by David Ellis
Allison tried. Since the breakup, she tried to engage her daughter about school—Same old, same old, Jessica would say. About her friends—My friends are my friends. Some are fair-weather, some you can count on. About her love life, a topic from which Allison was now shut out. There’s a guy, she told Allison last December, but you probably wouldn’t approve. She remained mum, initially, wouldn’t elaborate, despite Allison’s claim of an open mind.
There’s a guy, but you probably wouldn’t approve. She thinks of her daughter’s words now with a rush to her heart. She thinks of her daughter’s elaboration, finally, after Allison’s prompting moved from delicate insistence to pleading.
And so here they are, not talking like mothers and daughters are supposed to talk. Instead, they stare at each other and hunt for topics of small talk. Jessica is in a turtleneck and jeans, little makeup as usual, her hair in a ponytail. She is prettier every time Allison sees her, which is far less often these days. The distance, however, has allowed Allison to witness the developments in her daughter more clearly than when she saw her every day. She sees it in the curve to her chin, the cheekbones high on her face, the way she carries herself. Jessica is becoming a woman. But there is something else there, too, and Allison feels it in her fear. Allison is afraid, not that she is losing contact with her daughter, but that she no longer knows who Jessica is, or what has happened to her since the divorce and their estrangement.
“You doing okay?” Jess asks, making an effort at cordiality. No, it is more than that. Jessica still cares. Liking and loving someone are two different things. Allison will always be her mother. Jessica is letting her stubbornness hold her back, but it can only go so far.
“I’m doing fine,” Allison assures her. “I told you, everything will turn out fine.”
Her daughter nods without enthusiasm. “Are you still working on that new book?”
“Not—not really.”
“I liked it, what you had so far. A vengeful woman. It had more edge than the first two. More passion, y’know? But the title could use some work. Best Served—”
“Jess, I really don’t want to discuss that. You know that.” The waiter brings Allison her water, the iced tea for Jessica. “Listen, I just want you to know that—you need to understand, if you try to testify differently than what you told the police, they’ll prosecute you for that.”
“I know that.”
“I know you know, sweetheart, but—”
“ ‘Sweetheart?’ I think we’re past ‘sweetheart,’ Mother.”
Allison recoils. How cruel children can be, with the slightest comment. Her daughter has had to cope with more than the divorce and what she undoubtedly perceives as Allison’s infidelity; she has had to live with endless media reports on a murder trial in which her mother stands accused. She imagines that Jess has a small support group of friends, but Mansbury College is a small school. There must be talk. She must sense it over her shoulder, as she passes. That’s Allison Pagone’s daughter. Her mom killed that guy. Allison has had to endure the same experience, but then again, she is not twenty years old, still trying to find her place in the world. At least Allison is responsible for her own infamy; Jessica is an innocent victim.
Or a victim, at least.
Jessica seems to sense that she has crossed the line, regardless. “You’re going to win the case?” she asks. “You’re sure?”
Allison inhales deeply, stifles a number of emotions. “This is going to turn out fine, Jess. I promise. Just make sure that you’re clear on your testimony. If you make a misstep—”
“I won’t make a ‘misstep,’ Mother. I’ve gone over this with Paul Riley a hundred times. And your lawyer, too. I’m not a kid anymore.”
Jessica has certainly inherited her mother’s strong will, her father’s snappy temperament. She will do great things, this young lady, if she can get past all of this.
Jessica stirs her iced tea, keeps her eyes focused on the table. “They have a really good Caesar salad here,” she offers. She seems to notice something, then reaches into her glass and pulls out the lemon from her iced tea.
“Yellow like lemon,” Jessica says.
Allison hangs on tight to her emotions. Her daughter is trying to change the subject. Trying to lighten the mood. This is the most she can hope for, now, these generic questions about her book or how she’s doing or the quality of a particular salad at a local restaurant or a fond memory. Any attempt at warmth is so welcome that these innocuous comments almost reduce Allison to tears.
She thinks of the things her daughter doesn’t know about her and, necessarily, the things she doesn’t know about her daughter.
ONE DAY EARLIER
MONDAY, APRIL 12
The meeting takes place five floors below Jane McCoy’s office in the federal building. Assistant United States Attorney Wayman Teller, from the Public Integrity Division, starts the meeting as soon as McCoy and Harrick enter the room.
Wayman Teller is African American, middle-aged, and graying, dressed like most of the federal prosecutors she knows, which is to say presentable but forgettable. AUSAs make decent cash for public officials, more than McCoy, but they don’t spend it on clothes. Teller is in a suit with a tie pulled down. It’s casual attire around the office nowadays, which means the assistant U.S. attorneys can dress down when they’re not in court, but she hasn’t noticed much of a change in their wardrobe. Convincing a federal prosecutor to loosen up is like convincing the Pope to slam-dance. It’s just not in their nature.
Three FBI case agents are in the room, McCoy’s colleagues, as well as two other federal prosecutors. But this is Teller’s show. Teller has been running Operation Public Trust since its inception approximately three months ago. The case is still in its infancy, but things have moved quickly.
“Agent McCoy,” Teller says.
“Call me Jane.”
“Thanks for coming,” Teller says. “I think you know the basics, but let me be sure.”
“Great.”
“Flanagan-Maxx Pharmaceuticals has a product called Divalpro,” he begins.
“Right,” McCoy says. “Controls high blood pressure. The patent was about to expire. So F-M wanted Divalpro on Public Aid’s prior-approval list. They needed legislation. That’s House Bill 1551.”
“Okay, good.” Teller smiles. “You know more than I thought.”
“I know that F-M hired Sam Dillon, and they had MAAHC hire Mat Pagone to work on the Senate. And I know that Dillon had the votes in the House and the preliminary approval of Governor Trotter. Neither of whom would publicly acknowledge this unless and until Mat Pagone delivered the votes in the Senate.”
Teller pushes a piece of paper in front of McCoy. “This is a memorandum from the chief of staff to the Senate majority leader, Grant Tully. This was during last year’s legislative session. It’s a roll call of perceived votes on House Bill 1551.”
McCoy looks at the memo. “They didn’t have the votes,” she says. “It was three votes short of passage in the Senate.”
Teller nods. “So the Speaker of the House, wanting to help out and realizing that the bill won’t pass during the regular session, put House Bill 1551 on what’s called ‘postponed consideration.’ It gives them until the end of the year to pass it.”
“It gives them veto session,” McCoy says, “in November. But between May and November, somebody needs to convince three senators to change their votes.”
“Exactly. Which, of course, is exactly what happened.” Teller grimaces. “Senators Blake, Strauss, and Almundo flipped. In one day in November, House Bill 1551 was called for a vote in the House, passed by two votes, then was called in the Senate and passed by a single vote. Governor Trotter signed it on Christmas Eve.”
When no one would be paying attention. McCoy chuckles. “So the question,” McCoy says, “is what happened between May and November of last year to make three senators change their minds.”
“That’s right. Senator Almundo is a member o
f the Latino caucus and a pretty close friend of Mat Pagone. Blake is in the city, too, also an ally of Pagone’s. Senator Strauss is downstate, just south of the interstate. All three have constituencies that are poor and have a high elderly population. Which is why they were opposed to the legislation in the first place.”
McCoy takes this in. Most of this she already knew. Most of what will follow, she assumes, will be new information.
“Mateo Pagone withdrew large amounts of money from his personal account on four separate occasions in June, July, August, and September of last year,” says Teller, opening a file. “Nine thousand in June. Eighty-five hundred in July. Eight thousand in August. Forty-five hundred in September.”
Mat Pagone was no dummy. Every withdrawal was short of the ten-thousand-dollar withdrawal amount that triggers automatic reporting by the bank to the federal government.
“That’s thirty thousand dollars,” she says.
Teller opens another file. “Senator Blake spent several weeks in Sanibel Island, Florida, from mid-December last year to mid-January. A nice place on the water, a boat for his use. He paid for it by check, a check for seven thousand dollars. Blake was down there almost three weeks and there’s not a single transaction that appears on his credit card. He didn’t write any other checks, either. We know he went to the restaurants—one in particular—and we know he paid cash and, apparently, tipped well.”
McCoy can see that. Mat Pagone sent Senator Blake on a nice Florida vacation. Blake wrote a check for seven thousand for his lodging and the boat—smart move—but got something like ten thousand in cash under the table from Mateo Pagone. He blew all of it, probably, or most of it, in Florida so that he wouldn’t have to explain the sudden appearance of ten thousand dollars in his checking or savings account. He never deposited a dime of the bribe money. He just lived it up on an extended getaway.
“Mat Pagone spent a few days down there himself over Christmas,” Teller continues. “He took his daughter, Jessica.”
McCoy nods, as if she didn’t know that.
“Blake and Mat Pagone had dinner together one evening, we’re relatively sure. But that’s it. That’s the only record of them being together down there, and it’s just an eyewitness. We imagine that Pagone popped for a whole lot more than a dinner, but we can’t prove it, because everything was in cash.”
“Okay,” McCoy says. “And what about Senator Strauss?”
“Senator Strauss just bought a new SUV,” Teller continues. “He put twelve thousand down. Emptied a savings account to do it. This was three days after we have him eating lunch with Mat Pagone at the Maritime Club downtown, in October. We can find no other reason for why Strauss was in town—he lives about sixty miles from the city—other than having this lunch. That weekend, he’s buying a new car. We figure Mat Pagone helped him replenish that savings account, only that account is probably a jar in his backyard.”
“You have the lunch receipt?” McCoy asks.
“Yeah.” Teller hands her a photocopy of the bill, charged to Mat Pagone’s membership at the Maritime Club. Glazed chicken, roast beef, Cobb salad. The salad was eight dollars, so unless they really overcharged, this was an entrée. The drinks were two bourbons and soda, one gin and tonic, and one iced tea.
Lunch for three, not two.
“Okay,” McCoy says, sliding the photocopy back to Teller. “Go on.”
“Senator Almundo is renovating the basement in his home on the West Side. On the books, the contractor is charging him ten grand. Looks to us”—Teller looks around the room at the federal agents—“like the job is more like a twenty-thousand-dollar effort, give or take. We’re thinking ten thousand was passed in cash.”
It wouldn’t be the first time a home contractor took cash. McCoy sighs. She is ready for the punch line.
Teller opens his hands. “We know Mat Pagone, or someone working with him, put money in their hands. All three of them. But the principals aren’t talking. Strauss, Almundo, Blake—they’re all taking five. Blake can point to a check that he wrote for the Sanibel home and boat, and we don’t have much to work on otherwise. Almundo will say the renovation was for ten grand, not twenty. And Strauss will just plain deny the whole thing. These guys were well coached. They didn’t put a single penny in the bank.”
Teller needs an eyewitness to the payments, he is saying, or stronger circumstantial evidence. As long as these senators kept the money in a jar behind their house, or blew it on dinners or the ponies, there is little the federal government can do. They can’t even get these guys on tax evasion, because they can’t prove that they received this income, much less failed to report it.
“Are you sure it wasn’t Dillon who handed over the money?” McCoy asks.
“No, we’re not. Mat Pagone could have withdrawn the cash, and Sam Dillon could have paid it out. Or they could have had someone else do it. Someone who wouldn’t draw any suspicion whatsoever.” Teller smiles without emotion. “We were about to find that out.”
They were going to find out, Teller means, because Sam Dillon was about to testify before the grand jury, until he was murdered only days before.
“Dillon came to us,” says Teller. “He called us and told us he wanted to talk about Flanagan-Maxx. We had just convened the grand jury. He said he wanted us to subpoena him, so we did.”
Sure, that makes sense. Dillon wanted to give the appearance that he was being compelled to testify, when in fact he wanted to talk.
“So there we are,” Teller concludes. “The people at Flanagan-Maxx are playing see-no-evil, hear-no-evil. The senators won’t talk. We can’t even say for sure who put the money into their hands. Probably it was Pagone, or someone he trusted.” Teller shrugs his shoulders. “But we don’t know, Jane. We’re at a dead end.”
“So you want Mat Pagone,” McCoy gathers. “That’s the problem.”
“Our problem, Jane,” Teller replies, “is you.”
McCoy raises her hands.
“We need Mat Pagone,” he says. “We flip him and the whole house of cards comes down.”
“I need him more.” She shakes her head. “That’s a boat we can’t rock.”
Teller nods, as if he understands, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know. Only a handful of agents, and the SAC, Irv Shiels, know what they are doing.
“What is CT looking at him for?” Teller asks her. “Can you tell me that much?”
“I can’t. Sorry.”
It can’t be the first the time the gang in CounterTerrorism refused to talk shop.
“Then let us talk to the daughter. Jessica. She was there in Sanibel.”
“Absolutely not,” McCoy says. “Off-limits.”
“Then his wife,” Teller requests. “Ex-wife. Allison.”
“No way,” she says firmly. “Can’t do it.”
Teller doesn’t respond to her comment but opens another file. “Dillon had mentioned to someone in his office that he was grappling with an ‘ethical dilemma.’ He wouldn’t elaborate, but it seems obvious enough to us. He was thinking about turning in his client. He told this guy in his office that he was talking to a lawyer.”
“Okay,” McCoy says, like she doesn’t get the point.
“Allison Pagone was not just his girlfriend,” Teller adds. “She was a lawyer. A former PD.”
“She was only a public defender for two years,” McCoy says. “She’s been writing books the last few years.”
“That’s two different reasons for Dillon to confide in her, Jane. Girlfriend or lawyer. Hey, look, if she has nothing to tell us, fine. But let’s ask her.”
“No one talks to Allison Pagone, Wayman. Or Mat. Or Jessica. I’m sorry, but there’s no give there. We’re watching them and they need to think everything is perfectly normal.”
The prosecutor looks at the case agents, his fellow lawyers.
“Did Allison Pagone kill Sam Dillon?” he asks Jane.
McCoy laughs. “Guys, if there’s some way I can get some of this information for yo
u, I’ll do it. Otherwise, please keep me posted on this, okay?” McCoy gets out of the chair. “And keep your hands off my suspects.”
ONE DAY EARLIER
SUNDAY, APRIL 11
McCoy sets a steaming cup of coffee on her desk and drops down in her chair. She hasn’t had a weekend off this entire year, but no one has told her to come in. This operation does not know weekends from weekdays. The bad guys don’t take days off, so neither will she.
Her office is nothing short of disastrous. She didn’t inherit the typical female gene for neatness or cleanliness. Stacks of paper line her floors, force her to walk an obstacle course just to reach her desk. She has received countless comments on this from her colleagues, and no, she doesn’t prefer it this way, but it is what it is. Maybe they should have taught a course at Quantico on this.
She has made an exception, however, for this operation. She had a new set of cabinets brought in, devoted to the files on this case. It has helped dramatically, being able to call up a file on a moment’s notice. She has had her setbacks, falling into her typical practice of setting down a piece of paper somewhere and forgetting where, but she even planned for that inevitability, making an extra copy of everything in her file and placing it somewhere else—her master files.
Owen Harrick walks into her office, dressed informally—a sweater and jeans—like McCoy. “Haroon sent this e-mail yesterday,” he says.
With the assistance of a warrant signed by a federal magistrate, the FBI is monitoring Ram Haroon’s e-mail, not only the address assigned to him by the university but also another address Haroon uses, pakistudent@interserver. com. It is from this address that Haroon has been communicating on sensitive issues. Haroon rarely uses this address, which makes any correspondence he sends from it raise flags all the more quickly with the Bureau.