In the Company of Liars

ONE DAY EARLIER
TUESDAY, MARCH 23

Roger Ogren greets McCoy when she gets off the elevator at the county building.

“Agent McCoy,” he says. “Thanks for coming to me. I could have made the trip.”

The trip being a walk of three blocks from the federal building, where McCoy works.

“No problem. And call me Jane.” She follows him into his office. The fact that he has an office separates him from several of the prosecutors on the floor, who are gathered in two large rooms she passes, each assigned a chair.

Roger Ogren’s office is uncommonly neat. There is a tray for incoming mail that has only two pieces of paper in it, folded neatly. Law books-the local court rules, attorney indices, the criminal statutes-are lined up precisely on a row of low, black metallic shelves on the back wall.One of that kind, she thinks to herself. She never trusts someone who cleans up every day. If he sayspardon the mess, she’s leaving. On principle.

Ogren takes his seat behind the desk. Behind him, McCoy sees family photographs that she assumes do not include a wife. Lack of a wedding ring confirms it. It’s her instinct. Look at the finger. She has been hit on by more married men than she can count.

She could see him as single. He’s overweight, not ridiculously so but enough to add a second chin, a puffiness beneath his eyes, a stomach that covers the front of his belt. She can see it in the way he carries himself, too, not the typical authority she sees in most law-enforcement types. This guy has a chip on his shoulder, a wariness to his eyes, like he’s wondering what everyone’s thinking about him. This is not a personality trait she would expect from the man who has been handed this highly publicized prosecution.

But there are explanations for that. One of them is seniority. He has the wordlifer all over him. He has probably never held another job and probably would not care to. So he’s up there on the chain, regardless of merit. But she senses another reason, and she knows these types, too. He’s a pit bull. Put him on someone and he doesn’t let up until they’re bloody and lifeless.

“We’re aware that you’re looking at the Senate,” Ogren says. “Aware from the newspapers, that is.”

Oh, a rebuke, right out of the gate. The feds have not been sharing, he is saying.

“I assume,” he continues, “that this is the reason for your sophisticated eavesdropping device in her house.”

McCoy smiles at him, not pleasantly. Roger Ogren has been sworn to silence on this point, yet he raises the subject every chance he gets.

“I’ve done my homework,” Ogren says. “And if I’m right, you can hear absolutely everything that goes on in her house.”

“Not quite everything,” McCoy answers. “But yes, it’s been a good device.”

The Infinity transmitter allows the eavesdropper to not only listen in on and record phone conversations; it also serves as a microphone that permits the recording of all room sounds. Ogren has read up on it, apparently, and he’s thinking that McCoy must have some solid information from hearing every conversation that Allison Pagone has been having in her house-in person or on the phone.

“We didn’t bug her house to learn about your case,” she says, not for the first time. “And I can tell you, based on what I’ve heard, that she doesn’t talk about your case in her house. I assume she limits those conversations to her attorney’s office. There hasn’t been a word about whether she killed Sam Dillon, or anything like that. Really, Roger.”

“But you can confirm for me,” he tries, “that you’re investigating this bribery. This pharmaceutical drug bill.”

“I can’t confirm anything.” She smiles, not warmly. “And you’re not supposed to ask.”

Surely, Ogren knows there is more to it than that. If this were just about a public corruption scandal, the feds wouldn’t be so hush-hush.

“Well.” Ogren opens his hands, smiles plaintively. “Sam Dillon was killed just before he was going to testify in Operation Public Trust. Am I wrong about that?”

“No, you’re not wrong.”

Ogren pauses a beat, blinks his eyes and looks away, makes a face. Finally he leans forward, laces his hands. “Sam Dillon was expressing concern to people in his office. There was a problem. An ‘ethical dilemma,’ he called it. The obvious thought is that Sam Dillon discovered something, and we’re thinking that this ‘something’ is this bribery thing you’re investigating. And if we think that, the defense is going to think that. We need to be ready. So I was hoping that you might give us a look-see at what you have.”

“Our operation,” McCoy says, “has nothing to do with Dillon’s murder.”

“I don’t think that it does, either. I know my story and I like it. But the defense is going to make hay.”

“The defense can’t look at what we’re doing,” she says. “It’s sealed information.”

“I know that, Agent.”Agent, he is emphasizing, not lawyer. That is his point here. Don’tyou tellme about the law governing grand-jury secrecy.

Ogren hands her a sheet of paper, a printout of the e-mail that was sent from Sam Dillon’s computer at one-eighteen in the morning, early on the Sunday following Sam Dillon’s murder. “I wonder if you can make sense of this for me,” he requests.

“I’ve heard about it, sure,” McCoy says. “Everyone has.”

“She must have sent this.” The prosecutor points at the document. “We have her returning to Dillon’s house around one. She came back and sent that e-mail. Why?”

“To throw off time of death,” McCoy says, like it’s obvious. “She killed him at seven, but she wants people to think he was alive well after that time. Just in case anyone saw her there at seven.”

“That’s a big risk to take. That’s hard to believe.”

“That’s what makes it smart.” McCoy stares at Ogren a moment, to see if this is registering with him. Apparently not. He doesn’t know. She picks up the paper and flaps it. “This doesn’t look familiar to you, Roger?”

“Familiar.” That stops Ogren. His eyes move to the ceiling, then back at her. “No.”

“You guys have her laptop, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve searched it-”

“We’ve looked at it, sure.” Ogren’s eyes zero in on her. “Help me out.”

“You haven’t read it.”

“Readwhat?”

“That story she was writing,” she says easily. “A new novel. Something called ‘Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold’ or something like that. There’s a part in there about an alibi.”

“And it will look familiar to me.” He reaches for a pen and paper.

“Very.” McCoy opens her hands. “You guys don’t check the documents that are deleted from the hard drive? That’s the best place to look.”

“She deleted it.”

“Yeah, hell, yeah. Wouldn’tyou to try to get rid of it? You kill someone and try to manufacture an alibi, something you’re taking right out of a novel you’re writing? First thing you do is get rid of any trace of that novel. The only problem being, these days, we can find anything.”

“Jesus. ‘Revenge Is a Dish-’ ”

“I can’t remember exactly. I think the chapter was literally called ‘Alibi,’ though.”

“I don’t know how that was missed,” he murmurs, his jaw clenching.

“Oh, in fairness, it’s buried in there. You’d have to read the entire manuscript. Or maybe your techies haven’t gotten to it yet.”

Ogren, who has been writing notes, stops suddenly, his head slowly rising to meet her stare. “How do you know about this?” he asks. “You know the contents of her computer?”

“We were at her house, Roger. Remember? When we planted the bug.”

“Yeah, but that was without her knowledge. Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“You can’t conduct asearch without her knowledge,” he says. “At least after the fact.”

McCoy shrugs. He has her there, or so he thinks. He is assuming that the federal agents broke the law, because he isn’t thinking it through. It’s not his area.

“Oh. Oh, shit,” he says. “You went in under the Patriot Act.”

Under the Patriot Act, the federal government can search certain suspects without their knowledge, even after the fact. This is confirming something Ogren probably already suspected, that this operation involves terrorism on some level.

“Sam Dillon wasn’t murdered because of anything related to terrorism,” McCoy says with confidence. “I like your story. The jilted lover.”

“I have to take your word for that.”

“Listen, Roger, if terrorists murdered Sam Dillon, we would be all over you to take a pass on this prosecution, for now. Think about it. We would have been in your office, the day after Dillon’s murder, begging you to hold off. Or we would have assumed jurisdiction.” She opens her hands. “We’re not doing that. The two aren’t related. The only reason I ever came to you is because we were afraid you would detect the bug in Allison’s home, and word would get out.”

That makes sense, and the explanation seems to sit well enough with the county prosecutor. He sees that he doesn’t have a choice, in any event. The only thing he could possibly do is drop the charges against Allison, and he won’t do that.

“If Allison Pagone is a terrorist of some sort,” Ogren says, wincing at how ridiculous it sounds, “I have to know that. She could ambush me at trial.”

McCoy shakes her head. “It’s not like that. You won’t hear her say a thing like that at trial. If she discloses a single witness that makes your hair stand up, let me know. But she won’t, Roger. She won’t do that.”

“She won’t,” he says, “because she wouldn’t be dumb enough to admit to something like that at trial?”

McCoy doesn’t answer.

“Or she won’t,” Ogren continues, “because she doesn’tknow?”

McCoy smiles. A quick study, this one. “She won’t, period.” She gathers her bag and heads for the door. “You’re on the right track with your case,” she says. “The rest of this is way out there, totally peripheral. It has nothing to do with your prosecution. Okay?”

Ogren seems to be temporarily placated, but overall, he is still probably feeling very much in the dark.

“Pull that deleted document off her hard drive,” she says. “You’ll like what you find.” She shows herself out. It is a bit troubling to her that she is getting good at this.