In the Company of Liars

ONE DAY EARLIER
THURSDAY, APRIL 29

So let’s summarize all of this for the Court,” says Roger Ogren. He is directing a deputy medical examiner, an elderly man named Ernest McCabe, on the second day of trial. “What was the cause of death?”

“The cause of death was blunt trauma to the skull,” says the doctor. “Four independent blows to the head, from two different sources. One of the sources we know about. The clock that was on the mantel. The other source, which was in all likelihood a much heavier and sturdier object, was not recovered.”

Yes, it was a much sturdier object. The prosecution knows what the murder weapon is. The award from the Midwest Manufacturers’ Association was conspicuously absent from the mantel above Sam’s fireplace. It didn’t take the police long to discover what had been removed from the mantel. The MMA gives out an award annually, so law enforcement had no trouble finding a replica, had no difficulty seeing how easily it could have been used to kill Sam Dillon.

But they can’t find it, not the one used to kill Sam. They dragged the lake near Sam’s house. They searched Allison’s home and her yard. They searched every waste-disposal facility in the county and dragged every river. They figure Allison killed Sam around seven that night and drove around for hours before returning to Sam’s house at close to one in the morning. They assume she has hidden the weapon somewhere. But they couldn’t possibly guess where. They would never think to look in the back of a grocery store where Allison shopped before the family moved to their current house.

“The manner of death, Doctor?” Roger Ogren asks.

“The manner of death was unquestionably homicide. The number, angle, and severity of the blows, as well as common sense, rule out any possibility of self-infliction.”

“And the time of death?”

“I would estimate time of death at seven in the evening, on Saturday, February seventh of this year. That is based on several things. The rate of decomposition. The contents of the victim’s stomach. We know from the receipt that he had food delivered to his house at six-twenty that evening. Assuming that he ate the food relatively soon after receiving it, the digestion of the food was at such a stage that digestion had ceased somewhere around seven o’clock. And we can look at the time that was frozen on the clock that was partially broken over his head. The time on that clock was six minutes after seven p.m. That doesn’t conclusively prove that Sam Dillon was murdered at seven-oh-six p.m., but all other evidence would certainly corroborate that point.”

“All right, Doctor. Now I would like to take you through all of the details that led to these conclusions.”

Okay, Deputy Griggs. Other than the broken fingernail and the platinum earring, did you find anything else at Mr. Dillon’s home?”

The witness, Jodie Griggs, is a deputy investigator with the County Attorney Technical Unit. She is a large woman with full red cheeks and curly blond hair.

“We found a follicle of hair belonging to the defendant,” she says.

“Objection,” says Ron McGaffrey, getting to his feet. “That is assuming facts not in evidence. The DNA testing is the subject of dispute.”

A dispute, Allison thinks to herself,but not much of one. The defense has not conceded that the DNA tests established that the hair belonged to Allison, but they have come up with no basis for saying it didn’t. Allison has told her lawyer, all along, not to even bother contesting it.

“Sustained.” The judge nods in the direction of the prosecutor. “The answer is stricken.”

“A hair follicle,” Roger Ogren tries, “that the County Attorney Technical Unit has determined to be linked by DNA to the defendant?”

“Yes. Our DNA tests have shown that.”

“And does the presence of this hair have any significance to you, Deputy?”

“Yes.” The technician settles in the witness stand, crosses a leg. “You can only obtain DNA from the bulb of a hair follicle. Hair that simply falls out doesn’t have the bulb.” She nods to her shoulder. “I probably have a piece of hair on my shoulder right now. But you couldn’t get my DNA from it.”

“Well, if hair that simply falls out does not contain a bulb, and therefore no DNA,” asks Roger Ogren, “then what does that mean for this follicle of hair that you recovered, which contains the bulb?”

“It means it was pulled out,” she answers. “It suggests a struggle.”

“Very good. Deputy, what else did you find, in the course of your search as an officer with the County Attorney Technical Unit?”

“We searched Mr. Dillon’s computer.”

“And did you find anything of significance?”

“We did. There was an e-mail-an electronic mail message from Mr. Dillon’s computer on Sunday, February eighth, 2004. The very early morning following the night of his death.”

“What time was it sent?”

“It was sent at one-eighteen a.m. and forty-two seconds on Sunday, February eighth, 2004.”

The prosecutor gets the court’s permission to admit a copy of the e-mail into evidence. He hands a copy to the defense and places a slide copy on an overhead projector.

From:“Dillon, Samuel” ‹sam. dillon@interserver.com›

To:“Pagone, Allison Q.” ‹ Allison@allisonpagone.com›

Re:Attorney-Client

Date:Sun, 8 Feb. 2004 1:18:42 AM

A:

NEED TO DISCUSS FURTHER. GETTING WORRIED. MANY WOULD BE UNHAPPY WITH MY INFO. NEED ADVICE ASAP.

S

“Now, Deputy Griggs, let me ask you.” Roger Ogren remains next to the projector. “You are familiar with the prosecution’s theory in this case that Mr. Dillon was killed at around seven p.m. on Saturday, February seventh, 2004. Are you familiar with that?”

“I am.”

“Now, according to this e-mail”-Ogren points with the tip of a pen to the “Date” line-“this e-mail was sent from Mr. Dillon’s computer at one-eighteen in the morning on Sunday, the eighth of February, 2004.”

“Correct. One-eighteen and forty-two seconds.”

“A little over six hoursafter that timeframe of seven o’clock the previous evening?”

“Yes,” she says with confidence.

“One might claim,” says Ogren, “that this proves Mr. Dillon was still alive long after the time we argue he died. Notwithstanding the forensic evidence relating to decomposition of the body and of the food in his stomach-notwithstanding all of that evidence and more-one might say this e-mail proves that Sam Dillon was still alive early Sunday morning.”

“Object to the form,” says Ron McGaffrey.

“Sustained.”

“Well, then I’ll say it this way. As an investigator into the murder of Sam Dillon, Deputy Griggs, did seeing this e-mail give you pause about the time of death?”

“It did. Until we searched Allison Pagone’s home.”

“And what did you find in Allison Pagone’s home that spoke to this issue?”

“Her computer. Allison Pagone is a novelist. She writes fiction. She writes crime novels.”

“I’ve read them,” says Ogren.

“So have I.” She smiles briefly. “We looked through her computer. We looked, among other things, at her ‘trash’ file.”

“What is a ‘trash’ file?”

“It is a file of discarded documents. You do it to clear out space on your hard drive. And then you can ‘recycle’ the trash, which means you are dumping the files even from that ‘trash’ bin.”

The judge nods. Old-school as he is, he probably has a computer, if not two. He might already understand the concept of a “trash” bin. This judge is probably in his late sixties, which could render him clueless in an information era with exponentially improving technology. Her ex-husband, Mat, can hardly type and only recently learned the wonders of the internet. Her daughter, Jessica, in contrast, who was practically raised online, can do things on a computer that Allison would never dream of understanding.

“Go on, Deputy,” says Roger Ogren.

“We found a rather large manuscript in the ‘recycle’ bin of her trash. Meaning it had been dumped, and then dumped again.”

“You have the capability to find such a document, even when it has been completely discarded?”

“We do.” The witness proceeds to explain the technicalities of the CAT Unit’s data-retrieval methodology. It is not surprising in the least to Allison, and a bit frightening, that the government has the means to retrieve almost anything that ever appeared on a personal laptop computer.

“Tell us about this rather large document you found after it was discarded twice,” Roger Ogren requests. “First of all, when it was created, that sort of thing. Were you able to determine that kind of information?”

“Absolutely we were. Once the document is retrieved, you can look at all of the document’s properties. It is as simple as clicking on ‘properties’ on the menu.”

“Were you able to print out this ‘properties’ page, Deputy Griggs?”

“Yes.”

Ogren shows her a piece of paper. “Is this a true and accurate slide copy of that page?”

“Yes.”

Roger Ogren gets the judge’s permission to enter the document into evidence, then places it on the overhead projector:

Location:C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\Novels\Best.Served.Cold.Draft.1

Size:154 KB (158,208 bytes)

Size on Disk:156 KB (159,744 bytes)

Created:Wednesday, December 03, 2003, 5:19:04 PM

Modified:Thursday, February 05, 2004, 11:04 PM

Deleted:Sunday, February 08, 2004, 3:21 AM

Recycled:Sunday, February 08, 2004, 3:22 AM

“Take us through this, Deputy. What does all this mean?”

“She created the document-meaning she started writing it-on December third of last year. ‘Modified’ refers to when the document was last modified. She last modified that document on Thursday, February fifth of this year.”

“Tell us about the final two rows of information, Deputy.”

“As I already explained, ‘deleted’ is when you remove the document from the hard drive. ‘Recycled’ is when you remove it from the trash. Dumping it a second time.”

“And what does the information here tell us?”

“It tells us that Allison Pagone tried to remove that document from her hard drive on the very early morning hours of Sunday, February eighth of this year.”

“And for context, Deputy-”

“Only hours after we believe Sam Dillon had been murdered,” she says. “And just over two hours after that e-mail was sent from Sam Dillon’s computer.”

“Deputy, you work with computers on a daily basis, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Can you think of any reason why Allison Pagone would feel compelled, in the middle of the night, to try to eliminate any evidence of a document from her computer?”

“Oh, objection,” says Ron McGaffrey. “Move to strike.”

“Sustained,” says the judge.

“I apologize, Your Honor. Why don’t we answer that question another way? Deputy Griggs, did you look at this document that was deleted from the defendant’s computer in the early morning of Sunday, February the eighth of this year?”

“Yes, I did. It was fifty-six pages long. It looked, by all accounts, to be a draft of her next novel. The title wasBest Served Cold.”

“Did you read the document?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you find anything in particular in that manuscript that spoke to the time-of-death issue in this case?”

“I did. The novel is about a woman who kills her lover after she finds out he is cheating on her. She kills him in the middle of the day. But she knows she can be placed at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime. So later that night, when she’s at a party, she excuses herself and goes to the bathroom. She slips out through a window, sneaks back over to the dead man’s house, and sends an e-mail from his computer, to make it seem like he was still alive. Then, when she’s questioned, she has an alibi for the time when-”

“Your Honor,” says Ronald McGaffrey, “I’ve been patient. This is a rambling narrative. We object.”

“Let’s keep this question-and-answer, Mr. Ogren,” the judge advises.

“Very good.” Roger Ogren walks over to the evidence table behind the prosecution and carries a set of papers. He drops off one set for the defense. On the top page is the titleBEST SERVED COLD, and beneath that, aNOVEL BY ALLISON QUINCY PAGONE.

“Deputy, is this a true and accurate copy of a printout of the manuscript that was deleted from the defendant’s computer at three a.m. on Sunday, February the eighth of this year?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

Ogren moves the document into evidence. “Take you to page forty-eight, Deputy. Is there a new chapter beginning on that page?”

“Yes, there is. Chapter Five.”

“What is the title of Chapter Five?”

“The title is ‘Alibi.’ ”

“Okay. ‘Alibi.’ Now, if you would, turn to page fifty-one. Are we still on the chapter entitled ‘Alibi,’ Deputy?”

“Yes.”

“And could you read, beginning at the second full paragraph?”

She sits at the desk and pulls up his e-mail. She is not entirely sure what to write or to whom she should send it. It could be anything at all and serve her purposes. All that really matters is that an e-mail was sent from his computer at nine o’clock in the evening, while she is believed to be at a party, and long after she visited his home at noon today. An alibi. Proof of life.

This manuscript, Allison is sure, hurts her in more ways than one. Bad enough that it contains the identical alibi she created here. The fact that she deleted it from her hard drive only hours after returning from Sam’s house speaks volumes. It also shows the judge that Allison can think in diabolical ways. That is not a trait a criminal defendant wants the court to see.

And it hurts her attorney’s theory of a frame-up. They will argue that her fingernail and earring and hair follicle were planted at the crime scene by the “real” killer. But even if they could make that case, how do they explain how the killer copy-catted this exact method of manufacturing an alibi? When Allison was notoriously secretive about her novels in process? When Allison never let anyone read them until they were finished? Who could possibly have known that Allison was writing about this particular alibi-creating method?

“Deputy,” says Roger Ogren. “You weren’t an eyewitness to the murder of Sam Dillon.”

“No.”

“You can’t say from personal knowledge that the defendant killed him.”

“No.”

“And you can’t say from personal knowledge that the defendant went back to Mr. Dillon’s home and sent an e-mail, after his death, to provide herself with an alibi.”

“No, I can’t.”

These are all leading questions, but Allison’s lawyer will not object, because they sound more like questions that would come from her attorney. They are a setup, of course, to what will follow.

“But whatdoes this document you found in the ‘trash’ bin of the defendant’s computer tell us, Deputy?”

The witness nods. “It tells us that whoever committed this crime, and sent this e-mail, followed the exact model of what the protagonist did in Allison Pagone’s next novel. A novel that has not yet been published. That hasn’t even been finished. A novel that, as far as we know, nobody has ever read with the exception of Allison Pagone. To say nothing of the fact that in the middle of the night following Mr. Dillon’s death, she went to the trouble of deleting this document from her laptop.”

Allison’s lawyer objects, a long-winded eruption, and the judge will sustain the objection, but it doesn’t matter. She knows it. The judge will agree, ultimately, with everything the witness just said. Allison copy-catted an alibi from a novel that no one had read, tried to trash the evidence, and got caught.

Ilive next door to Sam Dillon,” says Richard Rothman. He is a scholarly looking man, a former small-business owner in his mid-seventies now, with a long, weathered face and a protruding nose on which his glasses rest.

“Do you recall the evening of Saturday, February the seventh of this year?” asks Roger Ogren. “And if I could direct your attention, sir, to the late hours of the night and the early morning of the following day, Sunday the eighth.”

“I do remember that evening.”

Of course he does. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have no memory whatsoever of a sleepless night. But when later that Sunday morning, squad cars had pulled up all around his neighbor’s home, the memory stuck.

“I often have trouble sleeping,” he continues. “Or I should say, my sleep patterns are very irregular. Since my wife died, I just don’t sleep like I used to. So, I had slept much of that Saturday evening and by eleven o’clock at night, I was wide awake.”

“What were you doing around that time?”

“I was painting. I do watercolors in my sunroom.” Mr. Rothman laughs, a throaty chuckle. “Not much of a sunroom in the middle of February.”

“Sure.” Roger Ogren smiles. “And where does that sunroom face, sir?”

“The room overlooks the road. Oh, I can see across the street to my neighbors. I can also see to the east, to Sam’s property. It’s a bay window, y’see.”

“Sure. So you could see Mr. Dillon’s property.”

“Can see his driveway, his yard, bit of his house but not much.”

“Were you awake at the hour of one in the morning on Sunday, the eighth of February?”

“Yes.”

“And could you see outside?”

“Well, yes, I could. I’m a bit hard of hearing. I’m not blind.”

“Very good, sir. Can you describe for us what it looked like outside at that time of night?”

“Well, basically it was quiet. But, I’d say a little after one, a truck comes driving down the road and parks outside Sam’s.”

“A truck. A little after one in the morning. Can you describe that truck?”

“One of those sport-utility jobs. The Lexus. The mini-SUV. It was silver.”

The SUV that Allison drives. She has a 2003 model, silver. Roger Ogren has a photograph of Allison’s Lexus and shows it to the witness.

“Yeah, it looked just like that,” he says. “It was silver. Didn’t get a look at the plates, of course.” He shakes his head. “It was moving pretty fast down the street, all right. Couldn’t really see exactly what happened when it stopped. I just know that it parked by Sam’s house. Sam has about an acre of property, so there was some distance. Houses are pretty well set apart out there. That’s the point of a cottage on a lake. Privacy.”

“That’s fine, sir. What do you remember next?”

“I’d say about fifteen minutes passed or so. Say, maybe twenty.”

“So this would be about what time?”

“I’d say about twenty, twenty-five past one.” He wags a finger. “That time of night, it stood out. Don’t see a lot of traffic turning into our subdivision. At least, not in the winter, unless it’s the holidays and the young ones are around.”

“So a car drove to Sam Dillon’s house at just after one in the morning, Sunday morning, and drove away some twenty minutes later?”

“That’s right. Yes. It was about twenty minutes later.”

Long enough, the prosecutor is saying without saying it, for Allison to return to Sam’s house and send an e-mail, at about 1:18 and 42 seconds in the morning.