“Hey, look out!” groused one of the passengers as Judy squeezed in the cab and the elevator doors closed behind her. “What you think you’re doin’, steppin’ on my foot?”
“Sorry.” Judy looked past the passenger to the blond cop, who kept his gaze averted. She still couldn’t read his nameplate; it was blocked. “Officer, I do need to speak with you,” she said, but he ignored her. The passengers looked at her like she was crazy, since she had already established that she was ill-mannered. “Meet you in the lobby, Officer.”
The elevator doors opened behind her and the crowd in the cab pressed forward, flowing around Judy like a river. The blond cop brushed past her, but she fell into step beside him and glanced at his nameplate. LENIHAN.
“Is there a reason you’re avoiding me, Officer Lenihan?” Judy asked, practically running to keep pace. “Why were you in the courtroom today?” The cop plowed through the courthouse lobby, passed the line at the metal detector, and shoved the courthouse door open. “What possible interest do you have in the Connolly case, Officer Lenihan?” Judy called out, brash as a reporter, but he charged ahead.
It was raining outside the Criminal Justice Center, a full-fledged summer thunderstorm, and people crowded for shelter under the entrance in front of the courthouse, talking and smoking until the rain broke. Frail beech trees in aluminum cylinders rustled in the downpour, and people opened umbrellas like new blossoms. A group of lawyers scurried into the rain, and Lenihan bolted between them and across Filbert, heedless of the storm.
Judy dashed after him, beginning to anger. She spent her waking hours asking questions people didn’t answer. “Officer Lenihan, stop!”
Lenihan picked up the pace. Heavy droplets pounded on his hat and epaulets, turning them a darker blue in quarter-sized spots.
Judy sprinted to catch up with him, blinking raindrops from her eyes. Her shoulders were getting drenched. “You can’t run away from this, Lenihan,” she shouted, as she dogged his thick, black heels. They passed an empty office building in a controlled run, its granite facade slick in the storm. The crowd wasn’t so thick here, though one old woman peered at them from under a pink ruffled umbrella. “I have your name and badge number!” Judy yelled after the cop. “We’ll subpoena you, Officer Lenihan! We’ll ask you on the stand!”
The cop whirled around suddenly, his handsome face red with anger. “Did you threaten me?” he said through clenched teeth. “I thought I heard you threaten me.”
Judy stepped back in the downpour, feeling a sudden chill she knew wasn’t the rain. “What do you know about Della Porta’s murder? What are you hiding?”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” the cop demanded, his eyes flashing under the wet brim of his hat, but Judy stood her ground. Stance was her specialty.
“What do you know about Della Porta’s dealing drugs? Do you have information for us? Talk to me now and we can make a deal.”
“Don’t mess where you don’t belong,” the cop whispered, leaning close. Then he turned and hurried into the lunchtime throng of bobbing umbrellas, their bright colors a cheery counterpoint to a conversation that left Judy shaking.
What the hell had that been about? What did he mean? Rain soaked Judy’s smock, and she bounded back to the courthouse, clip-clopping in her clogs like a spooked colt.
60
There wasn’t time to go back to the office during the lunch recess, so the defense team staked out a war room in a courthouse conference room, a sterile white cubicle off the courtroom. Light from a fluorescent panel filled the tiny room, which felt crowded with only four chrome chairs with tan wicker backs encircling a round table of fake wood. At the moment, the table was cluttered with deli sandwiches, pungent canoes of kosher dills, and copies of the police activity sheets. Bennie was making notes and wolfing down a tuna fish on rye when Carrier burst in and told her what had happened.
“You did
“Not really.” Judy wiped damp bangs from her forehead. “If you don’t count the subpoena part.”
“That counts,” Mary told her, from behind an unfinished tossed salad. She wore a paper napkin bib over a black linen suit and her hair was pulled back into a businesslike twist. “Subpoenas count, definitely.”
Bennie frowned. “You were supposed to find out his name, that’s all. Lenihan. Good work. I didn’t want you to talk to him, much less threaten him.”
“He threatened me back, and he’s a cop.”
“Carrier, if Lenihan was involved in the drug business, he’ll be panicking. Your threat could flush him out, make him do something dangerous.” Bennie had told the associates about the money under the floorboards, but hadn’t told them she was being followed by the black TransAm, to protect them. “From now on, do what I say. No more and no less.”
Judy stiffened at the rebuke, and Mary looked down at her salad.
Bennie regretted her sharpness and tried to explain. “The cops are keeping an eye on us, to see how close we’re getting. If Lenihan heard the cross of McShea, he’ll think we’re a lot closer than we are. That’s good. I’d like the rats to run scared and see what they do. It’ll give me more leads to follow. But I want to do it, not you. Or DiNunzio.”
Judy sat down, mollified. “You think Lenihan took the money?”
“Probably. I don’t know why he’s not halfway around the world by now.”
“The bonehead factor?” Judy offered, and Mary shrugged.
“Maybe he just can’t imagine leaving Philadelphia.”
Bennie shook her head. “Or maybe there’s more where that came from. In any event, I’ll call Lou and turn Lenihan over to him. Let’s us handle the lawyering and Lou handle the investigation, okay?”
“Fair enough,” Judy said, unwrapping her sandwich. A roast beef special, with extra Russian spilling out the sides. “Got it. Kill the body, the head will die.”
“What?” Bennie asked.
“It’s a boxing expression. Mr. Gaines, my coach, taught it to me. It means, you don’t have to go for the head, for the knockout. If you keep whaling away at the body, you’ll win the fight. Same thing here. If we keep pounding on the bottom of this conspiracy, the top will come tumbling down.”
“You’re taking boxing lessons?”
“For the case.”
Bennie’s face fell. “Well, quit. Leave the punching to me, child. It’s not a game, and it’s not lessons.” She stood up. “I have to go. We’re on in ten minutes, and I have a date with the devil.”
“Hilliard?” Judy asked, but Mary knew who she meant.
Bennie met Connolly as she sat handcuffed in her royal-blue suit on her side of the courthouse interview room. It was cleaner and more modern than the interview room at the prison, but a variation on the same theme: two white plastic chairs on either side of a white counter, and a shield of bulletproof glass that separated client from lawyer.
“I have one question for you,” Bennie said, and Connolly scowled. Her skin looked pallid without makeup, or maybe because Bennie wasn’t used to the new blond color that seemed to wash out her features, close-up. In any event, the strain of the morning was plain on Connolly’s face.
“I don’t give a shit about your question. I’ve been trying to meet with you all lunch,” she spat out. “Didn’t you get my note? I gave it to the fucking deputy.”
“I got your note.” Bennie folded her arms and stood beside the empty chair on her side of the glass. “You know a cop named Lenihan? A blond guy, young.”
“No. I wanted to talk to you about-”
“Lenihan wasn’t in your drug business?”
