Courting Trouble

“It’s not a contract, Ben,” I advise him. For free.

“I understand that. But he should be the one who moves, not me.” He straightens the knot on his tie, already at tourniquet tension; between the squeeze on his neck and the one on his sphincter, the kid’s twisted shut at both ends like a skinny piece of saltwater taffy. “I have a case being argued.”

“So do I, jizzbag,” Artie says, flipping the page.

I like Artie, but the problem with the Artie Weisses of the world is they have no limits. “Artie, did you tell him you’d save him a seat?”

“Why would I do that? Then I’d have to sit next to him.” He gives Ben the finger behind the tent of newspaper.

I draw the line. “Artie, put your finger away.”

“Ooooh, spank me, Grace. Spank me hard. Pull my wittle pants down and throw me over your gorgeous knees.”

“You couldn’t handle it, big guy.”

“Try me.” He leans over with a broad grin.

“I mean it, Artie. You’re on notice.” He doesn’t know I haven’t had sex since my marriage ended three years ago. Nobody’s in the market for a single mother, even a decent-looking one with improved brown hair, authentic blue eyes, and a body that’s staying the course, at least as we speak.

“Come on, sugar,” Artie says, nuzzling my shoulder. “Live the dream.”

“Cut it out.”

“You read the book, now see the movie.”

I turn toward Ben to avoid laughing; it’s not good to laugh when you’re setting limits. “Ben, you know he’s not going to move. The judges will be out any minute. Go find a seat in the back.”

Ben scans the back row where the courthouse groupies sit; it’s a lineup that includes retired men, the truly lunatic, even the homeless. Ben, looking them over, makes no effort to hide his disdain; you’d think he’d been asked to skinnydip in the Ganges. He turns to me, vaguely desperate. “Let me have your seat, Grace. I’ll take notes for you.”

“No.”

“But my notes are like transcripts. I used to sell them at school.”

“I can take my own notes, thank you.” Ten years as a trial lawyer, I can handle taking notes; taking notes is mostly what I do now as the assistant to the chief judge. I take notes while real lawyers argue, then I go to the library and draft an opinion that real lawyers cite in their next argument. But I’m not complaining. I took this job because it was part-time and I’m not as good a juggler as Joan Lunden, Paula Zahn, and other circus performers.

“How about you, Sarah?” Ben asks the third law clerk, Sarah Whittemore, sitting on my other side. “You don’t have a case this morning. You can sit in the back.”

Fat chance. Sarah smooths a strand of cool blond hair away from her face, revealing a nose so diminutive it’s a wonder she gets any oxygen at all. “Sorry, I need this seat,” she says.

I could have told him that. Sarah wants to represent the downtrodden, not mingle with them.

A paneled door opens near the dais and the court crier, a compact man with a competent air, begins a last-minute check on the microphones at the dais and podium. Ben glances at the back row with dismay. “I can’t sit back there with those people. One of them has a plastic hat on, for God’s sake.”

Artie looks over the top of his paper. “A plastic hat? Where?”

“There.” Ben jerks his thumb toward a bearded man sporting a crinkled cellophane rain bonnet and a black raincoat buttoned to the neck. The man’s collar is flipped up, ready for monsoon season, but it’s not raining in the courtroom today.

“It’s Shake and Bake! He came!” Artie says. His face lights up and he waves at the man with his newspaper. “Go sit with him, Safer, he’s all right.”

“You know that guy, Artie?” I ask, sitting straighter to get a better look. The bearded man grins in a loopy way at the massive gold seal of the United States courts mounted behind the dais, his grubby face tilted to the disk like a black-eyed Susan to the sun.

“Sure. He hangs out at the Y, plays ball with me and Armen. You oughta see his spin move, it’s awesome when he’s not zoned out. I told him to stop by and see the judge on the bench.”

Ben’s dark eyes widen. “You invited that kook to oral argument? How could you do that?”

I don’t say it, but for the first time I agree with Ben. I am becoming a geek, a superannuated geek.

Why shouldn’t he come to court?” Artie says. “It’s a free country. He’s got rights.” He stands up and signals wildly, as ill-mannered as a golden retriever puppy; Artie’s the pick of the litter out of Harvard, where they evidently do not teach common sense.

The lawyers in the first three rows of the courtroom crane their necks at him, and I tug at the rough khaki of his sport coat. “Artie, don’t embarrass me,” I say.

Sarah leans over. “Artie, you’re crazier than he is. Sit down.”

“He’s not crazy,” Artie says, still signaling.

“He’s wearing Saran Wrap,” I point out.

“He always does. It’s Shake and Bake, man. You gotta love it.”

“Fine,” Ben says. “You like him so much, you go sit with him.”

“Don’t mind if I do. Party on, Safer.” Artie claps Ben on the back and walks toward the back row.

“Please rise!” shouts the crier, standing behind a desk at the side of the dais. “The Honorable Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.”

A concealed door to the left of the dais swings open, and the judges parade out, resplendent in their swishing black robes. The federal courts decide appeals in three-judge panels, inviting comparison to the three wise men or the three stooges, depending on whether you win or lose. First comes the Honorable Phillip Galanter, tall, thin, and Aryan, with slack jowls like Ed Meese used to have and blond hair thinning to gray. He’s followed by a wizened senior judge, the Honorable Morris Townsend, shuffling slowly along, and finally the Very Honorable and Terribly Handsome Chief Judge Armen Gregorian, my boss.

“Armen looks good up there, doesn’t he?” Sarah says, crossing her legs under the skirt of her sleek slate-gray suit.

He sure as hell does. Towering over the two of them, Armen grins down at the crowd in an easy way. His complexion is tinged with olive; his oversized teeth remind me of an exotic JFK. There are precious few perks in working for the judicial branch, and a boss who looks like a sultan is one of them. I lean near Sarah’s perfumed neck and whisper, “I got first dibs.”

“In your dreams.”

“But you’re too young for him.”

She smirks. “Too young? Is there such a thing?”

“Bitch.” I elbow her in the ovary.

“Oyez! Oyez!” calls the crier. “All persons having business with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for this court is now in session. God save the United States and this honorable court. Be seated, please.”

The panel sits down and the first appeal begins. Ben takes notes on the argument by the appellant’s lawyer, who had his civil case dismissed by the district court ten floors below us. The young lawyer has been granted ten minutes without questions from the judges to present his argument, but he’s blowing them fast. Armen’s forehead wrinkles with concern; he wants to cut to the chase, but this poor guy can’t get out of the garage.

“A Third Circuit virgin,” Ben says, with the superior snicker of someone who has never done it. I fail to see the humor. I know what it’s like to stand before a judge when the words you memorized don’t seem to come and the ones that do roll down backward through your gullet and tumble out your butt.

“I guess my time is up,” the lawyer says, obviously relieved to see the Christmas light on the podium blink from yellow to red. He thinks the hard part’s over, but he’s dead wrong. The light turns green again. Go!

“Who wants the first question?” Armen says, looking over his colleagues on the panel. He flicks a silky black forelock out of his eyes; he always needs a haircut, it’s part of his sex appeal. “Judge Galanter?”

“Counsel,” Judge Galanter says quickly, “your appeal concerns the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, RICO, but I wonder if you understand why the statute at issue was enacted by Congress.”

“It was passed because of organized crime, Your Honor.”

“The statute was aimed at extortionists, murderers, and loan sharks. The typical organized criminals, correct?”

The young lawyer looks puzzled. “Yes, Judge Galanter.”

“It prohibits a pattern of racketeering activity, the so-called predicate acts, does it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

Armen shifts in his high-backed chair.

“But your client isn’t suing mobsters under RICO, is he, counsel?” Galanter says.

“With all due respect, Your Honor, I think this appeal presents a matter of national importance. It involves the manipulation of—”

“Flower peddlers, isn’t that right, counsel? Not mobsters, not extortionists, not killers. Florists. The ad says, Nothing but the Best for Your Wedding or Bar Mitzvah.” He chuckles, as does the gallery. They have to, he’s an Article III Judge, as in Article III of the Constitution; if you don’t laugh, the FBI shows up at your door.

“Yes, the defendants are floral vendors.”

Galanter’s thin lips part in an approximation of a smile and he arches an eyebrow so blond it’s almost invisible. “Floral vendors? Is that a term of art, counsel?”

The gallery laughs again.

“Florists,” the lawyer concedes.

“Thank you. Now, carnations are the bulk of your client’s business, is that correct?” Galanter flips through the appendix with assurance and reads aloud. “Pink ones, red ones, even the sprayed ones,’ according to your client’s affidavit. Although I see sweetheart roses did well in February.” He pauses to look significantly at Judge Townsend, but Townsend’s eyes are closed; God knows which way he’ll go on this case. He thinks people enter his dreams to have sex with him, so it’s impossible to tell right now if he’s pondering RICO law or watching lesbians frolic.

“They’re a group of florists. A network of florists.”

“Oh, I see, a ring of florists. Do you think Congress intended even a ring of florists to be covered by this racketeering statute?”

Armen hunches over his microphone. “Counsel, does it really matter what they sell?”

“Go get ’em, boss,” I say under my breath.

“Sir?” says the lawyer. He grabs the side of the podium like a kid stowed away on a sinking ship.

“It wouldn’t make sense to have a rule of law that turned on the occupation of the defendant, would it?”

“No, sir,” says the lawyer, shaking his head.

Armen leans forward, his eyes dark as Turkish coffee. “In fact, after what the Supreme Court said in Scheidler, even a group of abortion protestors can be subject to RICO, isn’t that right, Mr. Noble?”

Galanter glances over at Armen like a jockey on a Thoroughbred. “But Chief Justice Rehnquist made clear in Scheidler that there was a pattern of extortion, of federal crimes. Where’s the federal crimes with the floral conspiracy? Florists wielding pruning shears? Gimme that money or I snip the orchid?” Galanter shudders comically and the gallery laughs on cue.

“But they do threaten society,” the lawyer says, fumbling for the rigging. “Mr. Canavan signed a contract, and they didn’t send him any orders. They intended to drive Canavan Flowers into bankruptcy. It was part of a plan.”

“Your client did file for Chapter Eleven protection, didn’t he?” Armen says.

Suddenly Judge Townsend emits a noisy snort that sounds like an ancient steamboat chugging to life. Armen and Galanter look over as Judge Townsend’s heavy-lidded eyes creak open. “If I may, I have a question,” he says, smacking his dry lips.

“Go right ahead,” Armen says. Galanter forces a well-bred smile.

“Thank you, Chief Judge Gregorian,” Judge Townsend says. He nods graciously. “Now, counselor, why are you letting my colleagues badger you?”

The smile on Galanter’s face freezes in place. The gallery laughs uncertainly.

“Sir?” the lawyer says.

Judge Townsend snorts again and lists gently to the starboard side. “As I see it, the question with this new statute is always the same.”

Ben whispers, “New? RICO was passed in the seventies.”

“The question is always, How is this case different from a case of garden variety fraud? How is it different from other injuries to one’s business, which we decide under the common law?” Judge Townsend waves his wrinkled hand in the air; it cuts a jagged swath. “In other words, have you got some precedent for us? A case to hang your hat on?”

The lawyer reads his notes. “Wait a minute, Your Honor.”

Judge Townsend blinks once, then again. Galanter smooths back the few hairs he has left. The lawyers in the gallery glance at one another. They’re all thinking the same thing: Nobody tells the Third Circuit to wait a minute. The answers are supposed to roll off your tongue. The case is supposed to be at your fingertips. Better you should pee on the counsel table.

“Way to go, Einstein,” Ben says.

“I know I have the case somewhere,” says the attorney, nervously riffling through his legal pad. He should be nervous; the circuit court is the last stop before the Supreme Court, which takes fewer appeals each year. It’s all those speaking engagements.

“Armen’s upset,” Sarah whispers, and I follow her eyes. Armen is looking down, worried about the appeal. The only sound in the tense courtroom is a frantic rustling as the lawyer ransacks the podium. A yellow page sails to the rich navy carpet.

The silence seems to intensify.

Galanter glares at the lawyer’s bent head.

A sound shatters the silence—ticktickticktickticktick—from the back of the courtroom.

The back rows of the gallery turn around. The sound is loud, unmistakable.

Ticktickticktickticktick.

Row after row looks back in disbelief, then in alarm.

Ticktickticktickticktick.

“It’s a bomb!” one of the lawyers shouts.

“A bomb!” yells an older lawyer. “No!”

Ticktickticktickticktick.

The crowded courtroom bursts into chaos. The gallery surges to its feet in confusion and fear. Lawyers grab their briefcases and files. People slam into each other in panic, trying to escape to the exit doors.

“No!” someone shouts. “Stay calm!”

I look wildly toward the back row where Artie was sitting. I can’t see him at all. The mob at the back is pushing and shouting.

Tickticktickticktickticktick.

Ben and other law clerks run for the judges’ exit next to the dais. My heart begins to thunder. Time is slowed, stretched out.

“Artie’s back there!” I shout.

Sarah grabs my arm. “Armen!”

I look back at the dais. Armen stands at the center, shielding his eyes from the overhead lights, squinting into the back row. Judge Townsend is stalled at his chair.

Galanter snatches Armen’s gavel and pounds it on the dais: boom boom boom! “Order! Order, I say!” he bellows, red-faced. He slams the chief judge’s gavel again and again. “Order!”

“Oh, my God,” Armen says, when he realizes what’s happening. “It can’t be.”

Copyright © 1994 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.

Running From the Law

Whether it’s poker or trial law, wisecracking Rita Morrone plays to win, especially when she takes on the defense of the Honorable Fiske Hamilton, a prominent federal judge accused of sexual harassment. And it’s no coincidence that the judge is her live-in lover’s father.

Then the action turns deadly, and Rita finds herself at the center of a murder case. She probes deep into the murder, uncovering a secret life and suspects in shocking places. When the killer viciously ups the ante, Rita decides to end this lethal game. She lays it all on the line for the highest stakes ever.

USA Today: “Sharp, intelligent, funny, and hip . . .. [Scottoline] gives fans of legal thrillers a good, twisty plot.”

Chapter One

Any good poker player will tell you the secret to a winning bluff is believing it yourself. I know this, so by the time I cross-examined the last witness, I believed. I was in deep, albeit fraudulent, mourning. Now all I had to do was convince the jury.

“Would you examine this document for me, sir?” I said, my voice hoarse with fake grief. I did the bereavement shuffle to the witness stand and handed an exhibit to Frankie Costello, a lump of a plant manager with a pencil-thin mustache.

“You want I should read it?” Costello asked.

No, I want you should make a paper airplane. “Yes, read it please.”

Costello bent over the document, and I snuck a glance at the jury through my imaginary black veil. A few returned my gaze with mounting sympathy. The trial had been postponed last week because of the death of counsel’s mother, but the jury wasn’t told which lawyer’s mother had died. It was defense counsel’s mother who’d just passed on, not mine, but don’t split hairs, okay? You hand me an ace, I’m gonna use it.

“I’m done,” Costello said, after the first page.

“Please examine the attachments, sir.”

“Attachments?” he asked, cranky as a student on the vocational track.

“Yes, sir.” I leaned heavily on the burled edge of the witness stand and looked down with a mournful sigh. I was wearing black all over: black suit, black pumps, black hair pulled back with a black grosgrain ribbon. My eyes were raccoony, too, but from weeks of lost sleep over this trial, which had been slipping through my manicured fingers until somebody choked on her last chicken bone.

“Give me a minute,” Costello said, tracing a graph with a stubby finger.

“Take all the time you need, sir.”

He labored over the chart as the courtroom fell silent. The only sound was the death rattle of an ancient air conditioner that proved no match for a Philadelphia summer. It strained to cool the large Victorian courtroom, one of the most ornate in City Hall. The courtroom was surrounded by rose marble wainscoting and its high ceiling was painted robin’s-egg blue with gold crown molding. A mahogany rail contained the jury, and I stole another glance at them. The old woman and the pregnant mother in the front row were with me all the way. But I couldn’t read the grim-faced engineer who’d been peering at me all morning. Was he sympathetic or suspicious?

“I’m done,” Costello said, and thrust the exhibit at me in a Speedy Gonzales fit of pique. We don’t need no steenking badges.

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. It was a mistake not to keep the exhibit. You’ll see why. “Mr. Costello, have you had an adequate opportunity to read Joint Exhibit 121?”

“Yeh.”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve seen these documents, is it, sir?” My voice echoed in the empty courtroom. There were no spectators in the pews, not even the homeless. The Free Library was cooler, and this trial was boring even me until today.

“Nah,” Costello said. “I seen it before.”

“You prepared the memorandum yourself, didn’t you?”

“Yeh.” Costello shifted in the direction of his lawyer, George W. Vandivoort IV, the stiff-necked fellow at the defense table. Vandivoort wore a pin-striped suit, horn-rimmed glasses, and a bright-eyed expression. He manifested none of the grief of a man who had buried his own mother only days ago, which was fine with me. I had rehearsed enough grief for both of us.

“Mr. Costello, did you send Exhibit 121 to Bob Brown, director of operations at Northfolk Paper, with a copy to Mr. Saltzman?”

Costello paused, at a loss without the memo in front of him. Who can remember what they just read? Nobody. Who would ask for the memo back? Everybody except an Italian male. “I think so,” he said slowly.

“And you sent Mr. Rizzo a blind copy, isn’t that correct, sir?”

He tried to remember. “Yeh.”

“Just so I’m clear on this, a blind copy is when you send a memo or letter to someone, but the memo doesn’t show that you did, isn’t that right?” A point with no legal significance, but juries hate blind copies.

“Yeh. It’s standard procedure to Mr. Rizzo, Mr. Dell’Orefice, and Mr. Facelli.”

Even better, it sounded like the Mafia. I glanced at one of the black jurors, who was frowning deeply. He lived in Southeast Philly on the ragged fringe of the Italian neighborhood, and had undoubtedly taken his share of abuse. His frown meant I had collected six jurors so far. But what about the engineer? I tried to look sadder.

Suddenly an authoritative cough issued from the direction of the judge’s paneled dais. “Ms. Morrone, I don’t appreciate what you’re doing,” snapped the Honorable Gordon H. Kroungold, a sharp Democrat who was elevated to the bench from an estates practice, where nobody would ever dream of exploiting someone’s death. At least not in open court. “I don’t appreciate what you’re doing at all.”

“I’m proceeding as quickly as I can, Your Honor,” I said, looking innocently up at the dais. It towered above my head, having been built in a time when we thought judges belonged on pedestals.

“That’s not what I meant, Ms. Morrone.” Judge Kroungold smoothed down a triangle of frizzy hair with an open hand. He wetted his hair down with water every morning, but after the second witness it would reattain its loft. “It’s your demeanor I’m having a problem with, counsel.”

Stay calm. Your mother’s not even cold, poor baby. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Your Honor.”

Judge Kroungold’s dark eyes glowered. “Approach the bench, Ms. Morrone. You, too, Mr. Vandivoort.”

“Of course, Your Honor,” Vandivoort said, jumping up and hustling over. His mother’s death had put such a spring into his step that he almost beat me to the dais. An inheritance, no doubt.

“Ms. Morrone, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Judge Kroungold asked, stretching down over his desk. “Is this some kind of stunt?”

Gulp. “I beg your pardon?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Your Honor?”

“Please.” Judge Kroungold looked around for his court reporter and waved him over irritably. “Wesley, I want this on the record.”

The court reporter, an older black man with oddly grayish skin, picked up the stenography machine by its steel tripod and huddled with us at the front of the dais. A sidebar conversation is out of the jury’s hearing, but not the appellate court’s. The word disbarment flitted across my mind, but I shooed it away.

“Ms. Morrone,” Judge Kroungold said, “please tell me, on the record, that I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Your Honor. What is it you’re seeing?”

“No, Ms. Morrone. No, no, no. Nuh-uh. You tell me exactly what you’re doing.” Judge Kroungold leaned so far over that I experienced a fine spray of judicial saliva. “You tell me. Right now.”

“I’m conducting my cross-examination of this final witness, Your Honor.”

The judge’s liver-colored lips set in a determined line. “So it would appear. But let me state for the record that you seem very tired today, Ms. Morrone. Very lethargic. One would even say that you seem depressed.”

I didn’t know he cared. “Your Honor, I am tired. It’s been a long trial and I’ve worked this case myself. I don’t have the associates Mr. Vandivoort does, from Webster & Dunne,” I said, loud enough for the jury to hear.

Judge Kroungold’s eyes slipped toward the jury, then bored down into me. “Lower your voice, counsel. Now.”

Win some, lose some. “Yes, sir.”

“I never would have expected to see something like this in my courtroom. For God’s sake, you’re even wearing a black suit!”

“I noticed that, too,” Vandivoort added, as it began to dawn on him.

“Your Honor,” I said, “I’ve worn this suit to court many times.”

“Not in this trial you haven’t,” the judge spat back. Literally. “And no makeup. Last week you had on lipstick, but not today. What happened to that pink lipstick? Too bright?”

Time to raise him. “Your Honor, why are we discussing my clothing and makeup in court? Do you make comments of this sort to the male attorneys who appear before you?”

Judge Kroungold blinked, then his eyes narrowed. “You know damn well I wasn’t making . . .comments.”

“With all due respect, Your Honor, I find your comments inappropriate. I object to them and to the tenor of this entire sidebar as an unfortunate example of gender bias.”

His mouth fell so far open I could see his bridgework. “What? I’m not biased against you. In fact, I took great pains in my instruction not to tell the jury whose mother had died, in order to avoid undue sympathy for the defense. You, Ms. Morrone, are giving the jury the distinct and entirely false impression that it was your mother who died and not Mr. Vandivoort’s.”

“What?” I said, sounding as shocked as possible. At the same nanosecond, a quart of adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream and a familiar rush surged into my nerves, setting them tingling, jangling, and twanging like the strings of an electric guitar. Believe. “Your Honor, I would never do such a thing! I couldn’t even begin to do such a thing. Who can divine what a jury is thinking, much less attempt to control it?”

Judge Kroungold’s eyes glittered. “Oh, really. Then you won’t mind if I suggest to the jury that the death was in Mr. Vandivoort’s family, not yours.”

Shit. Was he bluffing, too? This game could cost me my license to play cards—I mean, practice law. “On the contrary, Your Honor. I would object to any attempt to gain the jury’s sympathy for male counsel, who you are clearly favoring. In fact, I move that you recuse yourself immediately on the grounds that you are partial to defense counsel, sir.”

Judge Kroungold reddened. “Recuse myself? Step down? On the last day of the trial?”

Up the ante. “Yes, sir. I wasn’t sure until today, but now you’ve made your sexism quite clear.”

“My sexism?” He practically choked on the word, since he fancied himself a liberal with a true respect for women. Like Bill Clinton.

“Are you denying my motion, Your Honor?”

“I most certainly am! It’s absurd. Frivolous! You’d lose on appeal,” Judge Kroungold shot back, but he twitched the tiniest bit.

It was my opening and I drove for it. I had a straight flush and a dead mother. I believed. “With all due respect, Your Honor, I disagree. This sidebar is interrupting my cross-examination of a critical witness. Every minute I stand here prejudices my client’s case. If I could proceed, perhaps I could put this ugly incident behind me. Mr. Vandivoort didn’t object to my questioning, after all.”

Kroungold snapped his head in Vandivoort’s direction. “Mr. Vandivoort, don’t you have an objection?”

I looked at Vandivoort, dead-on. “Can you really believe I would do such a terrible thing, George?” The pot is yours if you can call me a liar to my face. In open court on the record.

Vandivoort looked at Judge Kroungold, then at me, and back again. “Uh . . .I have no objection,” he said, folding even easier than my Uncle Sal. Vandivoort was too much of a gentleman, that was his problem. Biology is destiny. It’s in the cards.

“Then may I proceed, Your Honor?”

“Wait a minute, I’m not done with you, Ms. Morrone. Stay here.” Judge Kroungold scowled at Vandivoort. “Mr. Vandivoort, take your seat.”

What was this? Not according to Hoyle, surely.

Judge Kroungold signaled to Wesley as soon as Vandivoort bounced away, and Wesley got the convenient urge to stop typing and crack his knuckles.

What gives?

Judge Kroungold leaned over the dais. “I’ve been reading about you in the newspapers, Ms. Morrone, so I can’t say I’m surprised by your showmanship. But I warn you. Play all the tricks you want. It might work in this case, but it won’t work in Sullivan. You’re in over your head in Sullivan.

It gave me a start, like he was jinxing me, but I couldn’t think about Sullivan now. ‘Then may I proceed, sir?”

“Of course, Ms. Morrone,” Judge Kroungold said loudly. “Ladies first.” He leaned back and waved to Wesley to go back on the record.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said, and turned to face my jury. But not before I remembered my bereavement and brushed an ersatz tear from my eye.

Which is when I caught a glistening behind the engineer’s glasses.

Winner take all.

Copyright © 1996 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.

Legal Tender

Benedetta “Bennie” Rosato is a maverick lawyer who prosecutes police misconduct and excessive-force cases, and business at her firm of Rosato & Biscardi has never been better.

Then, without warning, a savage murder tears the firm apart. All evidence points to Bennie, who has motive aplenty and an unconfirmable alibi. Her world turns upside down as the lawyer becomes the client, and the cops she once prosecuted are now after her, with a vengeance.

To prove her innocence, Bennie probes deep into the murder. Then another killing takes place. Running for her life, Bennie is a fugitive armed only with her wits and courage. She will find the real killer — or die trying.

Los Angeles Times: “A fast-paced, suspenseful and tongue-in-cheek legal thriller.”

Chapter One

I edged forward on my pew in the gallery so I wouldn’t miss a single word. My ex-lover’s new girlfriend, Eve Eberlein, was about to be publicly humiliated by the Honorable Edward J. Thompson. I wanted to dance with joy right there in the courtroom. Hell hath no fury like a lawyer scorned.

“Let me remind you of something you have plainly forgotten, Ms. Eberlein,” Judge Thompson was saying between discreetly clenched teeth. A bald, gentlemanly judge, his legendary patience had been tested by Eve’s attack on the elderly witness. “This is a court of law. There are rules of conduct. Civility, manners. One doesn’t check common courtesy at the door of my courtroom.”

“Your Honor, this witness is not being candid with the Court,” Eve said. Her spiky brunette cut bounced in defiance as she stood before the dais, in perfect makeup and a red knit suit that fit her curves like an Ace bandage. Not that I was jealous.

“Utter nonsense, Ms. Eberlein!” Judge Thompson scoffed, peering down through reading glasses that matched his robe. “I will not permit you to cast aspersions on the character of a witness. You have asked her the same question over and over, and she’s told you she doesn’t remember where the Cetor file is. She retired two years ago, if you recall. Move on to your next question, counsel.”

“With all due respect, Your Honor, Mrs. Debs was the records custodian at Wellroth Chemical and she remembers perfectly well where the Cetor file is. I tell you, the witness is lying to the Court!” Eve pointed like a manicured Zola at Mrs. Debs, whose powdered skin flushed a deep pink.

“My goodness!” she exclaimed, hand fluttering to the pearls at her chest. Mrs. Debs had a halo of fuzzy gray hair and a face as honest as Aunt Bea’s. “I would never, ever lie to a court!” she said, and anybody with any sense could see she was telling the truth. “Heavens, I swore on a Bible!”

“Ms. Eberlein!” Judge Thompson exploded. “You’re out of order!” He grabbed his gavel and pounded it hard. Crak! Crak! Crak!

Meanwhile, Mark Biscardi, my ex-boyfriend and still-current law partner, was fake-reading exhibits at counsel table. He was downplaying the debacle for the jury’s benefit, but was undoubtedly listening to every syllable. I hoped he remembered my prediction that Eve would crash and burn today, so I could say I told you so.

“I object, Your Honor!” shouted plaintiff’s counsel, Gerry McIllvaine. “Ms. Eberlein’s conduct toward this witness is an outrage! An outrage!” McIllvaine, a trial veteran, had been standing out of the crossfire, keeping his mouth shut until it was time to grandstand for the jury. All the courtroom’s a stage, and all the men and women in it merely lawyers.

Then, suddenly, I began to focus on the jury box. Most of the jurors in the front row were scowling at Eve as Judge Thompson continued his lecture. Two jurors in the back, retirees like Mrs. Debs, bore a prim smile at Eve’s comeuppance. Eve had alienated the lot, and it would taint their view of the defendant’s case. Unfortunately, this was a high-stakes trial and the defendant was a major client of my law firm, Rosato & Biscardi, alias R & B.

Damn. I sat up straighter and looked worriedly at Mark, but he was stuck playing with the trial exhibits. He and I had started R & B seven years ago and watched it grow into one of the most successful litigation boutiques in Philadelphia. I cared about the firm so much I couldn’t even enjoy watching Eve screw up something besides my love life. Something had to be done.

I stood up in the middle of the proceedings, calling attention to myself without a word because of my height, a full six feet. It’s a great height for a trial lawyer, but as a teenager I stood by so many punchbowls I got sick from the fumes. I grew up to be taller, blonder, and stronger, so that now I looked like an Amazon with a law degree.

“Ouch!” said the lawyer sitting next to me, as I trounced solidly on his wingtip.

“Oh, excuse me,” I yelped, almost as loudly as Judge Thompson, still scolding Eve with the jury’s rapt attention.

“Shhh,” said another lawyer.

“Sorry, so sorry,” I chirped, struggling out of the crowded row like a boor going for Budweiser in the second inning. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that one of the jurors, the Hispanic man on the end, was being successfully distracted. “Oops! Sorry about that,” I practically shouted.

Once out of the row, I strode past the bar of the court to counsel table, where my ex-beloved was sweating armholes into his English pinstripes. As Mark turned to see what the commotion was, I leaned close to his dark, wavy hair and breathed in his expensive creme rinse. “You’re fucked, hombre,” I whispered, with some pleasure.

“It’s her first time out,” he hissed back. “She made a mistake.”

“No, you made a mistake. I told you she isn’t a trial lawyer. She can’t connect with people, she’s too cold. Now hold up an exhibit so we can fight in peace.”

Mark grabbed an exhibit and ducked behind it. “What’s happening with the jury? This is killing us.”

I snuck a peek sideways. Most of the jurors were watching me and Mark by now. I wondered if any recognized me, infamous radical lawyer Bennie Rosato. I could only hope my hair looked less incendiary than usual. “The jury’s wondering whether we’re still sleeping together. Where’s the client, Haupt? He’s the cheese, right?”

“Yeah, Dr. Otto Haupt. Guy with the steel glasses in the front row. How’s he taking it?”

I checked the reaction of the aforementioned, but his expression was a double-breasted blank. “He’s a suit, not a face. And no more excuses for your new girlfriend. Deal with her.”

“What do you want me to do, spank her?”

“You wish.” He’d tried it with me once but I’d laughed myself silly. “Keep her at second-chair. Don’t let her take any more witnesses.”

“She needs to work on her people skills, that’s all.”

“I hate that expression, ‘people skills.’ What does that mean? You either have a heart or you don’t.”

He flashed me a photogenic smile. “Why are you here, Bennie? Do I need to take this shit from you, now? In the middle of trial?”

“It’s the least you can do, I’m about to save your ass. Grab the glass next to that file.” I picked up a pitcher of water from counsel table. It was heavy and cold, and there were even some ice cubes left. Perfect.

“Why am I doing this?” He reached for the glass.

“Don’t you remember Leo Melly, the transvestite who wanted to march in the Columbus Day parade? From the old days, when you fought for things that mattered, like the right to wear puce in broad daylight?”

A glint of reflection flickered through Mark’s gorgeous brown eyes and he hoisted his glass. “Way to go, Bennie. Just don’t mess up the patent application, it’s an original.”

“Brace yourself.” I reached for the glass but it popped out of my outstretched hand and tumbled end over end like a fumbled football. “Whoooops!” I squealed, lunging for the glass, but missing it so expertly that I bobbled the pitcher, too. Ice cubes and frigid water gushed out like a mountain waterfall, raced past the errant glass in an icy torrent, and landed with a noisy splash in the middle of Mark’s lap.

“Argh!” Mark shouted, springing to his feet. “Jesus! That’s cold!” Eyes wide, he jumped away from counsel table, crunching the ice cubes in a frantic jig.

“Oh no!” I cried, then dropped the glass pitcher on his foot. “Oh, it slipped!”

“Yeeow!” Mark grabbed his toe. “Jesus H. Christ!”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” I flapped my arms like a baby seal and tried to look helpless, which isn’t easy for me. I haven’t been helpless a day in my life.

Meantime, chaos was erupting at the front of the courtroom. A juror in the first row pointed in surprise. The back row, mostly older women, burst into giggles. Eve had turned around, her lipsticked mouth hanging open. Judge Thompson tore off his glasses, his lecture abandoned. “Bailiff! Deputy!” he barked. “Get some paper towels! I won’t have my tables stained!”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said the courtroom deputy, who was already hurrying over with paper towels. He shot me a dirty look as he mopped up the water pooling on counsel table and dripping onto the dark blue rug.

“Can I have a few of those?” Mark asked. He snatched a handful of towels and dabbed his crotch, which triggered another wave of tittering from the jurors in the back.

Judge Thompson sighed audibly. “Let’s break for the morning recess, ladies and gentlemen. Ms. Howard, please escort the jury out, since the deputy is otherwise engaged.” Crak! He eased out of his chair and left the dais shaking his head.

“It’s your mess, you clean it up,” snapped the deputy. “Better make sure there’s no water marks.” He dumped the pile of paper towels on the table and walked off toward the court reporter, who was flexing her fingers.

The courtroom emptied quickly, the lawyers laughing and talking as they filed out. Plaintiff’s counsel snapped his briefcase shut and left, walking past Dr. Haupt, who lingered by the door, his Teutonic features betraying only the slightest bit of annoyance. My acting had been so good I fooled even him. So be it. It wouldn’t be the first time I looked like a jerk for the cause.

“Thanks a whole lot, Bennie,” Mark said. He swabbed the huge, wet stain spreading like bad news across his crotch.

“Sorry, partner,” I told him, surprised to feel a tiny twinge of regret. Ice cubes melted into the rug, and Eve stepped over them delicately to reach us.

“You okay, honey?” she asked softly, and rubbed Mark’s back with a concern so touching I almost gagged.

“It’s water,” I pointed out. “He’ll live.”

“You could have been more careful,” she said, frowning. “I was just getting into my cross.”

I almost laughed. “Do you really believe this was an accident, child? I dumped the water to-”

“That’s enough, Bennie,” Mark interrupted, holding up a wet paper towel. “I’ll handle this.”

“Oh really.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“You’d better. I have to go, I have a new client. Lots of luck, kids.” I turned to avoid a puddle, then took off, banging through the heavy mahogany doors. As they closed I heard Eve’s laughter, followed by Mark’s. Masculine, heartier.

I remembered his laugh, I remembered it all.

Now what I had to do was forget it.

Copyright © 1996 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.

Rough Justice

Criminal lawyer Marta Richter is hours away from winning an acquittal for her client, millionaire businessman Elliot Steere, on trial for the murder of a homeless man who had tried to carjack him.

But as the jury begins deliberations, Marta discovers the chilling truth about her client’s innocence. Taking justice into her own hands, she furiously sets out to prove the truth, with the help of two young associates.

In an excruciating game of beat-the-clock with both the jury and the worst blizzard to hit Philadelphia in decades, Marta will learn that the search for justice isn’t only rough — it can also be deadly.

Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, National Public Radio: “An entertaining, giddily paced legal thriller that readers will enjoy . . .. Not since Ben Franklin launched his kite has Philadelphia been the site of such electrifying suspense.”

Chapter One

It started with a slip of the tongue. At first, Marta Richter thought she’d misunderstood him. She felt exhausted after the two-month murder trial and couldn’t always hear her client through the thick bulletproof window and. “You mean you struggled in his grasp,” Marta corrected.

Elliotte Steere didn’t reply, but brushed ash from his chair on the defendant’s side of the window. In his charcoal Brioni suit and a white shirt with a cutaway collar, Steere looked incongruous but not uncomfortable in the jailhouse setting. The businessman’s cool was the stuff of tabloid legend. The tabs reported that on the night Steere had been arrested for murder, he’d demanded only one phone call. To his stockbroker. “That’s what I said,” Steere answered after a moment. “I struggled in his grasp.”

“No, you said he struggled in your grasp. It was self-defense, not murder. You were struggling, not him.”

A faint smile flickered across Steere’s strong mouth. He had a finely boned nose, flat brown eyes, and suspiciously few crows’ feet for a real estate developer. In magazine photos he looked attractive, but the fluorescent lights of the interview room hollowed his cheeks and dulled his sandy hair. “What’s the point? The trial’s over. The jury’s out. It doesn’t matter anymore who was struggling with who. Whom.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Marta asked. She didn’t want to play word games, she wanted to revel in her brilliant defense. It was the case of her career and Steere’s acquittal was in the bag. “Of course it matters.”

“Why? What if it wasn’t self-defense? What if I murdered him like the D.A. said? So what?”

Marta blinked, irritated. “But that’s not the way it happened. He was trying to hijack your car. He attacked you with a knife. He threatened to kill you. You shot him in self-defense.”

“In the back of the head?”

“There was a struggle. You had your gun and you fired.” Without realizing it, she was repeating her closing argument. The jury had adjourned to deliberate only minutes ago. “You panicked, in fear of your life.”

“You really bought that?” Steere crossed one long leg over the other, and a triangle of tailored pant flopped over with a fine, pressed crease. “In fear of my life? I stole that line from a cop show, the one where everybody smokes. You know the show?”

Marta mouth went dry. She didn’t watch TV even when she was on, another television lawyer with wide-set blue eyes and chin-length hair highlighted blonde. A hardness around her eye and a softness under her chin told the viewers she wasn’t thirty anymore. Still Marta looked good on the tube and knew how to handle herself; explain the defense in a sound bite and bicker with a prosecutor. Wrap it up with some wit. Smile for the beauty shot. “What is this, a joke? What’s TV have to do with anything?”

“Everything. My story, my defense, ws fiction. Rich white guy carjacked by poor black guy. White guy has registered Glock for protection. Black guy has X-Acto knife. Not a good match.” Steere eased back into his chair. The jury bought it because it was what they expected, what they see on TV.”

Marta’s lips parted in disbelief. The news struck like an assault, stunning and violent. Her mind reeled. Her face felt hot. She braced her manicured fingers against the cold aluminum ledge and fought for her bearings. “What are you saying?”

“I’m guilty as sin, dear.” Steere’s gaze was point-blank and his voice tinny as it passed through a thin metal grate under the bulletproof window. The cinderblock walls of the interview room, lacquered calcium-white, seemed suddenly to be closing in on Marta.

“But he slashed your cheek with the knife,” she said, uncomprehending.

“He was dead at the time. I held his hand, with the knife in it.”

“They found fibers from your tux on his hands and clothes.”

“There was a struggle. He put up a fight. Mostly begging, though, boo-hooing like a little girl.”

Marta’s stomach turned over. “Tell me the whole story. The truth.”

“What’s to tell? A bum came at me when I stopped at red the light. He was waving a knife, drunk, screaming I should give up the car. Like I would. A new SL 600 convertible. Wet dream of a car.” Steere shook his head in momentary admiration. “So I grabbed my gun, got out of the car, and shot him in the head. I called the cops from the cell phone.”

Marta crossed her arms across her chest. You could call it a hug but that wasn’t how she thought of it. She’d heard confessions like this from other clients, and though Steere didn’t look like them, he sounded like them. They all had the urge to brag; to prove how smart they were and what they could get away with. Marta had known knew Steere was tough-minded; she hadn’t guessed he was inhuman. “You’re a murderer,” she said.

“No, I’m a problem-solver. I saw some garbage and took it out. The man was a derelict, worthless. He didn’t work, he didn’t produce. He didn’t own anything. Fuck, he didn’t even live anywhere. This time he picked the wrong guy. End of story.”

“Just like that.”

“Come on, Marta. The man was useless. He didn’t even know how to handle the fucking knife.” Steere chuckled. “You handled it better during the demonstration, when you held it under your chin. Did you see the jury? The front row almost fainted.”

Marta felt a twinge as she flashed on the jurors, their faces upturned like kindergartners. She’d hired the requisite raft of jury consultants but relied on her own instincts and experience to pick the panel, ending up with a solid reasonable-doubt jury. She’d stood in front of them every day of the trial, memorizing their features, their reactions, their quirks. Fifteen years as a top-tier criminal lawyer had taught Marta one thing: the jurors were the only real people in any courtroom. Even the ones with book deals.

“They’re suckers,” Steere said. “Twelve suckers. The biggest loser was your friend, the Marlboro Man. Better watch out, Marta. He had the look of love. He may be fixin’ to get hisself a filly.”

Marta winced. Steere meant Christopher Graham, a blacksmith from Old Bustleton in Northeast Philadelphia. Marta had learned that Graham had recently separated from his wife, so she worked him the whole trial, locking eyes with him during her cross of the medical examiner and letting her fingertips stray to her silk collar when she felt his lonely gaze on her. Still, manipulation was one thing, and prevarication quite another. “Everything you told me was a lie.”

“It worked, didn’t it? You shot the shit out of their case. The bailiff thinks the jury will be back by noon tomorrow. That’s only four, five hours of actual deliberation.” Steere smiled and recrossed his legs. “I hear the reporters have a pool going. The smart money’s on you, twenty to one. There’s even action that they acquit me before there’s three feet of snow on the ground.”

Marta’s mind reeled. The media, more lies. She’d told the reporters Steere was innocent and declined to speculate on how long the jury would be out. I just win, boys. I leave the details to you, she’d said with a laugh. She wasn’t laughing now.

“It’s almost three o’clock,” Steere said, checking a watch with a band like liquid gold. “You’ve never had a jury out longer than two days, if memory serves.”

Marta flipped back through her cases. She was undefeated in capital cases and she’d win this one, too. No tough questions of physical evidence to explain away, just a disagreement over the way it had gone down, with the Commonwealth claiming Steere had intended to kill the homeless man. It took balls to prosecute a case that thin, but it was an election year and the Mayor wanted to crucify the wealthiest slumlord in Philadelphia. Marta understood all that, but she didn’t understand the most important thing. “Why did you lie to me?”

“Since when are you so high and mighty? Did you ask if I was guilty?”

“I don’t ask my clients that question.”

“Then what’s the difference if they lie to you?”

Marta had no immediate response except to grit her teeth. “So you made up this cock-and-bull story.”

“You never doubted it? One of the best criminal lawyers in the country and you can’t smell shit?”

Not this time, because she had let her guard down. Because she’d been attracted to him, though she wouldn’t admit it, even to herself. “Your story made absolute sense. We went over it and over it. You told it the same way every time.”

“I lied from the door.”

“Even to the cops? The statement you gave them. It was recorded. It was all consistent.”

“I’m excellent at what I do.”

“Lie?”

“Sell.”

“You used me, you asshole.”

“Come off it, dear.” Steere’s smile twisted into a sneer. “You got paid, didn’t you? Almost two hundred grand this quarter, including your expenses. Hotel, phone, even dry cleaning. Every cent paid in full. Twenty-five grand left on the retainer.”

“That’s not the point. “

Steere’s laughter echoed off the cinderblock walls of the interview room. “Easy for you to say, you’re not paying it. For that much money, using you should be included. Christ, for that much money, fucking you should be included.”

“Fuck you!” Marta shot to her feet, seething. She felt the urge to pace, to move, to run, but the interview room was cramped as a phone booth. She was trapped. By Steere, by herself. How could she have been so naive? She still couldn’t bring herself to accept it. “So you killed Darnton, even though you’d be questioned? Charged?”

Steere shrugged. “It was a risk, but I run risks every day. I figured the D.A. would find a reason to charge me, but that’s okay. Any ink is good ink. I knew I’d hire the best and get away with it, and I will. Because of you.”

Because of you. The words burned into Marta’s brain. Steere had written the story and she had sold it, better than she’d ever sold anything in her professional life. Pitched it to the jury in the daytime and the satellites at night. And she didn’t do it for the money or the facetime, not this time.

She did it for Steere.

In the split second she realized it, Marta’s fury became unreasoning. She could have sworn he wanted her, he’d given every signal. He’d lean too close at counsel table, look too long at her legs. Once he’d touched her knee, bending over to retrieve his fountain pen, and her response had been so immediate it surprised even her. The memory made her feel crazy, unhinged. Unleashed. “I’m going to Judge Rudolph with this,” she said.

“You can’t. I’m your client and thus this is a privileged conversation. Disclose it and you’re disbarred, ruined.” Steere laced his long, nimble fingers together and leaned forward on his side of the metal ledge. “Of course, I’d deny the conversation ever took place. You’d look like a fool.”

“Then I quit. I’m not your lawyer anymore. I’m withdrawing from the representation.” Marta snatched her bag and briefcase from the tile floor.

“The judge won’t let you withdraw while the jury’s out. It’s too late in the game. It’s prejudicial to me, infringes my constitutional rights.”

“Don’t you lecture me,” Marta shot back, though she knew he was right about her withdrawal. “I suborned perjury for you.”

“Suborn perjury, my my. You can talk the talk, can’t you? So can I. You didn’t suborn perjury because I didn’t testify in my own defense.”

“It’s a fraud on the court—”

“Enough.” Steere cut Marta off with a wave. “The verdict comes in by noon and I go free. Then I hold a press conference where I tell the world that the mayor is a smacked ass, the jury system is a blessing, and you’re the best whore money can buy.”

Marta froze. Her fingers squeezed the handle of her briefcase. Rage constricted her breathing. She felt choaked, with Steere’s polished loafer on her throat.

“Then we’ll go to the Swann Fountain for the victory celebration,” Steere continued. “We can play footsies, just like old times. After that I’m booked to St. Bart’s on a Learjet that’ll take off from Atlantic City if Philly is snowed in. I love the beach, don’t you? Hate the water, but love the beach. Want to come?”

Marta only glared in response. She wouldn’t be used like this. Not by him. Not by anyone. She reached for the door of the interview room.

“Aw, don’t go away mad, honey,” Steere said.

“I have work to do.”

“What work? You just proved me innocent.”

“Right. Now I’m going to prove you guilty.”

Steere chuckled behind tented fingers. “There’s no evidence.”

“There must be.”

“The police couldn’t find any.”

“They didn’t have the incentive I do.”

“And you’ll find this evidence before the jury comes back? By noon tomorrow?”

“They won’t be out that long?” Marta said. She yanked the door open to the sound of Steere’s laughter, but as furious as she was, she knew it didn’t matter who was laughing first. Only who was laughing last.

Copyright © 1997 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.

Mistaken Identity

Nothing can prepare criminal attorney Bennie Rosato for her new client, Alice Connolly, accused of murdering her lover, a highly decorated police detective. Connolly, who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Bennie, tells the astonished lawyer, “Pleased to meet you. I’m your twin.” But Bennie grew up an only child. She doesn’t have a twin.

Or does she?

Bennie takes the case and plunges into the mystery of the murder, as well as the secret of her own identity. Not until the verdict is in will she finally learn the truth.

Philadelphia Inquirer: “A superior piece of writing . . .. A gripping, multileveled story peopled by compelling characters.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Scottoline has been called ‘the female John Grisham,’ but she’s a better storyteller.”

Chapter One

Bennie Rosato shuddered when she caught sight of the place. The building stretched three city blocks and stood eight stories tall. It lacked conventional windows; instead slits of bulletproof glass scored its black 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 murders, sociopaths, and rapist. At least when they weren’t on parole.

Bennie pulled into a parking space in the half-empty visitor’s 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 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 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 covert 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: 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 tried and she couldn’t stop trying, so she had finally turned away.

Bennie so pressed 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 of circumstances.

The guards at 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 cloud in front of the moon.

Bennie waited patiently for a guard, which cut against her grain. Since 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 far 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 generally 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 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 auto-pilot, 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?” she asked.

“Yes,” the inmate answered, with a cocky smile. “Surprised?”

Bennie eyed the prisoner up and down, her gaze ending its bewildered journey at the 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.

Bennie stared at the inmate, stunned. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t have a twin. She didn’t even have a sister. Her briefcase slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a heavy thwap.

Copyright © 1999 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.

Moment of Truth

“Jack Newlin had no choice but to frame himself for murder.”

When attorney Newlin discovers his wife dead in their elegant home, he’s convinced he knows who killed her — and is equally determined to hide the truth. He decides to take the rap, and to seal his fate he hires the most inexperienced lawyer he can find, a reluctant rookie by the name of Mary DiNunzio, from the hot Philadelphia firm of Rosato & Associates.

But hiring Mary may turn out to be his biggest mistake. Mary doubts Jack’s confession, and her ethics and instincts tell her she can’t defend a man who wants to convict himself. Smarter, gutsier, and more persistent than she has any right to be, Mary sets out to prove what really happened — because, as any lawyer knows, a case is never as simple as it seems. And nothing is ever certain until the final moment of truth.

USA Today: “An edgy tale, full of surprises.”

New York Post: “A carefully crafted tale of immorality, dark secrets, and family values gone awry . . .. Scottoline [keeps this] . . . page-turner moving to a chilling end.”

Chapter One

Jack Newlin had no choice but to frame himself for murder. Once he had set his course, his only fear was that he wouldn’t get away with it. That he wasn’t a good enough liar, even for a lawyer.

The detectives led Jack in handcuffs into a small, windowless room at the Roundhouse, Philadelphia’s police administration building. Bolted to the floor at the center of the room was a straight-backed steel chair, which reminded Jack of the electric chair. He looked away.

The walls of the room were a dingy gray and marred by scuff marks as high as wainscoting. A typewriter table topped with a black Smith-Corona stood against the side wall, and in front of the table sat two old wooden chairs. One of the chairs groaned when the heavyset detective, who had introduced himself as Stan Kovich, seated himself and planted his feet wide. “Siddown, Mr. Newlin,” Detective Kovich said, gesturing to a wooden chair across from him.

“Thank you.” Jack took a seat, noting that the detective had bypassed the steel chair, evidently reserved for murderers who weren’t wealthy. Special treatment never suited Jack. A bookkeeper’s son, he had worked his way through school to become an estates lawyer who earned seven figures, but even his large partnership draw remained a pittance in comparison to his wife’s family money. He had always wished the Buxton money away, but now he was glad of it. Money was a good motive for murder.

“You want a soda? A Coke or somethin’?” Kovich asked. The detective wore a short-sleeved white shirt, light for wintertime, and his bullish neck spread his collar open. His shoulders hunched, powerful but gone to fat, and khaki-colored Sansabelts strained to cover his thighs. A bumpy, working-class nose dominated his face and he had cheekbones so fleshy they pressed against the rims of his glasses, large gold-rimmed aviators. Their bifocal window magnified his eyes, which were earth brown and addressed Jack without apparent judgment.

“No, thanks. Nothing to drink.” He made deliberate eye contact with Detective Kovich, who was closer and seemed friendlier than the other detective. Propped against the wall on a thin Italian loafer, he was black and hadn’t said anything except to introduce himself. Hovering over six feet tall, rangy and slim, he had a face as narrow as his body, a small, thin mouth, and a nose a shade too long in proportion to high cheekbones. Dark, almost-onyx eyes sat high on his face, like judges atop a dais.

“Let’s start by you telling me something about yourself, Mr. Newlin.” Kovich smiled, showing teeth stained by coffee. “By the way, just for the record, this interview is being videotaped.” He waved vaguely behind the smudgy mirror on the wall, but Jack didn’t look, steeling himself to be convincing in his false confession.

“Well, I’m forty-three. I’m a partner at Tribe & Wright, heading the estates and trusts department. I attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Yale, and Girard before that.”

Kovich nodded. “Wow. Impressive.”

“Thank you,” Jack said. He was proudest of Girard, a boarding high school established by the trust of Stephen Girard for fatherless boys. Girard was a Philadelphia institution. He never could have made it to Yale or any other university otherwise.

“Where you from?”

“North Philly. Torresdale.”

“Your people still up there?”

“No. My father died a long time ago and my mother passed away last year, from lung cancer.”

“I know how that goes. I lost my mother two years ago. It’s no picnic.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. No picnic. It was such a rich understatement, his mouth felt bitter. His mother, gone. His father, so long ago. Now Honor. He cleared his throat. “Maybe we should move on.”

“Sure, sure.” Kovich nodded quickly. “So, you’re a lawyer at the Tribe law firm. Pretty big outfit, right? I read somethin’ about them in the paper, how much they bring in a year. They’re printin’ money.”

“Don’t believe everything you read. Reporters have to sell newspapers.”

“Tell me about it.” Kovich laughed, a harsh guttural noise that burst from his throat. He turned to the other detective, still standing against the wall. “Right, Mick?” he asked.

The detective, who had introduced himself as Reginald Brinkley, not Mick, only nodded in response, and the pursing of his lips told Jack he didn’t welcome the attention. Brinkley, also middle-aged, wore a well-tailored brown sportcoat with a maroon silk tie, still tight despite the late hour and affixed to his white shirt with a gold-toned tie bar. His gaze chilled the room and the uptilt to his chin was distinctly resentful. Jack didn’t know what he had done to provoke the detective and only hoped it worked against him.

“So, Mr. Newlin,” Kovich was saying, “hey, can I call you Jack?”

“Of course.”

“You got any other family, Jack? Kids?”

“One.”

“Oh yeah?” Kovich’s tone brightened. “What flavor?”

“A girl. A daughter.”

“How old?”

“Sixteen.”

“I got a sixteen-year-old!” Kovich grinned, showing his bad teeth. “It’s a trip, ain’t it? Teenagers. You got just the one?”

“Yes.”

“Me, I got a thirteen-year-old, too. Also a girl. Houseful of blow dryers. My wife says when they’re not in the bathroom, they’re in the chat rooms. Yours like that, on the computer?”

Jack cleared his throat again. “I don’t mean to be impolite, but is there a reason for this small talk?” He didn’t want to go there and it seemed like something a murderer would say.

“Well, uh, next-of-kin notification is our job. Standard procedure, Jack.”

He tensed up. He should have thought of that. The police would be the ones to tell Paige. “My daughter lives on her own. I’d hate for her to hear this kind of news from the police. Can’t I tell her myself?”

“Sixteen, she’s on her own already?”

“She’s legally emancipated, with a promising career.”

“Legally emancipated, what’s ‘at?”

“My wife and I filed papers, I drafted them myself, essentially saying that she’s legally an adult. She lives on her own and earns her own money. She’s a model, and, in any event, I really would prefer to be the one to tell her about . . .her mother.” He paused. “I could call her after we talk. I mean, I do want to make a full confession, right now.”

Kovich’s lips parted slightly, and behind him, Brinkley’s eyes narrowed.

Jack’s mouth went dry at their reaction. Maybe he’d gone too fast. “I mean, I feel awful, just awful. A horrible thing happened tonight. I can’t believe what I’ve done. I want to get it off my chest.”

Kovich nodded encouragingly. “You mean you want to make a statement?”

“Yes. A statement, that’s right.” Jack’s voice sounded authentically shaky, even to him.

“Okay. Good. Bear with me.” Kovich turned toward the table, his chair creaking, and picked up a form, thick with old-fashioned carbons. He crammed it behind the typewriter roll, fighting a buckle in the paper. The detective wasn’t overly dexterous, his hands more suited to wrestling fullbacks than forms. “Jack, I have to inform you of your Miranda rights. You have the right to remain silent, you -”

“I know my rights.”

“Still, I gotta tell you. It’s the law.” Kovich finished a quick recitation of the Miranda warnings as he smoothed out the uncooperative form, rolled it into the machine, and lined up the title, INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW RECORD, HOMICIDE DEVISION. “You understand your rights?”

“Yes. I don’t need a lawyer. I wish to make a statement.”

“You mean you’re waiving your right to counsel?” Kovich nodded again.

“Yes, I’m waiving my right to counsel.”

“Are you under the influence of drugs or alcohol at this time?”

“No. I mean, I had some Scotch earlier. Before.”

Kovich frowned behind his big aviators. “You’re not intoxicated at the present time, are you?”

“No. I only had two and that was a while ago. I’m perfectly sober.”

Kovich picked up another form, two pages. “Fine. You gotta sign this, for your waiver. Sign the first page and then you have to write on the second, too.” He slid the sheets across the table, and Jack signed the top page, wrote “yes” after each question on the second page, and slid both back. “We’ll start with your Q and A, question and answer.” Kovich turned and started to type numbers in the box on the right, CASE NUMBER. “It’s procedure. Bear with me, okay?”

“Sure.” Jack watched Kovich typing and had the sense that confessing to murder, even falsely, could be as mundane as opening a checking account. A bureaucratic occasion; they typed out a form in triplicate and processed you into prison for life.

“State your name and address, please.”

“My name is Jack Newlin and my address is 382 Galwith’s Alley.” Saying it relaxed him. It was going so well, then the black detective cleared his throat.

“Forget the Q and A for a minute, Mr. Newlin,” Detective Brinkley said, raising a light palm with long, thin fingers. He straightened and buttoned his jacket at the middle, the simple gesture announcing he was taking charge. “Tell us what happened, in your own words.”

Jack swallowed. This would be harder to do. He tried to forget about the hidden videocamera and the detective’s critical eyes. “I guess I should tell you, my marriage hadn’t been going very well lately. For a year, actually. Honor wasn’t very happy with me.”

“Were you seeing another woman?” Detective Brinkley’s question came rapid-fire, rattling Jack.

“Of course not. No. Never.”

Kovich, taken suddenly out of the picture, started typing with surprising speed. Capital letters appeared on the black-ruled line: NO. NEVER.

“Was she seeing another man?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. We just had problems, normal problems. Honor drank, for one thing, and it was getting worse.”

“Was she alcoholic?”

“Yes, alcoholic.” For the past year Jack had been telling himself Honor wasn’t an alcoholic, just a heavy drinker, as if the difference mattered. “We fought more and more often, then tonight she told me she wanted to divorce me.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her no. I was shocked. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t imagine it. I love—I loved—her.”

“Why did she ask you for a divorce?”

“Our problem always came down to the same thing, that she thought I wasn’t good enough for her. That she had married down, in me.” That much was true. The sore spots in their marriage were as familiar as potholes in a city street and they had been getting harder and harder to steer around.

Brinkley nodded. “What started the fight tonight?”

“Tonight, we were supposed to have a dinner together, just the two of us. But I was late.” Guilt choked Jack’s voice and it wasn’t fraudulent. If he had gotten home on time, none of this would have happened, and that was the least of his mistakes. “She was angry at me for that, furious, and already drunk when I got home. She started shouting at me as soon as I came in the door.”

“Shouting what?”

“That I was late, that I didn’t care about anybody but myself, that she hated me. That I’d let her down. I ruined her life.” He summoned the words from the myths in their marriage and remembered the details of the crime scene he’d staged. He’d found his wife dead when he came home, but as soon as he realized who had killed her and why, he understood that he’d have to make it look as if he did it. He’d suppressed his horror and arranged every detail to point to him as the killer, including downing two full tumblers of Glenfiddich in case the police tested his blood. “I poured myself a drink, then another. I was getting so sick of it. I tried for years to make her happy. No matter what I did I couldn’t please her. What happened next was awful. Maybe it was the Scotch. I don’t often drink. I became enraged.”

“Enraged?” Brinkley cocked his head, his hair cut short and thinning, so that his dark scalp peeked through. “Fancy word, enraged.”

“Enraged, yes.” Jack willed himself to go with it. “I mean, it set me off, made me angry. Her screaming at me, her insults. Something snapped inside. I lost control.” He recalled the other details of the faked crime scene; he had hurled a crystal tumbler to the parquet floor, as if he had been in a murderous rage. “I threw my glass at her but she just laughed. I couldn’t stand it, her laughing at me like that. She said she hated me. That she’d files papers first thing in the morning.” Jack wracked his brain for more details but came up empty, so he raised his voice. “All I could think was, I can’t take this anymore. I hate her threats. I hate her. I hate her and want her to shut up. So I picked up the knife.”

“What knife?”

“A butcher knife, Henkels.”

Kovich stopped typing, puzzled. “What’s Henkels?”

“A fancy knife,” Brinkley supplied, but Kovich only frowned.

“How do you spell it?”

Jack spelled the word as Kovich tapped it out, but Brinkley wasn’t waiting. “Mr. Newlin, where was the knife?” he asked.

“On the dining room table.”

“Why was a butcher knife in the dining room?”

“It was with the appetizer, a cold filet mignon. She must have used it to slice the filet. She loved filet, it was her favorite. She’d set it out for an appetizer. The knife was right there and I took it from the table.”

“Then what did you do?”

“This is hard to say. I mean, I feel so . . .horrible.” Jack’s face fell, the sadness deep within, and he suddenly felt every jowl and furrow of his age. He didn’t try to hide his grief. It would look like remorse. “I . . .I . . .grabbed the knife and killed her.”

“You stabbed your wife to death.”

“Yes, I stabbed my wife to death,” he repeated, amazed he could form the words. In truth, he had picked up the bloody knife, unaccountably left behind, and wrapped his own fingers around it, obliterating any telltale fingerprints with his own.

“How many times?”

“What?”

“How many times did you stab her?”

Jack shuddered. He hadn’t thought of that. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the Scotch, I was in kind of a frenzy. Like a trance. I just kept stabbing.” At the typewriter, Kovich tapped out, JUST KEPT STABBING.

“And you got blood on your suit and hands.”

“Yes.” He looked down at the residuum of Honor’s blood, spattered on a silk tie of cornflower blue and dry as paper between his fingertips. He had put the blood there himself, kneeling at her side, and the act had sent him to the bathroom, his gorge rising in revulsion.

“Did she scream?”

“She shouted, I think. I don’t remember if it was loud,” he added, in case they interviewed the neighbors.

“Did she fight you?”

He tasted bile on his teeth. He imagined Honor fighting for her life, her final moments stricken with terror. Realizing she would die, seeing who would kill her. “She fought hard, but not well. She was drunk. She couldn’t believe it was happening. That I would really do that to her.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I went to the phone. I called nine-one-one. I told them I killed my wife.” Jack caught himself. “Wait, I forgot. I went to the bathroom and tried to wash up, but not all the blood came off. I realized there was no way I could hide what I’d done. I had no plan, I hadn’t thought it out. I didn’t even have a way to get her body out of the house. I realized I was going to get caught. There was no way out. I vomited into the toilet.”

Brinkley’s eyes narrowed. “Why did you try to wash up?”

“I was trying to wash the blood off. So I wouldn’t get caught.”

“In your own bathroom?”

“Well, yes.” Jack paused, momentarily confused, but Brinkley’s glare spurred him on. “It’s not like I was thinking clearly, as I said.”

Brinkley leaned back against the wall again. “Let’s switch gears, Mr. Newlin. What time was it when you came home?”

“Just before eight. I was supposed to be there at seven but I got held up.”

“What held you up?”

“I stopped to talk with my partner. The firm’s managing partner, William Whittier.” Jack had been on his way out when Whittier had stopped him to discuss the Florrman bill. It had taken time to get free, then it was pouring outside and Jack couldn’t get a cab. Ironic that the most mundane events, on the wrong night, had ended Honor’s life and changed his forever. “I suppose I should have called to say I was late, but I didn’t think it would matter. The maid is off on Monday, and we usually eat a late dinner.”

“How did you get home?”

“I took a cab.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yellow? Gypsy?”

“No clue. I was distracted. The traffic was a mess.”

Hunched over the desk, Kovich nodded in agreement. “That accident on Vine,” he said, but Brinkley stood up and stretched, almost as if he were bored.

“Not every day we get somebody like you in here, Mr. Newlin. We get dope dealers, gangbangers, rapists. Even had a serial killer last year. But we don’t often see the likes of you.”

“What do you mean, detective? I’m like anybody else.”

“You? No way. You’re what we used to call the man who has everything.” Brinkley rubbed his chest. “That’s what doesn’t make sense, Mr. Newlin. About what you’re telling me.”

Jack’s heart stopped in his chest. Had he blown it? He forced out a single word: “What?”

“You hated your wife enough to kill her, but you didn’t want to give her a divorce. That’s psycho time, but you’re no psycho, obviously. Explain it to me.” Brinkley crossed his slim arms, and fear shot through Jack like an electrical current.

“You’re right,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “It doesn’t make sense, if you look at it that way. Logically, I mean.”

“Logically? That’s how I look at it, Mr. Newlin. That’s the only way to look at it.” Brinkley smiled without mirth. “People sit in that chair all the time and they lie to me. None of them look like you or dress like you, that’s for damn sure, but you can lie too. You can lie better. You got the words for it. Only thing I got to tell me if you’re lying is common sense, and what you’re tellin’ me don’t make sense. It’s not, as you say, logical.”

“No it isn’t.” Jack caught sight of Honor’s blood on his hands, and it was so awful, so impossible to contemplate, that it released the emotions he’d been suppressing all night. Grief. Fear. Horror. Tears brimmed in his eyes, but he blinked them away. He remembered his purpose. “I wasn’t thinking logically, I was reacting emotionally. To her shouting, to her insults. To the Scotch. I just did it. I thought I could get away with it, so I tried to clean up, but I couldn’t go through with it. I called nine-one-one, I told them the truth. I did it. It was awful, it is awful.”

Brinkley’s dark eyes remained dubious, and Jack realized his mistake. The rich didn’t behave this way. They didn’t confess or blubber. They expected to get away with murder. Jack, who had never thought like a rich man and evidently never would, knew instantly what to do to convince him: “Detective, this interview is over,” he said abruptly, sitting up straighter. “I want to call my attorney.”

The reaction was immediate. Brinkley’s dark eyes glittered, his mouth formed a grim line, and he fell into his customary silence. Jack couldn’t read the detective completely, but sensed that he had acted in character, in a way that comported with Brinkley’s world view, and that would ultimately put his doubts to rest.

In contrast, Kovich deflated at the typewriter, his heavy shoulders slumping, his big fingers stilled. “But, Jack, we can settle this thing right here and now. Make it real easy.”

“I think not,” Jack said, turning haughty. He knew how to give orders from hearing them given. “I insist on my attorney. I should have called him in the first place.”

“But all you gotta do is sign this statement. Once you do that, we’re all done here. It’ll be easiest on you and your daughter this way.” Kovich’s eyes burned an earnest brown. “I’m a father, too, Jack, and I know how it is. You gotta think about your kid now.”

“No, I’ve said much too much already. I want my lawyer and we’ll take care of notifying Paige. I will not have you at my daughter’s home this late at night. It’s harassment. I’ll handle the notification through my attorney.”

Detective Brinkley buttoned his jacket with nimble fingers. “Better get yourself a good mouthpiece, Mr. Newlin,” he said, his face a professional mask. He pivoted on a smooth sole, walked out of the interview room, and closed the door behind him.

Once Brinkley had gone, Kovich yanked the sheet from the typewriter roll with a resigned sigh. “Now you did it. You got him mad, askin’ for a lawyer. After judges, there’s nothin’ Mick hates more than lawyers.”

“But I am a lawyer.”

“Like I said.” Kovich laughed his guttural laugh and turned to Jack as warmly as he had at the beginning. “You sure you don’t wanna talk to me? I’m the nice one. I like lawyers. It’s realtors I hate.”

“No thanks,” Jack answered, and managed a snotty smile.

Copyright © 2000 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved

The Vendetta Defense

Lawyer Judy Carrier takes the case of her career to defend Anthony Lucia, fondly known as “Pigeon Tony,” who is arrested for the murder of his lifelong enemy Angelo Coluzzi.

When her client freely admits he killed Coluzzi because of a vendetta, Judy’s troubles really begin. The Coluzzi family wants revenge. Then there’s Pigeon Tony’s hunky grandson, who makes Judy think about everything but the law.

In a case steeped in blood and memory, it will take brains and a lot of luck to save Pigeon Tony. But if anyone might see justice done, it’s this gutsy attorney who’ll risk everything to win — including her own life.

Houston Chronicle: “Scottoline sweeps her audience up in a luscious whirl of unforgettable characters and crisp plotting.”

People: “Highly entertaining.”

Chapter One

The morning Tony Lucia killed Angelo Coluzzi, he was late to feed his pigeons. As long as Tony had kept pigeons, which was for almost all of his seventy-nine years, he had never been late to feed them, and they began complaining the moment he opened the screen door. Deserting their perches, cawing and cooing, they flew agitated around the cages, their wings pounding against the chicken wire, setting into motion the air in the tiny city loft. It didn’t help that the morning had dawned clear and that March blew hard outside. The birds itched to fly.

Tony waved his wrinkled hand to settle them, but his heart wasn’t in it. They had a right to their bad manners, and he was a tolerant man. It was okay with him if the birds did only one thing, which was to fly home. They were homers, thirty-seven of them, and it wasn’t an easy job they had, to travel to a place they’d never been, a distance in some races of three hundred or four hundred miles, then to navigate their return through skies they’d never flown, over city and country they’d never seen and couldn’t possibly know, to flap their way home to a tiny speck in the middle of South Philadelphia, all without even stopping to congratulate themselves for this incredible feat, one that man couldn’t even explain, much less accomplish.

There were so many mistakes a bird could make. Circling too long, as if it were a joyride or a training toss. Getting distracted on the way, buffeted by sudden bad weather, or worse, simply getting tired and disoriented—thousands of things could result in the loss of a precious bird. Even once the first bird had made it home, the race wasn’t won. Many races had been lost by the bird who wouldn’t trap fast enough; the one who was first to reach his loft but who stopped on the roof, dawdling on his way to the trap, so that his leg band couldn’t be slipped off and clocked in before another man’s bird.

But Tony’s birds trapped fast. He bred them for speed, intelligence, and bravery, through six and even seven generations, and over time the birds had become his life. It wasn’t a life for the impatient. It took years, even decades, for Tony to see the results of his breeding choices, and it wasn’t until recently that his South Philly loft had attained the best record in his pigeon-racing club.

Suddenly the screen door banged open, blown by a gust of wind, startling Tony and frightening the birds in the first large cage. They took panicky wing, seventeen of them, all white as Communion wafers, transforming their cage into a snowy blizzard of whirring and beating, squawking and calling. Pinfeathers flurried and snagged on the chicken wire. Tony hurried to the loft door, silently reprimanding himself for being so careless. Normally he would have latched the screen behind him—the old door had bowed in the middle, warped with the rain, and wouldn’t stay shut without the latch—but this morning, Tony’s mind had been on Angelo Coluzzi.

The white pigeons finally took their perches, which were small plywood boxes lining the walls, but in their panic they had displaced each other, violating customary territories and upsetting altogether the pecking order, which led to a final round of fussing. “Mi dispiace,” Tony whispered to the white birds. I’m sorry, in Italian. Though Tony understood English, he preferred Italian. As did his birds, to his mind.

He gazed at the white pigeons, really doves, which he found so beautiful. Large and healthy, the hue of their feathers so pure Tony marveled that only God could make this color. Their pearliness contrasted with the inky roundness of their eye, which looked black but in fact was the deepest of reds, blood-rich. Tony even liked their funny bird-feet, with the flaky red scales and the toe in back with a talon as black as their eyes pretended to be. And he kidded himself into thinking that the doves behaved better than the other birds. More civilized, they seemed aware of how special they were.

The secret reason for the doves’ special status was that they were beloved of his son, who had finally stopped Tony from releasing them at weddings for a hundred fifty dollars a pop. Tony had thought it made a good side business; why not make some money to pay for the seed and medicines, plus keep the birds in shape during the off-season? And it made Tony happy to see the brides, whose hearts lifted at the flock of doves taking off outside the church, since you couldn’t throw rice anymore. It reminded his heart of his own wedding day, less grand than theirs, though such things didn’t matter when it came to love.

But his son had hated the whole idea. They’re not trained monkeys, Frank had said. They’re athletes.

So Tony had relented. “Mi dispiace,” he whispered again, this time to his son. But Tony couldn’t think about Frank now. It would hurt too much, and he had birds to feed.

He shuffled down the skinny aisle, and his old sneakers, their soles worn flat, made a swishing sound on the whitewash of the plywood floor. The floor had held up okay, unlike the screen door; Tony had built the loft himself when he first came to America from Abruzzo, sixty years ago. The loft measured thirty feet long, with the single door in the middle opening onto a skinny aisle that ran the short length of the building. It occupied all of Tony’s backyard, as if the loft and yard were nesting boxes. Off the aisle of the loft were three large chicken wire cages lined with box perches. The aisle ended in a crammed feed room, the seed kept safe from rats in a trash can, and there was a bookshelf holding antibiotics, lice sprays, vitamins, and other supplies, all labels out, in clean white shelves.

Tony prided himself on the neatness of his loft. He dusted the sills, cleaned the windows with the bright blue Windex, and scraped the floor of the cages twice a day, not once. It was important to the health of his birds. He whitewashed the loft interior each spring, before the old bird season; he had done it last week, experiencing a familiar pang—the chalky smell of the whitewash and its brightness reminded him of the white liquid shoe polish he used to paint over the scuffs on Frank’s baby shoes, when his son had started to walk. Tony remembered the shoe polish—they didn’t make it anymore—he would paint it on the stiff baby shoes with the cotton they gave you, stuck on a stick inside the cap like a white ball of dandelion seeds. Even though it dripped it worked okay.

Tony shook his head, thinking of it now, the chalky smell filling his nose like the fragrance of a rose. The bottle of polish had a blue paper label and a little circle picture of a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby who didn’t look anything like baby Frank, with his jet black curls and his big brown eyes. Somehow Tony had the idea that if he painted the watery polish on Frank’s baby shoes, his son would look like all the American babies and one day come to be one, even though Frank had the black hair and no mother. And when it actually happened and Frank grew up to take his place in this country, Tony was just superstitious enough to think that maybe it was the shoe polish.

Tony had to stop thinking about his son, though he couldn’t help it, not this morning, of all mornings, and he tried to concentrate on the first cage of doves, appraising with failing eyes their condition. The doves were settling down, roosting again, and they looked good, no big fights during the night. Tony worried about the fights; the birds were territorial and always bickering about something, and the white birds bruised easily. He wanted them to look especially nice and stay healthy. For Frank.

Tony shuffled down the aisle to the second and third cages, which held the multicolored birds, mostly Meulemans with their reddish-brown feathers, and Janssens. There were other breeds in shades of gray and brown, and the common slateys; a slate gray, their eyes generally the same dark brown. Tony liked the nonwhite breeds, too, the ordinariness of their plumage reminding him of himself; he wasn’t a flashy man, not a braggadocio. He didn’t have the strut that some men had, going about like cocks. It had been his ruin, but now that he was old, it didn’t matter anymore. It had stopped mattering a long time ago. Sixty years, to be exact.

His thoughts elsewhere, Tony watched the Janssens cooing and stirring without really seeing them. The breed name came from the Janssen family who had bred them, and the other names from the other families who had bred them; Tony had always dreamed that his family would produce its own strain of birds, but he wouldn’t name it after himself. He knew who he would name it after, but he didn’t get the chance. Many of the best breed stock came from Belgium and France. Italian pigeons also made good racers, but Tony wouldn’t have much to do with them, especially the so-called Mussolini birds. Anybody who had lived during Mussolini wouldn’t want anything to do with a Mussolini bird. Chi ha poca vergogna, tutto il mondo è suo. He who is without shame, all the world is his. Mussolini birds!

Tony was an old man with old memories. He wished he could spit on the loft floor, but he didn’t want to dirty it. Instead he stood trembling until the anger left him, except for the bitterness in his mouth. Shaken, he idly inspected the Meulemans, and they seemed fine, too. Only Tony had had the terrible morning. An awful morning; the worst he’d had in a long time, but not the worst he’d had in his life. The worst he’d had in his life was sixty years ago. That morning then, and this morning now. Today. Tony had thought he would feel better after, but he didn’t. He felt worse; he had committed an act against God. He knew that his judgment would come in heaven, and he would accept it.

His thoughts were interrupted by the Meulemans, cooing loudly, wanting to be fed, and his dark eyes went, as always, to his favorite bird of all, a Meuleman he had named The Old Man. The Old Man and Tony went back eighteen years; The Old Man was the oldest of Tony’s pigeons, and to look at him, Tony wasn’t sure who was the Old Man, him or the bird. The Old Man roosted peacefully in his corner perch in the second cage, his strong head held characteristically erect, his eyes clear and alert, and his broad breast a still robust curve covering his feet. Tony remembered the day the chick hatched, an otherwise typical slatey, apparently unremarkable at birth except for his eye sign. Eye sign, or the look in a pigeon’s eye, spoke to Tony, and The Old Man’s eyes told Tony that the bird would be fast and smart. And he had been the best, in his day.

“Come sta?” Tony asked The Old Man. How are you? But The Old Man knew exactly what he meant, and it wasn’t, “How are you?”

The Old Man regarded the old man for a long time then. Tony couldn’t help but feel that the old bird knew what he had done that morning, what had been so important as to keep Tony from feeding his birds on time. The Old Man knew why Tony had to do what he had done, even after all this time. And Tony knew that The Old Man approved.

It was then that Tony heard cars pulling up outside his house and in the alley right behind the loft, on the other side of the cinderblock wall. There was the slamming of heavy car doors, and Tony knew that they were police cars.

He had been expecting them.

But the birds startled at the sudden sound, taking flight in their cages, and even though Tony knew that the police were coming, he felt the hair rise on the back of his neck, as it used to so long ago. He froze beside the cages as the police shouted English words he didn’t bother to translate, though he could, then they broke down the old wood door in the backyard wall, one, two, three pushes and it splintered and gave way to their shoulders and they burst into his yard, trampling his basil and tomatoes.

They were coming for him.

Tony didn’t run from them, he wouldn’t have anyway, but he remembered he had yet to feed his birds. He would have to hurry to finish before the police took him away. He shuffled to the feed room even as he caught sight of the police drawing their black guns silently, pointing instructions to each other, and two of them sneaking to the back door of his house like the cowards they were, little men hiding behind black shirts and shiny badges.

Tony’s gut churned with bile, and it struck him with astonishment that the deepest hate could rage like a fire for so many years, never burning itself up.

Dwelling with perfect comfort alongside the deepest love.

Copyright © 2001 by Lisa Scottoline. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times best-selling author and former trial lawyer. She has won the Edgar Award, the highest prize in suspense fiction, and the Distinguished Author Award, from the Weinberg Library of the University of Scranton. She has served as the Leo Goodwin Senior Professor of Law and Popular Culture at Nova Southeastern Law School, and her novels are used by bar associations for the ethical issues they present. Her books are published in over twenty languages. She lives with her family in the Philadelphia area and welcomes reader email at www.scottoline.com

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