“‘Need a chemical engineering degree to make napalm,’” he says.
“And the hits?” I ask.
“No results found.”
I’ve only partially succeeded in my cross of Chief Hayes.
I’ve won what I classify as “debating” points, rather than “verdict” points. Debating points are part of a “gotcha” cross-examination, in which the witness might look bad, or get caught in a mistake. But those kinds of points don’t accomplish much in real life; they don’t win over the jury and help them make up their minds. Only verdict points do that.
I showed how silly it was to assume that it takes a chemical engineering degree to know how to mix the chemicals necessary to make napalm. I’m sure the jury gets that intellectually, and I even think they will give me credit for a smooth piece of lawyering.
But ultimately they will dismiss it as a debating point. At the end of the day they will think that if an arsonist went to the trouble of mixing such a concoction, then it is more likely than not that he had a knowledge of chemicals. And there, sitting at the defense table sits the accused, a chemical engineer.
It will all seem to fit for the jury. It won’t be the deciding factor; it will be a contributing one. And unfortunately Dylan is not nearly finished making evidentiary contributions.
His next witness is Detective Sue Pyles of the Paterson Police Department. She’s one of the lead detectives in the drug enforcement division. Pyles has been fighting the thankless, mostly losing battle against drugs for almost twenty-two years.
Dylan asks her about the occupants of the two ground-floor apartments in the destroyed building, and Pyles prefaces her testimony by saying that there are things she cannot say, and names she cannot mention, because it could prejudice an ongoing investigation.
What that means is that the department is still trying to make a case against Double J, who will be playing checkers at the Sunset Rest Home for Retired Drug Dealers by the time the cops get to him.
“But at the time of the fire, these two apartments were part of an active drug distribution center?” Dylan asks.
“They were selling drugs illegally, yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“We had them under part-time surveillance. We were building a case.”
“Were they being watched that night?”
Pyles shakes her head. “Unfortunately, no.”
“So drug users would come to that building to buy their drugs?”
“Some would,” Pyles says. “But in other cases the sale would be made elsewhere. Customers who were good enough might get theirs delivered, or the purchase would take place at a prearranged meeting place, perhaps a park.”
“Back around the time of the fire, were you familiar with Noah Galloway?”
Pyles nods. “Yes.”
“What did you know about him?” Dylan asks.
“He was an addict, and one of the customers of the people we are talking about.”
“A good customer?”
A shrug from Pyles. “Depends on your definition of ‘good.’ He was certainly a frequent buyer, but there were times he was cut off because he had no money. They did not consider him a good credit risk.”
“How did you know this?”
“Audio surveillance.”
“If you had all this information, why had you not made any arrests?”
Pyles frowns, her frustration evident. “We were about to.”
Dylan turns Pyles over to me. She hasn’t done us much damage, merely set up some facts that we would have admitted to anyway.
Pyles’s statement that Noah was a drug addict was something we acknowledged in my opening statement, and was widely known anyway. Noah had received much publicity when he got the presidential appointment, and his overcoming his addiction was a heroic aspect to it.
The fact that Noah was a customer of the people in that building was something that was going to come out anyway. Slightly damaging was the testimony that he sometimes couldn’t afford his habit, and it is there where I will focus my cross-examination.
“Detective Pyles, you said you had audio surveillance of Mr. Galloway dealing with these people.”
“Yes.”
“Tapes?”
“Yes.”
“Would you play them for us, please?”
“We couldn’t find them,” she says, appearing uncomfortable.
I knew this from the discovery, but I wanted the jury to hear it. “Is that unusual?”
“It happens.”
“Obviously. My question was whether or not its happening could be considered unusual.”
“Yes, I would say it’s unusual. But in this case the fire seemed to end our investigation, so perhaps not enough care was paid.”
“You said the investigation is ongoing, and that’s why you couldn’t reveal certain names.”
Pyles nods; to her credit she tackles the issue head-on. “Because of the intensity of the fire, many of the bodies could not be identified. We believed the ringleader of the operation to be one of the dead, but we learned quite a while later he was not.”
I’m surprised by this; Double J must have gone undercover after the incident, perhaps considering himself still a target.
“So your recounting of what Mr. Galloway might have said on the tapes is by memory only?”
“Yes.”
“How many people were on these tapes?” I ask. “How many customers did they have?”
“Maybe a few hundred.”
“You have quite a memory. Do you remember if a lot of the customers for these drugs were CEOs of large corporations, heiresses, members of royal families, people like that?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, though I’m sure she knows where I’m going.
“I mean, were they wealthy people? Titans of industry?”
“You’d be surprised how many wealthy people use recreational drugs,” she says.
“That they were buying from this house, in this neighborhood in Paterson?”
She finally allows as how the clientele for this particular establishment were not particularly well-to-do.
“In fact, Detective, in your experience haven’t you seen many people for whom drug use is financially devastating, and it becomes a constant struggle for many of these people to secure enough money to feed their habit?”
“I have seen that many times, yes.”
“So if your six-year-old memory is correct, and Mr. Galloway was having difficulty supporting his habit, he would have been one of many in that situation?”
“That’s likely. Yes.”
“And people who are desperate for drugs will usually do almost anything to get them, is that correct?”
Out of the corner of my eye I can see Dylan look up; he’s pleased by my question. He wants Noah to be seen as desperate and willing to do anything.
“In my experience, yes,” Pyles says.
“In their desperation to get the drugs, do you often find that they set fire to them?”
Pyles is obviously taken aback by the question, and all she can mutter is, “Every situation is different.”
“But in this situation, the drugs that Mr. Galloway was desperate to get were destroyed by the fire he is accused of setting?”
“That is true. Yes.”
“Thank you, no further questions.”
