Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

“Yes, Your Honor,” Bennie said, her chin high. She knew what she’d found under that floor. There was only one way to get it into evidence. She was one step closer.

Judge Guthrie swiveled toward the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, please disregard that last question. Merely because defense counsel asks a question does not make it so. There hasn’t been any evidence presented in this trial that the decedent, Detective Della Porta, had any involvement whatsoever in any illicit drug dealing.” Judge Guthrie grabbed his reading glasses from the dais and stood up. “We’ll break for lunch and readjourn at one-thirty. Mr. Sheriff, please escort the jury out.”

Bennie watched the prosecutor slap his legal pad closed in anger, and she sat down in the midst of the havoc she had created, oddly satisfied.

“Meet with me at lunch,” Connolly whispered. Her voice echoed Bennie’s own, and the lawyer’s satisfaction evaporated in the blink of an eye.

Judy, on a mission, shot from her seat as soon as the court session ended. She pushed through the locked door in the bulletproof divider and slipped into the gallery, getting a bead on the blond cop as he headed out the double doors of the courtroom. The cop was at the front of the throng, one of the first to leave. Judy went after him, keeping her head down and charging ahead so the reporters wouldn’t bother her. The marble hallway outside the courtroom was mobbed, and Judy lost sight of the cop’s blue shirt in the sea of blue shirts. Cops were always around the courthouse waiting to testify.

The blond cop resurfaced near the elevator bank, waiting with a circle of others. There was usually a stampede to get out of the Justice Center at lunchtime and tacit courthouse decorum demanded that cops get priority to the elevators. But Judy was never one for decorum anyway. She threaded her way through the crowd and ended up only one cop away. Underneath the shiny patent-leather bill of his hat, she could see that the cop’s blue eyes were large and bright, his nose short, and his teeth bright against his tan. He was a hunk, but too Hitler Youth for Judy’s taste. She tried to get a look at the black nameplate on the far side of the cop’s broad chest, but he was turned away.

Judy reached for his sleeve. “Excuse me, may I speak with you for a minute, Officer?” she asked, and the cop’s eyes hardened.

“I’m late for my tour.”

“Maybe I can help you, miss,” offered one of the other cops, with a broad smile.

“She’s one of Connolly’s lawyers, Doug,” interrupted the third cop, but Judy’s eyes stayed on the blonde. The elevator door had opened and he was slipping inside, wedging himself between the already uncomfortable passengers.

“Wait a minute, comin’ through!” Judy said. She barreled into the elevator by bending her knees and plowing ahead, just like Mr. Gaines had taught her. Interesting that boxing lessons came in handy for trial lawyers.

“Hey, look out!” groused one of the passengers as Judy squeezed in the cab and the elevator doors closed behind her. “What you think you’re doin’, steppin’ on my foot?”

“Sorry.” Judy looked past the passenger to the blond cop, who kept his gaze averted. She still couldn’t read his nameplate; it was blocked. “Officer, I do need to speak with you,” she said, but he ignored her. The passengers looked at her like she was crazy, since she had already established that she was ill-mannered. “Meet you in the lobby, Officer.”

The elevator doors opened behind her and the crowd in the cab pressed forward, flowing around Judy like a river. The blond cop brushed past her, but she fell into step beside him and glanced at his nameplate. LENIHAN.

“Is there a reason you’re avoiding me, Officer Lenihan?” Judy asked, practically running to keep pace. “Why were you in the courtroom today?” The cop plowed through the courthouse lobby, passed the line at the metal detector, and shoved the courthouse door open. “What possible interest do you have in the Connolly case, Officer Lenihan?” Judy called out, brash as a reporter, but he charged ahead.

It was raining outside the Criminal Justice Center, a full-fledged summer thunderstorm, and people crowded for shelter under the entrance in front of the courthouse, talking and smoking until the rain broke. Frail beech trees in aluminum cylinders rustled in the downpour, and people opened umbrellas like new blossoms. A group of lawyers scurried into the rain, and Lenihan bolted between them and across Filbert, heedless of the storm.

Judy dashed after him, beginning to anger. She spent her waking hours asking questions people didn’t answer. “Officer Lenihan, stop!”

Lenihan picked up the pace. Heavy droplets pounded on his hat and epaulets, turning them a darker blue in quarter-sized spots.

Judy sprinted to catch up with him, blinking raindrops from her eyes. Her shoulders were getting drenched. “You can’t run away from this, Lenihan,” she shouted, as she dogged his thick, black heels. They passed an empty office building in a controlled run, its granite façade slick in the storm. The crowd wasn’t so thick here, though one old woman peered at them from under a pink ruffled umbrella. “I have your name and badge number!” Judy yelled after the cop. “We’ll subpoena you, Officer Lenihan! We’ll ask you on the stand!”

The cop whirled around suddenly, his handsome face red with anger. “Did you threaten me?” he said through clenched teeth. “I thought I heard you threaten me.”

Judy stepped back in the downpour, feeling a sudden chill she knew wasn’t the rain. “What do you know about Della Porta’s murder? What are you hiding?”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” the cop demanded, his eyes flashing under the wet brim of his hat, but Judy stood her ground. Stance was her specialty.

“What do you know about Della Porta’s dealing drugs? Do you have information for us? Talk to me now and we can make a deal.”

“Don’t mess where you don’t belong,” the cop whispered, leaning close. Then he turned and hurried into the lunchtime throng of bobbing umbrellas, their bright colors a cheery counterpoint to a conversation that left Judy shaking.

What the hell had that been about? What did he mean? Rain soaked Judy’s smock, and she bounded back to the courthouse, clip-clopping in her clogs like a spooked colt.

There wasn’t time to go back to the office during the lunch recess, so the defense team staked out a war room in a courthouse conference room, a sterile white cubicle off the courtroom. Light from a fluorescent panel filled the tiny room, which felt crowded with only four chrome chairs with tan wicker backs encircling a round table of fake wood. At the moment, the table was cluttered with deli sandwiches, pungent canoes of kosher dills, and copies of the police activity sheets. Bennie was making notes and wolfing down a tuna fish on rye when Carrier burst in and told her what had happened.

“You did what ?” Bennie asked, scanning her soggy associate in alarm. She set down her sandwich. “You threatened him?”

“Not really.” Judy wiped damp bangs from her forehead. “If you don’t count the subpoena part.”

“That counts,” Mary told her, from behind an unfinished tossed salad. She wore a paper napkin bib over a black linen suit and her hair was pulled back into a businesslike twist. “Subpoenas count, definitely.”

Bennie frowned. “You were supposed to find out his name, that’s all. Lenihan. Good work. I didn’t want you to talk to him, much less threaten him.”

“He threatened me back, and he’s a cop.”

“Carrier, if Lenihan was involved in the drug business, he’ll be panicking. Your threat could flush him out, make him do something dangerous.” Bennie had told the associates about the money under the floorboards, but hadn’t told them she was being followed by the black TransAm, to protect them. “From now on, do what I say. No more and no less.”