Guilty As Sin

bag containing white powder. And from his right pants pocket I recovered five hundred dollars.

The white powder again field-tested positive for opiates and was delivered to the chemist. The serial numbers of the bills were compared to a photocopy of those supplied earlier that day to Agent St. James. Each of the serial numbers matched.

At that point Miki Shaughnessey produced four sealed evidence envelopes. One by one, she handed them to the witness and had him identify them from serial numbers and initials on the outside. Then she handed him scissors so he could cut the seals and open the envelopes. The first contained the small glass vial from buy number one; the second, the glassine envelope from buy number two; the third, the paper bag and double glassine envelope recovered from the defendant’s right jacket pocket during buy number three; and the fourth, the five hundred dollars recovered from Barnett’s right pants pocket.

Just as time intervals were always twenty minutes, so were pockets all right-side ones. And had there been testimony about which hand Barnett had used to give Agent St. James a package and which hand St. James had received it with, those would have both been right hands, too. Amazing how that happened.

But while Jaywalker waxed cynical, the jurors appeared to be mesmerized by the physical evidence. And while looking at four ounces of white powder may not sound like much, hearing from a federal agent that those four ounces are high-quality heroin worth five thousand dollars-or forty-five hundred, if you wanted to deduct the defendant’s cut-is bound to have an impact upon a dozen people who’ve probably never seen hard drugs in their lives. Build up to it with sealed evidence envelopes, serial numbers and initials, and then top it off by allowing the jurors to pass the items among themselves, though only under the watchful eyes of a pair of large uniformed court officers, and the overall impact is high drama. Miki Shaughnessey instinctively knew that and played it for all it was worth, but to her credit, she never overdid it. Then again, she didn’t have to.

Jaywalker began his cross-examination after the mid-morning recess. There wasn’t all that much he needed from Agent Cruz, but there were a couple of points he wanted to make.

JAYWALKER: Agent Cruz, were you involved in the surveillance of Mr. Barnett during the time period before Agent St. James joined the investigation?

CRUZ: Yes, I was.

JAYWALKER: Do you know what prompted the investigation in the first place?

CRUZ: I was told it began with an anonymous phone call.

JAYWALKER: Did you ever speak with the anonymous caller?

CRUZ: No, I didn’t. Not personally.

JAYWALKER: And in the period before Agent St. James got involved, did you see Mr. Barnett make any sales?

It would have been a dangerous question, but Jaywalker already knew the answer from the reports. “No,” said Agent Cruz, and in response to Jaywalker’s next question, he admitted that neither he nor any other member of the team had seen anything that even remotely resembled a sale.

JAYWALKER: I see. Now, during the first buy that Agent St. James made, you say you stayed in your vehicle, while your partner got out and followed Mr. Barnett on foot. Is that correct?

CRUZ: You got it.

JAYWALKER: Whose decision was that?

CRUZ: I’m not sure what you mean by that.

JAYWALKER: Well, who decided who’d stay in the car and who’d get out?

CRUZ: I did.

JAYWALKER: Based upon what?

CRUZ: I was in the driver’s seat.

JAYWALKER: That was it?

CRUZ: That was it, Counselor. Plus the fact that I had seniority.

A couple of the jurors laughed at the obviousness of the answer. But to Jaywalker the decision had been not only wrong but suspiciously wrong, and therefore probably dishonest. So at this point he was willing to put up with a little laughter.

JAYWALKER: Who was your partner that day?

CRUZ: Investigator Lance Bucknell.

JAYWALKER: Of the New York State Police?

CRUZ: That’s right.

JAYWALKER: From Plattsburgh, New York?

CRUZ: I have no idea at all where he’s from. Somewhere in upstate New York, I’d guess.

JAYWALKER: But you do have an idea what he looks like, don’t you?

CRUZ: Yes.

For the first time since they’d begun, Agent Cruz had limited his answer to a single word. It’s what sometimes happens when a slightly cocky witness begins to realize the cross-examiner is taking him somewhere that he doesn’t particularly want to go.

Not that Jaywalker knew Investigator Bucknell. He didn’t. But as usual, he’d done his homework and was willing to bet that Bucknell was the guy he’d seen earlier that morning out in the hallway talking with Cruz. Rehearsing. And from his clean-cut appearance, he certainly should have had a name like Lance Bucknell. So Jaywalker decided it was worth a shot.

JAYWALKER: Fair to say he’s blond, blue-eyed, young and about six feet four?

CRUZ: Yes.

JAYWALKER: And has “cop” written all over him?

SHAUGHNESSEY: Objection.

THE COURT: Overruled. I assume you understand the question, Agent Cruz?

CRUZ: I think I do.

THE COURT: Does he look like a cop?

CRUZ: [Shrugs]

JAYWALKER: Did it ever occur to you, Agent Cruz, that you, being a somewhat dark-complexioned Hispanic about five feet six and what-forty years old? — might have blended into the Harlem neighborhood that day just a bit better than Lance Bucknell from upstate New York?

CRUZ: [No response]

JAYWALKER: After all, you figured Mr. Barnett was going to go and get the drugs Agent St. James had ordered. Right?

CRUZ: Right.

JAYWALKER: And you knew that Agent St. James, sitting in his Cadillac, was in no position to see where Mr. Barnett was going. Right?

CRUZ: Right.

JAYWALKER: So it was left to the backup team to try to discover Mr. Barnett’s source. Right?

CRUZ: If we could.

JAYWALKER: Which, of course, is one of the major goals of any buy operation, to identify the source, the higher-up, and make a prosecutable case against him, as well. Agreed?

CRUZ: Yes.

JAYWALKER: So you decided to stay in the car and send Lance Bucknell to do the job instead. Yet you did want to identify the source of the drugs, didn’t you?

CRUZ: If at all possible.

JAYWALKER: Investigator Bucknell does know how to drive a car, doesn’t he? I mean, he is a state trooper.

CRUZ: Yes.

JAYWALKER: And who followed Mr. Barnett on foot during the second and third transactions?

CRUZ: Investigator Bucknell.

Jaywalker had gone over the reports so many times that he could recite much of them verbatim. He knew the answer before he’d asked the question. But even if he hadn’t, he would have guessed anyway. Once again, he knew from experience that the team members would have gone to great lengths to simplify things, just as they had with