“Your Honor, objection!” Hilliard said, and Judge Guthrie leaned across the dais with a deep frown.
“Sustained,” he ruled. “Ms. Rosato, I warn you.”
Bennie bore down. She couldn’t win if Guthrie tied her hands, and she had to win. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, reflect for a minute on the testimony of Officers McShea and Reston. They said they were in Detective Della Porta’s neighborhood, halfway across town, while they were supposed to be on duty. Does it ring true that a cheesesteak was the reason they left their district?”
“Objection!” Hilliard shouted. “Your Honor!”
“Sustained,” Judge Guthrie said, reaching for his gavel and holding it poised over the dais. “Ms. Rosato, you may not refer specifically to the arresting officers.”
Bennie turned on him, gritting her teeth. “Your Honor, is it your ruling that the defense cannot argue that the arresting officers lied on the stand? The jury is always free to disbelieve the officers, as it is any of the Commonwealth witnesses.”
“Ms. Rosato.” Judge Guthrie set his gavel down. “You may not argue that the police officers were involved in the underlying murder. Any inference the jury would draw in that regard would be unreasonable and speculative. Move on, counsel, before you are cited for contempt.”
Bennie ignored the threat. “Ladies and gentlemen, isn’t it at least possible that Officers McShea and Reston were on the scene because they were the ones who shot Detective Della Porta—”
“Objection, Your Honor!” Hilliard said, reaching for his crutches and standing now behind counsel table. “Defense counsel is boldly flouting your rulings, Your Honor!”
Judge Guthrie banged the gavel. Crack! “Ms. Rosato, this is your final warning. The very next improper reference and you will be held in contempt!”
Bennie told herself to calm down, but she couldn’t. Her adrenaline pumped, her heart thumped hard. She was fighting for Connolly’s life. The responsibility hit like a freight train. She ignored judge and prosecution, in favor of the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, think critically about the Commonwealth testimony. Nobody but the arresting officers heard any alleged confession. Nobody but the arresting officers heard any alleged bribe. Nobody but the arresting officers saw a plastic bag. Only the arresting officers testified to these points and that was because they lied to you.”
Bennie rested her hand on the polished jury rail, its support unexpectedly inadequate. “The Commonwealth’s case rests entirely on those lies and it will ultimately collapse of its own weight. I didn’t even think it was worth responding to, and this is a capital murder case in which the defendant is—”
Bennie caught herself. She was going to say “my twin.” She tried to keep a lid on her emotions, then realized she was struggling to suppress the truth. Her own truth. She flashed on the first day she met Connolly, then finding her father’s cottage. Reading her mother’s note; the drop of blood in the crevice of her arm. And then Bennie knew. She finally let herself acknowledge it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, in my opening argument, I told you I did not know whether Ms. Connolly is my twin. Well, that is no longer true.” Bennie’s voice grew hushed and she felt suddenly as if she were talking to herself, instead of holding the most intimate of conversations with total strangers, in open court. She was thinking clearly, standing in her own truth. “Though I have no proof, I know that Alice Connolly is my twin, as surely as I know that she did not commit this murder—”
“Objection, Your Honor!” Hilliard said, rising on his arms. “Move to strike! I demand that Ms. Rosato be cited for contempt.”
Crack! Crack! Judge Guthrie pounded the gavel to the desktop, them slammed the gavel down, handle and all. “Ms. Rosato, I’ve warned you and you’ve disregarded my warnings. I find you in plain contempt of court! Mr. Deputy, take Ms. Rosato into custody!”
In the jury box, the librarian gasped, the videographer looked stunned, and the other jurors looked equally shocked. Judy and Mary leapt to their feet. Connolly stood up, openmouthed, before an astonished courtroom as a shaken Bennie was taken roughly away.
89
The deputy in the courthouse holding area had seen many a strange sight in his cells, but he’d never seen a sight as strange as this one. He looked through the bulletproof window of his station at the two cells, each holding a pretty blonde in a gray suit. Each woman sat on the white bench in her cell, rested her chin on her hands, and crossed her legs left over right, at the knees, the same way as the other. But though the women looked and acted like twins, it was obvious they were barely friends.
The guard peeked again. Their heads were turned away from each other, in opposite directions, like newspaper photos of couples in the middle of a divorce. One twin faced the stainless steel sink in the left corner of her cell, and the other faced the stainless steel sink in the right corner of hers. The guard forgot for a minute which broad was the defendant and which the lawyer, then gave up trying. As far as he was concerned, the Lord would be the judge of them both.
“Now what happens?” Connolly asked. She stared straight ahead, not looking at Rosato. Her voice, curiously devoid of emotion, carried through the white-painted bars between their holding cells.
“I’m not sure.” Bennie shrugged listlessly.
“Does the case go forward with us sitting here?”
“No. I’m dispensable, but you have a right to be present at your own trial. The judge will calm down and let me out with a fine, or he’ll stay pissed, have Carrier take over the case, and leave me locked up. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The case is going to the jury.”
Connolly nodded. “What the fuck happened to you out there?” she asked after a minute.
Bennie rubbed her face. Her skin felt oddly strange to the touch. “I lost it, I think.”
“In my case, you lost it?”
“Why would I lose it in anybody else’s case? I got another twin?” Bennie looked over with a slightly crazy grin, and Connolly rolled her eyes.
“Right.”
“There you go.” There was nothing else to do but laugh, and Bennie did, briefly.
Connolly raked her hair back. “So, am I fucked?”
“You mean, did I just lose it for us?”
“I mean did you just lose it for me.” Connolly’s voice grew quiet, her features still.
“No, I don’t think so. I got my closing out, and the jury didn’t like what Guthrie just did. He overplayed his hand. I think the defense is in good shape. In a funny way, what just happened in there could help.”
“Why?”
“The jury won’t forget it. Also, I was right. I was telling them the truth, and they can feel that. I could feel it.” Bennie thought a minute. “It happened.”
“What happened?”
“I can’t explain it, I just feel it. Sometimes I get the feeling, like a little click during a closing, and sometimes I don’t. This time I felt the click.”
“Are you ever wrong, when you think you feel it?”
“Sure.”
Connolly blinked. “You’ve been wrong?”
Bennie leaned her head back against the unforgiving wall of cinderblock. “Sure. I’m human.”
Connolly fell momentarily silent. “You didn’t mention Shetrell in your closing.”
“Harting? No.”
“You did it for spite.”
“No, not for spite. I might be your twin but I won’t be your accomplice.”
Connolly slumped slightly and rested her hands between her legs. “You really into this twin thing, huh?”
“That we’re twins? Yeah.”
“You got all blubbery out there. I thought you were gonna cry like a baby, right in front of the jury.”
Bennie smiled sadly. “Are you surprised by that, that I might shed a tear about you being put to death?”
Connolly snorted, then looked away.
“It doesn’t mean anything to you, our being twins, does it?” Bennie asked, and watched as Connolly’s ey
es focused out the door, to the guard’s station.
“What if we’re not twins, huh? Remember that DNA test we took? What if it comes back and says we’re not twins?”
“It can’t. It won’t. I know that now. I think I always did. Our father—”
“Our father what?” Connolly turned and looked directly through the bars at Bennie. Her eyes were so angrily blue, Bennie drew back. “Our father who art in heaven?”
“Winslow.”
“Winslow? Who knows if he’s our father?” The sudden sharpness in Connolly’s voice echoed throughout the hollow cells.
“I went to his house, in Montchanin. He was away, but I found his clippings. Of me, of my career. There’s books of them.”
“So maybe he’s a freak, ever think of that?” Connolly didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s a lot of freaks out there. They hear voices, they think the FBI is following them. They think they’re married to rich guys. They think they’re Mel Gibson. They think they’re friends with Steven Spielberg or that he’s their real son. You don’t know about these people, girl, but I do. You don’t live in that world. I do.”
Bennie shook her head, no. “There’s that picture you gave me, of him holding two babies.”
“So maybe one was a friend’s baby, for fuck’s sake, or maybe both. Do they look alike to you? You can’t tell a friggin’ thing from that photo. I don’t believe the guy for a minute. I thought he was a crackpot.”
“I found a Dear John note, from our mother, leaving him. He even came to her funeral.”
“So what? So maybe she left him when she had you. It doesn’t mean we’re twins. Maybe you’re his kid, not me.” Connolly grew louder, almost shouting in the cells. “Or maybe it’s the other way around, huh? Maybe he’s some freak and I’m his real daughter, but I grew up to be a dope dealer. So one day he’s watching the TV and he sees you, a big success. We look alike and he gets it into his head that I’m like you. That I’m really your twin. That we’re both his kids, his twin girls. So he comes to me and tells me my twin will help me.”
Bennie tried to wrap her mind around the situation. When they’d first met, Connolly had tried to convince Bennie they were twins. Now that Bennie had finally come around, Connolly was trying to convince her they weren’t. The reversal made her head spin. “Why are you saying this?”
“What?”
“You’re trying to convince me I’m not your twin.”
“I’m just saying I don’t think we’re twins, is all.” Connolly’s features returned to their familiar lines, and her tone went cold. “I don’t need a twin. I don’t want a twin. If I get off when this is over, I don’t want a twin. Got it?”
There was a loud rap at Bennie’s door and the guard’s face loomed at the bulletproof window. “Will the real Miss Rosato please stand up?”
“I’m Rosato.” Bennie stood up as the guard slid a key into the locked door to her cell.
“Judge wants you in the courtroom. Said you don’t need no cuffs.”
“What a guy.” Bennie walked out into the hallway, which was barely wide enough to fit one person and flooded with harsh fluorescent lighting. The guard moved next door and unlocked Connolly’s door with an expert twist of the wrist.
“This could be my big chance, Rosato,” Connolly said loudly. “I could tell the guard that I was really you. Then you’d be the one on the hot seat, and I’d go free no matter what the verdict.” Connolly stepped into the tight hallway and offered her wrists for cuffing. “How about it? Would you trade places with me now? Would you bet your life on this case?”
“That’s enough of that talk,” the guard said gently, but Bennie felt too stricken to speak.
Would you bet your life on this case?
Bennie felt like she already had.
As soon as the door to the courtroom opened, Bennie caught sight of Judge Guthrie, who had evidently regained his judicial temperament, for his features seemed composed and his manner calm. The jury was sitting in their paneled box, and a chagrined Dorsey Hilliard was in place at the prosecutor’s table. At the bar of court, Carrier and DiNunzio sat on the edge of their chairs, visibly concerned.
Bennie entered the courtroom, and the gallery reacted instantly, fidgeting in the pews for a better look. Reporters wrote furiously in their skinny notebooks, next to sketch artists who drew so deftly they appeared to be scribbling. Mike and Ike sat wedged among them, unhappy as linemen benched in the playoffs.
“Ms. Rosato,” Judge Guthrie said, “please approach. Mr. Sheriff, please escort the defendant to her seat at counsel table.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Bennie said, her tone professional as she faced the dais and looked Judge Guthrie in the eye. Behind her, Connolly was escorted to counsel table.
“Ms. Rosato,” Judge Guthrie began. “The Court found you in contempt for disobeying my order during your closing argument. However, after vigorous argument by one of your associates, the Court finds it would be in the interests of justice for the matter to proceed.” The judge nodded grimly in the direction of Carrier and DiNunzio, and Bennie thanked God for Carrier. “You are hereby released from your incarceration and fined a sum of five hundred dollars. Your associate has already paid the sum on your behalf, to the Clerk of Court. Are you finished with your closing argument?”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Then take your seat, counsel, while we continue this final phase of trial. Mr. Hilliard, you may have rebuttal.”
Bennie returned to counsel table and checked the jury’s reaction. They seemed subdued as a group; the librarian didn’t look at her, and even the lively videographer seemed impassive. Would you trade places with me now? Would you bet your life on this case? Bennie had felt the click during her closing, but she’d been wrong before.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury” Hilliard said from the podium, and began his rebuttal, repeating that the jury couldn’t infer a police conspiracy from the absence of the murder weapon. He concluded quickly and when he was finished the jury looked somber. Bennie wasn’t certain what conclusion to draw from their grave faces; in her experience, jurors usually grew serious when the time of decision was at hand. She wished she could argue again, but the defense didn’t get the second shot the Commonwealth did.
Judge Guthrie proceeded immediately to charge the jury, reading them a lengthy recitation of the relevant points of law both sides had submitted, while Bennie sat quietly, only half-listening, slowly realizing that the case was ebbing out of her control. Usually it came as a relief to Bennie when the power, and the ultimate responsibility, shifted from her to the jury. In the past it had meant her job was finished, and after the verdict, she could return to her life. She’d loll around in bed with Grady, then get up and work on the house. She’d visit with her mother, sit with her in the elegant hospital until she’d dozed off.
But when this trial ended there would be none of these things. Nothing but a vacuum, and that was the best-case scenario. What if they lost? Bennie shuddered as the jury filed out to begin deliberations, disappearing through the paneled door. Departing to decide Connolly’s fate, leaving Bennie with nothing but emptiness, and fear.
90
The lawyers awaited the verdict back at the office, and Bennie helped the associates gather the trial exhibits and return them to the file. It wasn’t the type of clerical task she usually performed, but she knew they’d need her help and part of her wasn’t ready to let go of the associates. Trying this case together had brought them closer, like soldiers in the war, and Bennie knew this war wasn’t over yet. If Connolly were convicted, there was still the penalty phase of the trial to go, with Bennie putting up the expert and fact witnesses that would be Connolly’s last hope. “You got the psych expert lined up, right, Carrier?”
“All taken care of. Ready on phone notice.”
“Good. You got the assistant warden?”
“Only the assistant’s assistant. She’ll say that Connolly was the model inmate, conducted the computer cl
ass, and showed rehabilitation potential.”
Bennie kept her own counsel. With what she knew, eliciting that testimony would be like suborning perjury. She turned to DiNunzio. “Any luck finding anybody who knew Connolly growing up?”
“No. I made a bunch of calls and got zip.”
“No family left at all? Not even cousins or something?”
“None.”
Bennie considered the implications. She and Connolly were all each other had left. “You checked on family friends and neighbors?”
“I found an acquaintance who knew her from high school. She said Connolly was always an outsider. Maybe that would help. She said she’d testify. If we need her, I can take her.”
“You’ll do the direct exam, DiNunzio? No jitters?”
“Not after my contempt argument.”
Bennie smiled, surprised. She had assumed that Carrier had handled the argument. “You mean you argued that, to Judge Guthrie?”
“Yes,” Mary said, and couldn’t hide a proud smile. “I got you out of jail. Almost free.”
“How’d you handle it? Were you nervous?”
“It didn’t kill me, so I must be stronger.”
Judy nodded happily. “She was awesome. She had the case law ready as soon as they took you away. It only made sense for her to argue it, not me.”
Bennie didn’t get it. “You had contempt cases ready? Why? How?”
“I thought you might get into trouble down the line. I would have, in your position. As nuts as my twin makes me, she’s still my twin. So I found a few cases this morning.”
Bennie laughed, a brief break from the tension. “Well, thanks. You done good.” Then her thoughts returned to Connolly. “So we don’t have much for the penalty phase, is what I’m hearing. Wonderful.” Bennie thought of trying to contact her father. He could tell the story of how he had abandoned Connolly, help her in a way he’d never helped before. She shook it off, then unaccountably, thought of Lou. “You didn’t hear anything from Lou, did you?” Bennie asked, and Mary shook her head.