David Ellis - In the Company of Liars

“I ran errands for Mr. Dillon and Mr. Becker. Delivered things. I helped them out with computers, too, when they needed something quick.”

“How long did you work there?”

“I worked there about a year. Pretty much three days a week, afternoons.”

“You knew Sam Dillon?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“Let me-let me take you to February third of this year. Do you recall that date?”

This is the same date that McGaffrey raised with the last witness, Walter Benjamin. Benjamin looked like he was going to vomit at the time, as he refused to answer whether he and Sam had had a phone conversation about the bribery of three state senators. Allison wonders how that conversation went. She wonders how much Walter Benjamin knows. She wonders if he blames himself for ever hiring Sam, who was an old friend of his.

“Yeah.” The young man nods compliantly. “I remember that date.”

He remembers that date because he was working at Sam’s office that afternoon, organizing files in drawers right outside Sam’s office. Allison knows this because, after Sam’s murder, this kid and his father went to the police and reported the very thing about which Richie Cook will now testify, and the prosecutor, Roger Ogren, was duty-bound to disclose this information to the defense.

“All right, son,” McGaffrey says, standing at the lectern. “While you were organizing these files, where was Mr. Dillon?”

“In his office. Real close by me. On the phone.”

“Do you happen to know who he was talking to?”

Richard Cook shakes his head.

“You have to answer out loud, son.”

“No, I didn’t know. I was just-I wasn’t meaning to listen in or anything. But I heard him. I heard him talking.”

“What did you hear him say, son? What did Mr. Dillon say?”

“He says, well-he, like”-the young man works his hands-“he started kind of shouting, like he was reacting to someone. He was like, ‘No! Listen! Don’t-’ Then he got quiet all of a sudden, then he was talking quieter. Like he knew he was shouting and he wanted to be quieter.”

“Sure. And Richard, what did Mr. Dillon then say? When he quieted down?”

“He was all, like-he said, ‘No one can tie this to Flanagan-Maxx. No one could prove that. Just take the Fifth, if you’re so worried.’ That was pretty much it.”

McGaffrey nods and looks at the judge. His Honor is taking notes here, and McGaffrey doesn’t want to get ahead of him.

“Now, Richard,” he says, “when Sam Dillon said, ‘No one can tie this to Flanagan-Maxx,’ did he explain what he was talking about?”

An old lawyer’s tactic, repeat helpful testimony in the question.

“No. He didn’t.”

“When he said, ‘No one could prove that,’ did he explain that?”

“No.”

“When he said, ‘Just take the Fifth,’ did he explainthat?”

“Nope. I told you all I heard.”

“But you heard him say ‘Flanagan-Maxx,’ Richard?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. So what happened next?”

“Well, he-I think he got paranoid or something that someone was listening-”

“Objection.” Roger Ogren is on his feet. “Foundation. Move to strike.”

The judge turns to Richard Cook. “Young man, you’ll need to limit what you tell us to what you heard or what you observed. Okay?”

“Okay.” The witness shrinks a bit on the stand.

“The answer will be stricken. Mr. McGaffrey?”

“Richard,” says McGaffrey, “tell us what you observed, or heard, after you heard Sam Dillon finish by saying, ‘Just take the Fifth, if you’re so worried.’ ”

“Well, it was like all quiet for a minute. Then Mr. Dillon came out his door.”

“What did he do?”

“He stared at me for a minute. Then he asked me what I was doing.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I was filing.”

“And then?”

“Then he closed his door pretty hard. He seemed mad that I was out there.”

“And what did you do, after hearing all this, Richard? Did you talk to anyone?”

“I talked to my dad later that night.”

“And did anything result from that?”

“Well, not until Mr. Dillon was dead. Then my dad and I were thinking that it might have been important, what I heard. So we told the cops.”

“Thank you, son. Your witness, Mr. Ogren.”

Roger Ogren stands and buttons his coat. He is younger, and not as heavy, as his opposing counsel. Ogren does not have a wedding band on his finger, and Allison makes the assumption that he never has. He seems the type who lives for his work, especially this work.

“My name is Roger Ogren, Richard.” The prosecutor glances at a pad of notes on the lectern. “You and I have spoken before, haven’t we?”

The witness leans in to the microphone. “Yes.”

“Okay. Richard, that phone conversation you were describing? You don’t know to whom Mr. Dillon was speaking, do you?”

“No.”

No one will ever know to whom Sam Dillon was talking. Sam, and others in his office, made and received several calls from the state capital that afternoon. The phone records did not identify the particular phone lines used from the offices of Dillon & Becker, nor did the phone records at the capital help much. Based on the approximate timing of the calls, they could have been made to any number of politicians or lobbyists or clients, either at the capital or in the city.

But yes, there had been a phone call from Flanagan-Maxx that day, a little after four in the afternoon. The problem is, no one can tie Richard Cook down to a particular time-he can’t say four o’clock or two-thirty-so no one can conclusively say that the conversation Richard overheard was between Sam and Walter Benjamin.

“You don’t know what Sam Dillon and this other person were talking about, do you?”

“No.”

The prosecutor taps on the lectern. “Mr. Dillon was a lawyer, wasn’t he?”

“Umm-yeah, I guess so.”

“He advised clients on issues.”

“You mean like going to the capital and stuff?”

“I mean,” says Ogren, “like giving advice to clients. Whether it concerns legislation or other stuff. Mr. Dillon was a lawyer who gave advice to clients.”

“I-I guess so. You mean a lawyer like you are? Like, trials and stuff?”

Roger Ogren squirms a moment. He’s supposed to be asking the questions. “You don’t know if he was or wasn’t, is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah. I know he’s a lobbyist. Other stuff, I don’t know.”

“And it’s possible that this is exactly what Mr. Dillon was doing on the phone, right? It’s possible that he was on the phone with a client, discussing something theclient had done wrong. He was telling the person on the other end to take the fifth, not himself. Right?”

Richard Cook does not appear to have an agenda here, and Allison can’t imagine why he would. He readily concedes the point. He didn’t know who Sam Dillon was talking to or what they were discussing.

“Thanks, Richard. No more questions.” Roger Ogren takes his seat triumphantly.

“No redirect,” says Ron McGaffrey. “But at this time we would submit into evidence, by stipulation, a subpoena for the decedent, Samuel Dillon, to appear before the federal grand jury in the Operation Public Trust investigation.”

“It will be admitted,” says the judge.

“And if I could simply note, Your Honor, that the date Mr. Dillon was scheduled to appear was Wednesday, February eleventh, which means that Mr. Dillon was found dead only three days before he was scheduled to testify.”

“Duly noted, Counsel,” says the judge, smirking.

Do you date immature men?” Sam asked. Not the first time they had met-she had met Sam Dillon on two occasions over the last few years. But this was the first time she had been available. This was after Thanksgiving, last year, after the veto session had been completed.