James Grippando - The Pardon

Cindy was confused. How could anything she had to say help Jack’s case?

“I was about to go over there.” She looked at her watch. “I can be there by ten-twenty-will that be in time?”

“Yes, I believe so,” the woman said, “but please hurry.”

Once Cindy heard the click on the other end, she sprung into action. She picked up her bag and rushed out of the office to the parking lot. The tires of her Pontiac Sunbird squealed as she accelerated out of the lot. She weaved in and out of traffic as she raced toward Frontage Road-the quickest route to the courthouse.

Ordinarily, Cindy was no speedster, but now was the time to see just how fast her Pontiac could go. She jammed down the accelerator and squeezed the steering wheel tightly, glancing intermittently at the speedometer as it pushed its way toward uncharted territory, past eighty-five miles per hour. The road was nearly deserted, and she was covering the distance in record time until she rounded a wide turn and suddenly the engine started to sputter. She was quickly losing speed.

“Come on, ” she urged as she pumped the accelerator. The car lunged forward a little, but the engine just gasped, then died. She coasted to a stop and steered off the road to the gravel shoulder. She pressed the pedal to the floor and turned the key. The ignition whined, but the engine wouldn’t fire. She tried again. Same response.

“Not now,” she groaned, as if she could reason with the vehicle. She didn’t see a single car on the road, and she suddenly wished she had a car phone. She glanced in her side-view mirror and gave a start as she was suddenly staring into the face of a stranger.

“Can I help you, miss?” he said-loud enough to be heard through her window.

Cindy hesitated. The man’s voice sounded pleasant enough, but the way he’d suddenly appeared out of nowhere seemed strange. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw an old gray van parked a short distance down the road. She looked at the man but couldn’t read his expression, since most of his face was covered by the brim of his baseball cap and big dark sunglasses. Then she remembered: Jack needs me. She cracked the window half an inch. “My car-”

“Has sugar in the carburetor,” he finished for her.

Cindy gulped. “I need-”

“To get to the courthouse,” he interrupted again.

Her eyes widened with fear, but before she could react, the window suddenly exploded, and she was covered in a shower of glass pellets. She screamed and pounded the horn, but her cries for help quickly turned to desperate gasps for air as the hand of a very strong man came through the open window and wrapped tightly around her throat.

“Ja-ack!” her strangled voice cried.

“It ain’t Jack, baby,” came the snide reply. Then he reached for his sheath and showed her the sharp steel blade that had grown very cold since it had been used on Gina Terisi.

Jack had wanted to see his father before returning to the courtroom on Friday morning, but Manny insisted that father and son have absolutely no communication until the trial was over. Since McCue had reserved the right to call rebuttal witnesses, the possibility remained that he’d recall the governor, and anything Jack and his father discussed would be fair game for cross-examination.

As it turned out, McCue called no further witnesses, and closing arguments were finished by one o’clock. Manny was brilliant, expanding on the speech he’d delivered during the governor’s testimony. He reminded the jurors that the law did not require Jack to prove he was innocent-that it was the government’s heavy burden to prove him guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

McCue did the best he could, then retreated to his office. Jack and Manny waited in the attorneys’ lounge, down the hall from Judge Tate’s courtroom. At five-fifteen, the courtroom deputy stuck her head into the lounge and gave them the news.

“The jury has reached a verdict,” she told them.

In a split second they were out the door, walking side-by-side as quickly as they could without breaking into a dead run down the hall and into the courtroom. The news of a verdict had traveled fast, and the expectant crowd filed in behind them. Wilson McCue was already in position. Manny and Jack took their places at the defense table. Jack glanced behind him, toward the public seating. Ten rows back, Neil Goderich gave him a reassuring wink. On the opposite side of the aisle, Mike Mannon looked worried but gave him a thumbs up. Cindy, Jack realized with a pang, wasn’t in the courtroom. Not even the flowers had worked.

“All rise!” cried the bailiff.

Judge Tate proceeded to the bench, but Jack gave her only a passing glance. He was focused on the twelve jurors who were taking their seats for the final time. He was trying to remember those indicators jury psychologists relied on to predict verdicts. Who had they selected as foreman? Did they look at the defendant, or at the prosecutor? At that moment, however, he couldn’t think clearly enough to apply any of those tests. He was consumed by the feeling of being on trial-of having twelve strangers hold his life in their hands.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” Judge Tate asked.

“We have,” responded the foreman.

‘Please give it to the clerk.”

The written verdict was passed from the foreman to the clerk, then from the clerk to the judge. The judge inspected it, then returned it to the clerk for public disclosure. The ritual seemed to pull everyone to the edge of his seat. Yet the courtroom was so deathly quiet that Jack could hear the fluorescent lights humming thirty feet overhead.

This is it, he thought. Life or death. He struggled to bring his emotions under control. Everything had seemed so encouraging moments ago, when he and Manny had assessed his chances. But odds were deceiving. Like a year ago, when Cindy’s mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. They’d all taken comfort in the doctor’s assurance that her chances of survival were 80 percent. Those odds sounded pretty good until Jack had started thinking of the last hundred people he’d laid eyes on-and then imagined twenty of them dead.

“The defendant shall rise,” announced the judge.

Jack glanced at Manny as they rose in unison. He clenched his fists tightly in anticipation.

“In the matter of State versus Swyteck, on the charge of murder in the first degree,” the clerk read from the verdict form, “we, the jury, find the defendant: not guilty.”

A roar filled the courtroom. On impulse, Jack turned and embraced Manny. Never had he hugged a man so tightly-not even his father. But had the governor been there, Jack would have cracked his ribs.

“Order!” said the judge, postponing the celebration. The rumble in the courtroom quieted. Manny and Jack returned to their seats, smiling apologetically.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” the judge intoned, “thank you for your service. You are discharged. A judgment of acquittal shall be entered. Mr. Swyteck,” she said, peering over the bench, “you are free to go. This court is adjourned,” she declared, ending it all with one last crack of the gavel.

Happy cries of congratulation flew across the courtroom. Neil and Mike and the other friends who’d never stopped believing hurried forward and leaned across the rail that separated players from spectators, slapping Jack’s back and shaking the hand of an innocent man. Jack was elated but dazed. He canvassed the buzzing crowd, still hoping for a glimpse of Cindy. Then he thought of the other person who was missing.

“Where’s my father?” Jack asked Manny. His voice was barely audible in the thundering commotion of the crowded courtroom.