David Ellis: In the Company of Liars

Storino looks hard at McCoy, then at her partner. Slowly, a smile creeps along his face. “Always nice to see you all from the Bureau,” he says.

“Pleasure’s been all mine.” McCoy turns and walks down the hallway. “Prick,” she mumbles out of earshot. “I don’t have enough shit to deal with?”

“Janey, the mouth.” Harrick chuckles.

The agents leave the airport and begin their trip back to the federal building downtown, where the Special Agent in Charge is eagerly awaiting a report. Jane closes her eyes a moment as the escort drives them back to their car. She has seen death and tried hard to deny responsibility. It does no good to grieve excessively. You mourn the dead but keep fighting to prevent more death. That is what she has been doing, what has propelled her forward. And her job-this op-is not yet done, but it is close. Very close. She’ll sleep well tonight for the first time in months. She’ll make up for all those nights in May when she paced her small bedroom, thinking everything through, worrying about the number of hurdles that could have clipped her foot.

Does Mr. Ramadaran Ali Haroon have any idea what is about to happen?

Today is the first day of June, the unofficial beginning of summer. It was a hectic February, a chaotic March, an incredibly tense April. And May, the month that just ended, was possibly the hardest thirty-one days of her life.

But it’s almost over. They will make their arrests soon, and her part in this operation will be completed. She can’t worry about things she can’t control. She can only do her part.

Sam Dillon’s death started it. Allison Pagone’s death ended it.

She shakes her head in resignation, still unable to believe how this began.

The crowd is small, which is surprising in a way. The family wanted a small service; it is a tribute to their planning that only two reporters managed to figure out the time and place. The family’s success in eluding the media is probably due to their decision to forgo a church service. The media probably had its eye on the church Allison Pagone had attended her entire life. They would have no way of knowing which cemetery had been chosen for her burial.

It’s a nice place. Three acres of beautiful land, manicured lawn, well-kept plots. A new two-story granite mausoleum is secluded in a shady area to the northwest. A nicer place than Jane McCoy expects to end up in when her ticket is punched, on her government salary.

From her position in the driver’s seat of the limousine, McCoy looks through the one-way tinted windows at her surroundings. First, for the exits. Technically, there is only one. A road that leads from the main gate, snakes through the cemetery, and leads back out.

It’s a beautiful day for a service, if there is such a thing, owing primarily to the sun. One of those days when it’s hard to keep your eyes open. You won’t hear complaints anywhere across the city, though, after the permanent gray sky that prevailed from January through April. With the blinding rays and the temperature close to sixty, people are dressed optimistically, praying that today is a harbinger and not a tease.

It reminds McCoy of the first time she approached her mother’s grave after her memorial service. She was thirteen then, hardly able to comprehend the loss, offended at the strong sunlight cast over the headstone, as if someone, somewhere, were trying to make the world beautiful on a day that was anything but.

The limousine is parked on the narrow road only about ten yards from the service. Jane McCoy cracks her window and listens to the pastor.

“Allison Pagone.” The minister stops on the words. Jane assumes that the reverend has known Allison over the years.

“Allison Pagone was a woman of substance. A woman of faith.” The reverend, an older, pudgy man with a thin beard, looks up at the sky a moment, then collects himself. “Do we judge a woman based on the last year of her life, or on the first thirty-seven? Do we remember only the mistakes she made in a difficult moment, or do we recall all the giving and sacrifice and love she provided for her family and friends? Can we forgive?”

That’s a good question. Forgiveness is not something in which an agent of the FBI specializes. Her job is apprehension, sometimes prevention; she is never asked for, and never offers, absolution. She finds the concept overwhelming. She never liked her classes in philosophy-the study of questions that can’t be answered-or religion-the study of answers that can’t be questioned. She preferred her undergrad classes on criminal justice.This is right. This is wrong. And she never understood how one moment of repentance can absolve years of sin. One expression of regret erasing countless misdeeds? It’s just not how she’s wired.

“I hate these places.” A voice through her earpiece; it’s Owen Harrick, who is driving the hearse parked in front of the limousine.

Jane McCoy looks over at the service. Allison Pagone’s ex-husband, Mateo Pagone, and their twenty-year-old daughter, Jessica Pagone, are the only ones seated. Allison’s parents are deceased and she was an only child, so the family is small. The rest of the tiny crowd is mostly neighbors, some friends from the church, someone from the publishing house in New York. That woman from the publishing house is probably mourning the most. Allison Pagone was a best-selling novelist.

McCoy looks at the ex-husband, Mat Pagone, again. He is in a well-tailored black suit with a silver tie. He is staring straight ahead in concentration. His right hand is locked in the hands of his daughter, Jessica, who is also staring forward with red, numb eyes.

McCoy speaks into the mike on her collar. “See the hubby?”

Owen Harrick answers back. “Yeah.”

“He doesn’t do a very good job of looking broken up about the whole thing. His wife just kicked it?”

“Ex-wife,” Owen clarifies.

“That’s cold, Harrick,” she says, but she chuckles.

“He looks more bored than sad,” her partner agrees. “So what do we do?”

The service is breaking up. The whole thing didn’t last more than fifteen minutes. A closed-casket affair, the coffin already in the ground when the attendees arrived. Mat Pagone rises with his daughter, holding her hand. Together, they scoop a piece of dirt and drop it onto the coffin.

“We do what we do best,” Jane McCoy says into her collar. “We wait.”

McCoy is out of the vehicle before her partner has even stopped the sedan in Allison Pagone’s driveway. McCoy jogs up the steps to the home, glancing at windows as she passes. She rings the doorbell and knocks urgently on the door.

“Mrs. Pagone,” she says. “It’s Special Agent McCoy.”

She looks at Harrick. He has stepped around to the passenger side of their Mercury, around to the side of Allison’s garage.

McCoy knocks again. “Allison,” she calls out. She looks at her watch. It is close to seven o’clock in the morning. People are walking their dogs and going for their pre-work jogs. McCoy likes to run in the morning, too, but today she did not have that luxury.

“Her car’s here,” says Harrick.

They look at each other for a long moment. For this kind of decision, there is no strict protocol.

“Back door,” says McCoy.

The back door is an easy decision. There are neighbors outside now-people who have undoubtedly grown curious at the sight of the two serious-looking people in blue coats with the FBI insignia in yellow on their backs who have run up to the front doorstep of the Pagone residence. Better to decelerate the attention by going in the back way. Plus, McCoy knows the back door will be easier to get through.