Guilty As Sin j-5 Read online

  Still, he could have hugged her.

  “So,” he asked Alonzo Barnett once the trial had reconvened, “who got out of Green Haven first, you or Clarence Hightower?”

  “I did,” said Barnett. “I was doing a four-and-a-half-to-nine for a sale I’d pleaded guilty to. I got out in 1981. Mr. Hightower was still there when I left, doing ten to twenty for aggravated assault. He still had another three years to go.”

  Jaywalker spent a few minutes getting Barnett to recite the things he’d managed to accomplish in those three years. An okay job, followed by a better one. An apartment of his own. No heroin, no alcohol, no drugs of any sort. No criminal activity whatsoever. Not that he couldn’t see that stuff going on everywhere in the neighborhood. It was the early 1980s, after all, and it was Harlem. Crack was in every doorway, crime on every street corner.

  Just not for Alonzo Barnett.

  JAYWALKER: Besides working and taking care of your apartment, what else did you do with your time?

  BARNETT: I reported to my parole officer. I never missed a single appointment, not one. I took fifteen regular urine tests and eight unannounced ones to check on whether there were drugs in my system. I passed all twenty-three of them. I volunteered at a big brother program. I asked to be paired up with the worst of the worst of the kids they had. Kids with no parents, kids who couldn’t read or write, kids in real danger. I like to think I helped one or two of them a little bit. And, most important-

  And right there, Barnett’s voice cracked, and he had to wait just a second before repeating the words most important and continuing. Had you been sitting in the back row of the courtroom, you might have missed it. It was over and done that quickly.

  The jurors weren’t sitting in the back row.

  As much as Jaywalker would have liked to take credit for the moment, he couldn’t. Sometimes you planned little things like that, choreographed them down to the tiniest detail. But other times, stuff just happened. And when it did, there was no mistaking how real it was. This was one of those times.

  BARNETT: — I went to Family Court and won permission to have visits with my daughters.

  JAYWALKER: How did that go?

  BARNETT: It was hard at first, very hard. My daughters were angry at me, and rightfully so. I’d gone to prison. I’d abandoned them. At first the visits had to be supervised and conducted at BCW, the Bureau of Child Welfare. But after a while, once they were going smoothly and we’d dealt with the anger, the visits became unsupervised and freer. I was allowed to bring my daughters to my apartment, though not overnight. I was working on that, too, when…when…

  This time his voice didn’t crack; it just tailed off into silence. Jaywalker waited a few seconds before asking if something had happened.

  “Yes,” said Barnett.

  “What happened?” Jaywalker asked.

  “Somebody showed up.”

  Again Jaywalker paused a beat before asking his next question. This was the quiet part of his direct examination, the part conducted in barely a whisper. This was the sad part.

  “Who showed up?” he asked.

  But he needn’t have. Even before Alonzo Barnett had a chance to answer, the jurors answered for him. They answered in their nods and their grimaces, some of them going so far as to mouth the name silently to themselves, or not so silently to those on either side of them. “Clarence Hightower.”

  For the next forty minutes Jaywalker engaged Barnett in a re-creation of the tug-of-war that had taken place between the two men nearly two years ago. They broke it down into seven separate visits in which Hightower played Iago to Barnett’s Othello. Six times Hightower begged Barnett to cut him into his former heroin connection, pleading in turn sickness, poverty, profit, old times’ sake and whatever else he could think of. Six times Barnett refused him. Finally, on the seventh visit, Hightower pulled out his trump card and played it.

  “Listen up,” he said. “You owe me. I saved your life. Now it’s your turn to save mine.”

  JAYWALKER: What happened when he said that?

  BARNETT: For a long time I didn’t say anything. I just thought about what he’d said, as hard as I could. And then, when I was done thinking, I nodded and I said okay.

  JAYWALKER: Why did you do that?

  BARNETT: Because he was right. He had saved my life. I couldn’t argue with that. I did owe him. At least that’s the way I figured it.

  JAYWALKER: Do you still figure it that way?

  BARNETT: Yes and no. I wish I hadn’t succumbed to the pressure he put on me. But I’m an adult, and nobody put a gun to my head. My decision ended up costing me everything I’d accomplished. It cost me my freedom, my job, my home, my self-respect. Most of all, it cost me my daughters. So on the one hand, it’s obvious that I figured very wrong.

  JAYWALKER: And on the other hand?

  BARNETT: I don’t know. Prison is a tough place, ten times tougher than your worst imagination of it. I was a dead man…I really was. When no one else would reach out and help me, one man did. He saved my life. So did I owe him a debt? Yes. Did that mean I had to repay it when he called on me to? I’m not sure. I held out as long as I could, and then I said yes.

  JAYWALKER: And if you had to do it all over again, would you still say yes?

  BARNETT: I honestly can’t say. A debt is a debt, after all. So I might. I hope not, but I might.

  By asking his questions softly, almost gently, Jaywalker had elicited responses from his client that were just as soft, just as gentle. Thoughtful, he hoped, thoughtful and honest. Anyone can say, “No way. I’ve learned my lesson. I’d never do that again.” It takes some real soul-searching to admit that, in spite of the horrendous price you’ve paid for doing something, you’re not sure how you’d react if asked to do it all over again.

  For better or for worse, the quiet portion of Alonzo Barnett’s testimony was over. Jaywalker stepped back a few paces and, in a matter-of-fact tone, asked his client if after saying yes, he’d agreed to meet Hightower’s man and bring him to someone he knew for the purpose of buying heroin. Yes, said Barnett, he’d done that. Only the guy had refused to meet either Hightower or his man. He said he’d deal only through Barnett, who he’d known for years. So three times Barnett had taken money from the man he now knew to be Agent Trevor St. James. Three times he’d exchanged it for heroin, each time in increasing amounts. And three times it had been his intention to deliver the heroin to St. James. Twice he’d succeeded; on the third occasion he’d been arrested before he’d made it back to the agent’s car.

  Just like they’d said.

  JAYWALKER: Did you know it was heroin each time?

  BARNETT: Yes, I did.

  JAYWALKER: Did you know it was against the law to possess heroin?

  BARNETT: Yes, I did.

  JAYWALKER: Did you know it was against the law to sell heroin?

  BARNETT: Yes, I did.

  JAYWALKER: But you did those things nonetheless?

  BARNETT: Yes, I did. I’m ashamed to say so. But yes, I did.

  Jaywalker looked up at the clock, saw it was nearly five. He had a few minor questions left on his notepad, but Alonzo Barnett’s last answer had been a good one, and it seemed an okay place to leave things. Miki Shaughnessey would have the whole night to work on her cross-examination, of course, but there was nothing Jaywalker could do about that.

  “Thank you,” he said, and sat down.

  15

  One-Eyed Jack

  The typical defense lawyer will allow himself the luxury of relaxing just a bit following a lengthy direct examination of his final witness. Next up is the prosecutor, after all, who conducts cross-examination while the defense lawyer gets to sit and relax. But relaxing simply wasn’t part of Jaywalker’s vocabulary when he was on trial.

  On trial.

  A friend, a banking lawyer, had once accused Jaywalker of misusing the phrase. “It’s the defendant who’s on trial,” she’d said. “Not you.”

  She’d obviously never tried
a case. Certainly not a criminal case.

  So Jaywalker didn’t even think about taking the evening off. Time off was something he treated himself to after a trial, not during it, and even then, only if he’d won. Until the moment he heard the verdict delivered, there was simply too much to do. And if he lost, there would be still more. It was one of the reasons he fought so hard to win, so it would be over. He could still feel the sting of learning he’d flunked the bar exam the first time he’d taken it. Not because he felt stupid or because his pride was hurt. Jaywalker and pride had barely been on speaking terms for as long as he could remember. No, it was the realization that he’d have to go through it all over again, that it wasn’t over.

  Which was why he spent what was left of Monday, as well as the first hour or two of Tuesday, preparing his redirect examination of Alonzo Barnett. Even though he hadn’t yet heard a word of Miki Shaughnessey’s cross, Jaywalker knew what she’d ask. Despite the fact that Jaywalker had preemptively gone into Barnett’s criminal record three times now-during jury selection, in his opening statement and now on direct examination-no young, inexperienced prosecutor was going to be able to avoid the temptation of covering the same ground on cross. After that, she’d try to challenge Barnett’s notion that owing a debt to another man constituted a moral justification to sell heroin, or a legal defense to having done so. She’d pin him down on the amounts involved, which had gradually grown from small to significant to substantial. She’d bring out that as a former addict himself, Barnett had to have been aware of the consequences of his actions. And she’d use that same “former addict” label to accuse him of being that worst of all combinations: a seller without the excuse of being a user needing to support his own habit. She’d pointedly ask him about the money he’d made or hoped to make from the sales. She’d want to know why he hadn’t considered his debt to Hightower paid off after the first sale, or at least the second. She’d suggest through her questions that, had Barnett not been arrested when he was, there might have been a fourth sale, then a fifth, and that the sales might still be going on to this day. Then, mostly because Jaywalker hadn’t-in fact especially because Jaywalker hadn’t-she would go into the details of how the three transactions had gone down, in order to show how accurate and honest her own witnesses had been in describing them. Finally, she’d try to put Barnett on the hot seat by asking him about his source, the person he’d gotten the drugs from on each occasion. It was a question no dealer ever wanted to answer, whether out of fear, loyalty or a combination of both. And it was a subject Jaywalker had purposefully avoided going into on direct.

  In other words, by asking certain questions on direct and refraining from asking certain others, Jaywalker was able to not only predict what his adversary would ask on cross but to consciously and purposefully dictate her questions. So even as he was able to prepare his witness-in this case his client-to answer her questions, he could also prepare himself for his own next round of questions on his redirect examination.

  But doing that was by no means all that Jaywalker did that Monday night into Tuesday morning. He considered it a distinct possibility that once they’d finished with Barnett’s testimony and the defense had rested, Shaughnessey would begin calling rebuttal witnesses. That, too, was something that inexperienced prosecutors tended to do. She’d recall agents and detectives-or call new ones-in an attempt to assure the jurors that Hightower hadn’t been working as an informer, and that the dangers involved in following Barnett too closely had been real ones. So Jaywalker prepared for those rebuttal witnesses, too, even though at this point they existed only in his imagination.

  And when he’d finished working on his redirect examination of Barnett and his cross-examination of the imaginary rebuttal witnesses, he worked on his summation. Though the truth is, he’d begun working on it the day he’d met Alonzo Barnett and had been working on it ever since.

  It certainly wasn’t easy, being Jaywalker. But it was the price he paid for being an obsessive-compulsive whose obsession forced him to do everything he possibly could in each case he tried, and whose compulsion drove him to avoid losing at any cost.

  He finally climbed into bed around two in the morning, kissing his wife’s neck gently, so as not to wake her. Then he rolled over in the dark and blindly ran his hand along the floor by his side of the bed, until he felt the pen and notepad that were there, as they always were.

  Just in case.

  Miki Shaughnessey didn’t disappoint Jaywalker. She cross-examined on each of the areas he’d expected her to, though not in the order he would have bet on. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t quite Nostradamus yet. But by anticipating what she’d do, Jaywalker had been able to take a smart defendant with a nice manner of speaking and prepare him for just about every question that would come his way. Now, as he sat and listened to things play out, Jaywalker wondered if the combination of his preparation and his client’s receptiveness would be enough to offset what he was up against: the fact that no matter how well Barnett came off as a witness, he was going to be forced to admit that he’d knowingly and repeatedly sold large amounts of heroin for profit when he, of all people, should have known better.

  It didn’t take too long to find out.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: If I understand what you said yesterday, Mr. Barnett, you sold heroin to Agent St. James only because you felt you owed some kind of a debt to Clarence Hightower. Is that correct?

  BARNETT: Yes, except that I wouldn’t call it “some kind of a debt.” It was a very specific debt. The man saved my life.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: And you sold heroin to repay him.

  BARNETT: That’s what it came to. I’d hoped to get off the hook by simply introducing Mr. Hightower to someone he could buy from. But it didn’t work out that way. So yes, it ended up with me getting the heroin for his friend, who turned out to be a federal agent.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: Did you make any money in the process of repaying this debt?

  BARNETT: Yes, I did.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: How much?

  BARNETT: I’d have to break it down for you.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: Please do.

  BARNETT: The first time I was given one hundred dollars and spent eighty of it.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: So you made twenty dollars?

  BARNETT: No, I gave the twenty dollars to Mr. Hightower.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: All of it?

  BARNETT: All of it. I wanted no part of it.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: And the second time?

  BARNETT: The second time I was given fifteen hundred dollars and spent twelve hundred. Of the three hundred left over, I gave Mr. Hightower two hundred, and kept one hundred.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: Suddenly you did want part of it?

  BARNETT: I’m human. I was behind in my rent, and I figured I’d earned it. It was wrong of me to keep it, but I did. I’m not going to lie about it.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: And the third time?

  BARNETT: The third time I was given five thousand dollars and spent four thousand five hundred.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: So you would have made five hundred on that occasion alone, had you not been arrested. Correct?

  BARNETT: No, that’s not correct.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: No?

  BARNETT: No. It wasn’t just a coincidence that Mr. Hightower showed up right after I was arrested. He was there to hit me up for some of the five hundred dollars.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: Was your rent paid up by that time?

  BARNETT: Yes, it was.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: So you would have given him the whole five hundred. Right?

  BARNETT: No, ma’am. I’d be lying to you if I said that. I was going to keep one hundred of it again, maybe even two hundred. I hadn’t decided which. I was going to keep it to buy something nice for my daughters. They were in foster care at the time, and were on a pretty tight budget. No new clothes, no new books or school supplies. Nothing but bare essentials. So the way I figured it, it was better spent on them than going into Mr. Hightower’s veins.

  Bravo, thought Jaywalker. He
and Barnett had worked hard trying to come up with zingers like that, hoping there’d be opportunities to use them. Score one for the bad guys.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: You knew Mr. Hightower was using?

  BARNETT: He told me he was. It was one of the things he told me, trying to convince me to help him.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: So you helped him get money to feed his drug habit. You enabled him.

  BARNETT: Actually, I was still refusing to help him at that point. It was only when he reminded me about the debt that I agreed to help him.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: I see. You yourself weren’t using drugs at that point, were you?

  Here it comes, thought Jaywalker. You’re a seller, not a user.

  BARNETT: No, ma’am, I wasn’t.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: You had no habit of your own to support, did you?

  BARNETT: No, ma’am.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: Yet you thought it was okay to sell heroin so others could use it?

  BARNETT: I never thought it was okay, not even back when I used to sell to support my own habit. I always knew it was wrong.

  SHAUGHNESSEY: And being a member of the Muslim religion, you knew it was wrong to use alcohol or illegal drugs. Did it ever occur to you that it might also be wrong to sell illegal drugs?

  Good question, thought Jaywalker, and one he hadn’t seen coming. He bit down on the inside of his mouth, hoping that Barnett wouldn’t try to split hairs and insist that while using was prohibited by the Koran, selling wasn’t covered.

  BARNETT: Please forgive me, ma’am, but the religion is called Islam. One who practices it is a Muslim. And yes, it was wrong of me, as a practicing Muslim, to do what I did, and I knew that. I am by no means perfect, and I have never claimed to be. I’ve made more than my share of mistakes in my life, and this was certainly one of them. For a lot of reasons, not just religious.

  Not bad for an ad lib.

  Looking to regroup, Shaughnessey sought a safe place and apparently figured a good bet could be found in Alonzo Barnett’s criminal record. But she hadn’t counted on the weeks of drilling Jaywalker and his client had put in on just that subject. For the next half hour, she tried to catch Barnett denying his guilt of some twenty-year-old arrest or hedging about some conviction from a decade ago. But she got nowhere. Alonzo Barnett was that rare defendant who truly understood, actually got it, that his record was his record, and as bad as it was, he could only make it worse by attempting to minimize it.