The technician had already been on the stand to explain the simplified and easily read graph lines of the modern polygraph: A shallow breathing line denoting suppression; a heavy breath line denoting relief; the respiratory block, fast pulse and slow pulse lines; the rise in blood pressure tracing.... It was all there on the screen—the emotional picture of a man testifying at his own trial for murder.
"Objection, your Honor!" shouted the D.A. for the tenth time that morning. "This procedure is definitely irregular and immaterial! Defense Counsel has been making a mockery of the Court for days, but now he has stepped completely out of line!"
Jake clucked soothingly.
"What," he inquired, "is irregular or immaterial about a defendant voluntarily taking a lie detector test? I believe that I have heard the District Attorney challenge clients of mine to do so on several occasions! Now, we are merely permitting the Court and the Jury to view the test in progress...."
Once again, the Judge withheld his ruling, and the D.A. sagged dejectedly in his chair. The strain of the last few days—sitting in the courtroom and listening to witnesses he knew not how or why to cross-examine—had taken its toll. His eyes were bloodshot, and fits of wheezing seized him spasmodically, but the set of his jaw was still unyielding. Jake grieved for him.
Tony Corfino's reactions, as he sat in the witness chair watching the final preparations, would be difficult to catalogue. He looked both aloof and nervously concerned. His curly black hair was damp from the way he constantly brushed the sweat back off his forehead; his puffy lips seemed in constant need of moistening. But his hands were folded quietly in his lap. He seemed to Jake like a man lost to the past, adrift in the present and unrelated to the future.
"Will you give us your name, please?" Jake asked casually.
"Tony Corfino."
"Where were you born?"
"I ain't—I'm not sure.... On the West Side, I suppose...."