Lisa Scottoline: Mistaken Identity

Winslow never offered Alice money, but she took his visit most months, figuring he could be used down the line. Everybody could be used somehow, even a wacko. He always asked about her defense, frowning every time Alice said her lawyer sucked. She noticed his reaction and worked it, playing him to get her a new lawyer. Then, the other day, the old man dropped the bombshell: You’re a twin, Alice. Your twin sister is the best lawyer in the city. She knows all about the police. It’s time for you to call her. Show her this.

Fuckin’ Bill. He’d held out an envelope. Alice took one look at the stuff inside and felt like she won the lottery. She didn’t care if it was true or if the coot was just plain crazy. Alice could spin this straw into gold. It was her ticket out. Only one thing she didn’t understand: Why the fuck didn’t you tell me before? I been rotting in the shithole for a year. I coulda called Rosato a long time ago!

The scarecrow was startled at her sudden anger, clenching and unclenching the brim of the hat hanging in his hands. Ithought you’d be okay, Alice. I thought you had a good lawyer. Now I know you need Bennie.

Alice shifted her weight in the sagging bed. What a joke. Bennie Rosato, famed hotshit lawyer, was her twin? So what? She didn’t know if Rosato was her twin and she didn’t give a fuck, just so she got off. But Alice had to convince Rosato they were twins, so she got busy. Read the newspapers and memorized the articles about Rosato and her cases. Cruised the Internet to see if Rosato’s firm had a website, and when she found it, saw how the lawyer looked and dressed. Started eating to pack on the pounds and decided to grow her hair in like Rosato’s. Even watched the TV news and COURT-TV, so she could imitate Rosato’s voice.

Alice became a twin expert, too. Crammed like her life depended on it, since it did. Logged onto the Net, researching books and webpages about twins, so she could pick up a few details to sell Rosato the story. Studied the medical angle and picked up the memories from the womb, for fuck’s sake. Alice hadn’t had much time and learned what she could in a few days. She almost became convinced of it herself. Maybe she was adopted. Maybe she really was a twin. It would explain some things, like how she didn’t like being alone. And how she never thought she looked like her parents. They were so different from her. Boring. Stupid. Losers.

Alice got herself psyched to meet Rosato. She knew she was ready the night the lawyer came on the news. Just one quick shot of Rosato and a do-rag watching TV had called out, She look like you, Alice.

She sure do, Alice had thought to herself. She’d called Rosato the next morning and the lawyer had come running. Their meeting hadn’t gone that well, but Rosato would come back. The lawyer was confused, but she’d get past that. She’d be curious about Alice. About herself.

Alice’s thoughts were interrupted by a chubby figure in blues scuffling down the hall. Valencia Mendoza arrived at the door and stuck her head inside the cell. Long, thick curls framed features smoothed by excess fat and thick makeup. Alice sat up in bed with a loud sigh. “What do you want?” she asked, as Valencia’s cheap perfume filled the cell. It overpowered the stench of the toilet, but Alice wasn’t sure she preferred it.

“I don’t want nothin’,” Valencia answered, in her baby voice.

“Then why are you here?”

“I worryin’.”

“I don’t have time for your worrying.” What a pain in the ass this spic was. They made good workers, used to taking orders, but they could be such a goddamn pain. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“I no hear my Santo for a week,” Valencia said, anxious. “My mother, she call every week says how he is. She put him on the phone. She no call this week. Somethin’s wrong.”

“Santo is fine. Your mother got her money yesterday.” Alice paused, double-checking in her mind. It was hard to keep track of the payments without the laptop, but nobody was giving out Powerbooks to prison inmates. It was cruel and unusual. “Santo is fine.”

“She got de money yesterday? Why she didn’t call?”

“I don’t know, Valencia. I don’t know your mother. Maybe she met somebody.”

Valencia’s black-lined eyelids fluttered briefly. “Santo, he had ’nother ear ’fection, las’ time I talk to her. Doctor say he get one more ear ’fection, he need tubes. Tha’s ’spensive.”

“You shakin’ me down, Valencia?” Alice’s eyes narrowed, and Valencia’s crimson nails flew to the blue plastic rosary she wore around her neck.

“No, no, Alice. No. Not me.”

“It’s not like you. I thought you were a good girl,” Alice said, eyeing her employee. Valencia was the girlfriend of one of the bantamweights, and Alice had recruited her right away. Valencia was smarter than most of them, timely on the pickups, and always did what she was told. Then she got pregnant and it ruined her. She’d stuck powder in Santo’s diaper and got busted. Oldest trick in the book.

“I am good,” Valencia said. “I no shake you down. Never. Not me.”

“Your mother gets her money every week, if you stay quiet. That’s the deal. You know the deal, even though you’re not so good with de English?”

“Right.”

“Right, what?”

“Jes, I know the deal.” Valencia nodded. “I swear.”

“Ain’t nothing else in the deal. No tubes, nothin’.” Alice stood up, put a hand on Valencia’s soft shoulder, and squeezed. “As soon as you stop being a good girl, I stop the money. What happens to Santo then? Huh, Valencia?”

“I don’ say nothin’.” Valencia’s eyebrows sloped downward. They were so heavily penciled it looked like a kid scribbled outside of the lines. Same with her lipstick, the color of cherry Jell-O, crayoned on puffy lips.

“You love Santo, don’t you?” Alice dug strong fingers into Valencia’s shoulder.

“O’ course I love my Santo. He my baby. I don’ say nothin’.”

“Miguel’s not gonna take care of Santo, is he? Not on the fights he gets. Hell, he won’t even marry you. Now will he?” Valencia’s brown eyes welled up, and Alice felt disgusted. “Will he, Valencia?”

“No,” she answered, almost a whisper.

“Who takes care of Santo, Valencia?”

“You do.”

“That’s right. I do. Remember that.” Alice released her grip. “Quit crying. If the baby needs tubes, he’ll get tubes. From me. You hear?”

“Jes.” Valencia’s lower lip trembled and a tear rolled down her cheek.

“What you gotta do, Valencia? Do you know?”

“I know.”

“You gotta shut up. You gotta shut the fuck up.”

“I shut the fuck up,” Valencia repeated, bursting into tears, and Alice smiled grimly. Valencia was definitely a loose end. And Alice couldn’t afford a loose end anymore.

“Please hold my calls,” Bennie said, and hurried by the startled receptionist with a stride that warded off associates and secretaries. She hustled down the corridor of her firm, past pine console tables and a print by Thomas Eakins of a rower sculling on the Schuylkill River. An elite rower herself, Bennie sculled daily on the same river, gliding under the stone arches the artist so faithfully detailed. She usually glanced at the prints as she walked by, but not this afternoon. A twin? Could it be? No way.

Bennie hadn’t opened the envelope in the truck. It had ridden beside her on the passenger seat, intrusive as a hitchhiker. It’ll prove everything I say is true, Connolly had said. Her voice sounded a lot like Bennie’s and her laugh was almost an echo. But it was a trick, it had to be. Prison was packed with hustlers, all wanting free legal help. Bennie got letters from inmates almost every day, and the mail spiked every time she was on TV. Connolly just had a more original approach.