Mistaken Identity

her. “Shetrell, that’s enough,” Dexter shouted. “Don’t be bossin’ everybody around, now.”

Shetrell slunk low in her chair. She couldn’t get another write-up, she’d end up in the hole.

“Hmph,” Taniece said, like a church lady, and Shetrell glared at Leonia, who nodded.

Shetrell had to think of something. Her eyes rested on her tray, then she spotted somethin’ move on the floor under the table, between everybody’s sneakers. A cockroach, a big fat brown mother, struttin’. She watched the roach hustle along the linoleum and stop at the table leg. Tryin’ to decide what to do. Whether to come up or not.

Come on, baby, Shetrell was thinking. Come to Mama. She snagged a piece of bread from her tray and let her hand drop to her side, easy so it didn’t look like nothin’ was goin’ on. Maybe the roach would get the smell. Come on, sugar. Mama gonna take care of you. Shetrell watched the roach try to make up its little roach mind. He stopped like a married man, right at the edge. Couldn’t go no further. Come on, baby.

The roach didn’t even have to think twice. It skittered up the table leg, and Shetrell dipped her shoulder, snatched it off, and closed it in her hand. She waited until Taniece turned away, then dropped the roach in the bitch’s strawberry yogurt.

“Shit! Shit!” Taniece shouted when she spotted a dark bulge moving on her plate. “There’s somethin’ in my food! A mouse! A rat! Shit!” She jumped up and shrieked like she was in a horror movie, and Shetrell woulda laughed her ass off if she hadn’t been so worried about gettin’ the shank to Leonia.

“A rat! A rat in the food! There’s a rat in my food!” Taniece yelled. Her chair fell over, then she stumbled backward and fell on top of it, while Breanna, next to her, leapt away from her tray, knocking into another girl. Shetrell watched everybody jump outta their seats. The white trash shook like they saw a steady job.

“Relax, relax, I’m on it,” Dexter the Pecker said, runnin’ over like Wesley Snipes to save the day.

Taniece was doin’ the freak. “It’s a rat, I saw it, it’s a rat! It’s in my motherfuckin’ yogurt!” she said, grabbing Dexter’s arm. “I was eatin’ that shit!”

Pussy, Shetrell thought. Get over yourself.

“Calm down, everybody, calm down,” Dexter said, but nobody was listening. “It’s just a roach, it’s not a rat.” He didn’t call any other guards, which was just fine with Shetrell. She edged back from the crowd, pretending to be afraid, and saw Leonia backing up, too, meeting her from the other direction. Now was her chance.

Shetrell bumped her way backward, slipped her hand into the elastic of her pants, and slid the shank out. Leonia stood next to Shetrell, grabbed the knife, and acted like she was falling down. Shetrell couldn’t see it, but she figured Leonia slipped the shank in her sneaker, under her pants leg. The girl was damn good. She used to snatch wallets at The Gallery.

“Did you get it?” Shetrell yelled, like she was callin’ to Dexter about the roach. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Leonia laughin’ and knew she got it, all right.

“It’s just a roach. It’s all taken care of,” Dexter said, holding Taniece’s tray high over the heads of the women, who were just starting to calm down.

“You better get me another lunch, I ain’t eatin’ that shit!” Taniece shouted. “I’m gonna sue this motherfuckin’ place!”

Alice turned in her seat to see what the commotion was all about, barely interested. A mouse in Taniece’s food. What a lovely hotel. She’d be gone in days. But it didn’t leave her much time to take care of Valencia. Alice took a final slug of coffee and crumpled her Styrofoam cup. She gathered her tray, the food unfinished, and walked through the tables to where Valencia was chattering with the other chiquitas. Valencia looked up, and Alice leaned down and whispered in her ear, “I heard something from my lawyer. Meet me after head count tonight. The guard will come to you. Don’t tell anybody or it won’t happen.”

“Than’ you so much,” Valencia said softly.

“You can thank me tonight,” Alice told her.

41

For Bennie the next few hours were a haze of acute pain mixed with the oddly mundane business of burying the dead. Tasks had to be performed, and she performed each one. She selected her mother’s casket, burial plot, and even last dress, of beige chiffon with tan pumps, with a minimum of tears. She found a valuable ally in the funeral director, with his moussed pompadour and professional smoothness, who scheduled her mother’s wake, funeral, and burial in a way that had a pat beginning, middle, and end. In death as in life.

Bennie kept her emotions at bay only because she was so skilled at it. She held tight to Hattie throughout, as much for her own support as for the nurse’s, and stopped only to leave a message.

“Hey,” Bennie said as the associate answered the call. “I guess you heard.”

“Yes, I’m so sorry,” Judy said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Thanks, yes. Draft a letter to Guthrie and tell him what happened. The wake is Friday night, funeral is Saturday, and we’ll need a week postponement of the Connolly trial. If we ask for a week, he’ll probably give us three days. I’ll stop in and sign the letter tonight, then you get it hand-delivered tomorrow.”

“No, I meant, is there anything I can do for you? Not about the case.”

“Do for the case, you’ll be doing for me. Any updates?”

“Yes. Mary talked to her classmate about Guthrie and Burden. She thinks Burden got Guthrie his judgeship, in return for his billings.”

“A costly judgeship. Tell her to follow up and find out where Burden is. They said he was out of the country at the emergency hearing. I want to know if he still is, and where. Like that. That all you got?”

Judy hesitated. “I did find out something you should know.”

“Give me the headline.”

“I think Connolly was selling drugs and using a group of boxers’ wives to do it.”

Bennie leaned against the cheap paneled wall of the lounge. “Is this true? How do you know?”

“I talked to one of the wives today, at the gym.”

“Selling drugs? Connolly?” Bennie let herself slide into one of the brown folding chairs that ringed the room. It was hard to think. “What were you doing at the gym? That wasn’t what I asked you do.”

“I know, I was following a hunch.”

Bennie rubbed her forehead. Was Connolly involved in drug dealing? Was Della Porta? Had Connolly lied to her again? “Do you have proof of this, Carrier, or is it just talk? Did this wife name names?”

“It’s not gossip. There’s a Maria, a Ceilia, I didn’t get last names but I will. Oh, and there’s a Valencia something, who may have sold for Connolly. She’s in prison now for possession. For what it’s worth, the consensus is our client is as guilty as they come.”

“Bennie?” Hattie called out suddenly from the adjoining room. Her voice sounded shaky.

“I have to go, Carrier. Find out where this Valencia is.” Bennie took a breath. “Start at county prison, with Connolly.”

Judy hung up the telephone, her young face falling into grave lines. “Bennie doesn’t sound so good,” she said, and looked across the conference room at Mary, who had just come in from canvassing Connolly’s neighbors with the investigator, Lou.

“Marshall told me,” Mary said, with sympathy. She set her boxy briefcase on the table and wiped sticky bangs from her forehead. “It must be tough, losing your parents.”

“Yeah.” Judy dropped into a swivel chair. “My parents are so healthy. They climb, ride bikes, travel. I always think they’ll live forever.”

“I think my parents will live forever, too, and all they do for exercise is pray.” Mary wanted to change the subject. “We going for an extension?”

“Yes, a week.”

“We need a year to get Connolly off.” Mary rolled out a swivel chair and sat down. “Lou is still out there looking, but we didn’t find any witnesses that would help the defense. Plenty of neighbors saw Connolly run down the street, however. I think she did it, Jude. I think she killed him.”