The Pardon

stuff, but I suppose it’ll come in handy one of these days when I find a new job.”

Mike looked down at the stack of legal volumes poking out of the biggest carton. “Yeah,” he said, “McDonald’s crew chiefs find frequent reason to cite legal precedent.”

“I’ll remember that, Mannon, next time some collection agency’s breathing down your deadbeat neck.” Jack smiled bitterly. “Hell, what am I saying. I’ll probably be the guy breathing down your neck. That’s about the extent of my options in this town until this Goss thing blows over.”

“Ah, don’t sell yourself short, old boy. One of those big law firms can always use an unscrupulous man like you.”

Jack gave a short laugh, then turned serious. “Sure you can’t hang out for a while?”

“Nah, got to get back to the shop. It takes Lenny about two and a half hours to create a major crisis.” He looked at his watch. “One should be brewing about now.”

“Okay, then,” Jack said, following him out the door. He looked down to see Thursday wriggling through his legs with a bookend in his mouth. “Hey, give me that,” Jack said, reaching down and patting his head. He called out after Mike, who was walking down the wood-chip path. “Thanks for the help.”

“No problem,” Mike said, turning around. He gave a short wave as Thursday bounded after him and nipped at his heels. In a few seconds the car had pulled away from the curb, and Jack was left alone with his thoughts.

He closed the door and headed to the living room. The sofa felt good as he fell back onto it and propped his feet on the hassock. He looked around. Emptiness-a lot of emptiness. Sitting there, it seemed as if he were the only occupant of a grand hotel. Why had he ever bought such a huge house? Cindy once told him that as a girl she’d dreamed of living in a mansion. Sharing a small apartment with her parents and three brothers probably had something to do with it.

There he went again. Thinking of her. Ever since yesterday morning, when he’d made such an ass of himself and insisted she leave, he couldn’t get her out of is mind. For perhaps the thousandth time since watching her go, he marveled at his stupidity. Deep down, he’d been worried that her relationship with Chet might be starting up again, and what did he do but drive her into his arms.

Brilliant move, Swyteck. Jack was tempted to call her, plead for forgiveness, but some inner voice told him he needed to get his life together-that he was too much at loose ends these days. For now, he stalled.

He had been reduced to counting the motes of dust that swirled in a shaft of sunlight when the phone rang. Cindy, maybe? His face darkened as he considered that it could be the guy who was hassling him. He decided to let the machine pick up.

“Jack,” came a woman’s voice. But it wasn’t Cindy. “This is your-” she began, then stopped. “This is Agnes.”

He felt a rush of emotion, of which most was confusion. He hadn’t heard Agnes’s voice since law school. She sounded worried, but he resisted the urge to pick up.

“I can’t be specific, Jack, but there’s something going on in your father’s life right now that I think you should know about. He’s not sick-I mean, your father is definitely healthy. I don’t mean to worry you about that. But please call him. And don’t tell him I asked you to do it. It’s important.”

He sat upright, not sure of what to make of the message. He couldn’t remember the last time his stepmother had phoned him, but her voice had temporarily taken his mind off Cindy. He had caught the slip at the beginning of the message-Agnes’s almost saying the words “your mother.” Brooding on that phrase, he felt himself drifting back, to when he was five years old. .

“Your mother isn’t dead, she just didn’t want you!”

“You’re a liar!” Jack screamed as he ran from the family room, leaving his stepmother alone with her gin martini. Tears streamed down his face as he reached his room, slammed the door, and dove into the bed. He knew his real mother was dead. Agnes had to be lying when he said his real mother didn’t want him. He buried his face in the pillow and cried. After a minute or two he rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. He was thinking about how he could prove to Agnes that she was wrong. At the age of five, he was planning his first case.

He rolled off the bed and went to the door. He peered out and heard the television in the family room. It was less than fifteen feet to his parents’ room. As he approached the closed white door, he looked over his shoulder. There’d be big trouble if he were caught. But he went in anyway.

At the far corner of the room, he pulled out the bottom drawer of the Queen Anne highboy. It was his father’s drawer. Jack had first rummaged through it two months earlier, searching for some after-shave he could slap on his face after having “borrowed” his father’s electric razor. He hadn’t found the after-shave. But tucked beneath the T- shirts and underwear, he had found a box. It was a jewelry box, burl maple with fancy, engraved silver initials that Jack couldn’t read. The initials were his mother’s. His real mother’s.

As he had that day two months earlier, he lifted the box and opened it. Quickly, he lifted out the top tray of jewelry to reveal the compartment below. There it was. A heavy brass crucifix, concave on the back, the way cookie dough curved when it stuck to the rolling pin, he thought, only not as much. The first time he’d seen the crucifix, the concave back had completely perplexed him. He’d never seen one like that. So, after swearing his grandmother to secrecy, he’d told her about his discovery, and she’d explained the strange shape. It was the crucifix that had lain flat atop the rounded lid of his mother’s coffin. His mother was dead, and this was the proof.

He removed the crucifix and put the jewelry box back in the drawer. Squeezing his physical evidence tightly, he left the bedroom and walked determinedly down the hall.

He saw his stepmother on the couch. “You’re a liar!” he called out.

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?”