Scene is a powerful tool. Used badly, it wastes a reader’s time. Offered incompletely, it adds a false note and corrodes the reader’s trust. Detectives and attorneys, the good ones at least, get it. Assistant U.S. Attorney Vince Lombardi offered one. The cocaine dealer fresh from federal prison wasn’t staying straight. He was caught with weight and, per the prosecutor’s request, was going back inside. In a memo to the court, a Lombardi offered this small moment:
(He) claimed not to know the bag was there, and started stating, “Aw man, she did it to me,” claiming in essence that a woman had planed the cocaine in his vehicle. He then told his son, “Don’t be like me, don’t do what I do.”