The Pardon

by James Grippando

  Bradley nodded slowly. “Congratulations,” he said, though he spoke without heart.

  Stafford looked questioningly at his partner. “I would have expected a little more excitement than that, Jamahl.”

  Bradley hesitated, but there was something he needed to say. “Frankly, Lon, you just seem a little too eager to nail this guy. That’s all.”

  Stafford’s eyes flared with anger, but he kept control. “Listen to me,” he lectured. “I’ve been a cop more than forty years, son. I know enough to listen to my instincts. And my instincts say that Jack Swyteck lost his cool after that trial, and he blew Goss away. I know what I’m talking about,” he growled, then took a drag from his cigarette. “The system is just a game to these criminal defense lawyers. They don’t care about the truth. They’ll say or do whatever it takes to win: ‘My client ate too many Twinkies,’ or ‘My client watched too much television.’ I’ve heard it all and I’ve seen ’em all, and Swyteck ranks up there with the worst. I listened to Eddy Goss confess murder right to my face. Right to my damn face. And then I watched Fancy Jack Swyteck convince a jury his client wasn’t guilty. That boy made a fool out of me. I’ve watched that son of a bitch do it time and time again. And every time he wins, another killer goes back on the street. Usually it’s on a technicality or some flaky defense. And Swyteck’s just getting warmed up. He’s a tenderfoot. Can you imagine him doing this for the next twenty-five, thirty years?”

  Bradley swallowed apprehensively. He knew the dangers of a cop who let the ends justify the means—especially one who seemed out for revenge. “So what are you saying, Lon? Somebody’s got to stop him?”

  Stafford’s expression turned very cold. “No,” he snapped. “All I’m saying is that this slick defense lawyer has got himself into deep trouble, and I’m gonna make damn sure he pays for it. So excuse me if I seem a little too happy about catchin’ myself a killer, okay?”

  Bradley nodded slowly. “Okay, chief,” he shrugged, seeming to back off. “After all, you do have twenty-seven footprints.”

  “You’re damn right I do.”

  “But don’t forget,” said Bradley, shooting him a look. “There’s still an unidentified footprint right outside the apartment door. We know it’s not from Goss. It’s not the right shoe size. And we know it’s not from Swyteck, either, since he was wearing the Reeboks.”

  “So what,” said Stafford, waving it off. “It’s from the janitor or somebody else in the building.”

  Bradley shook his head. “No, it’s not, Lon. That’s a very clean print. You can see the insignia on the heel very plainly: two crossed oars. Those are Wiggins wing tips—three-hundred-dollar jobs. There ain’t no janitor and nobody in that slum of an apartment building who wears three-hundred-dollar wing tips.”

  “Look, Jamahl,” Stafford grimaced. “We got twenty-seven footprints from Jack Swyteck inside the apartment. We got one stray footprint outside the apartment. Quit bein’ a pain in the ass, will ya?”

  Bradley sighed. His doubts weren’t alleviated, but he didn’t want to provoke his partner. “Maybe you’re right,” he said as he rose from his chair and stepped toward the door. Then he stopped. “But let me put it to you this way, Lon. Twenty-seven footprints from the same pair of shoes add up to how many people?”

  Stafford shrugged, as if the question were stupid. “One, of course,” he said.

  “That’s right. And no matter how you look at it, one single footprint from a different pair of shoes adds up to what?”

  “One person,” Stafford answered reluctantly.

  “Right,” said Bradley, “as in one other person. Think about it,” he said.

  Chapter 22

  •

  Sometime after 2:00 A.M. Jack finally fell asleep with Cindy in his arms. He awoke at about ten o’clock, and he smiled at the sight of her sleeping at his side. She looked great even m the morning, he thought. Cindy was the woman he loved, the only woman he really wanted. Her coming back to him was like a dream come true.

  He heard a pounding on the front door. He immediately sat upright; he knew who it was. Grand juries normally convened at nine. As much as he’d expected the visit, he still shuddered at the thought that he was no longer just someone the prosecutor had labeled a grand jury “target” if his guess was correct, in the last hour he’d been formally indicted for murder in the first degree.

  He jumped out of bed and pulled on khaki slacks and loafers. The pounding continued.

  Cindy sat up. “What is it?”

  He slipped on a blue oxford shirt, decided against a tie, and then spoke in a voice that strained to be upbeat. “I think it’s time . . . they probably handed down an indictment.” He went to the bureau, checked himself in the mirror, and quickly brushed his hair. He fumbled through his wallet and took out all the pictures and credit cards, leaving only his driver’s license, voter’s registration, and fifty dollars cash. He shoved the wallet into his back pocket, tucked in his shirt, and took a deep breath. In the mirror he saw Cindy looking at him, and he turned to meet her stare.

  “I love you, Jack,” she said quietly.

  He felt a rush of emotion, which he managed to control, then, smiling a sad smile, said, “I love you, too.”

  The knocking continued, louder this time.

  “It won’t be bad,” he assured her. “It’s not like they’re about to lock me up and throw away the key. They’ll book me at the station, and then I’ll go before the judge, who’ll probably release me on bail. I’ll be home this afternoon. No sweat.” He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

  She nodded slowly. A tear rolled down her cheek as she watched him turn and disappear into the hallway. Another loud knock, and it was definitely time to go.

  “Coming,” Jack said as he walked briskly toward the front door. He grabbed the knob, then stopped to collect himself. He was as ready as he’d ever be. Ironically, he’d coolly and calmly counseled scores of clients on how to prepare for arrest, but now he realized that this was one of those events that no amount of preparation could completely smooth over.

  Jack swallowed his apprehension and opened the door.

  “Manny?” he said with surprise.

  “How you doing, Jack?” replied Manuel Cardenal, Florida’s preeminent criminal defense lawyer. Jack knew him from the courthouse. Everyone knew Manuel Cardenal from the courthouse. He’d started his career twenty years ago as a murder-rape-robbery public defender, making his name defending the guilty. He’d spent the last ten years at the helm of his own law firm, making a fortune defending the wealthy.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Jack.

  “I’m your attorney. Can I come in?”

  “Of course.”

  Manny stepped inside. He wore a blue double-breasted suit, black Italian shoes, and a colorful silk necktie with matching handkerchief showing from the left breast pocket. He stopped to check his reflection in the mirror beside the door and obviously liked what he saw. At forty-three, Manny’s life with women was at its peak; younger women still found him handsome, while older women were drawn to his youthfulness. He had a smile that bespoke confidence and experience, yet his eyes sparkled with the vibrancy of a teenage heartthrob. He wore his jet-black hair straight back, no part, as if he were looking into a windstorm. He turned and faced the man in the eye of a real storm.

  “I didn’t hire you,” said Jack. “Not that I wouldn’t want to. I just can’t afford you.”

  Manny took a seat on the couch. “Sorry for the short notice, but just this morning your father retained me on your behalf.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your father regrets that you have to suffer at his expense.”

  “At his expense?”

  Manny nodded. “You’re going to have one hell of a day, Jack. If you weren’t Harry Swyteck’s son, you wouldn’t be dragged out of your house in cuffs and carted away in a squad car with the lights flashing. You wouldn’t be locked up like a crack dealer pulled off the street and fo
rced to wait in the pen for arraignment. You’d be allowed to surrender yourself and immediately be released on your own recognizance, or at worst for some token signature bond. It’s politics,” Manny explained, “and your father regrets that.”

  “Are you saying that the indictment was politically motivated?”

  “No. But everything after the indictment will be.”

  “Great . . . so I’m going to be dragged through the system by my father’s political enemies.”

  “I’m afraid so, Jack. I called the state attorney to see if they’d just let you come in and surrender quietly. No go. They want a spectacle. They want publicity. Your case is already a political football. Your father recognizes that. And he knows that however your case goes, so goes his election.”

  “Is that the reason you’re here, Manny? To save my father’s election?”

  “All I know is what your father told me, Jack.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes and took a good look at Manny, as if he were searching his face for the truth. “I’m not stupid, Manny. And I know my father. At least I know him well enough to know that this can’t be entirely about politics. And I know you, too. I don’t believe a man like you would get involved in this case if my father didn’t genuinely want to help me. So what gives? Why did the two of you have to come up with this little charade to make it look like the governor is doing it not for me, but for his own political gain? Is he too proud or too afraid to tell the truth? Why the hell doesn’t he just be my father and tell me he wants to help?”

  Manny’s warm eyes seemed to convey more than he was saying. “Maybe that is what he’s telling you, Jack.”

  Jack fell silent. Manny’s answer had him thinking.

  A loud knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. “Open up!” came the order.

  Jack and Manny exchanged glances.

  “So, what do you say, Jack? Shall we dance?”

  Jack took a deep breath, and a thin smile crept onto his face. “Just don’t step on my toes, Cardenal.” Then he opened the door.

  “Police,” said Detective Lonzo Stafford, flashing his badge. Stafford wore his usual blue blazer and an unmistakable smirk. Detective Bradley was at his side. “You’re under arrest,” Stafford announced with relish, “for the murder of Eddy Goss.”

  Jack was stiff but composed as he surveyed the situation. Manny appeared to be right about being put through the wringer. It wasn’t the low-profile, cooperative approach he’d hoped for. They’d driven up in a patrol car rather than Stafford’s unmarked vehicle, and they’d left the lights flashing, a blue swirl of authority in his yard.

  A crowd of nosy neighbors and probing reporters gathered at the end of Jack’s driveway, just off his property. Jack could hear their collective “there he is” when he appeared in the doorway, followed by a barrage of clicking cameras with telephoto lenses.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Jack heard Stafford say, but he wasn’t really listening to the Miranda litany until Stafford said to his partner, “Cuff him, Jamahl.”

  “What?” Jack asked in disbelief.

  “Cuff him,” Stafford repeated with pleasure.

  “Look, Detective. I’m willing to cooperate—”

  “Good,” Stafford cut him off. “Then cuff his hands in front, instead of behind his back.”

  Jack knew better than to resist. He obediently stuck his hands out in front of him, and Bradley quickly clamped the steel cuffs around his wrists.

  “Let’s go for a ride,” said Stafford.

  Jack stepped onto the porch and turned to close the door. He reached with his right hand, the left one following as the chain pulled it along. He froze as he saw Cindy standing in his bathrobe at the end of the hallway, staring at him and his handcuffs with shock and utter fear.

  “Stay by the phone,” he cabled to her, no longer so sure that he’d be coming home that afternoon. She nodded quickly, and he closed the door.

  Stafford took Jack’s left arm and Bradley took his right as they led him down the winding wood-chip path to the squad car. Jack said nothing and looked straight ahead. He tried not to look worried or ashamed or, worst of all, guilty. He knew his neighbors were watching and the reporters had their video cameras running. He hoped to God that Cindy wasn’t looking out the window.

  Manny joined Jack in the backseat and the detectives sat in front. As Detective Bradley steered slowly onto the street, faces and cameras pressed against the car windows, all eager for a peek at the lawyer who’d allegedly killed his client, as if Jack were in the midst of those famous fifteen minutes Andy Warhol had talked about.

  Jack was whisked downtown in a matter of minutes, and the crowds came into view a block from the station. Mobs of reporters filled all three tiers of granite steps in front of the Metro-Justice Building, like so many expectant fans in the grandstands.

  Jack’s gut wrenched. He looked at the crowds, then down at his cuffed hands. “Can’t we lose these?” he asked, holding up the cuffs. “This really is not necessary.”

  “Sorry, counselor,” Stafford said smugly. “No professional courtesy between defense lawyers and cops.”

  Jack tried to show no reaction, since he knew it would only please Stafford to elicit one. But he was angry and more than a little scared.

  “As soon as we’re at the curb,” said Stafford, “we’re outta here. We won’t run, but it won’t be a stroll either. Just stay close behind us. Got that, Swyteck?”

  Jack remained silent.

  “Just shut up and drive,” Manny responded.

  Bradley punched the accelerator, and in a moment they could see the station with its flock of reporters, photographers, and the just plain curious. The car squealed around the final corner, and Bradley slammed on the brakes. “Here we go!” he shouted.

  The detectives popped open the front doors and jumped out of the car, then they threw open Jack’s door and pulled him out. Reporters were all over them before Jack could get both feet on the sidewalk. Manny and Stafford each grabbed an elbow and pushed him into the crowd, but the mob pushed back, turning Jack into a pigskin in a lopsided rugby match.

  “Outta the way!” Stafford shouted, pushing reporters aside and forging ahead toward the crowded steps, taking the accused killer into custody as the flock assaulted them with flailing hands, wires, and microphones.

  “Mr. Swyteck!” someone yelled, “will you represent yourself?”

  More arms, more wires, more microphones. Keep moving, Jack thought, just keep moving.

  “Mr. Swyteck!” they shouted, their voices indistinguishable.

  Jack had never been so aware of putting one foot in front of the other, but forward progress had never been more important.

  “Will the Freedom Institute defend you, Mr. Swyteck?” The reporters’ questions kept coming, but Jack and his escorts inched steadily up the granite steps, past the video cameras that taped their every movement.

  “Gonna craft another insanity defense, Jack, baby?” a photographer taunted, trying to get Jack to look his way.

  Stafford kept them moving forward through the mass of wires, cameras, and bodies. They finally reached the station’s bottlenecked entrance, pried themselves away from the heaving crowd, and disappeared from view through the revolving door.

  Inside, the steady clatter of a busy station house replaced the mob’s raucous din. The station had a thirty-foot ceiling, like a huge bank lobby, but the glass dividers with venetian blinds that sectioned the space into individual offices were only nine feet high, so if seen from the ceiling, the station would have appeared to be a sprawling rat maze. Men and women in dark blue police uniforms whisked by, glancing at Detective Stafford’s latest and biggest catch.

  Jack and Manny knew the routine. This was where the lawyer left his client behind for fingerprinting and snapshots along the booking assembly line. In the front door as a private citizen, out the back door as an accused criminal. They’d meet again in the courtroom for arraignment, when Jack would enter his p
lea.

  “See you at the other end of the chute,” Manny told his client.

  “Let’s go,” Detective Stafford grumbled.

  Manny’s look soured. “And Stafford,” he said, catching him just as he started inside. The detective glared back at him.

  “If you think Jack Swyteck ripped into you on the stand,” Manny warned, “just wait ‘til Jack’s lawyer rips into your hide.”

  Stafford was stoic. He turned and hauled Jack away, satisfied that, for now at least, Jack Swyteck was his.

  Chapter 23

  •

  That same morning, Governor Harold Swyteck stood tall on a raised dais in the courtyard outside the old legislative chambers, a gray two-story building with arches, columns, and striped-canvas window canopies that provided a nostalgic backdrop. The courtyard was his favorite place for press conferences because of its size—large enough to hold everyone who cared to attend, yet small enough to create a crowded, newsworthy feeling. Clusters of red, white, and blue helium balloons decorated surrounding trees and fences. Above it all, a slickly painted banner read FOUR MORE YEARS—a more inspiring message than either LAWYER TURNS KILLER, SON OF THE GUV WAS GOSS’S LOVER, or the other recent headlines that threatened to send the governor plunging in public-opinion polls.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Harry Swyteck said after he finished his answer to the final question. Cameras clicked and reporters jostled for position as he stepped away from the lectern, smiling and waving to one side and then the other, flashing his politician’s smile and pretending to know everyone.

  “One more question, Governor?” came a friendly voice from the crowd.

  He returned the smile, expecting a lob at this stage of the game. “All right.”

  “What about mine?” shouted the one reporter no politician could stomach. It was David Malone, a smooth, good-looking, and notoriously unethical tabloid-television reporter who thrived on scandal. He was the kind of sleazy journalist who, on a slow news night, could take a video camera and microphone into a local tavern and make six drunken loudmouths falling off their bar stools look like the raging nucleus of a community-wide riot on anything from race relations to the Eddy Goss trial. Today, however, Malone didn’t have to reach for controversy. All he needed was a few minutes, one-on-one, with Jack Swyteck’s father. “You afraid of my questions, Governor?”