Split Second

  “I’m not a child. I don’t need watching.”

  “Consider yourself lucky. And a piece of advice: stay away from Sean King.”

  “What, now you’re picking my friends?”

  “Friends? People keep dying around him. You almost got killed.”

  “So did he!”

  “Really. That’s not what I heard. He got a bump on the head. You almost got your neck wrung off.”

  “You’re way off base, Walter.”

  “You know, when Ritter was killed, there were rumors King was paid off to look the other way.”

  “And then to kill the assassin. How does that make sense?”

  “Who knows? But the fact is, look at his life now. He lives in some big house, making lots of money.”

  “Oh, yeah. What a brilliant plan of his to ruin his life.”

  “So maybe he ticked somebody off. Somebody he did a deal with eight years ago, and that person is exacting payment.”

  “That is so crazy.”

  “Is it? I think your judgment’s been seriously clouded by a good-looking guy who’s got all these bad things happening to him. Start thinking like a professional and maybe your vision will clear. In the meantime all you’re going to be doing is getting splinters in your ass from sitting at a desk.”

  The phone rang and Bishop snatched it up.

  “Yeah? What? Who did…?” Bishop’s face turned very red. He slammed the phone down and didn’t look at Michelle. “Go take your vacation,” he said quietly.

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Join the club. And you can pick up your creds and gun on the way out. Now get the hell out of my office!”

  Michelle left before the powers-that-be changed their minds.

  In the same building that a puzzled Michelle was now leaving with her pistol and badge, a number of grim-looking men sat in a conference room. They collectively represented the Secret Service, FBI and U.S. Marshals Service. The man at the head of the table was putting down the phone.

  “Okay, Maxwell is officially on vacation.”

  “Giving her enough rope to hang herself?” asked a man who was from the FBI.

  “Maybe, maybe not.” He looked at the other end of the table. “What’s your take?”

  Jefferson Parks put down his soda and thought about this question. “Well, let’s look at what we have. Loretta Baldwin is maybe connected to Clyde Ritter’s assassination. According to what King told the police, the gun he found in her backyard might have been one Loretta saw somebody hide in the supply closet at the Fairmount. She was blackmailing that person and he eventually killed her.”

  The man at the head of the table was the director of the Secret Service, and he didn’t look happy with this theory. “That might mean Arnold Ramsey didn’t act alone in killing Ritter.”

  The FBI agent said, “How about Sean King’s being the guy who killed Loretta? She might have been blackmailing him. Then he finds out who she is from Maxwell and kills her. He digs up the gun and conveniently loses it.”

  Parks shook his head. “King has an alibi for when Loretta was killed. And why would he have needed to hide a gun in the closet of the hotel? He killed Arnold Ramsey. And when the gun was taken from him and Maxwell, he was injured and Maxwell was almost killed. And King’s life has been pretty messed up by all this.”

  “So you think he’s innocent?”

  Parks sat up straight. He’d lost his laid-back, country-boy demeanor, and his voice was crisp. “No, I don’t necessarily think that. I’ve been doing this long enough to know when someone’s not being straight with me. He’s hiding something. I just don’t know what it is. I do have one theory. Maybe he was involved in Ritter’s assassination somehow and covered up his tracks by killing Ramsey.”

  Now the director shook his head. “How does that work exactly? What could Ramsey offer in the way of payment? He was a college professor at a second-rate school. And I’m assuming King wouldn’t have turned traitor for free or on some political principle.”

  “Well, we don’t really know King’s political beliefs, do we? And all of you have seen the video. He wasn’t even watching Ritter.”

  “He said he just zoned out.”

  Parks didn’t look convinced. “He says. But what if he was intentionally distracted?”

  “If he had been, he would have told us.”

  “Not if he was covering for someone, and not if he was involved from the get-go. And you want to talk payment, okay. How many enemies do you think Clyde Ritter had? How many powerful folks from the other parties would have loved to see him out of the race? You think they wouldn’t have paid a few million to have King look the other way? So he takes the heat for a while for being ‘distracted,’ and then he goes off with his millions and lives the good life.”

  “Okay, but where are all these millions?”

  “He lives in a big house, drives a nice car, has a nice comfy life,” countered Parks.

  “He won a libel settlement,” said the director. “And it was for a nice chunk of change. And I couldn’t blame the guy, for all the shit they were saying about him. It’s not like he was some screwup. He’d won just about every award the Service has to give. He’d been wounded twice in the line of fire.”

  “Fine, he was a good agent. Good agents turn bad sometimes. But as for the money, he mixes the settlement money in with the money he was paid, and who’s to know the difference? Have you audited his finances?”

  The director sat back, not looking too confident now.

  “And how exactly does this play out with the Bruno kidnapping?” asked the FBI agent. “Aren’t you saying they’re connected?”

  “Well, for that matter,” said Parks, “how does it tie into my guy Howard Jennings?”

  “Let’s not overcomplicate things. There may be no connection at all,” said the FBI agent. “We might have three separate cases: Ritter, Bruno and your WITSEC murder.”

  “All I know is that King and Maxwell keep turning up in the middle of it all,” said the director. “Look at it this way: eight years ago King either messed up or turned traitor, and we lost a presidential candidate. Now Maxwell screws up and the exact same result happens.”

  “Not exactly the same,” Parks pointed out. “Ritter was shot on the spot, Bruno was kidnapped.”

  The director sat forward in his chair. “Well, the purpose of this hastily formed task force is to figure out this mess as quickly as possible and hope and pray it doesn’t become some enormous scandal. And you, Parks, you’re already in the loop with them, so just keep doing what you’re doing.”

  “The other variable is Joan Dillinger,” said Parks. “I can’t read that woman.”

  The director smiled. “You’re not the first person to say that.”

  “No, it’s more than that. I had a recent conversation with her, and she was saying some strange things. Like she owed Sean King. For what, she wouldn’t say. But she was working real hard to convince me he was innocent.”

  “Well, not so unusual—they were colleagues.”

  “Right, and maybe something more. And they were both on the Clyde Ritter detail, weren’t they?” said Parks, letting the question hang out there.

  The director’s brow was now very furrowed. “Joan Dillinger was one of the best agents we’ve ever had.”

  “Right, and now she’s with some big-shot private firm. And she’s investigating the kidnapping of John Bruno, and if she finds him, I bet the lady gets an enormous payday. And I found out she’s asked King to help her in the investigation, and I doubt he’s doing it for free.” He paused and then added, “Of course, it’s easy to find someone if you already know where he is.”

  “Meaning what?” said the director sharply. “That two former Secret Service agents kidnapped a presidential candidate and are now looking to be paid a fortune to recover him?”

  “Yeah, meaning that,” said Parks bluntly. “I’m assuming I’m not here to sugarcoat things and tell you what you want to hear. I
’m not real good at that. I can send you another marshal who can if you want.”

  “And you think Howard Jennings was killed by King?” said the director angrily.

  “I really don’t know. What I do know is, King’s gun matched and he was in the vicinity with no real alibi.”

  “Pretty stupid for a man plotting murder.”

  “Or pretty smart, because maybe a judge and a jury thinks the same thing and believes he was set up.”

  “And the motive for killing Jennings?”

  “Well, if King and Dillinger plotted to kidnap Bruno, and Jennings stumbled on that plot while working for King, I think that might be a motive for murder.”

  The men were all silent for a few minutes until the director broke the quiet with a long sigh. “Well, we have them all on our radar now. King, Maxwell and Dillinger—a most unlikely triumvirate when you think about it. Get back out in the field and keep us informed.”

  Parks looked around at them. “All right, but don’t expect results overnight. And don’t expect only the results you may want.”

  “Right now,” said the director, “I think we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.” As Parks turned to leave, the director added, “Marshal, when that other shoe does drop, just make sure you’re not under it.”

  In the parking garage Parks saw the woman getting into her vehicle.

  “Agent Maxwell,” he said. Michelle stepped back out of her truck. “I hear you’re taking some much-needed vacation.”

  She looked at him strangely, and then realization spread across her features. “Did you have something to do with that?”

  “Where are you headed? Wrightsburg?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “How’s your neck?”

  “Fine. I’ll be able to scream in no time. You didn’t answer my question. Are you the reason they let me walk?”

  “Maybe, though I feel more like a pawn than a full-fledged reason. If you’re going to Wrightsburg, I’d like to hitch a ride.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a smart lady, I think you know the answer to that.”

  As they climbed into her truck, Parks said, “It looks like you and Sean King have really struck up a friendship.”

  “I like him and respect him.”

  “Almost got you killed, though.”

  “That was hardly his fault.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  The way he said it made Michelle glance sharply at him, but the lawman was already looking out the window.

  CHAPTER

  45

  JOAN AND KING were staying at a hotel in Washington when Joan received the news about Mildred Martin’s murder. She called King’s room and told him.

  “Damn it,” he exclaimed. “There goes another potential witness.”

  “And you know what this means, Sean.”

  “Yes, whoever killed Loretta Baldwin killed Mildred Martin.” He added sarcastically, “Unless you buy that two different killers would murder their victims in the exact same way.”

  “So it’s confirmed. She was lying. She made the call to Bruno. She poisoned her husband, and the Lizzie Borden stuff was made up. So why kill her?”

  Neither one of them had the answer to that.

  It was late morning when they drove back to Wrightsburg. By prearrangement they met Parks and Michelle at King’s house for lunch.

  Michelle and Parks had brought carryout Chinese, and they all gathered on the rear deck to eat and discuss the case.

  “Figured you two would be really hungry from all your detective work,” said Parks as he pushed sweet-and-sour chicken into his mouth. “Heard from the FBI that you been burning up the frequent flier mileage on this Bruno thing.”

  “A lot of miles and not a lot of results,” answered King.

  Joan took a few minutes to bring them up to date on their investigations and interviews with Mildred Martin and Catherine Bruno as well as their noninterview with Sidney Morse.

  “Sounds like Peter Morse hit the jackpot,” said Michelle. “I wonder where he is?”

  “My bet wouldn’t be Ohio,” said King. “I’m thinking a tiny island in the sun.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” said Joan. “I’d love to try it.”

  Parks looked at some notes and then said, “Okay, Michelle filled me in on your talks with Ramsey’s buddy at Atticus College, Horst?”

  “Jorst,” corrected Michelle.

  “Right. And it didn’t look like he could shed much light on anything.”

  “Ramsey obviously had a problem with Clyde Ritter,” said King.

  “Just political,” asked Parks, “or something more?”

  King shrugged. “Ramsey was a Vietnam War protester, a Berkeley-educated turbocharged radical, at least in his youth. Ritter was a former TV preacher and as conservative as Ramsey was liberal. Hell, if Ritter had had a gun, he probably would have shot Ramsey first!”

  “I believe Thornton Jorst is worth another look,” said Michelle. “Everything he told us made sense—too much sense, as though he were filling in the numbers for us, telling us exactly what he thought we came to hear. And there was something about his demeanor that wasn’t quite right.”

  “Interesting,” said Joan as she sipped her tea.

  “And we’re going to follow up with Kate Ramsey as soon as she gets back to Richmond,” Michelle added.

  “What happened to your reassignment?” asked King.

  “They turned it into vacation instead.”

  Joan said, “My, I don’t remember the Service being that accommodating.”

  “I think the good marshal here had something to do with it.”

  They all stared at a very uncomfortable-looking Parks.

  He put down his chopsticks and took a swig of wine. “Good stuff.”

  “It should be,” said King.

  “Expensive?”

  “Price often has little to do with how good a wine is. That bottle is maybe twenty-five dollars, and you’d be hard put to find a better Bordeaux at three times the price.”

  “You really have to educate me on this, Sean. It’s so impressive,” said Joan before her gaze fell fully upon Parks. “So, Jefferson, this rescue of Agent Maxwell you orchestrated. To what do we owe this magnanimous gesture?”

  Parks cleared his throat. “Okay, I’ll just lay it out for you. How’s that? I’m not much into covert shit.”

  “Sounds yummy,” she said. “I’m all ears.”

  “Joan, give it a rest,” said King. “Go ahead,” he told Parks.

  “There’s been a task force formed among the FBI, Secret Service and the Marshals. Its purpose is to figure out what the hell is going on with the Bruno disappearance, the murder of Howard Jennings, Susan Whitehead, Loretta Baldwin and most recently Mildred Martin. From the deaths of Baldwin and Martin we know they were killed by the same person or persons.”

  Michelle said, “Right, this is Logic 101. Baldwin goes with Ritter, and Martin goes with Bruno. Therefore, if Baldwin and the Martins’ deaths are connected somehow, Ritter and Bruno must be connected too.”

  “Maybe,” said Parks warily. “I’m not running to any conclusions right now.”

  King left for a minute. When he returned, he handed Parks a piece of paper. It was the copy of the message he’d found pinned to Susan Whitehead’s body. King glanced over at Joan, who flinched and then immediately rose and proceeded to read the note over Parks’s shoulder.

  Parks finished and looked up. “I heard about this note from the fibbies. So what’s your take?”

  “That maybe I’m at the center of all this somehow,” King said.

  “Pushing a post and giving feet?” said Parks.

  “Secret Service parlance,” said Michelle.

  “It sounds like a revenge note to me,” concluded Parks.

  “And it concerns the Ritter assassination,” said Joan.