Split Second

by David Baldacci

  least whoever was plotting to kill Ritter would know the time window they were working with. The note said to come around 10:30. But even if she didn’t do it, I’m sure they’d have still attempted to kill Ritter.”

  “That was pretty risky for Joan. It’s not like she had to.”

  “Well, sometimes love makes you do crazy things.”

  “So you think that was it?”

  “That’s what she pretty much told me. All these years she suspected I was involved in Ritter’s death somehow. She thought I’d set her up, again somehow. When she saw the note that was pinned to Susan Whitehead, she realized maybe we’d both been used. That note on Susan Whitehead clearly indicated the person was involved in Ritter’s killing. The note slipped under Joan’s door was designed to use her to distract me, under the pretense of being written by me. But she couldn’t tell anyone about the note and what she’d done on the elevator because it would have wrecked her career.” He paused. “She asked me why, if I suspected her and I was clean, I’d never told anyone what she’d done.”

  “And what did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her. Maybe I don’t know why.”

  “I think you never really believed she was guilty of anything other than bad judgment.”

  “I saw the look in her eyes when the shot was fired. I never saw anyone more shocked. No, she wasn’t part of it.” He shrugged. “But what the hell does it matter now?”

  “Like you said, love can make you do strange things. And it looks like whoever was behind this knew how you felt about Joan. That you wouldn’t betray her. In effect, both your hands and Joan’s were tied.” She looked at him questioningly. “It’s not a crime to care about someone, Sean.”

  “Sometimes it feels like it is. It’s a little unsettling to have someone come back into your life who you thought was gone forever.”

  “Especially if what you thought eight years ago turned out to be wrong.”

  “I’m not in love with Joan,” said King. “But I do care what happens to her. I want her back safe.”

  “We’ll do all we can do.”

  “That still might not be enough,” he said grimly, and then rose and headed up to the house.

  As they were finishing up lunch, King’s phone rang. When he answered, he looked puzzled and then said to Michelle, “It’s for you. He says he’s your father.”

  “Thanks. I gave him this number. I hope you don’t mind. The cell reception is a little spotty around here.”

  “No problem.” He handed the phone across to her.

  Michelle and her father spoke for about five minutes. She wrote some information down on a sheet of paper, thanked her dad and hung up.

  King was rinsing out the lunch dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher. “So what was that all about?”

  “I told you most of my male family members are police officers. My father, the Nashville police chief, belongs to all the national fraternal police organizations, and is high up in a lot of them. I asked him to do a little digging on this D.C. incident. To see if he could find out anything about an officer being killed around 1974 during a protest.”

  King wiped his hands dry on a towel and came and stood next to her. “So what’d he come up with?”

  “A name. Only one name, but it might lead us somewhere.” She glanced at her notes. “Paul Summers was on the D.C. police force back then. He’s retired now but lives in Manassas. My dad knows him, and he’s willing to talk to us. Dad says Summers could have some information for us.”

  King pulled on his jacket. “Let’s go.”

  As they were heading out, Michelle said, “Sean, I don’t agree with your keeping what Joan did secret all these years, but I admire you for doing it. There’s something to be said for loyalty.”

  “Really? I’m not sure I agree. In fact, sometimes loyalty really sucks.”

  CHAPTER

  57

  PAUL SUMMERS LIVED in a thirty-year-old split-level rancher in Manassas, Virginia, that was being infringed on all sides by new housing developments. Summers answered the door dressed in jeans and a burgundy Redskins football T-shirt. They sat in the small living room. He offered them something to drink, but they declined. Summers looked to be around sixty-five or so, with fine white hair, a wide smile, freckled skin, big forearms and a bigger stomach.

  “Damn, so you’re Frank Maxwell’s girl,” he said to Michelle. “If I told you how much your father bragged about you at the national conventions, it’d make you blush redder than this T-shirt I’m wearing.”

  Michelle smiled. “Daddy’s little girl. It does get embarrassing sometimes.”

  “But, hell, how many dads have a daughter like you? I’d be bragging too.”

  “She does make you feel kind of inferior,” said King with an impish glance at Michelle. “But then you get to know her and realize she’s actually human.”

  Summers took on a somber expression. “I been following this stuff about Bruno. It stinks. I worked with Secret Service before, lots of times. And the stories I heard about protectees doing crazy stuff and leaving the Service boys high and dry. You got screwed, Michelle, plain and simple.”

  “Thanks for saying that. My dad mentioned you might have some information that could help us?”

  “That’s right. I was sort of the unofficial police historian when I was on the force, and let me tell you, those were some exciting times. People think America’s gone to hell these days? They should check out the sixties and seventies.” As he was talking, he pulled out a file. “I got some stuff here I think might help.” He put on a pair of reading glasses.

  “In 1974 Watergate was tearing the country apart. Folks were going after Nixon with a vengeance.”

  “I guess some of those events got a little out of control,” said King.

  “Oh, yeah. The D.C. police force was pretty used to large-scale demonstrations by that time, but still you never know.” He adjusted his glasses and read over his notes for a few moments. “The break-in at the Watergate happened in the summer of 1972. It was about a year later that the country found out about Nixon’s tapes. He claimed executive privilege and wouldn’t release them. After he fired the special prosecutor in October of 1973, things really started to snowball and folks started talking impeachment. In July of 1974 the Supreme Court ruled against Nixon with regard to the tapes and he resigned in August. But before the Court handed down its opinion—it was around May of ’74—things got really hot in D.C. There was a huge protest planned along Pennsylvania Avenue with thousands of marchers.

  “We had riot squads out, dozens of officers on horseback, the National Guard, hundreds of Secret Service agents, SWAT teams, even a damn tank; you know, the works. I’d been on the force ten years, had seen my share of riots, and I remember still being scared. I felt like I was in some third-world country and not the U.S. of A.”

  “And a police officer died?” said Michelle.

  “No, a national guardsman,” said Summers. “Found him in an alley with his head bashed in.”

  “And someone was arrested for it,” said King. “But how could they have known for sure who did it? It sounded like chaos out there.”

  “Well, they did make an arrest and they were going to prosecute, but then everything just went away. I don’t know why. I mean the National Guard kid was dead, no doubt about that, and somebody had killed him. The story made the papers, but then the Supreme Court ruled against the president and Nixon resigned in August of ’74, and that dominated everything from that point on. People seemed to forget about the death of the national guardsman. The whole thing just faded away. After RFK and Martin Luther King, Nam and Watergate, I think the country was tired of it all.”

  King leaned forward. “Do you have the names of the people charged, arresting officers, prosecutors?”

  “No, I’m sorry I don’t. You’re talking thirty years ago. And I wasn’t involved in the case at all. I just heard about it afterwards. So I wouldn’t recognize any names you migh
t have in mind.”

  “How about the papers? You said there were stories?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t believe any of them named the parties charged. There was definitely something weird going on there. To tell the truth, the media didn’t trust the government back then. Lot of unethical stuff going on. And I hate to say it, since I was a member of the force, but some of the men in blue did some stuff they shouldn’t back then. They crossed the line sometimes, especially with the longhaired hippies coming to town. Some of my brethren didn’t have a lot of patience for that. It was a real ‘us against them’ mentality.”

  “And maybe something like that happened here; you said the charges just went away,” said Michelle. “Maybe they’d been trumped up.”

  “Maybe. But I really don’t know for sure.”

  “Okay,” said King. “We appreciate your help.”

  Summers smiled. “You’re about to appreciate it a little more.” He held up a piece of paper. “I do have one name for you. Donald Holmgren.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Michelle.

  “Public defender back then. A lot of the protesters that day were really young, and half of them were spaced-out on stuff. It was like all the war protesters—hippies and people like that—had switched their focus to Nixon. So I’m thinking the odds are good that whoever got charged was one of them. If they had no money for a lawyer, they’d be initially represented by the P.D. office. Holmgren might be able to tell you some more. He’s retired now too but he’s living in Maryland. I haven’t talked to him, but if you approach it right, he might open up to you.”

  “Thanks, Paul,” said Michelle. “We owe you.” She gave him a hug.

  “Hey, tell your old man everything he said about you was true. Wish my kids had turned out half as well.”

  CHAPTER

  58

  DONALD HOLMGREN LIVED in a townhouse on the outskirts of Rockville, Maryland. His house was filled with books, magazines and cats. A widower now, he was about seventy and had a full head of gray hair and was dressed in a light sweater and slacks. He cleaned some cats and books off his living room sofa, and King and Michelle sat down.

  “We appreciate your seeing us on such short notice,” said King.

  “No problem. My days aren’t that busy anymore.”

  “I’m sure they were much busier when you were at P.D.,” commented Michelle.

  “Oh, you can say that again. My tenure covered some interesting times.”

  “As I mentioned on the phone,” began King, “the incident we’re investigating is the death of the national guardsman around May of 1974.”

  “Right, I remember that case well. It’s not like national guardsmen get killed every day, and thank God for that. But that was some day. I was arguing a case in federal court when the demonstration started. They stopped the court proceeding, and everybody went to the TV sets and watched. Never seen anything like it before and hope I never do again. I thought I was in the middle of the storming of the Bastille.”

  “We understand that initially a person was charged with the crime.”

  “That’s right. Started at first-degree murder, but as details followed, we were looking at getting it knocked down.”

  “So you know who handled the case?”

  “I did,” was his surprising reply. Michelle and King exchanged a look. Holmgren explained, “I’d been at the Public Defender’s Service about sixteen years, started back when it was just the Legal Aid Agency. And I’d defended some high-profile cases too. But to tell the truth I don’t think anybody else wanted it.”

  “You mean the evidence was so strong against the accused,” said Michelle.

  “No, the evidence wasn’t overwhelming by any means. If I remember correctly, the person charged was arrested because he was coming out of the alley where the crime took place. Dead body, particularly one in uniform, and a bunch of hippies running around throwing rocks, well, that’s a recipe for disaster. I think they arrested the first person they saw. You have to understand that the city was under siege, and nerves were frayed to the breaking point. If I remember correctly, the defendant was some college kid. I didn’t necessarily believe he’d done it, or if he had, that he’d meant to. Maybe there was a scuffle, and the soldier fell and hit his head. Of course, the prosecutor’s office back then had a reputation for trumping up cases. Hell, we had police officers lying under oath, writing up false charges, creating evidence, the works.”

  “Do you remember the name of the defendant?”

  “I’ve tried to think of it since you called, but I can’t. It was a young man, smart, that I do remember. Sorry, I’ve handled thousands of cases since then, and I didn’t work on that one very long. I remember legal charges and defenses better than I recall names. And it’s been thirty years.”

  King decided to take a shot. “Was his name Arnold Ramsey?”

  Holmgren’s lips parted. “Why, I couldn’t swear to it but I think that’s right. How’d you know?”

  “It would take too long to explain. That same Arnold Ramsey, eight years ago, shot and killed Clyde Ritter.”

  Holmgren’s mouth gaped. “That was the same guy?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, now maybe I’m sorry he got off.”

  “But you weren’t sorry back then?”

  “No, I wasn’t. As I mentioned, back then certain people weren’t so much concerned with the truth as they were with getting convictions any way they could.”

  “But they didn’t get one in the Ramsey case?”

  “No. While I believed the case was only marginal, I still had to work with the facts I had, and they weren’t great. And the government was playing real hardball. Wanting to make a statement, not that I totally blame them, I guess. And then I got taken off the case.”

  “Why?”

  “The defendant got other counsel. Some firm out west, I think. I guess that was where Ramsey, if it was him, was from. I assumed his family had found out what happened and were coming to the rescue.”

  “Do you remember the name of the firm?” asked Michelle.

  He thought for a bit. “No. Too many years and cases in the interim.”

  “And this firm somehow got the charges dropped?”

  “Not only that, I heard they got the record of the arrest expunged, all the details. They must have been really good. In my dealings with the government back then, that rarely happened.”

  “Well, you said some of the government prosecutors were pretty unethical. Maybe people got paid off,” suggested King. “Lawyers and cops.”

  “I guess that might have happened,” said Holmgren. “I mean, if you’re going to trump up cases, I suppose you’d be willing to take a bribe to make a case go away. The government lawyer on the case was young, ambitious as hell, and always struck me as being way too slick. But he was good at playing the game, looking to jump to bigger and better things. I never saw him cross the line, though others in the office did. I do know that I felt sorry for his boss, who took a lot of the heat when all the crap in that office hit the fan years later. Billy Martin was a good guy. He didn’t deserve that.”

  King and Michelle looked at the man, utterly stunned. King finally found his voice. “And the name of the government lawyer who prosecuted Arnold Ramsey?”

  “Oh, that one I’ll never forget. It was the fellow who was running for president and then got kidnapped. John Bruno.”

  CHAPTER

  59

  KING AND MICHELLE went straight from Holmgren’s to VCU in Richmond. Kate Ramsey wasn’t at the Center for Public Policy. They were able to talk the receptionist into giving them Kate’s home phone number. They called, but the woman who answered was Kate’s roommate. She didn’t know where Kate was. She hadn’t seen her since that morning. When Michelle asked if they could come to see her, she hesitantly agreed.

  On the way over, Michelle asked, “Do you think Kate knows about Bruno and her father? Please don’t tell me that. She can’t.”

  “I hav
e a sinking feeling you’re wrong.”

  They drove to Kate’s apartment and spoke with the roommate, whose name was Sharon. At first Sharon was reluctant to talk, but when Michelle flashed her badge, she became far more cooperative. With her permission they looked around Kate’s small bedroom but found nothing that was helpful. Kate was a serious reader, and her room was stacked with works that would have taxed most academicians. Then King found the box on the top shelf of the closet. It held a gun-cleaning kit and a box of nine-millimeter shells. He looked ominously at Michelle, who shook her head sadly.

  “Do you know why Kate carries a gun?” King asked Sharon.

  “She was mugged. At least that’s what she told me. She bought it about seven or eight months ago. I hate having the thing around, but she has a license for it and all. And she goes to shooting ranges to practice. She’s a good shot.”