Lisa Scottoline - Mistaken Identity

Mary remembered the little boy on the white pony, being taught to ride by her classmate. His dark eyes, waiting for her answer. He understands more than you and me, Joy had said. Mary sensed that she had let him, and Joy, down, but part of her wasn’t ready to let go of the law. It wasn’t that she enjoyed being a lawyer, but she had become intrigued in this case after they’d attacked Bennie. It was that part of Mary that made her punch the ENTER key and read on, into the night.

“Mike and Ike still behind us?” Bennie asked, boosting herself up in the passenger seat to check Lou’s rearview mirror.

“Sit down, they’re back there.” Lou braked at the light in his Honda. Rain pelted the windshield but the wipers didn’t clear the view, and he switched on the defroster. “Told you it wasn’t a setup. Cop spilled his guts.”

“You don’t know that, Lou. It could still be a setup.”

“How?”

“It could have been bad information to throw us off. Or get us killed.”

Lou looked over. “Come on, it was legit.”

“Also, somebody could have been watching us.”

“Nobody was watching us. We woulda seen it, or the cop would have.”

“Oh, yeah?” Bennie snorted. “We had Mike and Ike following us, and your cop friend didn’t pick them up.”

Lou moaned, even over the sound of the defroster. “Christ, Rosato, check it with Mike and Ike. They woulda seen if somebody was watching us.”

“Somebody could still be watching us.”

“You drive me nuts. You’re gettin’ paranoid now.”

“Maybe because a cop tried to kill me, and my Ford is dead.”

Lou didn’t say anything for a minute. “I think we got some good info there. He was a real stand-up guy, that cop.”

“Yeah, but it won’t help the case.”

Lou glanced over. “Nothin’ you could use? Latorce was killed the same way Della Porta was, a shot to the head.”

“That doesn’t get you far, you know that.”

“What about the fact that the Brunell collar never happened? Can’t you use that, to show evidence of corruption?”

“By Citrone, who, on this record, has nothing to do with Della Porta’s murder? No, in a word.” Bennie peered through her window, watching the traffic. Windshield wipers flapped on overtime and the asphalt street glistened. The rain was endless, and since Harting’s testimony, Connolly was lost.

“You’re worried.”

“An understatement.”

“I’ll run down the Brunell lead.”

“No, it’s dangerous.”

“What if there’s a connection between Brunell and Reston? That would be likely, since Reston was in the Eleventh.”

“It’s too dangerous. It’ll come too late anyway.”

“I’ll make something happen.”

Bennie looked over. He sounded like her. “You can’t fix everything, Lou.”

“Rosato, shut up.” Lou sighed, and the Honda accelerated smoothly. “Where you goin’, back to the office?”

“No, I’ll work at home.

“Your boyfriend will like that.”

Bennie felt a twinge. “If he’s awake, which I doubt,” she said, and looked out the window into the rain.

Mary checked her desk clock. It was five-thirty in the morning, almost dawn. The sky was a grayish-blue outside her window and she could already see the beginning of the city’s stirring. She kept her eyes on her computer screen. She was down to the last ten cases. Judy had gone home a long time ago to get ready for court, but Mary would shower and change at the office. She hit the key and skimmed the ninth case from the last.

Hilliard trying a case for aggravated assault. It had to be his first major case. A barroom fight. One guy slashing another, too close to the jugular for a lesser charge. Nothing untoward about the case, and Hilliard won. Good. By now, Mary was on the prosecutor’s side, picturing him as a handsome young black man, arguing from the heart, propped up by crutches that scarcely seemed necessary. She hit the key for the eighth case.

Almost fifteen years ago. A simple assault. Hilliard wins. Nothing strange in the case. Nothing connected with Guthrie, Burden, or Connolly at all. Mary sighed. She’d been here before. Fruitless all-nighters. She was even out of gum. She hit the key for the seventh case, then skimmed it. Then the sixth, and the fifth, and so on down.

LAST CASE, read the screen.

Mary blinked. It was hard to believe she was at the end. The last of a thousand-odd cases. Only an idiot would come this far. She hit the key and the case popped onto the screen. Its date was in the sixties, a full twenty years before the previous case. Hilliard would have been a toddler then, if not a kid.

Mary shook her head. A computer glitch. Dorsey Hilliard would have nothing to do with such an old case. “ Commonwealth v. Severey, ” read the caption, and Mary skimmed the headnote summary with disappointment. The defendant, Andre Severey, had been convicted of murder in the death of a kid stepping off a SEPTA bus. Severey had been aiming at a rival gang member on the street, and a stray bullet had killed one child and wounded another.

Mary sat up in her seat, her body tensing as she read. The bullet had cut the spinal cord of the wounded child, who had lived only a block away. Mary’s eyes raced to the end of the sentence. The child’s name was Dorsey Hilliard.

Mary sat still at the keyboard. My God. That was how Dorsey got his injury. She hit the key for the next page, though she guessed what she’d find. Under the prosecution was a single name:

Henry R. Burden, Esq.

Mary read it over and over but it didn’t change. It had to be Burden’s first case in the district attorney’s office; he was only an assistant then. What did it mean? Burden had convicted the man who put Hilliard on crutches. Gotten a life sentence, without parole.

Mary thought about it. Severey was convicted of murder, though it smacked of overcharging. It was a heinous crime, but not premeditated enough. Was Hilliard beholden to Burden for the conviction? Mary felt she would be. Was there a connection here that was germane to the Connolly case?

Mary reached for the phone to call Bennie. Then she thought a minute. It was early to wake Bennie up, and Mary had one short assignment to go. It was a legal research question, slightly off the point, but Mary had a hunch it might come in handy. Fueled by adrenaline, she let the receiver go and hit the key to begin a new search.

The courtroom fell silent as Shetrell Harting entered, took her seat in the witness box, and was reminded by the judge that she was still under oath. “I understand, Your Honor,” Harting said, settling her slim form into the black bucket seat.

“Ms. Rosato, you may begin your cross-examination,” Judge Guthrie said, without looking up, and Bennie strode to the podium, instinctively wanting to keep the inmate at arm’s length.

“Ms. Harting, you are currently an inmate at county prison, is that right?”

“Yeah.” Harting had changed her outfit and wore a light, white cotton sweater with her blue jeans, but her expression remained as remote as yesterday.

“And you testified yesterday that you were serving time for possession and distribution of crack cocaine, is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“That conviction wasn’t the first time you’ve broken the law, was it?”

“No.”

“You have another conviction, two years before that, also for drug dealing, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“And several before that, for solicitation.”

“Uh, yes.”

“In fact, three times in a two-year period you were convicted for solicitation, is that right?”