Split Second

by David Baldacci

  “If so, we’ll probably never find the body.”

  “Any likely suspects on that?”

  Joan shook her head. “I thought there would be, but actually no. The three worst organizations he helped break up have no active members on the outside. He did prosecute some local gangs in Philly after he left D.C., but they tended to operate within a two-block radius with little sophistication beyond guns, knives and cell phones. They wouldn’t have had the brains or resources to snatch Bruno right out from under the Secret Service.”

  “Okay, we rule out enemies from when he was a prosecutor and those for political gain, and we have left pure financial motivation. Was he worth enough to take that risk?”

  “By himself, no. As I said before, his wife’s family has money, but they’re not Rockefellers either. They could pay a million dollars but not more than that.”

  “Well, it sounds like a lot, but a million bucks just doesn’t go as far as it used to.”

  “Oh, how I’d love to find out,” said Joan. She glanced at her file. “Bruno’s political party has funds, but still, there are lots of other targets with far bigger payoffs.”

  “And ones that don’t have the Secret Service guarding them.”

  “Exactly. It’s like whoever took Bruno did it for—”

  King broke in. “For the challenge? To show they could beat the Secret Service?”

  “Yes.”

  “They must have had inside info. Somebody on Bruno’s staff.”

  “I’ve got some possibilities. We’ll have to check them out.”

  “Great. But right now I’m going to grab a quick shower.”

  “I guess exploring your past is a dirty business,” she said dryly.

  “Boy, it sure can be,” he shot back as he walked up the stairs.

  She called after him. “Are you sure you want to leave me alone? I might hide a nuclear bomb in your sock drawer and get you into real trouble.”

  King went to his bedroom, flipped on the bathroom light, turned on the shower and started brushing his teeth. He turned to close the door, lest Joan get any weird ideas.

  As he put his hand on the door and gave it a push, he sensed it was heavier than it should be. Far heavier, as though it had been weighted down with something. His adrenaline instantly surging, he eased it open with his hand and as it swung by, peered around curiously. The door’s momentum, together with its increased weight, caused it to come around and close firmly. He didn’t even hear the smack of the door against the jamb. His focus was entirely on the source of the extra weight.

  He’d seen a lot of unsettling things in his life. Yet the sight of the Wrightsburg socialite and his former client Susan Whitehead hanging on the back of his bathroom door, her dead eyes staring at him, a large knife plunged right through her chest, almost dropped him to the floor.

  CHAPTER

  30

  AN HOUR LATER King sat on his stairs as the investigative teams finished up and the body of Susan Whitehead was removed. Chief Williams came over to him. “We’re done here, Sean. Looks like she was killed around five o’clock this morning. She goes for walks around then, I was told, and we’re assuming she was taken at that time and killed immediately. That’s why there wasn’t any blood on the floor in your bathroom. She bled somewhere else. Anything you can tell me?”

  “I wasn’t here. I just got back from North Carolina.”

  “I don’t mean that. I’m not implying that you killed Ms. Whitehead.”

  There was just enough emphasis on the word “you” for King to look up and say, “And I didn’t have her killed either, if that’s what you’re so subtly implying.”

  “Just doing my job, Sean. I’ve got a damn crime spree going on, and right now nobody’s above suspicion. I hope you can understand that. I know that Ms. Whitehead is your client.”

  “Was my client. I handled her last divorce, that’s it.”

  “Okay, I might as well ask you this because, well, there’s been talk around town.” King stared at him expectantly. “There’s been talk that maybe you and Ms. Whitehead were, well, seeing each other. Were you?”

  “No. She might have wanted a relationship, but I didn’t.”

  Williams’s brow furrowed. “Was it a problem for you? I mean I know how the woman could be. Pretty overwhelming.”

  “She wanted something between us and I didn’t. Simple as that.”

  “And that’s all, you’re sure?”

  “What exactly are you trying to do here? Build a case that I had the woman killed because, what, I didn’t want to date her? Give me a break.”

  “I know it sounds crazy but, well, people do talk.”

  “Especially around here.”

  “And Ms. Whitehead was very prominent. Lots of friends.”

  “Lots of paid friends.”

  “I wouldn’t go around saying that, Sean, I really wouldn’t.” He held up the note that had been pinned to the chest of the unfortunate Whitehead. It had been placed in an evidence bag.

  “Any ideas about this?”

  King looked at the note and shrugged. “Only that it’s from someone who was at the Ritter assassination or knows a lot about it. I’d give it to the FBI, if I were you.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  As Williams walked off, King rubbed his temples and contemplated taking a bath in pure bourbon and drinking half of it. The phone rang. It was his law partner, Phil Baxter.

  “Yeah, it’s true, Phil. She’s dead, right here in my house. I know, it shocked the hell out of me. Look, I might need you to cover some things at the office for me. I… What’s that?” King’s expression darkened. “What are you talking about, Phil? You want to go solo? Can I ask why? I see. Sure, if that’s what you want. You do what you have to do.” He hung up.

  Almost immediately his phone rang again. It was his secretary, Mona Hall, calling with her resignation. She was too scared to work for him anymore, she whined. Dead bodies kept turning up. And people were suggesting that King was somehow in on it, not that she ever believed that, but, well, where there’s smoke…

  After he hung up with Mona, a hand touched his shoulder. It was Joan.

  “More trouble?”

  “My law partner is hightailing it as fast as he can, and my secretary just joined him in the full retreat. Other than that, everything’s fine.”

  “I’m sorry, Sean.”

  “Look, what can I expect? I’ve got dead bodies falling all around me. Hell, I’d be running too.”

  “I’m not running anywhere. In fact, I need your help more than ever.”

  “Well, it’s nice to be wanted.”

  “I’m staying in the area for a couple of days while I set up interviews and do some background digging. Give me a call but make it soon. If you’re not going to work with me, I have to move on. I have a private plane available. I want to help you through this, and I think work is the best way to do that.”

  “Why, Joan? Why do you want to help me?”

  “Call it repayment of a debt long overdue.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I owe you more than you think. I see that quite clearly now.”

  She gave him a peck on the cheek, turned and left.

  The phone rang again and King snatched it up. “Yeah?” he said testily.

  It was Michelle. “I heard. I’ll be there in half an hour.” He remained silent. “Sean, are you okay?”

  He looked out the window as Joan drove off. “I’m fine.”

  King grabbed a quick shower in the guest bathroom and then took a seat at the desk in his study. His brow furrowed in concentration as he wrote down, from memory, the words from the note that had been found on Whitehead’s body.

  Déjà vu, Sir Kingman. Try to remember if you can where you were on the most important day of your life. I know you’re a smart guy but a little rusty, so you probably want a hint. Here it is: 1032AM09261996. Talk about pushing a post. Talk about giving good feet. Look forward to seeing
you soon.

  Ten-thirty-two A.M. on September 26, 1996, was the exact time that Clyde Ritter had been killed. What could this mean? So intense was his concentration that he never even heard her come in.

  “Sean, are you okay?”

  He jumped up and yelled out. Michelle screamed and fell back.

  “God, you startled me,” she said.

  “Startled you? Damn, woman, haven’t you ever heard of knocking?”

  “I did. I have been for the last five minutes, nobody answered.” She looked at the piece of paper. “What is that?”

  He calmed and said, “A note from somebody in my past.”

  “How far in your past?”

  “Does the date September 26, 1996, ring a bell?”

  It clearly did. After a little hesitation he handed her the note.

  She finished reading and looked up at him. “Who could have left it?”

  “The person who brought Susan Whitehead’s body here and deposited it in my bathroom. They came as a package. I guess the person didn’t want me to miss seeing the note.”

  “Was she killed here?”

  “No. The police think she was grabbed early this morning, killed, and then her body was brought here.”

  She looked down at the piece of paper. “Do the police know about that?”

  He nodded. “They have the original. I made this copy.”

  “Any thoughts on who wrote it?”

  “Yes, but none that make a lot of sense.”

  “Was Joan still here when you found the body?”

  “Yes, but she had nothing to do with it.”

  “I know, Sean. I wasn’t implying that. How did you leave things with her?”

  “I’m going to call her, tell her I’m thinking about the Bruno offer and I’ll get back to her.”

  “So what now?”

  “We go back to Bowlington.”

  Michelle looked surprised. “I thought you were done with the Fairmount Hotel.”

  “I am. But I want to know how an unemployed maid supported herself and who stuffed money in her mouth.”

  “But you don’t know if that’s connected to the Ritter killing.”

  “Oh, but I do. And the last question is the biggie.” She looked at him expectantly. “Who did Loretta Baldwin see in that supply closet?”

  CHAPTER

  31

  I APPRECIATE YOUR MEETING with me,” said Joan.

  Jefferson Parks sat down across from her in the small dining area of the inn where Joan was staying. He looked at her warily. “It’s been a while.”

  She said, “Six years. The joint task force case in Michigan. The Secret Service and the U.S. Marshals were privileged to carry the bags of the FBI.”

  “As I recall, you broke the thing wide open and managed to let everybody know you had.”

  “Horn blowing should start at home, and I seem to have a knack for it. And if it had been a man, the credit would have come regardless.”

  “Come on, you really think that?”

  “No, Jefferson, I really know that. Shall I cite you about a thousand examples? I have them right on the tip of my tongue.”

  “Along with about a ton of acid,” muttered Parks under his breath. Out loud he said, “So you wanted to see me?”

  “The Howard Jennings case?” said Joan.

  “What about it?”

  “I was just wondering about the status. Professional courtesy.”

  “I can’t talk to you about an ongoing investigation. You know that.”

  “But you can tell me certain things that aren’t confidential or that won’t jeopardize your investigation, but as yet haven’t made a public splash.”

  Parks shrugged. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “For instance, you haven’t arrested Sean King, presumably because, despite certain circumstantial evidence that seems to implicate him, you don’t believe he’s guilty. And possibly you have facts that point in other directions. And he couldn’t have killed Susan Whitehead because he wasn’t here. In fact, I believe that you provided him with an alibi.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I’m an investigator, so I investigated,” Joan said.

  “The person who killed Howard Jennings and the one who killed Susan Whitehead needn’t be the same. The crimes could be totally unrelated.”

  “I don’t think so and neither do you. It seems to me that while the crimes are very different they are also very much the same.”

  Parks shook his head wearily. “I know you’re real smart and I’m real stupid, but the more you talk, the less I understand what the hell you’re saying.”

  “Let’s suppose that Jennings wasn’t killed because he was in WITSEC. Let’s suppose he was killed because he worked for Sean King.”

  “Why?”

  She ignored his question. “Now Susan Whitehead was killed elsewhere and then brought to Sean’s house. In neither case is the evidence strong enough to show that he killed the victim, and in fact, in Whitehead’s case the proof is the other way entirely: he had an alibi.”

  “Which he didn’t have with Jennings, and his gun was the murder weapon,” countered the deputy marshal.

  “Yes, he explained the gun substitution theory, which I take it you agree with.”

  “I’m not going to say one way or another. Here’s one theory: Jennings was killed by his old partners in crime, and they tried to frame King for it. His gun, no real alibi, body in his office, a classic setup.”

  “Yet could they be sure?” wondered Joan.

  “Sure of what?”

  “Sure that Sean wouldn’t have an alibi that night? He could have easily had an emergency call to go on while he was on duty, or someone that saw him at the time Jennings was killed.”

  Parks answered, “Unless they knew the pattern of his rounds and waited for him to reach the downtown area and then killed Jennings. He was seen around there at the time of the murder.”

  “Seen, yes, but, again, if he had met someone along the way or received a call at the time he was downtown, he has an alibi and the case goes away.”

  “So where does that leave us?” asked Parks.

  “With your framers not really caring if Sean is arrested for the crime or not. And in my experience framers are rarely so sloppy. If they were careful enough to steal his gun, copy it down to the last detail, kill Jennings with it and then return it to Sean’s house, they would have chosen a time and place for the killing that would have allowed Sean no possibility of an alibi. In short, I can’t allow for such extraordinarily careful planning with the weapon and such carelessness with the alibi. Murderers are seldom so schizophrenic in their work.”

  “Well, King could have rigged this all himself, to throw us off.”

  “With the motive of ruining the nice life he’s made for himself here?”

  “Okay, I get your point, but why are you taking such a keen interest in all this?”

  “Sean and I used to work together. I owe him, shall we say. So if you’re looking for your killer, I’d look elsewhere.”

  “You have any idea exactly where?”

  Joan looked away. “I suppose everyone has ideas.” And with that she abruptly ended the meeting.