Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

Bennie checked the rearview. The TransAm had recovered from its spinout and tore onto the sidewalk after her, but it stalled at the bottom of the staircase. It took three steps up, then lost traction and slid backward. Bennie’s heart leapt with relief. She kept the gas flowing and the Ford climbed the next set of steps. Only one set to go to the plaza and the huge circular fountain in front of the museum. The Corinthian columns of its façade stretched before her, five stories high, bathed in golden light. At the top of the tiled roof, Greek gods and goddesses gazed with serene indifference into the dark sky.

The Ford surged forward. Bennie lost sight of the TransAm. She was five steps from the museum plaza. Around the back of the museum was a route she used to run on her way to the Schuylkill, which flowed on the far side of the museum. She wasn’t far from Boathouse Row, home of her own fiberglass scull. This was Bennie’s turf. She was nearly home free.

She took another jolt as the Ford climbed onto the granite flagstone of the plaza. The lighted fountain misted the Ford’s windshield. The Art Museum blazed before her. Bennie careened right, almost crashing into the stanchions that kept traffic from the plaza, then turned left onto the narrow road around the back of the museum. It led to a parking lot and a cobblestone road that returned to the parkway. She’d take the parkway to the nearest police station, back at Twenty-second Street. The voice of the 911 operator sounded far away.

Bennie glanced in her rearview. The TransAm was nowhere in sight. Then she realized it could come around the back. She had to get away before Lenihan came after her. She navigated the narrow road between the museum and a low stone wall. Cast-iron lamps lined the road and Bennie spotted a security camera mounted under one. She prayed museum security would come.

Out of nowhere, Bennie heard the roar of an engine. Her windshield filled with light. She threw up her hands. There was a deafening crash that drove her back into the seat, then snapped her body forward into the shoulder harness. Dazed, she opened her eyes.

Her windshield was a network of broken glass. Her hood had buckled in the middle. The TransAm had slammed into the Ford and sat facing her, its hood crumpled and leaking steam. A split second later, Lenihan staggered out of the car. In his hand was a black nightstick.

Oh, God. Bennie tried her ignition but the Ford was dead. She looked around wildly. The phone was out. Lenihan was coming at the truck. He would kill her. She screamed, the sound thundering in her head. Her vision went foggy.

A cracking sound shattered her driver’s side window. Bennie looked over in terror. Lenihan was pounding the glass with the baton. His face was bloodied, contorted with a lethal fury. Oh my God.

Bennie stopped screaming. She had to act, to go. To run. She snapped off her shoulder harness and scrambled to the passenger side of the truck. She wrenched open the door and almost fell onto the wet flagstone. She hadn’t hit the ground before she heard heavy footsteps behind her. Lenihan was upon her.

“You fucking bitch!” the cop bellowed. Lenihan grabbed Bennie by the neck from behind and jammed the nightstick under her chin, cutting off her windpipe. Her throat exploded in pain. Her eyes filled with tears. She clawed the nightstick, struggling to wrench it off.

“You’re dead, bitch!” Lenihan dragged her to the edge of the stone wall. A panel of lights at the foot of the wall blinded her. She gasped for breath. She tore at his hands, then his nylon windbreaker.

“Get over there!” Lenihan shouted, then slammed Bennie onto the hard edge of the stone wall. The rough stone scraped her cheek. Her ribs seared in agony. She dangled over the wall. She could barely see for the pain and the darkness. It was fifty feet down to a concrete delivery ramp. “Get over the wall!”

Bennie forced herself to think, but she was losing consciousness. She couldn’t breathe. Lenihan shoved her higher onto the wide wall and tried to push her over the side. No, God. Her head flopped over the other side of the wall. A ballpoint pen from her blazer pocket rolled onto the wall. That was it!

With her last breath, Bennie grabbed the pen and stabbed blindly backward. Lenihan’s surprised gurgle told her that she had hit something. The nightstick eased at her throat. Her body shuddered as her lungs gulped air. There was no time to lose.

“Aaargh!” Lenihan cried. He dropped his nightstick and it clattered to the asphalt.

Bennie torqued in his grasp. The ballpoint hung from the base of Lenihan’s neck and he yanked it out. Blood spurted from the wound. His eyes blazed with renewed fury. He grabbed Bennie by the throat and slammed her back against the wall, banging her head against hard rock. She fought back on the edge of consciousness, hanging on his shirt so as not to fall over the side.

They struggled up and onto the wall, their shadows commingling in a grotesque lover’s dance, their silhouettes magnified in the lights. Lenihan’s blood drenched them both. Bennie felt its hot spray on her cheek. Its primal smell filled her nostrils. Her nails raked Lenihan’s windbreaker as he rolled her to the edge of the wall. The sky went black around her.

“Hey, you! Hey, cut that out!” came a shout, and Bennie felt Lenihan’s grip release her throat. She coughed for breath and opened her eyes long enough to see a museum security guard running toward them both. “Cut that out, you two!” the guard yelled.

Lenihan startled at the sight, then wobbled, losing his balance at the wall’s edge.

“No!” Bennie cried, and reached for him. His wind-breaker brushed her fingertips, but she closed her fist too late. Lenihan slipped from her fingers, his eyes sick with terror as he dropped over the side of the wall. The last sound Bennie heard before she collapsed was Lenihan’s final shriek, joined by the screams of approaching police sirens.

Bennie hadn’t realized how much the police hated her until she walked into Two Squad that night, after Lenihan’s death. The squad room was a dirty light blue, crammed with battered gray desks, lined with dented file cabinets, and encircled by water-stained curtains. It seemed to Bennie that everyone was on the night tour as she walked through their silent ranks and was led into the interview room for questioning. It wouldn’t help to tell them that she was sorry. It wouldn’t help to tell them she felt worse than they did. Nor would it help to tell them that Lenihan was trying to kill her. Bennie Rosato, who had built a career suing the department, had now killed one of their own. That was all that mattered to them.

“Take a seat, Ms. Rosato,” said one of the detectives, though Bennie had been here many times. The room was tiny, its institutional green walls unscrubbed, and she sat down in the steel Windsor chair that was bolted to the ground, reserved for murder suspects. The room smelled faintly of stale smoke, and flush against the grimy wall was a rickety wooden table, half the size of a card table. Scattered across its uneven surface were blank statement forms and an ancient Smith-Corona.

Bennie wasn’t worried for herself. She knew the police couldn’t charge her in Lenihan’s death; they hadn’t even cuffed her on the drive to the Roundhouse. The museum guard would tell what happened, there’d be 911 transcripts to support Bennie’s story, and Lenihan’s baton was in plain sight. God knew if his original plan was to make Bennie’s death look like a mugging or a carjacking, but neither ruse would work now. The attack was proof positive of a police conspiracy, one ruthless enough to kill to protect itself. The gloves were off. The war was on and had claimed its first casualty.