In the Company of Liars

ONE DAY EARLIER
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12

Special Agents Shiels and McCoy for Mr. Raycroft.” Irv Shiels places his hands behind his back and slowly paces the county attorney’s suite. Raycroft has cut himself a nice piece of the floor in the county building, separated himself and his assistant from the rest of the masses and spent a decent sum on redecorating. McCoy, having spent a career in public service, can only imagine how that one played with the rest of the office.

“Shiels and McCoy.” An office assistant, organizing books on a shelf to their right, looks at them. “Weren’t they a music group?”

Shiels stares at the young man blankly, then looks at McCoy.

“Please come in, Agents,” Raycroft’s secretary says, holding a door open for them.

County Attorney Elliot Raycroft comes out from behind a mahogany desk. Another man, on the dumpy side and younger, stands as well.

Introductions all around. The guy with Raycroft is Roger Ogren, the lead prosecutor working the Sam Dillon homicide. Ogren oversaw the search of Allison Pagone’s home by the County Attorney Technical Unit today. The CAT unit handles all crime-scene work these days, with the police serving only as an assist.

“This is of interest to you?” Raycroft asks as he sits at his desk. The man is mid-fifties, on the slender side, a little creepy in McCoy’s opinion. The way he looks at you, sizing you up, looking for the angle. His hair seems to have come from a bottle, trailer-hitch rust, she’s thinking.

Shiels nods. “We are looking at Allison Pagone for something. It’s something that we cannot discuss at this time. It’s something, let me be clear, that I’m under orders not to discuss.”

Raycroft looks at his sidekick, Ogren, and smiles. His teeth are too perfect. He must use those whitening products they have now. Must come in handy, only a month before the March primary. Raycroft is unique because he’s a Republican in a city that has been controlled by Democrats since the days of stagecoaches. The Democrats messed up, got into a racial thing and split their vote in a runoff, allowing this guy to sneak in with the heavy backing of the state GOP, which has been dying for a candidate who can do something in this city. Thanks to the power of incumbency, Raycroft was reelected, but it’s far from a lock this time. He even has a challenger in the primary, which is forcing him to spend money when he should be fortifying his war chest.

“You came over here to tell me that you’re not going to tell me anything?” he asks.

“We came by,” says Shiels, playing the straight guy here, “because we know you searched her home today.”

Raycroft looks at his watch. “Agent Shiels, can we get to it?”

“We planted a bug in Allison Pagone’s house. It’s a sophisticated model, an Infinity transmitter. We don’t know if your people found it.”

Raycroft looks at Roger Ogren, who makes a face. The answer, apparently, is no.

Shit.They didn’t know. They had no idea about Larry Evans’s bug, and now Shiels has told them. But they couldn’t be sure. They couldn’t take the chance that the CAT unit would find the transmitter and start talking to the media. They had no choice but to front the issue and claim the transmitter as their own.

“First we’ve heard of it,” says Raycroft.

“Well-obviously, Mr. Raycroft, it’s paramount that this information not leave this room. It would defeat the purpose.”

“Obviously.”

McCoy catches Roger Ogren scoping her out. She doesn’t really mind, but she likes to catch them in the act.

“You can’t discuss why you’re looking at Allison Pagone?” he asks.

“No, sir. I’m sorry-like I said, orders.”

“Is this related to Sam Dillon’s murder?” First time Ogren jumps in, and he’s a little too eager to participate. A confidence thing, she figures. “Do you have information about that?”

“We don’t.” Shiels shakes his head. “If we did, we’d tell you.”

From the looks on their faces, the county guys aren’t exactly getting in line to agree with that statement.

“Mr. Raycroft, Agent McCoy here is my point on this operation. If we pull anything from the bug, you’ll be the first to know. She’ll contact Mr. Ogren here. We want to assist in any way we can. But we need to be clear on the confidentiality. Nobody can know what we’re doing, sir.”

“I heard you the first time, Agent Shiels.” The county attorney is making a point to show he’s unimpressed. “If we leak this to the press, you’ll shake your fist at me.”

“I’ll put you in handcuffs.”

Raycroft comes forward in his chair. Probably isn’t spoken to likethat every day. But he’s reading Shiels, who is not budging an inch, and his air seems to deflate. He’s imagining his perp walk before the cameras on the eve of the general election.

“If you’d like to speak with the attorney general of the United States, I can arrange that call,” Shiels adds.

McCoy pipes up. She wouldn’t, normally, but the game of who’s-got-the-biggest-dick-in-the-room is getting a little heated. “We should be clear, gentlemen,” she says. “What we are looking at with Allison Pagone is unrelated to the reason you are looking at her. We don’t know who murdered Sam Dillon and it’s not a part of our case. We bugged Pagone’s house after Sam Dillon’s murder, and we had no idea that she was going to be implicated for that murder.”

A silence now. Wounds being licked. The feds have come to the county office and pissed all over it.

“And you won’t tell us what’s going on,” Raycroft manages.

“We can tell you this much,” says Irv Shiels, who raises a hand and adjusts the volume of his voice. “We can tell you that it’s big enough that I overreacted at the slightest hint of this leaking out. It’s big enough that our policy of cooperation with your office has to be a one-way street this time. It’s big enough that the attorney general really is expecting your call, to personally thank you for your cooperation.”

Good recovery. A slip-up with the handcuffs comment, she thought, but he reeled him back.

Shiels sighs. “We’d never ask you to pass on the prosecution. In fact, we’ll help you, if we get anything from the wire.”

This is a point worth making. A high-profile murder trial before the general election in November could be a significant advantage for Raycroft. If they told him not to prosecute, he’d hit the ceiling and demand more information.

“When this is over, Mr. County Attorney,” Shiels adds, “we’d be grateful if you’d join us at the press conference. We’ll be explaining that this was a multi-jurisdictional effort between a number of federal agencies and, of course, your office.”

Oh, and he nailed the landing. Talk about finding Raycroft’s G-spot.

“Well.” The tone in Raycroft’s voice has grown merrier. “It sounds like your investigation is exceptionally important, so of course my office will respect that. Roger will be more than happy to cooperate. When do you think this operation is going to be completed?” he throws in, like an afterthought.

What he’s really asking, she realizes, is,When can I have that press conference?

“Summer,” says Shiels, who realizes as much as anyone that this is a good answer.

“Fine. Very good.” Raycroft nods.

“And we’d like to ask a favor, sir,” Shiels adds. “Assuming that you’re going to indict Pagone, which it sounds like you are-”

“A fair assumption.”

“-we’d like you to agree to bail.”

“Bail?”Ogren cries. “For a capital murder?Agree to it?”

“We need her out. She goes inside and we can’t use her.”

“Oh.” Ogren clams up, looks at his boss.

“I think,” Raycroft says, “that there are shades of gray here. ‘Agreeing,’ I’m afraid, is out of the question. But ‘not opposing’ is a different matter. Not opposing very vigorously is still another approach.”

“Put restrictions on it,” McCoy suggests.

“She’s not going to flee,” Shiels adds. “We’re on her. And if by some chance she does, I take the heat. I’ll make a point of it.”

“But she won’t flee,” McCoy repeats. “She’d never get past us. Never.”

They rub and stroke the county attorney a little longer and he agrees to “not oppose” the request for bail. This is so out of Shiels’s character, this coddling, that McCoy considers razzing him about it when they reach the elevators. She considers, also, being out of a job five minutes later.

“Thanks,” he says to her, as they walk back to the federal plaza. “I dropped the ball there.” He grunts. “ ‘ Handcuffs.’ Anyway, nice save.”

A compliment. She wishes she had a witness. Harrick will never believe it.

“Keep those boys in line, McCoy,” he adds.