Guilty As Sin

JAYWALKER: So what’s the first name on your birth certificate?

PASCARELLA: On my birth certificate?

JAYWALKER: Yes, on your birth certificate.

And as he waited for an answer, Jaywalker held up a piece of paper for the witness to see. It may have been old and yellowed around the edges, but it was a genuine New York City Department of Health birth certificate, right down to its Old English type font, its official inked-in signature and its circular raised seal.

PASCARELLA: On my birth certificate it’s Andino. My mother’s family name. But like I’m telling you, everyone calls me Dino. Everyone.

JAYWALKER: Would you spell that for us, please?

PASCARELLA: Spell what?

JAYWALKER: Andino.

PASCARELLA: A-N-D-I-N-O. THE COURT: Excuse me, Mr. Jaywalker. Would you like to offer the document into evidence?

JAYWALKER: The birth certificate?

THE COURT: Yes.

JAYWALKER: My own birth certificate?

THE COURT: Never mind. I should have known.

Jaywalker approached the witness and took the photo from him. Gently he peeled away the backing from it. Not the original Polaroid backing, but the second one, the one he’d added that morning using double-faced tape but being careful to steer clear of the part where the lettering was. Then he handed the photo back to the witness.

JAYWALKER: Would you please read what’s written on the back of the photo?

PASCARELLA: It says “asp.”

JAYWALKER: How is that spelled?

PASCARELLA: A-S-P. JAYWALKER: Whose initials are ASP?

PASCARELLA: I guess they’re my initials, if you want to get really technical about it.

JAYWALKER: I want to get really technical about it. Who put them there?

PASCARELLA: I guess I must have.

JAYWALKER: You guess?

PASCARELLA: I put them there. I forgot, was all. I…I didn’t notice them.

All of a sudden, he was a different witness. Gone were the swagger, the cockiness, replaced by a meekness that would have been almost comical if another man’s freedom hadn’t been at stake. It was almost like watching all the helium go out of one of those giant Thanksgiving Day balloon characters.

JAYWALKER: Why did you put your initials there?

PASCARELLA: I honestly don’t remember. It’s what we do.

JAYWALKER: When did you put them there?

PASCARELLA: It would have had to be on the day we arrested Mr. Hightower, the same day the other photo of him was taken.

JAYWALKER: Are you certain about that?

PASCARELLA: Yes.

JAYWALKER: Where did you take it?

PASCARELLA: In the squad room at the precinct house.

JAYWALKER: Is that where you kept the Polaroid camera?

PASCARELLA: Yeah.

JAYWALKER: It was no use to you on the street, was it?

PASCARELLA: No.

JAYWALKER: Too bulky, too cumbersome, too slow?

PASCARELLA: Right.

JAYWALKER: Now, you didn’t take Mr. Hightower home with you at any point, did you?

PASCARELLA: Home? No, of course not.

JAYWALKER: So he could shave and shower, perhaps?

PASCARELLA: No way.

JAYWALKER: Or take him shopping for clothes?

PASCARELLA: Not a chance. The man was under arrest.

JAYWALKER: Then I don’t suppose you can explain to the jurors the reason why Mr. Hightower seems to be wearing two different sets of clothes in the two photos.

Because there was no rise in the inflection of Jaywalker’s voice as he reached the end of it, it came out sounding more like a statement of fact than a question. And the truth is, it hadn’t really been a question at all. Questions have answers. This didn’t.

JAYWALKER: Who took this photo, Detective? The one that’s got your initials on the back of it, in your handwriting?

PASCARELLA: I guess I must have.

JAYWALKER: Now look carefully at the two photos, if you will. Not just at the clothing, but at the length of Mr. Hightower’s hair and the stubble of his beard. Any doubt in your mind that they were taken on different days?

PASCARELLA: No, I guess not.

JAYWALKER: No doubt?

PASCARELLA: No doubt.

JAYWALKER: What happened to Mr. Hightower after he was arrested? Where was he taken?

PASCARELLA: Like I said, to the precinct house. Specifically, upstairs to the detective squad room.

JAYWALKER: And from there?

PASCARELLA: Central Booking.

JAYWALKER: And after that?

PASCARELLA: Court.

JAYWALKER: Did he make bail?

PASCARELLA: No.

JAYWALKER: Was that the last you ever saw of him?

It was one of those wonderful shit-or-go-blind questions Jaywalker loved so much. If Pascarella were to say no, that in fact he’d seen Hightower again-by going out to Rikers Island to visit him, for example-Jaywalker would use his answer as proof that the two of them had had a continuing relationship. From there it would be only a baby step to believe that Hightower had been Pascarella’s informer.

So instead Pascarella said yes. Yes, the day of the arrests had been the last time he’d ever seen Hightower.

Jaywalker paused before asking his final two questions. And when he asked them, he did so quietly, gently, with no trace of anger, sarcasm or irony. He had no need for volume at this point, no desire to reach the back rows of the audience. The audience was out in the hallway, after all, locked out of the courtroom. So when the final questions were asked, they were asked with something that sounded very much like sadness, the way a morgue attendant might ask the next of kin to take a good look at the body of a loved one long missing and recently found.

JAYWALKER: In other words, Detective, you took this photo, the one that bears your initials in your handwriting on the back of it, days or even weeks earlier than the arrest photo. Am I correct?

PASCARELLA: [No response]

JAYWALKER: Back before the sales in this case ever took place. Am I correct again?

PASCARELLA: [No response]

As the old saying goes, silence can be deafening. And nowhere, nowhere, is that more true than the inside of a courtroom.

Jaywalker collected the photos from the witness, walked to the defense table and sat down. To his way of thinking, while he hadn’t succeeded in getting Lieutenant Pascarella to admit that Clarence Hightower had in fact been working with him as an informer, he’d at least made it seem like a reasonable possibility. At this point, that