Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

Lou checked the clock again. 12:18. Anybody else woulda been antsy, but not Lou. Careful police work, step-by-step, would pay off. Sometimes you just had to wait. Not everybody had the patience for it, but he did. It wasn’t always a good thing. It kept him in a bad marriage for way too long. Like a cup of coffee, it just turned cold, and nobody knew where or when.

Lou’s stomach growled. It was lunchtime. Another patrol car pulled into the last space left in the lot. He squinted to read the number. 32. A single uniform got out of the car and started examining the side door, like he’d caught a dent there. Lou scanned the lot. More cars would be coming in now, checking in around lunch.

Another car pulled into the lot, and Lou looked for its number. 10. Son of a bitch! The car parked sideways behind the row in front, blocking them in, and two uniforms got out, talking. They walked over to the cop looking at the dented door and started talking to him, standing around the car. It looked like they were razzing him about the dent. Lou looked at the clock. 12:32. When he looked up, patrol car 98 was turning into the lot. At the wheel was Joe Citrone, with Vega beside him.

Hot damn! Lou waited until Citrone pulled up and parked sideways next to the last patrol car. After Citrone had cut the engine, Lou got out of the Honda. He crossed the street, keeping an eye on Citrone. Citrone had stopped at the threesome gathered around the dent, and Lou hustled onto the lot and made his way between the parked patrol cars. Vega saw Lou coming before Citrone did, and Lou caught Vega warning Citrone by touching his elbow.

“Joe,” Lou called out. “Joe Citrone.”

The tall cop didn’t respond, just stayed cool as Lou approached.

“Remember me? I’m Lou Jacobs, from yesterday.”

“No.”

“We met on the steps, you don’t remember?”

“No,” Citrone said with a poker face, and Lou laughed, taken aback.

“Come on, sure you do. We met. I was with Ed here.” Lou looked at Ed Vega, who was shifting his feet as he stood in front of the other cops. “Hey, kid, tell him.”

“I don’t know you, pal,” Vega said coldly, and Lou’s mouth went dry. They had gotten to Carlos’s kid.

“You kiddin’ me, Ed? We went to Debbie’s, you don’t remember?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vega shook his head and his eyes turned hard. “You must have me mixed up with some other guy.” The three cops behind Vega looked Lou up and down, then backed off like he had a disease.

“Come on, Ed.” Lou considered pressing him, but didn’t want to get the kid in dutch with Citrone. If Vega ended up dead, Lou would never forgive himself. He turned to Citrone. “Look, Citrone. Stop dickin’ around. We both know you knew Lenihan. You’re senior in the same district, for Chrissake. You want to talk to me about it in private or you want to do it in public?”

“I’m not talking to you at all.” Citrone turned his back and walked away, as did Vega. They passed through the group of cops to the back door of the station house.

“Citrone!” Lou called out after him, on impulse. “Where’s that half a mil? You got it stashed somewhere safe?”

Citrone didn’t stop moving, though Lou thought he saw Vega freeze, then move on. The other three cops looked shocked, which was just what Lou wanted. Get them all asking questions. Talking. Whispering. More shit got traded in the locker room than the New York Stock Exchange. Lou felt suddenly inspired.

“Citrone!” he shouted again. “You were in business with Lenihan and we all know it. You, Lenihan, and God knows who else, making a fortune, pushing drugs. You sent Lenihan to kill Rosato, Citrone. You’re worse than the scum you bring in, Citrone!”

Citrone and Vega disappeared inside the station house, but Lou’s audience wasn’t Citrone anymore. It was the other cops in the district and there were more of them pulling up by the minute. One by one, they got out of their cars and listened. “You’re made, Citrone! Your cover is blown, baby!”

The three cops stood rooted to the spot, and Lou couldn’t tell from their expressions whether they were crooked or clean. The clean ones would agree with him. They would be tired of the shit Citrone was pulling, disgracing them all, for dough. The clean cops were the only weapon Lou had, and he had to reach them before more people got killed. So much for slow and steady police work; somebody had to blow the lid off these crooks. Who better than him, Lou Jacobs from Leidy Street?

“You’re goin’ down, Citrone!” Lou bellowed, making a liver-spotted megaphone of his hands. “You and every single crook in this house! Because you’re dirty, Citrone! You’re dirty as they come! You ruin it for all of us! You give good cops a bad name! You’re a disgrace to the Eleventh, you sack of shit!”

Lou’s words echoed in the chill air. Every cop standing around heard them. Cops on the second floor of the precinct house gathered at the windows.

“I served in the Fourth, where crooks like you didn’t exist, Citrone! Crooks like you weren’t tolerated! Any cop in this house, any cop here who won’t tolerate this shit, should call me, Lou Jacobs! I’m in the book, in town!” Lou had to catch his breath. “You hear that, Citrone? You hear me? I’m gonna take you down! I’ VE HAD ALL I CAN STANDS AND I CAN’ T STANDS NO MORE! ”

With that last shout, Lou stopped and looked around. The parking lot was stone silent. Cops stood like statues between the cars. One stared, stricken, but a relieved smile spread across the face of another. Lou figured it wouldn’t be long before he got a call from one of them. Or from Internal Affairs. Or from Citrone himself. Whatever it would be, Lou would be ready for it. He turned on his best loafers and walked back to his Honda like a much taller man.

I yam what I yam.

“The prosecution calls Shetrell Harting to the stand,” Dorsey Hilliard announced to the waiting courtroom, and Connolly emitted a low moan.

“Here comes trouble,” she said under her breath.

“What?” Bennie whispered, vaguely remembering the name buried in the Commonwealth’s lengthy witness list, disclosed before trial. There’d been so many witnesses, Bennie hadn’t had time to run them all down and she figured Harting wasn’t important since she hadn’t testified for the Commonwealth at the prelim. Now Bennie worried she’d called it wrong. “Who’s she?”

Connolly leaned over. “Leonia Page was her girl, if you get my drift.”

“Please approach the stand, Ms. Harting, and the deputy will swear you in,” Judge Guthrie said, peering over the dais. The jurors’ heads wheeled expectantly to the back of the courtroom, but the witness entered from the side, through the door that led to the holding cells.

“A prisoner?” Bennie said under her breath, and Connolly nodded yes. “What’s she gonna say?”

“She’s gonna lie her ass off,” Connolly whispered back.

Oh, no. Bennie shifted to the edge of her seat as Harting walked to the witness stand. She was tall, black, and too thin to be healthy, and her coarse hair had been ironed into a paintbrush ponytail. She was dressed in blue jeans with bell bottoms and a red nylon top that caught the eye. An inmate who could incriminate Connolly, with revenge as a motive to lie. No wonder Hilliard had saved her until last. Bennie gestured backward to DiNunzio, who left her seat and came over.

“What?” Mary whispered.

“Go, now. Find out everything you can about this woman. Take Lou with you. Tell him to get the dirt from his cop buddies.”

“Lou’s not here.”

Bennie’s eyes flared. “He was at the office this morning.”