In the Company of Liars

ONE DAY EARLIER
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10

Allison stands outside her daughter’s dorm room, or what she believes to be Jessica’s dorm room. The divorce has separated Allison more fully from her daughter than from Mat. This spring semester, she knows virtually nothing about what classes her daughter is taking, or even where she lives.

“Yeah, that’s Jessica’s room,” says a student.

Allison looks at her watch. She has been loitering in the hallway for over an hour. Jess must be at class. Hopefully, she’ll come back here soon. Allison has other engagements.

Just after one in the afternoon, Jessica walks down the hall, a backpack slung over her shoulder, her eyes down. Her daughter is wearing a deep frown. She looks up and sees Allison, turns ghostly white. She is immediately aware of her surroundings, manages a perfunctory smile to two students who pass her. When they’re gone, she lowers her head and moves quickly toward her mother. She unlocks the door to her dormitory room and walks in first. Allison follows.

Jessica closes the door and locks it.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

Allison takes her daughter by the shoulders. “I wanted to be sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” she says, though she does not look it. Her hair is flat, her eyes bloodshot and weary.

“Everything is going to be fine, Jessica. This is all going to work out.”

This statement, naturally, is of little comfort to Jessica. She looks at her mother with a combination of distrust, fear, and resentment. “What did you do?” she asks. She wiggles out of her mother’s grasp, takes a step back, so that now her back is to the door.

“I can’t tell you, Jess. For your own protection. I can’t.” She puts her hands together as in prayer. “But you have to believe me. Something is going on. Something bigger than all of this, bigger than all of us. All you have to know is that, whatever happens, I’m going to be fine. And so is your father. You have to believe-”

“I have to believe you?”

“I’m going to be charged with Sam’s murder,” she says.

“You’regoing to be charged.” Jessica’s face contorts; she angles her head to get a different look at her mother, as if it could change reality.

“Yes,” Allison says simply. “It wasmy earring, Jess. Not yours. You’ve never borrowed my earrings. Never. Do you understand?”

She does, eventually, taking in her mother’s statement with a mounting horror.

“No one is ever going to know you were there that night,” Allison says.

Jessica looks around the room, claustrophobic, though she knows she can’t leave. This conversation cannot take place in the open.

“Sit,” Allison says.

Jessica moves to her bed, unmade, with three pillows scattered. She was always that way, her beautiful daughter. Always loved to bury herself in the pillows.

“Now listen to me.” Allison clears her throat. “The police will have reason to believe that I was at his house that night.”

Jessica looks up at her mother.

Allison raises a hand. “They will probably think I killed him. That’s a pretty safe bet. And it’s okay with me that they think that. It’s okay because nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“No,” Jessica whispers, her voice failing, tears coming fast.

“Jessica, I don’t have time for this,” Allison says. She needs to stay above her emotions so that Jessica will follow her lead. “And I’m not going to tell you why. But I’m covered. I am not going to be convicted. That’s a one-hundred-percent guarantee. Now look at me.”

It is a moment before Jessica manages to comply, her body quivering, her eyes unrecognizable.

“I’m not going to tell you anything more than that,” Allison continues. “It will be tough for you but you’re going to have to deal with it. You’ll understand, one day. For now, you have to listen to me. Okay?”

She can hardly expect a warm response from her daughter, and she does not receive one. Jessica, it seems, can’t decide whether she resents or appreciates her mother’s strength.

“Fine,” she says.

“Okay, good. The police will be investigating me, and they’ll come to you, no doubt. They will interview you. You need to be ready with some answers. So we have to make sure that you and I are clear on this.”

“You want me to tell them things that will make you look guilty.”

“Let’s get started, Jessica,” she says. “Do what I ask and this will turn out okay for everyone.”

Ram Haroon sits in the passenger seat of the car, staring into a wall in the underground parking garage downtown. It’s cold inside the car, in a parking area that is not well insulated. They couldn’t very well leave the vehicle running for the last half-hour, while Ram Haroon received his instructions.

“Let me be sure I understand this correctly,” he says. “This woman, Allison Pagone, must be dead, but it must appear that she took her own life. That she committed suicide out of guilt, remorse over her crime, and that she preferred death by her own hand to execution.”

“Yes,” the driver says.

“And you feel quite strongly thatI should be the one who makes this happen.”

“Yes,” the driver says. “It must be you. Larry Evans, obviously, can’t be used.”

“Larry Evans is an idiot,” Haroon says.

“But effective. He has the scientist in his pocket.”

They sit in silence, the windows fogging while the temperatures plummet. Ram Haroon rubs his hands together.

“You miss Pakistan?” the driver asks.

Haroon looks at him. “Don’t you? Why you’d want to return to this city is beyond me.”

Special Agent-in-Charge Irving Shiels purses his lips.“Na’am,”he says.“Ohebbo taghayor al mawassem.”

“Yes?” Haroon laughs. “You like snow and ice and freezing temperatures?”

“Damn right I do. This is home for me.” Shiels looks Ram over. It’s been years for the two of them. Shiels, if memory serves, was never much for sentimentality, doesn’t seem comfortable with it.“Tabdo bi sohha jayyida,”Shiels adds.

Haroon takes the compliment in stride. “I eat well and exercise when I can,” he says, a line he’s heard in the States.

Shiels smiles at that.“Lakad mada waket tawil,”he says.

“Ten years, at least,” Haroon calculates. “Too long.Ladayka awlad?”

Shiels nods. “An eight-year-old boy, and my daughter’s six.”

Haroon smiles. It’s hard to imagine Irving Shiels with a wife and children, but he is a long way from Pakistan, and maybe Haroon never knew the real man.

“This has to look like a suicide, Zulfi,” says Shiels. “Everyone has to think Allison Pagone killed herself.”

“Everyone will think she killed herself,” Haroon says.

“When this is ending, you’ll be stopped at the airport.” Shiels looks at him. “There’s nothing we can do about that. We’ve had to keep you on the ‘watch’ list to keep your cover.”

“Understood.”

“It will be one of my agents. Just be ready with the answers to the questions. She’ll do a song and dance for the benefit of Customs, but she’s been instructed to let you go.”

“I am sure it will be a memorable experience,” Haroon says.

Irv Shiels laughs, a forced effort, a brief smile that returns to stoicism almost immediately. Shiels was never particularly animated.

“Tawakka al hazar, sayyedee,”Haroon says. Stay safe.

“You do the same.” Shiels presses his hand in Haroon’s.

“Al selem, lakan abadan lil istislam.”

Haroon leaves the vehicle and heads for the exit.Peace, Shiels said to him,but never surrender.