Rough Justice Read online

  Mary could barely move in Judy’s blue down parka and puffy bib overalls. Freezing snow blew into her mouth and stung her cheeks. She pulled Judy’s scarf up to her nose, which was wet and drippy. So attractive. “I can’t ski, I’m Italian,” Mary shouted, shaky on the skis. Her toes were pinned to wood and her arms were stretched out at her sides. She felt like the Pillsbury Doughboy, crucified. In a freezer.

  “What does being Italian have to do with it?” Judy called over her shoulder as she skied forward smoothly.

  “Italians aren’t made to do certain things.” Mary pushed her skis forward in an imitation of Judy’s lunging slip-slide, but the most she could manage was a penguin’s waddle.

  “What things?” Judy shouted, and the wind carried her words backward.

  “Things nobody should do in the first place. Climb mountains. Ride horses. Everything you do.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Not everybody can do everything, Jude.”

  “The exact opposite is true. Everybody can do everything!”

  Mary gave up. Empowerment wasn’t for everybody. Not Catholics, anyway. Mary struggled to slide her left ski forward, but there was an icy patch on the track and she fell over. “Yiiiiii!”

  “Use your poles!” Judy twisted around in time to see her friend flop sideways in slow motion. Mary had fallen three times in as many blocks. At this rate it would take them a week to get to the Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. It was hard going, harder than it had been when Judy was out before. The snow had gotten so deep it swallowed her thighs at points. If it weren’t such a light, dry powder, it would have been like skiing in pea soup. “You okay?”

  “Fine. Great. Never better!” Mary was struggling to get up, but couldn’t get her bearings. She was a bright cobalt lump, like one of the new blue M&M’s, in the middle of the wide white boulevard. Snow drifted in mounds where the wind had whisked it and glistened in the streetlights like vanilla frosting on a birthday cake. Presiding over Broad Street was the lighted yellow clock tower on City Hall, a birthday candle burning gold. It read 9:30.

  “Climb back up using your poles,” Judy called out. “One-potato, two-potato.”

  Mary got a death grip on her ski pole and hoisted herself upright, only tentatively vertical. She brushed off her ski pants and shoved her gloves into the loops on her poles. She felt cold and cranky. Snow flew in her teeth like gnats. She was miserable every minute and it was still better than being a lawyer.

  “Westward ho!” Judy faced forward, planted the tips of her poles until they hit asphalt, and pushed off, covering several feet in the next few minutes. Mary bridged the gap between them halfway up the block, as they approached Washington Avenue and the bright neon lights of the University of the Arts.

  “You think Marta’s okay?” Mary called out.

  “Hope so!” Judy had telephoned the office but there’d been no answer, so she’d left a message at the hotel. Maybe Marta had been in the bathroom or not answering the phone. Maybe the jury had come back with a question and Marta had been called to court. Or maybe something had happened with The Hulk. Judy worried that whatever Marta was involved in might be dangerous, but Judy wanted to get to the bottom of it, too. She hadn’t represented a criminal defendant before and she hoped she hadn’t started with one who was guilty. Judy had to know, for herself, whether Steere was a murderer. She speared the snow with her poles and pushed ahead into the storm.

  “Hey,” said a voice Penny Jones recognized right off as Bobby Bogosian. Penny was so excited he popped forward in his recliner with a thump that felt like whiplash. Penny used to hang with Bogosian before Bogosian moved on to the big time. He was happy Bogosian was calling him after so many years, but he knew enough not to act it.

  “Bobby,” Penny said, like they just hung up yesterday. He pinched out his joint and dropped it in the ashtray. An old TV flickered in the background, showing scene after scene of the blizzard. Penny had the volume on mute.

  “Still boostin’ cars?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeh, sure. You know me.” Penny picked up nine cars a day and specialized in Jeeps. The money was okay except this winter. Hard to pop a Jeep under three feet of snow. On TV, the weatherman was sticking a yardstick in the shit and grinning like a moron. Friggin’ snow. Every day, Penny was losing money. “I got a new business, too.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “A new business, for real.”

  “You had a new business last time we talked. Those fuckin’ machines, with the crane picks out the stuffed animals for a quarter.”

  “That’s over. This is a new new business. An expansion, like.”

  Bogosian, at the other end of the line, shook his head. Couldn’t believe he had had to call a little turd like Penny. Bobby couldn’t raise Gyro, and Eddie was snowed in in the friggin’ suburbs. He ended up with Penny only because he lived in the city and would have the right wheels. If he could see over the console. Fuckin’ midget.

  “Bobby, you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You need somethin’, Bobby?”

  “From you? Only if you got a four-wheel drive. Like a Jeep.”

  “Hey, no problem.” Penny looked past the clutter in his cramped apartment to a piece of plywood with keys hanging on it, like a valet parking board. Actually, it was a valet parking board. Penny brought it home from work, telling his manager it got stolen. Well, it did. Penny needed the board to keep track of the cars he was rebuilding in his new business. He’d boost the car, strip it, and sell the skeleton. Then he’d buy the skeleton back at auction, rebuild the car, and sell it with the title. Having good title jacked up the sale price. Made it nice and legal. “I got a coupla Jeeps. A real nice one’ll be ready tomorrow. My inventory’s a little low because of the snow—”

  “I need a Jeep now. In stock.”

  Penny’s bloodshot eyes scanned the keys on the board. “I got a nice new Grand Cherokee, just rebuilt. Title and all. I’d give you a great price, Bobby. Next to nothin’.”

  Bogosian snorted. “I don’t want to buy a fuckin’ car, you dick. You need it for the job.”

  “A job?” Penny couldn’t believe his ears. “You got a job for me? What kinda—”

  “Will you shut the fuck up?”

  Penny told himself to shut the fuck up. Reminded himself if he don’t have a good thing to say, don’t say nothing. “Yeh,” Penny said, and hoped it sounded like nothing.

  “It’s in Grays Ferry. The Twenty-fifth Street Bridge. You know where that is, jizzbag?”

  “Yeh,” Penny said. Fuckin’ A! If he could do some jobs for Bogosian, he could make himself some real dough. Bogosian was the man! Bogosian was the bomb! Bogosian was money! Penny couldn’t help jumping out of his chair and wiggling his ass like a little faggot. “When I gotta go?” he asked as his skinny butt swayed.

  “Now,” Bogosian said. “Right now.”

  “You got it.” Penny boogied over to the bedroom for his gun. “I’m all ears, Bobby.”

  19

  Bennie Rosato stepped off the elevator into a nightmare. There had been killings again, at a law firm she owned. Security guards were dead, one Bennie had known well, an older man named Pete Santis. Pete lived alone like Bennie and they used to trade dog stories. Both owned the only two golden retrievers in the world who were allowed to jump on people. “Allowed, hell,” Pete used to say. “We’re talkin’ encouraged.”

  Bennie couldn’t believe Pete was dead, but it was his body she’d just seen loaded into the medical examiner’s van in a black zipper bag. It was his blood she’d seen in the elevator cab downstairs. Pete died defending what Bennie owned, maybe protecting her people. She felt heartsick, stunned. The elevator doors slid closed, stranding Bennie in the middle of the hallway, where the news got even worse.

  Nobody appeared to care. The hallway at Rosato & Associates was empty except for a single uniformed cop who stood at the entrance to one of the glass conference rooms. No yellow tape had been strung up.
No forensic photographers snapped photos of the crime scene. No police techs hustled through the halls vacuuming fibers or sampling dirt from the rug. Bennie had made a career prosecuting police misconduct cases and knew police procedure almost as second nature. None of it was being followed here.

  Bennie had learned about the guards’ murders from TV. No one from the department had called her and no detective came by for a statement. As soon as she heard, she’d thrown a Gore-Tex jacket over her jeans and workshirt and run the short distance to the office, only to find it quiet as a law library.

  Two men had been murdered, two associates had vanished, Marta Richter was gone — and nobody was investigating. Bennie resisted leaping to the conclusion that it was payback. What was going on? She walked over to the uniformed cop, who had bright reddish hair and a coarse rust-colored mustache, and introduced herself.

  “I know who you are,” the cop said. He wore his cap low on his forehead, his arms were linked behind his back, and he stared pointedly past Bennie, like a Beefeater in blue.

  “A fan, huh?”

  “Not hardly.”

  Bennie stopped short of giving the cop the finger. “Should I take it personally that nobody’s investigating these murders? Two security guards down, my God. I would think Homicide would be all over this. Half the guards in the city are former cops.”

  “Don’t have nothin’ to do with you, Ms. Rosato,” the uniform said. “It’s snowin’ out there, if you haven’t noticed. Most of us couldn’t report in. The ones that got in can’t get around the city. It’s a blizzard. We’re doing the best we can.”

  “What about the detectives? The day shift would have stayed in, wouldn’t they?”

  “Only one is left at Two Squad. It’ll be his case. Every homicide tonight will be his case. He’ll be here as soon as he can make it in the snow.”

  “Who is it? Which detective?”

  “Don’t know. That’s confidential anyway. As you know.”

  “Why isn’t he here? The Roundhouse is only half an hour away, even in the blizzard.”

  The cop looked at Bennie for the first time, with a slack expression that barely masked his hostility. “The detective isn’t at headquarters. He’s stuck on a double in West Philly. He’ll get here when he gets here.”

  “So nobody can get to the scene? Not even a crime tech? A photographer? The department gonna just sit on its hands?”

  “No,” the cop said, “we already have an APB out on the shooter. I called it in, okay? That good enough for you?”

  “You got the shooter?” Bennie asked, heartened. “So soon? How? You have an eyewitness?”

  “I can’t say. It’s against regulations.”

  “That fast, it would have to be fingerprints.” She looked around. The scene was clean, untouched. “But nobody dusted for prints yet. How’d you do it?”

  “It’s a confidential investigation. You know the rules.”

  “I hate the rules.” Bennie was mystified. She opted for thinking aloud; it either worked or drove cops crazy. A win-win situation. “Let’s see now, you can’t have him on film, there’s no video cameras in the building. And blood wouldn’t come back so quick, or DNA. There’s no crime tech here to sample it anyway.”

  “It’s confidential, Ms. Rosato.” The uniform shook his head. His paunch protruded slightly over his thick belt and he wore a black nylon jacket over his blue shirt, with a sobering black ribbon over his chrome badge. His nameplate said TORREGROSSA, Bennie noticed.

  “You Italian, too?” she asked, and the cop burst into laughter.

  “You think I’m that easy?”

  “Can’t blame me for trying, can you? This is my law firm. My people. I’ll suck up if I have to. Wouldn’t you? Where’s your loyalty, paesan?”

  The cop shook his head. “You sound like my mother.”

  “I sound like everybody’s mother. You know why? Because I care. Now who’s the shooter and how’d you find him?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Fine, table the shooter for the time being. I don’t care about the shooter, I care about the lawyers. You got any leads on the lawyers? DiNunzio and Carrier? Richter? They all signed in at the desk.” Bennie tugged a slip of paper from her parka and skimmed her notes. “DiNunzio and Carrier signed in at three thirty-five and signed out at eight forty-five. Marta Richter and guest, whoever that was, signed in at eight thirty-five and never signed out. You know that, right? You checked the log downstairs.”

  The cop nodded. “I saw the log downstairs. I know all that. Why do you know all that?”

  “Those women matter to me, the security guards matter to me. The only difference is the women may still be alive. They have to be. I’m not trying to interfere with your investigation. I want you to do all you can. I want to do all I can, too. For once we’re on the same side. Help me, would you?”

  The cop’s eyes flickered, and Bennie detected the slightest official softening. “You want my take on the way it went down?”

  “Please.”

  “This is talkin’ out of school, but the only blood around is in the elevator where the guards got shot. There’s no signs of struggle in the office, so the lawyer who signed in later, Richter, wasn’t taken by force. The office equipment looks fine. Everything is in place. I did a walk-through. You double-check and tell me if I’m wrong.”

  “Sure.” Bennie felt relieved. “And the other two lawyers, the ones who signed out, are where?”

  “No idea.”

  “Where could they be? I called their apartments, their homes. I can’t find them.” Bennie had even called DiNunzio’s parents, who had already heard from TV that their daughter was missing. She had tried to calm Mary’s mother, but her Italian wasn’t up to it.

  “I called Missing Persons, I put out an APB, but we got no personnel tonight. The storm is a bitch. We’re doing everything we can to find them. You gotta cooperate with us. This is the worst possible night to investigate a homicide.”

  “Who is the shooter? How did you find him?”

  “Ms. Rosato—”

  “Please. Maybe I can help. Maybe I know something. It’s a blizzard, a crisis. We have to work together, don’t we? Cooperate. That’s what you’re telling me.”

  The cop sighed. “You didn’t hear it from me, right?”

  “No.”

  “His name is Bobby Bogosian. We know him. All we have to do is pick him up.”

  “Bogosian, I don’t know that name. How did you find him?”

  The cop cracked a smile, in spite of himself. “He left his magazine. I found it in the other conference room.”

  “How’d you know it was his, without prints?”

  “It has a subscription label. Name and address right on it.”

  Bennie would have laughed if it hadn’t been Pete Santis that got killed. “Smooth,” she said.

  “They get dumber every year, you ask me.”

  Bennie looked past his shoulder to the glass conference room. “You mind if I look around in there? I can help.”

  “No way are you going in there. That’s a crime scene. You’ll contaminate it.”

  “I won’t touch anything. If I see something, I’ll mention it to you. Maybe give you a leg up.”

  “No.”

  “I won’t—”

  “No!” he said, and his sharpness told Bennie she had crossed the line again. It wasn’t intentional, this habit of hers, treading on authority’s toes. She’d stop crossing the line if somebody would just tell her where it was.

  “Fine, fine, fine. You win, Torregrossa. I’ll just stand here in front of the door and look in. I can look, can’t I? I have a First Amendment right to look.”

  “Look all you want. Knock yourself out.”

  “Thank you,” Bennie said, like she needed the cop’s permission to look in her own conference room. It was the best part of being the boss; she didn’t need anybody’s permission but her own. She walked to the threshold of the conference room and scrutinized it. Her Ea
kins print dangled askew on the wall, as if it had been knocked over when someone ran or walked by. A swivel chair had been upended and its feet stuck in the air like a crab on its back. The Steere file and exhibits were lying on the conference table. Photos sat on top of the heap, as if they had been examined recently. Bennie leaned closer to see them.

  “Not another inch,” the cop said.

  “Gotcha.” Bennie squinted to see the photos. They were grisly autopsy photos of the man Elliot Steere had killed, then a newspaper-type photo. It was Steere’s victim. Next to the photos was a legal pad that read, Heb Darnton/Eb Darning. Hmmm. Bennie made a mental note of it, then tried to identify the handwriting. Detached capital letters, good-girl curlicues. Catholic school writing. DiNunzio’s notes. Bennie gestured to the notes. “Looks like DiNunzio was researching something about the man Steere killed. Could that be tied in?”

  “I’ll point it out to the detective when he gets here.”

  “You want to call and see if he’s on his way?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe I should call.”

  A set of cold cop eyes slipped sideways. “Let the detectives handle this investigation. They know what they’re doing.”

  Bennie didn’t point out that she’d had some personal experience to the contrary. She’d lost one law firm because of police incompetence and she wasn’t about to lose another. Her gut twisted at the memory. Bennie had been the prime suspect in a murder she hadn’t committed, but innuendo had proved as damaging as indictment. There were phone calls from anxious clients, police leaks, and bad press, and Bennie had found herself watching the slow-motion crash of her first law firm.

  But this time it had to be different. This time Bennie would protect her firm and prevent anyone else from getting killed. Marta Richter was her biggest client. The two were hardly friends, but Bennie didn’t take any of her clients lightly. It was a fiduciary relationship, one of trust as well as finances. Bennie had told Marta as much in their initial meeting, making it clear that Rosato & Associates would partner with her, not just serve as a local mail drop. The two litigators had talked trial strategy, business development, and the possibility of future pairings. Bennie had even lent Marta her two best lawyers.