Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

“I saw Alice, Alice Connolly, running by. She ran right by my door.”

The jury shifted, though Connolly remained still. Bennie willed herself to stay calm. She’d known this testimony was coming. It would only get worse, as each of the neighbors corroborated. Hilliard looked grave. “Mrs. Lambertsen, how did the defendant appear to you as she ran by?” he asked.

“Worried, scared, kind of in a panic. Like you’d look after a fight, but worse.”

The jurors listened to every word, caught up in the story. Bennie wished she could break it up with an objection, but it would cost her more in credibility than she’d gain. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder at the gallery, which looked rapt. Directly behind her sat Mike and Ike, solid as fence posts at either end of the front row. No cops watched from the back row, where Lenihan had sat. It was hard to believe he was there only yesterday, watching her. Bennie flashed on him falling in horror over the wall and found herself wondering when his funeral would be. She knew just how his family would feel, picking out the casket. Sick. Horrified. Dazed.

“Mrs. Lambertsen, after you saw Alice Connolly run by, what did you do?”

“I called 911 and told them what I had seen, and the police came.”

Hilliard continued by eliciting the details of the 911 call and found an excuse to take Lambertsen again through the gunshot and Connolly’s running down the street, to emphasize it to the jury. It was a slam-dunk direct examination of an appealing and critical witness.

Bennie rose to her feet, wincing from hidden injuries and knowing that she had to attack Lambertsen’s testimony without attacking the witness. And she had to do it without getting bollixed up by what had happened last night. Near-death experiences didn’t make for productive workdays.

But she couldn’t think about that now.

Bennie stood beside the podium and addressed the young mother. “Mrs. Lambertsen, thinking back to the night of May nineteenth, you say you heard arguing, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear male and female voices arguing, or did you just hear voices raised in argument?”

Lambertsen thought a minute. “I guess I just heard voices.”

Bennie sighed inwardly, with relief. Funny thing about the truth. It enabled a lawyer to ask a question she didn’t know the answer to, because she knew what the answer had to be. “Now, Ms. Lambertsen, there came a time when you saw Alice Connolly running down the street. Do you remember what she was wearing?”

“Uh, no.”

“Do you remember what type of shirt she had on?”

“I didn’t notice, or if I did, I don’t remember.”

“And you didn’t see what she was wearing on the bottom, jeans or shorts, did you?”

“No.”

“Was she carrying anything?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t notice that either.”

Bennie nodded. No white plastic bag? She had almost made the point and sensed not to push it. “Now, you testified you were trying to put your baby down at seven forty-five that night, isn’t that right?”

“Yes. It was always a fight then, it still is. She doesn’t want to miss anything.” Mrs. Lambertsen smiled, as did the young mother in the front row. It was a warm moment, and Bennie decided to prolong it. There was precious little warmth in the world, of late.

“Mrs. Lambertsen, how old was your baby on May nineteenth of last year?”

“About two months old. She was born on March twenty-third, so she was a newborn.”

“And what is her name, by the way?” Bennie asked, to loosen up the witness, who obviously welcomed talking about her child. Bennie’s only point of reference was her dog and she could talk golden retrievers for hours.

“Molly’s her name.”

“Okay, Molly. You were with Molly. Now, what time was it when you heard the gunshot?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“You know that how?”

“I looked at the clock. Molly hadn’t napped that afternoon and she needed to go down. On days like that, you have an eye on the clock.”

“Now, when did you look at the clock, in relation to when you heard the gunshot?”

Lambertsen thought a minute, pursing lips lipsticked a light, feminine pink. “I looked at the clock right after I heard the gunshot.”

Bennie paused. It was a crucial point. She had to prove that more time had elapsed between the sound of the gunshot and when Lambertsen saw Connolly running past her door. If Bennie’s theory was true, whoever shot Della Porta had gotten out just before Connolly arrived home. “What kind of clock do you have? Is it digital?”

“No, it’s a small, round one on the oven front. You know those?”

“Sure. So you have to read it, like the old days?”

The witness smiled. “Yes.”

“Mrs. Lambertsen, what did you do after you looked at the clock?”

“I went to the door, opened it, and looked out.”

“Did you? Let’s go back over the exact sequence of events.” Bennie walked around the front of the podium and leaned on it, wincing as her shoulder flexed. If she had to develop her defense as she went along, so be it. She’d always thought that was the worst trouble a lawyer could get into, but that was before last night. “Mrs. Lambertsen, where in your house were you when you heard the gunshot?”

“I was in the kitchen.”

“What were you doing in the kitchen?”

“Rocking the baby, trying to get her to settle down.”

Bennie nodded, wishing she had done the interview of Lambertsen herself and finagled her way into that house. “Where is your kitchen in relation to the front door?”

“The kitchen’s in the front of the house, to the left of the front door.”

“How large is the kitchen?”

“It’s long and skinny. About twenty feet long.”

“So, Mrs. Lambertsen, you walked through the kitchen, about twenty feet, to get to the front door?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” Bennie visualized the scene and imagined a mother’s instinct. “You didn’t take the baby with you to see about the gunshot, did you?”

“God, no. I put her down.”

“Where did you put Molly?”

“In her baby chair, on the counter. One of those portable chairs, with a handle. It was in the kitchen.”

“So you put Molly in her chair. Did you strap her in?”

“Yes. I always do. She’s wriggly. Wiry.”

“Did she sit in the seat willingly?”

Mrs. Lambertsen burst into light laughter. “Molly doesn’t do anything willingly. She has a mind of her own.” The jurors laughed, too, relishing the baby talk, which Bennie knew was only apparently a frolic and detour.

“Did Molly cry in the chair?”

“A little, and kicked. Fussed, you know. Molly was kind of clingy at that age. She didn’t like it when I left the room. She’d kick and cry.”

“So you had to settle Molly before you went to the door, right?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do to settle her?”

“Gave her a pacifier, then patted her. Smoothed her hair, she likes that.”

“Did she settle down then?”

“No. I think I gave her a toy, too. Her favorite toy then was Rubber Duckie. I gave her Duckie.”

Judge Guthrie smiled benevolently from the dais. “You’re a very good mother, Mrs. Lambertsen,” he said, and the witness blushed at the praise.

“I agree,” Bennie said. She suppressed thoughts of her own mother. “Let’s see, Mrs. Lambertsen, before you went to the door, you put Molly in her chair, fastened the strap, gave her a toy duck and a pacifier, and you patted her and smoothed her hair, is that your recollection?”

“Yes.”

“Where was the rubber duck, by the way?”

“It was in a plastic bin on the kitchen counter.”