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“None that I knew of.”
“How about among his students?”
Jorst eyed King. “Excuse me, but this seems more like an investigation into Arnold personally, rather than a documentary on why he killed Clyde Ritter.”
“Maybe it’s a little of both,” said Michelle quickly. “I mean it’s difficult to understand motivation without understanding the man and how he went about his plan to assassinate Ritter.”
Jorst considered this for a few moments and then shrugged. “Well, if he tried to recruit any student to help, I certainly never heard of it.”
“He was married at the time of his death?” asked Michelle.
“Yes, but separated from his wife, Regina. They had one daughter, Kate.” He rose and went over to a shelf containing numerous photos. He handed one to them.
“The Ramseys. In happier times,” he commented.
King and Michelle looked at the three people in the photo.
“Regina Ramsey is very beautiful,” remarked Michelle.
“Yes, she was.”
King glanced up. “Was?”
“She’s dead. Suicide. Not that long ago actually.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” said King. “You said they were separated?”
“Yes. Regina was living in a small house nearby at the time of Arnold’s death.”
“Did they share custody of Kate?” asked Michelle.
“That’s right. I don’t know what the arrangements would have been if they’d divorced. Regina, of course, took full custody when Arnold died.”
“Why were they separated?” asked Michelle.
“I don’t know. Regina was beautiful and an extremely accomplished actress in her youth. She’d been a drama major in college, in fact. I believe she was going to make that her career, and then she met Arnold, fell in love, and that all changed. I’m sure she had many suitors, but Arnold was the man she loved. Part of me thinks she finally committed suicide because she could no longer live without him.” He paused and added in a small voice, “I thought she was happy around that time. I guess she wasn’t.”
“But she apparently couldn’t live with Ramsey either,” commented King.
“Arnold had changed. His academic career had peaked. He’d lost his enthusiasm for teaching. He was very depressed. Perhaps that melancholy affected the marriage. But when Regina left him, his depression only worsened.”
“So maybe in shooting Ritter he was trying to recapture his youth,” Michelle said. “Change the world and go down as a martyr for the history books.”
“Maybe. Unfortunately it cost him his life.”
“What was the daughter’s reaction to what her father did?”
“Kate was utterly devastated. I remember seeing her the day it happened. I will never forget the look of shock on that girl’s face. And then a few days later she saw it on TV. That damn tape from the hotel. It showed everything: her father shooting Ritter and the Secret Service agent killing her father. I saw it too. It was horrific, and—” Jorst stopped talking and looked intently at King. His expression slowly hardened, and he finally rose from behind his desk. “You really haven’t changed all that much, Agent King. Now, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I don’t appreciate being lied to. And I want to know right now what your real purpose is in coming here and asking all these questions.”
King and Michelle exchanged glances. King said, “Look, Dr. Jorst, without making a long explanation out of it, we’ve recently discovered evidence that strongly suggests Arnold Ramsey wasn’t alone that day. That there was another assassin, or potential assassin, in the hotel.”
“That’s impossible. If that were true, it would have come to light before now.”
“Maybe not,” said Michelle. “Not if enough important people wanted it all to quietly go away. They had their killer.”
“And they had the Secret Service agent who screwed up,” added King.
Jorst sat back down. “I… I can’t believe it. What new evidence?” he asked warily.
