The Witness (Badge of Honor 4)

“Yes, thank you, Sergeant, I’d appreciate that,” Stillwell said. He smiled at Washington. Washington did not return it.

“The way this works, Mr. Monahan,” he said, “is that the defense counsel will try to question your identification. One of the ways they’ll try to do that is to attempt to prove that we rigged the lineup, set it up so that you would have an idea who we think the individual is. Lead you, so to speak. You follow me?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“So we will lean over backward to make sure that the lineups are absolutely fair.”

“Where do you get the other people?” Monahan said, “the innocent ones?”

“They’re all volunteers.”

“Off the street? People in jail?”

“Neither. People being held here. This is the Detention Center. Nobody being held here has been found guilty of anything. They’re awaiting trial. The other people in the lineup will be chosen from them, from those that have volunteered.”

“Why do they volunteer?”

“Well, I suppose I could stick my tongue in my cheek and say they’re all public spirited citizens, anxious to make whatever small contribution they can to the criminal justice system, but the truth is I don’t know. If they had me in here for something, I don’t think I’d be running around looking for some way I could help, particularly if all I got out of it was an extra ice cream chit or movie pass. And, of course, most of the people being held here don’t volunteer. As for the ones that do, I can only guess they do it because they’re bored, or figure they can screw the system up.”

“How do you mean?”

“Let’s say there’s a guy here who has a perfect alibi for the Goldblatt job; he was in here. So he figures if he can get in the lineup, and somehow look nervous or guilty and have you point him out, the guy who did the Goldblatt job walks away, and so does he; he has a perfect alibi.”

“I’ll be goddamned,” Monahan said.

“So it’s very important to the good guys, Mr. Monahan,” Washington said, “that before you pick somebody out you be absolutely sure it’s the guy. It would be much better for you not to be able to recognize somebody in the lineup than for you to make a mistake. If you did that, it would come out in court and put in serious question every other identification you made. You understand, of course.”

“Yeah,” Monahan said thoughtfully, then added: “I’ll be damned.”

Washington pushed open a door and held it open as Monahan and Still well walked through it.

Stillwell found himself in a windowless, harshly lit room forty feet long and twenty-five wide. Against one of the long walls was a narrow platform, two feet off the floor and about six feet wide. Behind it the wall had been painted. The numbers 1 through 8 were painted near the ceiling, marking where the men in the lineup were to stand. Horizontal lines marked off in feet and inches ran under the numbers. Mounted on the ceiling were half a dozen floodlights aimed at the platform. There was a step down from the platform to the floor at the right.

Facing the platform were a row of folding metal chairs and two tables. A microphone was on one table and a telephone on the other.

There were a dozen people in the room, four of them in corrections officer’s uniforms. A lieutenant from Major Crimes Division had a 35-mm camera with a flash attachment hanging around his neck. There were two women, both holding stenographer’s notebooks.

I wonder how it is that I was left sitting outside on that bench when everyone else with a connection with this was in here?

Stillwell recognized Detectives D’Amata and Pelosi and then a familiar face. “The proceedings can now begin,” Armando C. Giacomo announced sonorously, “the Right Honorable Assistant District Attorney having finally made an appearance.”

Giacomo, a slight, lithe, dapper man who wore what was left of his hair plastered to the sides of his tanned skull, walked quickly to Stillwell and offered his hand.

“Armando, how are you?” Stillwell said.

“Armando C. Giacomo is, as always, ready to defend the rights of the unjustly accused against all the abusive powers of the state.”

“Presuming they can write a nonrubber check, of course,” Jason Washington said. “How are you, Manny?”

“Ah, my favorite gumshoe. How are you, Jason?”

Giacomo enthusiastically pumped Washington’s hand.

They were friends, Still well saw, the proof being not only their smiles, but that Washington had called him “Manny.” He remembered hearing that Giacomo was well thought of by the cops because he devoted the pro bono publico side of his practice to defending cops charged with violating the civil rights of individuals.

“Aside from almost getting myself fried on the way over here, I’m fine. How about you?”

“Whatever are you talking about, Detective Washington?” Giacomo asked.