American Quartet (21 page)

“I was afraid you’d ask that. One thing is clear. This is not your ordinary screwball. And there’s always the possibility that he just might be the other gunman, tired of anonymity, sending us signals. Actually, I haven’t got that far yet. First, I’ve got to confirm what I strongly suspect.”

“And you want me to help confirm it without rocking the boat?”

“You can, Dr. Benton. I know you can.”

Up-ending the frying pan, he dumped the eggs onto a plate and added toast and bacon.

“Used to be a short order cook,” he chuckled.

She wolfed down her eggs, talking with a full mouth.

“The Warren Commission thought they tied everything up in a neat little knot. They thought they were being fair. There’s a long section on disproved rumors, witnesses that came to other conclusions. You could drive tanks through the holes they created. Officer Tippet, for example, is accused of knowing Oswald, of disobeying orders and being in the part of Dallas where Oswald’s boarding house was located. He didn’t radio for help when he knew he was being apprehended. He knew full well that the suspect was an armed and dangerous killer. Even riding alone in his squad car is suspect, despite all the explanations. The police generally came out like fools. They actually looked as if they were setting Oswald up for Jack Ruby’s bullet.” Her mind raced back over the events recounted in the Warren Commission report. She was certain that the clue, the case-busting clue, was buried in the event. The idea suddenly penetrated that she was actually probing a murder that took place seventeen years before.

“Maybe it wasn’t Oswald at all. Maybe this guy who wasted that used car salesman was Kennedy’s real killer.” She shivered.

“I think you’re being carried away, Fiona.”

“That’s what worries me,” she said. “They won’t take me seriously. And if they do, they’ll take it away . . . Forgive me. I’m hyper. I feel like I’m sitting on a keg of dynamite.”

“You are,” Dr. Benton agreed.

“And I’ll bet you’re sorry you’ve got mixed up with me.”

Suddenly he smiled, a big warm sunny compassionate smile.

“I’ve learned never to come to any conclusions until the autopsy is complete,” he chuckled.

“I’m not sure I’m happy with the comparison.”

“Even if it all does check out. What then? There’s still the bottom line.”

“That word again.”

“Sooner or later, you’ll have to present your theory to the eggplant. The big question in his mind, after the smoke clears, will be: All right now, will this get me the killer? That’s what gets the brownie points. Have you figured that out yet?”

“No.” She paused and looked steadily at him. “But I will.”

SHE
had hoped the day would be sunny. She always found greater courage in the sunlight. Instead the day broke overcast and gloomy and a light snow had begun. Outside the homicide office the world looked half-made. The snow hadn’t yet covered the streets. Sitting at her desk, typing to keep busy, she watched the eggplant’s office. Detectives moved in and out.

What she was typing made no sense. Ostensibly, for whatever prying eyes were around, she was doing another of their interminable natural death reports. She hoped this would be the last day of that assignment. Maybe the last day of everything. She glanced at Jefferson, who lifted his eyes from his desk, squinting over the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from his lips. Was she waiting for exactly the right moment? Or was she simply too frightened to act?

She heard high-pitched throaty laughter. A detective came out of the eggplant’s office smiling and shaking his head. He was alone now. She clutched her files and stood up, feeling dizzy and slightly nauseous. A telephone rang in his office and she could hear his booming cajoling voice. She sat down, relieved, and glanced at Jefferson again. He nodded understanding and encouragement. Once more, she reviewed her presentation.

Everything had checked out exactly as she knew it would. Dr. Benton had been exceedingly thorough and his known bent for caution aroused little suspicion. The fact was that, although the case was officially listed as open, it was in actual fact a dead issue. No clues. No viable suspects. As the eggplant must have wished, it had simply gone away. Other murders had occurred to push the case into limbo. A prominent physician had been stabbed by one of his patients. The case was quickly solved. The physician had had numerous lovers, and since his clientele was prominent, the papers were able to be mildly salacious. Even Teddy had a resurrection of sorts by breaking the case of an overeager jogger who had plugged one of his victims, then left a line of clues that brought the police to his door within forty-eight hours. The cases were now set for trial. Convictions seemed certain.

The new administration had, predictably, created a heady atmosphere in Washington, spreading optimism like molasses. It was the honeymoon period. Everybody, including the press, seemed to have temporarily put away their weapons. In a little while something would set things off and everything in the city would turn nasty again. Like life, Fiona thought. Bruce was busy organizing his Senate campaign and still pressing her for a decision.

“I’ve got something hot going,” she told him. “Let me just get it behind me.”

He was busy with the jockeying that came at the beginning of each Congressional session, and it helped ease the pressure, leaving her free to pursue her private investigation.

Dr. Benton, even as he provided information that seemed to fit her theory perfectly, became a devil’s advocate. Perhaps it was merely skepticism or maturity or else he was simply bent on slowing her runaway enthusiasm. They jousted over endless cups of coffee at Sherry’s.

“Hadley can’t be absolutely certain about the rifle,” he pointed out. All his information came through what others thought was innocent inquiry. She was not quite ready to show her hand. “The cartridge fits. But there are other rifles that could have fired them. A Mauser, for example.”

“That’s what they thought originally,” she said. She was determined to counter his arguments as quickly as he made them.

“Even the thirty-eight could have come from another type of revolver. It’s really not airtight.”

“The case file confirms everything else. Times. Date. Symbolic vantage. Your report on cause of death. Considering the conditions, it was similar enough to the Kennedy killing. The exact angle and anatomical target would be hard to replicate at any rate.”

“Almost impossible.”

She lowered her voice and looked around the restaurant. The dirty windows were steamed and the air was heavy with the smell of boiled cabbage. Friday, she thought, automatically remembering her childhood.

“The case file had a Xerox of the library write-in sheet. A. J. Hiddel, just as I predicted. An anonymous name, no record anywhere. The investigating officer actually checked more than fifty cities before he gave up.” She laughed. “I could have told him that.” She snapped her fingers for more coffee and the fat proprietress ambled over to them in her dirty apron, poured, then moved away.

“I even measured the distance from the room at the library to the street where Pringle got it. Eighty-seven yards. Three yards short of the real thing. He may not be the original, but he sure makes a good copy.”

She watched his reactions. He was being reflective, searching for flaws.

“What about witnesses?” he asked.

“The guard was a blank. He could remember only color. White. There’s a moral in there somewhere. No tall or short, fat or thin. The file has him quoted verbatim. He thought he remembered a man with a blue jacket and a limp.”

“A limp?”

“How else would the man bring in the rifle undetected?”

“Not bad,” Dr. Benton admitted. “But what is the significance of the blue jacket?”

“Oswald wore a blue jacket. Later, in his room, he changed to a khaki one. The old woman who witnessed Temple’s killing remembered only a man in a khaki jacket, further embellishing the two-man idea. But you see, Oswald had gone back to his boarding house to change and pick up the revolver that was to kill poor old Officer Tippet. Here again rumors run rampant. The timeframe between the site of the assassination and the killing of Tippet is questionable. Oswald apparently took a bus and taxi to get to another part of town, a feat he made in incredibly short time. Our man obviously took poetic license and used his own car. But he made the timeframe exactly. Temple simply materialized on demand. It was as if he had participated willingly in the scenario.”

The words tumbled out like coal down a chute, but she could see that Dr. Benton was following it, tracking her as she recited the events of the Kennedy assassination.

“It gives me the creeps, all these coincidences. But you’ve got to admit that I’ve got it down fairly tight. It’s a reenactment.” She slapped the table and the coffee cups clattered in their saucers. “There’s someone around loose that thinks he’s Lee Harvey Oswald.”

“So it would appear.”

“But why?”

Dr. Benton stroked his chin and played with doughnut crumbs, trying to make them into a ball.

“I’ve been thinking about that. Part of his delusionary system. Maybe he’s sending us some kind of message we can’t quite decipher. A warning. Maybe he is the suspected second gunman. Maybe, considering the mythology that has grown up around it, he is the real gunman. Maybe, as you speculated, Oswald didn’t fire the weapon. Who knows?”

“Grist for the mill,” she shrugged. “The case is open in name only. It’s obvious he wants to forget it. No need to wake the sleeping dogs. Same for the Temple case. Nobody wants to push a case that has only the slimmest possibility of going to closing. Even a cop killing. There’s been nothing but dead ends.”

“So why pursue it?”

“Because it’s there.” She remembered Remington’s words about pursuing the presidency. Remington again. He seemed to hover over the case like an impatient vulture.

Confiding in Jefferson had been a necessary evil. Since her objective was now to be put on the case full time, she didn’t want to raise a fuss within the department. A breakup of partners in the fifty-man homicide branch always created a stir. Another reason was purely personal, probably vindictive, although she tried to convince herself that she was above such pettiness. She wanted to make him part of her conspiracy. If he was so damned concerned about pursuing the death of Officer Temple, she would give him his opportunity. She invited him up to her apartment during a lunch break. Strictly business, she told him, sensing his stimulated libido. If he harbored any illusions, they were quickly dispelled when he saw her apartment. The walls were a mass of Scotch-taped charts that included a blowup of the killer’s probable Washington route, side by side with Oswald’s Dallas trail. There were also magic marker charts entitled “Weapons,” “Timeframe,” “Fatal Wounds,” “Motives.”

Munching cheese sandwiches, Jefferson listened to her presentation, his face immobile as she searched it for a reaction. Feigning impassivity was one of his special skills.

“Sheet,” he said when she had finished, slapping his thigh, his lips breaking into a sardonic smile.

“You buy it?”

“Say what?”

“Cut the ghetto shit. Do you buy it?”

“You mean this dude just upped and pumped four bullets into Temple for no fuckin’ reason?” He got up and without asking poured himself half a tumbler of Vodka.

“It was all part of the script, the next move after wasting Pringle. Or doesn’t your interest extend to white men?” He ignored the sarcasm.

“That dirty son of a bitch. Just upped and blasted away. No warning. Nothin’. Poor bastard.”

“Got your furies up?” she asked smugly. He finished his Vodka and slammed the glass on the table.

“Bet your ass.”

She watched him with satisfaction as he paced the room.

“Want to get on the train?”

“Suppose the chief says no?”

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse. If you’re in it, you’re in it. You can’t check out once I make my pitch. It can hurt you. I give you fair warning.” She knew that he had already calculated that.

“A man who would do that is a fuckin’ animal.”

“And white,” she added. He nodded, showing his big toothy predatory grin.

Finally, the eggplant hung up the phone. It had seemed an eternity. She stood up, files clutched in her hand and with a final knowing glance at Jefferson, went into his office and closed the door behind her. He was surprisingly placid. She had stayed out of his line of sight for months.

“I’d like you to hold your calls,” she said in a tremulous voice.

Her legs shook as she undid her papers and Scotch-taped them to the wall. When she turned, he had a supercilious grin patched across his face.

The telephone rang. He reached for the instrument then hesitated. After the third ring, she put her hand on it.

“I mean it,” she said, her lips tight, her eyes narrowing and intense. Shrugging, he let it ring itself out, then leaned back in his chair, lighting a cigarette, blowing out the first smoke ring, a signal of his sufferance. I’ll listen to you, bitch, he seemed to say. She began to talk.

She proceeded haltingly, avoiding his face, determined to wait out his reaction. She pointed out the killer’s route from the Library of Congress to the vicinity of the International Hotel. Deliberately, she held back certain facts, like her theory that after Temple was shot, he had probably ducked into the nearest movie house, which happened to be showing a porno flick, on Fourteenth Street. Oswald had gone into a movie theater after wasting Officer Tippet. It was in the movie house that he was captured. If she had told them that, she would have been marked down as a smartass. Above all, she didn’t want them to think of her as arrogant and superior.

The eggplant shifted in his seat, moved forward slightly, reacting, fighting not to absorb what she was telling him. When she completed her presentation, she turned to face him squarely. His face was hidden in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Well?” There was a long pause.

“It’s . . . it’s an interesting theory.”

“That all?”

“You want me to stand up and applaud?”

“Maybe.” She was sure his mind was turning over possibilities, searching for holes, weighing everything against his own motives.

She controlled her impatience, using the time to gather up her presentation and return the papers to her briefcase.

“So what am I supposed to do?” he said finally.

“I want to work it out. Jefferson and me. He knows.”

He frowned and blew smoke.

“If it flies, it’s only an MO. It doesn’t nail us a killer. Might even make us look stupid for not seeing it earlier.”

She had expected that. He was appealing to her loyalty now, blatant and clumsy. She knew he was frightened.

“The big boys will come down on us like hound dogs. The FBI, the Secret Service, the fucking politicians.”

“So what? There’s no place to hide.”

“Easy for you to say. What the hell have you got to lose?”

He was letting his fear talk now. And his bias. She remained silent, letting him boil up a full head of steam, work it out. He stood up and began to pace the room. A lieutenant knocked and came in. He started to say something, ignoring her.

“Will you get the fuck out of here?” the eggplant shouted. Swallowing his words, the lieutenant quickly turned, slamming the door on his way out.

“. . . and if I don’t, you’ll scream cover-up to the press.”

“I didn’t before,” she said. He stopped pacing.

“I know about the old ammo,” she said. “I could have done something then.” The words came out calmly. But the implied threat hit him in the midsection. He seemed to cave in physically, groping for his seat. He lit a cigarette, puffing deeply.

“You don’t know what it means to be leaned on. I was saving everybody’s ass. You don’t know what it means. There’s vested interests. Somebody’s got to protect us.” He rubbed his temples, a gesture of martyrdom.