Interesting use of the word was... apparently Mike used to be something other than what he is now. Take a look at this web site and decide for yourself. Detecting Deception Through Statement Analysis
Interesting site, though I found at least one bit I'm not so sure of:
# "As I was walking home last night I could hear someone following me."How is the conditional "future tense"? To my mind, saying "I could hear someone following me" has a different meaning from "I heard someone following me". The latter would suggest that there was a distinct moment in time when the speaker noticed the sound of the person following, and the person did not physically hear the sound prior to noticing it. The former would suggest that the person started physically hearing the sound of the person following before they took notice of it. Rather a different meaning justifying the different phraseology.
"I could hear" is future tense. "I heard" is past tense.