The Pardon

“And I understand your reluctance about Gina. It certainly won’t sound good when the tabloids print that kinky hot sex with girlfriend’s roomie is your alibi. But it will sound a lot worse if a jury comes back and says you’re guilty of murder in the first degree. So,” he said as he reached for his desktop telephone, “let’s not keep Ms. Terisi waiting. All right, Jack?”

Jack took a deep breath. There were so many reasons he would have liked to leave Gina out of this and just forget using her as an alibi. But it was too late for that. “All right. Let’s see how cooperative she is.”

Manny hit the intercom button and spoke to his secretary. “Shelley, send in Ms. Terisi, please.”

“Yes, Mr. Cardenal.”

The office door opened, Manny’s secretary stepped aside, and Gina Terisi entered the spacious corner office. Manny politely rose from his chair to greet her, and Jack followed suit, though with considerably less enthusiasm.

“Good morning,” said Manny, his face alight with the expression most men wore when they first laid eyes on Gina Terisi. She was wearing a cobalt blue dress, not tight, but flattering in all the right places. Her long brown hair was up in a twist, tucked beneath a black, broad-brimmed hat, revealing sparkling diamond-stud earrings, two on the left ear, one on the right. At least a karat each, Jack observed, and undoubtedly “gifts” from one of her admirers.

“Nice to see you, Jack,” she said through a forced smile.

He nodded courteously as Manny flashed a chivalrous smile and stepped forward to greet her. “Please,” he said, offering her the winged arm chair in which Jack had been seated.

“Thanks,” said Gina, making a production out of taking her seat. Jack moved to the couch beneath the window, and Manny returned to the black leather chair behind his desk. Both men faced their guest. Gina crossed her long legs comfortably, as if constructing a barrier between her and her interrogators.

“Can I get you some coffee?” Manny offered.

Gina didn’t acknowledge the question. She was busy checking her makeup in the reflection of the glass-top table beside her.

Manny was completely unaware that he was staring as Gina applied her lipstick slowly and seductively to the bottom of her pouty lip. “Nothing for me,” she said finally. “This will be a short meeting. I assure you of that.”

“What do you mean?” asked Manny.

“It means that although I tentatively told Jack on the phone that I’d support his alibi, I need to have some questions answered before I commit to anything.”

“That’s fair enough,” answered Manny. “I’ll do my best to answer them.”

Gina narrowed her eyes, stressing the import of her question. “What I need to know is this: Exactly what time of the morning was Eddy Goss shot?”

“Why do you need to know that?” asked Jack.

Gina ignored him and looked only at Manny. “Never mind why. Just answer my question.”

Manny leaned back in his chair. He, too, was curious about the reason for the question. “We don’t know exactly. But some time after four A.M. is the medical examiner’s preliminary estimate, based on the fact that the blood had not yet dried by the time the police arrived on the scene.”

“Four o’clock, then, was the earliest possible time he could have been shot,” Gina pressed.

Manny shrugged. “If you accept the medical examiner’s report, yes. There’s not much doubt that death was instantaneous.”

Gina seemed satisfied. “That’s all I need to know,” she said to Jack. “I can’t testify for you. And I won’t. The time of Goss’s death changes everything.”

Jack’s gut wrenched. Manny shot him a glance, but he just looked away uncomfortably. “How does it change things?” Manny asked her.

“If Goss was shot after four A.M., then that makes me a very flimsy alibi. Granted, if I were to say that Jack and I went to bed, it might help Jack explain how he got his”-she smiled with false modesty-“scratches and bruises. But that’s as far as it goes. It’s not like I can place him somewhere else at the time of the murder.”

“But you slept together,” said Manny.

“No. We fucked each other. Nobody got any sleep. And, most important, he didn’t spend the night. Jack left my townhouse before three. I’m certain of that.”

Manny again glanced at his client, but Jack wouldn’t look him in the eye.

Gina rose from her chair and headed for the door. “Sorry, fellas,” she said as she reached the door. “I’m not going to tell the world I betrayed my best friend and went to bed with her boyfriend, when the truth really isn’t much help.”

Manny leaned across his desk to make his point in a firm but not quite threatening manner. “You realize we can subpoena you. We can make you testify.”

“You can make me show up at the courthouse. But you can’t make me say Jack was with me. Not unless I want to say it.”

Manny knew she was right. He tried another angle. “You should want to,” said Manny. “You should want to help Jack.”

“That’s just the point: I don’t want to. Good day, gentlemen,” she said coolly, then left the room, closing the door behind her.

The two men sat in uncomfortable silence, until Jack looked into Manny’s piercing black eyes and said, “I warned you about her.”

Manny seemed concerned, but not with Gina. “I don’t think she’s lying,” he said sharply. “And now I understand why you were having second thoughts about the alibi. I think you lied to me, Jack. You told me you spent the night with her. All night. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

Jack sighed and averted his eyes, then responded in a quiet tone. “It happened almost exactly the way I told you before, Manny. While we were making love or having sex or whatever you want to call it, somebody did sneak into the townhouse and smear ketchup on the sheets and put a chrysanthemum under Cindy’s pillow. And whoever it was called me and tried to get me to go back to Goss’s place-which I definitely wasn’t going to do at that point. But I didn’t stay either. I honestly didn’t want to leave Gina by herself-especially after seeing that some lunatic had taken a knife to my convertible. But I didn’t want to wake up the next morning with Gina by my side, either. Cindy and I were technically split up at the time, but that didn’t seem to matter. I just had to get the hell out of there. So I left.”

“Before three o’clock.”

“Right.”

“At least an hour before Goss was killed.”

Jack sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

“Unbelievable,” Manny groaned, shaking his head. “Or maybe it’s not unbelievable. I suppose it’s understandable that someone charged with murder might try to reach for something that’s not there. But honestly, Jack: What the hell were you thinking? Did you think she was going to have amnesia about what time it was when you left her apartment?”

“I don’t know,” Jack grimaced. “I guess I just hoped she wasn’t going to be so damn certain about the time. After all, we’d had a lot to drink. I thought she might be a little fuzzy on the time. Or maybe even she’d be wrong about the time and say I left at four-thirty.”

“You were hoping she was going to lie for you.”

“Not lie, no. I mean-I don’t know. I don’t know what I was thinking, Manny.”

Manny’s face showed deep disappointment. Then his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Are there any more lies, Jack, and more important, is your alibi the biggest lie you’ve told me?”

Jack became indignant. “Are you questioning my innocence?”

“Not based on what I’ve heard so far. But I can’t live with deception from a client who, at the very least, was willing to put himself in a position where he might have to kill Eddy Goss.”

“I resent that. I’d never kill anyone.”

“Really? Then why did you go inside Goss’s apartment that night-before you went to Gina’s? And just what were you planning to do with that pistol you were packing?”

Jack paused. It was a difficult question. “Maybe I don’t know what I was going to do with it.”