David Ellis - In the Company of Liars

“Your call,” she says with no emotion. She feels a tug at her heart. She’s not sure what Jessica would think of her opinion, anyway. On instinct alone, she’d probably do the opposite of what Allison recommended. Allison hadn’t seen it coming, Jessica taking her father’s side in the divorce. But Jessica has always adored Mat. It puzzled Allison, always, how the father who spent so little time with his daughter gained such an elevated stature in Jessica’s mind. She could probably count on one hand the number of diapers Mat changed. The number of meals Mat cooked. The number of piano recitals and choir concerts he attended. Everything Allison did, all those years, selflessly, yes, and she didn’t expect a gold medal for it, but how was it that Mat came away the shining parent?

Well, that wasn’t hard to figure. Mat spoiled her. Imposed no discipline. It was Allison who played the bad cop, Allison who pushed her daughter to study and imposed a curfew after that incident with the high-school teacher. And really, she loved the fact that Jess and Mat got along so well. What mother-what wife-wouldn’t want that?

But she had expected more when she and Mat split. No, she didn’t expect Jessica to accept the news with open arms. But Jess was twenty years old, for God’s sake. She had been raised to keep an open mind, to think things through. How could Jessica so easily find fault in one parent and not the other? Allison doesn’t know the answer to that question. She doesn’t know what Mat said to their daughter. She doesn’t know what methods of manipulation Mat employed to subtly cast blame in Allison’s direction. All that she knows is that Jessica would do anything for her father and would never blame him for a thing.

Mat drops the subject, looks into the cool air, closes his eyes momentarily.

“Let’s go inside,” Allison suggests.

Mat follows her into the living room, then heads to the adjacent kitchen. Allison closes the window in the living room, overlooking the backyard.

“My attorney thinks the frame-up theory makes us look desperate,” she calls to Mat. She sees, through the window, her neighbor, Mr. Anderson, following his daughter out into his backyard for a game of catch. She remembers when Jennifer Anderson was born, can’t believe she’s now eight years old, jumping around with a baseball glove, eagerly awaiting warm-weather sports.

“I agree,” Mat says from the kitchen. “Who gives a damn about hair and broken fingernails and earrings? You were there at some point, is all it proves.”

She looks away from the window toward the kitchen. Mat was probably glad to be in the next room when he said that. He’s right, but that’s beside the point. He’s acknowledging her relationship with Sam, however fleetingly. Mat must be envisioning the spin that Ron McGaffrey will put on this evidence. An earring fell out, a nail was broken, a hair was pulled out during moments of passion. Wild sex on his couch. On the kitchen table. In his swimming pool. On a trapeze over his bed. Men have the capacity to visualize the most painful scenarios in their jealousy.

The truth is that it was incredibly awkward, initially. Allison had been with exactly one man her entire life. Everything had been one way. The first time she and Sam made love and she watched him above her, Allison’s heart pounded like never before, one part excitement and three parts utter fear. It was more like her first time than her thousandth.

Sam was taller than Allison by several inches, unlike Mat, so she had to raise her chin to see his face as he rose above her. He had less hair on his chest. A thinner frame. He liked to cup her head with his hand, play with her hair. He liked to kiss her more. Liked to watch her. Made less noise in his climax, clenching his jaw and closing his eyes, little more than a guttural sound from his throat. Liked to stay inside her longer afterward. He was slow and steady.

She realizes that Mat is watching her, standing in the living room with a bottle of wine. She wonders if he can guess what is going through her mind.

Mat had been more like a jackhammer. Quick, powerful thrusts, not a gentle partner. He was a square-framed, strong man, a hunter-gatherer, and he liked to take the lead, needed to. Didn’t like it when Allison improvised. He wanted to initiate, wanted to choose the position. Liked to be on top, liked to lie above her, not on her, as if in the middle of a push-up, his triceps bulging, his chest muscles flexing. She often wondered whether he was doing that for her or for himself.

“Forget the frame-up,” Mat finally says. “The best witness is you. Say you didn’t do it.”

Allison looks away, toward the couch. “I can’t testify, Mat. You know that.”

“We’re talking about your life, here, Allison.”

“They’ll catch me in lies, Mat. I’ve lied to the police. And they can force me to talk about other things, too. It’s not an option.”

She walks over to the window again, wants to see the enthusiasm on her young neighbor’s face, wants to experience a moment of vicarious joy. The girl flings the baseball over her father’s head, and it bangs off the back door.

“I’d rather die,” Allison says.

Allison finds Larry Evans in the coffee shop at the grocery store. “I got you something,” Larry says to her. He slides a small package across the table.

She can tell it’s a paperback before she opens it. She can also tell that a man wrapped the present. It’s a self-help book, one of those positive-mental-attitude guides she has never read.

“It’s about seeing the finish line,” he says, and laughs. “I’m guessing you’ll choose not to read it.”

Allison smiles. “Sometimes I don’t know what I’d do without you, Mr. Evans. Sometimes I feel like you’re the only-well.” She looks at him. “Thank you.”

“You have a lot of people supporting you, Allison. You read the websites?”

“Oh, God, not lately.” She has appreciated, on some level, the support she has received on her book website,allison-pagone.com, as well as several websites seeking to capitalize on the case, including her favorite,freeallison.com. But she can’t help but feel some distance from these people. They aren’t really saying that they believe her to be innocent. They don’t know her and they don’t know the facts, at least not all of them. They feel a connection to her, presumably because of her novels, and they don’t want to confront the real possibility that one of their favorite authors has committed murder.

“No,” she says, “I prefer my news from the tabloids. Did you see theWeekly Inquisitor up front?”

Larry laughs. “I did. ‘Killer Novelist in Love Nest with Ben Affleck.’ The photo takes ten years off you, by the way.”

“Yeah, I’m really pleased.”

“My point is,” Larry says, “a lot of people are supporting you.”

“Well, I think the list is pretty short.” She sighs. “I mean, Mat has really been great. It’s a bit odd, under the circumstances, but he’s been great. It’s just that-I think he wonders about me. I don’t think he’s convinced of my innocence. I don’t think my lawyer thinks I’m innocent, either. And I think you do.”

Larry frowns at the mention of Allison’s ex-husband. He has been plenty clear, over the last months, about his opinion. “Oh, I thinkMat knows you’re innocent,” he says.

She will not engage him. They have done battle on this front more than once. The development in her relationship with Larry Evans over the last few months has been interesting. He came to her initially as an aggressive journalist, unseasoned, which he pitched as an advantage to her. Regardless of his experience or lack thereof, he could be seen as little more than part of the pack of media people who wanted her story, wanted to write a true account of the murder of Sam Dillon and the trial of Allison Pagone. But then, as he began to dig, he took up Allison’s cause. He has shared his information with her. And he has slowly shown himself to be someone who is less concerned with getting the behind-the-scenes story of Allison Pagone’s trial than with showing that Allison is, in fact, innocent.