David Ellis: In the Company of Liars

McCoy’s shoulders rise. “She can’t be sure shedidn’t kill him.”

“Jane, no,” Harrick says. “You can’t blackmail her.”

“I’m not talking about blackmail, Agent.” McCoy grinds her teeth, a nervous habit when she’s thinking fast. “Allison Pagone is going to think what she thinks. Not putting her mind at ease is not the same thing as lying.”

“She helps us out,” Harrick says, perhaps warming to the deal, not that McCoy really cares, “and we make sure Jessica isn’t implicated. And she’s never the wiser about whether her daughter is a killer.”

“Something like that,” McCoy says. “Right about now, mother and daughter are probably discovering that Jessica left some evidence behind.” She looks at Harrick. “Let’s see what happens.”

“Jane,” Harrick says. “You’d really do that to this lady? Make her think her own daughter is a murderer?”

“She’llthink it,” McCoy says. “I won’t say that to her.”

“Jeez.”

“Oh, lighten the hell up, Owen. You’re in the big leagues now. I think what we’re doing is worth it, don’t you?” She waves at him. “When this is over, and everyone is safe and sound, I’ll tell her the truth, okay? I’ll give her a copy of the videotape of Larry Evans breaking into Dillon’s house. But for now, we use whatever we have.”

Harrick stares at McCoy.

“When this thing is all over,” she repeats, annoyed, “I will make it very clear to Allison that her daughter did not kill Sam Dillon. But until then, we use what we have. Relax. You want to stop an international terrorist operation or not?”

Allison sits next to her daughter, who is finally beginning to calm. Allison has put a blanket over Jessica’s shoulders and given her some hot tea. They are sitting on the couch in the living room.

Jessica has been home for half an hour now. It took her the better part of ten minutes to even tell Allison what had happened. The next twenty minutes were spent with Allison confirming, absolutely, that she heard her daughter correctly.

Sam is dead.

“I just wanted to talk to him,” she says. “I wanted to know why I was fired.”

Sam is dead.She can’t believe she is hearing the words. She can’t believe it’s true. Her first instinct is to rush out of her home and go there, or at least to call his house. That is her first reaction, her second, her third, but still she has not made a move. She is more concerned about someone else at the moment.

“Does anyone else at Dillon and Becker know he fired you?” Allison asks.

Jessica shakes her head. “No. I didn’t talk to anyone. I was like a zombie. I just left. I didn’t even pack my things.”

“Good,” Allison says. “Good.”

Jessica’s head whips around at Allison. “You think I might be blamed for this? Someone would think thatI -”

“No, honey, of course not,” Allison says quickly. “No one would think that.”

“I was there,” she says ominously.

“Yes, you were. Did anyone see you? Jess? Do you know if anyone saw you there tonight?”

“I don’t-I don’t know, Mother. How could I know that?”

Allison takes her daughter’s hand, gets on her knees so she is face to face with Jessica.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” she says.

“I didn’t-you think I killed him.” Jessica pulls away from her mother, gets to her feet. “You think I killed Sam?”

“No, I don’t.” Allison follows, rising and moving to her daughter, who is backing away. “Of course I don’t. I’m only saying, you were there. There might be questions. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“Oh, God.” Jessica leans against the mantel over the fireplace for support.

“This is my fault, Jess. And I’ll do anything to protect you from this.”

Jessica’s eyes slowly move to her mother. “What do you mean, it’s your fault?”

Allison takes a breath. She was going to tell her anyway. There is some notion to not throwing fuel on a fire, but she thinks better of it. Full disclosure seems warranted right now.

“Sam and I have been seeing each other, Jess,” she says.

Jessica’s eyes widen. “You and-andSam?”

“I know that you approached him a few months ago. He told me. You were interested in him. I can understand why.”

“You andSam, Mother?” She retreats from Allison.

“Yes,” Allison says. “It happened after your father and I had split up. But yes.”

Jessica’s eyes cast about the room. This is overload. This, on top of everything else.

“This is my fault,” Allison says. “I’m the reason you were there tonight.”

“What does that mean?” She walks toward her mother, emboldened.

“You were fired,” Allison says, “at the request of an insecure, jealous woman who wasn’t thinking straight.”

Jessica angles her face, looks hard at her mother. “You told him to fire me.”

“I went down to the capital, yesterday, and made him call you.”

“You told him-tofire me.”

Allison nods. “I realized, today, how stupid I was. I was going to call you and talk to you about it. I swear to you, I was. You were going to get your job back.”

Jessica does not seem capable of a response, another emotional outburst. Where to put this, on the list of tonight’s events? She tucks her hair behind her ear, a habit she formed during adolescence, a habit she got from Allison.

Allison sees, looking at her daughter’s profile, the platinum earring on her ear, the earring she purchased not long ago. No big surprise. Allison had even noticed them absent from her jewelry box, over Christmas, and figured as much. Not the first time her daughter raided her jewelry or clothes. She always took a small pleasure in it, actually.

Jessica is well dressed, Allison now notices. A violet blouse, black skirt and boots, more makeup than usual, however smeared across her face it may be now. And the earrings. She was dressed up to see Sam. She sees with her own eyes now, for the first time, what Sam told her. Jessica was carrying a torch for him.

“I’m so sorry about this, honey.”

Jessica continues to pace by the fireplace, fuming, the anger temporarily overcoming the horror.

She couldn’t have done it, Allison says to herself. Not Jessica. She feels the heat burning in her chest, a moment of panic, however hard she tries to fight the logic working through her brain.She wouldn’t be so distraught that she’d kill him.

They spend the remainder of the evening repeating this conversation. Allison interrogates Jessica on what, exactly, she did in the house, where she went, whether anyone saw her. She tries to cast aside the growing realization that Sam Dillon is dead, because she must focus on the young woman who might be charged with his murder.

Jessica decides to have some wine, the first time she has done so in front of her mother, the legal limits of a twenty-year-old drinking alcohol notwithstanding. It’s a rebuke, Allison realizes, but she will certainly not object under the circumstances.

Because either way, whether she killed him or she simply fears that she will be accused of doing so, Jessica needs to be calm now. A little wine won’t hurt. And Allison sees, finally, that her interrogation is beginning to cause a panic in her daughter.

Oh, she is certainly behaving as if she were innocent. If she killed Sam, she is very talented at acting otherwise. So no, she couldn’t have done it.

Right?

There is no remorse, not even a hint, which is what Allison would expect to see. It is horror, revulsion, but not remorse, or even fear.

So no, she couldn’t have done it.

Jessica is wiped out by eleven-thirty, and a bit tipsy, after nearly three hours of conversation. They may go to the police together, tomorrow, they decide. Explain all of this. Allison is not so sure. She envisions a picture painted by local cops: a young, confused woman with a crush on a man; he dumps her; the woman goes to the house the next night and bludgeons him. There could be people, regardless of what Jessica thinks, who could attest to each and every one of these facts.