“Yes, we should.”
“In the library, not the lawyers’ offices.”
“I quite agree.” At her desk, Bennie was ransacking the lawyers’ listings in the Yellow Pages to identify the lawyer in the art student’s sketch. She flipped through grainy photographs of lawyers perched on desks and holding fancy pens. Thank God lawyers had started advertising. How else could you find the murderers?
“You can’t find anything in here. This is disgusting.”
“I know.” Bennie closed the Yellow Pages, shoved the thick book aside, and reached for her marbleized legal directory.
“Why don’t you clean up or at least let me do it?”
“I’m a maverick, a renegade. The kind of gal who colors outside the lines.” Bennie cracked the legal directory. “My clients expect a messy office.”
“Nobody likes a pig.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it, Marshall.” She skimmed the legal directory. None of the faces in the photos matched the pencil sketch. The phone rang on Bennie’s desk and she picked it up. “Rosato.”
“What’s up, doc?” said a man’s voice on the other end, and Bennie grinned.
“Sammy!” It was Sam Freminet, the tax lawyer who was her oldest friend. He had started with her at Grun & Chase and had remained, becoming a partner. “You get my fax?”
“Yes. He’s hot. Is he single?”
“Stop fooling around. Do you know him? He’s a lawyer somewhere in town. I need to ID him for a murder case.”
“You’re back doing murder cases? Why didn’t I know that? Sufferin’ succotash. You don’t write, you don’t call.”
“I’ll fill you in when the dust settles. Listen, I sent the fax to everyone I know and I’m striking out all over. Do you recognize him?”
“He looks like Elmer Fudd, with that chin.”
“You’re no help. I gotta go. Call you later,” Bennie said, and hung up. She glanced at her watch. 11:45. Damn. She couldn’t spend much more time on this, not with the other things she had to do.
“Here it is!” Marshall said. “I found it!” She held out a yellow paper-covered book, and Bennie scrambled out from behind her desk to look.
“You sure? Does it show my name?”
“Yes.” Their heads bent over the book and they found Bennie’s name at the same time. Marshall gestured to the papers covering the rug. “I’ll fax this to Hutchins if you let me throw that mess out.”
“No, I need that mess.”
“It’s trash.”
“It’s essential.”
“Then forget it.” Marshall stuck the course materials under her arm and a brochure sailed to the floor. She bent over to pick it up and her smooth brow furrowed. “Who gives these legal education courses? Professors?”
“No. Practitioners, other lawyers.”
“Isn’t this the lawyer you’re looking for?”
“What?” Bennie took the slick brochure from Marshall’s outstretched hand. Accounting for Attorneys was its title and under the course description was a thumbnail photo of the instructor. The eyes, the face, and the cleft chin were the same as the pencil sketch. Lyman J. Bullock, Esq., read the caption, and next to it, Bullock & Sabard, Attorneys-At-Law.
Bennie reached for the telephone.
24
Alice was waiting in line to use the telephone. In the house she waited in line for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She waited in line to drop off her dirty uniform; she waited in line to pick it up clean. She waited in line to leave the unit and to enter it again. It made her want to kill somebody. Like the bitch in line in front of her, using the phone. Alice didn’t recognize her. She must be from Unit B.
“I have to talk to him,” the inmate said, her voice high with anxiety. She picked at her scalp with long fingernails; her limp, brown hair had grown thin from the habit. “I need to discuss something important with him. I’m his wife.”
Alice felt a drumming in her head. She ignored it and checked the clock on the wall. Fuck. Only five minutes left before she had to get back to the unit. She’d have thrown the wacko off the phone but the guard was watching, his eyes shifting back and forth.
“Just tell him, tell him it’s me. Janine. Neenie. No, no, I have the right number. I know this is his number.”
The phone was on the wall in the hallway, next to the line for the commissary window. The inmates put in special orders and once a week the commissary packed transparent trash bags full of Doritos, potato chips, and Fritos. The dummies gobbled the shit like it was manna from heaven.
“No, no, no. She’s not his wife. I’m his wife. I’m telling you, I made him what he is today. He owes it all to me. He still loves me. Put him on right now.”
There was a line on the right, too, at the drug window. Inmates were lined up to pick up the legal drugs that got them off the illegal drugs, and suburban candy like Prozac and Ativan. The other inmates used the rock that traded freely in the house; the talk about instituting random drug testing never came to anything. Alice had had her stint with powder, then turned her experience into money. She was almost out of here, back in business on her own, the way she always wanted. But right now all she wanted was the goddamn phone. “Say good-bye, Neenie,” she said, reaching over and hanging up the phone as soon as the guard looked away.
The inmate turned. “How dare you? Don’t you know who I am?”
“Shut up or I’ll punch your face in,” Alice muttered. She picked up the phone and pounded in the number, checking her watch while the phone rang on the other end. Only two minutes left. The drug and commissary lines were almost finished. “Let me speak to him now,” she said when Bullock’s secretary picked up.
“Yes,” he said, on the line after a split second.
Alice fake-coughed into the receiver. “I think I caught a cold,” she said. She didn’t say more in case Bullock’s lines were tapped. She didn’t need to, Bullock would understand. They’d worked out a code for the business and for times like this. Alice had given Bullock a name to call if she got into trouble on the inside. They’d try to stop the contract from the outside. It wasn’t exactly Bullock’s element of society, but he’d do it for her because he had no choice.
“A cough?” Bullock said. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Gotta go.” Alice hung up, satisfied for the time being. Bullock was reliable, if nothing else. It was good to have an accountant and lawyer in one shot. Bullock was one of the suits from the Chamber of Commerce who’d wanted to invest in Star. Then Alice found a surer way for him to make a buck, only tax-free.
Alice’s eyes swept the last of the lines and Leonia wasn’t anywhere in sight. Bullock would get to work on the outside, but on the inside she’d have to watch her back. She slipped into the housing unit and headed for her cell.
25
Bennie reached the ground floor of her building with a problem. The press thronged in front of the building and she had to get to Lyman Bullock’s office. She lurked at the elevator bank, unsure how to leave. She couldn’t lead the press to Bullock. If he were Connolly’s lover, she’d be giving away a part of her defense; if he wasn’t, they’d plague him without cause. The lobby, paneled in glossy gray marble, was empty except for an older guard at the security desk. It was Lou Jacobs, a recently retired cop who liked Bennie as much as most cops. Not at all.
“Lou,” Bennie called from the elevator bank. “We got trouble.”
“I ain’t blind,” he said. “I been putting up with those jerks since lunch. Already they’re finding who else is in the building and makin’ up fake appointments.” He scowled at the reporters, his crow’s-feet wrinkling deeply in skin thickened with tan, from weekends on his motorboat. He wore his silvery hair slicked back, and his nose was strong as a seagull’s beak. A compact man, Lou wore his navy-blue uniform with a certain pride, which Bennie liked.
“I have to get out of here, Lou. Can I take the freight elevator?”
“No way. You don’t have freight.”
“Pretend I
’m holding a fax machine.”
“Forget it.”
“Come on, Lou. You gonna throw me to the dogs?”
“If I can watch.”
Bennie gritted her teeth. “Either I take the freight or I stand in the lobby and hold a press conference. Your lobby fills up with reporters and your tenants can’t get in or out. You like that better?”
Lou shook his head. “You can’t use the freight. It’s against the rules.”
“Christ, Lou, don’t give me the rules. You want rules or you want reporters? Your choice, bucko.”
Lyman Bullock leapt to his wingtips behind his mahogany desk, his light eyes wide and his small mouth partly open, emphasizing his cleft chin. His pale skin reddened and his neck bulged over a stiff white collar, fastened by a collar pin that threatened asphyxiation. The lawyer’s demeanor told the truth, though he never would. “I don’t know anyone named Alice Connolly,” Bullock said firmly.
“You obviously do, you’re not even a good liar. Didn’t you go to law school?”
“I thought you said you wanted to see me about a case.”
“I do, Alice Connolly’s case.” Bennie hadn’t told Bullock the purpose of her visit when she’d telephoned. She’d just said she was a lawyer in need of ethics advice, with a possible case referral. “We need to talk, Lyman. By the way, is anything short for Lyman?”
“No.”
“Listen, Lyman. I’m not here to disrupt your life or to pry. May I sit down?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Thank you.” Bennie slipped into the Windsor chair across from Bullock’s desk. His office was large and sunny, with English antiques arranged conventionally on a blue patterned Sirook. The ethics business had evidently been good to Lyman Bullock. Lucky for him, lawyers were getting less ethical every day. “We need to talk about Alice Connolly. The man she lived with was murdered and she was charged with the crime. Her trial is next week. I’m her lawyer.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bullock remained standing, his back stiff as a Chippendale chair. Behind his desk, twin diplomas hung on the wall, evidencing law and accounting degrees, and framed photographs of his family rested on a cherrywood credenza. His wife, with frosted hair and graduated pearls, smiled untroubled from a photo in an engraved silver frame. “I told you,” he repeated, “I don’t know anyone named Alice Connolly.”
“I have reason to believe you do. You were seen picking her up at the Free Library. You drive a late-model brown Mercedes.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He bent from the waist, only far enough to pick up the phone. “Martha, call security. There’s an intruder in my office.”
“It’s in your best interest to talk to me. If you’ll talk here, we won’t have to chat in court, where there’s an almost criminal lack of good taste.”
“Think twice before you consider serving me with a subpoena. I wouldn’t make a very good witness at all.” Bullock let the telephone receiver clatter to its cradle. “I have a terrible memory. I couldn’t answer any of your questions. It would make you look foolish in front of the jury.”
“You and Alice were having an affair.”
“I don’t know any Alice and I’m offended by such an accusation. I’m a married man.”
“What were you doing then, picking her up at the library?”
“I never did any such a thing.”
“I have an eyewitness.”
“Your witness must have seen someone else.”
“Christ, who are you kidding?” Bennie rose, her anger sparked, as a security guard burst through the door, a blur of black uniform with a revolver drawn.
“Mr. Bullock?” the guard said, looking around for the terrorist he’d been told to expect and finding only a pissed-off blonde.
Bullock waved a soft hand in Bennie’s direction. “Get this woman out of my office immediately. She’s creating a disturbance.”
Bennie knew when she was licked, if only temporarily. “You were Connolly’s lover for a year. She could get the death penalty.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you care about her at all?” she asked, hating the emotion in her voice, but her question was mooted by the security guard, who propelled her from the office.
Back in her building, Bennie stepped off the freight elevator and ran into Lou Jacobs, the security guard. She put up her hands. “Don’t shoot. I won’t do it again, Officer.”
“I don’t give a damn what you do,” Lou said grimly. He carried a cardboard box that held pictures of his grandchildren and the blue squeeze ball he palmed most of the day. “My days of baby-sittin’ you are over.”
“You going somewhere?”
“Looks that way. I’m retired again.”
“You hate being retired. Why did you quit?”
“I didn’t. I got fired.”
“Fired? Why?”
“Breach of company policy. Step aside, please. I got freight.”
Bennie felt stricken. “They fired you because of me?”
“Forget about it. Move over.” Lou edged past her and walked into the elevator cab, draped in blue quilting. He hit the DOWN button, but Bennie held the elevator door.
“But what are you gonna do?”
“I told you. Retire. Take the boat out. Go diving. Ride my bike. Fish.”
“Fish?”
“You know, those things that swim in water.”
“You won’t get another job?”
“It’ll take time. Not many jobs for men my age, even as good-lookin’ as I am. Now step aside,” Lou said, but Bennie didn’t see it that way.
“Lou, I need an investigator. You want the job?”
“You’re kidding.” He smiled dryly.
“No. Not at all.” Bennie nodded toward the entrance where reporters thronged. “You see what I’m dealing with. I need you.”
“On Della Porta? Forget it, he was a cop. Besides, it ain’t like you and me get along.” Lou hit the DOWN button, but Bennie kept a strong hand on the elevator door.
“It ain’t like you and me are getting married.”
“I don’t need your charity.”
“I’ll work your ass off.”
The elevator beeped loudly, and Lou winced. “I’ll think about it. Don’t take it personal.”
“You want it, it’s there. Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock in my office. I’ll match your salary.”
Beep. Lou frowned. “It’s all women up there, isn’t it?”
“Only if you’re all man,” Bennie told him, as the elevator doors closed.
26
Mary remembered Joy Newcomb as aloof and reserved at law school, which was the last time Mary had seen her. At school, Joy had always worn her dark brown hair back in the same low ponytail and dressed in pressed jeans with white turtlenecks and Fair Isle sweaters, authentically threadbare in the elbows. Joy had gone to Harvard undergrad and was therefore, in Mary’s thinking, automatically smart. Mary felt that almost everyone else in her law school class was automatically smart, and never doubted that Joy Newcomb would make partner, again automatically, in any top-tier firm in the country. So Mary was doubly surprised when she tracked Joy to here.
“So, you just quit?” Mary asked, astonished as she strode beside Joy, who led a white pony named Frosty. Atop the pony perched a little boy who was about four years old, with densely black bangs. His thick glasses were slightly crooked under a black riding helmet and he clutched a spray of coarse white mane with a small fist as he bumped along. The four of them — pony, boy, and two lawyers — walked around in circles in a riding ring in an unassuming cinderblock arena. “You quit law?” Mary repeated.
“Yes, I quit. I’m allowed, aren’t I?” Joy smiled. Her hair swung free and her expression was more relaxed than Mary remembered, though her clothes remained the same. White turtleneck and jeans, but no crease ironed down the middle.
“Why did you quit? You were so … good at
it.”
“You know how being a lawyer is. It was too many hours, too much stress, and too little fun. Clients want everything yesterday, the world hates you, and you can’t please anyone. So I just quit.”
Quitting. The thought made Mary dizzy, but it could have been the walking in circles. She thought about quitting every day, but had never met anyone who had actually done it. “How did you do it?”
“I wrote a memo and said, ‘I resign. Take my federal rules and shove it.’ Now I do this, which I love.” Joy led the pony to the left by a pink nylon halter. Sunlight streamed through the open window, catching her hair and setting it aglow. The air was fresh and clean and swallows chirped from a tall oak outside the window. They were in the horse country of Chester County and the only other sound was the steady clump clump clump of the pony’s hooves on the soft footing. “It’s not that hard to quit. You just have to take a risk.”
“Did you have this job before you quit?”
“No, but I’d been riding since I was little. I knew I could teach it. To teach these kids, you have to learn all over again, though. It’s not the same.” Joy coaxed the pony to a cartoon-red mailbox set improbably beside the ring and patted the little boy’s leg. “Go for it, Bobby!” she said, and the boy bent over, opened the mailbox, and extracted a beanbag. He giggled and held it up in triumph, though he said nothing. “Good for you!” Joy told him. “Now put it back, just like yesterday, remember?”
The child bit his lip while he held the pony’s mane, squeezed his legs into the sheepskin saddle pad for balance, and thrust the bag back into the mailbox. Then he flipped the lid closed. Joy gave him a hug, which went unreturned. “You’re the best, you know that?” she said, though the boy didn’t answer. When Joy turned around, her face was flushed with happiness. “Yesterday he couldn’t do that. Today he can.”
“Congratulations.”
Mistaken Identity Page 13
