In the Company of Liars

OLD THEORIES DIE HARD
IN PAGONE MURDER CASE

Oh, I can see it now. County Attorney Elliot Raycroft and his assistants, sitting in a posh office rich with cigar smoke, pondering the theories surrounding the death of Sam Dillon. “Oh, I know!” Raycroft says, snapping his fingers. “I know why Allison Pagone killed Sam Dillon. She was a ‘woman scorned.’ ”

Now, for those of you living in a cave, Allison Pagone is a best-selling novelist indicted last week for the murder of capital big-shot Samuel Dillon. Anyone watching the preliminary hearing last week was treated to the picture of Allison Pagone as a hysterical woman bent on killing a man who had recently rejected her advances. He dumped her, so she killed him.

Or maybe not. Remember last year, when our legislative leaders ramrodded a bill through both chambers in a single day, allowing pharmaceutical giant Flanagan-Maxx to market its blood-pressure drug Divalpro along with the generics? Well, turns out that the architect of that legislation was none other than Sam Dillon, who was assisted in his efforts by none other than Mateo Pagone, who until recently was Allison Pagone’s husband.

Maybe the woman isn’t so hysterical? It gets better.

Allison rubs her eyes. The point here, obviously, is an attack on typical male perceptions, but in the process Madley is writing an opening statement for the prosecution. Mat bribed some senators, Sam Dillon discovered it and was going to tattle to the feds, and Allison killed him.

Allison held her breath as Sam explained.

“Nothing happened, Allison. Nothing. Okay?”

She listened to him with her mind. But her heart was being ripped apart. Her body had gone cold.

She wanted desperately to believe him. But it didn’t erase the feelings. She was threatened by her own daughter?

“I said no, Allison.”

Allison sat down in her chair, feeling exhausted for the first time.

“And what’s this,” Sam asked, “about the ‘look on my face’ last night?”

Allison chewed on her lips, her eyes down. “I saw you looking at her at the party,” she answered.

“You saw-what did you see? I looked at your daughter? I thought she was attractive? Okay, guilty as charged.” He opened his hands. “She looks like you.”

She shook her head.

“Allison, don’t you get it?” he said. He moved to her, knelt down at her knees. “I’m in love with you. How do I begin to convince you of that?”

She was in a fog. She couldn’t see him, couldn’t see Jessica.

“You begin to convince me of that,” she said to Sam, “by firing Jessica.”

Allison turns her head away from the newspaper, but she has nowhere else to go. The picture is becoming clearer now, for the prosecutors and the media, and she has work to do. It’s time to snap out of the self-pity and keep her eyes open.

“Now,” she heard herself saying.

Sam paused. Allison looked away from him, closed her eyes, and heard him rise, lift the phone.

“Jody, hi, it’s Sam,” he said. “Is Jessica Pagone there? Great. Put it-put it into my office up there, would you? Tell her to take it in there.”

Allison became aware that her face had fallen into her hands, her body was trembling. This was not right. She knew that. But she had just regained something, in these last few months, and she was attributing it to Sam Dillon.

And she would not let it go.

She heard him talking. It was important. Close the door, Jessica. We have to talk. I’ve made a decision about something.

“Jessica,” she heard Sam say, “I’ve been thinking about things. You and I had a couple of personal conversations at the end of last year. I-no, it’s okay,” he said, his voice soothing. “I understand. It’s not that. It’s just that, well-I’ve been thinking. And under the circumstances, I think it’s best that we find you another place to work.”

Allison felt the moisture on her hands, felt a shiver run through her body.

“It just makes me uncomfortable, Jessica. I-probably should have done this before. I would never repeat this to anyone. I’ll give you a great recommend-”

Allison opened her eyes, looked up at Sam, an elbow on his desk, his slumped posture.

“This isn’t going to work,” he told Jessica, bringing his hand to his forehead and looking into Allison’s eyes. “Mat-Mat’s a friend. You know this is crazy. It always was.”

A long pause. Allison could hear her daughter’s protesting voice through the phone. Sam said nothing as Jessica spoke, his face locked in a grimace.

No, she felt sure. This was not right. This was not the way to handle this. Yet she did nothing to stop it.

“Jessica, I’m a lobbyist. It’s the appearance of impropriety. It’s not about being mad at you. I’m not mad at you. I’m-this is just the way it has to be, okay?”

There were more protests, more defensive responses. And then it was over. Sam hung up the phone, looked at her with a wounded expression.

Allison got to her feet and left the office.

Allison’s eyes return to Monica Madley’s newspaper column, her diatribe against the clichй of the hysterical woman who lashes out at the man who scorns her. Maybe the prosecutors will read this column and come away convinced that they made a mistake and bought into a stereotype.

Or maybe, she fears, they’ll decide that they have the right stereotype, but the wrong woman.