The Pardon js-1

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The Pardon js-1 Page 8

by James Grippando


  Agnes slowly raised her aching head to see Jack standing in the doorway.

  He brandished the crucifix from across the room. “See,” he said smartly, “my mother’s in heaven. You’re a liar!”

  “Come here, Jack.”

  He froze.

  “Come here!” she shouted.

  He swallowed hard, took one timid step back, then turned and ran. “Jack!” she shouted as he scampered down the hall.

  He darted into his parents’ room, pulled open the drawer to the highboy, and tried to stuff the crucifix back into the box. But Agnes grabbed his arm before he could close the box. “What is that?” she demanded.

  He stared up at her with fright in his eyes. She saw the initials on the box, and her face was flush with anger. He cringed, waiting for the blow to fall, but when he looked at her again, she seemed lost in thought. “Go to your room,” she said distractedly. Once he’d stepped into the hallway, she pulled the door shut. .

  The sound of screeching tires jarred Jack back into the present. He went to the window and parted the curtain. The heavy foliage in the front yard obscured his view of the street, but he thought he saw some movement in the lengthening shadows by the side of the garage.

  He got up from the sofa and went to the front door. Outside, the wind was picking up, whipping the palm fronds against the house. He looked around but saw nothing. Slowly, he began walking toward the garage. He felt apprehensive, unsettled. That incident the other day as he was leaving work. . Agnes’s call. . and now the sound of a car peeling out. .

  He walked along the side of the garage, then in back, squinting in the half-light. Nothing. He doubled around to the front, and that’s when he saw Thursday. The dog was struggling to get on all fours, but his legs buckled and he fell on his side.

  “Thursday!” Jack rushed to him and cradled his head, then quickly ran his hand along the dog’s body to check for wounds. The dog whimpered softly at his master’s touch. Red foam was coming from his mouth.

  Jack looked around, panicky. No car. Shit. Then he remembered. Jeff Zebert, four doors down, was a vet. “Hold on, boy,” Jack said. He gathered him up and started running.

  Less than thirty seconds later, he was striding up the Zeberts’ walkway. Jeff was in the front yard, watering his shrubs. “I’ve got an emergency here!” Jack called out breathlessly. “It’s Thursday,” he said. “I think he got into something, poisoned himself.”

  Jeff dropped the hose. “Do you know what it might have been?”

  “Could be anything-here, take a look,” Jack said, holding his pet out for the doctor’s examination.

  The vet glanced quickly at the dog, then instructed Jack to put him on the picnic table. He ran into the house. When he returned, he washed some solution down Thursday’s throat with the hose.

  “C’mon, boy,” Jack said desperately. Thursday lifted his head a few inches, reacting to Jack’s voice. He finally managed to bring something up, but it looked mostly like blood. Jeff tried the hose again, but got no reaction. The animal’s paws had stopped shaking. Suddenly, his whimpering stopped and his chest stilled. There was only the sound of running water. Jack looked at the vet.

  “I’m sorry, Jack.”

  Jack couldn’t speak, just looked away. Jeff gave him a moment, then touched him on the shoulder. “There’s nothing we could have done.”

  “I shouldn’t have left him running around alone. I should have-”

  “Jack, really. Don’t blame yourself. I don’t think it was some poison he just happened to come in contact with. Looks like somebody fed him about a pound of raw hamburger-with two pounds of glass mixed in. Poor guy about swallowed it whole.”

  “What-” Jack said, disbelieving. Then it began to click into place. “That sick bastard.”

  “Who?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. I. . I just can’t believe it that someone would do this.”

  “Listen,” Jeff said, “Why don’t you leave him with me. I’ll bring him in tomorrow morning and take care of it.”

  Jack nodded reluctantly. “Thanks.” He stared down at Thursday, gave him a last pat on the head, and headed for home. As he walked the gravel path between the two houses, trying to maintain his self-control, it seemed like his whole life was spiraling downward-that he’d entered a dark tunnel and completely lost his bearings. He wondered when-or if-it would end.

  He’d been in the house only a few minutes when the phone rang. He was seized with cold fury as he recalled how he’d nearly been run over outside the Freedom Institute, and then gotten a call a few seconds later. He snatched up the phone.

  “Listen, you son of a bitch-”

  “Jack, it’s Jeff,” said the vet.

  Jack swallowed back his anger. “Sorry. I thought-”

  “No problem. I just wanted you to know. After you left, I took a closer look at that stuff Thursday expelled from his stomach. There’s not just glass in the meat. There’s seeds too. Some kind of flower seeds, it looks like. I don’t know if they’re poisonous or not, but it was still the glass that killed your dog. I just thought I should mention it.”

  Jack nodded with comprehension. But he didn’t share his thoughts with the vet. “Thanks, Jeff. Maybe it’ll help me get a lead on the guy. I’ll let you know if I turn up anything.”

  He hung up the phone. The seeds gave him a lead all right. In fact, they pointed right at Eddy Goss. Jack’s most notorious client had explained the meaning of the seeds in Jack’s very first in-depth consultation with him. The two of them had been locked alone in a dimly lit, high-security conference room at the county jail, about twelve hours after Goss had confessed on videotape to Detective Lonzo Stafford. Jack had sat passively on one side of the table listening, as his client doted on the details of his crime. Now some of those details-the ones that had earned Goss the nickname “Chrysanthemum Killer”-were coming back.

  “Did they find the seed?” Goss asked his lawyer.

  Jack lifted his eyes from his yellow notepad, pen in hand, and looked across the table at his client. “The medical examiner found it. It was shoved somewhere beyond her vagina.”

  Goss sat back in his chair and folded his arms smugly, obviously pleased. “It’s a chrysanthemum seed, you know.” He arched his eyebrows, as if his lawyer was supposed to see the hidden significance.

  Jack just shrugged.

  Goss seemed annoyed, almost angry that Jack didn’t appreciate his point. “Don’t you get it?” Goss asked impatiently.

  “No,” Jack said with a sigh. “I don’t get it.” Sigmund Freud wouldn’t get you, buddy.

  Goss leaned forward, eager to explain. “Chrysanthemums are the coolest flower in the world, man.”

  “They remind me of funerals,” Jack said.

  “Right,” Goss answered, pleased that Jack was following along. “Nature designed them for funerals. Because funerals are dark, like death. And chrysanthemums love that.”

  Jack flashed a curious but cautious expression. “What are you talking about?”

  Goss warmed to the topic. “The chrysanthemum seed is just really unique. Most flowers bloom when it’s warm outside. They love summer and sunshine. But chrysanthemums are different. You plant the seed in the summer, when the ground is nice and warm, but it doesn’t do anything. It just sits there. The seed doesn’t even start to grow until summer’s almost over, when the days get shorter and the nights get cooler. And the cooler and darker it gets, the more the seeds like it. Then, in November-when everything around it’s dying, when the ground is getting cold, when the nights are long and the days are cloudy-that’s when the big flower pops out.”

  “So,” Jack said warily, “you planted your seed.”

  “In a warm, dark place,” Goss explained. “And that place is going to grow darker and colder every day from now on-until it’s the perfect place for my seed to grow.”

  Jack stared at Goss in stone-faced silence, then scribbled the words “possible insanity defense” on his pad “How did you learn so m
uch about flowers, Eddy?”

  Goss averted his eyes. “When I was a kid in Jersey, the was this man in the neighborhood who had a greenhouse. He grew everything in there,” he said with a sly smile. “Me and him used to smoke some of it, too.”

  “How did you learn about planting the seed? How did you get this idea about planting seeds in a warm, dark place?”

  Goss’s mouth drew tight. “I don’t remember.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten or eleven,” he said with a shrug.

  “And how old was the man?”

  “Old. . not real old.”

  Jack leaned forward and spoke firmly, but with understanding. “What did you used to do in there, Eddy? With that man?”

  Goss’s eyes flared, and his hands started to shake. “I said I don’t remember. Something wrong with your ear, man?”

  “No, I just want you to try to remember-”

  “Just get the fuck outta here!” Goss shouted. “Meeting’s over. I got nothing more to say.”

  “Just take it easy-”

  “I said, get your ass outta here!”

  Jack nodded, then packed up his bag and rose from his chair. “We’ll talk again.” He turned and stepped toward the locked metal security door.

  “Hey,” Goss called out.

  Jack stopped and looked back at him.

  “You’re gonna get me out of here, aren’t you?”

  “I’m going to represent you,” Jack said.

  Goss narrowed his eyes. “You have to get me outta here.” He leaned forward in his chair to press his point. “You have to. I have a lot more seeds to sow.”

  As Jack stood in his living room recalling that conversation, the memory still gave him a chill. He sighed, shook his head. If the situation wasn’t so serious, he’d laugh at the irony. He’d secured a psychopath’s acquittal, only to find himself the man’s next target.

  But was he really Goss’s target? Of his rancor, maybe. But Jack found it hard to believe that Goss would actually do him physical harm. He seemed more comfortable confronting overmatched women and small animals.

  He had more than enough to get a restraining order against Goss, if he wanted one. But he wasn’t sure that was the answer. The legal system had failed once before to stop Eddy Goss-thanks to him.

  So it was up to Jack to find something that would work, once and for all.

  It was just after 11:00 p.m.-bedtime at the governor’s mansion. Harry Swyteck was in his pajamas, sitting up in bed against the brass headboard, reading a recent Florida Trend magazine article about acquitted killer Eddy Goss. Toward the end of the story, his irritation ripened into anger as the writer delivered a fusillade of criticism against Goss’s “argue-anything” lawyer, Jack Swyteck. “They call this balanced journalism?” the governor muttered as he threw down the magazine.

  A few seconds later, Agnes emerged from the bathroom in her robe and slippers. She stopped at the table by the window and tended to a bouquet of flowers, her back to her husband.

  “Thank you for the flowers, Harry,” she said, her body blocking his view of the bouquet.

  “Huh,” said the governor, looking over. He hadn’t sent any flowers. Today wasn’t a birthday, anniversary, or any other occasion he could think of that called for flowers. But it wasn’t inconceivable that in all the campaign commotion he’d forgotten a special day and one of his staff had covered for him. So he just played along. “Oh,” he replied, “you’re welcome, dear. I hope you like them.”

  “It’s nice to get things for no reason,” she said with a sparkle in her eye. “It was so spontaneous of you.” Her mouth curled suggestively. Then she stepped away from the table, revealing the bouquet, and the governor went white.

  “Keep the bed warm,” she said as she disappeared into her walk-in closet, but the governor wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the bouquet of big white, pink, and yellow chrysanthemums perched on the table. He rose from the bed and stepped toward the bouquet. The card was still in the holder. Harry’s hand trembled as he opened the envelope. It suddenly seemed so obvious: the disguised voice, the threats, the photographs of a gruesome murder, and now the flowers. His mind raced, making a logical link between the “Chrysanthemum Killer,” whose weird pathology had been mentioned in the article he’d just been reading, and the blackmailer.

  He read the message. Instantly, he knew it was intended for him, not his wife. “You and me forever,” it read, “till death do us part.”

  “Eddy Goss,” the governor muttered softly to himself, his voice cracking with fear. I’m being blackmailed by a psychopath.

  Chapter 13

  The following morning, Monday, Jack picked up his Mustang from the garage and went to A amp;G Alarm Company, where he arranged to have a security system immediately installed in his house. By noon he had new locks on the doors and was thinking about escape plans. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe that Goss would try to kill him, but it would be foolish not to take precautions. He imagined the worst-case scenarios-an attack in the middle of the night or an ambush in the parking lot-and planned in advance how he would respond. And he called the telephone company. In two days he’d have a new, unlisted phone number.

  But there was one basic precaution he decided not to take. He didn’t call the police because he still felt the cops would do little to protect Eddy Goss’s lawyer. Besides, he had another idea. That afternoon he bought ammunition for his gun.

  It wasn’t actually his gun. He’d inherited a.38-caliber pistol from Donna Boyd, an old flame at Yale. Most people didn’t know it, but crime was a problem in certain areas of New Haven where many students lived off campus. After Jack’s neighbor had been robbed, Donna had refused to sleep over anymore unless Jack kept her gun in the nightstand. Even for an independent-minded Yale coed, she was a bit unconventional. He agreed but took the precaution of signing up for a few shooting lessons at the local range. He didn’t want to make a mistake they’d both regret.

  As it turned out, the gun stayed in his drawer until after graduation, when he was packing for Miami. By that point, he and Donna had broken up and she’d been bitter enough to leave town without stopping by to pick up her things. A mutual friend said she’d gone to Europe. So Jack had just packed the gun away with her racquet-ball racket and Elvis Costello CD and forgotten about it until now.

  Suddenly, he had a use for the gun that had lain in his footlocker for the last six years, last registered in Connecticut, in the name of Donna Boyd.

  Jack had never considered violence an answer to anything. But this was something altogether different. This was truly self-defense. Or was it? Deep down, he wondered if he actually hoped Goss would break into his house. As he sat back in the sofa in his living room with the ammunition he’d just purchased, he thought hard about his real motivation for not calling the cops. But the possibility that he was subconsciously looking for a showdown with Goss was ridiculous. Goss was the killer. Not him.

  The phone rang. Jack muted the nine o’clock Movie of the Week on TV and snatched it up.

  “Have you checked your mail, Jack?” came the familiar voice.

  He hesitated. He knew that stalkers thrived on contact and that any “expert” would have told him just to hang up. But he was nearly certain he knew who it was, and if he could just get him to speak in his normal voice, he’d have confirmation. “This is not clever, Goss,” Jack goaded. “Knock off the funny voice. I know it’s you.”

  A condescending snicker came over the phone, then a pause-followed by a decided change in tone. “You don’t know shit, Swyteck. So just shut up, and check your mail. Now.”

  Jack blinked hard, frightened by how easily he’d set off the man’s temper. “Why?”

  “Just check it,” the caller ordered. “And take the phone with you. I’ll tell you what to look for.”

  Jack wondered whether it was wise to play along, but he was determined to get to the bottom of this. “All right,” he answered, then headed down
the hall with his portable phone pressed to his ear. He looked through the window before stepping outside but saw nothing. He opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. “Okay,” he said into the phone. “I’m at the box.”

  “Look inside,” the caller ordered.

  Cautiously, Jack reached for the lid on the mailbox beside the door. He extended one finger, pried under the lid, and quickly popped it open, jerking his hand back as if he’d just touched molten lava.

  “Do you see it, Swyteck?”

  Jack stood on his toes and peered inside from a distance, fearful that he was about to see bloody gym shorts or torn panties or some other evidence of Goss’s latest handiwork. “There’s an envelope,” he said, seeing nothing else inside.

  “Open it,” said the caller.

  Jack carefully took the envelope from the box. It was plain white. No return address. No addressee. It had been hand-delivered, which meant the stalker had been on his porch-an unsettling thought. He unfolded the flap and tentatively removed the contents. “What is this?”

  “What’s it look like?”

  He studied the page. “A map.” A route had been high-lighted by yellow felt-tip pen.

  “Follow it-if you want to know who the killer on the loose is. You do want to know, don’t you, Swyteck?”

  “I already know it’s you, Goss. This is a map to your apartment.”

  “It’s a map to the killer on the loose. Be there. Meet him at four-thirty A.M. tonight. And no cops. Or you’ll be very sorry.”

  Jack bristled at the sound of the dial tone, then switched off the portable phone. At first it didn’t even occur to him to actually go to Goss’s apartment. But if Goss were going to kill him, would he do it in his own apartment? Would he invite Jack over and give him directions to the scene of the crime? No, he must be up to something else, and Jack’s curiosity was piqued.

  But it was more than just curiosity. He was thinking of the night two years ago when he’d refused to give his father enough “privileged” information to stop Raul Fernandez’s execution. His rigidity had resulted in Raul’s death, and he was determined not to make the same mistake again. In dealing with a confessed killer who was continuing his evil ways, he had to be more flexible with privileged information.

 

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