Mistaken Identity (49 page)

Lou spotted the precinct house straight ahead, on the left. You’d never know it was a police station from the outside. The sign was small and the yellow brick poorly maintained for a municipal building. Steel cages covered the windows and the flag was at half-mast. It was because of Lenihan, though the kid wouldn’t be getting the hero treatment. The Department would want the whole thing to blow over, and so would the mayor.

Lou got closer. Squad cars were piled like goddamn cookies around the place. Never enough parking around any precinct house; never enough cops, never enough cars. Nobody could keep up with the scumbags, the drugs so plentiful they blanketed everything, cheap as baker’s flour. Not a soul in the world could stop it. Lou knew that in his head, but it didn’t stop him from trying. He was stupid that way. He climbed the front steps of the station house and went inside.

Behind the desk was a young black woman with her hair tucked up under her hat and a smile covered with braces. She asked if she could help him, like it was a bakery shop, and Lou smiled. “Lookin’ for Ed Vega,” he said.

“You just missed him. He’ll be right back.”

“Damn,” Lou said. “I’ll wait. He was supposed to meet me for lunch.”

“You’re not a reporter, are you?” she asked, her eyes narrowing, and Lou laughed.

“Hell, no. I’m—I
used to be—
a cop.”

T
he witness, Dr. Liam Pettis, was bald, with a silver-white tuft of hair above each fuzzy ear, and his smile was flanked by the softest of jowls. He wore a seersucker suit of sky-blue stripes that fit his small, pudgy frame as if it had been bought many years ago. In response to Dorsey Hilliard’s questions, Dr. Pettis recited a laundry list of expert qualifications—degrees, publications, and awards—yet still managed to sound slightly surprised when Judge Guthrie qualified him as an expert.

“Dr. Pettis,” Hilliard continued, “in addition to being a professor and a licensed physician, you are also an expert in blood spatter analysis, are you not?”

“I am.”

“Briefly explain what blood spatter analysis means, in layman’s terms, if you would.”

“Blood spatter analysis, or bloodstain pattern analysis, means simply that when blood is acted upon by physical forces, it will deposit itself on items at a crime scene or on the clothing of a perpetrator in a certain pattern. By understanding these patterns, we can learn much about the manner in which the murder was accomplished.”

Bennie caught a glimpse of the gallery. Sketch artists rushed to get a drawing and reporters made rapid notes. Mike and Ike remained in position and behind them huddled the DiNunzios. Mrs. DiNunzio glared at her, and Bennie wondered who were more protective, bodyguards or Italian parents. Still, she didn’t resent Mary’s mother, who reminded her of what her mother could have been, had she been well.

“Dr. Pettis,” Hilliard asked, “could you describe for the jury the type of injury Detective Della Porta sustained in relation to the blood spatter you examined?”

“Certainly. In this case, a gun, a .22 caliber weapon, was fired into the decedent’s lower forehead. Here.” Dr. Pettis pointed a furry finger at the middle of his brow. “The skin over the bone exploded, the cranium was pierced, and blood and matter in the cranial vault were blown forward. The bullet lodged in the back of the skull and made a small hole in the forehead. Its geometry was quite round, which suggests that the weapon was fired directly at the victim, point-blank. Considering the blood spatter on the walls and furniture of the apartment, which I examined through photographic evidence, I would say the weapon was fired from a distance of three to four feet.”

Hilliard crossed to the evidence table and picked up the plastic bag containing the bloody sweatshirt. “Dr. Pettis, have you had a chance to examine the blood on the sweatshirt that constitutes Commonwealth Exhibit 13, which we admitted earlier into evidence?”

“Yes, sir, I have.”

Hilliard rested on a single crutch, extracted the sweatshirt from the bag, and walked to the stand with the sweatshirt, which flopped at his side like a blood-soaked battle standard. “These spots on the sweatshirt are what you are referring to as blood spatter, is that correct?”

“Yes. That is a very typical pattern of blood spatter. In addition, I performed a number of tests on that blood, the conventional blood work for typing and so forth, as well as DNA testing. PCR testing. I could elaborate, if you wish, on the PCR process.”

Hilliard shook his gleaming head. “That won’t be necessary,” he answered, glancing at the jurors. “PCR testing is accepted in the scientific community as reliable and valid, is it not, Dr. Pettis?”

“Oh, yes, of course. PCR testing is used for plant and animal research around the country. In the human biology context, PCR testing may be used to determine paternity and twinness.”

Bennie flushed instantly, thinking of the DNA test she and Connolly had taken. She had completely forgotten about the test because of all that had happened in the interim. When would those results be in? She caught one of the jurors, the videographer with the goatee, looking over at her.

“Dr. Pettis, did you test the blood on the sweatshirt and compare it for identification purposes with a sample of Detective Della Porta’s blood supplied you by the Commonwealth?”

“I did,” Dr. Pettis said, nodding.

“And is it your considered expert opinion, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that the blood on this sweatshirt is that of Detective Della Porta?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Thank you, sir. I have no further questions of this witness, Your Honor,” Hilliard said, gathering the sweatshirt and dropping it back at the evidence table, bloody side up before the jurors. They fell silent, gazing at the stains. Even Bennie imagined the blood on Della Porta’s forehead, then the blood spurting from Lenihan’s neck. The blood of Valencia Mendoza. Then hers and Connolly’s, squinted at through microscopes, cell-size.

“Will you cross-examine, Ms. Rosato?” Judge Guthrie asked, and Bennie rose without looking at her client.

“I
t’s Vega the Younger,” Lou said when he saw Carlos Vega’s kid bounding out of the rain and through the glass doors of the precinct house.

“Sorry I’m late, sir,” the young cop said. He palmed his dripping cap and brushed it dry. A flock of uniforms flowed into the station house, talking and shedding wet slickers when they got inside. They all looked like babies to Lou, none as robust as Carlos’s kid, who crammed his hat under his arm and extended a large hand. “I’m Ed Vega. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Jacobs.”

“Shit, who’s Mr. Jacobs?” Lou said. He shook the kid’s hand and held on to it for a minute, marveling at his broad, earnest face. The kid had dark hair, a small mustache, and the bedroom eyes his father had at twenty-three. “Call me Lou, okay? Your dad, now he has to call me Mr. Jacobs.”

Vega laughed. “Okay, Lou. Sorry I’m late. You buyin’ me lunch, I hear?”

“Depends on how hungry you are.”

“I could eat a horse,” the kid said, and Lou shot him a look.

“Drink water. I’m on Social Security.”

“Deal.”

Lou fell in step with the kid and they headed back outside, but were stopped at the door by a flood of uniforms coming in from the rain. Lou counted eight of them, including two broads who cursed worse than the men. “It’s a brave new world, ain’t it?” Lou said, without elaborating, as an older, taller cop hurried up the steps.

“Hey, Lou,” Ed said, grabbing the older man by the elbow, “wanna meet somebody even older than you? Lou, this is Joe Citrone, my partner. Joe, Lou Jacobs, a friend of my dad’s.”

“Hey,” Citrone said quickly, nodding like he was too busy to shake hands. He tried to pass but the boisterous crowd blocked the door.

“You look kinda familiar,” Lou said, his crow’s-feet wrinkling as he appraised Citrone. A fit guy, with hard eyes and no laugh lines. “When’d you graduate the academy? Class of—”

“Don’t try to make conversation,” Ed interrupted with a grin. “Joe Citrone is a man of few words.”

Lou laughed. “Most cops yap like yentas.”

“Lou, you want to know about Lenihan, you oughta be talkin’ to Joe,” Vega said, and Lou’s ears pricked up.

“You knew Lenihan, buddy?”

“No, I didn’t,” Citrone said, and confusion creased the younger cop’s forehead.

“Sure you did, the other day …” Vega started to say, but his sentence trailed off.

“You’re mistaken, Ed.” Citrone looked at Lou. “Good meeting you.”

Vega fell silent as his partner walked away, then he slapped his cap on and gave it a twist. “Where we goin’ to lunch?” he asked.

“Where else?” Lou said, and after a backward glance at Citrone, he ventured into the storm.

Debbie’s Diner, with its aluminum sides, train-car shape, and familiar doughnut sign, had become a fixture in South Philly. The food was good, the prices cheap, and the only drawback to the diner were the mob killings that took place in its front parking lot, generally in odd-numbered years. The murders were of the old-fashioned variety; a single, accurate gunshot to a target selected by an organized crime family, not the scattershot drive-by that shredded kids in the crossfire and left Lou asking what had the world come to, whenever the killers acted so inhuman. But rather than scare the patrons away, the murders served only to authenticate Debbie’s, fazing neither the made men nor uniformed cops who ate there. Lou knew that as long as there was scrambled eggs with ketchup, there would be Debbie’s. And he was glad.

“Let’s sit here,” Lou said, and showed Vega to his favorite booth. He sat down and grabbed some paper napkins from the steel dispenser, leaving it rocking. “You wet, kid? You want a napkin to dry off?”

“No, thanks.” Vega shook his hair dry like a Newfoundland puppy, and the waitress came over, cute with a short haircut and a black uniform that fit just right.

“You guys ever hear of umbrellas?”

“No,” Lou said. “We hate umbrellas.”

Vega grinned. “It’s a cop thing.”

The waitress shook her head. Her lapel pin, in the trademark doughnut shape, read
TERESA—THREE YEARS
, her name and years of service at Debbie’s. Teresa was an infant by Debbie standards. “Two coffees, right away?” she asked.

“You’re a genius,” Vega said with a grin.

“Yeah, right. I should go on
Jeopardy,
” she said, and took off.

Vega ran his hand over his hair and it popped back up like porcupine quills. “So, Lou, I don’t know anything about him. Never even met the guy. It’s an effin’ shame, what happened.”

“You hear anything about him? What’s the scuttlebutt?”

“There isn’t any.”

“Hard to believe.”

“Lou, I don’t know what my dad told you, but I only been in the district two months. I just got paired with Citrone.”

Lou nodded. “Citrone knows Lenihan, though?”

“You heard him. No.”

“I heard
you.
You said he did.”

“I musta made a mistake.”

Lou blinked. “I don’t think so, son, and I gotta know what you know. Lenihan got dead tryin’ to kill somebody I care about. I want to know why.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“You said Citrone knows Lenihan. What made you say that?”

Vega swiped his hair again and squinted around for the waitress. “Where’s that coffee?”

“Why’d you think Citrone knew Lenihan?”

Vega waved a hand, caught the waitress’s eye, and made a drinking motion. She nodded, grabbed the pot by its brown plastic handle, and scored two mugs on the fly.

“Ed, why did you think Citrone knew Lenihan?” Lou asked again, but the kid kept squinting at the waitress, avoiding his eye. “Ed?”

“Here’s the brew,” Vega said, turning around as the heavy mugs arrived and the waitress set them on the table with a harsh clatter.

“I was gettin’ the menus for you, Skippy.” She poured the coffee into one mug, then the next. Lou noticed a dark tattoo on her forearm, a Chinese symbol, and wondered when girls started getting tattoos. Right after they joined the police force, but before they started law firms? Lou watched the waitress walk away and saw with satisfaction that some things still remained the same.

Vega gulped his coffee and hunched over the table. “Mr. Jacobs, Lou,” he said, in a low voice. “My dad says you’re a great guy, so you’re a great guy, but I’m not about to go up against Joe Citrone for you. You understand?”