Synopsis:
Accused of murder, Alice Connolly wants crack trial lawyer Bennie Rosato to represent her. Bennie refuses the case, until the incarcerated woman claims to be her long-lost twin sister. Disbelieving but somehow convinced, Bennie agrees, only to discover corruption and cover-up.
Mistaken Identity
Lisa Scottoline
For J., new-found,
and for Peter and Kiki, as always
BOOK ONE
Doctor of Medicine: What is truth?
Doctor of Law: Whatever can be proved by two witnesses.
— August Strindberg, A Dream Play
1
Bennie Rosato shuddered when she caught sight of the place. The building stretched three blocks long and stood eight stories tall. It lacked conventional windows; instead, slits of bulletproof glass scored its brick façade. Spiked guard towers anchored its corners and a double row of cyclone fencing topped with razor wire encircled its perimeter, attesting to its maximum security status. Exiled to the industrial outskirts of the city, Philadelphia’s Central Corrections housed murderers, sociopaths, and rapists. At least when they weren’t on parole.
Bennie pulled into a parking space in the half-empty visitors’ lot, climbed out of her Ford Expedition, and walked down the sidewalk in June’s humidity, wrestling with her reluctance. She’d stopped practicing criminal law and had promised herself she’d never see the prison again until the telephone call from a woman inmate who was awaiting trial. The woman had been charged with the shooting murder of her boyfriend, a detective with the Philadelphia police, but claimed a group of uniforms had framed her. Bennie specialized in prosecuting police misconduct, so she’d slid a fresh legal pad into her briefcase and had driven up to interview the inmate.
THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE read a metal plaque over the door, and Bennie managed not to laugh. The prison had been designed with the belief that vocational training would convert heroin dealers to keypunch operators and since nobody had any better ideas, still operated on the assumption. Bennie opened the heavy gray door, an inexplicably large dent buckling its middle, and went inside. She was immediately assaulted by stifling air, thick with sweat, disinfectant, and a cacophony of rapid-fire Spanish, street English, and languages Bennie didn’t recognize. Whenever she entered the prison, Bennie felt as if she were walking into another world, and the sight evoked in her a familiar dismay.
The waiting room, packed with inmates’ families, looked more like day care than prison. Infants in arms rattled plastic keys in primary colors, babies crawled from lap to lap, and a toddler practiced his first steps in the aisle, grabbing a plastic sandal for support as he staggered past. Bennie knew the statistics: nationwide, seventy-five percent of women inmates are mothers. The average prison term for a woman lasts a childhood. No matter whether Bennie’s clients had been brought here by circumstance or corruption, she could never forget that their children were the ultimate victims, ignored at our peril. She couldn’t fix it no matter how hard she’d tried and she couldn’t stop trying, so she had finally turned away.
Bennie suppressed the thought and threaded her way to the front desk while the crowd socialized. Two older women, one white and one black, exchanged recipes written on index cards. Hispanic and white teenagers huddled together, a bouquet of backward baseball caps laughing over photos of a trip to Hershey Park. Two Vietnamese boys shared the sports section with a white kid across the aisle. Unless prison procedures had changed, these families would be the Monday group, visiting inmates with last names A through F, and over time they’d become friends. Bennie used to think their friendliness a form of denial until she realized it was profoundly human, like the camaraderie she’d experienced in hospital waiting rooms, in the worst circumstances.
The guards at the front desk, a woman and a man, were on the telephone. Female and male guards worked at the prison because both sexes were incarcerated here, in separate wings. Behind the desk was a panel of smoked glass that looked opaque but concealed the prison’s large, modern control center. Security monitors glowed faintly through the glass, their chalky gray screens ever-changing. A profile moved in front of a lighted screen like a storm cloud in front of the moon.
Bennie waited patiently for a guard, which cut against her grain. She questioned authority for a living, but she had learned not to challenge prison guards. They performed daily under conditions at least as threatening as those facing cops, but were acutely aware they earned less and weren’t the subject of any cool TV shows. No kid grew up wanting to be a prison guard.
While Bennie waited, a little boy with bells on his shoelaces toddled over and stared up at her. She was used to the reaction even though she wasn’t conventionally pretty; Bennie stood six feet tall, strong and sturdy. Her broad shoulders were emphasized by the padding of her yellow linen suit, and wavy hair the color of pale honey spilled loose to her back. Her features were more honest than beautiful, but big blondes caught the eye, approving or no. Bennie smiled at the child to show she wasn’t a banana.
“You an attorney?” asked the female guard, hanging up the phone. She was an African-American woman in a jet-black uniform and pinned to her heavy breast had been a badge of gold electroplate. The guard’s hair had been combed back into a tiny bun from which stiff hairs sprung like a pinwheel, and her short sleeves were rolled up, macho style.
“Yeah, I’m a lawyer,” Bennie answered. “I used to have an ID card but I’ll be damned if I can find it.”
“I’ll look it up. Gimme your driver’s license. Fill out the request slip. Sign the OV book for official visitors,” the guard said on autopilot, and pushed a yellow clip ID across the counter.
Bennie produced her license, scribbled a request slip, and signed the log book. “I’m here to see Alice Connolly. Unit D, Cell 53.”
“What’s in the briefcase?”
“Legal papers.”
“Put your purse in the lockers. No cell phones, cameras, or recording devices. Take a seat. We’ll call you when they bring her down to the interview room.”
“Thanks.” Bennie hunted for a chair and spotted one in front of the closed window for the cashier and clothing exchange. The families had left the seat vacant because it was the equivalent of a table by the front door in a busy restaurant; when it opened, the exchange would be mobbed with families dropping off personal items, such as plastic rosaries the inmates liked to wear and do-rags necessary for gang identification. And the inmates always welcomed extra cash; for what, Bennie didn’t want to speculate. She wedged into the seat next to a stocky grandmother, who smiled when she spotted Bennie’s briefcase. A prison waiting room is the only place where a lawyer is a welcome sight.
“You’re up, Rosato,” called the guard.
Bennie rose and went through the metal detector to the other side of the front desk. She set her briefcase down on the gritty tile floor and raised her arms while the female guard ran a professionally intrusive hand down her arms and sides. “Tell me I’m the only one,” Bennie said, and the guard half smiled.
“Go on up, girl.”
“Fine, but next time I expect dinner.” Bennie picked up her briefcase as a male guard unlocked another gray metal door, double-thick. Attorneys signed a “no-hostage waiver” to get an initial ID; a misnomer, it meant that their release would not be negotiated if they were taken hostage. Once she passed through the door, Bennie would be locked in with a general population of violent inmates packing knives, straight-edge razors, garrotes, shanks, forks twisted into spikes, and possibly a blowtorch or two. Bennie’s only weapons were a canvas briefcase and a Bic ballpoint. Anybody who believes the pen is mightier than the sword hasn’t been inside a maximum security prison.
Bennie crossed the threshold with a
nonchalance that fooled no one and walked down a narrow gray corridor, as stifling as the waiting room but mercifully quiet. The only sounds were echoes of faraway shouting and the clatter of her pumps down the hall. She hit a battered button and rode the empty cab to the third floor. On the landing was a smoked glass window that obscured the guard sitting behind, who accepted the request slip Bennie passed through a slot. “Room 34,” said the guard’s muffled voice, and the door to Bennie’s right unlocked with a mechanical ca-thunk and opened a crack.
She walked through the door to another gray corridor, this one with a set of doors on the left, each leading to a gray cubicle. Inmates entered the cubicles from doors off a secured hallway on the other side, and all the doors locked automatically when they closed. Each cubicle, about four feet by six, contained two chairs facing each other and a beige wall phone for calling the guard. Only a Formica counter divided felon from lawyer. Though it had never bothered Bennie before, it felt oddly inadequate today. She walked to the end of the corridor, opened the door to Room 34, and did a double take when she saw the inmate.
“Are you Alice Connolly?” Bennie asked.
“Yes,” the inmate answered with a cocky smile. “Surprised?”
Bennie eyed the prisoner up and down, her gaze ending its bewildered journey at Connolly’s face. The inmate looked like a prettier, albeit streetwise, version of Bennie herself, though her hair was a brassy, fraudulent red and had been scissored into crude layers. She had Bennie’s broad cheekbones and full lips, but wore enough makeup to enhance those features. She looked as tall as Bennie, but was model-thin, so her orange jumpsuit seemed almost fashionably baggy. Her eyes — round, blue, and wide-set — matched Bennie’s exactly, rendering the lawyer momentarily speechless.
Connolly extended a hand over the counter. “Pleased to meet you. I’m your twin,” she said.
2
Bennie stared at the inmate in disbelief. Her twin? “My twin? Is this a joke?”
“No, not at all,” Connolly said. She let her hand fall unshaken to her side and spread her palms. “Look at me. We’re identical twins.”
Bennie shook her head slowly. It wasn’t possible. Despite the similarity in their features, there was a chill to the inmate’s affect that Bennie had never seen in a mirror. It made the comparison between them that of a cadaver to a living person. “We may look alike, but we’re not twins.”
“You’re just surprised. I know, I was, too. But it’s true.”
“It can’t be.” Bennie couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She kept shaking her head. Her own eyes looked back at her from the prisoner’s face. “You didn’t say anything about this when you called, Connolly. You said you needed a new lawyer.”
“I didn’t want to tell you over the phone, you wouldn’t have come. You’d have thought I was nuts.”
“You are.”
“You didn’t know about me, huh? I didn’t know about you either, until the other day.” Connolly sat down on the other side of the counter and gestured to the chair opposite her. “Better sit, you look kind of pale. It’s strange, finding out you have a twin. I know, I just went through it.”
“This is crazy. I don’t have a twin.” Bennie sank into the plastic seat on her side of the counter, slowly regaining her emotional footing. At almost forty, Benedetta “Bennie” Rosato was the only child of an ailing mother and a father she’d never met. She didn’t have a twin, she had a law firm. Plus a young boyfriend and a golden retriever. “I don’t have a twin,” Bennie repeated, with confidence.
“Yes, you do. Give it time. It’ll sink in. Look, we’re built the same. I’m six feet tall, and I can see you are, too. I weigh a hundred and forty-five pounds. You’re heavier, but not by that much, right?”
“I’m heavier. Leave it alone.”
“You’re kind of muscular. Do you work out?”
“I row.”
“Row boats?” Connolly appraised Bennie with a critical eye. “It’s built up your shoulders too much. You know, you should lose some weight, do something with yourself. You have a pretty face but you don’t wear enough makeup. Your hair needs a cut and some color. I got a friend on the outside could shape it up for you. Make you look hot. You want my color?”
“No, thanks,” Bennie said, taken aback.
“Look, it’s weird for me, too, seeing you. Trippy. Somebody who looks like me, without makeup. You’re another me.”
“I’m not another you,” Bennie shot back reflexively. The very thought. An inmate, maybe a murderer. “We’re not twins just because we look a little alike. Lots of people look alike. People tell me all the time, ‘I know someone who looks exactly like you.’ ”
“This isn’t that. Look at my face. Don’t you believe your own eyes?”
“Not necessarily. I’m a trial lawyer, the last thing I believe in is appearances. Besides, I know who I am.”
“You only know half the story. I’m the other half. Listen. I even sound like you. My voice.” Connolly spoke quickly and her tone was direct, a vague echo of the lawyer’s tone and cadence.
“You could be doing that on purpose.”
“You mean, fake it? Why would I do that?”
“To get me to take your case.”
“You think I’m lying to you?” Pain creased Connolly’s brow, and because it looked so much like Bennie’s own, it made the lawyer regret her words, if not her thoughts.
“What else can I think?” Bennie said, defensive. “I mean, something’s wrong here. I don’t have a twin. There’s just me, there always has been, my whole life. That’s it.”
Connolly cocked her head. “My birthday is July 7, 1962, same as yours. How could I fake that?”
“My birthday? You could find that out anywhere. It’s listed in my alumni directory, Martindale-Hubbell, Who’s Who of American Lawyers, a hundred places.”
“We were born in Pennsylvania Hospital.”
“Most of Philadelphia was born at Pennsylvania Hospital.”
Connolly’s blue eyes narrowed. “You were born first, at nine in the morning. I was born fifteen minutes later. You weighed ten pounds at birth. How would I know that, huh?”
Bennie paused. It was true. She was born at 9:00 A.M. She used to think, just in time for work. Had she mentioned that ever, in an interview? “You could find that out. I’m sure birth records are public.”
“Not the time of your birth, what you weighed. That’s not public.”
“It’s the information age, everything’s public. Or maybe it was a lucky guess. Christ, you can look at me and guess I weighed ten pounds at birth. I’m an Amazon.”
“Okay, how about this?” Connolly leaned forward on slim but sturdy arms. “Our mother is Carmella Rosato and our father is William Winslow.”
Bennie’s mouth went dry. It was her mother and father. Her father’s name hadn’t been published anywhere. “How did you know that?”
“It’s the truth. Our father took off before we were born. Carmella gave up her second-born twin. Me.” Bitterness puckered Connolly’s lovely cheeks, but Bennie noted she was avoiding the question.
“I asked you, how do you know my father’s name?”
“Bill and I are friends. Good friends.”
“Bill? You’re good friends with my father?”
“Yes. He’s a very nice man. A caretaker. You didn’t know that, did you? Bill told me he never met you and that Carmella was too sick to visit. What’s the matter with her, with our mother? Bill won’t talk about it, like it’s a secret.”
Our mother? Bennie shook her head in confusion. She couldn’t understand how Connolly knew about her father. Her mother had hated the man who hadn’t stayed long enough to marry her, and as Bennie had grown to adulthood, her father had simply become irrelevant, a footnote to a busy life. “None of this makes sense.”
“Hear me out,” Connolly said, holding up a hand. “You need some background. I was the sick twin, you know, from before we were born. We had something called ‘twin transfu
sion syndrome.’ That means the twins share one placenta and the blood meant for one twin goes to nourish the other. When we were on the inside, my blood went to nourish you. I weighed four pounds at birth. Most of those babies died, especially in those days. Bill said they can’t even find my birth certificate.”
“Oh, come on,” Bennie said, suddenly annoyed. “I took your blood? What a bunch of crap.”
“It’s the truth, all of it, every word. Bill told me when he visited.”
“Are you saying that my father visits you? In prison?”
“Sure. Comes in his flannel shirt, no matter how hot it is, and his little tweed coat. Said he was looking out for me. That was when he told me you were my twin. He told me to call you. He said you’re the only lawyer who could win my case, that nobody knows more about the Philly cops than you.”
“Gotcha there, Connolly. My father has no idea what I do. He doesn’t know me at all.”
“Oh no? He follows your career. He has your clippings.”
Bennie paused. “Clippings, you mean from the newspaper?”
“You know, I couldn’t wait to meet you when I found out about us. I have so many questions. Do you remember anything, like, from the inside?” Connolly edged forward on the counter, but Bennie leaned away.
“Inside?”
“I do. I have memories of you, like a ghost. A phantom, but close to me. They have to be from the inside, it’s the only time we were together. When I was little, I always felt lonely. Like a piece of me was missing. I always hated being alone. Still do. Then Bill told me about you and it all made sense. Now, tell me about our mother. What’s the matter with her? Why doesn’t anybody want to talk about her?”
“I have to go,” Bennie said, rising finally. The inmate was a con artist or delusional. The police conspiracy was paranoia. Some clients weren’t worth the trouble, no matter how intriguing the case. She reached for her briefcase. “I’m sorry, I wish you the best.”