Dead Ringer

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Theft? Assault?” she shouted in disbelief, her voice ricocheting around the tiny closed room. “Reckless endangerment? Receiving stolen goods?” Bennie almost jumped out of her chair, but Detective Maloney had told her if she did that again he’d cuff her to it. Since he was one of the so-called Hollywood Detectives from SIU, or the Special Investigations Unit, she believed it. These guys came to play. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do—”

  “Bennie, please, be quiet,” Carrier said, burying her fingernails in her client’s padded shoulder. “Let the detective ask his questions, and you can answer only if I say.” A sheaf of white papers sat ignored in front of her, the form questionnaire issued by the police, certifying that Bennie had been advised of her right to remain silent. Unfortunately, she was exercising her right to freak out.

  “But this is ridiculous! I didn’t steal anything! I would never steal anything!” Bennie told Maloney and the other SIU detective, a bald, heavyset man whose name she was too upset to remember. He stood against the wall, taking notes; he was the one who had directed that she and her belongings be searched when they’d first brought her in, but they hadn’t found whatever they’d been looking for. “I would never break the law, I’m a lawyer!”

  Carrier squeezed her shoulder again. “Not your best argument, Bennie. Now please, can you be quiet?”

  “Settle down, Ms. Rosato. No reason to get worked up.” Detective Maloney remained calm, even relaxed, which was easy because he wasn’t in custody. He was trim and tall, about her age, with longish sandy hair and hazel eyes Bennie would have found attractive if he hadn’t arrested her. He reached into an accordion file folder on the counter and pulled out a typed form she recognized as an incident report, which was the officer’s account of the facts of the crime. He said, “All right, I’ll read this aloud, then I’ll take your client’s statement. If she didn’t do it, we can work it out, okay?”

  “Fine,” Carrier answered. Bennie quieted momentarily, and Detective Maloney bent over the report, his neatly scissored bangs falling forward.

  “The crime occurred in the Tiffany store, in the Park Hyatt on Broad Street. The store manager gave a statement, and so did his assistant, the saleswoman, and three eyewitnesses. According to the store manager, the perpetrator stole a pair of diamond earrings—diamond studs, they’re called—worth eleven thousand five hundred forty-three dollars from—”

  “Earrings?” Bennie asked, dumbfounded. “This is crazy! I didn’t steal any earrings! There has to be some—”

  “Bennie, quiet!” Carrier snapped, and Bennie bit her tongue.

  What the hell is going on?

  The detective continued reading. “The perpetrator browsed in the store for approximately fifteen minutes, then went to a counter which contained diamond earrings on the first shelf. She asked the saleswoman to show her the earrings, which were more than a carat in weight. The store was very crowded, and customers were waiting to be helped. The perpetrator tried on the earrings. When one of the two security guards stationed at the door went to assist an older lady who had dropped her shopping bag, the perpetrator ran for the exit with the earrings on.”

  Oh my God. Bennie’s mouth went dry. It was Alice. Alice had stolen the earrings. Alice posing as Bennie. First the Chinese restaurant, and now this. Bennie knew it in her very marrow, the bones and blood she shared with her twin. The realization shocked her into silence.

  “The perpetrator shoved the security guard out of her way, and he fell into a glass display case of Elsa Peretti jewelry, whatever that is. The other security guard gave pursuit down Broad Street, but he lost the perpetrator, who ran down into the Broad Street subway and disappeared.”

  Bennie’s thoughts tumbled over one another in confusion. How had Alice done it? Why had she done it? What the fuck? This wasn’t mischief with credit cards or even tainting her reputation with the judges. These were felony charges. They could ruin her. Alice was upping the ante.

  “What evidence do you have that my client committed this robbery?” Carrier was asking, and the detective scoffed.

  “Other than the whole shebang on surveillance tape? Tiffany had three cameras on that counter, and your client is on each one.”

  “I wanna see that tape!” Bennie blurted out. She had to see it for herself. With her own eyes.

  Carrier cleared her throat. “Detective, may we see the videotape?”

  “Fine.” Detective Maloney opened the accordion file and extracted a black Fuji videotape. He got up holding the tape, brushed down his dark slacks with a practiced hand, and walked over to the TV cart with the ancient VHS machine. He slid the tape inside, turned on the TV, and pressed Play.

  Everybody turned toward the screen, which showed a busy main room in Tiffany: a grainy view of lush carpeting, attractive shoppers, and display cases full of diamond bracelets and earrings. Suddenly a woman entered from the left side of the picture and threaded her way through the customers. Her face wasn’t visible, because her back was turned from the surveillance camera, but the woman was fully as tall as Bennie, her shoulders equally square, and she was wearing the same suit Bennie had on today, her trademark khaki. The woman’s hair was Bennie’s shade of honey blond, and it had been pinned up in a carbon copy of Bennie’s messy twist. She stopped in front of a display case, her back still to the camera.

  “The beauty shot is in one, two, three,” Detective Maloney counted down, and the woman turned on cue and faced the security camera dead-on for several seconds, as if she were posing for a photograph. The detective snorted. “There you are, Ms. Rosato.”

  “That’s her,” Bennie said, voicing her thoughts aloud. It was Alice. She had come back. Here was proof positive. Bennie felt stunned. “That’s my—”

  “Please be quiet and watch the tape, Bennie,” Carrier warned, and Bennie looked over. On-screen, Alice was putting on the diamond earrings and examining her face—Bennie’s face—in a square mirror sitting on the glass counter, tilted up. An older woman with a cane dropped a shopping bag, spilling its contents of wrapped boxes, and a security guard went to help her. The saleswoman turned away for a moment, and all of a sudden Alice bolted from the counter, knocking over a customer in the process. She punched the guard by the door before he could move to stop her, sending him sprawling backward against a display case, and flew out the door.

  Bennie shifted her gaze to the top of the screen, where a black band ran with a date and time. It was today’s date, and the time ticked off: 10:30:10, 10:30:11, 10:30:12. Her heart sank. She had no alibi. At that time, she had been walking back from the federal courthouse, alone. Tiffany lay between the courthouse and her office, on the way. It was more than possible for Bennie to have been there at ten-thirty, stealing diamonds. Alice couldn’t have planned it that way, could she? Did she have people helping her? And who was that older woman who dropped her shopping bag at the exact right moment? Was she in on it, too?

  Detective Maloney reached over and turned off the TV. “Let’s get real, Ms. Rosato. It’s you on the tape, I can see that with my own eyes. The manager IDed you positively and two of the eyewitnesses recognized you from TV. You’re wearing the clothes you have on in the video. Your hair is the same too.” He put his hands on his hips. “So cut the shit. Give the earrings back, you’ll get a couple years’ probation—”

  “Detective,” Bennie interrupted, “the woman on the tape isn’t me, it’s my twin. I didn’t take the earrings, she did.”

  Carrier clamped a hand over her client’s. “Bennie, please don’t make any more statements. You know better than to—”

  “But that’s not me on that tape!” Bennie knew Carrier was right, but she couldn’t help herself. Alice had turned her life upside down. She appealed to Maloney as the bald detective took rapid notes. “Detective, I have a twin, an identical twin, named Alice Connelly. This is criminal impersonation, clear and simple. Alice Connelly is pretending to be me. I want these charges dropped!”

  Carrier squeezed her han
d. “Bennie, please let me handle this. You’re not going to convince him. We should just end this interrogation.”

  But Detective Maloney was looking directly at Bennie, amused, if not intrigued. “Ms. Rosato, are you telling me it’s not you on the tape, it’s your twin?”

  “It’s a matter of record, Maloney. Her name is Alice Connelly.”

  Carrier leaned forward. “Detective, this interview is over. My client isn’t answering any more questions. Let’s get her arraigned so I can post bail and get her out of here.”

  Detective Maloney snorted. “You really have a twin, Rosato?”

  “I do, I defended her on a murder charge, two years ago. It was in all the papers. Her prints are on file, too. If you had just investigated for two minutes before you—”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. In town.” Bennie turned to her pissed-off associate. “Carrier, did you have any luck in finding her?”

  “I’m not discussing this here. You want me to waive attorney-client privilege?” Carrier’s eyes flared. “I said, the interview is over!”

  “Where does she live?” Detective Maloney was asking Bennie.

  “I don’t know.”

  Carrier cleared her throat, interrupting. “Bennie, please, that’s enough. Detective Maloney, as I said, it’s time to end this interrogation.”

  Maloney addressed Bennie again. “But she lives in Philly, your sister?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Maloney frowned. “You don’t know where your own twin sister lives?”

  “We weren’t raised together. But she’s in town. She’s running around town, posing as me.”

  Carrier jumped to her feet and made a show of gathering her papers. “Bennie, Detective Maloney! Really! This interrogation is over. It’s time to—”

  “Where does she work?” the detective asked Bennie.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What kind of car does she drive? We can run a DMV check.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Voter’s registration? You don’t know.” Maloney’s eyes narrowed. If he’d believed Bennie at first, he was beginning to doubt it now. “Let me get this straight. Your twin did the crime, but you can’t tell us anything about her. And we have a positive ID on you, a coupla eyewitnesses, and you got no alibi.” Maloney shook his head. “If I were you, I’d give us a complete statement right now, because after we see what the search of your house and office turns up—”

  “Search of my house and office?” Bennie felt stricken. “You have to be kidding! I just told you, I had nothing to do with it! My twin did it! You’re not searching anything!”

  “We’re already conducting the search, Ms. Rosato.”

  “You’re fucking searching my house?” Bennie exploded, even as she knew she shouldn’t. Curse or explode, that is. But the cops were at her house! Turning over her mattress. Digging through her underwear drawer. She should have realized. They preferred to search when the owner wasn’t there, so they wouldn’t be interrupted, and they had more than enough for probable cause to get a warrant. Still. “How dare you search my—”

  “Bennie, that’s it!” Carrier shouted. “Let the detective produce his warrant! Detective, I’m sure you wouldn’t search without a warrant.”

  “Of course not, I was just about to give it to you.” Detective Maloney extracted a warrant from a manila folder under his pad and handed it to Carrier, who grabbed it before her client could. Bennie’s one glance at it made her ballistic. Her home address, on the PREMISES line!

  “Detective, why didn’t you do your fucking homework? I have a twin! The case made major news! You know the press will pick this up from the scanners? You trying to ruin me?”

  “Rosato, you gotta settle down.” Detective Maloney gritted his teeth, and Bennie got hotter.

  “Don’t tell me to settle down! You’re invading my home, my office! You arrested me in front of my most important client! You’re pickin’ on the wrong lawyer on the wrong frigging day.”

  “That’s enough outta you!” Detective Maloney shouted back, pointing a stiff finger in Bennie’s face. “I know you’re a certified big deal, that’s why SIU got stuck with you. But you got no privileges here, no matter who you are!”

  “I didn’t ask for anything special, I just asked you to do your job like a professional!” Bennie leapt to her feet, and suddenly Carrier stepped in front of her and turned around. The two women stood nose to nose. Bennie wasn’t sure if Carrier was protecting the detective or her.

  “Sit down, Bennie!” Carrier shouted in Bennie’s face. “Sit down, shut up, and let me do my job like a professional!”

  “But these charges are bullshit!”

  “I said, sit down and shut up!” Carrier glowered at Bennie from under a fuchsia fringe that made it impossible to take her seriously, even though Bennie knew she was right.

  “I will not!”

  “You will, too!” Carrier yelled back, and before Bennie knew what was happening, the associate shoved her down into the seat, grabbed the handcuffs from the chair arm, and slapped the open one onto Bennie’s wrist, where it clicked shut. “Ha! Now you’ll stay put!”

  “Ouch!” Bennie’s mouth dropped open. She looked at the cuff pinched tight around her wrists, then up at her associate. “You handcuffed me?”

  “You’re hanging yourself! You’re giving them free discovery!” Carrier straightened up with satisfaction and turned from an incredulous Bennie toward an equally incredulous detective. “Now, Detective Maloney, this interrogation is over!”

  “I, for one, am loving this,” the detective said, shaking his head with a smile. He leaned back in the chair and gestured to the other detective. “You get a load a this, Shep? The lawyer cuffing the client?”

  “You go, girl,” the bald detective said with a sly grin. “We gonna do anything about it?”

  “Better not!” Carrier told them. “If I have no objection, why should you?”

  “I have an objection!” Bennie felt confounded. My lawyer is depriving me of my civil rights. She was pretty sure it was unconstitutional, if not basically the same thing. “Remember me? The one chained to the chair? Woo-hoo, Carrier!”

  But everybody, including her own associate, ignored her. “Detective Maloney,” Carrier said, “my client is telling the truth, but you wouldn’t drop the charges now anyway, would you?”

  “Not on your life. You know that’s not how it works at this stage. Or maybe you don’t.” Maloney shrugged. “We got more than enough to charge, so we gotta charge. What do I say to the jewelry store? ‘Sorry, but it coulda been her twin’? If you got proof of this twin, you can present it at the preliminary hearing in ten days. Then they’ll dismiss the charges, but not now.”

  “We will.” Carrier shot Bennie a look that said, See? “And she’s not signing anything or making any further statements. So unlock her and let me bail her out.”

  Bennie looked up. “Bail me out? With what?”

  “I’ll treat you,” Carrier answered. “The bail commissioner will probably set it at ten grand, since you don’t have a prior record. I’ll get a bond for ten percent.”

  Bennie flushed, embarrassed. It was a new low to borrow money from the kids. She felt as if she should go to jail and stay there.

  But Detective Maloney was smiling. “Unlock her?” he repeated.

  “The handcuffs.” Carrier gestured at Bennie’s chair. “Unlock her. Get her out of the handcuffs.”

  “I never used those cuffs before.” Detective Maloney looked over at the bald detective. “Shep, you ever you use those suckers?”

  “I thought they were for show,” he answered, and the detectives burst into new laughter.

  And Bennie started hollering.

  Way too many hours later, after Bennie had been fingerprinted, arraigned, and completely humiliated, the lawyers emerged from the Ninth Precinct into a group of reporters lying in wait.

  “We have no comment! No c
omment!” the associate shouted, and the women broke into a light run ahead of the pack to the curb, where they hailed a Yellow cab, jumped inside, and took off.

  When the cab approached their office building, the lawyers weren’t surprised to see a new crowd of reporters and photographers thronged on the sidewalk in front. Bennie knew that they’d be following her everywhere until this died down, and she didn’t want to think about what this was doing to her reputation. It would kill her business, if she still had a business to kill. She flashed on St. Amien’s shocked expression. She was pretty sure Bill Linette had never boosted diamond studs.

  Reporters stuck their camera lenses at the cab window, and Carrier finished paying the driver. “We get out of the cab and run for it. That’s all. Got it?”

  “Not the plan, kid.” Bennie’s brain was starting to function. “You get out here, go upstairs, and call St. Amien. Tell him it was a mix-up and I’ll explain the details to him later. And try to get the office in order if the cops left it a mess.”

  “But what are you going to do?” Carrier had already cracked the backdoor, and the press surged toward the opening, shouting questions:

  “Bennie, you gonna plead guilty?” “Bennie, you receiving treatment for this?” “Bennie, Bennie, over here!” “Bennie, just one picture!” “Confirm or deny! Can you confirm or deny?” “Come on, Ben, give us a statement!”

  Bennie ignored them. “Go. Call St. Amien first thing.”

  Carrier frowned. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to get my life back.”

  10

  Grun & Chase was one of the largest law firms in the city, with almost four hundred lawyers in its Philly headquarters alone, and its thirty-fourth-floor waiting room was another Lawyer Kingdom. If Linette’s offices were France under Louis Quatorze, Grun’s were England under King Henry. The carpet at Grun was a rich, woolly maroon, and the overstuffed couches were covered with shiny striped fabric of emerald green and royal blue. The artwork chronicled a series of British tall ships sailing along the Isle of Whatever, with ink-etched rigging and round cannons poking through the gunwales. Bennie had started her legal career at Grun & Chase but hadn’t remembered it being so House of Windsor. She was glad she’d escaped before being thrown into debtors prison.