“Everything. My story, my defense, ws fiction. Rich white guy carjacked by poor black guy. White guy has registered Glock for protection. Black guy has X-Acto knife. Not a good match.” Steere eased back into his chair. The jury bought it because it was what they expected, what they see on TV.”
Marta’s lips parted in disbelief. The news struck like an assault, stunning and violent. Her mind reeled. Her face felt hot. She braced her manicured fingers against the cold aluminum ledge and fought for her bearings. “What are you saying?”
“I’m guilty as sin, dear.” Steere’s gaze was point-blank and his voice tinny as it passed through a thin metal grate under the bulletproof window. The cinderblock walls of the interview room, lacquered calcium-white, seemed suddenly to be closing in on Marta.
“But he slashed your cheek with the knife,” she said, uncomprehending.
“He was dead at the time. I held his hand, with the knife in it.”
“They found fibers from your tux on his hands and clothes.”
“There was a struggle. He put up a fight. Mostly begging, though, boo-hooing like a little girl.”
Marta’s stomach turned over. “Tell me the whole story. The truth.”
“What’s to tell? A bum came at me when I stopped at red the light. He was waving a knife, drunk, screaming I should give up the car. Like I would. A new SL 600 convertible. Wet dream of a car.” Steere shook his head in momentary admiration. “So I grabbed my gun, got out of the car, and shot him in the head. I called the cops from the cell phone.”
Marta crossed her arms across her chest. You could call it a hug but that wasn’t how she thought of it. She’d heard confessions like this from other clients, and though Steere didn’t look like them, he sounded like them. They all had the urge to brag; to prove how smart they were and what they could get away with. Marta had known knew Steere was tough-minded; she hadn’t guessed he was inhuman. “You’re a murderer,” she said.
“No, I’m a problem-solver. I saw some garbage and took it out. The man was a derelict, worthless. He didn’t work, he didn’t produce. He didn’t own anything. Fuck, he didn’t even live anywhere. This time he picked the wrong guy. End of story.”
“Just like that.”
“Come on, Marta. The man was useless. He didn’t even know how to handle the fucking knife.” Steere chuckled. “You handled it better during the demonstration, when you held it under your chin. Did you see the jury? The front row almost fainted.”
Marta felt a twinge as she flashed on the jurors, their faces upturned like kindergartners. She’d hired the requisite raft of jury consultants but relied on her own instincts and experience to pick the panel, ending up with a solid reasonable-doubt jury. She’d stood in front of them every day of the trial, memorizing their features, their reactions, their quirks. Fifteen years as a top-tier criminal lawyer had taught Marta one thing: the jurors were the only real people in any courtroom. Even the ones with book deals.
“They’re suckers,” Steere said. “Twelve suckers. The biggest loser was your friend, the Marlboro Man. Better watch out, Marta. He had the look of love. He may be fixin’ to get hisself a filly.”
Marta winced. Steere meant Christopher Graham, a blacksmith from Old Bustleton in Northeast Philadelphia. Marta had learned that Graham had recently separated from his wife, so she worked him the whole trial, locking eyes with him during her cross of the medical examiner and letting her fingertips stray to her silk collar when she felt his lonely gaze on her. Still, manipulation was one thing, and prevarication quite another. “Everything you told me was a lie.”
“It worked, didn’t it? You shot the shit out of their case. The bailiff thinks the jury will be back by noon tomorrow. That’s only four, five hours of actual deliberation.” Steere smiled and recrossed his legs. “I hear the reporters have a pool going. The smart money’s on you, twenty to one. There’s even action that they acquit me before there’s three feet of snow on the ground.”
Marta’s mind reeled. The media, more lies. She’d told the reporters Steere was innocent and declined to speculate on how long the jury would be out. I just win, boys. I leave the details to you, she’d said with a laugh. She wasn’t laughing now.
“It’s almost three o’clock,” Steere said, checking a watch with a band like liquid gold. “You’ve never had a jury out longer than two days, if memory serves.”
Marta flipped back through her cases. She was undefeated in capital cases and she’d win this one, too. No tough questions of physical evidence to explain away, just a disagreement over the way it had gone down, with the Commonwealth claiming Steere had intended to kill the homeless man. It took balls to prosecute a case that thin, but it was an election year and the Mayor wanted to crucify the wealthiest slumlord in Philadelphia. Marta understood all that, but she didn’t understand the most important thing. “Why did you lie to me?”
“Since when are you so high and mighty? Did you ask if I was guilty?”
“I don’t ask my clients that question.”
“Then what’s the difference if they lie to you?”
Marta had no immediate response except to grit her teeth. “So you made up this cock-and-bull story.”
“You never doubted it? One of the best criminal lawyers in the country and you can’t smell shit?”
Not this time, because she had let her guard down. Because she’d been attracted to him, though she wouldn’t admit it, even to herself. “Your story made absolute sense. We went over it and over it. You told it the same way every time.”
“I lied from the door.”
“Even to the cops? The statement you gave them. It was recorded. It was all consistent.”
“I’m excellent at what I do.”
“Lie?”
“Sell.”
“You used me, you asshole.”
“Come off it, dear.” Steere’s smile twisted into a sneer. “You got paid, didn’t you? Almost two hundred grand this quarter, including your expenses. Hotel, phone, even dry cleaning. Every cent paid in full. Twenty-five grand left on the retainer.”
“That’s not the point. “
Steere’s laughter echoed off the cinderblock walls of the interview room. “Easy for you to say, you’re not paying it. For that much money, using you should be included. Christ, for that much money, fucking you should be included.”
“Fuck you!” Marta shot to her feet, seething. She felt the urge to pace, to move, to run, but the interview room was cramped as a phone booth. She was trapped. By Steere, by herself. How could she have been so naive? She still couldn’t bring herself to accept it. “So you killed Darnton, even though you’d be questioned? Charged?”
Steere shrugged. “It was a risk, but I run risks every day. I figured the D.A. would find a reason to charge me, but that’s okay. Any ink is good ink. I knew I’d hire the best and get away with it, and I will. Because of you.”
Because of you. The words burned into Marta’s brain. Steere had written the story and she had sold it, better than she’d ever sold anything in her professional life. Pitched it to the jury in the daytime and the satellites at night. And she didn’t do it for the money or the facetime, not this time.
She did it for Steere.
In the split second she realized it, Marta’s fury became unreasoning. She could have sworn he wanted her, he’d given every signal. He’d lean too close at counsel table, look too long at her legs. Once he’d touched her knee, bending over to retrieve his fountain pen, and her response had been so immediate it surprised even her. The memory made her feel crazy, unhinged. Unleashed. “I’m going to Judge Rudolph with this,” she said.
“You can’t. I’m your client and thus this is a privileged conversation. Disclose it and you’re disbarred, ruined.” Steere laced his long, nimble fingers together and leaned forward on his side of the metal ledge. “Of course, I’d deny the conversation ever took place. You’d look like a fool.”
“Then I quit. I’m not your lawyer anymore. I’m wi
thdrawing from the representation.” Marta snatched her bag and briefcase from the tile floor.
“The judge won’t let you withdraw while the jury’s out. It’s too late in the game. It’s prejudicial to me, infringes my constitutional rights.”
“Don’t you lecture me,” Marta shot back, though she knew he was right about her withdrawal. “I suborned perjury for you.”
“Suborn perjury, my my. You can talk the talk, can’t you? So can I. You didn’t suborn perjury because I didn’t testify in my own defense.”
“It’s a fraud on the court—”
“Enough.” Steere cut Marta off with a wave. “The verdict comes in by noon and I go free. Then I hold a press conference where I tell the world that the mayor is a smacked ass, the jury system is a blessing, and you’re the best whore money can buy.”
Marta froze. Her fingers squeezed the handle of her briefcase. Rage constricted her breathing. She felt choaked, with Steere’s polished loafer on her throat.
“Then we’ll go to the Swann Fountain for the victory celebration,” Steere continued. “We can play footsies, just like old times. After that I’m booked to St. Bart’s on a Learjet that’ll take off from Atlantic City if Philly is snowed in. I love the beach, don’t you? Hate the water, but love the beach. Want to come?”
Marta only glared in response. She wouldn’t be used like this. Not by him. Not by anyone. She reached for the door of the interview room.
“Aw, don’t go away mad, honey,” Steere said.
“I have work to do.”
“What work? You just proved me innocent.”
“Right. Now I’m going to prove you guilty.”
Steere chuckled behind tented fingers. “There’s no evidence.”
“There must be.”
“The police couldn’t find any.”
“They didn’t have the incentive I do.”
“And you’ll find this evidence before the jury comes back? By noon tomorrow?”
“They won’t be out that long?” Marta said. She yanked the door open to the sound of Steere’s laughter, but as furious as she was, she knew it didn’t matter who was laughing first. Only who was laughing last.
Copyright © 1997 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.
Mistaken Identity
Nothing can prepare criminal attorney Bennie Rosato for her new client, Alice Connolly, accused of murdering her lover, a highly decorated police detective. Connolly, who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Bennie, tells the astonished lawyer, “Pleased to meet you. I’m your twin.” But Bennie grew up an only child. She doesn’t have a twin.
Or does she?
Bennie takes the case and plunges into the mystery of the murder, as well as the secret of her own identity. Not until the verdict is in will she finally learn the truth.
Philadelphia Inquirer: “A superior piece of writing . . .. A gripping, multileveled story peopled by compelling characters.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Scottoline has been called ‘the female John Grisham,’ but she’s a better storyteller.”
Chapter One
Bennie Rosato shuddered when she caught sight of the place. The building stretched three city blocks and stood eight stories tall. It lacked conventional windows; instead slits of bulletproof glass scored its black brick façade. Spiked guard towers anchored its corners and a double row of cyclone fencing topped with razor wire encircled its perimeter, attesting to its maximum security status. Exiled to the industrial outskirts of the city, Philadelphia’s Central Corrections housed murders, sociopaths, and rapist. At least when they weren’t on parole.
Bennie pulled into a parking space in the half-empty visitor’s lot, climbed out of her Ford Expedition, and walked down the sidewalk in June’s humidity, wrestling with her reluctance. She’d stopped practicing criminal law and promised herself she’d never see the prison again until the telephone call from a woman inmate who was awaiting trial. The woman had been charged with the shooting murder of her boyfriend, a detective with the Philadelphia police, but claimed a group of uniforms had framed her. Bennie specialized in prosecuting police misconduct, so she’d slid a fresh legal pad into her briefcase and had driven to interview the inmate.
THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE, read a metal plaque over the door, and Bennie managed not to laugh. The prison had been designed with the belief that vocational training would covert heroin dealers to keypunch operators and since nobody had any better ideas, still operated on the assumption. Bennie opened the heavy gray door, an inexplicably large dent buckling its middle, and went inside. She was immediately assaulted by stifling air, thick with sweat, disinfectant, and a cacophony of rapid-fire Spanish, street English, and languages Bennie didn’t recognize. Whenever she entered the prison, Bennie felt as if she were walking into another world, and the sight evoked in her a familiar dismay.
The waiting room, packed with inmates’ families, looked more like day care than prison. Infants in arms rattled plastic keys in primary colors, babies crawled from lap to lap, and a toddler practiced his first steps in the aisle, grabbing a plastic sandal for support as he staggered past. Bennie knew the statistics: seventy-five percent of women inmates are mothers. The average prison term for a woman lasts a childhood. No matter, whether Bennie’s clients had been brought here by circumstance or corruption, she could never forget that their children were the ultimate victims, ignored at our peril. She couldn’t fix it no matter how hard she tried and she couldn’t stop trying, so she had finally turned away.
Bennie so pressed the thought and threaded her way to the front desk while the crowd socialized. Two older women, one white and one black, exchanged recipes written on index cards. Hispanic and white teenagers huddled together, a bouquet of backward baseball caps laughing over photos of a trip to Hershey Park. Two Vietnamese boys shared the sports section with a white kid across the aisle. Unless prison procedures had changed, these families would be the Monday group, visiting inmates with last names A through F, and over time they’d become friends. Bennie used to think their friendliness a form of denial until she realized it was profoundly human, like the camaraderie she’d experienced in hospital waiting rooms, in the worst of circumstances.
The guards at front desk, a woman and a man, were on the telephone. Female and male guards worked at the prison because both sexes were incarcerated here, in separate wings. Behind the desk was a panel of smoked glass that looked opaque but concealed the prison’s large, modern control center. Security monitors glowed faintly through the glass, their chalky gray screens ever-changing. A profile moved in front of a lighted screen like a cloud in front of the moon.
Bennie waited patiently for a guard, which cut against her grain. Since she questioned authority for a living, but she had learned not to challenge prison guards. They performed daily under conditions at least as threatening as those facing cops, but were acutely aware they earned far less and weren’t the subject of any cool TV shows. No kid grew up wanting to be a prison guard.
While Bennie waited, a little boy with bells on his shoelaces toddled over and stared up at her. She was used to the reaction even though she wasn’t conventionally pretty; Bennie stood six feet tall, strong and sturdy. Her broad shoulders were emphasized by the padding of her yellow linen suit, and wavy hair the color of pale honey spilled loose to her back. Her features were more honest than beautiful, but big blondes generally caught the eye, approving or no. Bennie smiled at the child to show she wasn’t a banana.
“You an attorney?” asked the female guard, hanging up the phone. She was an African-American woman in a jet-black uniform and pinned to her heavy breast had been badge of gold electroplate. The guard’s hair had been combed back into a tiny bun from which stiff hairs sprung like a pinwheel, and her short sleeves were rolled up, macho-style.
“Yeah, I’m a lawyer,” Bennie answered. “I used to have an ID card, but I’ll be damned if I can find it.”
“I’ll look it up. Gimme your driver’s license. Fill out t
he request slip. Sign the OV book, for official visitors,” the guard said, on auto-pilot, and pushed a yellow clip ID across the counter.
Bennie produced her license, scribbled a request slip, and signed the log book. “I’m here to see Alice Connolly. Unit D, Cell 53.”
“What’s in the briefcase?”
“Legal papers.”
“Put your purse in the lockers. No cell phones, cameras, or recording devices. Take a seat. We’ll call you when they bring her down to the interview room.”
“Thanks.” Bennie hunted for a chair and spotted one in front of the closed window for the cashier and clothing exchange. The families had left the seat vacant because it was the equivalent of a table by the front door in a busy restaurant; when it opened, the exchange would be mobbed with families dropping off personal items, such as plastic rosaries the inmates liked to wear and do-rags necessary for gang identification. And the inmates always welcomed extra cash; for what, Bennie didn’t want to speculate. She wedged into the seat next to a stocky grandmother, who smiled when she spotted Bennie’s briefcase. A prison waiting room is the only place where a lawyer is a welcome sight.
“You’re up, Rosato,” called the guard.
Bennie rose and went through the metal detector to the other side of the front desk. She set her briefcase down on the gritty tile floor and raised her arms while the female guard ran a professionally intrusive hand down her arms and sides. “Tell me I’m the only one,” Bennie said, and the guard half-smiled.
“Go on up, girl.”
“Fine, but next time I expect dinner.” Bennie picked up her briefcase as a male guard unlocked another gray metal door, double-thick. Attorneys signed a “no-hostage waiver” to get an initial ID; a misnomer, it meant that their release would not be negotiated if they were taken hostage. Once she passed through the door, Bennie would be locked in with a general population of violent inmates packing knives, straight-edge razors, garrotes, shanks, forks twisted into spikes, and possibly a blowtorch or two. Bennie’s only weapons were a canvas briefcase and a Bic ballpoint. Anybody who believes the pen is mightier than the sword hasn’t been inside a maximum security prison.
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