David Baldacci - Split Second

King drew very close to the man. "Why did you go to the hotel that morning? Did you have a beef with Ritter too?"

"No, of course not."

"So why, then?" persisted King.

"He was a presidential candidate. We don't get many of those down here. I wanted to see for myself. It's my field, after all."

"What if I say that's complete bullshit?" said King.

"I don't owe you an explanation," Jorst shot back.

King shrugged. "You're right. We'll send the FBI and the Secret Service down, and you can tell them. You have a phone we can use?"

"Wait a minute, just wait a minute." King and Michelle looked at him expectantly. "All right, all right," Jorst said quickly. He swallowed nervously, looking back and forth at them. "Look, I was worried about Arnold. He'd been so enraged about Ritter. I was afraid he might do something dumb. Please believe me that never for one second did I think that his plan was to kill the man. I never knew he had a gun until he fired it. I swear."

"Go on," said King.

"He didn't know I was there. I followed him over. The night before, he told me he'd be attending the event. I stayed in the back. The crowd was so big that he never noticed me. He stayed far away from Ritter, and I started thinking that I'd just overreacted. I thought about leaving. I moved toward the door. Unbeknownst to me, it was right about then that he started moving toward Ritter. I turned back once, when I was right at the door. Just in time to see Arnold pull his gun and fire. I saw Ritter fall, and then I saw you fire and kill Arnold. And then the whole place exploded. And I was running as fast as Icould. I was able to get out so quickly because I was already by the door. I remember almost running over one of the hotel maids who was standing by the door too."

Michelle and King looked at each other: Loretta Baldwin.

Jorst continued, his face now ashen. "I couldn't believe that it had happened. It all seemed like a nightmare. I ran to my car and drove off as fast as I could. I wasn't the only one. Lots of people were fleeing that scene."

"You never told the police this?"

"What was there to tell? I was there, saw what happened and fled, just like hundreds of other people. It's not like the authorities needed my testimony or anything."

"And you went and got Regina and told her. Why?"

"Why! For God's sakes, her husband had just shot a presidential candidate. And then been killed himself. I had to tell her. Can't you understand that?"

King pulled the photo he'd taken from the upstairs bedroom out of his pocket and handed it to Jorst. Jorst accepted it with shaky hands and looked down at the smiling face of Regina Ramsey.

"I guess I can, particularly if you were in love with her back then too," said King quietly.

So what do you think?" asked Michelle as they were driving off. "He might have been telling the truth. And maybe he thought he'd be the first on the scene to comfort the poor widow. Capitalize on his friend's death at the same time he's playing Good Samaritan."

"So he's a creep. But maybe not a murderer."

"I don't know. He clearly bears watching. I don't like it that he withheld being at the Fairmount all these years and that he was planning to marry Regina. That alone puts him high up on my suspect list."

Michelle jumped as though she'd been stabbed. "Wait a minute. Sean, this may sound crazy, but hear me out." He looked at her expectantly. "Jorst admits to being at the Fairmount. He's in love with Regina Ramsey. What if he's the one who talked Ramsey into killing Ritter? He clearly knew that Ramsey hated Ritter. He was his friend and colleague. Ramsey would listen to him."

"But Kate said the man she overheard wasn't Jorst."

"But she couldn't be sure of that. Jorst might have changed his voice a little because he knew Kate was in the house. Okay, so Jorst is the one who makes a pact with Ramsey. They go to the hotel, each is armed."

King picked up the thread of her deductions. "And then Ramsey fires, but Jorst doesn't. He slips out, hides his gun in the supplycloset, where Loretta sees him, and then races off to tell Regina and Kate."

"With the thought of marrying the widow at some point."

"Well, he waited a long time to ask her," commented King.

"No, he might have asked before and she might have said no. Or he wanted to wait a reasonable time so there'd be no suspicion. Or maybe it took that long for Jorst to make Regina fall in love with him." She looked at him anxiously. "So what do you think?"

"It makes sense, Michelle, it really does. But then Regina died. Jorst didn't end up with her."

"Do you really think Regina Ramsey was murdered?"

"Well, if Jorst is to be believed and they were getting married, why would she have killed herself?"

King said slowly, "And Kate knew they were talking marriage. And Jorst said that Kate seemed to be okay with it."

Michelle said, "But what if she wasn't?"

"What do you mean?"

"Kate loved her father. She told me that if her mother hadn't left him, he might not have killed Ritter. But he does and he's dead. Then her mother is going to marry a colleague of her father's. And then she dies."

"So you're saying Kate murdered her mother?"

Michelle put up her hands. "I'm just saying it's a possibility. I don't want to believe it. I like Kate."

He sighed. "It's like a balloon. You punch one side, and another bump pops out on another side." He glanced at her. "Did you put together those timelines I asked for?"

Michelle nodded and pulled a notepad out of her bag. "Arnold Ramsey was born in 1949. He graduated high school in 1967 and attended Berkeley from 1967 until he received his Ph.D. in 1974. Arnold and Regina Ramsey were married that year too, by the way. Then the two bumped along until he took the position at Atticus in 1982. Kate was about a year old then." She stopped and lookedover at him. He had a confused look on his face. "What's bothering you?"

"Well, according to what Kate told us, Ramsey was supposed to have been involved in some war protest in which maybe a police officer died. That started all his problems. Now, she told us that Berkeley reluctantly let him graduate with his Ph.D. because he had completed all the work for it, including his dissertation. So the incident must have happened about the time he was actually graduating."

"That's right. So?"

"Well, if he received his Ph.D. in 1974, he wouldn't have been protesting the Vietnam War. Nixon signed the cease-fire in early 1973 and, though both sides sniped at each other about violations of the cease-fire pact, fighting didn't start up again until 1975. And if the incident with the police officer happened before Ramsey earned his Ph.D., I bet Berkeley would have just canned him."

Michelle sat back. "I guess that's right."

"And if Ramsey wasn't protesting the war in 1974 when the police officer was killed, what was he protesting?"

Michelle suddenly snapped her fingers. "Nineteen seventy-four? You mentioned Nixon. That was when Watergate was happening. Right?"

King nodded thoughtfully. "And it makes sense that Ramsey would be protesting against a guy like Nixon, calling for his resignation, which he finally gave in August of that year."

"But Kate said it was a war protest in L.A."

"No, she said that's what her mother said. And she said Regina had been drinking heavily during that time. She easily might have gotten the date, event and even the place wrong."

"So the incident that involved the officer being killed might have been in Washington and not L.A. and was about Nixon and not Vietnam?"

"If so, we should be able to find out details about that."

"And the law firm that interceded on Ramsey's behalf. Do you think that's D.C.-based too?"