Dead Ringer

“Sounds like it.” Bennie was trying to be supportive.

“We placed him under for the Chiamel murder. That’s Claude Chiamel, the Belgian banker. He’s suspected of the St. Amien murder, too, but we don’t have enough for that yet. It’s just a matter of time, which is what I told the brother. Georges.” Needleman cocked his head. “How the hell you pronounce that anyway?”

“Just like Curious George. So Johnson is under arrest for the Chiamel murder, but not the St. Amien. He’s only a suspect in St. Amien.”

“Correct. The suspect.”

“What’s the evidence to support the murder charge in Chiamel?”

Needleman shook his head. “I’m not giving that up, Rosato.”

“Don’t be that way, Detective. I just taught you French.”

“Sorry, I told you the same thing I tell the press. You’re not the defense and you’re not the family. End of story.”

Bennie gritted her teeth. “I was with the victim’s son, Julien, when you spoke with his brother. Julien wanted to come down here with me, but I told him to stay home. I didn’t want to put the kid through it. You really want me to bring him? I could call him right now.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You’re right, and maybe I don’t need to. Does Mr. Johnson have a lawyer?”

“He’s waiting on a public defender.”

“What a coincidence! I’m a defense lawyer. Perhaps I should offer my professional services, twenty years’ experience in murder cases. Then I’d be defense counsel, entitled to everything. Should I do that?”

Needleman scoffed. “You want to defend the knucklehead who killed your client?”

“I don’t know that he killed my client. In fact, I highly doubt it. He may have killed the Belgian, but I’m not buying into your tourist-killer theory yet.”

Needleman leaned over. “You are such a pain in the ass.”

“Come on, let’s be friends.” Bennie forced a smile. “So tell me what you have on Ronald Johnson to support the charge in Chiamel.”

“Ample physical evidence.”

“Is that all you’re going to tell me?”

“That’s it.”

Bennie bit her tongue because she had officially quit cursing again. “Fibers, blood, prints? Is it bigger than a breadbox?”

“Ample physical evidence.”

“Do you have ample physical evidence in St. Amien?”

“The tests aren’t back. When the tests come back, I believe we’ll have ample physical evidence against Johnson.”

“If the results go the way you expect. But right now, you have no ample physical evidence linking Johnson to St. Amien.”

“Technically.”

“Technically matters. It’s the difference between the right guy and the wrong guy.”

“He’s the doer, Rosato.” Needleman’s mouth set in a firm little line that Bennie was beginning to think he should patent.

“When will the tests come back?”

“Some of them, day or so.”

Bennie nodded. So that meant they had fibers and maybe a print or two. Stuff they could test here, in the Roundhouse. DNA, as in blood, had to be sent to Maryland for testing, which took weeks. “What’s Mr. Johnson have to say?”

“Nothing. He’s not talking until his lawyer gets here. But I’ll tell you what you’re gonna see on the TV news, only because one of the witnesses went live at five. Johnson bragged to a couple guys in a bar on Juniper that he was on a one-man campaign to ‘clean up America.’ Admitted out loud that he killed Chiamel, and St. Amien, too. Said he was gonna get himself an A-rab next. And he wasn’t even drinking. Three witnesses heard it, and they’re all willing to testify.”

“So you got a tip.”

“Yes.”

Bennie considered it. “Did Johnson give you an alibi on Chiamel or St. Amien before he clammed up?”

“No, he wanted a lawyer from the jump.”

Bennie was trying to keep an open mind. “You really think he’s the doer in both murders?”

“Yes.”

“The MO is the same?”

“Identical.”

“Why don’t you fill me in? Convince me.” Bennie glanced around the room. “Come on, everybody’s too busy to care if we actually get along. Maybe we can help each other. We both want the same thing. You tell me stuff, and I tell you stuff.”

Needleman stepped closer. “Okay, I’ll bite. Here’s the MO. Victim is taken from behind, at the mouth of an alley. Same time of night, same type of vic. Older man, well dressed, foreign, speaks with an accent. Stabbed in the back with a common knife, dragged into an alley, turned over and knifed until subdued. Ten to twelve stab wounds, indicative of rage. Robbed and left for dead.”

Poor Robert. Bennie was so glad she’d talked Julien out of coming. It was tough even for her to hear. Detectives were usually present at autopsies and heard the findings. Needleman was essentially telling her what was in the autopsy report.

“Also, Johnson lives a few blocks from both scenes, in Center City. Twice divorced. Lives with mom, she works at night. You know the profile, the skinhead type. Impulsive, angry, underachiever. Badly socialized, a loner. Can’t hold a job or a marriage. Blames his problems on everybody else. A victim.”

Bennie’s eyes narrowed. “But this killer should be a planner, if your theory is true. He follows tourists around and systematically kills them. He’s cleaning up America. It’s part of a plan.”

“Not that well organized a plan. Opportunistic.”

“So he’s a planner, but a bad one. Like me,” Bennie said, and they both laughed. “Detective, I’m trying to believe, but it just isn’t working, partly because the other possibilities make so much more sense to me. And if you would investigate them, maybe we’d find the aforementioned ample physical evidence. But you’re not looking, and now you think you got your man.” Bennie wanted so badly to persuade him. “What if Johnson didn’t kill St. Amien, only Chiamel? They’re similar victims, you’re right, but they’re still two different men. St. Amien was involved in a very contentious lawsuit, worth millions of dollars, and he was represented by a woman with a very nasty twin.”

Needleman laughed again. “Okay, tell me what you know, Nancy.”

“Brace yourself,” Bennie began, and she filled the detective in on her history with Alice, telling him the details of the night at the river and the break-in at her house. Detective Needleman listened politely, which Bennie regarded as progress. “Well, whaddaya think?” she asked when she had finished.

“I’m trying to believe, but it just doesn’t work for me,” Detective Needleman answered, with a hint of sarcasm.

“Why not? We know my twin is trying to get me.”

“Rosato, if your twin is out to get you, why wouldn’t she just get you? Why kill your client?”

“She’s toying with me, Detective. She’s closing in. By killing someone I care about, who is important to my business, she hurts me. She’s saying, I can take you anytime. Then she makes her move.”

Needleman frowned with genuine concern. “If you think this, you should have security.”

“I do. Thanks. And I’m getting a TRO against her, for what that’s worth. Look, even if it’s not Alice, there are suspects far more likely than some skinhead.” Bennie launched into telling him about Bill Linette and his whereabouts last night, taking him through her interview with the waiter he had missed and about the steak knife and Mort Abrams. “Well?”

“I have to tell you, I listened to you, I really did, but I just think we got the bad guy, right in there.” The