Free In the Company of Liars by David Ellis Page A

baseball cap. There’s no law that says you have to dress up to watch a trial. She’s not in hiding, exactly, but she doesn’t feel the need to highlight her presence. No one’s going to notice her, anyway. All eyes are forward, as the defense begins its case in the trial of People versus Allison Quincy Pagone.
    McCoy recognizes some of the reporters, who have been given the first two rows on the other side—Andy Karras from the Watch crime beat and Carolyn Pendry from Newscenter Four are sharing notes. You can tell the print media from television by their appearance, clothes and makeup, and by her count most of these people are not going before a camera.
    McCoy’s left-side seat puts her in the prosecution’s half of the courtroom. If this thing lines up like a wedding, this would make her a friend of the prosecutor, Roger Ogren, which amuses McCoy, because she has been anything but.
    She sees Allison Pagone leaning in at the defense table as her attorney speaks with her. She looks awfully good for a woman on trial. Her red hair is short now, curling out in the back, and damn, she has nice clothes, a tailored blue suit, white blouse, and colorful scarf. She’s probably hoping the seventy-year-old judge will look down on her and think, How could this cute little gal be a killer? Maybe this is why the defense waived the right to a jury trial, letting the judge be the sole finder of fact.
    Allison’s new attorney is Ron McGaffrey. McCoy has never had the pleasure. She has been cross-examined by half the defense attorneys in this town, but not typically the ones on the high end, where McGaffrey apparently falls.
    She looked into McGaffrey when Allison made the switch from Paul Riley. Riley, she knew. She liked him. A former federal prosecutor who once ran the county attorney’s office as well. Former G-man who could give as well as he got but made it look natural. When Pagone changedlawyers, McCoy was concerned. McGaffrey never prosecuted, and those are always the guys hardest to deal with. The word about McGaffrey is that he never pleads a case, which is probably not a bad marketing device, because every criminal defendant wants a warhorse.
    And that’s exactly what Ron McGaffrey looks like, as he stands and moves toward the battered wooden lectern between the defense and prosecution tables—a fighter, a tough guy. He has been through the wringer and looks it, a wide, weathered face, bad skin, deep worry lines across his forehead. He is a large man, not tall but a physical presence, a darkness through the eyes, a halt in his stride. He drops a notepad on the lectern, wags a pencil as he leans his considerable frame forward. He took shrapnel above the knee in Vietnam, survived a heart attack a couple years back and quit smoking, which may explain why he’s holding the pencil with such reverence.
    â€œCall Walter Benjamin,” he says to the judge.
    McCoy watches the witness enter the courtroom. She wonders if he will make eye contact with her, but his eyes are forward and down, as he moves his long, thin body along the aisle, trying to maintain his dignity. He takes his seat and is sworn in, spells his last name. He is pushing fifty but looks older. Looks ill, actually, like the last time she saw him. He pushes his small glasses up on his long nose and fixes his hair, chestnut with gray borders.
    â€œI am the director of governmental affairs, Midwest region, for Flanagan-Maxx Pharmaceuticals,” he says.
    Technically, Walter Benjamin is on paid leave at the moment, but McGaffrey will get to that, no doubt. He doesn’t start there. He starts with the company, Flanagan-Maxx, a massive international corporation that “discovers, develops, and markets breakthrough drugs.”
    McGaffrey takes him through the countries where they have offices and laboratories, the different areas of medicine, the different departments—pharmaceutical, nutritional,and hospital