Joseph Teller - Bronx Justice

Sandusky was Dick Arledge’s assistant. He was young, meticulously groomed, and polished. His black hair was precisely combed to cover a bald spot that vanity prevented him from yielding to.

While they waited for Darren to arrive, Sandusky and Jaywalker went over the facts of the case in detail. Sandusky drew up releases from liability that Darren would have to sign. He explained the procedure that he would be following in this particular case: picking one of the rapes and concentrating on it. He would compose his test questions after beginning his interview of Darren, and sprinkle in some control questions. Jaywalker could observe the test if he wanted to, but because his presence might interfere with Darren’s concentration, he would have to do so through a special mirror from another room, without Darren’s knowledge. To this day, Jaywalker can’t remember if Sandusky referred to it as a two-way or a one-way mirror, and has no idea which term is correct. But he got the idea.

Darren showed up promptly at 9:30 a.m., accompanied by his cousin Delroid. Jaywalker was glad to see Darren was still following his instructions to have another adult with him at all times. He introduced them to Sandusky.

“Pl-pl-pl-pleased to meet you,” Darren managed to say.

Jaywalker wondered if the stutter was a bad omen.

Leaving Delroid in the waiting area, Jaywalker and Darren followed Sandusky to a small conference room. There they spent ten minutes on preliminaries—the payment of the fee, the executing of the releases and a discussion of the case in general terms. Then Sandusky announced that Jaywalker would have to leave. Jaywalker rose, shook hands with Darren, wished him luck and said he would call him later. He felt a little bit as though he were abandoning him. He didn’t know what Darren felt.

Sandusky led Jaywalker out of the room, then out of the office altogether. Once in the corridor, he unlocked a second door and ushered Jaywalker into a small room, closing the door behind them. The room was dark, the only light coming through a two-way—or perhaps a one-way—mirror, which looked into the testing room. The glass was adorned with shelves on the other side, which in turn held small figurines, in order to give the test subject the impression that the mirror was purely decorative. The testing room itself was also small. It contained only a table, a couple of straight-backed chairs and the polygraph machine.

Sandusky motioned to a chair directly in front of the glass, and while Jaywalker seated himself, Sandusky adjusted the knobs on some audio equipment.

“Keep the lights off,” he cautioned, “and try to make as little noise as possible. And don’t smoke. A match or even a lit cigarette can be seen from the other side. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Sandusky closed the door tightly behind him. A minute or two later, he appeared in the testing room, followed by Darren. Jaywalker’s instinctive reaction was to lean back, away from the glass, certain he could be seen. But Darren’s gaze paused only momentarily at the mirror, without any sign of recognition.

“All right, Darren,” said Sandusky. “Why don’t you have a seat right here.” His voice was loud and clear through the speaker. If Jaywalker had earlier felt he was abandoning his client, he now had the sense that he was spying on him. But it didn’t occur to him to look away or cover his ears. Instead, he watched and listened intently as Darren sat down. He took his eyes off him only long enough to glance at his watch. It was 9:44.

“Now,” said Sandusky, “this is the machine we’ve all been talking about.” He patted the polygraph affectionately. It was about the size of a large phonograph or old reel-to-reel tape recorder, and had wires that led to various attachments. At one end of the machine was a roll of graph paper, with needles balanced on it.

Sandusky flicked a switch on the side of the machine. The paper began to move slowly. The needles didn’t.

“You see what it’s doing?” he asked.

“It’s dr-dr-drawing straight lines,” said Darren.

“Right. How come a straight line?”

“It’s not turned on?” Darren guessed.

“No, it’s turned on,” said Sandusky. “See, the paper’s moving. But how come the lines aren’t moving up and down?”

“It’s not attached to anything?”

“Exactly. This machine does one thing, and only one thing.” Here Sandusky paused for effect. “It moves paper. You do the rest.”

Sandusky began making adjustments to the machine, continuing to speak as he did so. “Darren,” he said, “put your right hand out in front of you and wiggle your fingers.”

Darren obeyed.

“Very good. Now your left hand.”

Darren obeyed again.

“Good. You’ve just used part of your nervous system. We have two types of nerves,” Sandusky explained, “voluntary nerves and involuntary nerves. By moving your fingers, you just controlled certain nerves in your hands. Because you can control them, we call them voluntary. Now,” he continued, attaching a blood pressure cuff to Darren’s forearm and inflating it, “notice that our machine works after all.”

Indeed, one of the needles had come to life and was dancing up and down on the paper.

“Okay, Darren, I want you to make your heart stop pumping for thirty seconds.”

Darren smiled uncertainly.

“What’s so funny?” Sandusky asked.

“I c-c-can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t stop your heart.”

“Precisely,” Sandusky agreed. “That’s because your heart is run by involuntary nerves. You can’t control them. And that’s all that this test is about, involuntary nerves. Things that happen inside your body that you can’t control.”

Jaywalker couldn’t help but smile. It was mesmerizing. This guy could have been a terrific car salesman, he decided, or an awesome preacher. Or both. He could sell used Chevys all week and salvation come Sunday.

Even as he’d been talking, Sandusky had attached a second strap to Darren’s other wrist, and two to his torso—one around his chest, the other around his midsection. “By the way,” he assured Darren, “none of this is going to hurt at all.” He taped a final strap to the palm of one of Darren’s hands. Each attachment—and there were now five of them—was connected by a wire to one of the needles, which moved visibly up and down on the graph paper and recorded Darren’s blood pressure, pulse, upper and lower respiration, and galvanic skin response…the electrical conductivity of the skin, which increases with sweating.

“Now, Darren,” said Sandusky, “I’ve got three cards here.” He held them up so that not only Darren, but also Jaywalker, could see that the first was blue, the second pink and the third blue except for a pink border along the top. “I’m going to ask you some questions about them. I want you to answer ‘Yes’ to each of my questions. No matter what, just answer ‘Yes.’ Understand?”

“Yes,” said Darren.

Sandusky held up the blue card. “Is this card blue?” he asked.

“Yes,” Darren answered.

Sandusky held up the pink card. “Is this card blue?”

“Yes,” Darren answered.

Sandusky held up the blue card with the pink border. “Is this card blue?”

“Yes.”

After each response, Sandusky had marked the graph paper for later reference. Now he stopped the machine and deflated the blood pressure cuff. While Darren stretched and rubbed his forearm, Sandusky studied the paper.

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “We’re not going to have any trouble, not a bit. I’d say you’re a very sensitive young man, Darren. Has anyone ever told you that? That you’re sensitive?”

“Yes,” said Darren. “I’ve heard people say that.”