Bronx Justice. Joseph Teller

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СКАЧАТЬ said Sandusky, “you can’t remember masturbating in the last ten years, can you?”

      “No,” said Darren, swallowing the bait.

      “Good. Now, have you ever hurt anybody?”

      “Yes,” said Darren. “I guess so.”

      “Who?”

      “I’ve hurt Charlene, my wife, by saying things.”

      “Can you remember anyone else you’ve hurt?”

      Darren hesitated for a moment. “No,” he said.

      “Okay,” said Sandusky. Once again he attached the straps to Darren’s body and inflated the blood pressure cuff. “Now,” he said, “put your hands on the arms of the chair. Feet flat on the floor. I want you to face forward and close your eyes. As I ask you questions, you just answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’” He turned on the machine.

      Jaywalker had to remind himself to breathe.

      “Do you live in the United States?” asked Sandusky.

      “Yes,” answered Darren.

      “Did you rape Joanne Kenarden?”

      “No.”

      “Do you know who did rape Joanne Kenarden?”

      “No.”

      “Is your name Darren Kingston?”

      “Yes.”

      “Since you were twelve years old, can you remember masturbating even one time?”

      Darren opened his eyes, turned to Sandusky and raised his hand, as though signaling for a time-out. “I remembered,” he said. “I think I did it once since then.”

      Sandusky stopped the machine, walked over and undid the straps. “How old were you at that time?” he asked. “Thirteen?”

      “I m-m-must have been.”

      “Okay,” said Sandusky. “Let’s take a break.”

      Sandusky and Jaywalker met in the conference room again. Sandusky smoked nervously. Jaywalker feared the worst.

      “Doesn’t look good?” he asked.

      “He’s just so damn tight. I’m going to have to try to get him to believe in the test a little more.”

      Jaywalker resumed his observation post as Sandusky returned to the test room. “All right,” he told Darren, “we’ve been going quite a while. I want to check the machine.” He hooked it up to Darren again. Then he produced seven oversized playing cards. Jaywalker could see that each one had a different number printed on its face. Sandusky shuffled them and fanned them out in front of Darren, facedown. “Take one,” he said, “without letting me see the other side of it.”

      Darren did as he was told. When he lifted the card to look at it, Jaywalker could see the number thirteen on it. He wondered if he was the only one who’d associated the choice with bad luck.

      “Look at it,” said Sandusky, “remember it and put it back. Don’t tell me what it is.”

      Darren complied.

      “Now,” said Sandusky, turning on the machine, “I want you to listen carefully to my questions, but answer ‘No’ to each one. No ‘Yeses,’ just ‘Noes.’ Understand?”

      “Yes,” said Darren.

      “Did you pick the number three?”

      “No.”

      “Did you pick the number five?”

      “No.”

      “Did you pick the number seven?”

      “No.”

      “Did you pick the number eight?”

      “No.”

      “Did you pick the number ten?”

      “No.”

      “Did you pick the number thirteen?”

      “No.”

      “Did you pick the number fifteen?”

      “No.”

      Sandusky had marked the graph paper following each response. Now he shut off the machine and studied the paper. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “You picked thirteen.”

      Jaywalker exhaled. Still, he had the feeling that Sandusky had said it a bit tentatively and was more pleased than he should have been when Darren confirmed that he was right.

      “Great,” said Sandusky, once again removing the straps. “Let’s take one more break. The machine’s working perfectly. When I come back in, we’ll do the actual test.”

      In the conference room, Sandusky underscored his uncertainty by asking Jaywalker if Darren had in fact picked number thirteen. But neither of them mentioned the problem that was by this time evident to both of them.

      ACTUAL TEST QUESTIONS AND

       SUBJECT’S RESPONSES POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION OF Darren Kingston, ADMINISTERED BYGene SanduskyON October 25, 1979.

      The test was over. Sandusky turned off the machine and removed the straps from Darren. He made one final mark on the graph paper before tearing it from the roll and heading to the conference room. Jaywalker met him there.

      “All right,” said Sandusky, lighting another cigarette. “I was afraid of this. We’ve got a problem here.”

      Jaywalker waited for the worst, the news that Darren had flunked cold. In his mind, he was already rehearsing his Okay-it’s-time-to-plead-guilty speech. The problem was, he was still thinking black and white, winner take all. And he was wrong.

      “I want Dick to take a look at these charts,” said Sandusky, referring to his mentor and senior partner, Dick Arledge. “But I’m already certain he’s going to want to run a retest. So if it’s okay with you, I’m going to go ahead and schedule it for some time next week.”

      Jaywalker hesitated. Uncertainty was better than failure, but the test had cost five hundred dollars. He couldn’t be spending more of Marlin Kingston’s money without checking with him first. “The fee—”

      “Don’t worry,” said Sandusky. “There’s no additional charge.”

      “Okay,” Jaywalker agreed. “What do you think the problem is?”

      Sandusky shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “He’s nervous, he’s very tight. Some of it’s wearing off. A lot СКАЧАТЬ