The Pardon

by James Grippando

  “See you again, Jack,” Stafford promised.

  Jack showed no reaction. He just closed the door as soon as they stepped outside and went to the window, watching as the two detectives walked side-by-side to their car. He looked for some feedback, but they didn’t even look at each other until Bradley got behind the wheel and Stafford was in the passenger seat.

  “There was a steak knife on the floor at Goss’s apartment,” said Stafford as his partner backed the car out of the driveway.

  Bradley glanced at his passenger, then looked back at the road as he backed into the street. “So?”

  Stafford sat in silence, thinking. “Check with forensics for prints. First thing.”

  “Sure,” Bradley shrugged, “no problem.”

  “Then call the Florida bar. They keep a set of fingerprints on all attorneys. Tell them you need a set for Swyteck.”

  “Come on, Lon,” Bradley groaned. “We had a little fun with the guy in there, playing with the Miranda rights and the whole bit. But you don’t really think he killed Goss?”

  “You heard me,” Stafford snapped. “Check it out.”

  Bradley sighed and shook his head. “Swyteck, huh?”

  Stafford stared at the dashboard. He cracked his window lit a cigarette, and took a long, satisfying drag. “Swyteck,” he confirmed, smoke and disdain pouring from his lips. “Defender of scum.”

  Chapter 18

  •

  The steak knife found in Goss’s apartment yielded a nice set of prints, and by the following Monday afternoon Detective Stafford thought they looked even nicer, when Jack Swyteck’s prints came from the Florida bar.

  “We got a match!” Stafford blurted as he barged into the state attorney’s office.

  Wilson McCue peered out over the top of his rimless spectacles, his working files spread across the top of his desk. Stafford closed the door behind him and bounded into the room with boyish enthusiasm. “Swyteck’s prints are all over the steak knife,” he said with a grin.

  The prosecutor leaned back in his chair. Had anyone but Lonzo Stafford charged unannounced into his office like this, he would have tossed him out on his tail. But Lonzo Stafford enjoyed a special status—acquired more than half a century ago, when an eleven-year-old Lonnie entered into a pact with an eight-year-old Willie to remain “friends forever, no matter what.” As boys they’d hunted in the same fields, fished in the same ponds, and gone to the same school, Lonzo always a couple of steps ahead of Wilson on the time line, but Wilson always a notch higher on the grading curve. Now at sixty-five, Wilson looked at least seventy-five, even on a good day.

  “I want you to convene a grand jury,” said Stafford.

  The prosecutor coughed his smoker’s hack, then lit up a Camel. “What for?”

  Stafford snatched the lit cigarette from his friend and smoked it himself, pacing as he spoke. “Because I got a suspect,” he replied, “in the murder of Eddy Goss.”

  “Yeah,” McCue scoffed, “so do I. About twelve million of them. Anybody who has seen that animal’s videotaped confession is a suspect. Eddy Goss deserved to die, and everybody wanted him dead. There ain’t a jury in the world that would convict the guy who did the world a favor by blowing Goss’s brains out.”

  Stafford arched an eyebrow. “Unless the guy who did it was the same slick defense lawyer who got him—and others like him—off the hook and back on the street.”

  McCue was apprehensive. “And I can see the headlines already: ‘Republican State Attorney Attacks Democrat Governor’s Son.’ It’ll be ugly, Lon. With the gubernatorial election just three months away, you’d better have plenty of ammunition if we’re gonna start that war.”

  Stafford took a drag on his cigarette. “We got plenty,” he said, smoke pouring through his nostrils. “We got Swyteck’s prints on the handle of a knife we found on the floor. I also had the blade checked. There was blood on the tip. AB negative. Very rare. Same as Swyteck’s. Lab found some fish-stick remnants on there, too, which is what the autopsy showed Goss had for dinner. And best of all, the blood came later, after the fish sticks.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means that on the night Goss was murdered I can place Jack Swyteck in the victim’s apartment, after dinner, wielding a steak knife.”

  “And you got a victim who was shot to death,” the prosecutor fired back. “I’d say we need more.”

  “There is more. Just a few hours after the murder, about seven in the morning, we interviewed Swyteck. This was before he was a suspect. Swyteck came to the door in a pair of gym shorts, right outta bed. Nervous as a cat, he was. Big bruise on his ribs. Looked like a bite mark on his belly. Fresh red scratches on his back. Had an open cut on the back of his left hand, too. It looked like a stab wound, to me and Bradley both. Just to look at him, I’d say he’d been in a pretty recent scuffle.”

  “And he would say he fell down the stairs.”

  “Maybe,” said Stafford, his voice gathering intensity. “But he’s gonna have a hard time explaining how he knew Goss had been shot before we ever told him so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I checked with the media. No news reports were out about Goss’s murder until almost eight o’clock. We showed up at Swyteck’s house at seven, and we told him Goss had been killed—but we didn’t tell him how. Swyteck knew he had been shot. He said so. It was a slip of the tongue, I think, but he was talking about a shooting before we were.”

  McCue listened with interest. “We’re getting there,” he said. He paused to rub at his temples and think for a second. “Why don’t you just arrest him, Lonnie. You know, maybe B and E or something, if all you want to do is rattle his cage?”

  Stafford’s eyes narrowed with contempt. “I want to do more than rattle him. I want to convict his ass.”

  “Because of what he did to you in the Goss trial?” McCue asked directly.

  “Because he’s guilty. The fact that I would thoroughly enjoy nailing his ass doesn’t change that. I wouldn’t tag him or any one of those crusaders at the Freedom Institute just to get even. Swyteck did it. I’m convinced of it. He wigged out and blew away his scumbag client. He screwed up—big time. And I want to be the guy who makes him pay.”

  The prosecutor sighed heavily. “We can’t be wrong about this one.”

  “I’m not wrong. And if you’d seen Swyteck’s face that morning after the murder like I did, you’d know I’m not wrong. I’ve got a feeling about this one, Wilson. Not some flaky feeling you get when you wake up one morning and read your horoscope. This one’s based on a lifetime of police work. And in all the years you’ve known me, have my instincts ever steered you wrong?”

  McCue averted his eyes. He had complete trust in his friend, but the pointed question reminded him that there may very well have been one instance when Lonzo Stafford had steered him wrong—dead wrong. It was a first-degree murder charge that Stafford had built on circumstantial evidence. McCue had gone ahead and prosecuted the case, but by the time it was over, even he was beginning to wonder whether Stafford had tagged the right man. It was academic now, of course. The jury had convicted him. Governor Swyteck had signed his death warrant. The state had put him to death. He was gone. McCue would never forget him, though. His name was Raul Fernandez.

  “Let me sleep on it,” McCue told his friend.

  “What more do you want?”

  He shrugged uneasily. “It’s just that there are so many people who wanted to see Eddy Goss dead. We need to talk to other suspects. We need to talk to neighbors. You need to make sure there isn’t some witness out there, somewhere, who’ll gut the whole case by saying they saw somebody running from Goss’s apartment with smoke pouring from the barrel of a .38-caliber pistol. Somebody who couldn’t possibly be Swyteck. Like a woman, a seven-foot black guy, a friend of one of Goss’s victims, or—”

  “A cop,” Stafford interjected, his tone disdainful. “That call to nine-one-one about the cop being around Goss’s apartment has yo
u spooked, doesn’t it?”

  McCue removed his eyeglasses. “I’m concerned about it, yeah. And so’s your boss. That’s why he told you about it when he put you on the case.”

  Stafford shook his head. “You know as well as I do, Wilson, that if it’d really been a cop who’d blown Goss’s brains out, he wouldn’t have showed up at his apartment wearing a uniform. He would’ve stopped Goss on the street, shot him in ‘self-defense,’ and laid a Saturday-night special in his cold, dead hand.”

  Maybe,” said McCue. “But the fact of the matter is that we’re talking about the governor’s son here. And we re talking about a first-degree murder charge. I’m no taking that case to the grand jury until you’ve got some good, hard evidence.”

  Stafford’s eyes flared. He looked angry, but he wasn’t. He took it as a challenge. “I’m gonna get it,” he vowed. “I’m gonna get whatever you need to bring Swyteck down.”

  McCue nodded. “If it’s out there, I’m sure you will.”

  “It’s out there,” Stafford replied, his tone very serious. “I know it’s out there. Because in here,” he thumped his chest, “I know Swyteck’s guilty.” He rose quickly from his chair and started for the door, then shoved his hand in his coat pocket and stopped short, as if he’d suddenly found something. “What the hell’s this?” he asked, clearly overacting as he pulled a plastic bag from his pocket.

  McCue smiled. He knew his old friend was up to something.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Stafford as he smacked his hand playfully against his forehead. The Cheshire-cat smile he’d been holding inside was now plastered from ear to ear. “I almost forgot to tell you the best part, Wilson. You see, nobody heard any gunshots at the time of Goss’s murder. Doesn’t seem possible, really, that nobody hears nothin’ in a building like that—unless, of course, the man who plugged Goss had a silencer on his thirty-eight-caliber pistol. Which is why this is so important,” he said as he raised the plastic evidence bag before the prosecutor’s eyes.

  “And just what is this?”

  “A silencer,” Stafford said smugly, “for a thirty-eight-caliber pistol.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Underneath the front seat of Jack Swyteck’s car.”

  McCue’s eyes widened with interest, then concern. “Hope you had a search warrant?”

  “Didn’t need one. This came to us via Kaiser Auto Repair—Swyteck’s mechanics. Seems our favorite lawyer brings in his Mustang every other day for something—it’s a real Rent-A-Wreck. Thursday morning, he leaves his car to get the convertible top fixed. A few hours later, the owner of the shop catches one of his mechanics stealing things from the customers’ cars and calls us. One of the cars the grease monkey robbed happened to be Swyteck’s. And what do you suppose shows up in the guy’s loot?” Stafford gave a huge grin. “One silencer.”

  “That’s a pretty strange coincidence, Lonnie, that some punk was rifling through Swyteck’s car. You sure it happened that way?”

  “Shop owner will back me up a hundred percent,” he said, giving McCue an insider’s wink.

  McCue sat back in his chair, folding his hands contentedly on his belly. “Lonnie,” he said with a power grin, “now we’re on to something.”

  Chapter 19

  •

  “You had forty-three press calls, Governor,” Harry Swyteck’s secretary reported, trailing at the heel of the candidate-by-day/governor-by-night as he rushed into his spacious office. “And that’s just in the last hour.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the governor groaned as he tossed his charcoal suit coat onto the couch, loosened his tie, and plopped into the high-back leather chair behind his carved mahogany desk, exhausted. Before the campaign, he found it relaxing to nestle into his position of power between the state and American flags, amidst the brass chandeliers, white coffered ceilings, and big arching windows with red velvet drapes that reminded him he was indeed governor. But now that the campaign was in full swing, the opulent surroundings were stark reminders that he had to be re-elected to keep these trappings of power for another four years. “Who did I insult this time?” he asked, only half kidding.

  “No one,” his secretary assured him as she placed his hot cup of tea with lemon on his desk. She served without a smile, her expression all business. With her gray hair pulled back and a white silk scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, she had all the warmth of a nun on a vow of silence. When it came to political staffers, however, personality was a small sacrifice for eighteen years of efficiency and undivided loyalty. “I’m sure they’re all trying to get the scoop before the six o’clock news,” she said, “that’s all.”

  The governor froze as he brought his teacup to his lips. Even after all these years it still bothered him that Paula always seemed to know everything about late-breaking news before he knew anything about it. “The scoop on what?” he asked with some trepidation.

  Her look was more somber than usual. “Your son, of course.”

  His trepidation turned to concern. “What about my son?”

  “Campbell’s on his way up,” she said, avoiding the question. “He’ll explain.”

  Moments later the door flew open, and the governor’s chief aide, Campbell McSwain, rushed into the office, nearly mowing down Paula on her way out. Campbell was a handsome, thirty-eight-year-old Princeton graduate who looked as if he wouldn’t know a blue collar unless it was pinpoint Oxford cloth, but his uncanny ability to portray Harold Swyteck as a regular Joe to the average voter had gone a long way toward winning the election four years ago. Campbell wore his usual Bass loafers, khaki slacks, and a Brooks Brothers blazer over a white polo shirt, but his wide-eyed expression was far less understated.

  “Sorry, sir,” Campbell said as he gasped for breath. He’d run all the way to the governor’s office. “I just got off he phone with the Dade County State Attorney’s Office.”

  “The state attorney?”

  “It’s your son, sir. Our sources tell us he’s the target of grand jury investigation. He’s the prime suspect in the murder of Eddy Goss.”

  The governor’s mouth fell open, as if he’d just been punched in the chest. “Goss is dead? And they think Jack did it? That’s preposterous. It’s impossible. Jack is no murderer. It has to be a mistake.”

  “Well, whether it’s true or not, Governor, this is a terrible setback for us. Until a month ago, no one thought a former state insurance commissioner would be a serious challenge to a popular incumbent like yourself. But he’s making a damn good showing. He made quite a name for himself rooting out fraud, and he had the good sense not to push so hard that big business wouldn’t open its wallets when the campaigning got under way. The polls have you up by just four points at last tally. This, however, could change everything. The press is already pouncing all over it. Forty-three calls, Paula said.”

  The governor leaned forward in his chair and glared at is aide. “This is my son we’re talking about,” he said angrily. ‘We’re not talking about bad press, or about points on an opinion poll.”

  Campbell stood in check. “I’m sorry, Governor,” he said quietly. “I mean—it’s just that, I know you and your son haven’t been close. At least not as long as I’ve known you. I guess I should have been more sensitive.”

  The governor rose from his chair, turned, and walked slowly to the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the garden in the courtyard. “It’s true,” he said, speaking as much to himself as to his aide, his voice trailing off as if he were retreating deep into his innermost thoughts. “Jack and I have not been as close as I’d like.”

  Campbell watched with concern, searching for something to say. “Your son is only a grand jury target—a suspect,” he said. “The lawyers tell me there’s at least a theoretical possibility he might not actually be indicted.”

  Harry nodded appreciatively at Campbell’s attempted consolation. But in his mind he could already see the chilling accusation: “John Lawrence Swyteck did with ma
lice aforethought knowingly commit murder in the first degree.” Sometimes he couldn’t help wondering if fate meant him to be separated from Jack, if the alignment of the stars foreordained a rift between them. But he knew that was a cop-out, an attempt to deny his own complicity in the shaping of Jack’s . . . what were they? Neuroses? Problems? Confusion, certainly. With a deep sense of guilt, Harry thought back to the first time his son was accused of murder—when he was five years old . . .

  Harry had pulled into the driveway around supper time and walked briskly up the sidewalk to the front door. He could see his young son peering sadly out the bedroom window as if he were being punished for something. Before Harry had even closed the front door and stepped inside, Agnes was screaming at him about Jack and the crucifix he’d found. Harry tried to calm her but she was determined to have it out. He rushed to the kitchen and closed the door, so Jack couldn’t hear, but the bitter argument continued.

  “I told you I didn’t want these things in the house anymore,” Agnes said. “I’m your wife now. Give up the past, Harry. I won’t tolerate you having your own little shrine.”

  “It’s not for me. I’m saving them for Jack, when he’s old enough to understand.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” she shouted. “You’re not thinking of Jack. You’re thinking of yourself. You’re living in the past—ever since you took that boy home and left her behind. You won’t let go. Admit it, Harry, you hate me for not being her. And you hate your own son for killing her.”

  “Shut up!” he shouted as he rushed toward her.

  “Don’t you dare raise a hand to me! It’s sick, Harry! And I’m sick of it!”

  Just outside the kitchen, five-year-old Jack trembled in shock and fear of what he had done to his mother. He’d snuck out of his room and tiptoed down the hallway, finding a spot behind a large spider plant, just outside the kitchen, where his father and stepmother had dug in to do battle. He had wanted to hear the truth—but the truth was more than any five-year-old could handle. He stepped back in a daze, then tripped over the pedestal holding the plant, sending himself and the plant crashing to the floor.