Guilty As Sin

KASMIROV: I should think so.

JAYWALKER: And if the first and third batches were field-tested, as well, they appear to have lost almost nothing in the process. Agreed?

KASMIROV: I agree.

JAYWALKER: So where did those two and half grams-almost ten percent of an ounce-go?

KASMIROV: I can’t tell you.

Jaywalker walked back to the defense table and dug out a file. Although dug out was only what it looked like. The truth was, he’d had the file right where he could find it since three o’clock that morning. Now he drew two sheets of paper from it. One he handed to Miki Shaughnessey. The other, the original, he gave to the court reporter, asking that it be marked Defendant’s Exhibit A for identification.

JAYWALKER: Dr. Kasmirov, I hand you this item and ask you to take a look at it.

KASMIROV: [Complies]

JAYWALKER: Have you seen it before?

KASMIROV: No, I don’t believe so.

JAYWALKER: Are you able to tell us what it is?

KASMIROV: Yes. It’s a lab report prepared by someone at the police department’s lab. It describes an analysis of drugs recovered from a man named Clarence Hightower, also known as “Stump,” at the time of his arrest.

JAYWALKER: I offer it in evidence.

Now by rights Miki Shaughnessey could have objected. For one thing, it was hearsay, since Jaywalker hadn’t subpoenaed anyone from the lab to authenticate it as a business record. There simply hadn’t been time for him to do it the right way. Beyond that, its relevance was far from clear.

But one of the things that happens when the defense allows the prosecution to do things without objection is that the prosecutor-particularly a young and inexperienced prosecutor-feels compelled to match that display of goodwill. Jaywalker was betting that the last thing Shaughnessey wanted to do was seem threatened by a piece of paper. She had a winner of a case, an open-and-shut conviction. Would she dare jeopardize that by being perceived as fighting to keep evidence out of the trial?

SHAUGHNESSEY: No objection.

THE COURT: Received as Defendant’s A.

JAYWALKER: Thank you. What does this lab report tell you, Dr. Kasmirov?

KASMIROV: It tells me that what was recovered from Mr. Hightower had a net weight of one-eleventh of an ounce plus 4.6 grains. They use avoirdupois weight over there.

JAYWALKER: And the metric equivalent?

KASMIROV: [Using calculator] Let me see. It comes out to just about two and a half grams. Aha!

If any of the jurors had missed the significance, there was Olga Kasmirov’s spontaneous “Aha!” to highlight it for them. Was it just a coincidence that Clarence Hightower had ended up with the exact amount of heroin in his pocket that had mysteriously disappeared from the ounce Agent St. James had received from Alonzo Barnett on the second buy?

But Jaywalker was only halfway there.

JAYWALKER: Now, the lab report tells you still more, doesn’t it, Dr. Kasmirov?

KASMIROV: Like what?

JAYWALKER: Like what else was in those two and a half grams besides heroin. Right?

KASMIROV: [Examining report] Right.

JAYWALKER: What else was in there?

KASMIROV: [Reading] Lactose, dextrose and quinine. Although it doesn’t say how much of each.

JAYWALKER: Yes, too bad about that.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Objection.

THE COURT: Sustained. Strike the comment.

JAYWALKER: What is lactose?

KASMIROV: Lactose is milk sugar.

JAYWALKER: And what is dextrose?

KASMIROV: Dextrose is sugar from fruits or vegetables. In this case it’s most likely from corn syrup.

JAYWALKER: What are they doing in heroin?

SHAUGHNESSEY: Objection. How can she say?

JAYWALKER: She’s an expert. I’m asking her to give us her opinion.

THE COURT: Yes, overruled. You may answer the question if you can.

KASMIROV: A seller will add either lactose or dextrose to heroin as a diluent, to bulk up the heroin and make more of it. At the same time, it reduces the strength of the heroin, brings it down to a level where it can be safely injected or snorted by the user. Though it’s a bit unusual to see both lactose and dextrose present in a single sample. It’s redundant. They do exactly the same thing.

JAYWALKER: And quinine. What’s that?

KASMIROV: Quinine is a salt made from an alkaloid from the bark of a tree. It used to be used to treat malaria. Although I forget the name of the tree right now.

JAYWALKER: How about the cinchona?

KASMIROV: That’s it.

JAYWALKER: And what’s quinine doing in there?

KASMIROV: Lactose and dextrose are sugars. Add enough of either one and the sweetness becomes detectable. The buyer will know the percentage of heroin isn’t what it should be. Quinine, on the other hand, is bitter. It cuts the sweetness, like lemon would cut the sweetness in sugared tea. By adding a little quinine to counteract the sugar, it’s possible to fool someone who tastes the drug into believing it contains more heroin than it really does.

JAYWALKER: I see. Now, with respect to your own analyses, Dr. Kasmirov, the three that you made. Did you find substances other than heroin?

KASMIROV: Yes, I did.

JAYWALKER: And unlike the police chemist, did you quantify the various substances you found in each analysis?

KASMIROV: Yes.

JAYWALKER: Please tell us what you found.

Even as the witness began reading from her lab reports, Jaywalker produced a huge piece of white-oak tag he’d brought along with him that morning and a thick black marking pen. By the time Dr. Kasmirov was finished answering and he was finished writing, he had diagrammed her testimony for all to see. What it showed was that there was no discernible difference in the 2.55 grams of heroin seized from Hightower and the 2.55 grams of heroin that were unaccounted for in the second buy made from Alonzo Barnett. Not in terms of weight, strength or additives. Right down to the redundant lactose and dextrose.

On redirect, Miki Shaughnessey got Dr. Kasmirov to agree that, absent a breakdown of the percentages of heroin, lactose, dextrose and quinine in the drugs seized from Clarence Hightower, it was nothing more than speculation that they’d come from the second Barnett sale. After all, weren’t those three additives very common ones? Yes, they were, Kasmirov agreed. “And,” Shaughnessey asked her, “regardless of whatever Hightower possessed or didn’t possess, is there any question in your mind that what Alonzo Barnett sold twice and was caught with on a third occasion contained heroin?”

“No,” Dr. Kasmirov replied. “About that there’s absolutely no question at all.”

That night, as Jaywalker lay in the darkness on his side of the bed, too tired to keep his eyes open but too wired to sleep, his wife asked him about the chart he’d brought home with him.

“What does it show?” she wanted to know.

“It shows that this guy Hightower ended up with some of the identical heroin that Barnett sold to the undercover.”