In the Company of Liars

ONE DAY EARLIER
MONDAY, MARCH 22

Ron McGaffrey sits in Allison’s home, on her burgundy couch in the living room. He just received the files from the case-a case he had undoubtedly read about, a case about which he has probably foamed at the mouth for the chance to defend. So enamored was he with the prospect of being Allison’s lawyer, he has paid her a call at her home. He read over the file this past weekend, he has told her, and she listens to him complete his assessment of the case.

“The case is a classic circumstantial prosecution,” McGaffrey summarizes. He is leaning back on the couch, an ankle crossed over the other knee, waxing eloquent as lawyers often do.

“You were there, at some point,” he says. “You broke a nail. You lost a strand of hair. Lost an earring. You were there. It doesn’t mean you were there on thenight he was murdered. ”

But itdoes mean she was there, at some point. She told the police that she was not romantically involved with Sam Dillon. She has no other explanation for why she would have visited Sam Dillon’s home by the lake.

“The blood on your sweatshirt is a bit troubling,” McGaffrey concedes. “But it’s not consistent with a spatter. It’s not very much blood. It could have come at other times, too.” He looks at Allison. “A nosebleed, perhaps. Something that just trickled on your sweatshirt.”

Allison nods.

“If you had a friendship with Dillon, or some other kind of relationship,” McGaffrey says, “that is an explanation for all of this. It doesn’t put you at his house on the night of the murder. The last time you saw him was when you went to his office at the state capital.”

Allison winces. It is hard not to think about the last time she saw Sam Dillon.

At that moment, she was sure that she loved him. At the moment that he was gone, her feelings for Sam crystallized, moved from an intense passion, from her reawakening of feelings dormant for so many years, to love.

“I love you,” she said to him. She reached for him but it seemed inappropriate. Her hand was only inches from his head, from the blood that caked the back of his beaten skull. She wanted him to see her one more time, even if he couldn’t see her. She wanted to look into his eyes, but she would not move him. His face was peaceful, defeated, his eyes closed but his mouth open ever so slightly.

She picked up the trophy from the manufacturers’ association and placed it in a plastic freezer bag from Sam’s kitchen.

“You weren’t there,” McGaffrey repeats, as if to convince himself. “And then there’s the issue of your meeting with Sam at the state capital the day before he died. Friday. They’re saying he ended your relationship and you were furious. This is based only on your appearance-you seemed upset-and a few words from Dillon to you that were overheard. This is based on one person’s brief overhearing of a part of a conversation that he knew he wasn’t supposed to be overhearing. Reliability is a question.”

Allison nods, as if she is on board. But the staff aide heard it accurately, more or less.

“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.”

McGaffrey puts on his reading glasses and looks over some notes on a pad, undoubtedly notes from the transcript of the preliminary hearing, the testimony of the aide who overheard part of their conversation. “ ‘It isn’t going to work out. Mat’s a friend. This is crazy. You know that.’ ” McGaffrey looks at Allison. “These are words susceptible to more than one meaning.”

“Okay,” Allison says. “Good.”

“A silver Lexus sport utility vehicle drove to Dillon’s house after one in the morning,” he continues. “The witness didn’t see the plates. I would expect that Lexus sells quite a lot of those in these parts.”

“I would think so.”

“Who has keys to your car, Allison?”

“Just me.”

“Not your ex-husband?”

Allison shakes her head. “I bought it after we separated.”

“What about your daughter?”

“No, Ron. Just me. But like you said, there are lots of Lexus SUVs out there.”

He nods, but he was hoping for something better. “And that’s their case.” The lawyer tosses the transcript on the couch. “At least so far. They have no murder weapon. They have no eyewitness. And there’s some question about time of death.”

“Not in the state’s opinion, there isn’t.”

“No, that’s right. They have him getting food delivery at six-twenty or so, and partial digestion suggests he died about forty-five minutes later. Assuming he ate the food when it arrived, that means seven o’clock, more or less. They have the clock used to hit Dillon over the head that broke, that was frozen at 7:06 p.m. And the rate of decomp suggests around seven, too.”

“I can say I was home at seven,” she says.

“Right. And then there’s this whole thing about the trip to Dillon’s house at one in the morning. The e-mail sent from his computer. An e-mail sent to you, by the way. That’s a wild card.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asks.

“Well.” He opens his sizable hands. “If Dillon sends an e-mail at one in the morning, it means he’s alive. That doesn’t square with time of death, six hours earlier. They’ve got to be wondering about that. If they have you as the suspect, then they figure you went back there, too, and you sent the e-mail. But why? It doesn’t make sense. You have an alibi for seven. You were home. Not that anyone can corroborate that.”

“No.”

“But still. It’s not a bad alibi. So why go back? And why send the e-mail toyourself? You’re putting up a red flag. You’re saying, ‘Hey, look at me.’ If you’re smart enough-diabolical enough-to make a premeditated trip back to his house, why leave a calling card?”

She was lucky, she thought, though lucky hardly seemed the word, that Sam did not use a password to protect his screen saver, because she certainly couldn’t ask him for the password now. The screen was black with asteroids and stars moving about, probably the standard screen saver-Sam barely had learned how to use his computer, he surely hadn’t formatted his own screen saver-but with one push of the computer mouse, the screen returned to his e-mail in-box. She hit the “compose” icon and pulled up a blank mail message. She typed in the words and addressed the message to her own web address,allison@allisonpagone.com:

Need to discuss further. Getting worried. Many would be unhappy with my info. Need advice ASAP.

She sent the e-mail and checked her watch. It was close to twenty after one. Having sat down for even a minute, she felt intense exhaustion sweep over her. But she resisted. Now was no time to get weary. She only had to get back home now-yes, that included having to pass Sam’s body downstairs one more time-and she would be safe.

“The problem, of course,” McGaffrey says, “is that your daughter was home when you arrived back at your house from wherever you had been.”

Allison nods along.

“Mother-what did you do?” Jessica had cried. “What happened?”

“Tell me, Mother. Tell me what happened.”

“So some time after seven,” her lawyer says, “certainly before eight-thirty, when Jessica arrived, until about two in the morning-let’s call it from eight to two, those six hours-the question is where you were. A question for another time,” he adds.

He is merely going over everything. He won’t spend his first meeting with her interrogating her on details. He’ll probably suggest something later. She could have been at a movie, perhaps, or two movies, something that started at eight o’clock that evening and went into the early morning. This thought has already occurred to Allison. You pay for a movie in cash, usually, and then you sit in a dark theater where no one sees you. Two movies, almost back-to-back, could take over five hours. How she had managed to get dirt all over her hands and face, of course, would be another matter altogether.

“All of this is circumstantial,” he summarizes. “And the one-in-the-morning e-mail, quite honestly, is weird. I can’t think of a rational reason. Neither can they.”

“Criminals make mistakes,” Allison says. “That’s why they get caught.”

McGaffrey smiles. He takes her statement as a general proposition, not a specific indictment of Allison herself. “Do you mind my asking, Allison, why the change in lawyers?”

“You’re the best,” she says quickly. “I have a lot of respect for Paul Riley-”

“Oh, yes.”

“-but I think his forte these days is more of the white-collar variety. You’re the best at what you do.”

Her words could not have been more soothing, Allison is sure, if she had uttered them naked, rubbing his body with lotion on a Hawaiian beach. She has never known a profession that breeds more self-importance and egotism than the practice of law.

Except maybe politics.

“Paul Riley wanted me to cut a deal,” she adds. “I’m not cutting a deal. I want a fighter, and that’s your reputation.”

“You know, I like and respect Paul a great deal,” he says, though Allison senses this is the kind of prelude you typically hear before the knife goes in the back. “But I’ve always felt that people who used to prosecute-they like their adversaries. They sympathize with them. They usually seek compromise.”

“And you?” she asks.

“I don’t cut deals with prosecutors,” he says, his chest heaving a bit. “I don’t like them. Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he adds, leaning forward in his chair. “Personally, they may be the nicest people on the planet. But they are too absolute. Once they make the decision to prosecute, they don’t let anything get in their way. Then they overcharge the crime to scare the shit out of people and force them to plead out. They forget that their job is to be fair, to seek justice. They just want to win. They stop looking around, as soon as they decide to indict. They get tunnel vision. Anything that suggests a defendant’s innocence, at that point, must be discredited. They’re never wrong.”

Allison smiles. This is the kind of outrage you want in an attorney, or at least most people would want.

“This case, perfect example,” McGaffrey says. “I can see how this happened. They have circumstantial evidence that is decent, but not great. Maybe you’re their suspect, maybe not. But then they think you’re lying to them about being romantically involved with Sam Dillon. They put circumstantial evidence together with a lie, and they charge you. They give almost no thought to the fact that Sam Dillon has this big federal bribery probe swirling around him.”

McGaffrey needs to check his dates. The prosecutors didn’t even know about the bribery scandal until after they arrested her.

McGaffrey continues, undeterred. “Sam Dillon, a guy who might have some very incriminating information about this bribery, suddenly turns up dead, but they chargeyou because they can put you at his house at some point and you lied-in their opinion-about being Dillon’s girlfriend. I’ll tell you what, Allison. We’re going to show them a thing or two about due diligence. We’re going to turn this bribery thing upside down. Sam Dillon had skeletons, or someone else did and he was going to give them up. That’s who killed him. And then they send an e-mail to your address to give the cops a suspect on a silver platter.”

“I was framed?” Allison asks.

“Could be. Could be. Who knows? I’m just getting started. Give me a few months and we’ll pull this thing apart like a turkey leg at a-”

“No,” Allison says. “No, no.”

“What’s that?” McGaffrey frowns.

“I’m not moving the trial date, Ron. This thing is crushing me. Crushing my family. I want it done.”

“Allison, this is-we’re talking about six weeks away.”

“I know that. And I understand it makes your job tougher. But Ron, this is a deal-breaker.”

“I can’t try this case in six weeks. I just got this.”

“A deal-breaker, Ron. I want you. Everyone says you’re the best, and that’s what I need. I can afford you. I can afford you and as many associates or partners as you need to get up to speed. I’ll give you a retainer today. How is fifty thousand?”

McGaffrey deflates, mulls it over. She can imagine what he’s thinking. He has a thriving practice, sure, but he’s not the best-he may think so but Allison puts him a step below Paul Riley-and this is a case that will give him national publicity. The change of attorneys, alone, will be news. His picture will be everywhere. Bios about him, profiles in the newspaper. Catching this case will give him instant credibility.

To say nothing of the fact that Allison has put fifty thousand dollars on the table without blinking. Lawyers in private practice relish retainers because they don’t have to chase the client to collect the fee. It’s already there, in a client trust account. McGaffrey will blow through this number by the time the trial is over; her defense will probably run a couple hundred thousand dollars, if not more.

“That’s one condition,” she says. “The trial date.”

“There areconditions.” McGaffrey pronounces the word with distaste. “And more than one.” He gives her the floor, her condition number two.

“Leave my family out of this,” she says. “My ex-husband is one of those lobbyists they’re looking at. You start pointing fingers all around the state capital, one of them will land on him. And that’s a bad thing.”

“That’s a bad thing-because he’s part of your family.”

“That’s a bad thing,” she answers, “because pointing at him would be pointing at me.”

“What are you saying to me, Allison?”

Allison takes a moment. This is a privileged conversation. Nothing that she says to Ron McGaffrey can be repeated, under any circumstances.

She clears her throat.

“The theory goes that a certain ‘someone’ bribed those senators, and Sam found out, and that certain ‘someone’ knew that Sam knew, and killed him before he could talk.”

“That’s the theory, yes.”

“What if I were the one who bribed those senators?” she asks.

Her new lawyer frowns.

She smiles sheepishly at him. “The theory in general sounds pretty good, Ron. But let’s not get too specific. And let’sdefinitely not start accusing my ex-husband.”