David Ellis: In the Company of Liars

Larry flicks at his hair. He is dishwater blond, has a rugged, lined face. He has a good-sized frame, not a body-builder but a guy who keeps in shape. He hasn’t shaved today; his facial hair is darker than the hair on top of his head. She would probably find him handsome under other circumstances-very, very different circumstances.

She takes a sip of the coffee, steaming hot on her tongue. Something nutty, she assumes. Cinnamon hazelnut, she guesses, then looks over at the small chalkboard next to the counter, where the coffee of the day is revealed in colored chalk:Cinn-ful Walnut. Clever.

“You look like someone who’s conceding defeat,” he says. “And I don’t like that. I don’t get it, Allison. I just don’t get you.”

“What’s not to get? I’m going to be convicted.” She averts her eyes. She looks at the other shoppers, immediately envying their carefree lives. An employee is pushing turkey sausage, pierced with toothpicks, on shoppers. The next aisle down, it’s hummus, about ten different kinds offered with pita chips. Little kids hanging on carts, women moving seriously through the aisles. They don’t know anything about serious. She would change places with any of them.

“That doesn’t have to-”

“Oh, don’t deny it, Larry. Please,” she adds, more softly.

He reaches for her, then recoils. “What happened to your hand?”

Allison holds up her right hand, wrapped in gauze. “Lost a fight with a wineglass.”

Larry peers into her eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

She nods. “I’ll be fine as long as you don’t tell me I’m going to win my case.”

Larry looks away, exhales with disgust. “Did you even show your lawyer what I found?” he asks. “Did you think at all about all that stuff I found? You show that to a judge and you’ll be acquitted-”

“Look.” Allison scoots her chair from the table, holds her hands up. “Look. I’m not going to debate you, Larry. Okay?”

Larry watches her. She can only imagine the package she’s presenting today. She showered before coming but she’s still a train wreck in every way. She almost caused an accident on the way to this store. Her eyes are heavy from sleep deprivation and worry. Her stomach is in knots, having been deprived of food for more than twenty-four hours.

“Please don’t tell me that things look grand,” she says. “They have me all over Sam’s house. They have that damn alibi. And they have me, the day before, barging into his office like some deranged maniac-”

She stops herself as Larry’s look softens.

“Kind of like now,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Larry has played the advocate in this relationship. Originally a biographer, now a reporter bent on showing that Allison did not kill Sam Dillon. But he has always been good about this. As much as he has tried to help Allison’s defense, shown an unwavering belief in her cause, fought his exasperation at her unwillingness to use his assistance-always, he has deferred to her, the woman on trial for her life.

“You’ve tried to help me, Larry. I know that. And I hope I’ve given you enough material back.”

“You’ve been great.”

“I don’t know about great, but-” She runs her hands over her face. “The book you’re writing, Larry? Please go easy on my family. That’s what I came here to ask.”

Larry’s smile is eclipsed, his expression hardening just like that. “You want me to be quiet about what I know.”

“Larry, this book is going to sell no matter what. ‘By Allison Pagone, as told to Larry Evans.’ You’ll get a great print run. Just stick to the basics. You don’t need the sensationalist stuff.”

“So?” He opens his hands. “You want me to back off what I know.”

“You don’t ‘know’ anything, Larry.”

Larry Evans shifts in his chair, directs a finger at the table. “I know you didn’t kill Sam Dillon,” he says.

“Stop saying that. You don’t know that.”

“Then Ibelieve it. And I think you’re protecting someone.”

Allison looks around helplessly. She recognizes her lack of leverage.

“What’s happened?” he asks. “Where’d the fighter go? Why are you giving up all of a sudden? What’s happened since the last time I talked to you, that now you’re acting so resigned to defeat?”

She looks into his eyes briefly. He is challenging her. But she will not tell him.

“Promise me you’ll be fair to my family.” She recognizes that, from Larry’s perspective, she has no bargaining position here. She will not be able to enforce any promise. Allison gets to her feet, takes a moment to gain her equilibrium. She picks up the basket of vegetables, stares at them as if they are hazardous materials, and drops the basket.

“Tell me what happened,” Larry pleads. “Something’s happened. I can tell. New evidence or something?”

“Something,” she says to him. “Look-thanks for everything. For being there.”

Larry reaches for her hand. “Allison, tell me. Maybe I can help.”

“I can’t tell you.” She withdraws her hand. “I-I can’t.”

She goes home, the only place she is allowed to go. The dry cleaner’s is a permissible stop as well, but it’s closed on Sundays, and she has no cleaning there, anyway. She sits outside on her patio, looking over her garden, at the rusted play-set where Jessica used to swing and slide and climb with such energy and unmitigated delight, and remembers the vicarious enjoyment she derived from her daughter’s simplest acts.

She thinks of Sam Dillon. One evening in particular, mid-January of this year. Dinner, his idea, at a little Italian place, a real hole in the wall with the most perfect garlic bread she’d ever tasted. A small room with ten tables, a red-checkered tablecloth, the smells of olive oil and sausage and garlic mingling. She remembers the way he looked at her.

There are things you don’t know, he said to her.

She leaves the patio and takes the phone in the living room. She drops onto the couch and dials the numbers.

“Mat, it’s me.”

“What’s going on? How are you?”

“I’ll tell you how I am,” she says. “I got a visit yesterday from the FBI. That’s how I am.”

“The FBI? They came to your-”

“Listen to me, Mat. Okay? Just listen, don’t talk.”

They didn’t used to speak to each other like this, but it’s one of the few perks of being charged with capital murder, lots of freedom with your emotions.

“Do not talk to them under any circumstances,” she says. “If they try to make a deal with you, don’t do it. Do not even say hello to them. Don’t even let them in. Just yell ‘Fifth Amendment’ from behind the door.”

“With me?” Mat asks. “They’re going to talk tome?”

“They wanted to talk about you. They wanted to talk about Divalpro. Just let me take care of this. Don’t you dare talk to them.”

“Ally?” Mat Pagone, her ex-husband, sounds out of breath. “Did you talk to them? About-that?”

“No, and I’m not going to. And neither are you. Just keep your mouth shut and remember one thing, okay?”

“What’s that?”

“Your daughter needs at least one parent.” She hangs up the phone and holds her breath.

Allison is awake, in the fetal position, when the alarm surprises her at six in the morning. She probably managed a few fitful hours in there somewhere, but it feels like she hasn’t slept at all. It’s not the lack of rest but the sense that time has accelerated from last night to this morning. Everything seems to have quickened these last few weeks. Time flies when you want it to stop.

Yes, she did sleep, because she dreamt. She spoke to Sam. They were in his bed. Allison was saying to him,Can you believe they think I killed you?