David Ellis - In the Company of Liars

McCoy catches Roger Ogren scoping her out. She doesn’t really mind, but she likes to catch them in the act.

“You can’t discuss why you’re looking at Allison Pagone?” he asks.

“No, sir. I’m sorry-like I said, orders.”

“Is this related to Sam Dillon’s murder?” First time Ogren jumps in, and he’s a little too eager to participate. A confidence thing, she figures. “Do you have information about that?”

“We don’t.” Shiels shakes his head. “If we did, we’d tell you.”

From the looks on their faces, the county guys aren’t exactly getting in line to agree with that statement.

“Mr. Raycroft, Agent McCoy here is my point on this operation. If we pull anything from the bug, you’ll be the first to know. She’ll contact Mr. Ogren here. We want to assist in any way we can. But we need to be clear on the confidentiality. Nobody can know what we’re doing, sir.”

“I heard you the first time, Agent Shiels.” The county attorney is making a point to show he’s unimpressed. “If we leak this to the press, you’ll shake your fist at me.”

“I’ll put you in handcuffs.”

Raycroft comes forward in his chair. Probably isn’t spoken to likethat every day. But he’s reading Shiels, who is not budging an inch, and his air seems to deflate. He’s imagining his perp walk before the cameras on the eve of the general election.

“If you’d like to speak with the attorney general of the United States, I can arrange that call,” Shiels adds.

McCoy pipes up. She wouldn’t, normally, but the game of who’s-got-the-biggest-dick-in-the-room is getting a little heated. “We should be clear, gentlemen,” she says. “What we are looking at with Allison Pagone is unrelated to the reason you are looking at her. We don’t know who murdered Sam Dillon and it’s not a part of our case. We bugged Pagone’s house after Sam Dillon’s murder, and we had no idea that she was going to be implicated for that murder.”

A silence now. Wounds being licked. The feds have come to the county office and pissed all over it.

“And you won’t tell us what’s going on,” Raycroft manages.

“We can tell you this much,” says Irv Shiels, who raises a hand and adjusts the volume of his voice. “We can tell you that it’s big enough that I overreacted at the slightest hint of this leaking out. It’s big enough that our policy of cooperation with your office has to be a one-way street this time. It’s big enough that the attorney general really is expecting your call, to personally thank you for your cooperation.”

Good recovery. A slip-up with the handcuffs comment, she thought, but he reeled him back.

Shiels sighs. “We’d never ask you to pass on the prosecution. In fact, we’ll help you, if we get anything from the wire.”

This is a point worth making. A high-profile murder trial before the general election in November could be a significant advantage for Raycroft. If they told him not to prosecute, he’d hit the ceiling and demand more information.

“When this is over, Mr. County Attorney,” Shiels adds, “we’d be grateful if you’d join us at the press conference. We’ll be explaining that this was a multi-jurisdictional effort between a number of federal agencies and, of course, your office.”

Oh, and he nailed the landing. Talk about finding Raycroft’s G-spot.

“Well.” The tone in Raycroft’s voice has grown merrier. “It sounds like your investigation is exceptionally important, so of course my office will respect that. Roger will be more than happy to cooperate. When do you think this operation is going to be completed?” he throws in, like an afterthought.

What he’s really asking, she realizes, is,When can I have that press conference?

“Summer,” says Shiels, who realizes as much as anyone that this is a good answer.

“Fine. Very good.” Raycroft nods.

“And we’d like to ask a favor, sir,” Shiels adds. “Assuming that you’re going to indict Pagone, which it sounds like you are-”

“A fair assumption.”

“-we’d like you to agree to bail.”

“Bail?”Ogren cries. “For a capital murder?Agree to it?”

“We need her out. She goes inside and we can’t use her.”

“Oh.” Ogren clams up, looks at his boss.

“I think,” Raycroft says, “that there are shades of gray here. ‘Agreeing,’ I’m afraid, is out of the question. But ‘not opposing’ is a different matter. Not opposing very vigorously is still another approach.”

“Put restrictions on it,” McCoy suggests.

“She’s not going to flee,” Shiels adds. “We’re on her. And if by some chance she does, I take the heat. I’ll make a point of it.”

“But she won’t flee,” McCoy repeats. “She’d never get past us. Never.”

They rub and stroke the county attorney a little longer and he agrees to “not oppose” the request for bail. This is so out of Shiels’s character, this coddling, that McCoy considers razzing him about it when they reach the elevators. She considers, also, being out of a job five minutes later.

“Thanks,” he says to her, as they walk back to the federal plaza. “I dropped the ball there.” He grunts. “ ‘ Handcuffs.’ Anyway, nice save.”

A compliment. She wishes she had a witness. Harrick will never believe it.

“Keep those boys in line, McCoy,” he adds.

You were home all night,” Detective Czerwonka confirms.

“Yes,” Allison says. “I was home all night.”

“And to be clear, here. We’re talking about last Saturday, the seventh of February.”

“Yes. I was home all night.” Allison gives an exaggerated sigh. “Are we going to be much longer?”

“We’ve told you all along, you’re free to go if you want,” says Czerwonka’s partner, Jack Aiken. He looks to be a little younger, and fitter, than Czerwonka, and he’s let his partner take the lead.

Yes, they have repeatedly informed her of her right to leave, because if she is free to leave, then this conversation cannot technically constitute an “interrogation,” and therefore no Miranda warnings are required. What, they forgot she practiced criminal law for almost three years?

“I’ll answer whatever you’d like,” she says.

Joe Czerwonka is a large, weathered man who seems to have a gentle side, too, which makes her think he’s a grandfather. Or maybe it’s just dealing with females. If she were a man, this guy might be breathing down her neck. Instead, he turns away from Allison, talks to his partner as if she weren’t in the room. “It’s just-confusing to me,” he says. “See, Mrs. Pagone’s daughter, Jessica, told us that Allison came home about two in the morning on Sunday.”

“Yeah,” Detective Aiken confirms, referring to his notes. “Yep, she said, ‘Two in the morning.’ She said she got to Mrs. Pagone’s house at about eight-thirty, Saturday night, and her mom wasn’t there. She said Mom didn’t get home until two.”

“That’s almost six hours unaccounted for,” Czerwonka says to Aiken.

“You talked to Jessica?” Allison looks at them sharply. “You didn’t notify us.”

“She’s twenty years old, Mrs. Pagone. She doesn’t need parental notification.”

“What did Jessica tell you?” Allison pounds the table. “Tell me what she said.”

Aiken looks at his partner. This is Czerwonka’s call. “Well,” the senior detective says, “your daughter seems to remember you coming home and not looking so hot. Upset. And dirty, I guess. Mud on you. And she says you threw up when you got home.”

“Jessica saidthat?” Allison asks, feigning surprise.

“Yeah, she did. And she said the next day, you told her you’d been dating Mr. Dillon. The two of you were having a romantic, shall we say, relationship.”