Dead Ringer

by Lisa Scottoline

  Bennie flashed on St. Amien’s wedding band. The simple band, worn by a widower. She bit her lip so it wouldn’t tremble.

  “Cause of death, also unofficial, exsanguination. He bled to death. This is all confidential from the media, by the way. I was assuming you could be trusted, from what Brinkley told me.” Needleman looked over for verification, and Bennie nodded. She knew it wasn’t procedure for him to be talking to her so openly, or even to take the time. Kovich and Brinkley must have given her very good press. Needleman was saying, “The way I figure it, and it’s a working theory at this point, is that this is another tourist got picked on. Whoever’s doin’ this is taking these tourists as easy prey and robbing them. Either your friend wouldn’t give up the goods when they asked, or they killed him anyway.”

  Bennie tried to picture it, then tried not to. Her gaze remained glued to the bent backs of the coroner and his assistants. Steeling herself for the moment they’d step aside.

  “It won’t do the tourism business any good, and it doesn’t help CompStat either.” The detective was referring to the crime statistics the Philadelphia police had instituted under the now-legendary Commissioner John Timoney. “Now with these two murders, it throws off the numbers. Shame of it is, we decreased street crime in the Center City District last year by adding beat cops. You would think it would help with these tourists.” Detective Needleman was thinking aloud, and Bennie felt reassured to see that he was questioning even his own theory. Not every detective was secure enough to do that. He continued, “But I guess not, and these foreigners, they’re easy marks.”

  “How would somebody know he’s a tourist, just by looking?” Bennie asked, hearing an unnecessary sharpness in her tone. She hated the term “foreigner” and thought about how bigotry had hurt St. Amien. In the lawsuit, and now. “Sorry, I guess I’m being oversensitive, and I think it gives street thugs a lot of credit. And I don’t know why somebody would be running around killing foreigners.”

  “S’okay, these are all good questions, and I don’t mind being backstopped. My partner’s on disability and I’m solo until he comes back.” Detective Needleman waved the apology away. “Foreigners, or tourists, are easy marks because they have lots of dough on them, and they don’t expect violence the way we do. They don’t take the precautions. They walk in dumb places, not paying attention. They think they’re safe here, like they are at home.”

  Bennie ignored the irony. We get killed in the streets, and foreigners are the crazy ones. “So how can you tell St. Amien wasn’t from here? Could you have told, with Robert?”

  “Sure. He smoked those weird cigarettes, he was smoking one when he got hit. Also, from the cut of his clothes, his expensive suit. He dressed too nice for here, especially for Philly.”

  Bennie managed a smile that only made her sadder. That much was true. Robert stuck out in this dressed-down town.

  “He had very polished shoes, a little formal. Lace-ups, and I never saw that kind here. A fancy silk tie. You could tell he was different, not from here, even if you couldn’t tell he was European. Same thing with the Belgian, and he was an international banker.”

  Bennie considered it. It wasn’t implausible. Still. “You think street thugs notice these things, like shoes?”

  “Of course. They can tell Iversons at fifty yards.”

  “In the dark?”

  “Probably followed him for a while. It’s Center City, plenty of light around.”

  Bennie nodded reluctantly. “Also, if they confronted him, they would have known for sure. He had an accent.”

  “There you go. So did the Belgian guy.” Detective Needleman nodded, acknowledging that she was with the program.

  “Any witnesses?”

  “No, at least not yet.” His gaze returned to the scene. The klieglight reflected bright on his face, limning the contours of soft, almost jowly features, a short nose framed with deep laugh lines. He was about fifty years old, and he laughed a lot. Just not right now; his mouth had a grave set to it. “The vic’s driver’s license said he lived at the Manchester, on Rittenhouse Square. Nice place. Condos, isn’t it?’

  “I’ve never been. Robert was my client for only a few days.”

  “Very nice place. I went there for the notification. Just got back.”

  Bennie looked over. “Notification? You mean next of kin?”

  “Sure, it’s procedure. I got his name from the wallet and I went over.”

  “Waste of your time, huh? He doesn’t have family in town. His wife is dead and his son’s at law school, at Harvard.”

  Needleman shook his head. “I know, but the brother was at home. He lives in the same building. When I went looking for next of kin, they told me at the desk.”

  “He lives in the Manchester too?” Bennie asked, in surprise. Why hadn’t St. Amien mentioned his brother? Then she remembered that he had. You have never met my wacky brother. Bennie had just assumed that the brother was in France. “He’s a doctor, right?”

  “Yes. I did the notification, and the man got pretty broken up. Name is Georges. They were supposed to have dinner that night. Nice guy. Wait, excuse me a sec.” Detective Needleman took a step forward in response to one of the coroner’s assistants, who was straightening up and brushing down the knees of his baggy jumpsuit. They were obviously getting ready to go. Bennie braced herself for the sight as the detective motioned her backward. “Step aside, please. They’re going to take the body.”

  Bennie held her breath. The assistant edged out of the alley, back to retrieve the gurney, and his absence gave Bennie a clear view of the lower half of Robert’s legs. Her throat caught at the sight. His feet lay askew, flopped horribly apart in their polished black shoes, and the cuffed leg of his finely tailored black trousers had been pushed rudely up, exposing a sheer black sock. He was wearing the gorgeous suit he’d worn in court today, but now it was as if he’d dressed for his own funeral. In the next minute, the coroner was helped to his feet by his other assistant, exposing the corpse entirely.

  St. Amien’s eyes were horribly open, fixed and unseeing, and his mouth livid and contorted with agony. His glasses were off, and his head was turned to the nearer of the klieglights, his skin as white as the beam itself. Oh my God. No. His tie remained carefully knotted but his suit jacket had been rent by the knife blade and lay open, exposing his chest to the klieglight, which cruelly illuminated a vivid crimson mass of sopping red blood that had spread from the many cuts. The coroner and his assistants moved expertly around the corpse, returning with the stainless-steel gurney and preparing the body to be transported, but Bennie saw them only as a shadowy blur around the elegant man who lay sprawled on the filthy concrete of the alley. The air suddenly thickened with the stench of the fresh blood, and Bennie couldn’t breathe.

  “You okay?” the detective asked, concerned, but she had already turned away, covering her eyes with her hands, almost involuntarily. She was supposed to be professional, but she couldn’t deal with it. The horror of the crime. The very violence of the act, and of Robert’s death. Bennie unaccountably thought of her father and tasted a bile that washed her palate with acid. Not Robert. Robert was a good man. An elegant man.

  Bennie felt a steadying hand on her shoulder and heard the harsh sounds of the gurney snapped to its standing position, then the practiced “One, two, three” count as the body was lifted onto it, then the ungreased squeak of the covered wheels as they bumped over the trash in the alley. She could hear the heavy cases being carried off, their stainless-steel instruments jingling inside, and the people shuffling in paper booties around her, out of the alley. The slam-slam of two car doors closing punctuated the night: the coroner’s van, which started its hollow-sounding engine and took off in the next moment. The scene was closing. The police personnel had completed their job; their notes and photos had been taken, scrapings and samples collected. It was over for them, but it was just beginning for Bennie. She took her hands from her eyes and found herself looking at Detective
Needleman. He was just the man she wanted to see.

  “I want to get whoever did this to him,” Bennie said, in a voice more controlled than she felt. Firm, sure, furious. “I want to help you, in any way I can. I want them brought to justice. I want to know who they are. I want to know what they do. I want to know why they did this, and why Robert was even here in the first place.”

  Detective Needleman almost smiled. “You must feel better.”

  “I will when I can get those questions answered, and not until.”

  “I can answer one of them.”

  “Which one?”

  “Why he was here,” the detective answered matter-of-factly, and Bennie blinked.

  “Why was he here?”

  “His brother told me. He was out to dinner, a business dinner, at the Palm.”

  “I thought you said he was going to have dinner with the brother.”

  “He was, but then he called and canceled. Something had come up at work. I figured he was walking home when he got robbed.”

  “Who did he eat with?” Bennie asked, but the detective was already reaching for his back pocket. He extracted the slim steno pad, flipped it open, and ran a finger down the pages, squinting in the klieglight, which made a stocky silhouette of him.

  “Here we go. He was going to dinner with another man. Herman Mayer.”

  19

  It took Bennie a minute to absorb the shock. “Mayer was here with Robert?”

  “Not here, at dinner. You know him?”

  “Yes, he’s a fellow plaintiff in a class action, a big case. I don’t know why Robert would be eating with Mayer. I can’t believe it.” She was shaking her head. “Was the brother sure?”

  “Seemed it.” The detective shifted aside, taking Bennie’s arm, as mobile technicians hustled back and forth for their equipment. “I don’t get it. If they’re fellow plaintiffs, as you say, why wouldn’t they be eating together?”

  “It’s a long story.” Bennie didn’t want to explain it now. She wanted information. “Did the brother tell you anything else?”

  “No, just that his brother had called late in the day, about five-thirty, and said he’d have to cancel dinner. He was gonna eat with this Mayer.”

  “What time was Robert expected?”

  “About seven. I went over fast because the TV people got the news off the scanners, and I wanted the notification to come first.”

  Bennie couldn’t wrap her mind around it. What the hell was going on? Why would Robert agree to meet with Mayer? Why didn’t he tell her? She’d been at the river, but why didn’t he leave a message? “You didn’t talk to Mayer yet, did you?”

  “No way, I had to hurry to do the notification, and I only got that in because they live so close. I gotta go back to the squad room and run down some leads on this and the Belgian case. I’ll call him, too, though I doubt he’ll have much to say.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Bennie said, responding before she even knew what she meant. She didn’t know what was going on, and that meant she didn’t like what was going on. All she understood was that Robert had gone to dinner with Herman Mayer and now he was dead. She tried to clarify her thoughts. “Mayer and Robert weren’t truly on the same side of the lawsuit, at this stage. As a practical matter, these men were enemies. There was a major dispute over who should be lead plaintiff.”

  The detective’s eyes were glazing over. She had to get to the point.

  “Mayer wanted to be lead plaintiff, and Robert and I were challenging him. In fact, in court today, we had a huge fight and—”

  “Watch out,” the detective interrupted, gentling her out of the way. A mobile tech shuffled past them and turned off one klieglight, then unplugged it from a portable generator and carried it out of the alley on his shoulder, like a fishing pole. The detective watched him go. “These people got a job to do. He won’t be the only case tonight.”

  “Let me put it this way, Detective. This case was worth seventy million dollars to Mayer, and the lead plaintiff would get the lion’s share. That’s what Mayer was fighting with us over.”

  “That’s real money,” Needleman said, guiding her out of the alley, and Bennie fell into step beside him, matching her beat-up Sauconys to his worn loafers.

  “Real, real money. You see what I’m saying? I’m saying that there was a lot of money at stake in this case, between these parties.” Bennie knew she was losing him. Crime techs were packing up around them, stowing the remaining equipment into municipal cars and vans. One turned off the leftover klieglight, plunging them all into darkness. The party was officially over. It took a minute for Bennie’s eyes to adjust, and she could barely see the detective’s face in the residual lighting from the storefronts. “You with me, Detective?”

  “No,” he said, turning to her. His glasses reflected the windows across the street, obscuring his eyes. “I’m not with you. I see a robbery here, a street crime with an MO very similar to another recent one, and it makes sense to me that it’s the same doer. What are you seeing?”

  Bennie swallowed hard. What was she seeing? What was she saying? That she thought Mayer had murdered Robert? Was it possible? But Mayer was a civilized man. A businessman, not a thug. It seemed crazy. Unthinkable. Then she flashed on the scene in the courtroom. Mayer’s anger at Robert. Linette’s anger at them both. And Robert coming up to her after court had adjourned and asking if they had won. She had answered: They want to kill us, don’t they?

  Bennie felt suddenly stricken.

  “Let’s get outta the way, I’m done here,” the detective said, taking Bennie’s arm. They walked from the alley with Bennie on autopilot and headed toward an old black Crown Vic parked at the curb. Around them uniformed cops dismantled the wooden sawhorses and stacked them on a Parks Department flatbed that had pulled up, rattling and spewing gray exhaust. The crowd was dispersing except for the TV news vans and reporters, whom Detective Needleman kept at bay by waving them off. He opened his car door, turned to Bennie, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Look, you’re upset. Your client just got killed. You’re not thinking clearly, and it’s late.”

  Bennie nodded, shaken, but she couldn’t listen. She just couldn’t believe what she’d said to Robert in court. Why had she said it? Had she meant it? Was it possible?

  “I know you’re a smart lawyer, and Brinkley thinks the world of you, and that’s enough for me. But this isn’t the time to play cop, Ms. Rosato.” Detective Needleman gave her arm a final pat. “You need a ride? Let me take you home.”

  Bennie found her voice, and it carried a ring of certainty that surprised even her. “I’m not saying that Mayer did it, but I’m not ruling it out, either. I don’t know. But I can’t pretend that Mayer didn’t fight with Robert in court today, or that we didn’t beat him. And seventy million dollars is a lot of motive.”

  “Now you’re talkin’ about motive? Seventy million dollars is a lot of money, and that’s all I know right now.” Detective Needleman sat heavily in the driver’s seat, keeping one loafer out of the car flat on the asphalt. “Brinkley likes you, but he did say you get yourself worked up.”

  “Murder gets me worked up, particularly this murder. And sometimes I’m right, so will you please consider that this murder may not be what it seems right off the bat?”

  “Oh, Jesus, here we go.” The detective looked through his windshield with pursed lips.

  “Keep an open mind, consider that maybe it’s not a robbery, a street crime, whatever. And you’re going to talk with Mayer, so why wait until tomorrow? Wouldn’t you like to know where he is right now? He was the last person to see Robert alive.”

  “I would, and I will. Now you need a ride or not?”

  “No, thanks.” Bennie was thinking clearly now, or what passed for clearly to the delusional. Robert had been stabbed to death. The detective had said they hadn’t found the murder weapon. “What kind of knife was it, do we know?”

  “A sharp knife, I gather, and there is no we. Later I w
ill find out. You won’t.”

  Bennie let it go. At least he was keeping his sense of humor. He’d need it. “What kind of sharp knife? How long was the blade? Was it a steak knife? The Palm is a steakhouse.” She had been there exactly twice. She was guessing when she said, “They give you a steak knife when you order, you know.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished, does it?” Detective Needleman closed the door of the car with a rueful smile. “I tried to be nice to you, I talked to you, and now look where it got me. Wait’ll I get Brinkley.”

  “Sorry.” Bennie watched him turned the key in the ignition, and the car’s old engine wheezed to life. She half considered taking a ride just to keep badgering him. “Any chance I can go with you when you talk to Mayer?”

  “You know, I bet you read a lot of Nancy Drew when you were little. Am I right?” He raised his voice to be heard over the car engine. “Why is it that every little girl who reads Nancy Drew thinks she can be a homicide detective? My wife, she’s the exact same way.”

  “Hold on.” Bennie leaned on the car so he wouldn’t take off. “Here’s what to ask Mayer about. He was Robert’s chief competitor in the medical-lens business, and I know there was bad blood between them over a contract with a company named Hospcare. Mayer lives in Chestnut Hill, his home address was on the complaint they filed. I can fax you over a copy, or you can call information. As for his lawyer, I don’t know where—”

  “I think I can do this without you.” The detective released the emergency brake. “Call me crazy.”

  “I’m just trying to help. I know these players, and I have information you may need.”

  “I’ll call you if I need you.”

  “I want to get whoever did this.” Bennie leaned into the open car window. The Crown Vic reeked of cigar smoke. “And if the bad guy wears a tie, I don’t want him getting away with murder.”

  “I don’t either, and I will keep an open mind, I always do. But don’t get in my face and don’t go over my head. I’ll keep you posted as I see fit.” The detective’s eyes went flinty, and his tone turned stern in a way that suggested he was a good father. “You have any questions or want to tell me something, you can call me at the Roundhouse.”