Split Second

by David Baldacci

  “All right,” said Michelle. “How about anybody coming around in the weeks leading up to the Ritter shooting? Anybody you didn’t know?”

  “Arnold had few friends.”

  King cocked his head at her. “He’s Arnold now?”

  “I think I have the right to call him whatever I want.”

  “So he had few friends. Any potential assassins lurking in there?” asked Michelle.

  “That’s hard to say, since I didn’t know Arnold was one. Assassins don’t tend to broadcast their intent, do they?”

  “Sometimes they do,” responded King. “Dr. Jorst said that your father would come in and rant and rave to him about Clyde Ritter and how he was destroying the country. Did he ever do that around you?”

  In response Kate stood and went to the window that looked out on Franklin Street, where cars and bikes drifted by and students sat on the steps of the building.

  “What does it all matter now? One assassin, two, three, a hundred! Who gives a shit?” She turned and stared at them, her arms stubbornly folded over her bosom.

  “Maybe you’re right,” said King. “Then again, it might explain why your father did what he did.”

  “He did what he did because he hated Clyde Ritter and everything he stood for,” she said vehemently. “He never quite lost that drive to rock the establishment.”

  Michelle looked at some of the political posters on her walls. “Professor Jorst told us you’re following in your father’s footsteps as far as ‘rocking the establishment.’ ”

  “Lots of things my father did were good and worthy. And what reasonable person wouldn’t detest a man like Clyde Ritter?”

  “Unfortunately you’d be surprised,” said King.

  “I read all the reports and stories that came out afterwards. I’m surprised no one did a TV movie about it. I guess it wasn’t important enough.”

  King said, “A man can hate someone and not choose to kill him. By all accounts your father was a passionate man who firmly believed in certain causes, and yet he’d never engaged in any violent act before.” At this Kate Ramsey seemed to twitch slightly. King noticed but continued his line of thought. “Even during the Vietnam War when he was young and angry and might have picked up a gun and shot someone, Arnold Ramsey chose not to. So given that history, your father, a tenured professor in middle age with a daughter he loved, could plausibly have made the choice not to violently act on his hatred of Ritter. But he might have if another factor was involved.”

  “Like what?” Kate asked sharply.

  “Like someone else, someone he respected, asking him to. Asking him to join in killing Ritter, in fact.”

  “That’s impossible. My father was the only one who shot Ritter.”

  “What if the other person got cold feet and didn’t shoot?”

  Kate sat down at her desk, her nimble fingers once more playing their geometric games with the pencil and ruler.

  “You have evidence of that?” she asked without looking up.

  “What if we did? Would it jog your memory? Does it bring anyone to mind?”

  Kate started to say something, then stopped and shook her head.

  King glanced at a photo on the shelf and went over and picked it up. It was of Kate and her mother, Regina. It must have been a more recent picture than the one they’d seen in Jorst’s office, since Kate looked to be about nineteen or twenty. Regina was still a very lovely woman, but there was something in her eyes, a weariness that probably symbolized her life’s tragic circumstances.

  “I take it you miss your mother.”

  “Of course, I do. What sort of question is that?” Kate reached over and took the photo from him and put it back on the shelf.

  “I understand they were separated at the time of his death?”

  “Yeah, so? Lots of marriages break up.”

  “Any ideas why your parents’ did?” asked Michelle.

  “Maybe they’d grown apart. My dad was a borderline socialist. My mom was a Republican. Maybe that was it.”

  “Yet that was nothing new, was it?” said King.

  “Who knows for sure? They didn’t really talk about it that much. In her youth my mother was apparently some fabulous actress with a wonderful future. She gave up that dream to marry my dad and support his career. Maybe she came to regret that decision. Maybe she thought she’d wasted her life. I don’t really know, and at this point I don’t really care.”

  “Well, I guess she was depressed about Arnold’s death. Maybe that’s why she committed suicide.”

  “Well, if that was the reason, she waited years to get around to doing it.”

  “So you think it was something else?” asked King.

  “I really haven’t given it much thought, okay!”

  “I don’t believe that. I’m betting you think about it all the time, Kate.”

  One of her hands flew to her eyes. “The interview is over. Get out!”

  As they walked down Franklin Street to Michelle’s truck, King said, “She knows something.”

  “Yes, she does,” agreed Michelle. “The question is, how do we get it out of her?”

  “She’s pretty mature for her age. But she’s also got a lot wrapped up in that head of hers.”

  “I wonder how close Thornton Jorst and Kate are? He gave her the heads-up about us pretty fast.”

  “I was wondering that myself. I’m not thinking a romantic relationship.”

  “More like a surrogate father?” she suggested.

  “Maybe. And dads will do a lot to protect their daughters.”

  “So what do we do now?” asked Michelle.

  “We’ve clearly shaken up Kate Ramsey. Let’s see where she might lead us.”

  CHAPTER

  48

  JOAN LEARNED some interesting things about John Bruno from the support staff at his Philadelphia law firm. None of them had much good to say about Catherine Bruno.

  “Nose stuck so far up in the air it’s a wonder she doesn’t drown when it rains,” said one secretary about the blue-blooded Mrs. Bruno.

  Joan cornered another woman at the law firm who’d also worked with Bruno during his stint as a prosecutor in Washington. The woman remembered Bill and Mildred Martin and had read of their deaths.

  “An unlikely person to be murdered,” said the woman with a frightened expression. “Bill was so sweet and trusting.”

  Joan pounced on this. “Trusting, yes, he was trusting. Even when he shouldn’t have been perhaps.”

  “Well, I don’t like telling tales outside of school.”

  “We’re both grown; we can tell tales wherever and whenever we want,” Joan prompted. “Especially if it helps in the cause of justice and other things.”

  The woman remained silent.

  “So you actually worked for both Bill Martin and Bruno at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “And what was your impression of them?”

  “Bill was too nice for his position. We all said that, never to his face, of course. As for Bruno, his personality fit his job perfectly, if you ask me.”

  “Tough, ruthless. Not above bending the rules to get results?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t say that. He was tough, but I never knew him to cross the line.”

  “And yet I read that there were a lot of problems in the U.S. Attorney’s Office back then.”

  “There were. Like I said, Bill Martin was too nice sometimes. Some of the prosecutors did cross the line. But let me tell you, a lot of the police officers back then were doing it. There were shakedowns all the time. During the protests in the late sixties and early seventies, I recall dozens of cases of officers fabricating evidence, making arrests for nonexistent crimes, intimidating people, blackmailing them. It was bad, real bad. A disgrace.”

  “And yet you’re saying Bruno didn’t participate in any of that?”

  “Well, if he did, I certainly didn’t know about it.”<
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  “Did you know Bill Martin’s wife, Mildred?”

  “A piece of work, that one. Always wanted to live beyond her means. She wasn’t a fan of Bruno’s, I can tell you that.”

  “So I gathered. Then it wouldn’t surprise you if she bad-mouthed Bruno, made up lies about him?”

  “Not at all. She was like that. She wanted her husband to be this hard-charging man of justice, secretly hoping it would take him, and her, to the big time, meaning big money. Now, Bill wasn’t like that. Bruno was. I think she was jealous.”

  Joan sat back and digested this new information slowly. She studied the woman closely. She appeared to be telling the truth. If she was, this changed things.

  “Would it surprise you if Mildred was involved somehow in either her husband’s death or perhaps Bruno’s disappearance?”

  “It would about Bill. I really think she loved him. But about Bruno?” She shrugged. “Mildred could be vindictive as hell.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “That given the opportunity, she might have shot him and not thought twice about it.”

  Joan flew back to Virginia and picked up her car. As she was about to head out of the airport, her phone rang. It was her office, reporting back on her inquiry about the whereabouts of Bob Scott and Doug Denby. The report was startling. The magnificent Agency, with all its expensive resources and high-level contacts, couldn’t find Bob Scott. About a year ago the former Secret Service agent had seemingly dropped off the planet. They’d traced him to Montana, where he’d apparently been living off the land. After that, nothing had been heard of him. He’d been divorced for years, was childless, and his ex-wife was remarried and knew nothing about her former husband’s whereabouts. The Agency had also checked with sources at the Secret Service, but even they could offer no help. The pension payment checks sent to the Montana address had been returned over the past year.

  Doug Denby had been easier to track. He’d returned to his native Mississippi after inheriting considerable property and money and was currently enjoying life as a country squire far from the bare-knuckled sphere of politics. He clearly wasn’t running around killing people.

  Joan clicked off her phone and was about to pull out onto the highway when the phone rang again. It was Jefferson Parks.

  “Let me tell you,” said the deputy marshal, “you still got a lot of admirers at the Secret Service. All I heard was how great you are. Made me want to puke.”

  Joan laughed. “I have that effect on lots of men.”

  “So any luck?”

  “None so far. Bruno’s law and campaign offices were pretty much dead ends.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve had no luck tracking down Bob Scott. There’s been no trace of the guy from about a year ago.”

  “Okay, look, I know we’re just a little old underfunded federal law enforcement agency, and we don’t have the fancy stuff you folks have in the private sector, but how about I try to track down this guy from my end.”

  “Whatever you do will be very appreciated,” remarked Joan pleasantly.

  “But King doesn’t seem to think this guy could be involved. Sure, Scott might be ticked at King for what happened. But he had no reason to kill Ritter and ruin his career. And then there’s the gun thing.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Sean told me that the gun he found in Loretta’s backyard was a snub-nose .38 revolver.”

  “So?”

  “That’s not Secret Service standard issue. So while it might not be suspicious for Scott to be armed, it would be suspicious if he was carrying two weapons, particularly a snub-nose, in case someone did check.”

  Parks wasn’t convinced. “But why have two guns? If his plan was to shoot Ritter too, he could have used his own gun.”

  “What if another would-be assassin, Ramsey’s partner, got cold feet, didn’t fire and slipped the gun to the inside man, Bob Scott, to get rid of, thinking no one would suspect him. Then maybe Scott became nervous because he now had two guns, hid it in the closet, and that’s when Loretta saw him.”

  “And Loretta started her blackmail scheme. Okay, that would give Scott the incentive to kill her. But Ritter’s death wiped out Scott’s career. Why would he do it?”

  Joan sighed. “Why do anything? Money! And the fact that he’s disappeared doesn’t exactly reinforce his innocence.”

  “What more do you know about him?”

  “Vietnam vet before he joined the Service. Maybe he was carrying some baggage from that. He was sort of gun-happy too. He might have flipped to the dark side. See, that was never fully explored. It was officially concluded Ramsey acted alone. We’re the first people to really look at all the angles.”

  “Well, I guess it’s about damn time. I’ll call you if I hear anything. You going back to King’s place?”

  “Yes, or at the inn where I’m staying near there, the Cedars.”

  “Catch you later,” said Parks.

  Joan drove off, very much lost in thought.

  So much lost in thought that Joan didn’t notice the car following her, or the driver whose gaze was locked intently on her.

  CHAPTER

  49

  DRESSED IN A WARM-UP SUIT, Kate Ramsey finally left her office in the late afternoon, climbed into a VW bug and drove off. Michelle and King followed at a discreet distance as the VW drove to Bryan Park, on the outskirts of Richmond. Once there, Kate climbed out, stripped off her warm-up suit, revealing shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath. She did some quick stretching and took off running.

  “Great,” said King. “She could be meeting somebody, and we won’t be able to see a damn thing.”

  “Yes, we will.” Michelle climbed into the backseat of the truck.

  King looked at her. “What are you doing?”

  She grabbed his shoulder and turned him back around. “Just keep your eyes to the front, mister.”

  She started undressing. “I keep running stuff in a bag under the backseat. Never know when the urge might hit.”

  King’s gaze flitted to the rearview mirror, where one long bare leg and foot and then another appeared as pants came down and shorts were slid over muscled calves and sculpted thighs.

  “Yeah,” he said as he looked away when she started taking off her shirt, “you just never know about that old urge thing.” He glanced outside and watched as Kate Ramsey’s efficient strides ate up chunks of distance. She was almost out of sight.

  “Michelle, you better hurry up or you’ll never catch—”

  He stopped when the truck door opened and closed and he saw Michelle, in a jogging bra, shorts and track shoes, streak across the grass, her long legs pumping and her muscled arms churning. He could only stare in amazement as she effortlessly burned up the distance between her and Kate.

  “Friggin’ Olympians,” he muttered.

  At first Michelle kept well out of sight of Kate, until it appeared clear the young woman was out simply to run. Then Michelle changed tactics. Instead of shadowing Kate, she decided to take another shot at talking to her. When she pulled up beside her, Kate looked over, scowled and immediately picked up her pace. Michelle quickly matched her stride for stride. When Kate started to sprint and Michelle effortlessly kept pace with her, Kate slowed down.

  “What do you want?” Kate said in a very tight voice.

  “To talk.”

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “He’s not much into running.”