Split Second

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."