Mistaken Identity

them?”

“No idea.”

Bennie grew only more determined. “Why does the judge want me disabled on this case? Do you know?”

“So I’ll get railroaded.”

“Why? How’s he connected to this conspiracy?”

“I don’t know how, I told you.”

“What about the D.A., Hilliard? What about him?”

“I don’t know what the connection is, I said.”

“You don’t know anything that can help us out?”

“Us? I’m touched.”

“Us is me and my associates.”

Connolly laughed. “Can’t help you, girlie. It’s your show.”

“Show’s over. See you in court.” Bennie reached for the doorknob and walked out. But it wasn’t as easy to turn away as it should have been.

Bennie left Connolly upset and walked into the courthouse conference room while DiNunzio and Carrier finished eating. The associates were seated in the same chairs as at the last break, like a family at a dinner table. Mary was having her customary Greek salad, and the crust of an impossibly large sandwich lay in waxed paper in front of Judy. The scene almost managed to soothe Bennie’s spirit.

“We got you some chicken soup,” Judy said, pushing a plastic container across the table. Her eyes were bright, her hair shiny, and her large frame jittery with energy in a loose-fitting navy smock. “Mary thought you could use it, for medicinal purposes.”

“I’m fine.”

“Nobody’s fine after a night like last night.”

Bennie slipped into her seat and didn’t move to uncap the soup container. “How’d we do with Lambertsen?”

“Awesome.”

“That a term of art? How’d the jury take it?”

“They got it, I think.”

“Good. You guys figured out the next witness? Another neighbor, to shore up Lambertsen? What are their names?” Bennie struggled to remember, but Mary jumped in.

“There’s Ray Munoz, Mary Vidas, and Ryan Murray,” she said, her answer firm. “Also a Frederick Sharp. All of them saw Connolly running by that night.”

Bennie nodded, pleased. “Good for you, DiNunzio.”

“I studied,” Mary said with a wry smile. “Munoz is the main neighbor we have to worry about. But something tells me Hilliard won’t put up another neighbor after Lambertsen.”

“I agree,” Judy said. “Hilliard just put up a girl and got killed. Babies, pacifiers, neighbors-it’s girl testimony. Also, he doesn’t have anybody to address the time issue. He needs something objective, harder to impeach. Boy testimony.”

Bennie thought it was an odd way of looking at the world. “So who is it? The coroner? A blood expert?”

“That’s my bet. Can you handle it? You feel okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bennie said, but she had hardly finished the sentence when Mary began clearing her throat, loudly.

“I could take a witness,” the associate said. “If you want.”

Judy’s mouth dropped open. “Mare?”

“You would?” Bennie asked with a smile.

Mary nodded. “I could try. I’m good on boy stuff, whatever that means. Math, science, bicycles with bars down the middle. I think I could do it.”

Bennie shook her head. “Before last night, I would have let you, but not now. I don’t want you on the firing line.” A soft knock sounded on the conference room door, and Bennie looked over. “We expecting anybody?”

“Mike and Ike?” Mary offered.

“Ooh, I feel safer already,” Judy said. “Big, strong men protecting me.”

Mary smiled. “They’re gay, you know. Ike told me.”

“For real?” Judy asked.

“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”

Judy laughed. “What did you say? You never say things like that.”

“Sometimes I do.”

Bennie was opening the door onto a short, elderly couple, standing close enough to each other to be huddling against a blizzard. They smelled faintly of mothballs in their cloth coats and looked vaguely familiar. “I’m sorry, this is the attorney’s conference room,” Bennie told them.

“I can read English!” the old woman snapped, though an Italian accent flavored her words. She glared through thick glasses that magnified milky brown eyes. “We come to make sure our daughter is safe!”

“Oh, no,” came a loud moan from the conference room, and Bennie turned to see DiNunzio leaping to her pumps.

Lou flipped up the collar of his dark-blue windbreaker and kept his head down against the drizzle. The sidewalk was wet and raindrops dotted the pebbled surface. Soggy trash clumped in the gutter, blocking the sewer. Lou couldn’t remember the last time it had been sunny in this goddamn city. Maybe the last time somebody had cleaned up South Philly. He was in a foul, foul mood. Investigating one of his own. A killer.

Lou shook his head, jingling the change in his pockets. He’d told Rosato last night he’d follow up on Lenihan, and he had started as soon as he got home, making phone calls. Lenihan was in the Eleventh, and Lou used to have buddies in the Eleventh. One of his buddies had died, prostate cancer, and the other, Carlos, had moved to Tempe, Arizona. For the air, Carlos had said, when Lou called him long-distance last night.

What, we don’t have air in Philly? Lou said.

Lou and Carlos shot the shit awhile, dime a minute, and it turned out Carlos’s kid joined the force, also the Eleventh. Maybe the kid could give him the skinny about Lenihan and drug dealing. Lou had asked Carlos to set it up, and Carlos had said yes. Lou lowered his head and watched unhappily as rain pelted his leather loafers, making a wavy water line around the edge of the toe. Shit. The back of his collar felt clammy. He tried to shake off the drops, but couldn’t. It wasn’t the rain bothering him anyway.

It was Rosato. She’d almost got whacked right under his nose. He hadn’t seen it coming. What was the matter with him? He was a cop, for Christ’s sake. Maybe he really was getting old.

Lou reached the corner and looked down the street, blinking against the drizzle. A patrol car was coming on, a half block away, probably on its way to the precinct house. The car looked like a new one with a factory-fresh white paint job. Red, white, and blue lights shiny on the roof, like the flag.

Lou jogged across the street, trying to jump the gutter and falling short. Christ. He was getting old. He remembered the first time he got into a squad car, he twisted the wheel back and forth like a kid. But what he felt like was a man. Responsible. Not just for himself, for his wife and family, but for everyone. To protect and to serve. It had meant a lot to Lou.

The drizzle came heavier, and Lou picked up the pace. A bank of rowhouses lined the cross street, then a corner bakery. Nobody was inside the bakery, but its shelves were full. Old glass display cases heaped with butter cookies that were covered by pink cellophane hay. Trays of soft pinwheel cookies with sticky red jam in the middle. Lou shook his head, hurrying by. All those old-time bakeries would be gone soon. Everybody wanted everything new nowadays. Good-bye, little white boxes tied with string.

Lou spotted the precinct house straight ahead, on the left. You’d never know it was a police station from the outside. The sign was small and the yellow brick poorly maintained for a municipal building. Steel cages covered the windows and the flag was at half-mast. It was because of Lenihan, though the kid wouldn’t be getting the hero treatment. The Department would want the whole thing to blow over, and so would the mayor.

Lou got closer. Squad cars were piled like goddamn cookies around the place. Never enough parking around any precinct house; never enough cops, never enough cars. Nobody could keep up with the scumbags, the drugs