Guilty as Sin by Joseph Teller Page A

me.
    JAYWALKER: What did the caller tell you?
    It was the kind of question most lawyers would never have asked, because it was begging for trouble. But Jaywalker wasn’t most lawyers, and he’d long ago decided to throw caution to the wind in this particular case. When you’re ahead, it’s fine to be careful and play conservatively. When you’re not, the only thing that playingconservatively guarantees you is a conviction. And Jaywalker was anything but ahead in this trial.
    PASCARELLA: He told me there was this guy dealing drugs, specifically heroin, in large amounts. And that he could often be seen hanging out with a couple of young girls on the stoop of a particular address, 562 St. Nicholas Avenue, in Harlem. That he was a black male, about fifty years old, with graying hair.
    JAYWALKER: That was it?
    PASCARELLA: That was it.
    And Jaywalker knew it was, having examined the note Pascarella had made of the conversation even while the anonymous caller had still been on the line. Though that fact didn’t stop Jaywalker from bringing out now what the caller hadn’t said then.
    JAYWALKER: So he never identified himself in any way? Never told you he was a friend of the guy, for example, or a neighbor, or a customer or a competitor?
    PASCARELLA: No.
    JAYWALKER: Did you ask him?
    PASCARELLA: I tried, but he didn’t give me time. He hung up the phone.
    JAYWALKER: Were you able to trace the call, to learn the number and location it came from?
    PASCARELLA: Only that it came from a pay phone.
    JAYWALKER: Was the conversation taped?
    PASCARELLA: Taped? No.
    JAYWALKER: Why not?
    PASCARELLA: Happened too fast.
    JAYWALKER: I see. Can you tell us how long your team conducted surveillance of Mr. Barnett?
    PASCARELLA: All told?
    JAYWALKER: Yes.
    PASCARELLA: I’d say a good hundred hours, maybe, spread out over a week.
    JAYWALKER: And in all of that time, how many sales were the surveillance team members able to observe?
    PASCARELLA: The surveillance team members?
    JAYWALKER: Yes, the eleven men and one woman who conducted the surveillance on foot, in cars and through high-powered binoculars from an outpost.
    PASCARELLA: None.
    JAYWALKER: So these dozen surveillance officers from three different agencies spent a hundred hours over an entire week. Yet never once did even one of them seewhat some anonymous civilian caller had claimed to have seen with his naked eye?
    Shaughnessey’s objection was sustained, and rightfully so. Technically speaking, the caller had never claimed to have seen an actual sale take place. And the question was argumentative.
    JAYWALKER: But you say the surveillance officers were successful up to a point. Right?
    PASCARELLA: I’d say so.
    JAYWALKER: After all, they did manage to figure out that Mr. Barnett lived at the same address as the stoop he occasionally sat on?
    PASCARELLA: [No response]
    JAYWALKER: And that the two girls were his own daughters?
    PASCARELLA: Yes.
    JAYWALKER: Did they also discover, by any chance, that he worked for a living, at a legitimate job?
    PASCARELLA: Yes.
    JAYWALKER: As a cook at a restaurant?
    PASCARELLA: Yes.
    JAYWALKER: That he occasionally took his daughters to the park or to a museum?
    PASCARELLA: Yes.
    JAYWALKER: That he attended Friday religious services?
    PASCARELLA: Yes.
    JAYWALKER: Tell me, Lieutenant. You ascribed Mr. Barnett’s refraining from conducting his drug business in open view to his being “wary.” Did it ever occur to you that it could be more simply and accurately attributed to the fact that he wasn’t conducting any drug business at all?
    PASCARELLA: I’m convinced he was dealing.
    JAYWALKER: That’s nice, I’m sure, but it’s not what I asked you. My question was, did it ever—even once—occur to you that maybe Mr. Barnett wasn’t dealing? That the reason you weren’t seeing anything was because there was nothing to see?
    PASCARELLA: No.
    JAYWALKER: How about Mr.