thecounty attorney himself, Elliot Raycroft, and told him. They also threatened,cajoled, and ultimately stroked him into understanding that they couldn’t tellhis office a damn thing about what they were doing, and in return, he had tokeep quiet about the bug. The conversation was about as enjoyable as eatingsand.
She doesn’t like the fact that Ogren’s even raising the topic,but she’s not surprised.
“Surely she must be saying something, Jane. Something I canuse.”
“She doesn’t talk about the case in her home,” McCoy says.“Not anything substantive, at least. Not anything that concerns you.”
“Anything that concernsyou?” he ventures.
“Maybe.” McCoy wipes at her jeans but it’s pointless. She’llhave to do a load of wash tonight, because these are her only good pair ofjeans.
“Look, she talks in her house, obviously,” McCoy elaborates.“But she seems to limit her discussions about the case to her lawyer’s office.She doesn’t have many visitors, and she’s certainly not going to start talkingabout her case to anyone. If there was something there, I’d tell you, Roger.I’ve told you before, haven’t I?”
“That’s why I called.”
“Well, there’s nothing new to report. I’m looking at her forsomething unrelated to this murder. I haven’t heard anything from her in thathouse that is remotely of interest to you. Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Scout?”
“I was a Brownie for about two days. I hated it. Hey,Roger?”
“Yes?”
“You’re still keeping quiet about this? No one else in youroffice knows that we have her place miked up, right?”
“Yes, Jane,” Ogren replies with no shortage ofcondescension. “I’m keeping quiet.”
ONE DAY EARLIER…
Have a seat, Allison, please. Get you anything?
” “I’m fine, thanks.”
Ron McGaffrey sets his considerable frame behind his deskand dons his reading glasses. He lifts a document and reads from it. “BestServed Cold?” he asks.
Allison starts. “What-what did you say?”
“Were you writing a new book with that title?”
“Well, yes,” she says, the heat coming to her face. “Thatwas the working title. How do you know about that?”
“Roger Ogren sent it over this morning,” he says. “Seems itwas deleted from your computer? Removed from your hard drive?”
“Yes, that’s right, it was.” She crosses her legs. “I didn’tlike it.”
“Okay.” McGaffrey slides it across the desk. “Well,theyliked it. Especially page fifty-one. They marked the passage.”
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 was in a chapter entitled ‘Alibi,’ by the way,” headds sourly.
“That’s right.” She throws the document down on the desk.“So?”
“So?” he asks sarcastically. “So? The story’s about a womanwho kills the man she was sleeping with. She kills him during the day but shedoesn’t have an alibi for that time. So she goes to his house at night-when shedoes have an alibi; she’s at a party but she’s snuck out-and she sends ane-mail from his computer. To show he was alive and well when she left him thatday.”
“Yes. That’s right.” Allison makes no attempt to hide theanger.
“This novel was deleted at”-McGaffrey looks down at anotherdocument-“three twenty-one a.m. on the morning after Sam Dillon died. A littleover an hour after you got home, found your daughter at your house. With dirton your hands, according to Jessica.”
“I don’t remember when I deleted it, Ron. I work in the middleof the night all the time.”
Ron opens his hands. “I have a client who isn’t telling meeverything.”
“I didn’t mimic my own book, Ron.”
“I don’t care if you did or you didn’t. I need to know thesethings.”
“Well, I guess it never occurred to me.”
“It never occurred to you.” Now her lawyer is doing themimicking. “That e-mail was a big help to us, Allison. It put time-of-death inplay for us. It leaves room for the possibility that Dillon was still alivepast one in the morning. We know, from Jessica, that you were home at two. IfSam Dillon was murdered later that morning, you have an alibi. Jessica spentthe night and saw you the next morning. But now ”-he points to the page of thenovel-“now, everything I just said is what your character did in your book.”
Allison pinches the bridge of her nose, tries to stay even.“Ron, nobody thinks Sam died the next morning. Not even our own pathologist.The partial digestion of his dinner, the broken clock fixed at 7:06. He diedaround seven on Saturday night. Everyone knows that.”
“Who knew about this-this
“Nobody.” She shrugs. “I was notorious at my publisher aboutkeeping my work secret until it was finished.”
“I’m not talking about your publisher. Friends? Neighbors?Your ex-husband?”
“No, no, and no. Nobody.”
“Your daughter?”
“I said nobody. Nobody knew, Ron.”
McGaffrey’s face is crimson. He throws his hands up. “I needtime to work with this.”
“If you’re talking about moving the trial date, Ron, we’vediscussed that already. That was the first thing I told you. I’m not movingit.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” He holdsout his hands, as if beseeching her. “Give me a couple of months and maybe Ican give you the rest of your life.”
Allison leaves the chair and walks to the window.McGaffrey’s law firm shares a floor of a downtown high-rise. McGaffrey got oneof the two corner offices. She can see a glimpse of the lake to the east, therest of downtown and the pricey lakefront housing to the north. Mat had wantedto move into one of those lakefront condos. He cited proximity to work,avoiding the expressway traffic downtown, but she always assumed it was thecachet of near- north housing that Mat coveted. She preferred their home on thenorthwest side, the quiet neighborhoods. She liked seeing little kids ontricycles; the streets with trimmed lawns; neighbors talking over the fence;the annual block parties. Something like suburbia, but without giving up thecoffee shop, a deli, a couple of restaurants within a short walk.
“We can’t say someone framed you if nobody knew about thealibi in that book,” Ron says. “But I can work on time-of-death. Give me sometime here-”
“No, Ron.”
“Why in the world-”
“Because we give them time, they might find the murderweapon.” She turns to him. “And we don’t want that. We definitely do not wantthat. Okay?”
Moments like this must come often in the life of a criminaldefense attorney. How often do clients come out and say, Yeah, it was me.Rarely, in his own limited experience. Clients don’t want to tell, lawyersdon’t want to ask. It usually happens like this, in some kind of code. We don’twant them to find the murder weapon.
“I see,” McGaffrey says, as if disappointed. Surely, hedidn’t think Allison was innocent. If he banks his
