Split Second skamm-1

by David Baldacci

  Michelle said slowly, “Kate, do you think your mother—”

  Kate interrupted her. “No, they weren’t having an affair. I know I was very young back then, but still I would have known.”

  King didn’t look convinced but said, “The man who met with your father, he mentioned your mother, Regina?”

  “Yes. I’m assuming he must have known one or both of my parents. But look, I really can’t believe Thornton is mixed up in any of this. He’s just not the type to run around with guns plotting to kill people. He didn’t have my father’s genius or his academic credentials, but he’s a good professor.”

  King nodded. “Right, he didn’t have your father’s brains or Berkeley Ph.D. background, and yet they ended up at the same college. Any idea why?”

  “Why what?” Kate had assumed a defensive tone.

  Michelle said, “Why your father wasn’t teaching at, say, Harvard or Yale. In addition to his Berkeley career, he authored four books that I was told were easily in the top ten in their field. He was a serious scholar, a real heavyweight.”

  “Maybe he simply chose to go to a smaller college,” said Kate.

  “Or maybe there was something in his past that precluded him from being called up to the academic big leagues,” remarked King.

  “I don’t think so,” said Kate. “Otherwise, everybody would know.”

  “Not necessarily. Not if it had been expunged from his official record, but certain people in the very cliquish world of academics were aware. And they might have held it against him. So he ended up at Atticus, which probably felt lucky to have him, warts and all.”

  “Any thoughts on what those warts might be?” asked Michelle.

  Kate said nothing.

  King said, “Look, the last thing we’re aiming to do is drag up any more dirt on your father. I say, let him rest in peace. But if the man who talked to your father was responsible for his shooting Ritter, I don’t see any reason why the man shouldn’t suffer for it. And understanding your dad’s past may help us find him. Because if I’m reading this right, this guy knew your father from the old days, and if he did, then he’d probably know what incident had tainted him enough to cut your dad off from the Harvards of the world, if indeed that was the case.”

  Michelle said, “Kate, you’re the only hope we have with this. Unless you tell us what you know, it’s going to be very tough for us to learn the truth. And I think you want to know the truth; otherwise, you wouldn’t have called us.”

  Kate finally sighed and said, “Okay, okay, there were some things my mother said not too long before she killed herself.”

  “What were they, Kate?” Michelle prompted gently.

  “She said my father was arrested during a demonstration. I think it was against the Vietnam War.”

  “What, for disorderly conduct or something?” asked King.

  “No, for killing someone.”

  King leaned in close. “Who and how, Kate?” he said. “Everything you can remember.”

  “This is only from what my mother said, and she wasn’t really all that clear about it. She was drinking heavily near the end of her life.” Kate took out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

  “I know this is hard, Kate, but it might help to get it out in the open,” said King.

  “From what I could gather it was a police officer or someone official like that. He was killed during this war protest that got way out of hand. In L.A., I think she said. My father was arrested for it. It actually looked really bad for him, and then something happened. My mother said some lawyers got involved on my dad’s behalf, and the charges were dropped. And my mom said the police had trumped up the charges anyway. That they were just looking for a scapegoat, and my father was it. She was sure Dad hadn’t done anything.”

  “But there must have been stories in the paper, or some scuttlebutt,” commented Michelle.

  “I don’t know if it made the papers, but I guess there was a record of it somewhere because it obviously did hurt my dad’s career. I checked into my mom’s story. I confirmed that Berkeley let my dad graduate with his Ph.D. but did so very reluctantly. I guess they didn’t have much choice; he’d already completed all the course work and his dissertation. The incident happened shortly before he graduated. But from what I could gather word spread in academic circles, and the places he applied to teach at after he graduated shut their doors on him. My mom said Dad bumped around here and there, scraping by before he got the job at Atticus. Of course, during those years he’d written all those books that were very well received in the academic community. Looking back, I think my dad was so bitter about being kept out of the top schools that even if any of them had come calling, he would have stayed at Atticus. He was a very loyal person, and Atticus had given him a shot.”

  King asked, “Any idea how your parents survived during the lean years? Did your mom work?”

  “Here and there some, but nothing permanent. She helped my dad write his books, with research and such. I’m not really sure how they got by.” She rubbed her eyes. “Why, what are you getting at?”

  “I was just wondering,” he said, “who these lawyers were who came in to represent your dad. Did your father come from money?”

  Kate looked bewildered. “No, my father grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. My mother was from Florida originally. They were both pretty poor.”

  “So it becomes even more puzzling. Why the lawyers coming to the rescue? And I wonder if your parents were getting by on money from an unknown source during the tough times.”

  “I guess it’s possible,” said Kate, “but I don’t know where from.”

  Michelle looked at King. “Are you thinking the person who talked to Ramsey in his study that night might be connected to the L.A. incident?”

  “Look at it this way. This thing happens in L.A. and Arnold Ramsey gets nailed. But what if he wasn’t alone in it? What if some person who was well connected was also at fault? That would explain some fancy lawyers swooping in. I know lawyers—they don’t usually work for free.”

  Michelle was nodding. “That might explain why the man mentioned Regina Ramsey. Maybe he was recalling the past fights against authority in getting Ramsey to pick up a gun and rejoin the struggle.”

  “God, this is all too much,” said Kate. She looked like she might start crying. “My father was brilliant. He should have been teaching at Harvard or Yale or Berkeley. And then the police lie and his life is over. It’s no wonder he rebelled against authority. Where’s the justice in that?”

  “There isn’t any,” answered King.

  “I can still remember so vividly when I heard the news.”

  “You said you were in algebra class,” said Michelle.

  She nodded. “I went out in the hallway, and there was Thornton and my mother. I knew something bad had happened.”

  King looked startled. “Thornton Jorst was there with your mother? Why?”

  “He was the one who told my mother. Didn’t he tell you that?”

  “No, he didn’t,” said Michelle adamantly.

  “Why would he have known before your mother?” asked King quizzically.

  Kate looked at him, puzzled. “I don’t know. I assumed he heard about it on TV.”

  “What time did they come and get you out of class?” asked King.

  “What time? I… I don’t know. It was years ago.”

  “Think, Kate, it’s really important.”

  She was silent for a minute and then said, “Well, it was in the morning, well before lunch, I know that. Say eleven o’clock or so.”

  “Ritter was killed at 10:32. There is no way the TV stations could have run a story with full particulars, including the identity of the assassin, barely thirty minutes later.”

  “And Jorst also had time to pick up your mother?” asked Michelle.

  “Well, she wasn’t living that far from where I went to school. You have to understand, Atticus isn’t that far from Bowlington, about half an hour by car. And
my mom lived on the way.”

  Michelle and King exchanged anxious glances.

  “It couldn’t be possible, could it?” said Michelle.

  “What? What are you talking about?” asked Kate.

  King rose without answering.

  “Where are you going?” asked Kate.

  “To pay Dr. Jorst a visit,” he said. “I think there’s a lot he hasn’t told us.”

  “Well, if he didn’t tell you about coming to see me at the school that day, maybe he didn’t tell you about him and my mother.”

  King stared at her. “What about them?”

  “Before she died she and Thornton were seeing each other.”

  “Seeing each other?” asked King. “But you said your mother loved your father.”

  “By then Arnold had been dead almost seven years. Thornton and my mother’s friendship had endured and had turned into something else.”

  “Something else? Like what?” he asked.

  “Like they were getting married.”

  52

  Michelle had gotten only halfway through the Bob Scott file when she received the call from Kate. Since Michelle obviously wouldn’t be getting back to it for a while, Joan had taken the box with her to the inn where she was staying and continued to go through it. After her last conversation with King, she needed something to take her mind off that very painful encounter.

  When she opened the box and started sifting through its contents, she realized that Parks hadn’t been joking: it was a mess. However, she dutifully turned every page, reading each document until it became clear it was not the right Bob Scott. After a couple of hours she called room service for a snack and a pot of coffee. She was going to be here a while, and she had no idea when King and Maxwell would be returning. She started to phone King but then decided against it.

  She was nearing the bottom of the box when her scrutiny intensified. She pulled out the sheaf of papers and spread them out on her bed. They appeared to be a warrant for the arrest of one Robert C. Scott. The address where the warrant was to be served was in Tennessee somewhere, although Joan didn’t recognize the town’s name. From what she could tell, it had to do with a weapons charge. This Bob Scott had some guns he shouldn’t have. Whether it was the Bob Scott she was looking for or not, she couldn’t tell yet. However, the Bob Scott she knew had loved his guns.

  As she read further, it became even more intriguing. The Marshals Service had been engaged, as they often were, to serve the warrant on behalf of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or ATF. That was probably why Parks had been able to get his hands on this document. Bob Scott might have ties to this current case, but it would have to be from the Ritter angle. And yet they had all speculated that Bruno and Ritter might be connected somehow. They had the murders of Loretta Baldwin and Mildred Martin to show that connection. And yet how could such two very different cases involve all the same parties? What was the common denominator? What! It was driving her mad that the answer might be staring them all in the face and they still couldn’t see it.

  Her cell phone rang. It was Parks.

  “Where are you now?” he asked.

  “I’m at the Cedars. I’ve been going over that box you left. And I think I might have hit on something.” She told him about the warrant.

  “Damn, was it served on Scott?”

  “I don’t know. Presumably not, since if he’d been arrested, it would have shown up somewhere and we’d know about it.”

  “If the guy’s got warrants issued against him for gun violations, maybe he’s the wacko behind all this.”

  “But how do we tie him to everything? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Agreed,” he said wearily. “Where are King and Maxwell?”

  “They went to talk to Kate Ramsey. She called and said she had some more information for them. They were meeting in Charlottesville.”

  “Well, if her father wasn’t working alone, the guy she overheard might have been Bob Scott. He would have been in the perfect inside place to set up the hit. A Trojan horse if ever there was one.”

  “How do you want to proceed on what I discovered?”

  “I say we take a bunch of guys and go check it out. Nice find, Joan. Maybe you’re as good as everybody says you are.”

  “Actually, Marshal, I’m better.”

  As soon as Joan hung up, she jumped as though she’d been electrocuted. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed, staring at her phone. “It can’t be.” She said the next two words very slowly. “Trojan horse.”

  There was a knock at the door. She opened it, and the attendant carried the tray.

  “Over here okay, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” said Joan absently. Her mind was truly whirling over this new development. “That’s fine.”

  “Would you like me to pour out the coffee?”

  “No, that’s fine.” She signed the check and turned away. “Thank you.”

  Joan was about to make a phone call when she felt the presence behind her. She turned, but didn’t even have time to cry out before everything went dark. The young woman stood over Joan, who now lay on the floor. Tasha bent down and went to work.

  53

  It was late at night when King and Michelle arrived at Atticus College. The building housing Thornton Jorst’s office was locked. At the administration building Michelle persuaded a young intern on duty there to give her Jorst’s home address. It was about a mile off campus on a tree-shaded avenue of brick homes, where a number of other professors lived. There was no car in Jorst’s driveway as King pulled his Lexus to the curb, and no lights were on. They went up the drive to the front door and knocked, but no one answered. They looked around at the small backyard, but that was empty too.

  “I can’t believe it, but Jorst must have been at the Fairmount Hotel when Ritter was killed,” said Michelle. “There’s no other explanation unless somebody called him from the hotel and told him what had happened.”

  “Well, we’ll ask him that. But if he was there, he must have hightailed it out before the area was sealed off. That’s the only way he could have gotten to Regina and Kate with the news that fast.”

  “Think he’ll admit being at the hotel?”

  “I guess we’ll find out, because I intend on asking him. And I’d also like to ask about Regina Ramsey.”

  “You’d think he would have mentioned they were talking marriage when we first spoke to him.”

  “Not if he didn’t want us to know. Which makes me even more suspicious.” King looked at Michelle. “Are you armed?”

  “Guns and creds, the whole power pack, why?”

  “Just checking. I wonder if people lock their doors around here?”

  “You’re not thinking of going in? That’s breaking and entering in the nighttime.”

  “Not if you don’t break when you enter,” he said.

  “Oh, really? Where’d you get your law degree? The University of Stupid?”

  “All I’m saying is, it would be nice to have a peek with Jorst not around.”

  “But he might be. He might be in there sleeping. Or he might come back while we’re inside.”

  “Not we, just me. You’re a sworn law enforcement officer.”

  “You’re a member of the bar. Technically that makes you an officer of the court.”

  “Yeah, but us lawyers can always get around technicalities. It’s our specialty, or don’t you watch TV?” He went back to his car and got a flashlight. When he rejoined Michelle, she grabbed his arm. “Sean, this is crazy. What if a neighbor sees you and calls the cops?”

  “Then we tell them we thought we heard someone calling out for help.”

  “That is so unbelievably lame.”

  King had already eased over to the back door and tried the knob. “Damn.”

  Michelle breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s locked? Thank God!”

  King swung the door open with a mischievous look. “Just kidding. I’ll only be a minute. Keep a sharp lookout.”

&n
bsp; “Sean, don’t—”

  He slipped inside before she could finish. Michelle started wandering around, hands in her pockets, trying to look like she hadn’t a care in the world while the acid ate away the lining of her stomach. She even attempted to whistle, but found she couldn’t because her lips were too dry from her sudden anxiety attack.

  “Damn you, Sean King,” she muttered.

  Inside, King found himself in the kitchen. As he swung his light around, the room was revealed as small and looked unused. Jorst seemed more of an eat-out kind of guy. He moved through to a living room that was very plainly furnished and neat. Bookcases lined the room and were, not surprisingly, full of tomes by Goethe, Francis Bacon, John Locke and the perennially popular Machiavelli.

  Jorst’s home office was off the living room, and this space was more reflective of the man. The desk was piled high with books and papers, the floor cluttered, the small leather sofa similarly stacked with objects. The place smelled strongly of both cigarette and cigar smoke, and King noted an ashtray on the floor that was filled with butts. The walls were covered with cheap bookshelves, and they sagged under the weight of the books resting there. King poked around the desk, opened drawers and looked for secret hiding places yet found nothing of the sort. He doubted that if he pulled out one of the books a hidden passageway would be revealed, but he dutifully slipped out a couple of volumes just in case. Nothing happened.

  Jorst was working on a book, he’d said, and the condition of his study seemed to confirm this, since notes, drafts and outlines were piled everywhere. Organization was evidently not the man’s strong suit, and King looked around in disgust at the mess. He couldn’t live ten minutes like this, although in his youth his apartment had looked even worse. At least he’d grown out of his pigsty; Jorst apparently never had. King fleetingly contemplated inviting Michelle in so she could get a quick hit of clutter. It would probably make her feel better.

  Digging under the piles on the desk, he found an appointment book, but it was singularly uninformative. He next moved upstairs. There were two bedrooms there, and only one was ostensibly in use. Here Jorst was neater. His clothes were arranged nicely in his small closet, his shoes stacked on a cedar rack. King looked under the bed and was greeted only by dust balls. The adjoining bathroom revealed only a damp towel on the floor and some toiletries stacked on the sink. He went across to the other bedroom, obviously a guest room. There was a small adjoining bath here too, but there were no towels or toiletries. There was a shelf against one wall that held no books, but did have some photos on it. He shined the light on them one by one. They were of Jorst with various people, none of whom King recognized until he looked at the last face.