“Detective,” Bennie interrupted, “the woman on the tape isn’t me, it’s my twin. I didn’t take the earrings, she did.”
Carrier clamped a hand over her client’s. “Bennie, please don’t make any more statements. You know better than to-”
“But that’s not me on that tape!” Bennie knew Carrier was right, but she couldn’t help herself. Alice had turned her life upside down. She appealed to Maloney as the bald detective took rapid notes. “Detective, I have a twin, an identical twin, named Alice Connelly. This is criminal impersonation, clear and simple. Alice Connelly is pretending to be me. I want these charges dropped!”
Carrier squeezed her hand. “Bennie, please let me handle this. You’re not going to convince him. We should just end this interrogation.”
But Detective Maloney was looking directly at Bennie, amused, if not intrigued. “Ms. Rosato, are you telling me it’s not you on the tape, it’s your twin?”
“It’s a matter of record, Maloney. Her name is Alice Connelly.”
Carrier leaned forward. “Detective, this interview is over. My client isn’t answering any more questions. Let’s get her arraigned so I can post bail and get her out of here.”
Detective Maloney snorted. “You really have a twin, Rosato?”
“I do, I defended her on a murder charge, two years ago. It was in all the papers. Her prints are on file, too. If you had just investigated for two minutes before you-”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know, exactly. In town.” Bennie turned to her pissed-off associate. “Carrier, did you have any luck in finding her?”
“I’m not discussing this here. You want me to waive attorney-client privilege?” Carrier’s eyes flared. “I said, the interview is over!”
“Where does she live?” Detective Maloney was asking Bennie.
“I don’t know.”
Carrier cleared her throat, interrupting. “Bennie, please, that’s enough. Detective Maloney, as I said, it’s time to end this interrogation.”
Maloney addressed Bennie again. “But she lives in Philly, your sister?”
“I don’t think so.”
Maloney frowned. “You don’t know where your own twin sister lives?”
“We weren’t raised together. But she’s in town. She’s running around town, posing as me.”
Carrier jumped to her feet and made a show of gathering her papers. “Bennie, Detective Maloney! Really! This interrogation is over. It’s time to-”
“Where does she work?” the detective asked Bennie.
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of car does she drive? We can run a DMV check.”
“I don’t know.”
“Voter’s registration? You don’t know.” Maloney’s eyes narrowed. If he’d believed Bennie at first, he was beginning to doubt it now. “Let me get this straight. Your twin did the crime, but you can’t tell us anything about her. And we have a positive ID on you, a coupla eyewitnesses, and you got no alibi.” Maloney shook his head. “If I were you, I’d give us a complete statement right now, because after we see what the search of your house and office turns up-”
“Search of my house and office?” Bennie felt stricken. “You have to be kidding! I just told you, I had nothing to do with it! My twin did it! You’re not searching anything!”
“We’re already conducting the search, Ms. Rosato.”
“You’re fucking searching my house?” Bennie exploded, even as she knew she shouldn’t. Curse or explode, that is. But the cops were at her house! Turning over her mattress. Digging through her underwear drawer. She should have realized. They preferred to search when the owner wasn’t there, so they wouldn’t be interrupted, and they had more than enough for probable cause to get a warrant. Still. “How dare you search my-”
“Bennie, that’s it!” Carrier shouted. “Let the detective produce his warrant! Detective, I’m sure you wouldn’t search without a warrant.”
“Of course not, I was just about to give it to you.” Detective Maloney extracted a warrant from a manila folder under his pad and handed it to Carrier, who grabbed it before her client could. Bennie’s one glance at it made her ballistic. Her home address, on the PREMISES line!
“Detective, why didn’t you do your fucking homework? I have a twin! The case made major news! You know the press will pick this up from the scanners? You trying to ruin me?”
“Rosato, you gotta settle down.” Detective Maloney gritted his teeth, and Bennie got hotter.
“Don’t tell me to settle down! You’re invading my home, my office! You arrested me in front of my most important client! You’re pickin’ on the wrong lawyer on the wrong frigging day.”
“That’s enough outta you!” Detective Maloney shouted back, pointing a stiff finger in Bennie’s face. “I know you’re a certified big deal, that’s why SIU got stuck with you. But you got no privileges here, no matter who you are!”
“I didn’t ask for anything special, I just asked you to do your job like a professional!” Bennie leapt to her feet, and suddenly Carrier stepped in front of her and turned around. The two women stood nose to nose. Bennie wasn’t sure if Carrier was protecting the detective or her.
“Sit down, Bennie!” Carrier shouted in Bennie’s face. “Sit down, shut up, and let me do my job like a professional!”
“But these charges are bullshit!”
“I said, sit down and shut up!” Carrier glowered at Bennie from under a fuchsia fringe that made it impossible to take her seriously, even though Bennie knew she was right.
“I will not!”
“You will, too!” Carrier yelled back, and before Bennie knew what was happening, the associate shoved her down into the seat, grabbed the handcuffs from the chair arm, and slapped the open one onto Bennie’s wrist, where it clicked shut. “Ha! Now you’ll stay put!”
“Ouch!” Bennie’s mouth dropped open. She looked at the cuff pinched tight around her wrists, then up at her associate. “You handcuffed me?”
“You’re hanging yourself! You’re giving them free discovery!” Carrier straightened up with satisfaction and turned from an incredulous Bennie toward an equally incredulous detective. “Now, Detective Maloney, this interrogation is over!”
“I, for one, am loving this,” the detective said, shaking his head with a smile. He leaned back in the chair and gestured to the other detective. “You get a load a this, Shep? The lawyer cuffing the client?”
“You go, girl,” the bald detective said with a sly grin. “We gonna do anything about it?”
“Better not!” Carrier told them. “If I have no objection, why should you?”
“I have an objection!” Bennie felt confounded. My lawyer is depriving me of my civil rights. She was pretty sure it was unconstitutional, if not basically the same thing. “Remember me? The one chained to the chair? Woo-hoo, Carrier!”
But everybody, including her own associate, ignored her. “Detective Maloney,” Carrier said, “my client is telling the truth, but you wouldn’t drop the charges now anyway, would you?”
“Not on your life. You know that’s not how it works at this stage. Or maybe you don’t.” Maloney shrugged. “We got more than enough to charge, so we gotta charge. What do I say to the jewelry store? ‘Sorry, but it coulda been her twin’? If you got proof of this twin, you can present it at the preliminary hearing in ten days. Then they’ll dismiss the charges, but not now.”
“We will.” Carrier shot Bennie a look that said, See? “And she’s not signing anything or making any further statements. So unlock her and let me bail her out.”
Bennie looked up. “Bail me out? With what?”