The Pardon Read Online Free PDF

rolled on, and Jack closed his eyes and listened as Goss described the deed in grisly detail. The car ride to the woods. The knife at the young girl's throat. The tears that had stemmed his vulgar attempts at gentle caresses. The struggle that had ensued. And finally, pulling the nylon tight around the girl's neck
    Jack sighed, keeping his eyes closed. The tape continued, but there was only silence. Even the police interrogators, it seemed, had needed to catch their breath. Had they been allowed to hear it, a jury probably would have reacted the same way. But he'd prevented that. He'd kept the entire videotape out of evidence by arguing that Goss's constitutional rights had been violated - that his confession had been involuntary. The police hadn't beaten it out of him with a rubber hose. They hadn't even threatened him. They tricked him, Jack had argued, relying on one questionable remark by a seasoned detective who so desperately wanted to nail Goss that he pushed it a little too far - though the detective had still played good odds, knowing from experience that only the most liberal judge would condemn his tactics.
    We don't want to know if you did it, Detective Stafford had assured Goss. We just want you to show us where Kerry's body is, so we can give her a decent Christian burial. That was all the ammunition Jack had needed. They induced a confession by playing on my client's conscience! he'd argued to the judge. They appealed to his religious convictions. A Christian burial speech is patently illegal, Your Honor.
    No one was more surprised than Jack when the judge bought the argument. The confession was ruled inadmissible. The jury never saw the videotape. They acquitted a guilty man. And the miscarriage of justice was clear. Nice going, Swyteck.
    He hit the eject button on his VCR and tossed the confession aside, disgusted at himself and what he did for a living. He grabbed another cassette from the case beside the television, pushed To Kill a Mockingbird into his VCR, and for the fifteenth time since joining the Freedom Institute, watched Gregory Peck defend the innocent.
    Peck's Atticus Finch had just launched into his peroration when a shrill ringing startled Jack from a state of half sleep.
    He snatched up the telephone, hoping to hear Cindy's voice. For a few moments, though, all he heard was silence. Finally, a surly voice came over the line. Swyteck? it asked.
    Jack didn't move. The voice seemed vaguely familiar, but it also seemed raspy and disguised. He waited. And finally came the brief, sobering message.
    A killer is on the loose tonight, Swyteck. A killer is on the loose.
    Jack gripped the receiver tighter. Who's there?
    Again, there was only silence.
    Who's there? Who are you? Jack waited, but heard only the sound of his own erratic breathing. Then, finally
    Sleep tight, was the cool reply. The phone clicked, and then came the dial tone.

    Chapter 5
    Governor Harold Swyteck jogged down a wood-chip jogging path. He muttered a soft curse as he reflected on the political repercussions of Jack's victory the previous day. The governor and his advisers had been speculating for weeks on how the trial might affect his bid for re-election. They figured a few tough anti-crime speeches would probably counter Jack's involvement. Never, however, had they figured he'd actually win an acquittal. Had they considered it, they might have had a comeback when the media issued its hourly reports that it was indeed the governor's son who'd gotten a confessed killer off on a technicality.
    Damn it all! Harry blurted with another husky breath, his arms pumping to a quicker cadence. As his legs surged forward he felt his anger building. It was a father's anger, tinged more with disappointment than with vitriol.
    The governor struggled to maintain his pace. Since the Fernandez execution, he'd taken up jogging and sworn off the booze. In some twelve hundred days in office, he'd jogged about as many miles and thought about that one