In the Company of Liars

ONE DAY EARLIER
SUNDAY, APRIL 25

Allison 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 theWeekly 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 thinkMat 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.”

Yeah,” 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 thinkyou 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.