Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

Silence fell in the courtroom, as if the trial had suddenly stalled in a pocket of dead air. An older juror in the front row leaned back in her chair and a young woman next to her blinked. The black librarian scowled at Connolly, who was scribbling a note to Bennie on her legal pad. Connolly wrote, I BEGGED THEM NOT TO KILL ME. Bennie skimmed the note without comment. All she could think was, they just did.

“Officer McShea,” Hilliard continued, “is it your testimony, then, that the defendant confessed and attempted to bribe you not to take her into custody?”

“Yes.”

“And you refused?”

“Of course. When we didn’t accept, she demanded a lawyer.”

Hilliard paused to let it sink in. “Officer McShea, permit me to take you back a minute, in the events of that night. When you first saw the defendant running down Trose Street, did you see anything in the defendant’s hand?”

“Yes, she was holding a white bag. Plastic, like you get at the Acme. Or, I should say, my wife gets at the Acme. I can’t take the credit when she does the work.” McShea smiled, as did the women in the front row of the jury. Connolly shifted next to Bennie, but didn’t say anything.

“Now Officer McShea, fast-forward to when you and Officer Reston were arresting her. Was she still carrying the white plastic bag?”

“No. The defendant had nothing in her hand when I cuffed her.”

“So the white plastic bag vanished when the defendant came out of the alley, is that correct?”

“Objection,” Bennie said. “The district attorney is testifying, Your Honor.”

“Overruled,” Judge Guthrie barked, and addressed the witness. “Officer McShea, would you answer the question, please?”

“The plastic bag was in her hand when the defendant ran into the alley and it wasn’t there when we arrested her.”

“When did you next see that bag, Officer McShea?” Hilliard asked.

“We took the defendant into custody, locked her in the squad car, and went looking for the plastic bag. We both saw her go into the alley with it and come out without it, so we knew pretty well where it had to be. I’m smarter than I look.”

Hilliard smiled and leaned on the witness box, so close to the cop he was practically in his seat. It wasn’t Hilliard’s handicap, it was his way of vouching for the cop, so common Bennie thought of it as the D.A. lap dance. “Officer McShea,” he said, “tell the jury the results of your search.”

“Officer Reston and I searched the alley in the middle of the block, toward the west end. In the alley was a Dumpster, from the construction across the street. We searched the Dumpster and in it we found a white plastic bag, like the one I saw in the defendant’s hand.”

“Did you find anything inside the bag?”

“Yes. A woman’s gray sweatshirt. It had blood all over it. It was still wet and warm.”

Hilliard picked up a tagged white bag from the evidence table and moved it into evidence. Bennie watched as the jurors craned their necks at the dark streaks on the crumpled sweatshirt, which could only be blood. “Officer McShea, I’m holding Exhibit C-12 and C-13. Is this the white bag and the sweatshirt you found?”

The cop stretched out a hand for the clothes bag and examined it through the plastic, turning it over. “Yes.”

“Now, Officer McShea, you testified that you found the sweatshirt, C- 13, in the Dumpster in the alley. Was the Dumpster full or empty?”

“Pretty full, lots of construction trash. Boards, rubble, and whatnot.”

“Did you have to dig in the trash to find this sweatshirt?”

“No. It was right on top of the other trash.”

“Was it concealed there?”

“Not at all.”

Bennie eyed the jurors. To a one, they were engrossed in the story. McShea’s testimony was easily understood, absolutely incriminating, and totally false. She’d have to handle him with care on cross.

“Officer McShea,” Hilliard asked, “by the way, did you or your partner find the murder weapon in the alley?”

“No, we didn’t. To the best of my knowledge, the murder weapon was never recovered.”

“I see.” Hilliard paused. “Did there come a time when you and your partner took the defendant down to the Roundhouse, the police administration building, in the squad car?”

“Yes, sure.”

“When you took the defendant to the Roundhouse, was she visibly upset or crying over the death of her lover, Detective Della Porta?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Bennie said. “Does Mr. Hilliard mean other than the witness has already described? People show their grief in many different ways.” Her mother’s face materialized suddenly in her mind’s eye.

“Rephrase the question,” Judge Guthrie said, leaning back again. He arranged his robe around him and patted the gathered stitching that ringed his robe like a yoke.

“Officer McShea,” Hilliard asked, “was the defendant crying when you took her to the Roundhouse?”

“No, but a couple of us were,” McShea said, bitterness tainting his tone, and Bennie knew instantly that the jury would be reminded that the murdered man was a fallen policeman. She had to find a way to let them know what their hero had hidden under his floor.

“I have no further questions. Your witness, Ms. Rosato,” Hilliard said, his tone grave. “Thank you.”

Hilliard gathered his papers at the podium as Bennie stepped from behind counsel table, buttoned her suit jacket, and shook off her mother’s image. She had to prove to the jury something that adults should already have known. There really was no Santa Claus.

Bennie took a second to frame her first question. She’d tried enough cases to know that some of the jurors had already decided she was representing a cold-blooded cop killer and would regard her with the same loathing as her client. But most of them would reserve judgment, and she saw them casting an inquisitive eye on her and Connolly’s complementary blue suits and identical hairstyles. She hated the scheme she’d set in motion and wished she could wriggle from her own skin, like a common snake.

“Officer McShea,” Bennie began, walking to the podium, “what is your district?”

“The Twentieth.”

Bennie didn’t use the map of the city she’d had made because it would slow the exam. “Now, just to simplify things, your beat is the western segment of the city, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it true that Detective Della Porta’s apartment is located in a different district, the Eleventh?”

“Yes.”

“The Eleventh is on the other side of the city from the Twentieth, isn’t it?

“Yes.” McShea appeared unfazed, and Bennie walked around the podium, to the edge of the microphone’s range. The gallery wouldn’t be able to hear well, but she was no longer playing for the studio audience.

“You and your partner were the first patrol car to respond to the Della Porta murder, isn’t that right, Officer McShea?”

“Yes.”

“You were not responding to a radio call, were you?”

“No.”

“You couldn’t be, because the first call came into 911 after that, isn’t that right?”

“If you say so. Right.”

“And you were on duty that night, were you not?”

McShea cocked his head. “We were.”

“Now, you testified that you just happened to be in Detective Della Porta’s neighborhood at the time. If you were on duty, why were you out of your district?”

“We, uh, went down to get dinner.” McShea looked frankly sheepish.

“You went out of your district to get dinner? Where?”

“A cheesesteak, at Pat’s. A Cheese Whiz, to be specific.”

The jury nodded and smiled. Every Philadelphian got a “Cheese Whiz,” a steak sandwich with Cheese Whiz, at Pat’s Steaks. Not only would the story strike a hometown chord with the jurors, it was impossible to verify, and so human it sounded believable. Bennie agreed with McShea; he was smarter than he looked.