The Pardon

by James Grippando

  The noise from the hall immediately silenced the argument in the kitchen. Harry rushed out and saw Jack lying on the floor, beside the overturned plant. Their eyes met, but neither one spoke. Harold Swyteck didn’t have to ask how much his son had heard. The look on his face told him he’d heard it all. And from that day forward, they’d never looked at each other the same way . . .

  “Are you listening to me, sir?” Campbell asked. The governor looked at him blankly. His mind was elsewhere.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to shake himself loose of his memories. But he was still thinking of Jack. After so many disappointments and regrets, he wanted to help his son. But with their turbulent history, it wouldn’t be that simple. Jack would surely rebuff any overtures he made.

  “Governor,” Campbell interrupted, “obviously this isn’t something you want to focus on now. I’m not trying to be insensitive. I do understand that, for all your differences, Jack is still your son. That’s really none of my business. It is my business, however, to get you re-elected. And, like it or not, we have to evaluate your son’s predicament in political terms. Personal tragedy aside, sir, the simple fact is that if Jack Swyteck loses his trial, Harold Swyteck loses his election. Politically speaking,” he said coolly, “that is the bottom line.”

  Harry was angered by Campbell’s mercenary view, but he also appreciated the simple logic of his words. Campbell was right: Helping Jack would help his campaign. And that was the answer to the problem—a kind of reverse psychology. Jack wouldn’t accept help if his father were doing it only for his son. But if the governor were doing it for himself, for his own political reasons, Jack would owe him nothing—not even gratitude. That would be the way he could help Jack—and, more important, be assured that Jack would let him.

  “You’re absolutely right,” said the governor, smiling inwardly. “I guess I have no choice but to help my son—any way I can”

  Chapter 20

  •

  After just a week in Rome, Cindy Paige returned to Miami that afternoon. The photo shoot in Italy was officially off. It turned out that Chet had a much more recreational view of their “business” trip than she did—which became clear the moment she found out he’d reserved one hotel room with one king-size bed in each of the cities on their tour. It had hurt to find out that it wasn’t her talent with a camera that had landed her the job.

  Gina met her at the baggage claim, but she wasn’t a very chatty chauffeur on the ride home from the airport. She told Cindy she wasn’t feeling very well, and she wasn’t. Of all the things Gina had done in her life, she realized now that bedding Jack was the lowest. Somehow it had seemed easy to view Jack as “fair game” the other night, when she’d thought Cindy was jetting off to the Eternal City with her old lover. But her friend’s quick return simply confirmed what Gina had suspected all along: Despite the ugly words Jack and Cindy had exchanged the last time they were together, they were far from through.

  When they got back to the townhouse, Gina retreated right to her bedroom. She flopped onto the bed an escaped into a rerun of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”

  Cindy left her suitcase by the door and went straight to the kitchen. The so-called snack on the airplane had been about as appetizing as boiled lettuce. She quickly microwaved herself some french fries, then opened the refrigerator in search of ketchup.

  “Gina,” she called out, “where’s the Heinz?”

  Gina didn’t answer.

  “Oh, well,” Cindy said, shrugging. Balancing the plate of fries in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other, she headed for the living room. She grabbed the remote control as she sat on the couch and flipped on the television.

  The lead story on every local evening-news broadcast was the same. She was just in time to catch the south Florida version, the hometown approach to the breaking story of how, “in a shocking development, the grand jury investigation into the murder of Eddy Goss had now targeted murder suspect Jack Swyteck.”

  She stared dumbfounded at Jack’s face on the television screen, framed by an imposing graphic of the scales of justice. “Oh, my God,” she muttered. She punched the buttons on the remote control and flipped frantically from one channel to the next, as if trying to watch them all at once. She couldn’t believe it, even after hearing it straight from the mouth of every news anchor in the city. After ten minutes she’d had enough, since coverage on every station had degenerated to “live and exclusive” interviews with virtually every publicity hound in town who claimed to “know” Jack Swyteck. She switched off the set in disgust. Not one of these people knew Jack the way she did. He was no killer.

  Her hands were shaking as she sank into the couch. She wasn’t sure what to do. Should she just let him know she was back in town—if he needed a friend? She wondered why, indeed, she was back in town. Had it really been necessary to call off the photo shoot in Italy? She probably could have laid down a few ground rules with Chet and gotten the job done—unless, of course, her relationship with Jack had subconsciously drawn her back to Miami.

  She glanced at the phone. Talking to him wouldn’t be good enough. Not after the blowup they’d had when they were last together. She needed to see him. She grabbed her purse from the coffee table. “I’ll be back later,” she shouted up the stairway, then hurried out the door.

  The sun had set and the streetlights had popped on by the time Cindy reached Jack’s house. Even when she’d lived there, she’d never liked driving up alone after dark. Jack professed to like landscaping, but what he really meant was that he liked foliage of any kind, and lots of it. His “lawn” was a thick blanket of bromeliads, bushy ferns, and practically anything else that didn’t look like a weed. Large, bushy palms and leafy ficus trees were scattered everywhere, creating an array of menacing shadows. It was enough to make any twenty-five ear-old blonde in blue denim shorts and sleeveless white shell a bit on edge. At night the scene always made her feel a bit like Dorothy in the land of Oz contending with the talking apple trees.

  Anxiety propelled her to the front door in a matter of seconds. The porch light flipped on before she could knock, and the door swung open.

  Jack stood in the doorway, looking perplexed. “Cindy, what are you doing here?”

  “I saw the story on the news. I thought you might need to talk.”

  “You’re too much,” he said, opening his arms. She stepped forward to accept his embrace. “After you left I wanted to call you and tell you how sorry I was, but I felt like such a jerk.” He held her tighter and looked into her eyes. “Can you forgive me?”

  “Let’s try to forget that ever happened,” Cindy said. “I felt terrible about what I said, too.”

  “No, no, you were right,” he protested, “I totally lost it. But—” he shook his head in confusion. “What happened with Italy?”

  She slipped from his embrace and gave him a look of concern. “That’s not nearly as important as what’s happening to you.”

  His spirits soared. Just an hour ago, after having watched the six o’clock news, he’d thought it would be a very long time before he’d ever feel happy again.

  “I guess you know all about the grand jury investigation,” he said, still not quite believing the turn of circumstances.

  She nodded.

  “Do I need to tell you I didn’t do it?”

  She looked into his eyes. “I know you didn’t.”

  He went to embrace her again, but his attention was diverted by a car pulling into his driveway. It was a police car—not one but two in fact. And inside the lead car was Detective Lonzo Stafford.

  “I’ve got to talk to these guys,” Jack said to Cindy as he gestured for her to go inside. At first she hesitated, but then she entered the house.

  Stafford trudged up the path and took Cindy’s place on the porch. His blue blazer was even more wrinkled than usual, his necktie was loosened, and a few extra lines seemed to have appeared in his tired old face. He’d clearly been working some long hours, but the g
leam in his gray eyes made it equally clear that he thought his hard work was about to pay off.

  “Got a warrant here, my friend. Time for a little search party.”

  Jack sighed, relieved that it wasn’t an arrest warrant. “You won’t find a murder weapon here,” he assured the detective. For a moment, Jack felt like leading him right to his footlocker and the old .38. A simple ballistics test would prove it wasn’t involved in the Goss shooting. But the gun was never registered in Florida, a problem in itself, and possessing it would only prove his familiarity with the same type of weapon the newspapers said had killed Goss. Jack figured the less grist the detective had for wild conjecture, the better.

  Stafford glanced over his shoulder to make sure the other officers couldn’t hear him. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to get a warrant to look for a murder weapon?” he asked contemptuously. “Then I’d have to tell the jury we looked for it and didn’t find it, wouldn’t I, Swyteck? Besides,” he said smugly, “I don’t need to find the gun. Not since Ballistics determined a silencer was used to kill Goss. Not since that mechanic down at Kaiser pulled a silencer out of your convertible.”

  “A mechanic did what?”

  Stafford smiled wryly. “You’ll hear all about it soon enough, counselor. Right now,” he said with a wink as he flashed the warrant in Jack’s face, “baby needs a new pair a’ shoes. Reeboks to be exact. You may recall that it as a rainy night when you visited your favorite client. Your footprints are all over the apartment.”

  Jack fell silent. Things were getting worse by the minute, but he had nothing to gain by sparring with the old detective. “Just get what you came for,” he said flatly. “And be on your way.”

  Stafford signaled back to his team with a jerk of his head. Jamahl Bradley and two other officers filed into the house, heading straight for the master bedroom. Jack followed closely behind, his stomach in knots.

  “What’s happening?” Cindy asked Jack, her voice trembling as the officers whisked by her in the living room.

  Stafford stopped to field the question. “We’re gonna prove your boyfriend here was traipsing around Eddy Goss’s apartment the night of the murder. That’s what’s happening, miss.” Stafford took another step, the stopped and arched a suggestive eyebrow at Cindy. “You sure you want to sleep here tonight, sweetheart?”

  “Shut the hell up, Stafford,” Jack snapped.

  Stafford just shrugged and continued on toward the bedroom. Jack started to follow but stopped when he saw the look on Cindy’s face. He wanted to watch the police conduct their search, just to make sure they stuck to the warrant, but he couldn’t let Stafford’s remark linger. He had to keep Cindy’s trust, so he took her by the hand and led her quickly through the kitchen, into the backyard by the gazebo where they’d be out of earshot.

  “Were you really at Goss’s apartment the night he was murdered?”

  He looked into the middle distance, obviously struggling with what he was about to say. “Listen, Cindy, there are going to be things I won’t be able to tell you from here on out. Not because I’m guilty, but because it’s possible you may end up being a witness at trial—and the less you know, the better. But I may as well tell you this, because the footprints are going to prove it anyway. Yes, I was there that night. I went to Goss’s apartment. But I didn’t kill him. I went because of some threats I was getting. Someone was calling me, telling me there was a ‘killer on the loose.’ And then I was nearly run down, and Thursday—he killed Thursday.”

  Cindy brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, my God . . . oh, my God, Jack.”

  Jack touched her cheek gently to console her. “I figured it was Goss, and sure enough, that day you left for Italy I got a call inviting me to his apartment. He didn’t identify himself, but that was just part of the game-playing. I had to confront him, Cindy. But I didn’t kill him.”

  “Are you going to tell the police all that?”

  “No way.” He laid his hands on her shoulders for emphasis as he spoke. “It’s very important that you understand this. We can never tell the police about the harassment. Not unless they force us to tell them.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed. “Right now, they’re trying to build a case against me for killing Eddy Goss. I don’t know how good it’s going to be, but off the top of my head, I can see one glaring weakness: motive. Why would I kill Goss? Without any evidence that Goss was stalking me, all the prosecution can say is that I killed him because I felt guilty about having gotten him acquitted. Their whole case boils down to whether or not a lawyer—a criminal defense lawyer—had a guilty conscience. Now, how many jurors would even believe a lawyer actually has a conscience, let alone one strong enough to make him into a killer?”

  She listened carefully, considering his explanation.

  “It’s simple,” he continued. “If I were to tell the police about the threats I started getting after Goss’s trial, I’d be handing them a motive on a silver platter. The moment they find out Goss was after me, that’s it. Bingo! They’ve got a motive. Understand?”

  Cindy sighed. She felt like she was going to cry, not so much because of what was happening at the moment, but because she realized that this was all just the beginning of a new and terrible set of events. “Yes,” she said quietly, “I understand. Don’t worry, Jack. I’m with you.”

  Jack and Cindy ordered out for Chinese after Stafford left the house. At first they tried to keep the conversation light, but as Jack finished his last spring roll, he turned the discussion in a more serious direction. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk before you left for Italy—at least to say good-bye.”

  “More than that needed to be said,” Cindy answered. “There’s a side of you that always seems cut off from me. And it’s not just me—you seem to deal with your father the same way. The whole time I’ve known you, you’ve never made an effort to contact him, and he’s never called you either.”

  “I don’t blame you for being confused about that.”

  “It’s not about blame, Jack. It’s just something you’ve got to deal with.”

  He averted his eyes as he fiddled with an empty soy sauce packet. “I’ve wanted to. Oddly enough, just before this thing got really crazy, my stepmother phoned. Said I should give my father a call. I don’t know how to explain it . . . it’s absurd, really, but as long as I don’t call him, there’s hope we’ll work things out. If I do take a chance, and there’s a blowup, I’m not sure we can ever put the pieces back together. It’s like they say, if you take your shot and miss, the dream is over. But if you don’t, there’s always someday.”

  “C’mon, Jack, you know better than that. You can’t trudge along, status quo, hoping things will change. There comes a point when you have to do something. That’s what I did with us. I’m not saying I handled it perfectly, but I had to do something.” Her eyes sought his. “You need to know that it was strictly business between me and Chet.” She shook her head, rolled her eyes. “It turned out that he wanted it to be more, and that’s why I came right back home. I didn’t feel it was over between us—which is why I told Gina to give you the number at my hotel.”

  “Gina never gave me a number,” said Jack.

  “Oh . . .” Cindy looked confused. “She promised me she would. I guess she forgot.”

  “Yeah,” he said skeptically. He’d really allowed Gina to sucker him in. His feelings of guilt were overwhelming.

  After they’d cleared the dinner plates, Jack glanced at his watch. They’d been talking longer than he thought. It was nearly eleven-thirty. He asked Cindy if she’d be all right getting back to Gina’s.

  “I want to stay here tonight,” she said, avoiding direct eye contact. “But ‘tonight’ means just that. No commitments yet, okay?”

  “That’s fine,” he said, his expression showing both gratitude and relief.

  Twenty minutes later, Cindy emerged from the bathroom wearing a big football jersey Jack had loaned her to sleep in. She shuffled toward
the bed, then paused as she noticed the dresser mirror. “You replaced all the torn snapshots.”

  “Yeah, I dug out the negatives and made some new prints,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t have much of a choice. Every time I looked at the mirror, it reminded me of how awful I was the last time we were together.”

  She flashed a wide smile. “Come to bed,” she said as she led him by the hand.

  As he drew back the sheets, thoughts of his impending arrest took the edge off his desire. He looked at Cindy and felt an enormous burden of guilt. She was so willing to give him a second chance, so willing to support him as he weathered this latest crisis. He wondered how she’d react if she heard that his best shot at an alibi was her own best friend.

  Chapter 21

  •

  Stafford and his assistants left Jack’s house at about eight o’clock. Jack’s tennis shoes were in the lab by eight-thirty. Stafford and his partner hung around the police station for the preliminary results, patiently waiting in the senior detective’s office. Stafford was at his desk, still in that faded blue blazer he never seemed to take off, his white shirt collar unbuttoned and wide polyester tie dropped over his chair. He was buying himself smoking cigarettes and straightening out paper clips. Bradley was in the chair beside the window, wadding up yesterday’s newspaper into little balls and shooting free throws into the wastebasket in the corner.

  The phone rang at ten. “Stafford,” the detective answered eagerly, cigarette smoke pouring from his lips as he spoke.

  Bradley watched expectantly as his partner nodded and grunted.

  “Got him!” Stafford proclaimed as he hung up. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms smugly across his chest. “Perfect match on the Reeboks. Twenty-seven glorious prints all over the apartment, and even one on the windowsill. Can’t say I’m surprised. I knew in my gut Swyteck did it. But I’m pleased as hell we can prove it.”