James Grippando - The Pardon

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 plea.

“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.

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.