“Yes.”
Ogren shows her a piece of paper. “Is this a true andaccurate slide copy of that page?”
“Yes.”
Roger Ogren gets the judge’s permission to enter thedocument into evidence, then places it on the overhead projector:
“Take us through this, Deputy. What does all this mean?”
“She created the document-meaning she started writing it-onDecember third of last year. ‘Modified’ refers to when the document was lastmodified. She last modified that document on Thursday, February fifth of thisyear.”
“Tell us about the final two rows of information, Deputy.”
“As I already explained, ‘deleted’ is when you remove thedocument from the hard drive. ‘Recycled’ is when you remove it from the trash.Dumping it a second time.”
“And what does the information here tell us?”
“It tells us that Allison Pagone tried to remove thatdocument from her hard drive on the very early morning hours of Sunday,February eighth of this year.”
“And for context, Deputy-”
“Only hours after we believe Sam Dillon had been murdered,”she says. “And just over two hours after that e-mail was sent from Sam Dillon’scomputer.”
“Deputy, you work with computers on a daily basis, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Can you think of any reason why Allison Pagone would feelcompelled, in the middle of the night, to try to eliminate any evidence of adocument from her computer?”
“Oh, objection,” says Ron McGaffrey. “Move to strike.”
“Sustained,” says the judge.
“I apologize, Your Honor. Why don’t we answer that questionanother way? Deputy Griggs, did you look at this document that was deleted fromthe defendant’s computer in the early morning of Sunday, February the eighth ofthis year?”
“Yes, I did. It was fifty-six pages long. It looked, by allaccounts, to be a draft of her next novel. The title was
“Did you read the document?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you find anything in particular in that manuscript thatspoke to the time-of-death issue in this case?”
“I did. The novel is about a woman who kills her lover aftershe finds out he is cheating on her. She kills him in the middle of the day.But she knows she can be placed at the scene of the crime at the time of thecrime. So later that night, when she’s at a party, she excuses herself and goesto the bathroom. She slips out through a window, sneaks back over to the deadman’s house, and sends an e-mail from his computer, to make it seem like he wasstill alive. Then, when she’s questioned, she has an alibi for the time when-”
“Your Honor,” says Ronald McGaffrey, “I’ve been patient.This is a rambling narrative. We object.”
“Let’s keep this question-and-answer, Mr. Ogren,” the judgeadvises.
“Very good.” Roger Ogren walks over to the evidence tablebehind the prosecution and carries a set of papers. He drops off one set forthe defense. On the top page is the title B
“Deputy, is this a true and accurate copy of a printout ofthe manuscript that was deleted from the defendant’s computer at three a.m. onSunday, February the eighth of this year?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
Ogren moves the document into evidence. “Take you to pageforty-eight, Deputy. Is there a new chapter beginning on that page?”
“Yes, there is. Chapter Five.”
“What is the title of Chapter Five?”
“The title is ‘Alibi.’ ”
“Okay. ‘Alibi.’ Now, if you would, turn to page fifty-one.Are we still on the chapter entitled ‘Alibi,’ Deputy?”
“Yes.”
“And could you read, beginning at the second fullparagraph?”
She sits at the desk and pulls up his e-mail. She is notentirely sure what to write or to whom she should send it. It could be anythingat all and serve her purposes. All that really matters is that an e-mail wassent from his computer at nine o’clock in the evening, while she is believed tobe at a party, and long after she visited his home at noon today. An alibi.Proof of life.
This manuscript, Allison is sure, hurts her in more waysthan one. Bad enough that it contains the identical alibi she created here. Thefact that she deleted it from her hard drive only hours after returning fromSam’s house speaks volumes. It also shows the judge that Allison can think indiabolical ways. That is not a trait a criminal defendant wants the court tosee.
And it hurts her attorney’s theory of a frame-up. They willargue that her fingernail and earring and hair follicle were planted at thecrime scene by the “real” killer. But even if they could make that case, how dothey explain how the killer copy-catted this exact method of manufacturing analibi? When Allison was notoriously secretive about her novels in process? WhenAllison never let anyone read them until they were finished? Who could possiblyhave known that Allison was writing about this particular alibi-creatingmethod?
“Deputy,” says Roger Ogren. “You weren’t an eyewitness tothe murder of Sam Dillon.”
“No.”
“You can’t say from personal knowledge that the defendantkilled him.”
“No.”
“And you can’t say from personal knowledge that thedefendant went back to Mr. Dillon’s home and sent an e-mail, after his death,to provide herself with an alibi.”
“No, I can’t.”
These are all leading questions, but Allison’s lawyer willnot object, because they sound more like questions that would come from herattorney. They are a setup, of course, to what will follow.
“But what does this document you found in the ‘trash’ bin ofthe defendant’s computer tell us, Deputy?”
The witness nods. “It tells us that whoever committed thiscrime, and sent this e-mail, followed the exact model of what the protagonistdid in Allison Pagone’s next novel. A novel that has not yet been published.That hasn’t even been finished. A novel that, as far as we know, nobody hasever read with the exception of Allison Pagone. To say nothing of the fact thatin the middle of the night following Mr. Dillon’s death, she went to thetrouble of deleting this document from her laptop.”
Allison’s lawyer objects, a long-winded eruption, and thejudge will sustain the objection, but it doesn’t matter. She knows it. The judgewill agree, ultimately, with everything the witness just said. Allisoncopy-catted an alibi from a novel that no one had read, tried to trash theevidence, and got caught.
I live next door to Sam Dillon,” says Richard Rothman. He isa scholarly looking man, a former small-business owner in his mid-seventiesnow, with a long, weathered face and a protruding nose on which his glassesrest.
“Do you recall the evening of Saturday, February the seventhof this year?” asks Roger Ogren. “And if I could direct your attention, sir, tothe late hours of the night and the early morning of the following day, Sundaythe
