Split Second (30 page)

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.

S
O 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
supply closet, 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 looked over 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?”

“I guess we’ll find that out.” King pulled out his phone and punched in some numbers. “I’ll check in with Joan. She’s great
at digging up stuff.” However, there was no answer and King left a message.

King continued, “If somebody got him off, and a law firm was involved, that’s something tangible we should be able to track down.”

“Not necessarily. You can’t possibly account for the whereabouts of everybody back then. Hell, Jorst could have been throwing rocks at City Hall in L.A., and we’d never be able to prove it. And finding anybody to talk about it might well be impossible. And if there’s nothing in the public record, poof, that’s it.”

King nodded. “What you say is completely logical. But we still need to check it out. It’ll cost us nothing but time.”

“Yeah,” said Michelle. “But I’ve got a bad feeling we’re running out of that really fast.”

K
ING AND
M
ICHELLE
slept over at a motel near Atticus and arrived back at Wrightsburg the next morning. Parks was waiting at King’s house.

“Have you heard from Joan?” King asked him. “I tried last night but there was no answer.”

“I talked to her yesterday evening. She found out something about Bob Scott from the stuff I brought.” He told the pair about the warrant in Tennessee.

“If it’s the same Bob Scott, then maybe he can lead us somewhere and get some of these questions answered,” said King.

“Call Joan again, and we’ll map out how we’re going to play this.”

King dialed Joan’s number but there was still no answer. Then he called the main number for the inn where she was staying. As he listened to the front desk person, his face grew pale and he felt his knees weaken. He slammed down the phone and shouted, “Damn it!”

Parks and Michelle both stared at him.

“Sean, what is it?” she asked quietly.

King shook his head in disbelief. “It’s Joan,” he said. “She’s been kidnapped.”

Joan had been staying in a cottage set in the rear grounds of the Cedars Inn. Her purse and phone were on the floor of her room. The tray of food was untouched. The pair of shoes she’d been wearing the day before were lying on the floor; the heel
of one of the shoes was broken off. The cottage had a rear door that opened to an area where a car could have been parked and Joan taken out without anyone seeing anything. When King, Michelle and Parks arrived, Chief Williams was there with some of his men, taking statements and collecting the scant evidence available.

The room attendant who’d set out to bring her food had been thoroughly questioned. He was a young man, employed at the inn for a couple of years, and was visibly shaken by what had happened. He explained that as he was bringing the food to Joan’s cottage, a young woman approached him. After confirming that the food was for Joan, she identified herself as Joan’s sister just arrived for a visit and said she wanted to surprise her sibling by delivering the food herself. It had all seemed innocent enough. And the girl was very pretty and had given him a twenty-dollar bill for his troubles. He’d turned over the tray and gone back to the inn. That was all he knew.

Chief Williams came up to them. “Damn it, I’m running all over the place with murders and kidnappings. This was a peaceful place not too long ago.”

With the chief’s permission they took the box of Bob Scott’s materials Joan had been going through, and the three held a quick conference in the parking lot. Parks repeated verbatim the discussion he’d had with Joan.

“She must have been snatched pretty soon after I hung up with her. She filled me in on Bob Scott. I said Scott certainly could have turned traitor, and he would have been a perfect mole for anybody plotting to kill Ritter, although I know you’re not convinced he did it. We were going to wait for you two to get back from your meeting with Kate Ramsey before planning our next steps.”

King walked over and looked at Joan’s BMW while Parks went inside to speak to Chief Williams. The police had already searched the car and found nothing.

Michelle walked over to him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I should have seen this coming,” he answered.

“How? You’re not psychic.”

“We’d talked to a lot of people. Mildred Martin was murdered right after we were with her. It’s not a stretch that they’d go after Joan.”

“Or
you
! And what were you supposed to do, baby-sit her? I don’t know the woman all that well, but I don’t think she would have stood for that.”

“I didn’t even try, Michelle. I wasn’t concerned about her safety. And now…?”

“We still have a shot at finding her. Alive.”

“No disrespect, but our track record for finding people alive isn’t too good.”

Parks returned. “Look, I’m going to get a fix on this Bob Scott in Tennessee, and if it’s the same guy, we’re going down there with a bunch of folks and have us a talk. You can join us if you want.”

“We want,” answered Michelle for them both.