Split Second

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.'

'Oryou! 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.

56

While Parks went off to investigate Bob Scott, Michelle and King returned to King's home. Michelle made lunch for them both but then couldn't find him. She finally spotted him sitting on the dock and joined him there.

'I made some soup and sandwiches. I'm not a big domestic type, but they're edible.'

'Thanks,' he said absently. 'I'll be up in a minute.'

Michelle sat down next to him. 'Still thinking about Joan?'

He looked over at her and then shrugged.

'I didn't think you two were really friends anymore.'

'We're not!' He added more calmly, 'We're not. But a long time ago we were more than friends.'

'I know this is hard for you, Sean.'

They sat there for a bit until King said, 'She flashed me.'

'What?' Michelle said sharply.

'On the elevator, she flashed me.'

'Flashed you. How?'

'Trench coat and nothing much on underneath. Come on, admit it, you were probably thinking it was something like that after you found out about her panties on the ceiling.'

'Okay, maybe I was. But why would she do that? You were on duty.'

'Because she got a note she thought was from me asking her tosurprise me, on the damn elevator. And after the night we spent together, I guess she assumed I meant a suitable follow-up to that show.'

'If they wanted to set up a distraction with Joan, how would they know when she'd be coming down?'

'The meet-and-greet was from 10:00 to 10:35. She knew that. So at 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.'