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“I’m not surprised,” said Sandusky, still studying the paper. “These responses are very sharp. On the first question, about the blue card, you showed a definite truth. On the second question, the pink card, you showed a definite lie, no question about it. What do you think you showed on the third question?” He held up the blue card with the pink border.
“I d-d-d-don’t know,” said Darren. “Half and half?”
“Nope, not according to this. On the third question, you showed a lie, just as strong as the second. See, this card really isn’t blue, is it?” He held it up again. “Now you may think that’s not fair, that you were being mostly truthful when you said it was blue. But I’m afraid you can’t get away with mostly here. It’s sort of like the kind of white lie we sometimes tell people, like saying ‘I love you,’ or ‘I feel fine,’ or ‘You look terrific,’ when it’s not completely true. You see, it may be okay to tell white lies to people, to spare their feelings, say. But not to the machine. The machine has no feelings. To the machine, a white lie is like any other lie.
“Let me give you an example, Darren, one actually not too different from your case. I tested a guy last year on a rape. Girl claimed the guy had followed her home, forced his way into her apartment and raped her. He denied it, claimed he’d never seen the girl in his life. His lawyer asked him if he’d be willing to take a polygraph test. He said okay, and he came to see me. I tested him, and he flunked. It was only months later that I found out the real story. Seems he’d picked the girl up in a bar, and she’d invited him back to her apartment. They started to get real friendly, know what I mean?”
Darren nodded.
“Right at the last minute, she gets cold feet. But he figures she’s only being cute, playing hard to get. And he’s not about to stop by that time, anyway. So he goes through with it. Was it really a rape? Who knows? She must have thought so, ’cause right after he leaves, she calls the police. When they bring him in for questioning, he denies knowing the girl or having been in her apartment, everything. And he had the police believing him, figuring they had the wrong guy. But not the machine. The machine—” and here Sandusky patted it affectionately “—showed only that he was lying. It didn’t understand mostly.
“The result was,” Sandusky continued, “the guy got jammed up real bad. Much worse than if he’d come clean in the first place. I’m only sorry he didn’t tell me up front.” He began reinflating the blood pressure cuff. “Or his lawyer. I like to think that the lawyer and I are part of the same team. After all, we’re both working for the guy that’s paying us, right?”
“Right,” Darren agreed.
Sandusky started up the machine again. “Tell me,” he said, “before you were arrested on this case, had you ever seen Joanne Kenarden?”
“No,” said Darren, without hesitation.
Sandusky marked the paper.
“Is there any chance your fingerprints might have been found on her clothing or things?”
“No.”
Sandusky made another mark and shut off the machine. He stood up, came around to Darren, and removed the blood pressure cuff and other straps. Darren stretched.
“Seeing as this is your test,” Sandusky said, “are there any questions you’d like me to include?”
Darren seemed to think for a moment. Then he said, “Yes. Ask me if I’ve even been up in that area the past couple of years.”
“The Castle Hill Project area?”
“Yes.”
“Fair enough. Now, are there any questions you’d like me to stay away from, for any reason?”
Darren thought again before saying no.
“Okay,” said Sandusky. “Why don’t you relax. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” With that, he left the room, closing the door behind him. Jaywalker got up and moved back away from the mirror in anticipation of Sandusky’s coming into the observation room, fearful that the light from the opening door might reveal him to Darren.
When Sandusky did enter, the first thing he did was study Darren through the glass. Darren continued to stretch, humming softly to himself. Sandusky motioned Jaywalker to follow him out of the room. When they reached the conference room, he lit a cigarette.
“He’s very nervous,” he said.
“I would be, too.” As soon as Jaywalker had said the words, he realized he was being overly defensive of his client. But that was his job, wasn’t it? Besides, there was something about Sandusky’s observation he didn’t like.
Sandusky ignored the comment. He sat down at his desk and searched through a drawer until he found the form he was looking for. Then he used it to write out the questions he was going to ask Darren. He inserted them in the blanks for questions 2, 3, 6, 7 and 9. Questions 1, 4, 5 and 8 he left open. He stubbed out his cigarette and stood up.
Jaywalker resumed his post in the observation room. Darren was singing softly when Sandusky reappeared in the testing room. Jaywalker didn’t recognize the tune.
“All right,” said Sandusky. “These are going to be the questions I’ll be asking you. Who raped Joanne Kenarden? Do you know who did it? Did you rape her? Did you see her blow you? Did you threaten her with a knife?”
Sitting in the observation room, Jaywalker was a bit surprised that Sandusky would telegraph the test questions to Darren that way. Wouldn’t springing them on him be a more effective tactic? But the more he thought about it, the more he came around to understanding Sandusky’s strategy. By letting Darren know exactly what questions were coming, he was giving him a chance to build up additional anxiety over the fact that he was going to be lying in his responses.
“How ab-b-b-bout the question I suggested?” Darren asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t use it,” said Sandusky, without further explanation.
Darren looked disappointed by the answer, and perhaps by Sandusky’s dismissive tone, as well. Jaywalker wondered if Sandusky was deliberately trying to agitate Darren by first requesting his input and then rejecting it. But hadn’t he just commented on how nervous Darren already was?
“Now,” Sandusky was saying, “before we begin the actual test, let’s talk about guilt for a moment.”
“G-g-guilt?”
“Yes. Darren, when you were growing up, which of your parents would you say was stricter, was more concerned with teaching you right from wrong?”
“They were both pretty strict.”
Jaywalker could believe that.
“Which one would more likely have told you it was wrong to hurt people?”
Darren seemed to think a moment before saying, “My dad, I guess.”
“How about sex education? Which one took more of a role in teaching you about sex?”
Darren thought again. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I—I—I learned that pretty much on my own.” Then, when Sandusky didn’t react, he added, “I guess it would have b-been my dad again.”
“Okay,” said Sandusky. “Psychologists and psychiatrists tell us that hurting values and sexual values are taught to us by our parents when we’re very young, and that deviance from these values is what produces guilt feelings.”
This struck Jaywalker as mumbo jumbo, double-talk. He had the feeling that Sandusky was deliberately trying to lose Darren here, though he didn’t know why.
“The problem is,” Sandusky explained, “guilt feelings can interfere with the test.” To Jaywalker, that sounded counterintuitive. Wasn’t the test premised upon the existence of feelings of guilt and designed to ferret them out?
“So,” Sandusky continued, “when we get started, I’m going to include a couple of questions to eliminate them. One will be about hurting, the other about sex. And by the way, these two questions will be between you and me. I won’t report them to anyone, not even your lawyer. Okay?”
Darren nodded.
“Do you know what masturbation is, Darren?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?” Evidently Sandusky wanted to be certain.
“It’s when you p-p-p-play with yourself.”
“Right,” said Sandusky. “Have you ever masturbated, Darren?”
“Yes,” Darren admitted.
Jaywalker found himself feeling more like a voyeur than ever. But it was riveting stuff, and he was beginning to see where Sandusky was going with it.
“When was the last time?”
“I c-c-can’t recall.”
“How old are you now?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Well,” said Sandusky, “that makes you pretty old. I guess it would have had to have been when you were ten or eleven, huh?”
“I g-g-guess so,” Darren agreed.
Jaywalker’s hunch had been right. Sandusky was building a lie into the test, deliberately coaching Darren to be deceitful when the time came. That way, he would have a control response to a lie, against which he could measure the real responses.
“Well,” 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?”
