Guilty As Sin

Kenny wasn’t exactly an investigator. Not in the sense that he was licensed or had a carry permit, or would make much of an impression if ever called to testify. What Kenny was, was a former client of Jaywalker’s and a friend. And Kenny was not only black but lived up in Harlem, as had Alonzo Barnett until his arrest, and Clarence Hightower until his vanishing act.

Kenny showed up at Jaywalker’s office an hour later. Standing a full six foot five inches, at forty he still looked like the professional basketball prospect he’d once been until good friends and bad decisions had combined to derail his dreams, even if they’d failed to wipe the broad smile off his face. Kenny said he’d never heard of Clarence Hightower, but he’d be more than happy to see if he could find him.

Jaywalker handed him a subpoena, just in case Kenny were to get lucky. It wasn’t a judicial subpoena, the kind that had to be signed by a judge. Jaywalker was concerned that if he went to Levine, Pulaski might find out about it. So he’d used an attorney’s subpoena, which was just as good. Well, almost kinda sorta.

“I’m afraid the most I can pay you is a couple hundred bucks,” he told Smith, knowing that only investigators whose names were on an approved list could submit their hours and get reimbursed through the system. “But I’ll pad my voucher, make it look like I was out looking for him myself.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Kenny. “I owe you.”

Which was true, Jaywalker would have had to admit. He’d gotten Kenny out of more than a few jams over the years. But still, didn’t Smith’s comment have an awfully familiar ring to it?

A few days later, more out of frustration than anything else, Jaywalker sat down at his desk-he’d had one in those days-and knocked out what he called a Demand for a Supplemental Bill of Particulars. In it, he asked that the prosecution be directed to furnish him a laundry list of things, including the names of trial witnesses, all reports they’d prepared and any past disciplinary actions taken against them. He wanted not only the lab reports and chemists’ notes, but the right to an independent analysis of the drugs by his own expert. He requested more specificity regarding the precise times and locations of the various sales. And then, even though he’d seen the answer with his own eyes, he asked whether any confidential informers had been involved in any way with the case. Did he distrust Daniel Pulaski? Yes, as a matter of fact. But that wasn’t the point. Pulaski was only the assistant district attorney. He’d caught the case after it had already been made by New York City detectives, New York State Police investigators and federal agents. Maybe he didn’t really know if there’d been a CI involved. Maybe that pink sheet of paper with NONE inked on it didn’t know, either.

Besides, a part of him wanted to send Pulaski a message, to put him on notice that unlike Alonzo Barnett’s three previous lawyers, this one wasn’t going to roll over and play dead. With nothing to work with, Jaywalker might not be able to win the case, but he sure was going to give it his best shot.

He received Pulaski’s response in the mail four days later. It argued that motions had already been made within the statutory forty-five-day period allowed following arraignment, responded to in a timely fashion by the People and decided by the court. Mr. Jaywalker, Pulaski pointed out, was exactly 195 days late in asking for the relief he sought.

And despite her good nature and sense of fairness, Judge Levine found herself compelled to agree the next time the case came up in front of her. But even as she denied Jaywalker’s demand as untimely, she turned to Pulaski and said, “Surely you can give him the lab reports, and the times and places of the sales, can’t you?”

“I’ll send him the lab reports,” Pulaski grunted. “The rest of the stuff he gets after we pick a jury. Just like the law requires.”

“And how about the confidential informer business?” she asked him.

“I already showed him the form that indicates there was no CI.”

“So how did this case ever get initiated?” Jaywalker asked, hoping to pique the judge’s curiosity and enlist her help. The usual route, they all knew, began with an informer telling his handlers that he knew a dealer he might be able to introduce an undercover to.

“That’s evidence,” Pulaski snapped. “You’ll find out at trial.”

“Ahh,” said Jaywalker. “The old trial-by-ambush strategy.”

“Boys, boys,” the judge scolded. Then, knowing that Pulaski was correct that he could withhold the information, but only in a technical sense, she suggested he might want to give them a clue. “Come on,” she prodded him. “How about at least a hint or two?”

“Fine,” the A.D.A. snapped. “The case began with an anonymous tip.”

“There,” said Levine. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Pulaski said nothing. Evidently it had been.

“Now,” said the judge. “Are you gentlemen sure we can’t dispose of the case?”

“I’ve offered counsel the minimum,” Pulaski was quick to point out. “Eight-to-life on an A-2.”

“And while my client appreciates the prosecution’s generosity,” said Jaywalker, “he prefers to take his chances at trial.”

“Then a trial he shall have,” said Levine. “When can you gentlemen be ready to begin? This thing’s getting almost as old as I am.”

They agreed on a date three weeks away. It actually wasn’t all that long an adjournment, considering the fact that Jaywalker had been on the case less than two months. Then again, with no defense to raise and no witnesses to call other than the defendant himself, there wasn’t all that much for him to do between now and then, either.

Not that he wouldn’t come up with enough to keep himself busy.

He spent the better part of three straight days in the Tombs with Alonzo Barnett. What began as preparation for testifying gradually turned into an extended conversation. Barnett, Jaywalker decided, would make an excellent witness. He was a good listener and an excellent storyteller. He had a nice self-effacing quality about him, an attribute that was bound to come in handy when he was forced to describe his career as a drug dealer.

No longer a young man, Barnett had no rough edges to him and no anger seething within him. He came across as nonthreatening. He wasn’t handsome, at least not in a Hollywood way, but he was nice to look at. And he had a deep, almost melodic voice. Most of all, he was intelligent. He used three-and four-syllable words, but for precision rather than show. His habit of pausing before answering a question made him seem thoughtful instead of glib. And there was an undercurrent of sadness to just about everything he said-until he got to the subject of his daughters. Then his eyes would light up, the skin at the outer corners would crinkle, and a broad smile would spread across his face, only to be replaced a moment later by a grimace, as he remembered how his most recent transgression had betrayed them and separated him from them once again, this time probably for good.

Yes, Jaywalker decided, Barnett would make a terrific witness, even a game-changing one-in some other case. In this one, all of his listening skills and storytelling ability would be for naught. His self-effacing, nonthreatening demeanor might win him points with the jurors, but in the end, it wouldn’t be enough to win him their votes. His pleasant looks, melodic voice and palpable intelligence simply weren’t going to be enough. Not even his obvious devotion to his daughters would translate into an acquittal. It was going to be one of those cases that ended in a conviction punctuated by a bit of muffled sobbing in the jury box, perhaps even accompanied by a recommendation of leniency. A recommendation that Shirley Levine would be happy to bow to, if only the legislature had seen fit to allow her.

And for Jaywalker, the worst part of it was that over the course of those three days, he became genuinely fond of Barnett. Not that he didn’t eventually come to like almost all of clients; he did. But that was more a reflection of how Jaywalker treated them, especially when viewed in the context of how the rest of the world had treated them up to that point. With Barnett, it was different. Here was a man who, in spite of his past history and his present charges, was so thoroughly engaging that there were times-especially back home, late at night-when Jaywalker would worry if he wasn’t getting too close to his client and running something of the same risk a physician ran when he undertook to operate on a member of his own immediate family. In a world filled with lawyers who cared too little about their clients, leave it to Jaywalker to lose sleep over the possibility that he was beginning to care too much.

And then, a week before the trial was scheduled to begin, Daniel Pulaski phoned. “Well,” he told Jaywalker,