Split Second

by David Baldacci

  “It’s not meant to. I just wanted to know why a seemingly reputable college professor would kill a nut of a candidate who had no chance to win anyway and sacrifice his life in the process.”

  “I would think that would have been checked out pretty thoroughly.”

  “Not as thoroughly as if it had been a real bona fide candidate. Besides, I think everybody just wanted to get the whole mess over with.”

  “And the official investigation concluded that Ramsey acted alone.”

  “Based on what we’ve found, they apparently concluded incorrectly.” He stared out the window. “I don’t know, though, it’s been a long time. I’m not sure we’re going to find anything useful here.”

  “Well, we are here, so let’s give it our best shot. We might spot something everybody else missed. Just like you did with the blue hydrangea.”

  “But we also might find out something that might be better left undiscovered.”

  “I don’t ever think that’s a good thing.”

  “You’re always for the truth coming out?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  King shrugged. “I’m a lawyer. Go ask a real human being.”

  They were directed from one person and one department to another until they found themselves sitting in the office of Thornton Jorst. He was medium height, trim, and appeared to be in his early fifties. A pair of thick eyeglasses and pale complexion gave him a very professorial air. He’d been a friend and colleague of the late Arnold Ramsey.

  Jorst sat behind a cluttered desk piled high with opened books, reams of manuscript pages and a laptop symbolically covered with very low-tech legal pads and colored pens. The shelves that covered the walls of his office seemed to sag under the weight of the impressively thick works collected there. King was staring at the diplomas on the wall when Jorst held up a cigarette. “Do you mind? A professor’s inner sanctum is one of the few places left where one can actually light up.”

  King and Michelle both nodded their assent.

  “I was surprised to hear that the two of you were here asking about Arnold.”

  “We normally call ahead and make official appointments,” said King.

  “But we were in the area and decided the opportunity was too good to pass up,” added Michelle.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your names?”

  “I’m Michelle Stewart and this is Tom Baxter.”

  Jorst eyed King. “Pardon me for saying so, but you look very familiar.”

  King smiled. “Everybody says that. I’ve just got that kind of average face.”

  Michelle said, “That’s funny, I was going to say that I recognized you from somewhere, Dr. Jorst, but I just don’t remember where.”

  “I’m on TV locally a fair amount, especially now with the elections drawing close,” said Jorst quickly. “I like my anonymity, but having one’s fifteen minutes of fame every now and then is good for the ego.” He cleared his throat and said, “I understand that you’re doing a documentary of some sort on Arnold?”

  Michelle sat back and took on the air of a scholar herself. “Not just him, but on politically motivated assassinations in general, but with a special emphasis. The hypothesis is that there are quite marked distinctions between people who target politicians. Some do so because of pure mental imbalance or a perceived personal grievance against the target. And others strike because of deep philosophical beliefs, or even because they believe themselves to be doing good. They might even regard killing an elected official or candidate as an act of patriotism.”

  “And you want my opinion on which of these categories Arnold fell into?”

  “Being a friend and colleague, you’ve doubtlessly given the matter a great deal of thought,” said King.

  Jorst eyed him keenly through the wisps of smoke. “Well, I can’t say the issue of what drove Arnold to become an assassin hasn’t intrigued me over the years. However, I can’t claim he fits neatly into any ideological or motivational box either.”

  “Well, maybe if we look at his background and the time period that led up to his action, we might be able to get somewhere,” suggested Michelle.

  Jorst checked his watch.

  “I’m sorry,” said Michelle. “Do you have a class?”

  “No, actually I’m on sabbatical. Trying to finish a new book. So fire away.”

  Michelle took out a pen and notebook. “Why don’t we start with a little background on Ramsey?” she prompted.

  Jorst leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Arnold did the hat trick at Berkeley, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. All at the top of his class, by the way. He also somehow found time to participate in protests against the Vietnam War, burn his draft card, march in civil rights demonstrations, attend sit-ins and lie-ins, get arrested, risk his life, all of that. He had by far the best academic credentials of any professor this department has ever employed and quickly achieved tenure here.”

  “Was he popular with his students?” asked King.

  “For the most part, I think he was. More popular than I am with mine.” Jorst chuckled. “I’m a far tougher grader than my late, lamented colleague.”

  “I assume his political leanings were far different than Ritter’s?” asked Michelle.

  “Ninety-nine percent of America would have fallen into that category, and thank God for that. He was a TV preacher who sucked money out of deluded people all over the country. How could a man like that run for the White House? It made me ashamed of my country.”

  “Sounds like Ramsey’s opinions rubbed off on you,” said King.

  Jorst coughed and attempted a chuckle. “I certainly agreed with Arnold’s assessment of Clyde Ritter as presidential material. However, I differed with him drastically on the proper response to the man’s candidacy.”

  “So Ramsey was vocal about his feelings?”

  “Very.” Jorst stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. “I remember him stalking around my office and pounding his fist into the palm of his hand and decrying the state of a citizenry that would allow a man like Clyde Ritter to gain purchase in national politics.”

  “But he had to know that Ritter had no chance of winning.”

  “That wasn’t the issue. What wasn’t nearly so obvious was the deal-making that was going on behind the scenes. Ritter had reached a critical mass in the polls, and that had started to make both the Republicans and the Democrats extremely nervous. He’d easily reached poll levels that enabled him to receive federal election funds and qualified him for national debate time. And whatever you could say about Ritter, he talked a good game. He was incredibly glib, and he connected with a certain element of the voting population. And you also have to understand that in addition to Ritter’s own presidential campaign, he’d cobbled together an independent party coalition that had numerous candidates running for various offices in many of the larger states. That could have had disastrous consequences for the major party candidates.”

  “How so?” King asked.

  “In many elections around the country his slate was splitting the traditional voting bases for the major-party candidates, in effect giving him control over the outcome of perhaps thirty percent of the seats in play. Now, when you have that much leverage in the political arena, well…”

  “You get to pretty much name your price?” suggested King.

  Jorst nodded. “What Ritter’s price would have been is anyone’s guess. After his death the wind went completely out of his party. The major parties really dodged a bullet there. Excuse me, poor choice of words. But I really believe that Arnold thought if Ritter weren’t stopped, he’d end up destroying everything America stood for.”

  “And that was clearly something Ramsey didn’t want to see happen,” said King.

  “Obviously not, considering he shot the man,” Jorst said dryly.

  “Did he ever talk about doing something like that?”

  “As I told the authorities back then, he didn’t. Yes, he’d come in here and rant and
rave about Ritter, but he certainly never made any threats or anything. I mean that’s what freedom of speech is all about. He was entitled to his opinion.”

  “But not entitled to kill for it.”

  “I didn’t even know he had a gun.”

  “Was he close with other professors here?” asked Michelle.

  “Not really. Arnold intimidated many of them. Schools like Atticus don’t usually get such academic heavyweights.”

  “Friends outside the college?”

  “None that I knew of.”

  “How about among his students?”

  Jorst eyed King. “Excuse me, but this seems more like an investigation into Arnold personally, rather than a documentary on why he killed Clyde Ritter.”

  “Maybe it’s a little of both,” said Michelle quickly. “I mean it’s difficult to understand motivation without understanding the man and how he went about his plan to assassinate Ritter.”

  Jorst considered this for a few moments and then shrugged. “Well, if he tried to recruit any student to help, I certainly never heard of it.”

  “He was married at the time of his death?” asked Michelle.

  “Yes, but separated from his wife, Regina. They had one daughter, Kate.” He rose and went over to a shelf containing numerous photos. He handed one to them.

  “The Ramseys. In happier times,” he commented.

  King and Michelle looked at the three people in the photo.

  “Regina Ramsey is very beautiful,” remarked Michelle.

  “Yes, she was.”

  King glanced up. “Was?”

  “She’s dead. Suicide. Not that long ago actually.”

  “I hadn’t heard that,” said King. “You said they were separated?”

  “Yes. Regina was living in a small house nearby at the time of Arnold’s death.”

  “Did they share custody of Kate?” asked Michelle.

  “That’s right. I don’t know what the arrangements would have been if they’d divorced. Regina, of course, took full custody when Arnold died.”

  “Why were they separated?” asked Michelle.

  “I don’t know. Regina was beautiful and an extremely accomplished actress in her youth. She’d been a drama major in college, in fact. I believe she was going to make that her career, and then she met Arnold, fell in love, and that all changed. I’m sure she had many suitors, but Arnold was the man she loved. Part of me thinks she finally committed suicide because she could no longer live without him.” He paused and added in a small voice, “I thought she was happy around that time. I guess she wasn’t.”

  “But she apparently couldn’t live with Ramsey either,” commented King.

  “Arnold had changed. His academic career had peaked. He’d lost his enthusiasm for teaching. He was very depressed. Perhaps that melancholy affected the marriage. But when Regina left him, his depression only worsened.”

  “So maybe in shooting Ritter he was trying to recapture his youth,” Michelle said. “Change the world and go down as a martyr for the history books.”

  “Maybe. Unfortunately it cost him his life.”

  “What was the daughter’s reaction to what her father did?”

  “Kate was utterly devastated. I remember seeing her the day it happened. I will never forget the look of shock on that girl’s face. And then a few days later she saw it on TV. That damn tape from the hotel. It showed everything: her father shooting Ritter and the Secret Service agent killing her father. I saw it too. It was horrific, and—” Jorst stopped talking and looked intently at King. His expression slowly hardened, and he finally rose from behind his desk. “You really haven’t changed all that much, Agent King. Now, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I don’t appreciate being lied to. And I want to know right now what your real purpose is in coming here and asking all these questions.”

  King and Michelle exchanged glances. King said, “Look, Dr. Jorst, without making a long explanation out of it, we’ve recently discovered evidence that strongly suggests Arnold Ramsey wasn’t alone that day. That there was another assassin, or potential assassin, in the hotel.”

  “That’s impossible. If that were true, it would have come to light before now.”

  “Maybe not,” said Michelle. “Not if enough important people wanted it all to quietly go away. They had their killer.”

  “And they had the Secret Service agent who screwed up,” added King.

  Jorst sat back down. “I… I can’t believe it. What new evidence?” he asked warily.

  “We can’t say right now,” King told him. “But I wouldn’t have come all the way down here if I didn’t think it was worth checking out.”

  Jorst took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. “Well, I guess stranger things have happened. I mean, look at Kate Ramsey.”

  “What about Kate?” Michelle asked quickly.

  “She attended college here at Atticus. I was one of her professors. You’d think this would be the last place she’d have wanted to come. She was brilliant like her father; she could have gone anywhere. But here is where she came.”

  “Where is she now?” asked King.

  “She’s doing postgraduate work in Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Public Policy. They have a first-rate political science department. I wrote her a reference myself.”

  “Was it your feeling she hated her father for what he’d done?”

  Jorst considered the question for a lengthy time before answering. “She loved her father. And yet she may have hated him in the sense that he’d gone away and left her, choosing his political beliefs, as it were, over his love for her. I’m not a psychiatrist but that’s a layman’s guess. Although she’s turned out to be a chip off the old block.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Michelle.

  “She marches in protests, writes letters, lobbies government and civic leaders and writes articles for alternative publications, all just like her father did.”

  “So she may have hated him for leaving her, but she’s now emulating him?”

  “Appears to be that way.”

  “And her relationship with her mother?” asked King.

  “Fairly good. Although she might have blamed her mother somewhat for what happened.”

  “In that she wasn’t there for her husband? That if she had been, he might not have been driven to do what he did?” asked King.

  “Yes.”

  “So you didn’t see Regina Ramsey after her husband died?” asked Michelle.

  “No, I did,” he said quickly, and then hesitated. “Certainly at the funeral; and while Kate was a student here and some other times.”

  “What was the cause of death, do you remember?”

  “An overdose of drugs.”

  “She never remarried?” inquired King.

  Jorst turned a little pale. “No. No, she didn’t.” He recovered and noticed their inquisitive looks. “I’m sorry, this is all rather painful for me. These were my friends.”

  King studied the faces of the people in the photo some more. Kate Ramsey looked to be about ten in that picture. Her features were intelligent and loving. She stood between her parents, holding hands with both of them. A nice, loving family. On the surface anyway.

  He handed the photo back. “Anything else you can think of that might help?”

  “Not really.”

  Michelle gave him a card with her numbers on it. “Just in case something occurs to you,” she explained.

  Jorst looked at the card. “If what you say is true, that there was another assassin, what exactly was he supposed to do? Provide a backup in case Arnold missed his target?”

  “Or,” said King, “was somebody else supposed to die that day too?”

  CHAPTER

  35

  WHEN THEY CALLED the Center for Public Policy at VCU, King and Michelle were told that Kate Ramsey was away but was expected to return in a couple of days. They drove back to Wrightsburg, where King pulled into the parking lot of an upscale
grocery store in the downtown area.

  “I guess I owe you a fancy dinner and a nice bottle of wine,” explained King, “after dragging you all over the place.”

  “Well, it was a lot more fun than standing in a doorway with a gun while a politician scrounges for votes.”

  “Good girl. You’re learning.” King suddenly stared out the window, obviously thinking about something.

  “Okay, I know that look. What’s going through that head of yours now?” asked Michelle.

  “You remember Jorst kept saying that Atticus was lucky to have