In the Company of Liars (23 page)

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

“There are
conditions
.” 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's
definitely
not start accusing my ex-husband.”

T
hey trained him. They taught him about weapons, about explosives. They taught him English—not the basics, which Ram already knew, but slang and common phraseology. About American culture. About American security procedures in airports and government buildings. How to walk into a room without being noticed, how to extract information from an asset without giving up any of his own.

He was smart, they told him. He was not physically strong, not big, but he was highly intelligent. He would be an undercover operative.

Ram Haroon peeks around the end of the aisle, toward the café in the corner of the grocery store. He sees her there, Allison Pagone, talking to Larry Evans, the man who has asked her for the opportunity to write an account of her murder trial.

He knows plenty about Allison Pagone. He knows she has told Larry Evans things that she hasn't told anyone
else. He knows that in Larry Evans's apartment are stacks of notes and research on Allison Pagone and Flanagan-Maxx Pharmaceuticals and members of the Senate and the prescription drug Divalpro.

They are finishing up. Haroon pulls his baseball cap low on his face.

Larry Evans walks out of the grocery store to his car, a low-end import, and drives away. Haroon knows where he is going. He knows where Larry Evans lives, where he parks his car. He knows that the underground garage does not have a security camera.

He also knows a quicker route to Evans's apartment than the one Evans is taking.

The apartment building is on the north side, four stories of brick. A key card is required to activate the small lot beneath, but there is a back entrance that requires only a key.

That won't be a problem. Picking a lock was one of the first things they taught him.

Haroon parks his car on the street—illegally, out of necessity, but this won't take long. He enters through the back and stands in the shadows by a parked truck. The garage is dingy and dark, holds about forty vehicles. This is rental property, not well kept. The garage smells like one, oil and gas and exhaust fumes. He hears the hydraulic door lift a moment later. Larry Evans's car rolls down the ramp and toward Haroon, and he steps back into the shadows.

The car turns into the spot two down from the truck and the engine dies with a small gurgle. Haroon steps out from the shadows. There is a small window on the hydraulic door that, combined with a weak overhead light, provides faint illumination down here. But it's still dark enough, and the lack of the cameras is reassuring, in any event.

Evans emerges from the car, slams the door shut, slings his backpack over his shoulder, and begins a casual walk until Haroon makes himself visible.

“Mr. Evans,” Haroon says.

“What—” Evans does a double-take, instinctively drops his backpack and gets his hands free.

Ram Haroon laughs.

Evans looks around him quickly. “What—what are you doing here?” He regards Haroon warily for a moment, then walks up to him, lowers his voice. “What the fuck?”

“I want to talk,” Haroon says.

Evans's eyes move to the corners of the garage.

“There are no cameras down here,” Haroon says. “I suppose you already know that.”

Evans frowns, then lets out a nervous release. “In the car,” he says.

Haroon takes the passenger seat. Evans slams the door shut and looks at Haroon, impatient.

“Don't do that again,” Evans warns. “You're gonna give me a frickin' heart attack.”

“She likes you,” Haroon says. “She trusts you. I can see that.”

“You were—” Evans leans into him. “You were at the grocery store?”

“I was. Not close enough to hear, of course, but I can see from her expression that she's at ease around you. She believes you are the trusted journalist you claim to be.”

Evans shrugs, falling back in his seat. “The fuck did I tell you?”

“You are still confident that Allison Pagone knows nothing?”

“Yeah.” He looks at Haroon. “Yeah. This ‘ethical dilemma' that Dillon had? At this point, she's assuming it had something to do with that bribery thing. The prescription drug.”

“Divalpro,” Haroon says.

“Right. She figures that Dillon was on to this bribery thing but didn't want to involve Allison in it. Probably because her ex-husband was in on it. That was his dilemma.
He knew if he turned in Mat Pagone, he'd be hurting Allison.”

“So Dillon
wasn't
talking about our operation.” Haroon trains a scolding look on Evans. “When he told Ms. Pagone he had an ‘ethical dilemma,' he wasn't talking about us.”

“Hard to say,” Evans says. “Likely, no. But how can we be sure?”

“So Sam Dillon was killed for nothing. Without my authorization, and for nothing.”

Larry Evans wets his lips. He does not like the topic.

“I never said I killed Sam Dillon,” he says. “I never said that.”

No, of course he didn't. He's too smart to reveal such things to Haroon. It's part of his training, no doubt. Haroon's training was no different. Admit nothing unless you have no choice. Co-conspirators can be caught and made to turn on each other. The less known, the better. Yes, there is a trust here, between Haroon and Evans, but it only goes so far. From Evans's perspective, why admit he killed Sam Dillon? Dillon is dead. Whether he knew about their operation or not, he is dead, and now Allison Pagone may know something.

“When is this formula going to be ready?” Haroon asks.

“April, May,” Evans says. “We lost some time after Dillon died. The doctor flipped out. But he's back in line now. He's working on it. You understand, he can only develop it when no one's looking. But he's close, he said.”

“How hard can it be?” Haroon asks.

“The hard part is the detection. Anyone could taint children's aspirin. The hard part is getting it past the regulators.”

“Fine. Well, I promised this formula in April or May. Am I going to be wrong about that?”

Evans raises a hand. “You know, as well as I, that the doctor is worried about Pagone. Her trial. He wants her situation resolved first.”

“Her ‘situation resolved.' ” Haroon chuckles. “I like that.”

“She's going to be convicted,” Evans continues. “She seems to want it. She's protecting someone. Her ex-husband, I think, or maybe her daughter, or both. I don't really get it. But she's going to let them convict her, Mr. Haroon.”

“And she thinks you believe in her innocence.”

“Oh, yeah.” Evans lightens up. “She thinks I'm a crusader. I'm doing like we said. I'm piling fact upon fact against her ex-husband and her daughter. The more I push, the more she resists. By the time I'm done with her, she'll be
begging
them to convict her.”

“Fine.” Haroon thinks things over, clears his throat. “This other thing. About Mrs. Pagone's ‘situation' being ‘resolved.' We are clear that I will handle that. Not you.”

“Crystal,” Evans says.

Haroon looks at him.

“We're clear, Mr. Haroon.”

“All right. Good. It's not time yet. It will be soon. With any luck, we can make the transfer before the trial. Then, by the time anything happens to Mrs. Pagone, you and the doctor will be on a beach somewhere.”

“Okay.” Evans looks like he has something more to say. Haroon raises his eyebrows.

“Mr. Haroon,” he says, “I really don't think Allison Pagone knows anything. I really don't think she needs to die. It's too risky. She's high-profile. And the doctor will have a coronary if someone else dies. He's not in our business. We need him to keep working for us.”

Haroon waits out the impassioned plea, then immediately says, “It's my decision. It's my money and my decision.”

Evans raises his hands.

“You will let me know when things are looking darkest for her,” Haroon says. “That will be when we do it.”

I
killed Sam.

You want to protect me, but you can't.

Pointing at you is pointing at Jessica.

Mat parks his Mercedes in Allison's driveway. It's like old times, a tradition for them. The city is crawling with great weekend breakfast spots, and Allison needed the time out. The place where they went is well within the confines of her conditional bond. It's a place they've been many times, in fact. Mat, true to his nature, stuck with his favorites, in this case an omelet with chorizo and goat cheese. She could make a short list of his favorite foods and would bet her mortgage that Mat would not stray from those few items, regardless of the restaurant. Veal piccata. New York strip, medium-rare with crumbled blue cheese. Cheese ravioli.
Carne asada
. Omelette with chorizo and goat cheese. Or a good old cheeseburger.

“Thanks,” she says, and this part is new. Thanking him
for breakfast. It's one of those subtle changes that comes with divorce. Nothing is taken for granted now.

“It was fun,” he responds without looking at her. He has that same sensation, she imagines. It's still weird, their relationship since the divorce last year.

“We should go in.” Allison looks at Mat. Neither of them is particularly excited.

I killed him. I killed Sam.

We have to protect Jessica. Pointing at you is pointing at her.

Inside, she offers Mat coffee but he declines. He sits on the burgundy couch that is no longer his, although if anything in this house should go to Allison, it is this old piece. Mat never really cared for the couch, anyway. Objectively, Allison wouldn't disagree. A dark purple couch in a room that was otherwise black-and-white. But it was the only piece of furniture from her old house where she grew up, and she would never consider getting rid of it.

“So—what we were saying at brunch.” Mat is calling to Allison, who is in the kitchen. “I want you to think hard about this.”

Allison comes into the living room and sits across from him in the leather chair. Mat looks at her briefly but his eyes wander. This is not his strong suit here, his attempts to help her. She will have to carry the ball, a phrase he often used.

“You want me to think hard,” Allison says, “about my lawyer claiming that you killed Sam? And framed me? And he puts you on the stand, and you refuse to answer? So that you look guilty, not me?”

“Yes,” Mat says. “It could be enough.”

“The judge wouldn't buy it.” Allison shakes her head.

It's worth a shot.

“We should at least consider it,” Mat says.

“It would ruin your career.”

I don't have a career. Not anymore.

“My career.”
Mat has already suffered considerably from the allegations surrounding the Divalpro legislation. There are at least three state senators who would never speak to him again, would feel threatened if they did. That kind of thing spreads like cancer in the capital. Mat's career as a lobbyist is effectively over. “Tell me that's not the only reason.”

“It's not the only reason.”

Mat is silent. He is working this through in his head, trying to keep everything straight.

He is older now in so many ways. He has lost so much in so short a time. He has maintained his composure publicly but she can see it all over him. He has lost his wife's love. He has lost much of his career. And he must know, he must have some sense of self-incrimination for all of this.

I killed Sam.

“I killed Sam, Mat,” Allison says. “I suppose you already know that.”

Allison rubs her hands together. She is feeling a chill. Mat cannot look at her at all now.

“That's not the point,” he says.

“No, here's the point.” Allison walks over to the mantel and takes a photograph of Jessica. “
She
is the point, Mat. Jessica.”

Mat looks again at the mantel, past the photo of Jessica. Their wedding candle, their unity candle, used to sit here. It is now in a box in the basement. The pictures of Mat are gone, as well, which surely has not escaped his notice. The mantel is now little more than a shrine to their daughter.

“If they start looking at you,” Allison says, “they might start looking at Jess, too.”

He turns his head to the side, not facing her but acknowledging her. There is no answer to that comment. If they have nothing else, they have the love of their daughter in common.

Mat looks at his watch. “You're going to be late for your little ‘meeting.' ”

He's talking about her weekly visit with Larry Evans at the grocery store. “Larry's been a help,” Allison says. “He believes in me.”

“He's really going to write the book?”

Mat is being shut out from her writing career, is the point of all this. He's playing the jealous ex-husband.

“He's a good writer,” she says. “He's shown me some stuff. And he has sources. It's been very helpful.”

Mat shakes his head. “Fine.”

“I need someone on my side,” she says. “I need
someone
I can count on.”

Mat shoots her a look.

“You can go now, Mat. Thanks for breakfast.” Allison walks into the kitchen and places a hand, for balance, on the sink, before she runs the water and splashes it on her face.

I killed Sam. I won't point at you because it would point at Jessica.

Okay.

Allison looks at her watch. Time to meet Larry.