David Ellis - In the Company of Liars

“Hey, it’s your life,” he says, raising a hand, sensing the objection from Allison and probably not grasping how literal his comment is. “I have something for you. It’s probably not much.”

Larry has shown an impressive ability to uncover information on this case that is probably more easily found by a journalist than by a defense lawyer or his investigator. Not necessarily cold, hard factual information that could be used at trial, but details, rumors, things that could give her an advantage.

“Still got my nose to the ground,” he says. “The prosecutors, they know Sam Dillon called you several times before his death. They’re working on the assumption that it was due to your relationship. People who are dating talk on the phone, right? But then they have this other information-someone who worked with Sam-someone is saying that Sam had mentioned something about an ‘ethical dilemma.’ Which-”

“An ‘ethical dilemma,’ they said?” Allison feels her stomach tighten.

She could sense it in his voice immediately. Something was different, wrong.

“Is something the matter, Sam?” she asked over the phone.

He didn’t respond at first, which wasn’t like him. One of the things she had liked most about him was his lack of reservation, his openness to her. Her first response, an insecure response: Sam was unhappy with their relationship. He wanted to end things. She felt a tingle down her spine, a turn in her stomach.

“Something I’m dealing with,” he finally said, then tried to change the subject to dinner. Was she in the mood for Thai? Tapas? Greek?

“Sam.” It was late January, only a few weeks into the new year. They had been together only six weeks-okay, forty-five days, she had been keeping count-but they had reached levels of intimacy she had never neared with Mat Pagone. And now he was evading her.

Sam sighed. “It’s something I’m going to have to-I guess you could say I’m having an ethical dilemma.”

Ethical dilemma.Buzzwords used by an attorney, which Allison was, or used to be. She didn’t know the rules governing a lobbyist, didn’t know how closely they resembled the rules of ethics governing a lawyer. “Something with one of your clients?” she prodded.

“I-I think it’s best we not discuss it,” he answered. “Not yet, anyway.”

Yeah,” Larry says, “an ‘ethical dilemma.’ So the cops, the prosecutors, they’re thinking that this probably related to all this Flanagan- Maxx stuff. The idea being that Sam had an ‘ethical dilemma’ because he represented Flanagan-Maxx and he was becoming aware that this company had bribed legislators. It’s like a lawyer hearing that his client committed a crime. A lawyer can’t rat out his client, right?”

“Not for a past crime,” Allison says. “Not for something like this, at least.”

“But then again,” Larry says, “Sam’s not in business as a lawyer. He’s a lobbyist. Does he have to follow the same rules? Who knows? I don’t know. But the cop I’m friendly with, he says some people think maybe Sam wasn’t calling you to whisper sweet nothings. He was calling you to see if he had to turn in his client, Flanagan-Maxx. He was calling for legal advice.”

Allison nods, crosses her legs. Larry looks at her but she will give neither confirmation nor denial. She will simply listen.

“The thinking is that Sam called you because he wanted to know what he should do,” Larry continues. “Maybe it was part legal and part, you were someone he trusted. But some people prosecuting this case think that maybe Sam confided in you about that information.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. And those same people are thinking that when you got that information, you started to feel threatened. Because Mat Pagone lobbied for Flanagan-Maxx, too. So-Sam tells you that Flanagan-Maxx did some bad things and he wants to tattle on them, and that possibly implicates your ex-husband. So…” Larry shrugs.

“So I killed Sam,” she finishes. “To protect a man to whom I’m no longer married.”

“But who is still your daughter’s father.”

“And they’re going to say that at trial?”

The thing about criminal trials is that, no matter how strictly the prosecution is required to disclose information and evidence, it does not have to turn over its opening statement to the defense. The prosecution does not have to explain to the defense how it intends to tie the evidence together. Sometimes the prosecution’s theory comes out in pre-trial motions, but it hasn’t in this case. So while the prosecution has told Allison’s defense team that it intends to introduce Sam’s many phone calls to Allison in the days before his death, her lawyers have assumed that they are doing this to prove a romantic relationship, because Allison has never owned up to it. What she is hearing now is that they might be using the phone calls to show that Sam was talking about turning Flanagan-Maxx-and possibly Mat Pagone-in to the feds.

The trial starts this week, and Allison doesn’t know what the prosecution is going to say.

“Some people over there think that,” Larry answers. “There’s a debate over what course of action to take. Some want to say that Sam jilted you and you were upset.”

That is what Allison and her attorneys have always thought the prosecution would say at trial. The scorned lover, seeking revenge.

“But some want to say that Sam told you he was going to take Mat down, and you did what you did to protect him. I thought you should know that.”

“Either one gives me a motive to kill,” she says flatly. “Either I was a jilted lover or I was protecting Mat.”

“Well, sure-but if they say you killed Sam to protect Mat, you have an answer.”

“I have an answer?”

“Of course you have an answer, Allison.” Larry shakes his head, takes a drink from his coffee, frames a hand. “Let’s pretend they’re right. Their premise is that Mat was bribing senators, and Sam told you about it, and was maybe going to tell the U.S. attorney as well. If that premise is true, then, sure, arguably you’d have a reason to want to kill Sam. Arguably. But again-if that premise is true, wouldn’t there be someone else who had that motive? More strongly than you?”

“That’s no answer,” she says.

“The hell it isn’t. Mat was bribing lawmakers and Sam was going to give him up. And you are the only suspect?”

Allison leans forward on the table. “Thank you for the information,” she says. “I appreciate anything you can give me.”

“But you’re not going to use-”

“Mat didn’t bribe anyone, Larry.”

“You don’t know that. You couldn’t.”

“I know he wouldn’t-”

“Then what was Sam confiding in you, Allison?”

“He didn’t confide in me about anything of that sort, Larry. He-” She looks away from him, lowers her voice. “He ended things with me. Okay? He dumped me.”

“This isn’t going to work out,” Sam said, sitting behind his desk at the capital, a hand on his forehead, looking into Allison’s eyes.

“Mat-Mat’s a friend. You know this is crazy. It always was.”

Larry is quiet. He focuses on his coffee, then looks over Allison’s shoulder at the shoppers. Oldies music is piped in over the loudspeakers.

“I know you didn’t kill Sam,” he says. “And I think I know who did.”

“Larry-”

“And I thinkyou know, too.”

“I have to go. I’m sorry,” she adds, because she had promised him some background on her life, some items Larry Evans needed for his book. But his tell-all book is the last thing on her mind right now. She rests a hand briefly on his shoulder and leaves him.

Jane McCoy walks into Special Agent-in-Charge Irving Shiels’s office. “Sir?”