The Pardon

He had more than enough to get a restraining order against Goss, if he wanted one. But he wasn’t sure that was the answer. The legal system had failed once before to stop Eddy Goss-thanks to him.

So it was up to Jack to find something that would work, once and for all.

It was just after 11:00 p.m.-bedtime at the governor’s mansion. Harry Swyteck was in his pajamas, sitting up in bed against the brass headboard, reading a recent Florida Trend magazine article about acquitted killer Eddy Goss. Toward the end of the story, his irritation ripened into anger as the writer delivered a fusillade of criticism against Goss’s “argue-anything” lawyer, Jack Swyteck. “They call this balanced journalism?” the governor muttered as he threw down the magazine.

A few seconds later, Agnes emerged from the bathroom in her robe and slippers. She stopped at the table by the window and tended to a bouquet of flowers, her back to her husband.

“Thank you for the flowers, Harry,” she said, her body blocking his view of the bouquet.

“Huh,” said the governor, looking over. He hadn’t sent any flowers. Today wasn’t a birthday, anniversary, or any other occasion he could think of that called for flowers. But it wasn’t inconceivable that in all the campaign commotion he’d forgotten a special day and one of his staff had covered for him. So he just played along. “Oh,” he replied, “you’re welcome, dear. I hope you like them.”

“It’s nice to get things for no reason,” she said with a sparkle in her eye. “It was so spontaneous of you.” Her mouth curled suggestively. Then she stepped away from the table, revealing the bouquet, and the governor went white.

“Keep the bed warm,” she said as she disappeared into her walk-in closet, but the governor wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the bouquet of big white, pink, and yellow chrysanthemums perched on the table. He rose from the bed and stepped toward the bouquet. The card was still in the holder. Harry’s hand trembled as he opened the envelope. It suddenly seemed so obvious: the disguised voice, the threats, the photographs of a gruesome murder, and now the flowers. His mind raced, making a logical link between the “Chrysanthemum Killer,” whose weird pathology had been mentioned in the article he’d just been reading, and the blackmailer.

He read the message. Instantly, he knew it was intended for him, not his wife. “You and me forever,” it read, “till death do us part.”

“Eddy Goss,” the governor muttered softly to himself, his voice cracking with fear. I’m being blackmailed by a psychopath.

Chapter 13

The following morning, Monday, Jack picked up his Mustang from the garage and went to A amp;G Alarm Company, where he arranged to have a security system immediately installed in his house. By noon he had new locks on the doors and was thinking about escape plans. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe that Goss would try to kill him, but it would be foolish not to take precautions. He imagined the worst-case scenarios-an attack in the middle of the night or an ambush in the parking lot-and planned in advance how he would respond. And he called the telephone company. In two days he’d have a new, unlisted phone number.

But there was one basic precaution he decided not to take. He didn’t call the police because he still felt the cops would do little to protect Eddy Goss’s lawyer. Besides, he had another idea. That afternoon he bought ammunition for his gun.

It wasn’t actually his gun. He’d inherited a.38-caliber pistol from Donna Boyd, an old flame at Yale. Most people didn’t know it, but crime was a problem in certain areas of New Haven where many students lived off campus. After Jack’s neighbor had been robbed, Donna had refused to sleep over anymore unless Jack kept her gun in the nightstand. Even for an independent-minded Yale coed, she was a bit unconventional. He agreed but took the precaution of signing up for a few shooting lessons at the local range. He didn’t want to make a mistake they’d both regret.

As it turned out, the gun stayed in his drawer until after graduation, when he was packing for Miami. By that point, he and Donna had broken up and she’d been bitter enough to leave town without stopping by to pick up her things. A mutual friend said she’d gone to Europe. So Jack had just packed the gun away with her racquet-ball racket and Elvis Costello CD and forgotten about it until now.

Suddenly, he had a use for the gun that had lain in his footlocker for the last six years, last registered in Connecticut, in the name of Donna Boyd.

Jack had never considered violence an answer to anything. But this was something altogether different. This was truly self-defense. Or was it? Deep down, he wondered if he actually hoped Goss would break into his house. As he sat back in the sofa in his living room with the ammunition he’d just purchased, he thought hard about his real motivation for not calling the cops. But the possibility that he was subconsciously looking for a showdown with Goss was ridiculous. Goss was the killer. Not him.

The phone rang. Jack muted the nine o’clock Movie of the Week on TV and snatched it up.

“Have you checked your mail, Jack?” came the familiar voice.

He hesitated. He knew that stalkers thrived on contact and that any “expert” would have told him just to hang up. But he was nearly certain he knew who it was, and if he could just get him to speak in his normal voice, he’d have confirmation. “This is not clever, Goss,” Jack goaded. “Knock off the funny voice. I know it’s you.”

A condescending snicker came over the phone, then a pause-followed by a decided change in tone. “You don’t know shit, Swyteck. So just shut up, and check your mail. Now.”

Jack blinked hard, frightened by how easily he’d set off the man’s temper. “Why?”

“Just check it,” the caller ordered. “And take the phone with you. I’ll tell you what to look for.”

Jack wondered whether it was wise to play along, but he was determined to get to the bottom of this. “All right,” he answered, then headed down the hall with his portable phone pressed to his ear. He looked through the window before stepping outside but saw nothing. He opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. “Okay,” he said into the phone. “I’m at the box.”

“Look inside,” the caller ordered.

Cautiously, Jack reached for the lid on the mailbox beside the door. He extended one finger, pried under the lid, and quickly popped it open, jerking his hand back as if he’d just touched molten lava.

“Do you see it, Swyteck?”

Jack stood on his toes and peered inside from a distance, fearful that he was about to see bloody gym shorts or torn panties or some other evidence of Goss’s latest handiwork. “There’s an envelope,” he said, seeing nothing else inside.

“Open it,” said the caller.

Jack carefully took the envelope from the box. It was plain white. No return address. No addressee. It had been hand-delivered, which meant the stalker had been on his porch-an unsettling thought. He unfolded the flap and tentatively removed the contents. “What is this?”

“What’s it look like?”

He studied the page. “A map.” A route had been high-lighted by yellow felt-tip pen.

“Follow it-if you want to know who the killer on the loose is. You do want to know, don’t you, Swyteck?”

“I already know it’s you, Goss. This is a map to your apartment.”

“It’s a map to the killer on the loose. Be there. Meet him at four-thirty A.M. tonight. And no cops. Or you’ll be very sorry.”

Jack bristled at the sound of the dial tone, then switched off the portable phone. At first it didn’t even occur to him to actually go to Goss’s apartment. But if Goss were going to kill him, would he do it in his own apartment? Would he invite Jack over and give him directions to the scene of the crime? No, he must be up to something else, and Jack’s curiosity was piqued.

But it was more than just curiosity. He was thinking of the night two years ago when he’d refused to give his father enough “privileged” information to stop Raul Fernandez’s execution. His rigidity had resulted in Raul’s death, and he was determined not to make the same mistake again. In dealing with a confessed killer who was continuing his evil ways, he had to be more flexible with privileged information.