The Pardon

Chapter 51

After some last-minute advice from Kimmell, Jack and his father told each other to be careful. Then they left the hotel and headed in separate directions. The governor went west toward Mallory Square, an assortment of big, wide piers that had once been a waterfront auction block for wine, silks, and other ship salvage hauled in by nineteenth-century wreckers. During Fantasy Fest, the square was more or less a breaker between the insanity on Duval Street and the peaceful Gulf of Mexico. Jack walked south on Simonton, a residential street that ran parallel to Duval. The neighborhood was a slice of wealthy old Key West, with white picket fences and one multistory Victorian house after another, many of them built for nineteenth-century sailors, sponge merchants, and treasure hunters, many of them now bed-and-breakfasts.

He walked two blocks very quickly, then slowed down, realizing that he had no official destination. The Flintstones danced by on their way to the festival, singing their theme song. Others in costume streamed by on foot or on motor scooter, since cars were useless during Fantasy Fest.

Jack’s portable phone rang, startling him. “Yes,” he answered.

“Turn left at Caroline Street,” said Esteban, “and stay on the phone. Tell me when you hit each intersection.”

Jack crossed Simonton and headed east on Caroline Street. The noise from Duval was beginning to fade, and he saw fewer pedestrians on their way to the party. It was darker, too, since there were fewer street lamps, and the thick, leafy canopy blocked out the moonlight. The sidewalk was cracked and buckled from overgrown tree roots. Palm trees and sprawling oaks rustled in the cool, steady breeze. Majestic old wooden houses with two-story porches and gingerbread detail seemed to creak as the wind blew. Jack just kept walking.

“This is not about your girlfriend,” said the voice over the phone.

Jack exhaled. The phone obviously was not just for directions. “I’m at Elizabeth Street.”

“Keep going,” said Esteban, and then he immediately picked up his thought. “This is all about Raul Fernandez. You know that, don’t you?”

Jack kept walking. He didn’t want to agitate, but after two years of wondering, he had to keep him talking. “Tell me about Raul.”

“You know the most important thing already.” His tone was forceful but not argumentative. “It wasn’t Raul’s idea to kill that girl.”

“Tell me about him, though.”

There was silence on the line-one of those long, pivotal silences Jack had heard so many times when interviewing clients, after which the flow of information would either completely shut down or never shut off. He heard the man clear his throat. “Raul had been in prison in Cuba for nine years before we came over on the boat. And after nine years in jail, what do you think he wanted most when he got to Miami?”

Jack hesitated. The story about the boat fit Kimmel’s theory that the kidnapper was Esteban. But he wasn’t sure whether this was meant to be a monologue or a dialogue. “You tell me.”

“A whore, you dumb shit. And he was willing to pay for it. But there are so many whores out there who just won’t admit what they are. Just pick one, I told him. He did, but he still needed encouragement. So I went with him, to show him how easy it was.”

“You and Fernandez did it together?”

“Raul didn’t kill anyone. The knife was just to scare her. But the stupid bitch panicked and pulled off his mask. Even then, Raul still didn’t want to kill her. I was saving his ass by doing it. So how do you think it felt when he was the one arrested for murder? I did everything I could to keep him from getting the chair. I even confessed! But you didn’t do your part, Swyteck. The governor, the man who could stop it all, was your father, and you did nothing.”

Jack resisted the temptation to educate the kidnapper, but he felt a certain vindication-not for himself, but for his father. Since the murder had begun as a rape or attempted rape by Raul Fernandez, Fernandez was as guilty as the man who had slit her throat. By law, anyone who committed a felony that brought about an unintended death was guilty of murder, even if the murder was committed by an accomplice. It was called “felony murder.” It was a capital crime. And most important, it meant that his father had not executed an innocent man after all.

“So you and Raul were prison buddies. Is that it?”

“Prison buddies,” he said with disdain. “What do you think-we were a couple of fags, or something? Raul was my brother, you son of bitch. You fucking killed my little brother.”

Jack took a deep breath. It didn’t seem possible, but the stakes had suddenly risen. “I’m approaching William Street.”

“Stop now. Face south. Do you see it?”

“See what?”

“The house on the corner.”

Jack peered through the wrought-iron fence toward a stately old Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion that was nearly hidden from view by thick tropical foliage and royal poinciana trees. It was a three-story white frame house with a widow’s walk and a spacious sitting porch out front, due for a paint job but otherwise in good repair. Blue shutters framed the windows, purely for decoration. But the windows themselves and even the doors were covered with corrugated aluminum storm shutters-the kind that winter residents installed to protect their property during the June-to-November hurricane season.

“I see it,” said Jack. “It’s storm-proofed.”

“Yes,” replied the voice on the other end of the line. “But your girlfriend’s inside. And she’s not coming out. You have to go in and get her. And don’t even think about calling the police to go in and get her for you. It’s a big old house, and she’s very well hidden. Maybe she’s in the attic. Maybe she’s under the floorboards. The only way you’ll find her alive is if you stay on the phone and listen to me. I’ll direct you right to her. But you have to move fast, Swyteck. I fed her arsenic exactly five minutes ago.”

“You bastard! You said you wouldn’t hurt her!”

“I didn’t hurt her,” he said sharply. “The only one who can hurt her is you. You’ll kill her, unless you do as I say. She can last twenty minutes without an antidote. The sooner you find her, the sooner you can call the paramedics. The back door is open. I took the storm shutters off. So go get her, Jacky Boy. And stay on that phone.”

Jack felt anger, fear, and a flood of other emotions, but he realized he had no time to consider his options. He yanked open the squeaky iron gate, sprinted up the brick driveway, and leaped over a three-foot hedge on his way to the back door-the only way into the desolate Key West mansion.