Daddy's Gone a Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

thought. In scotch even more truth may come out.
    As they sat down Sandra explained, “Poor Doug completely fell apart after seeing Kate. So I insisted we go out to dinner. He hardly had a bite all day.”
    Unmoved, Ramsey and Klein began to question Douglas Connelly. His voice was slurred and hesitant as he groped to explain his differences with Kate. “The business hasn’t been doing that well, but I tried to tell Kate that’s not a big problem. Think how muchall that land was worth in Long Island City thirty years ago. Peanuts compared to now. Long Island City is changing. People are moving there. They finally figured out how close it is to Manhattan. The arty types are flocking there, just like they settled in Williamsburg. Not long ago you could live in Williamsburg for next to nothing. Now it’s hot. Long Island City is the same way. Sure we have an offer on the land. Take it now and we’d be kicking ourselves in five years for all the money we lost.”
    “But it seems from what others have said that your daughter Kate felt the company was losing money hand over fist,” Ramsey said.
    “Kate’s stubborn. Even when she was a kid she wanted everything now . . . this minute . . . not tomorrow.”
    “Do you think that in her frustration she might have teamed up with Gus Schmidt to destroy the complex?”
    “Kate would never do that!”
    To both marshals, Doug’s blustery tone was masking fear. They were sure they knew what he was thinking. If a member of the family set the fire and would benefit from the insurance, it was certain that the insurance company would refuse to pay the claim.
    They switched to questions about Kate’s relationship with Gus. “We understand that she was very sympathetic to him when he was forced to retire.”
    “Talk to the plant manager, Jack Worth. Gus’s work was getting downright sloppy. Everybody else his age had retired. He just didn’t want to give up. With all his other benefits, we even threw in a full year’s salary. He still wasn’t satisfied. He was a bitter old man.”
    “Wasn’t it at Kate’s insistence that he got that year’s salary?” Ramsey shot the question at Doug.
    “She may have suggested it.”
    “Mr. Connelly, some other of your employees have come forth to volunteer what they know. Gus Schmidt was quoted as saying that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Kate . . .”
    “Certainly Gus was very fond of Kate,” Doug replied.
    At the end of the questioning, as they left, the marshals, even though they were keeping an open mind, had a gut feeling that Kate had found a willing partner to help her do what she had told several people she wanted to do.
    Blow up the entire Connelly complex.

19

    A fter leaving Douglas Connelly, Frank Ramsey and Nathan Klein decided to call it a day. They drove back to Fort Totten, called their supervisor, completed their reports, then each left for home. They had been on the job almost twenty-four hours.
    Ramsey lived in Manhasset, a pretty suburban town on Long Island. He sighed with relief when he turned into his own driveway and pressed the garage opener. He was used to bad weather but the hours outside on a cold, damp, windy day had penetrated even his warm outerwear. He wanted to get into a hot shower, put on some comfortable clothes, and have a drink. And much as he missed his son Ted, who was a freshman at Purdue University, he wouldn’t mind just being with Celia tonight, he thought.
    No matter how long you’re in the business, it still affected you when a dead man was taken to the medical examiner’s office and a young woman rushed away in an ambulance, he thought.
    Frank Ramsey was a solidly built six-footer. At forty-eight, although he weighed nearly two hundred pounds, his body was strong and muscular thanks to meticulous workouts. Judging from the men in his family, he knew that genetically he would probably be white-haired by the age of fifty, but to his surprise and pleasure, his hair was