David Ellis - In the Company of Liars

“His blood just happened to be on my sweatshirt?”

“Oh, it wasn’t like a significant blood spatter or anything,” Larry says. “So yes. People bleed sometimes. I had a girlfriend once, cut her lip and I ended up with her blood all over my shirt.” He shrugs. “I’m just saying. All of these things could happen in a different setting. Not when he was murdered.”

“They say I went back to the house at one in the morning the night he was murdered,” Allison replies.

“They say acar that looks like yours-a Lexus SUV-drove to his house then.”

“Who else would be driving my car?”

“Assuming it was your car.”

“Yes, assuming it was my car.”

“Who else would be driving-” Larry grunts a laugh. “Do I have to spell it out?”

Allison shakes her head in frustration. “I’m the only one with keys to my car, first of all. And they have me barging into Sam’s office the day before, shouting at him. And the office aide overheard Sam dumping me.And ”-she raises a finger-“they have me returning home at two in the morning, with dirt on my face and hands.”

“You meanJessica has you returning home at two in the morning with dirt on your face and hands.”

Allison draws back. “I’m not enjoying this conversation.”

Larry Evans leans forward, his eyes narrow. “You know what I think about this conversation, Allison, if I may say so?”

She waves a hand, still fuming.

“I think you’re trying very hard to convince me that you’re guilty.”

Allison looks away, not ready with a response, but something hot and creepy invades her chest. “Why all this talk about Jessica?” she asks.

Larry equivocates, raising his hands, cocking his head.

“Is this coming from your source in the department?” she demands. This has been Larry Evans’s primary chit in their deal, the source in the police department, from whom he would feed Allison nuggets of information.

“They’re wondering about the chronology of events that night,” Larry admits. “It’s standard procedure, from what I’m told. They do a timeline. And they fit their witnesses on that timeline. What can they say about Jessica? She says she was at your house at-what was it-eight?”

“Eight-thirty,” Allison whispers.

“Okay, but what about before that? She says she was studying back at Mansbury College, but there’s no corroboration for that.”

Allison takes Larry’s hand. “Tell me everything, every single thing, they’re saying about Jessica.”

“That’s it, Allison. I’m not saying she’s a suspect. They’re just trying to tie everything up, and Jessica is a big piece.She’s the one who says you were away from the house on the evening Sam Dillon was murdered,she’s the one who says you had dirt on your hands and your face,she’s the one who says you were wearing that sweatshirt with Sam’s blood on it, andshe’s the one who says you admitted having an affair with Dillon when you denied that fact to the police. So she matters to them a great deal. It’s a circumstantial case, we all know that, and she’s the biggest link. So my guy there, he was just saying, when your best witness against a suspect is her daughter, there’s going to be some concern.”

Allison cringes. “But they’re not saying she was a suspect.”

“No,they’re not.”

Allison glares at Larry.

“Hey.” He raises his hands. “I’m just a reporter. But my job is to look at facts. So I’m supposed to believe that you went to his house, bludgeoned him, an earring fell out, a nail broke, a hair fell out, and you got a little blood on your sweatshirt.”

Allison doesn’t answer.

“A sweatshirt that says ‘Mansbury College,’ by the way.”

“She gave me the sweatshirt,” Allison insists. “It was mine. Just because she’s a student at Mansbury, that means no one else could wear a sweatshirt with the school name?”

Larry Evans smiles. His eyes drift from hers. “No,” he concedes. “Of course, it could have been your sweatshirt. That doesn’t mean the story washes.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Thisis ridiculous,” Larry agrees. “What is ridiculous is whatever it is you’re doing. She’s close with her father, you’ve told me. Her father was in trouble. He was being investigated by the feds. Maybe Sam Dillon knew something. He was a threat to your ex-husband. Which made him a threat to someone who loved your ex-husband.” Larry takes a breath. “Look, I don’t know your daughter, Allison. But it makes sense. She worked at Sam Dillon’s office, right? She was close to all of this.”

“Jessica didn’t murder Sam,” Allison says.

“Oh, okay.” Larry falls back in his seat, waves a hand at her. “Youdid, right? You beat him over the head, accidentally left some evidence behind, and some evidence on you.”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Why is that-” Larry Evans messes with his hair, shakes his head absently. “Allison,” he says, leaning close now, his hand trembling, “who wears expensive platinum earrings with a sweatshirt?”

Allison jumps out of her chair, spilling the remnants of her cup of coffee, knocking Larry’s notepad to the floor. She moves quickly from a walk to a run out of the grocery store.

Allison climbs into Mat’s Mercedes outside the building that houses the law offices of Ronald McGaffrey. Today is the second time she has met with McGaffrey, after her original lawyer, Paul Riley, dropped out of the case.

“Everything go okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. It was fine. Ron’s good. He’s not Paul Riley but he’s good.”

“I’ve always heard that,” Mat agrees.

The sun is setting, casting the commercial district in shadows. Mat maneuvers his vehicle through the heavy rush-hour traffic on the way to the interstate to take Allison home. The windshield is dirty and the water fluid is frozen. The car is filthy from the salt and slush that has splashed up recently. It is that wet, cold season when you’d just rather be inside.

And now she has to drive home with Mat. Mat is one of those drivers who curses at others on the road, has a running commentary on the lane changes, the poor acceleration, the general timidity of other drivers. He is a different person when he gets behind the wheel.

But in fairness, Mat is better about that now, primarily, she assumes, because of everything that’s happened. He has treated Allison gingerly since her arrest, more respectfully than ever before. Say what you will about him, he has tried to make this easier for his ex-wife.

“The case is circumstantial,” Allison says. “They have plenty of bad stuff but none of it can be tied directly to me. That, more than anything, is our defense.”

“But ‘more than anything’ does not mean everything,” Mat says.

She doesn’t respond to that. She knows what Mat’s thinking, and he’s right. Ron McGaffrey immediately focused on the one potential opening. Things were amiss with Sam Dillon. Word trickled out, not long after Allison’s arrest, that federal prosecutors were probing a potential bribery scandal in the state legislature. Opponents of House Bill 1551, placing Flanagan-Maxx’s product Divalpro on the state’s list of prior-approved Medicaid drugs, had cried foul when three senators-Strauss, Almundo, and Blake-suddenly flipped their positions during veto session last November, and the bill quickly made its way to the governor’s desk.

Of course it raised red flags. The local paper, theDaily Watch, ran articles and editorials critical of the hasty, back-room shenanigans. Opponents of the bill, who had felt completely ambushed by the maneuver, began to take a closer look at the fact that one of the proponents of the bill-a very curious one at that, the Midwestern Alliance for Affordable Health Care-had for the first time in its history hired an independent lobbyist, Mateo Pagone, and had paid Pagone a hundred thousand dollars to help get the bill passed out of only one chamber, the Senate. That, combined with everything else, including the sudden changes of heart of three senators, led to a cry for an investigation. No one knows when, precisely, the U.S. attorney’s office began its probe, but the papers reported that federal prosecutors were presenting evidence to a grand jury as early as this past February, only about six weeks ago.