Dead Ringer (24 page)

Bennie let it go. At least he was keeping his sense of humor. He’d need it. “What kind of sharp knife? How long was the blade? Was it a steak knife? The Palm is a steakhouse.” She had been there exactly twice. She was guessing when she said, “They give you a steak knife when you order, you know.”

“No good deed goes unpunished, does it?” Detective Needleman closed the door of the car with a rueful smile. “I tried to be nice to you, I talked to you, and now look where it got me. Wait’ll I get Brinkley.”

“Sorry.” Bennie watched him turned the key in the ignition, and the car’s old engine wheezed to life. She half considered taking a ride just to keep badgering him. “Any chance I can go with you when you talk to Mayer?”

“You know, I bet you read a lot of Nancy Drew when you were little. Am I right?” He raised his voice to be heard over the car engine. “Why is it that every little girl who reads Nancy Drew thinks she can be a homicide detective? My wife, she’s the exact same way.”

“Hold on.” Bennie leaned on the car so he wouldn’t take off. “Here’s what to ask Mayer about. He was Robert’s chief competitor in the medical-lens business, and I know there was bad blood between them over a contract with a company named Hospcare. Mayer lives in Chestnut Hill, his home address was on the complaint they filed. I can fax you over a copy, or you can call information. As for his lawyer, I don’t know where—”

“I think I can do this without you.” The detective released the emergency brake. “Call me crazy.”

“I’m just trying to help. I know these players, and I have information you may need.”

“I’ll call you if I need you.”

“I want to get whoever did this.” Bennie leaned into the open car window. The Crown Vic reeked of cigar smoke. “And if the bad guy wears a tie, I don’t want him getting away with murder.”

“I don’t either, and I will keep an open mind, I always do. But don’t get in my face and don’t go over my head. I’ll keep you posted as I see fit.” The detective’s eyes went flinty, and his tone turned stern in a way that suggested he was a good father. “You have any questions or want to tell me something, you can call me at the Roundhouse.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t try and sell me that.” Detectives never spent time sitting around the Roundhouse. They were always out on jobs, as they called them. “Lemme have your beeper number.”

“No.” The detective frowned and gunned the engine, probably so it wouldn’t stall. Detectives got the worst cars in the pool and bitched about it constantly. He shouted over the breathy noise, “The best hope of getting the knucklehead who killed your client is to leave it to the professionals! Let me do my job! You get in there, you’ll screw it up!”

“Wouldn’t think of it!” Bennie shouted back, withdrawing from the window.

“There
is
a line!” Detective Needleman wagged his finger. “Don’t cross it,
Nancy!
”

Bennie put up both palms.
Don’t shoot,
said her body language, and the Crown Vic cruised off.

She put her arms down when he was out of sight. She hadn’t actually agreed not to cross the line. Nancy Drew wouldn’t have, either. And
she
didn’t even have a law degree.

Chestnut Hill is one of Philadelphia’s oldest and most exclusive residential neighborhoods, settled comfortably to the north of Center City, first by the Quakers. The neighborhood boasts spacious, graceful homes built of distinctive gray-black stones, and its main street, Germantown Avenue, winds gently through the center of town and climbs the hill that lends the town its name. Tall leafy trees line the street, sheltering quaint colonial-scale storefronts refitted with tasteful versions of Baby Gap and Starbucks. Traffic was nonexistent at this late hour, so Bennie had Germantown Avenue all to herself, though its authentic cobblestones slowed her, destroying the shock absorbers on the Saab as she rumbled over them,
bump bump bump,
rattling her jaw and setting her teeth on edge. But that could have been her mood.

Robert. Dead.
She rolled down the window and gulped in a lungful of fresh March air, waiting until the nausea passed. The night breeze wafted cool and green, full of promise, carrying the music of crickets. It qualified as a beautiful night, which somehow made Bennie angrier, for Robert’s sake. He wouldn’t get to see it, wouldn’t draw another breath on this earth. Why had he been meeting with Mayer? Did it matter?

She pressed the gas and the Saab climbed, bobbling past one green street sign then the next, looking for Prescott Road.
Bump bump bump
. Something in her felt satisfied at dropping in on Herr Mayer. Normally she wouldn’t contact a represented client without his lawyer’s consent, but Linette hadn’t thought twice about doing exactly that to her. Two wrongs make a lawyer.

She passed Gorgas Lane, then Cliveden. She had to be getting closer. Then a new thought struck her. She didn’t have to worry any longer about seeing a represented client. Robert’s death had mooted the rules of professional ethics, at least as applied to this situation. Because without a client, Bennie could be out of the class-action lawsuit.
Bump bump bump.

The implications of Robert’s murder dawned on her only slowly, and she felt guilty and selfish for even thinking of them. Robert had been the principal of St. Amien & Fils, and it was a privately held French company. God knew what bylaws governed, if any, or how its being a foreign corporation mattered. Robert had to have a successor or a second-in-command; most companies had successor plans in place. Bennie would have to find him because unless he wanted to continue the lawsuit, there would be no lawsuit, as far as she was concerned. No class-action settlement to transfuse her firm’s finances, pay the rent, and get her back on her pumps. Whoever killed Robert could have unwittingly dealt a death blow to her law firm. She could lose Rosato & Associates. She could lose the associates. She could lose her
house
.

Bennie bit her lip not to think about it. That realization had no place now, not tonight. Robert had lost his very life, and he was the reason she was here. The green street sign coming up read Prescott Road, and she could feel a surge of new energy as adrenaline dumped suddenly into her bloodstream. She wanted answers, and she’d shake them out of Mayer if she had to.

She swung the Saab onto Prescott and hit the gas.

20

Of course I know what time it is,” Bennie answered, wedging a perfectly placed Saucony farther into the front door, which was being pressed on the other side by a startled Herman Mayer.

“Then what are you doing here? How dare you come to my home at this hour! This is an outrage! It’s the middle of the—”

“Let me in, Mayer!” Bennie heaved the door with such force that it sent the thin man staggering backward against the striped wallpaper of his entrance hall.

“What do you think you are doing?” Mayer’s back flattened against the wall, his thin lips formed a perfect circle, and his eyes flared behind his glasses. “You have no business being here! You are trespassing! I’ll call the police!”

“Do it!” Bennie closed the door behind her, then glanced around. There wasn’t a telephone in the entrance, only a cherrywood half-table that sat flush against the wall and a brass stand that contained an oversized golf umbrella. So she reached into her back pocket for her cell phone and thrust it at him. “Call 911. Be my guest. Ask for Detective Needleman and tell him where you were tonight. He’d love to know. So would I.”

“This is ridiculous!’’ Mayer shouted, but his tone faltered. He took the cell phone but didn’t open it up. He straightened his glasses and smoothed out a shiny merlot smoking jacket with a black shawl collar, something that Bennie didn’t know people wore in real life. He looked like a Teutonic Ward Cleaver and he glowered at her with the same ersatz sternness used on the Beav. Mayer asked, more quietly, “Why would the police care where I was?”

Bennie checked his reaction. His upper lip stuck to his teeth; his mouth must have gone dry. His forehead furrowed deeply in the soft light of a brass candelabra. She had caught him. He was hiding something. He had done it! Fury bubbled in her blood. She grabbed the golf umbrella from the brass stand and brandished it. It was all she could do not to break it on his head, but she wanted him tried and convicted. “Call the cops, Mayer. Before I beat the shit out of you.”

“I . . . cannot.”

“Why not? I broke into your house. It’s an outrage. I’m trespassing.”

Mayer was shaking his head. His lips tightened to a line like a rubber band.

“Tell me what happened tonight.” Bennie could barely breathe. He
had
done it. “I want the truth.”

“Tonight?” Mayer swallowed with obvious difficulty. “Well. So. Tonight I had dinner at the Palm, with Robert.”

Bennie blinked. So he’d confess to dinner. She could work with that. His stalling was calming her down. “Whose idea was the dinner?”

“Mine.”

“Why?”

“I wished to talk with Robert about the lawsuit. And to apologize, for today . . . my conduct in court.”

“And did you?”

“Why do you ask me? Ask your client.”

“Yeah, right.” Bennie clenched her teeth and brandished the umbrella, which was navy and bore a white WHYY-FM logo. She had the same one. So they both supported public radio. Still, it was heavy enough and had a rather nasty point for NPR. “I’m asking
you
, you complete and total shit.”

“I was trying to persuade him to step aside. I wanted him to agree to let me serve as lead plaintiff, but I was unsuccessful.”

“He didn’t tell me anything about this meeting.”

“I know. I asked him not to, and he agreed.”

“Why?”

“This was to be kept between us, as businessmen.”

“But you told Linette.”

“I did not.”

“Oh, please. You’re telling me you didn’t tell Linette? That he didn’t put you up to it?” Bennie was normally better at cross-examination than this, but she’d never conducted one after seeing the corpse of a murdered client.

“It’s the truth. I know you may not agree, but oftentimes lawyers merely complicate the . . . process.”

Bennie didn’t disagree. “Did you speak with Linette tonight?”

“It’s not your concern, but I haven’t. I went to bed with a headache. After dinner, from the wine.”

Bennie eyed him under the umbrella. He was obviously lying. She didn’t have the best shit detector in the world, but he did all the dumb things like shifting his eyes back and forth toward the darkened living room. “What time did you finish dinner?”

“Eight o’clock, eight-thirty.”

It jibed with the time of death. “What did you do next?”

“I offered Robert a ride home, but he said it was a beautiful night, and he chose to walk. Really, this is absurd!” Mayer threw up his arms, and his funny sleeves billowed. The black satin that matched the shawl collar hemmed the cuffs, too. “Then I came home. And now I’m tired and I want to return to bed!”

“You did not, Mayer!” It
was
a beautiful night. Robert loved to walk. Now he was dead. Knifed by this man. Left to bleed in an alley. “You’re lying!”

“I did, I swear it,” Mayer stammered. He edged back toward the wall. “Honestly, call Robert and ask him! Do!”

“You
bastard!
” Bennie heard herself shouting. “You know Robert’s dead. You
killed
him!
You did it!
” She considered bringing the umbrella down onto Mayer’s head, but for the shock in his eyes and the gasp that escaped his lips.

“That cannot be. Robert dead?” Mayer shook his head slowly. “That cannot be.”

Bennie watched Mayer in a bewilderment of her own now. This guy was too stiff to fake it with such conviction, wasn’t he? It was so uncharacteristic, it had to be real. She lowered the umbrella harmlessly, surprised by her own violence and completely confused. She wasn’t sure if it was an act or not, but if he really didn’t know Robert was dead, he obviously hadn’t killed him. Then what was he so nervous about? What was Mayer hiding?

“Herman?” came another voice, and Bennie jumped. A light went on in the living room adjoining the entrance hall, and a young man emerged, in a matching Ward Cleaver robe. He was barefoot and evidently naked under the robe, which had slipped aside at the neck to reveal a skinny chest. “Is something the matter?” he asked, coming into the entrance hall, and he froze when he saw Bennie. “What’s going on here?”

Oh
. So Mayer was gay. It was no biggie to Bennie, except for that marriage part. But Mayer was doing the freak.

“Go back upstairs!” he shouted at the young man, showing the temper he’d displayed in court. “Go upstairs! Everything here is fine!” The young man turned on his bare heel and padded from the room, his footsteps disappearing in the soft rug. Mayer looked at Bennie, his thin skin tinged so deeply it made her heart go out to him.

“Herman, I don’t care if you’re gay. Nobody should have to be afraid of who they are. Some of my best friends are gay. In fact, my best friend
is
—”

“How dare you! Leave my house this instant!” Mayer flew to his door, his robe billowing behind him. He flung open the door and grabbed Bennie by the arm, with a strength he hadn’t shown to date. “Out! Out now! You’ve done enough damage here!”

“Herman, relax.” Bennie let herself be shown outside, in disbelief. Did people still reside in the closet? So that’s what Mayer had been hiding. That was why he’d been so nervous. Silly. She actually liked him better now. If he was gay, he had to have a fun side. She could introduce him to Sam. After his divorce. “Look, I won’t go blabbing. Your personal life is your personal life.”

“Never come back here!” Mayer shouted, throwing her cell phone onto the pavement, where she heard it clatter, and slamming the front door shut behind her.

Bennie stood bewildered on the stoop as the light went off in the entrance hall; she could tell from the old-fashioned transom over the front door. She felt suddenly confused, exhausted, and defeated, and she reached for the wrought-iron railing as she stepped down the front steps. She didn’t understand Mayer. She didn’t understand anything. She wanted to know for sure who killed Robert. She wanted to go home and lay her head on a cool, thin pillow. She found her cell phone in the pachysandra, went to her car, and drove back down Germantown Avenue.