Dead Ringer

knife blade and lay open, exposing his chest to the klieglight, which cruelly illuminated a vivid crimson mass of sopping red blood that had spread from the many cuts. The coroner and his assistants moved expertly around the corpse, returning with the stainless-steel gurney and preparing the body to be transported, but Bennie saw them only as a shadowy blur around the elegant man who lay sprawled on the filthy concrete of the alley. The air suddenly thickened with the stench of the fresh blood, and Bennie couldn’t breathe.

“You okay?” the detective asked, concerned, but she had already turned away, covering her eyes with her hands, almost involuntarily. She was supposed to be professional, but she couldn’t deal with it. The horror of the crime. The very violence of the act, and of Robert’s death. Bennie unaccountably thought of her father and tasted a bile that washed her palate with acid. Not Robert. Robert was a good man. An elegant man.

Bennie felt a steadying hand on her shoulder and heard the harsh sounds of the gurney snapped to its standing position, then the practiced “One, two, three” count as the body was lifted onto it, then the ungreased squeak of the covered wheels as they bumped over the trash in the alley. She could hear the heavy cases being carried off, their stainless-steel instruments jingling inside, and the people shuffling in paper booties around her, out of the alley. The slam-slam of two car doors closing punctuated the night: the coroner’s van, which started its hollow-sounding engine and took off in the next moment. The scene was closing. The police personnel had completed their job; their notes and photos had been taken, scrapings and samples collected. It was over for them, but it was just beginning for Bennie. She took her hands from her eyes and found herself looking at Detective Needleman. He was just the man she wanted to see.

“I want to get whoever did this to him,” Bennie said, in a voice more controlled than she felt. Firm, sure, furious. “I want to help you, in any way I can. I want them brought to justice. I want to know who they are. I want to know what they do. I want to know why they did this, and why Robert was even here in the first place.”

Detective Needleman almost smiled. “You must feel better.”

“I will when I can get those questions answered, and not until.”

“I can answer one of them.”

“Which one?”

“Why he was here,” the detective answered matter-of-factly, and Bennie blinked.

“Why was he here?”

“His brother told me. He was out to dinner, a business dinner, at the Palm.”

“I thought you said he was going to have dinner with the brother.”

“He was, but then he called and canceled. Something had come up at work. I figured he was walking home when he got robbed.”

“Who did he eat with?” Bennie asked, but the detective was already reaching for his back pocket. He extracted the slim steno pad, flipped it open, and ran a finger down the pages, squinting in the klieglight, which made a stocky silhouette of him.

“Here we go. He was going to dinner with another man. Herman Mayer.”

19

It took Bennie a minute to absorb the shock. “Mayer was here with Robert?”

“Not here, at dinner. You know him?”

“Yes, he’s a fellow plaintiff in a class action, a big case. I don’t know why Robert would be eating with Mayer. I can’t believe it.” She was shaking her head. “Was the brother sure?”

“Seemed it.” The detective shifted aside, taking Bennie’s arm, as mobile technicians hustled back and forth for their equipment. “I don’t get it. If they’re fellow plaintiffs, as you say, why wouldn’t they be eating together?”

“It’s a long story.” Bennie didn’t want to explain it now. She wanted information. “Did the brother tell you anything else?”

“No, just that his brother had called late in the day, about five-thirty, and said he’d have to cancel dinner. He was gonna eat with this Mayer.”

“What time was Robert expected?”

“About seven. I went over fast because the TV people got the news off the scanners, and I wanted the notification to come first.”

Bennie couldn’t wrap her mind around it. What the hell was going on? Why would Robert agree to meet with Mayer? Why didn’t he tell her? She’d been at the river, but why didn’t he leave a message? “You didn’t talk to Mayer yet, did you?”

“No way, I had to hurry to do the notification, and I only got that in because they live so close. I gotta go back to the squad room and run down some leads on this and the Belgian case. I’ll call him, too, though I doubt he’ll have much to say.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Bennie said, responding before she even knew what she meant. She didn’t know what was going on, and that meant she didn’t like what was going on. All she understood was that Robert had gone to dinner with Herman Mayer and now he was dead. She tried to clarify her thoughts. “Mayer and Robert weren’t truly on the same side of the lawsuit, at this stage. As a practical matter, these men were enemies. There was a major dispute over who should be lead plaintiff.”

The detective’s eyes were glazing over. She had to get to the point.

“Mayer wanted to be lead plaintiff, and Robert and I were challenging him. In fact, in court today, we had a huge fight and-”

“Watch out,” the detective interrupted, gentling her out of the way. A mobile tech shuffled past them and turned off one klieglight, then unplugged it from a portable generator and carried it out of the alley on his shoulder, like a fishing pole. The detective watched him go. “These people got a job to do. He won’t be the only case tonight.”

“Let me put it this way, Detective. This case was worth seventy million dollars to Mayer, and the lead plaintiff would get the lion’s share. That’s what Mayer was fighting with us over.”

“That’s real money,” Needleman said, guiding her out of the alley, and Bennie fell into step beside him, matching her beat-up Sauconys to his worn loafers.

“Real, real money. You see what I’m saying? I’m saying that there was a lot of money at stake in this case, between these parties.” Bennie knew she was losing him. Crime techs were packing up around them, stowing the remaining equipment into municipal cars and vans. One turned off the leftover klieglight, plunging them all into darkness. The party was officially over. It took a minute for Bennie’s eyes to adjust, and she could barely see the detective’s face in the residual lighting from the storefronts. “You with me, Detective?”

“No,” he said, turning to her. His glasses reflected the windows across the street, obscuring his eyes. “I’m not with you. I see a robbery here, a street crime with an MO very similar to another recent one, and it makes sense to me that it’s the same doer. What are you seeing?”

Bennie swallowed hard. What was she seeing? What was she saying? That she thought Mayer had murdered Robert? Was it possible? But Mayer was a civilized man. A businessman, not a thug. It seemed crazy. Unthinkable. Then she flashed on the scene in the courtroom. Mayer’s anger at Robert. Linette’s anger at them both. And Robert coming up to her after court had adjourned and asking if they had won. She had answered: They want to kill us, don’t they?

Bennie felt suddenly stricken.

“Let’s get outta the way, I’m done here,” the detective said, taking Bennie’s arm. They walked from the alley with Bennie on autopilot and headed toward an old black Crown Vic parked at the curb. Around them uniformed cops dismantled the wooden sawhorses and stacked them on a Parks Department flatbed that had pulled up, rattling and spewing gray exhaust. The crowd was dispersing except for the TV news vans and reporters, whom Detective Needleman kept at bay by waving them off. He opened his car door, turned to Bennie, and put a hand on her shoulder. “Look, you’re upset. Your client just got killed. You’re not thinking clearly, and it’s late.”

Bennie nodded, shaken, but she couldn’t listen. She just couldn’t believe what she’d said to Robert in court. Why had she said it? Had she meant it? Was it possible?

“I know you’re a smart lawyer, and Brinkley thinks the world of you, and that’s enough for me. But this isn’t the