Legal Tender Page 6

  Grady came up behind me. “It’s okay, Bennie.”

  “No it isn’t. Nothing about this is okay,” I said, more harshly than I intended. I stared at the pool of blood and flashed with a rising nausea on the murder scenes from my old practice: an anonymous alley, a ransacked apartment, the drafty shell of an abandoned house. This crime scene was different. A place of business, of law, of rules and statutes. Mark’s and mine.

  “He must have been working,” Grady said, bending over Mark’s desk to read his papers. “It’s a contract, an agreement to dissolve R & B. It looks like he was editing it when he was killed. There’s a noncompete. You agree not to solicit the business of any drug company within a ten-mile radius for the next two years.”

  “Boilerplate. He knew I’d never take his clients.” I couldn’t tear my eyes from the desk. Blood buckled the papers covering it. Fingerprint dust smudged its perimeter, in clumps dark as stormclouds.

  “I was up here before and nothing looked out of place to me. Does it to you? Anything odd? You would know better.”

  I tried to survey the office without emotion. Bay windows cast bright light behind the glossy modern credenza. Against the wall stood teak bookcases, with Mark’s textbooks and other reference books neatly shelved. A matching teak file cabinet sat next to the bookshelves, with a CD player on top. “It all looks the same,” I said numbly.

  Grady looked out the windows and across the street. “Maybe someone in one of the other townhouses saw what happened.”

  “We’re checking into that,” said a gruff voice.

  I turned around, and standing in the door was a detective I hadn’t met. He was built like a fullback and evidently stuffed into a lightweight navy suit, with a white shirt and puffy polyester tie. “I’m Detective Azzic,” he said, extending a hand with a stiff cop-smile. His face was broad-featured, Slavic, with brown eyes that slanted curiously upwards. “Frank Azzic.”

  I shook his hand. “Bennie Rosato.”

  “I know who you are. The tape is there for a reason, Ms. Rosato. This is my crime scene.”

  “It’s also my law firm.”

  Even the cop-smile vanished. “I know you don’t have much respect for law enforcement, but we have our rules, and we have them for a reason.”

  “Don’t give me this, Detective, not now. I have no quarrel with the police when they enforce the law. It’s when they fence stolen goods I lose my sense of humor.”

  “I’m Grady Wells,” Grady said, stepping almost between us. “I’m representing Ms. Rosato in this investigation. She’s very eager to assist you in finding her partner’s killer.”

  Azzic snorted. “Is that why she broke into a secured crime scene? In most cases, physical evidence is found at the scene of the crime. She could contaminate the evidence, drop fibers and hairs, or even destroy evidence.”

  I didn’t like the insinuation. “Let’s get to the point, Detective. I understand the police think I killed my partner, which is absurd.”

  He turned to me calmly. “Maybe it is. Where were you last night after eleven o’clock?”

  “Detective,” Grady said, “I’m instructing her not to answer that question. And if she’s in custody, you haven’t Mirandized her.”

  Detective Azzic chuckled. “Down, boy. I don’t see any custody situation here. I’m just asking a coupla questions. Maybe we can eliminate the ride downtown here and now, then it won’t matter who drives.”

  I doubted it, but answered anyway, “I was rowing.”

  “Rowing?” His sparse eyebrows rose and he looked as surprised as a homicide detective can ever be. “Like in a rowboat?”

  “Like in a scull.”

  “At night? In the dark?”

  “I like to row at night. It’s the only time I can find.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “Not that I know of.” Grady shifted unhappily at my side.

  “How did you get to the boathouse?”

  “I walked.”

  “Detective,” Grady broke in, “I think this questioning is unnecessary. Isn’t that all the information you need?”

  The detective folded his arms. “No, I think we need to continue the interview down at the station.”

  “What time?” Grady shot back, and if he were disappointed it didn’t show.

  “An hour or so. Give me some time to get my papers together. I have to get the original of Mr. Biscardi’s will.”

  “His will?” I asked, and Grady flashed me a discreet let-me-do-this look.

  Detective Azzic looked at me, cocking his head. “You didn’t know Mr. Biscardi had a will, Ms. Rosato? Wasn’t he your boyfriend and business partner?”

  Grady shot me another warning glance. “Please don’t answer that, Bennie. I’d like to see the will, Detective.”

  I clammed up and got my bearings. Mark was murdered. I was a suspect. It made sense that Mark had a will, but we’d never discussed it. I’d never really thought about it, he was a young man. I felt suddenly alarmed.

  Detective Azzic slipped a hand inside his breast pocket and retrieved a packet of papers for Grady. “I had this copy made before I bagged it. The will is dated July 11, three years ago, but I guess you didn’t know that, Ms. Rosato.”

  I didn’t take the bait, but watched Grady’s eyes tense behind his glasses as he read. There were ten pages or so, but he skimmed them rapidly. His face betrayed nothing as he snapped the papers closed and handed them back to Detective Azzic. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Interesting, huh?” the detective asked, looking from Grady to me.

  Grady hustled me to the door. “We’ll see you at the Roundhouse, Detective.”

  “What did it say?” I whispered, when we hit the hall. Grady was about to reply when we turned the corner and ran smack into Eve Eberlein.

  “Oh!” She stood back from us as if shocked. She’d obviously been crying, her eyes were swollen and she wore no makeup. Her short hair was a mess and her chic dress was wrinkled. “What happened, Bennie? What happened?” she said, her voice pained and confused.

  I knew just how she felt. I felt a terrible twinge inside. We shared the same loss. “I don’t know,” I answered, before Grady took my arm and lifted me almost bodily down the hall.

  “I’m sorry, too, Eve,” Grady said. “Goodbye. Take care.”

  I glanced back for one last look. In front of Mark’s office stood Detective Azzic. He was watching me as he lit a cigarette and blew out a jet of smoke. His eyes narrowed behind the smoke, his expression grim and knowing.

  9

  We stood in the two-car parking lot behind the office while Grady dug in his suit pocket for his motor cycle key. The bike was a vintage black and maroon with a duct-taped leather seat and tarnished chrome pipes engraved with Norton. I didn’t relish riding it to the Roundhouse, but that was the least of my worries right now.

  “What did the will say, Grady?”

  He found his key, swung a leg over the bike, and settled in the ripped seat. “Get on the bike, please.”

  “First tell me what the will said.”

  “Kindly get on the bike, Bennie. I’ll talk to you about it when we’re away from the office. The press is right out front. I don’t want them finding us in the middle of the conversation.”

  “I can’t wait. Tell me about the will.”

  “Is this how it’s going to be?” He frowned at me as he straddled the bike. “Are you going to fuss with me about everything?”

  “You’re the one who was yanking me around the office.”

  “I was defending you. I’m your lawyer.”

  I couldn’t get used to the way it sounded. “Grady, get real. I’m your boss and I have crow’s feet older than you.”

  “I hate to disagree with you, but I’m your boss now. I’m barely five years younger than you, and I have to call these shots as I see them. So I’m advising you, as a purely legal matter, to get on the bike. Before I become angry.”

  “Do you even get angry?” I’d never
seen it around the office.

  “I do, surely.” He nodded.

  “What happens then? You throw things? Curse?”

  “Never,” he said, without further explanation. He pushed back his hair and shoved his head into a black Shoei helmet. All that remained of his face were glaring gray eyes and a determined jaw. “See the extra helmet on the back? Kindly put it on.”

  I looked at the helmet, a shiny white orb that looked like a lightbulb. “Why do you have an extra helmet?”

  “In case I meet a woman with better manners than you.”

  I folded my arms. “I’ll put it on if you tell me about Mark’s will.”

  He sighed and pushed his helmet up over his hairline, then readjusted his glasses. “What do you think the will said, Bennie?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Mark has no family left, just a stepbrother in California—”

  “He didn’t count as much as you,” Grady said, an edge to his voice. “The will doesn’t set the dollar amount, but Mark left you everything he had. The townhouse, the corporate accounts, even his personal accounts. Stocks and municipal bonds, mutual funds. The will expressly provides that you inherit R & B and continue it if he dies.”

  My mouth dropped open. I was amazed at Mark’s generosity, and his love. Then I realized why the police suspected me. If I’d known about the will, the only way I could keep R & B would be to kill Mark before he dissolved it. I imagined the Commonwealth’s case taking shape, the facts gathering like thunderheads before a storm. Homicide investigations had a momentum of their own, particularly in high-profile cases. The pressure to produce a suspect invariably led to a quick arrest, just in time for the evening news. And until a charge came down, innuendo damaged as surely as indictment.

  “I’m in deep shit, aren’t I?” I said, thinking aloud.

  “Not if I can help it.” Grady tugged his helmet back on and kick-started the motorcycle, which rumbled to life in a throaty way. “Put on your helmet,” he shouted.

  I took a deep breath, then put the lightbulb over my head.

  I walked into the grimy waiting room in the Homicide Division on the second floor of the Roundhouse, Philly’s police administration building, and was immediately confronted by that horrific photo gallery. It hadn’t changed much, even over many years. WANTED FOR MURDER, it said on both walls, above about fifty 8 × 10 head shots. Each man’s expression was slack with the oddly flat effect only the deepest rage can bring to a human face. I couldn’t help noticing that none of the faces was white and none was a woman. The only whites were the detectives and women were nowhere in evidence.

  Except for me. I stood next to Grady, and as conspicuous as I was, was pointedly ignored by the ten-odd detectives in the shabby squad room, which was painted an ugly blue. I recognized some of them as witnesses from past lawsuits, and they milled frostily around battered steel desks arranged in jagged rows. Water-stained vertical blinds blocked out the sun, one window was completely closed off by dingy gray file cabinets. I took it all in as if it were a room I had never seen. In a way it was, now that I was the murder suspect.

  The phone jangled at the desk in front of us. “Homicide,” a detective barked in a raspy voice, picking up. He was a stocky redhead and sipped coffee from a mug that said STUDMUFFIN. “Nah, he’s out. This is Meehan.”

  Meehan. The name sounded familiar, then I realized who he was. He’d lost a lot of weight, but the voice was the same. I heard it last year, in that assault case in the Northeast. The defendants had been uniformed cops and Meehan had been a witness to the beating, one of three cops who stood by. He wasn’t charged and had evidently been promoted. I met his eye as he listened on the telephone, and he regarded me only coldly. I could expect nothing else. I’d embarrassed him on cross. Grady had been right. I’d have no friends here.

  “Ms. Rosato.” Detective Azzic appeared and motioned for us to follow him.

  “We’re coming,” Grady said. I squared my shoulders and walked with him into the squad room, past the small adjoining room whose open door was labeled Fugitive Squad. Inside, two detectives sat before state-of-the-art computer screens. It was the only place in the Homicide Division that looked as if it were in this decade.

  “We’re in Interview Room C,” Detective Azzic said, opening its door.

  Interview Room C was the way I’d remembered it from the old days, as small as the waiting room and just as filthy. A two-way mirror hung on the wall opposite a table with an office chair tucked under it. Another chair, a heavy steel one, was bolted to the floor on the other side of the table.

  “Have a seat,” the detective said, easing his large frame into the chair in front of the desk. He waved for me to take the steel chair, and I did. Grady stood by me, and we were joined by a tall, thin-lipped detective whose brown jacket hung loosely on his bony shoulders. He introduced himself as Detective Mayron and leaned against the wall, his crepe sole resting flat behind him. The cops usually questioned in twos on murder cases; one to watch while the other did the talking. I used to tell clients it was so they could play bad cop, bad cop.

  “Mind if I smoke?” Detective Azzic asked, shaking out a Merit from a short white pack.

  “Yes,” Grady said, and Azzic paused before lighting up.

  “You kidding?”

  “No. I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  Azzic half smiled and dropped the pack into his breast pocket, keeping the one cigarette out, unlit. “So, Ms. Rosato, we asked you here because you may have information that would help us understand what happened to Mr. Biscardi.”

  “She won’t be making any statements, Detective,” Grady said.

  Azzic looked up at him. “It would help if she could explain what happened last night between her and Mr. Biscardi.”

  “I appreciate that, but as I said, she’s not going to do it that way. She’s not making any statements. Kindly ask her a question.”

  Azzic leaned close enough for me to smell the nicotine clinging to his jacket. “Ms. Rosato, many witnesses help themselves more by just telling the story without the lawyers getting in the middle.”

  I almost laughed. “I am a lawyer, Detective, and I’m already in the middle.”

  Grady’s fingers dug into my suit so hard I felt it through my shoulder pad. “She’s represented, Detective. Please ask your first question.”

  “All right. We’ll do it your way, to start with.” Azzic crossed his legs and the steely edge of a gun in an ankle holster popped into view. He flopped his pant leg over it, but it didn’t dispel the intimidation factor and wasn’t meant to. “Ms. Rosato, you’re certainly familiar with the criminal law and police procedures, but it’s my duty to tell you your rights. You’ll have to suffer in silence.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  He went through my Miranda rights. I’d found them routine when they were read to my clients, but they took on an uncanny significance now that I was the one sitting in the chair bolted to the floor. I strained to relax and played a game with myself, trying to place Azzic’s accent. It was blunt, working class, with that pronounced o indigenous to north Philadelphia. I guessed Juniata Park or maybe Olney.

  “Let’s pick up where we left off,” Azzic said. “What was your fight with Mr. Biscardi about?”

  “It wasn’t a ‘fight,’ ” Grady interjected. “It was a discussion.”

  Azzic nodded almost graciously. “What was your discussion with Mr. Biscardi about?”

  I cleared my throat. “Mark wanted to dissolve the partnership.”

  “But you didn’t want him to.”

  “Bennie—” Grady said, but I waved him off.

  “I was surprised, but I had no choice. The partnership was dissolvable at will by either partner.”

  “You weren’t happy about it, were you? You and he had started the firm together, and you were seeing each other for many years until he took up with Ms. Eberlein.”

  Grady squeezed my shoulder. “Detective, I’m instructing her not to answer that question,
if that is a question. Please move it along.”

  Azzic sighed. “You shouted at Mr. Biscardi during this discussion, didn’t you? You were angry.”

  Grady squeezed again. “Asked and answered, Detective. There was a discussion about the partnership’s dissolution and they disagreed, but both parties decided to move on. Next subject or I’m afraid we’ll have to leave.”

  Azzic rolled the unlit cigarette around his fingers. “Ms. Rosato, did you know you stand to inherit twenty million dollars as a result of Mr. Biscardi’s will?”

  “What?” I blurted out, shocked. “Twenty million dollars?”

  “Detective,” Grady said evenly, “she already told you she didn’t know Mr. Biscardi had a will.”

  My head was spinning. The amount was so huge it made me sick for the position I was in. It was almost impossible not to believe I killed Mark for that much money. I gave in to a panicky urge to explain. “I knew Mark’s family had money, but not that much. They weren’t showy about it. They had a split-level, a station wagon—”

  “Bennie, please,” Grady said, his fingers clutching like talons.

  Azzic’s gaze was point-blank. “So you’re saying you had no idea Mr. Biscardi had inherited most of this money from his parents?”

  My mouth must have dropped open, because Grady answered, “That’s what she’s saying, Detective.”

  “Didn’t you attend their funeral with Mr. Biscardi?”

  “Uh, yes.” The service had been tense, with very few mourners, since the family was so small. Mark had almost no grief reaction, even at the cemetery. His parents had died together in a car accident, but Mark had grown up in Catholic boarding schools, estranged from them for a long time. “They weren’t a close family.”

  “Didn’t Mr. Biscardi mention anything about an inheritance?”

  “No.” I glanced at the two-way mirror and saw with dismay that I looked nervous. Who was on the other side of the mirror? Meehan? “Nothing.”

  “And you didn’t ask?”