Sleight of Hand - By Phillip Margolin Page 0,62
Porsche, with the body in the trunk, to Brodsky’s store in the mall. Benedict has Brodsky make a key that looks like the real house key but won’t open the front door to the Blair mansion. After he buries Carrie, he figures out a way to switch the key that won’t work for Horace’s front door key, which has Horace’s fingerprints on it. Benedict puts Carrie’s house key back on her key chain before he buries her. Then he returns to the grave and plants Horace’s house key in the grave where we’ll find it. Now, the key in the grave opens Blair’s front door, but no key on Blair’s key chain opens the door, and we are going to conclude that Blair must have lost the key when he was burying his wife.”
“That makes sense, but how did he switch the keys?” Dana asked.
“That is the million-dollar question.”
“Which we won’t be able to answer as long as Benedict represents Horace Blair.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The next morning, before breakfast, Dana and Jake loosened up with calisthenics before running five miles. Dana had gotten home from Frank Santoro’s house a little after one in the morning and she was groggy during their workout. Jake showered first, then made breakfast. When Dana came into the kitchen, her hair was damp from her shower and she was dragging.
“Have I told you recently that you are a genius?” Jake asked.
Dana perked up. “No. What did I do that’s so smart?”
“Remember telling me that I should use my photographs from the Arctic expedition for a show? Yesterday, I phoned Louis Riker at the Riker Gallery. He called back while you were in the shower, and we’re meeting this morning.”
“That’s great!” Dana said, breaking into a grin.
“It’s not a done deal.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”
After breakfast, Jake left for his meeting and Dana went down to the basement office. She booted up the computer and did an Internet search for “Charles Benedict.” There were several articles about cases in which he had served as defense counsel. There was also a piece in the Washington Post that had been written in connection with one of the attorney’s high-profile cases.
Dana had no trouble learning that Benedict was a member of the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia bars and had earned a degree in economics from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. At the University of Virginia Law School, Benedict made the law review and graduated fourteenth in his class. He should have been able to land a judicial clerkship or a position as an associate in a high-powered law firm, but he chose to hang a shingle and specialize in criminal defense. By all accounts, he had been a success from the get-go, experiencing none of the hardships usually encountered by sole practitioners.
What Dana found odd was that no article contained an account of Benedict’s life before college. She was unable to find out where he was born and grew up, or anything about his parents. It was as if Charles Benedict did not exist before he went to Dickinson.
Dana called the Washington Post and asked to speak to Shawn DuBurg, the reporter who had written the profile of Benedict. After introducing herself, Dana explained why she was calling.
“Yeah, I remember writing the piece. Why are you interested?” DuBurg asked.
“I’m working for a client who’s thinking of hiring Mr. Benedict and he asked me to check him out.”
“Everything I know is in the article,” DuBurg said.
“I was interested in what wasn’t in it. For instance, you didn’t write about Mr. Benedict’s childhood, where he grew up, that sort of thing.”
“That’s because it wasn’t relevant to the article. It was about his legal career.”
“I’m having a hard time finding out anything about Mr. Benedict before he went to college. Do you know any of that stuff?”
DuBurg was quiet for a moment. “You know, I think I did ask him but he said he’d had a rough childhood and didn’t want to discuss it. Like I said, I was mainly interested in his legal career, so I didn’t push him.”
Dana thanked the reporter and ended the conversation. She tried to think of ways to get what she needed but every idea she had was a dead end, so she called Andy Zipay.
Zipay was an ex-cop who had left the D.C. police department under a cloud while Dana was still on the force. Dana had been one of the few officers who had not shunned him, and she’d sent business his way when he went private.