“What time was it,” she asked, “when you made the purchase?”

“About two o’clock in the morning,” said Detective Pritzker, a burly man with a long, shaggy beard, looking quite awkward in his suit and tie. He obviously would have been more at home in the motorcycle leathers he was wearing the night of the arrest.

“Was it dark?”

“The sun wasn’t out, if that’s what you’re asking, ma’am. But at that location there are plenty of streetlamps, and with all the headlights from the traffic, it was more than bright enough for me to see who I was dealing with.”

“And so you had a clear view of the man who sold you the heroin in People’s Exhibit One.”

“Objection,” I said. “There is no testimony yet as to the actual contents within that glassine envelope.”

“Are you contesting the contents, Mr. Carl?” said the judge.

“I’m contesting everything, Your Honor.”

“I’ll sustain the objection for the time being,” said the judge. “Let’s get on with it.”

“And so, Officer Pritzker,” said A.D.A. Johnstone with annoyance now in her voice, “you had a clear view of the man who sold you the alleged heroin in People’s Exhibit One.”

“Yes, I did,” he said.

“And do you see him in the courtroom today?”

“Yes, I do,” said Officer Pritzker, staring now straight at me as if he were preparing to steal my lunch money.

“Can you point him out, please?”

He reached out his arm and pointed his finger at the man sitting next to me at the counsel table, the man in the usual defendant’s seat, and then he swiveled his arm until his finger was aimed at a different man in a suit and tie sitting in the last row of the courtroom.

“He’s right there,” said Pritzker. “Sitting in the back row, in the gray. That’s him.”

A murmur went though the courtroom. I swiveled in my seat, seemingly stunned at the revelation.