James Grippando - The Pardon

“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.

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.”

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?”