In the Company of Liars (14 page)

“Exactly,” Ram says, as he crumbles the note in his hand and picks up one of the books he has pulled. He will read it for a few minutes, then wander out of the library.

A
llison thinks of her daughter as she sits on a swing in her backyard cradling a glass of wine. Mat Pagone is pacing around the yard, undoubtedly remembering the barbecues on that porch and the games with Jessica in the sandbox. Thinking about things she cannot fathom.

She wonders if there will ever be a time when she can look at this man and not feel cheated. Will she ever get past this? Will she ever look at Mateo Pagone simply as the father of her child, and not as the asshole who took her for granted and cheated on her and, probably, poisoned their daughter's mind against her? Will she ever be able to look back at the decades with him without the words
wasted years
springing to mind?

No, Mateo Pagone is not a bad man. He is old-school, a man who thinks that some of the marital vows do not apply. But not a bad person. Probably doesn't think he has done anything wrong. And they drifted apart. Became less alike the longer they were together. Actually, the better way
to say it is that Mat stayed the same, Allison grew up. Developed. From the moment she first indicated she wanted to take night classes toward a college degree, Mat was against it. Wanted to keep Allison the way she had been, dependent, supportive, compliant, and she didn't mean that in a bad way. It was just all Mat knew, what he had seen from his parents, and their parents. The wife stays home, cooks, cleans, raises the child. Mat works and provides for them. She could sense the objection to the classes right away. Not an outright “No,” but active discouragement.
Why not join the PTA?
he had suggested. A bridge club. Be a Girl Scout leader. But she did it, anyway, felt that she needed to do it for herself, took college courses part-time, fit them around her daughter and husband, and tingled with anticipation for her future.

Something glorious is going to happen.

She got a college degree in theater, performed in community plays and had no inclination, whatsoever, of making it a career, had no illusions about becoming a star of the stage. In truth, she acted only for herself, not the audience, for the freedom it brought her. But soon she ached for more, and found another way to perform theater. She attended law school part-time, mostly at night. Got a job as a public defender. Wrote a novel and made more money than he did. Their marriage moved farther downhill with each step. At the end Mat wanted to preserve things—she will never know what part of that was appearances and what part was a love for Allison—but even he had seen that the end had come once Jessica moved out to go to college.

The way I am now, I'm no wife for you.

“Jessie's thinking about studying abroad next year,” Mat tells her. His hands are stuffed in his pockets. He kicks at a stray weed in the lawn. “Spain. Sevilla, probably.”

“Okay.” She is disarmed at her response, however appropriate it may be under the circumstances. She has little to say about her daughter's life now, little right to inquire.
Allison had always supported the idea of studying abroad. Jess had been noncommittal. It isn't difficult to discern what change has prompted her daughter's desire for new surroundings. Anywhere, at this point, is better than here.

“I told her you and I would discuss it,” he adds, looking at her. The wind kicks a few strands of his thick hair up. He is wearing a light yellow jacket that is probably insufficient for a cold spring day.

“Your call,” she says with no emotion. She feels a tug at her heart. She's not sure what Jessica would think of her opinion, anyway. On instinct alone, she'd probably do the opposite of what Allison recommended. Allison hadn't seen it coming, Jessica taking her father's side in the divorce. But Jessica has always adored Mat. It puzzled Allison, always, how the father who spent so little time with his daughter gained such an elevated stature in Jessica's mind. She could probably count on one hand the number of diapers Mat changed. The number of meals Mat cooked. The number of piano recitals and choir concerts he attended. Everything Allison did, all those years, selflessly, yes, and she didn't expect a gold medal for it, but how was it that Mat came away the shining parent?

Well, that wasn't hard to figure. Mat spoiled her. Imposed no discipline. It was Allison who played the bad cop, Allison who pushed her daughter to study and imposed a curfew after that incident with the high-school teacher. And really, she loved the fact that Jess and Mat got along so well. What mother—what wife—wouldn't want that?

But she had expected more when she and Mat split. No, she didn't expect Jessica to accept the news with open arms. But Jess was twenty years old, for God's sake. She had been raised to keep an open mind, to think things through. How could Jessica so easily find fault in one parent and not the other? Allison doesn't know the answer to
that question. She doesn't know what Mat said to their daughter. She doesn't know what methods of manipulation Mat employed to subtly cast blame in Allison's direction. All that she knows is that Jessica would do anything for her father and would never blame him for a thing.

Mat drops the subject, looks into the cool air, closes his eyes momentarily.

“Let's go inside,” Allison suggests.

Mat follows her into the living room, then heads to the adjacent kitchen. Allison closes the window in the living room, overlooking the backyard.

“My attorney thinks the frame-up theory makes us look desperate,” she calls to Mat. She sees, through the window, her neighbor, Mr. Anderson, following his daughter out into his backyard for a game of catch. She remembers when Jennifer Anderson was born, can't believe she's now eight years old, jumping around with a baseball glove, eagerly awaiting warm-weather sports.

“I agree,” Mat says from the kitchen. “Who gives a damn about hair and broken fingernails and earrings? You were there at some point, is all it proves.”

She looks away from the window toward the kitchen. Mat was probably glad to be in the next room when he said that. He's right, but that's beside the point. He's acknowledging her relationship with Sam, however fleetingly. Mat must be envisioning the spin that Ron McGaffrey will put on this evidence. An earring fell out, a nail was broken, a hair was pulled out during moments of passion. Wild sex on his couch. On the kitchen table. In his swimming pool. On a trapeze over his bed. Men have the capacity to visualize the most painful scenarios in their jealousy.

The truth is that it was incredibly awkward, initially. Allison had been with exactly one man her entire life. Everything had been one way. The first time she and Sam made love and she watched him above her, Allison's heart
pounded like never before, one part excitement and three parts utter fear. It was more like her first time than her thousandth.

Sam was taller than Allison by several inches, unlike Mat, so she had to raise her chin to see his face as he rose above her. He had less hair on his chest. A thinner frame. He liked to cup her head with his hand, play with her hair. He liked to kiss her more. Liked to watch her. Made less noise in his climax, clenching his jaw and closing his eyes, little more than a guttural sound from his throat. Liked to stay inside her longer afterward. He was slow and steady.

She realizes that Mat is watching her, standing in the living room with a bottle of wine. She wonders if he can guess what is going through her mind.

Mat had been more like a jackhammer. Quick, powerful thrusts, not a gentle partner. He was a square-framed, strong man, a hunter-gatherer, and he liked to take the lead, needed to. Didn't like it when Allison improvised. He wanted to initiate, wanted to choose the position. Liked to be on top, liked to lie above her, not on her, as if in the middle of a push-up, his triceps bulging, his chest muscles flexing. She often wondered whether he was doing that for her or for himself.

“Forget the frame-up,” Mat finally says. “The best witness is you. Say you didn't do it.”

Allison looks away, toward the couch. “I can't testify, Mat. You know that.”

“We're talking about your life, here, Allison.”

“They'll catch me in lies, Mat. I've lied to the police. And they can force me to talk about other things, too. It's not an option.”

She walks over to the window again, wants to see the enthusiasm on her young neighbor's face, wants to experience a moment of vicarious joy. The girl flings the baseball over her father's head, and it bangs off the back door.

“I'd rather die,” Allison says.

A
llison finds Larry Evans in the coffee shop at the grocery store. “I got you something,” Larry says to her. He slides a small package across the table.

She can tell it's a paperback before she opens it. She can also tell that a man wrapped the present. It's a self-help book, one of those positive-mental-attitude guides she has never read.

“It's about seeing the finish line,” he says, and laughs. “I'm guessing you'll choose not to read it.”

Allison smiles. “Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without you, Mr. Evans. Sometimes I feel like you're the only—well.” She looks at him. “Thank you.”

“You have a lot of people supporting you, Allison. You read the websites?”

“Oh, God, not lately.” She has appreciated, on some level, the support she has received on her book website,
allison-pagone.com,
as well as several websites seeking to capitalize on the case, including her favorite,
freeallison.com
. But
she can't help but feel some distance from these people. They aren't really saying that they believe her to be innocent. They don't know her and they don't know the facts, at least not all of them. They feel a connection to her, presumably because of her novels, and they don't want to confront the real possibility that one of their favorite authors has committed murder.

“No,” she says, “I prefer my news from the tabloids. Did you see the
Weekly Inquisitor
up front?”

Larry laughs. “I did. ‘Killer Novelist in Love Nest with Ben Affleck.' The photo takes ten years off you, by the way.”

“Yeah, I'm really pleased.”

“My point is,” Larry says, “a lot of people are supporting you.”

“Well, I think the list is pretty short.” She sighs. “I mean, Mat has really been great. It's a bit odd, under the circumstances, but he's been great. It's just that—I think he wonders about me. I don't think he's convinced of my innocence. I don't think my lawyer thinks I'm innocent, either. And I think you do.”

Larry frowns at the mention of Allison's ex-husband. He has been plenty clear, over the last months, about his opinion. “Oh, I think
Mat
knows you're innocent,” he says.

She will not engage him. They have done battle on this front more than once. The development in her relationship with Larry Evans over the last few months has been interesting. He came to her initially as an aggressive journalist, unseasoned, which he pitched as an advantage to her. Regardless of his experience or lack thereof, he could be seen as little more than part of the pack of media people who wanted her story, wanted to write a true account of the murder of Sam Dillon and the trial of Allison Pagone. But then, as he began to dig, he took up Allison's cause. He has shared his information with her. And he has slowly shown himself to be someone who is less concerned with getting the behind-the-scenes story of Allison
Pagone's trial than with showing that Allison is, in fact, innocent.

“Hey, it's your life,” he says, raising a hand, sensing the objection from Allison and probably not grasping how literal his comment is. “I have something for you. It's probably not much.”

Larry has shown an impressive ability to uncover information on this case that is probably more easily found by a journalist than by a defense lawyer or his investigator. Not necessarily cold, hard factual information that could be used at trial, but details, rumors, things that could give her an advantage.

“Still got my nose to the ground,” he says. “The prosecutors, they know Sam Dillon called you several times before his death. They're working on the assumption that it was due to your relationship. People who are dating talk on the phone, right? But then they have this other information—someone who worked with Sam—someone is saying that Sam had mentioned something about an ‘ethical dilemma.' Which—”

“An ‘ethical dilemma,' they said?” Allison feels her stomach tighten.

She could sense it in his voice immediately. Something was different, wrong.

“Is something the matter, Sam?” she asked over the phone.

He didn't respond at first, which wasn't like him. One of the things she had liked most about him was his lack of reservation, his openness to her. Her first response, an insecure response: Sam was unhappy with their relationship. He wanted to end things. She felt a tingle down her spine, a turn in her stomach.

“Something I'm dealing with,” he finally said, then tried to change the subject to dinner. Was she in the mood for Thai? Tapas? Greek?

“Sam.” It was late January, only a few weeks into the new year. They had been together only six weeks—okay, forty-five days, she had been keeping count—but they had reached levels of intimacy she had never neared with Mat Pagone. And now he was evading her.

Sam sighed. “It's something I'm going to have to—I guess you could say I'm having an ethical dilemma.”

Ethical dilemma.
Buzzwords used by an attorney, which Allison was, or used to be. She didn't know the rules governing a lobbyist, didn't know how closely they resembled the rules of ethics governing a lawyer. “Something with one of your clients?” she prodded.

“I—I think it's best we not discuss it,” he answered. “Not yet, anyway.”

Y
eah,” Larry says, “an ‘ethical dilemma.' So the cops, the prosecutors, they're thinking that this probably related to all this Flanagan- Maxx stuff. The idea being that Sam had an ‘ethical dilemma' because he represented Flanagan-Maxx and he was becoming aware that this company had bribed legislators. It's like a lawyer hearing that his client committed a crime. A lawyer can't rat out his client, right?”

“Not for a past crime,” Allison says. “Not for something like this, at least.”

“But then again,” Larry says, “Sam's not in business as a lawyer. He's a lobbyist. Does he have to follow the same rules? Who knows? I don't know. But the cop I'm friendly with, he says some people think maybe Sam wasn't calling you to whisper sweet nothings. He was calling you to see if he had to turn in his client, Flanagan-Maxx. He was calling for legal advice.”

Allison nods, crosses her legs. Larry looks at her but she will give neither confirmation nor denial. She will simply listen.

“The thinking is that Sam called you because he wanted to know what he should do,” Larry continues. “Maybe it was part legal and part, you were someone he trusted. But some people prosecuting this case think that maybe Sam confided in you about that information.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. And those same people are thinking that when you got that information, you started to feel threatened. Because Mat Pagone lobbied for Flanagan-Maxx, too. So—Sam tells you that Flanagan-Maxx did some bad things and he wants to tattle on them, and that possibly implicates your ex-husband. So . . .” Larry shrugs.

“So I killed Sam,” she finishes. “To protect a man to whom I'm no longer married.”

“But who is still your daughter's father.”

“And they're going to say that at trial?”

The thing about criminal trials is that, no matter how strictly the prosecution is required to disclose information and evidence, it does not have to turn over its opening statement to the defense. The prosecution does not have to explain to the defense how it intends to tie the evidence together. Sometimes the prosecution's theory comes out in pre-trial motions, but it hasn't in this case. So while the prosecution has told Allison's defense team that it intends to introduce Sam's many phone calls to Allison in the days before his death, her lawyers have assumed that they are doing this to prove a romantic relationship, because Allison has never owned up to it. What she is hearing now is that they might be using the phone calls to show that Sam was talking about turning Flanagan-Maxx—and possibly Mat Pagone—in to the feds.

The trial starts this week, and Allison doesn't know what the prosecution is going to say.

“Some people over there think that,” Larry answers. “There's a debate over what course of action to take. Some want to say that Sam jilted you and you were upset.”

That is what Allison and her attorneys have always thought the prosecution would say at trial. The scorned lover, seeking revenge.

“But some want to say that Sam told you he was going to take Mat down, and you did what you did to protect him. I thought you should know that.”

“Either one gives me a motive to kill,” she says flatly. “Either I was a jilted lover or I was protecting Mat.”

“Well, sure—but if they say you killed Sam to protect Mat, you have an answer.”

“I have an answer?”

“Of course you have an answer, Allison.” Larry shakes his head, takes a drink from his coffee, frames a hand. “Let's pretend they're right. Their premise is that Mat was bribing senators, and Sam told you about it, and was maybe going to tell the U.S. attorney as well. If that premise is true, then, sure, arguably you'd have a reason to want to kill Sam. Arguably. But again—if that premise is true, wouldn't there be someone else who had that motive? More strongly than you?”

“That's no answer,” she says.

“The hell it isn't. Mat was bribing lawmakers and Sam was going to give him up. And you are the only suspect?”

Allison leans forward on the table. “Thank you for the information,” she says. “I appreciate anything you can give me.”

“But you're not going to use—”

“Mat didn't bribe anyone, Larry.”

“You don't know that. You couldn't.”

“I know he wouldn't—”

“Then what was Sam confiding in you, Allison?”

“He didn't confide in me about anything of that sort, Larry. He—” She looks away from him, lowers her voice. “He ended things with me. Okay? He dumped me.”

“This isn't going to work out,” Sam said, sitting behind
his desk at the capital, a hand on his forehead, looking into Allison's eyes.

“Mat—Mat's a friend. You know this is crazy. It always was.”

Larry is quiet. He focuses on his coffee, then looks over Allison's shoulder at the shoppers. Oldies music is piped in over the loudspeakers.

“I know you didn't kill Sam,” he says. “And I think I know who did.”

“Larry—”

“And I think
you
know, too.”

“I have to go. I'm sorry,” she adds, because she had promised him some background on her life, some items Larry Evans needed for his book. But his tell-all book is the last thing on her mind right now. She rests a hand briefly on his shoulder and leaves him.