James Grippando - The Pardon

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. “This just came,” his secretary said as she entered his office, handing him a large, sealed envelope. “I didn’t want to interrupt, but the courier said it relates to your son’s trial.”

“Thank you, Paula.” It was a brown envelope, with no return address. He was immediately suspicious. He waited for her to disappear behind the closed office door, and then he cautiously slit the seal with his letter opener and peered inside. He paused. Photographs-again. He feared it was more of the same horrible photographs his blackmailer had shown him after his carriage ride in the park. But there was only one photo this time. Slowly, he removed the large black-and-white glossy, then froze. He’d never seen the shot before, but the subject was certainly familiar. It was taken on the night of the murder. It was a photo of the governor walking away from Goss’s apartment, after he’d chickened out and decided not to go inside, toting the shoe box full of cash his blackmailer had told him to deliver to apartment 217 at four o’clock in the morning.

His hands shook as he laid the photograph facedown on his desk. Only then did he notice the message on the back. It was a poem-brief, but to the point:

One word to your son,

one word to the cops,

we double the fun,

the other shoe drops.

The governor went rigid in his chair, disgusted by the way he was being manipulated. But he knew exactly what “shoe” would drop. This was one last threat-a solemn promise that if he came forward in defense of his son, the police would shortly come into possession of the wing tips that could connect the governor and his extraneous footprints not only to the murder of Eddy Goss, but to that of Wilfredo Garcia as well. And there was more still: The tape recording of the bribe, the payoff for the victim’s photographs-all of it would bring into public focus that this entire tragedy was rooted in the execution of an innocent man.

The governor held his head in his hands, agonizing. He felt compelled to act, yet at the same time paralyzed. He had to make sure he didn’t play into the hands of the enemy. He had to figure out a way to help his son-without self-destructing.

Jack didn’t want to stay in the empty house after Cindy had left, and he’d lost all appetite for dinner. So he drove to Manny’s office to prepare for the next day of the trial.

The first thing he mentioned to his lawyer was Gina’s glossing over that he’d had a gun that night he came to her apartment. The question was never asked, and so Gina never answered it. Perhaps she’d sensed that saying anything about the gun would be driving the last nail into Jack’s coffin? Maybe that was too much even for Gina.

Manny was as perplexed as Jack. What she had said, though, had been devastating. He wanted a powerful cross-examination of Gina, and by ten o’clock that night, the two lawyers had mapped out an impressive assault. Jack feared, however, that it was the kind of legal warfare that could impress only a lawyer. Manny couldn’t disagree. They both knew the bottom line. Gina had told the truth. And there was only so far a criminal defense lawyer could push a truthful witness on cross-examination before the jury would start to resent the lawyer and his client.

To say the least, Jack wasn’t feeling very optimistic when he got home-until he checked his answering machine.

“Jack,” came the familiar voice. “It’s Gina.”

There was a long pause. He turned up the volume, then stood frozen as he listened.

“I think we should talk,” she said finally. “Face-to-face. Come by tonight, please. I’m sure I’ll be up.”

He took a deep breath. He detected no gloating in her tone. No animosity. No seductiveness. Just honesty.

He picked up the phone, then put it down. If he called her, he was afraid she might change her mind. But if he showed up at her door, he was certain she’d talk to him. He grabbed his car keys and rushed out.

Twenty minutes later, Gina opened her front door. She was dressed in soft slippers and a white bathrobe. Her chestnut hair was wet and a little tangled, as if she’d washed it an hour ago, started combing it out, then lost the energy to finish the job. She wore no makeup, and in the same strange way that her toned-down appearance in the courtroom had made her more attractive, she was even prettier now, Jack thought-except for one thing. She looked sad. Very sad.

“Come on in,” she said in a subdued voice.

“Thanks.” He stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him.

“Something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“A Jagermeister, maybe?” A smile briefly bloomed on her face, then withered. She crossed the room to a hammock-style chair, sat down, and brought her knees up to her chin. She kept her back to Jack as she enjoyed the balmy breezes that rolled in through the open sliding-glass doors.

Jack took a seat on the couch, on the other side of the cocktail table. They said nothing until Gina turned her head and looked at him plaintively.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said. “But what happened with Cindy?”

He hesitated. For a second he felt as if she were intruding. But this wasn’t just idle curiosity. She really seemed to care.

“She packed up and left.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. Then she rolled back her head, closed her eyes, and sniffled. “I don’t know why I do the idiotic things I do,” her voice cracked. “I really don’t.”

Jack moved to the edge of his seat. The last thing he’d expected tonight was to be consoling Gina. But he found himself doing it. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

She shook her head and suddenly snapped out of her malaise. “Mistakes? Do you have any idea how many mistakes I’ve made? You don’t know me, Jack. Nobody knows me. Not even Cindy. Everyone thinks that a great body has gotten me anything I’ve ever wanted in life. And it did, for a while. When I was sixteen years old, I made over a hundred grand modeling for the Ford Agency. But then the next year I gained twenty pounds and was all washed up-out of work. A real wake-up call, that was. ‘Use it while you got it’ is what I learned. But then I learned something else: The more you use it, the more you get used. And believe me, there’s no shortage of users out there.”

He nodded slowly.

“Anyway,” her voice quivered. “That’s why I called you. I’m through being used. I’m through feeling like shit even when I try to do the right thing. Like today. All I did was tell the truth on the witness stand. Yet I feel like I’ve done something wrong.”

“You didn’t mention the gun. I wondered about that.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s because they were licking their chops too much over everything else I told them. I didn’t feel like volunteering it, you know?”

“But why volunteer anything? I’m confused.”

“Welcome to the club,” she said, running her hands through her hair. “They want you to play the game, but they don’t tell you the rules.”

Jack was confused. “What game?”

She started to speak, then stopped. Finally she said, “The whole charade that landed me in that courtroom- that’s the game. I’ve been playing it ever since you asked me to be your alibi. Everything I did and said was designed to make you think that I didn’t want to get involved-or that if I did get involved, it would be to help you, and not to hurt you. The whole idea was to make sure you’d be totally shocked when I took the stand and testified against you. That was part of my deal.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Your deal with who?”