The Pardon

by James Grippando

  Harry cringed inside. Malone had been pushing toward the front of the crowd since the beginning of the press conference, and the governor had simply ignored him. But he couldn’t just walk away from someone who had publicly called him chicken. “A quick one,” he acquiesced. “What’s your question, Mr. Malone?”

  Malone’s eyes lit up, eager for the opportunity. “Four years ago,” he read from his tattered spiral notepad, “you campaigned on a ‘two-fisted approach’ to law and order. Specifically, you promised to ensure that the death penalty was carried out ‘with vigor,’ I think were your exact words.”

  “Do you have a question?”

  “My question, sir, is this: Do you intend to keep that promise in the next term?”

  “I’ve kept all my campaign promises. And will continue to honor them after I’m re-elected. Thank you.” As he closed he started to move away from the lectern.

  “More specifically,” Malone pressed, raising his voice. “If the jury convicts Jack Swyteck of murder in the first degree, are you going to sign his death warrant?”

  The governor halted in his tracks. His plastic smile faded, and his eyes flared with anger. But Malone waited for an answer. “The answer,” said the governor, “is definitely no.”

  “Why not?”

  The governor glared at his interrogator. “Because Jack is innocent. And I would never execute an innocent man.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I know my son’s not a murderer.”

  “No,” said Malone. “I meant, how do you know that you haven’t already executed an innocent man?”

  The governor glared menacingly at the reporter, but his eye twitched nervously. A sign of weakness, Malone detected.

  “First of all,” said the governor, “most of them admitted they were guilty before—”

  “Not all of them.”

  “No, but—”

  “What about the ones who didn’t confess? What about the ones who went down swinging? What about the guys who swore their innocence to the end?”

  “What about Raul Fernandez?” someone shouted from the rear.

  The governor went cold. That was a name he hadn’t heard since his blackmailer had threatened him—since the death of Eddy Goss. He looked out to see who had asked the question, but the faces in the crowd were indistinguishable.

  “What about Fernandez?” Malone picked up the question. Heads bowed, as legions of reporters scribbled down the name.

  The governor shifted nervously. He was clueless as to who had shouted out Fernandez’s name, but he was suspicious of the way Malone’s line of questioning had prompted the outburst. “I’m sorry. I’m not going to get into individual cases today, no more than I’m going to discuss my son’s individual case. It’s just not appropriate. That’s all for today,” he said as he started toward the exit.

  “Governor!” others called out in unison, wishing for a follow-up. But he’d lost his concentration. There would be no more questions. “Thank you,” he said with a wave as he exited the stage through a side door, into a private room.

  The governor’s aide was there to greet him and to close the door on pursuing press. Harry wiped little beads of sweat from his brow, relieved to have the conference behind him.

  “Went well, I thought,” said Campbell as he handed his boss a cold drink. The governor chugged down the Coca-Cola but didn’t respond. “Except for that little exchange about your son,” Campbell added. “I’m telling you, that son of yours is killing you, Governor. We checked the polls again this morning. You’ve lost another point and—”

  Campbell droned on, but Harry had stopped listening. He glanced out the window, strangely amused by the irony. It seemed that Jack was always being accused of killing someone. His father. His client. And a long time ago, on a day Harold Swyteck would never forget—his own mother. It had been nearly a quarter century since Agnes, in a drunken state, had made the accusation, and then added to the boy’s confusion by suggesting that Harry reckoned his son accountable. Harry’s own role in that ugly interchange had been the worst, however, because he had yet to look Jack in the eye and deny it.

  “Jack isn’t killing anyone,” Harry suddenly objected in a loud voice. Campbell was a bit taken aback. He watched, curious, as the governor seemed to retreat into his thoughts.

  “I killed him,” Harry finally said in a bow voice. “By my silence—a long time ago.”

  Campbell was about to follow up, but the governor quickly changed the subject—to someone he may have really killed. “Who was that reporter who yelled out the name of Raul Fernandez?” he asked, trying not to sound too interested.

  “I don’t know. I sent a security man after him, but he was long gone before anyone really knew what was going on. You want me to follow up on it?”

  “No,” he said, a little too forcefully. The last thing he wanted was someone else poking into this. “It’s not worth the trouble,” he said in a more reasonable tone. Then he stepped toward the window and sighed. “Could you give me a few minutes, please?”

  Campbell nodded. His boss looked like he could use some time alone. “I’ll be in the car,” he said, then left the room.

  Harry lowered himself into a chair. He was still weak in the knees from the pointed Fernandez questions. Could he be back? The chrysanthemums had led him to believe that Goss was the blackmailer. And since he hadn’t heard from the man since Goss’s murder, he had been convinced he was right. But this was too strange for coincidence. It couldn’t have been a heckler or someone making a lucky guess who’d shouted out Fernandez’s name. And Malone’s line of questioning had been deliberate. He trembled at the thought: Not only had his blackmailer returned, but one of Florida’s sleaziest television reporters knew something about it.

  Don’t jump to conclusions, he told himself. Raul Fernandez had been the most controversial execution of his administration. A reporter or a protester didn’t have to know anything to draw a comparison between the execution of the governor’s son and the execution of a man who had proclaimed his innocence to the very end. It wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility that today had been coincidence—that Goss had been the extortionist, and that his extortionist was dead. Then it occurred to him that there was a way to find out for sure if it had been Goss. The first time Harry had been attacked, his assailant had identified himself as the man who confessed to Jack the night of Fernandez’s execution. Surely, Jack would know if that very same man was Goss.

  Now all he had to do was figure out a way to get Jack to tell him.

  Chapter 24

  •

  “State versus Swyteck,” the bailiff finally announced, ending Jack’s ninety-minute wait in the holding cell. The cavernous courtroom came to life as Manuel Cardenal met his client at the prisoner’s side entrance and escorted him across the marble floor to a mahogany podium, where they stood and faced the judge. Clusters of newscasters and curious spectators looked on from the public seating area as Jack passed before them, his head down and eyes forward, the accused murderer of the infamous Eddy Goss. Goss was indeed on Jack’s mind. The entire scene was hauntingly reminiscent of the Goss arraignment, when Jack had accompanied the confessed killer to the very same podium to enter his not-guilty plea. Now, as Jack was about to enter his own plea, it was more plain than ever that a simple “not guilty” was no assertion of innocence. Innocence was a moral judgment—a matter of conscience between mortals and their maker. “Not guilty” was a legalistic play on words, the defendant’s public affirmation that he would stand on his constitutional right to force the prosecutor to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Manuel Cardenal seemed sensitive to that fine distinction when he entered Jack’s plea.

  “My client is more than not guilty,” Manny announced to the judge. “Jack Swyteck is innocent.”

  The pale old judge peered down from the bench over the top of his bifocals, his wrinkled brow furrowed and bushy white eyebrows raised. He didn’t approve of defense lawyers w
ho vouched for the innocence of their clients, but he didn’t make an issue of it. “Register a plea of not guilty,” he directed the clerk. “And Mr. Cardenal,” he said sharply, pointing menacingly with his gavel, “save the speeches for your press conference.”

  Manny just smiled to himself.

  “There’s also the issue of bail, Judge,” came the deep, gravelly voice from across the room. It was Wilson McCue, the state attorney, wearing his traditional three-piece suit. His pudgy face was nearly as round as his rimless spectacles, and a heavy gold chain from his pocket watch stretched across a bulging belly. Jack knew that the aging state attorney rarely even went to trial anymore, so seeing him at a routine matter like an arraignment was a bit like noticing a semiretired general on the front lines. “The govuhment,” McCue continued in his deep drawl, “requests that the court set bail at—”

  “I’m quite familiar with the case,” the judge interrupted, “and I know the defendant. Mr. Swyteck is no stranger to the criminal courtrooms. Bail is set at one hundred thousand dollars. Next case,” he announced with a bang of his gavel.

  McCue’s mouth hung open momentarily, unaccustomed as he was to such abrupt treatment from anyone, including judges.

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” said Manny.

  Jack moved quickly across the courtroom to the clerk, continuing along the assembly line. Thankfully, the politicians hadn’t gotten the judge to deny bail. Now all Jack had to do to get back on the street was pledge his every worldly possession to José Restrepo-Merono, the five-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound Puerto Rican president of “F. Lee Bail-Me, Inc.”—the only bail bondsman ever known to have a sense of humor.

  Jack returned to the holding cell for another hour or so while Manny’s assistant handled the mechanical aspects of posting bail. Late that afternoon he was released, thankful he could spend the night in his own bed. He didn’t have a car, since Stafford had driven him to the station. Manny’s assistant was supposed to swing by and take Jack home, so he wouldn’t have to wait for a taxi while fighting off reporters eager for their shot at eliciting a little quote that might make theirs the breaking story. As it turned out, though, Manny himself showed up at the curb behind the wheel of his Jaguar. The look on his face told Jack he wasn’t just playing chauffeur.

  “Get in,” Manny said solemnly when Jack opened the door.

  Jack slid into the passenger seat, and Manny pulled into the late-afternoon traffic.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you,” said Jack.

  “Your father called me,” Manny replied, as if that were enough to explain his appearance. He looked away from the road, just long enough to read Jack’s face. “He told me about Raul Fernandez. I heard all about your request for a stay that night, and his response.”

  Jack smoldered, but said nothing. Instead, he made a conscious effort to look out the window.

  “Okay,” he said finally, “so now you know the Swyteck family secret. We not only defend the guilty. We execute the innocent.”

  Manny steered around the corner, then pulled into a parking space beneath a shady tree. He wanted to look right at his client as he spoke. “I don’t know everything, Jack. I only know what your father knows about that night. And he’s missing a key piece of information. So we both want to know if there’s more to this case than whether Jack Swyteck killed Eddy Goss. He and I both want a straight answer from you: Did Raul Fernandez die for Eddy Goss?”

  “What?” Jack asked, thoroughly confused.

  “The night before Fernandez was executed, was Eddy Goss the guy who came to you and confessed to the murder? Was Raul Fernandez innocent, and Eddy Goss guilty?”

  “Where did you dream up—” Jack paused, calmed himself down. “Look, Manny, if my father wants to talk, I’ll talk to him. Fernandez is between him and me. This has nothing to do with your defending me for the murder of Eddy Goss.”

  “Wrong, Jack. This could have everything to do with the murder of Eddy Goss. Because it bears directly on your motive to kill—or to ‘execute’—Eddy Goss. You can’t risk letting Wilson McCue flesh out this theory before I do. So answer me, Jack. And I want the truth.”

  Jack looked Manny right in the eye. “The truth, Manny, is that I didn’t kill Eddy Goss. And as far as who it was who came to me the night Fernandez was executed, the honest answer is that I don’t know. The guy never gave me his name. He never even showed me his face. But I do know this much: It was not Eddy Goss. The eyes are different, the build is different, the voice is different. It’s just a different person.”

  Manny took a deep breath and looked away, then gave a quick nod of appreciation. “Thanks, I know this isn’t an easy subject for you. And I’m glad you leveled with me.”

  “Maybe it’s time I leveled with my father, too. I think he and I need to talk.”

  “I’m advising you not to do that, Jack.”

  “It’s kind of a personal decision, don’t you think?”

  “From a legal standpoint, I am strongly advising you not to speak to your father. I don’t want you talking to anyone who might jeopardize your ability to take the witness stand in your own defense. And talking to your father is very risky.”

  “What are you implying?”

  Manny measured his words carefully. “Right after I spoke to your father,” he began, “I had an uneasy feeling. It was just a feeling, but when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you follow your gut. So I went and took another look at the police file.”

  “And?”

  “I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. But I noticed that the police report showed an extraneous footprint, right outside Goss’s apartment. It wasn’t from you, and it wasn’t from Eddy Goss. It was from someone else. Now, that’s a definite plus for us, because it can help us prove that someone else was at the scene of the crime. But what has me concerned is that the footprint is very clear.” He sighed. “It’s from a Wiggins wing tip.”

  Jack’s expression went white. He said nothing, but Manny read the message on his face.

  “How long has your father worn Wiggins wing tips, Jack?”

  “As long as I can remember,” he said with disbelief. “But, you can’t possibly think my father—”

  “I don’t know what to think. There was just something about the urgency in your father’s voice—his curious tone—that concerns me. I don’t know if there’s something he’s not telling me or what. But I do know this: I don’t want my client talking to him. I can’t take the risk that he’ll confess something to you, and then you won’t be able to take the witness stand, for fear you might incriminate your own father. Or, even worse, I don’t want you being evasive on the stand because you’re trying to protect your father. So until I get to the bottom of this, I want you to stay as far away from him as possible. Can I have your word on that?”

  Jack felt sick inside. But he knew Manny was right. A tough judgment call like this one was precisely the reason that lawyers should never represent themselves. He needed someone like Manny to put the personal issues aside and counsel him wisely. “All right,” he said with resignation. “I haven’t spoken to my father in two years. I can wait a little longer. You have my word.”

  Chapter 25

  •

  Jack woke the next morning with the memory of his conversation with Manny still vivid. He ran all sorts of hypotheses through his head but was unable to explain why his father would be involved with Goss. It just didn’t make sense. He needed to find some answers, and he knew they wouldn’t come to him if he sat around the house.

  So, after showering and downing a quick cup of coffee, he threw on a jacket and tie and headed for the police station. He arrived at the document section around ten o’clock and asked the clerk to pull the investigative file on State v. Swyteck. He wanted to see for himself what this business of an “extraneous footprint” was all about.

  Only the police, the prosecutor, the defendant, or the defendant’s attorney can pull the file in a pending murder case, but Jack
had done it so many times as a lawyer with the Freedom Institute that he didn’t even have to show his Florida bar card to the clerk behind the counter. He just signed his name in the registry and filled in his bar number. Out of curiosity, he checked to see who else had been reviewing his file. Detective Stafford and his assistant, of course . . . Manny had been there twice, as recently as yesterday . . . and someone else had been there: Richard Dressler, an attorney.

  He had never heard of any attorney named Richard Dressler, so he checked with the file clerk to see who he was.

  “You putting me on, Mr. Swyteck?” said the young black woman behind the counter. She had large, almond eyes and straightened black hair with an orangey-red streak on one side. Other than Jack, she was the only person in the busy station who wasn’t a cop, and she was the only person he’d ever seen with ten different glittering works of art on two-inch fingernails of curling acrylic. “Richard Dressler’s a lawyer,” she told Jack, looking at him as if he were senile. “Said he was your lawyer.”

  Jack was stunned, but he put on his best poker face. “You know,” he shook his head with a smile, “my head counsel has so many other young lawyers helping him on this case, sometimes I can’t keep track of them. Dressler . . .” Jack baited her, as if he were trying to place the man. “Tall guy—right?”

  She just rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what he looked like,” she said, fussing with a little ornamental rhinestone that had loosened from her thumbnail. “I got five hundred people a day coming through here.”