sin. Bennie can’t possibly work this case. Her mother just died, for God’s sake. He can’t give her a week off, even three days?”

Judy shook her head. “I guess he’s figuring that she got the standard three days, if you count from Thursday. That would be Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Jury selection is set for this Monday, with opening arguments right afterwards.”

“Can we file an appeal?”

Judy looked over. “No, whiz. It’s an interlocutory order, not appealable until the case is over.”

“I knew that. It was a trick question.”

Judy smiled, thinking. “I suppose we could file some kind of emergency order or maybe a petition for misconduct, but that wouldn’t help. The Superior Court wouldn’t intervene on an emergency basis for something within a judge’s discretion. Even if we filed a misconduct petition, the only remedy is a reprimand.”

“I knew that, too.”

“What did you know?”

“What you said.”

Judy smiled, then it faded quickly. “I hate to bother Bennie with this. Do I have to call her at home?”

“Of course. We have no choice. She can work at home if we feed her the information we have.” Mary gestured at the papers on the conference table. “I found out Burden’s still out of the country, I can write her a memo. I can dictate my notes on the neighborhood survey and send her a copy by messenger. Then I could draft a cross-examination of the Commonwealth witnesses.”

“That should help.”

“I’m a fountain of helpfulness. What are you going to do?”

“Correct your work, as always,” Judy said, and reached for the phone to call Bennie.

At home, Bennie sat on the edge of the bed in her white terrycloth bathrobe, holding the phone after the associate briefed her fully and hung up. Bennie couldn’t think of a single judge who would have denied that request, at least for the postponement, and it was out of character for the well-bred Harrison Guthrie. Stunned, she held the telephone receiver in midair, and Grady plucked it from her hand and placed it on the cradle.