Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

“In a criminal case? There are no parties.”

“I meant as a complainant. When did you get so smart?”

“Since Bennie told me what a superb lawyer I was. Didn’t you hear?”

Judy smiled. “We’ve created a monster. Plug in Hilliard as a complainant, whiz.”

Mary searched the program’s libraries for complainants. “Can’t. They don’t index it that way, maybe for privacy reasons.”

Judy sighed. “The government concerned about our privacy? Impossible. There must be another way.”

“Hold on.” Mary tapped out “Hilliard” in the ALL CASES category, as if it were a standard word search. The screen read, YOUR SEARCH WILL YIELD 1,283 CASES. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE? Y/N. Mary pressed Y. “You betcha,” she said, champing her gum.

“Are you nuts?”

“Clearly.”

“A thousand cases. It’ll take all night.”

“Also true.”

“Where did you get this energy?”

“Drug of choice,” Mary said, and passed her the Doublemint.

Drizzle darkened the night, and Bennie and Lou stood next to the concrete stoop of a closed luncheonette. The cop showed up in a makeshift disguise, a Phillies cap and sunglasses, and Bennie could make out only some of his features in the calcium-white halo of a distant streetlight. His silvery sideburns were shorn close to his head and his laughlines were pronounced. His mouth, set low above a receding chin, twisted with suspicion when he saw Bennie with Lou.

“Why’d you bring her?” the cop asked with contempt.

“I told her not to come,” Lou said. “She don’t listen.”

“I’m the one Lenihan tried to kill,” Bennie told the cop. “I’d like to know why, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t know why,” the cop said. He wore a black nylon jacket with the collar turned up. His pants were dark, as were his shoes. “Either of you carryin’?”

“I am,” Lou said, and the cop stepped forward and patted him down.

“Checkin’ for a wire,” he said, and when he was finished, turned to Bennie. “Lady, you’re here, you’re gettin’ patted down.”

Lou groaned. “That ain’t necessary, buddy. I vouch for her.”

The cop shook his head, a single swivel of the baseball cap. “Sorry, I can’t take chances.”

“Fine,” Bennie said uncomfortably. The cop’s hands quickly traveled her body and she talked her way through it. She did the same thing at the gynecologist’s. “What do you know about Anthony Della Porta’s murder?”

“Nothin’,” the cop rasped. Bennie smelled cigarettes on his breath as he finished the pat-down and turned to Lou. “Why is she askin’ me questions? I thought I was talkin’ to you. You’re Jacobs, right?”

“Sure, buddy. Lou Jacobs.”

“You’re the one from the parkin’ lot. Shootin’ your mouth off. Looked like you was havin’ fun.” The cop emitted a snort, and Lou laughed with him.

“Time of my life.”

“You got it. We ain’t dead yet.” The cop’s smile faded. “I asked around about you. They say you’re okay.”

“I’m more than okay. Who are you anyway? What’s your name?”

“You gotta know that? Maybe we’re all better off I don’t tell you.”

“Have it your way. Why’d you call?”

“There was this job, last year. It was at the projects, in town. A small-time rock dealer named Brunell, nothing special. A snitch told me about Brunell, so I ran it down. My partner and I get there, we’re makin’ the collar. Brunell is comin’ along, no problem. We got him unawares and the dope is in plain view. Ziplocs on the coffee table, pipes and paraphernalia all around. You know, Lou.”

“Sure.”

“So we’re about to take him in and the door opens and in comes Citrone and his partner. Not the new one, Vega. Latorce, the old partner, a black guy. You know him?”

“Never met him, but the name sounds familiar.”

“So Citrone comes in and throws us out, just like that. ‘Get the fuck out,’ he says. Latorce don’t look too happy about it.”

“What did you do?”

“We got the fuck out. I figured Citrone wanted the collar, I know he’s got seniority, but my partner, he was scared. He said he’d heard shit about Citrone, we should get out and shut up. So we did.” The cop paused to wet his lips. “Then we get out, and I figure the report will come in any day. Only it never comes in. There’s no report, no collar. Brunell wasn’t booked and that’s not the worst of it.” The cop looked around, making sure they were alone. The street was black and still, the drizzle steady. “A week later, Latorce gets killed.”

“Bill Latorce?” Lou remembered the name then. He’d seen it in the obits. “He was killed in the line of duty. He responded to a 911 call, a domestic.”

“Bullshit. Latorce goes in first, figures it’s hubby knockin’ the wife around. No report of a gun, nothin’, so Citrone, he’s takin’ his time gettin’ out of the car, which already ain’t procedure. Latorce knocks on the bedroom door and catches one in the head, point-blank. What’s the odds a cop that experienced would fuck up a domestic like that?”

“Cops make mistakes,” Bennie said, and the cop’s head snapped in Bennie’s direction.

“What do you know, honey? I know, I’m a cop, thirty-two years on the force. You learn a lot over time on this job. Latorce was no dummy. If he thought somethin’ was goin’ down, the hubby had a gun, he wouldn’ta gone in by himself. Latorce got killed because he didn’t like what went down with Brunell the week before. Somethin’ went wrong, with me and my partner bein’ there. So Citrone set him up.”

“Jesus,” Lou said. A bad feeling started in his stomach and seeped into his blood. “His own partner.”

“You got it.” The cop shifted his feet as if it were a winter night. “Listen, I gotta go.”

“Sure,” Lou said, but Bennie spoke up.

“Do you know anything about Della Porta’s murder?” she asked.

“No.”

“You know anything about cops named Reston or McShea?”

“Never heard of McShea. Reston, he used to be in the Eleventh.”

“Was he dirty? You ever hear anything about that?”

“No, I wasn’t in the Eleventh when he was there. I transferred from the Thirty-second.” The cop glanced over his shoulder. “I gotta go. Don’t screw me, Jacobs. I’m givin’ you this to get those suckers. Don’t name me, man.”

Lou nodded. “Got you covered.”

“See you.” The cop walked off stiffly, his pants legs flapping, his Phillies cap down, and in the next second he’d disappeared into the darkness of the slick city street.

Several hours later, Judy had fallen asleep in the chair beside Mary, who had skimmed almost three hundred cases, each going back in time earlier than the last. Though she hadn’t read each one completely, Mary had gotten a thorough overview of Dorsey Hilliard’s career as a prosecutor. He had won many more than he lost and his legal arguments were right on the money. He’d never been found ineffective as a lawyer, the most common grounds for collateral appeal, and many of the judicial opinions referred to the clarity of his closing, which didn’t bode well for the Connolly case.

Mary had found endless cases that Hilliard had tried and several in which he had appeared as a witness, to testify about the effectiveness of other counsel. She had even found a civil case he had brought against an insurer on his own behalf, for expenses relating to physical therapy for his handicap. The insurer had balked at reimbursing Hilliard, and at twenty-one years of age he had sued them for it and won. Mary found herself cheering inside. Hilliard hadn’t even been to law school at the time. How long had he wanted to be a lawyer? How long had he lived with his disability?