Justification For Killing (70 page)

As the shots were being
fired at Tippit the man that had approached the patrol car hurried
away, this “Oswald” looking fellow turned south and headed down
Patton Street toward Jefferson. The ‘shooter’ quickly removed the
spent shells from his revolver and tossed them to the ground a few
hundred yards to the east of the patrol car on Tenth. After hastily
reloading, the same black Cadillac pulled alongside, the shooter
entered, and the car hastily drove away. Later these spent
cartridges will be identified as shells used in a .38 caliber
automatic pistol. Did no one in the Secret Service, FBI or the
Dallas Police Department realize automatic .38 shells are different
from .38 shells that fit in a revolver pistol?

“
Did you get it all
Lou?”

“
Get what... what? Get
what?”

“
Pictures!! Pictures, did
you get pictures of the Cadillac, the “Oswald” man, and the man who
did the shooting?”

“
Uh... uh... sorry Bud, I
was so caught up in what was happening I failed to take a single
picture.”

“
No pictures?? No
pictures?? Wait ‘till Grandpa hears about this... I could have done
that well!!”

“
The camera was just as
close to you as it was to me... why didn’t you take the pictures
Mr. Smarty, I-Know-Everything, Pants?” Replied Lou. “I’m sorry
Bud... well, I... I... was just hypnotized, I have never seen a man
murdered before. I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from that grisly
scene; I’ve never seen anything so horrible. Bud, I think I’m going
to be sick.”

“
So,” Bud said arrogantly
trying hard to bolster himself up, “think of it as if you were
watching a movie, come-on pull yourself together
Brother.”

“
Bud,” Lou said speaking
barely above a whisper with his head bowed, “you mean it didn’t
bother you? Bud... Bud... we could have stopped Officer Tippit from
being murdered!!”

Realizing Lou had
suffered traumatically watching the brutal murder Bud tried to
comfort him, “I’m sorry... Lou what am I thinking... you’re
right... we both have never witnessed anything as horrible as
this... mur... mur... uh... thing that just unfolded before us, and
yes it bothered me... it bothered me a great deal. I hope we never
have to be a party to something like that again, but no we could
not have interfered. Remember what Anhur told Grandpa,
‘simple things done in the past can cause great
changes in the future.’
Don’t worry
Grandpa will understand. It wasn’t your fault.”

Later Helen Markson a
witness to the J. D. Tippit shooting, will attempt to identify the
murderer through a number of lineup’s conducted at Police
Headquarters. She was unable to do so. She said, the police
pressured her to make a decision, so she finally picked Lee Harvey
Oswald as the shooter. She said she just wanted to get out of that
place and go home. A few days before she testified before the
Warren Commission she admitted it was not Oswald. The man she saw
was short, fat and had black, bushy hair.

During the commotion,
which ensued after the shooting, Lou backed the car out of the
driveway and slowly drove in an opposite direction from the murder
scene. “Where to now Lou?” Bud asked.

“
We’re done, we’ve got to
head this ‘pony’ back to the Ponderosa.”

1026 NORTH BECKLEY
AVENUE

Lonnie Joe and Rocky would
make reasonable facsimiles of private eyes. After watching Lee
Harvey Oswald approach and enter the taxicab, they had as
skillfully as Sherlock Holmes, followed the cab unobserved. From
the Greyhound bus terminal to the turn-off onto North Beckley
Avenue they had remained behind the taxi far enough to watch, but
not close enough to be noticed. At 1026 North Beckley, the cab kept
right on going – it did not stop at Lee Harvey Oswald’s rooming
house.

It traveled on until it
reached the 700 block. Noticing the brake lights coming on Lonnie
Joe pulled into a parking spot along the curb. Carefully the two of
them watched the taxicab. The right front passenger door opened and
out stepped Lee Harvey Oswald. They could see him pay the driver
who then drove south toward Jefferson Avenue. Oswald hurried across
the street and began walking back toward his rooming house. When he
was within a short distance from Lonnie Joe and Rocky the two of
them slid down and hid themselves to keep Oswald from detecting
them as he walked by on the opposite side of North Beckley. Once he
was a safe distance away they made a U-turn and followed him back
to the rooming house.

Parking a half block or so
below Oswald’s place they sat waiting for him to emerge. Again,
they knew he only would be in there for a couple of minutes. As
they sat watching a Dallas police car pulled up to the curb and
honked its horn - twice. Oswald emerged from his boarding house
zipping up his jacket. He walked directly to the police car and
received something one of the officers passed out the passenger’s
window, placing whatever he received in his jacket pocket; he then
walked to the corner of North Beckley and Zang Street. Beckley and
Zang was the corner for the local bus stop; also, this location was
northwest of the rooming house. The murder of J. D. Tippit occurred
at Tenth and Patton – a location southeast of the rooming
house.

A minute or two after
standing at the bus stop a black, four-door Cadillac pulled up
alongside Oswald. He approached the car, leaned over, spoke
something to those inside then the back door opened, and he stepped
into the rear seat.

“
Quick Rocky, get a
picture! I know it’s a Cadillac, but I don’t know what year or
model. Get a picture, we can identify it later.”

“
I’ll get the picture LJ,
you just don’t lose that car.”

As the black Cadillac
pulled away from the bus stop with Lee Harvey Oswald, the Cadillac
driver did not realize just a few hundred yards behind was a
unpretentious, black 1954 four-door municipal Ford sedan, following
quietly and unobtrusively. The destination was the Texas Theater
only 1.4 miles away. The route the Cadillac took was
straightforward – down North Beckley to West Jefferson, turn right,
and the Texas Theater was but a short distant on the
right.

At the corner of West
Neely Street and North Beckley, a uniformed policeman stepped out
into the road and held up his hand gesturing for the Ford to stop
as Lonnie Joe and Rocky approached. Lonnie Joe removed his foot
from the accelerator and gently touched the brake. Slowing down
they pulled the car up to the officer, rolled down the window and
inquired as to the delay. “Got a report of a gas leak on the next
block”, he said authoritatively, “you folks will have to go back to
the next street East Canty, cut over to Zang Boulevard and proceed
on your way from there.” The Cadillac they were following had
preceded them by only a few seconds. Obviously, the police officer
had allowed it to drive through.

“
But, officer, I don’t see
any emergency vehicles along the street. Shouldn’t there be someone
from the gas company checking this out?” Both Lonnie Joe and Rocky
assumed this ‘police officer’ was not a real Dallas policeman,
obviously he was stationed on the street to keep people away from
the Texas Theater. Why? Maybe Oswald was meeting his contact there,
and his CIA ‘handler’ did not want to be seen and
identified?

“
We are on our way to
another job, we work for Dallas City Services maybe we could take a
look at the leak? It sounds serious.” Lonnie Joe said, knowing full
well neither he nor Rocky could even light a gas pilot
light.

“
The gas company repairmen
are on their way – now turn this vehicle around and head back to
East Canty Street as I said, or I’m goin’ have to give you a
ticket.”

“
Okay, okay we get the
message... loud and clear... we’ll turn around, but if the place
blows up don’t blame us... we tried to help!”

By the time, Lonnie Joe
and Rocky had detoured around the block between West Neely Street
and West Davis Street they had lost sight of the black Cadillac.
“What should we do?” asked Lou.

“
Let’s just get over to
Zang Boulevard and head for the Texas Theater. We know that is
their destination.”

Approximately ten blocks
down Zang the Boulevard dead-ends into West Jefferson. The Texas
Theater was located at 231 West Jefferson Boulevard. A right turn
and they saw the Cadillac parked at the curb close to the theater.
A couple of turns on the Ford’s steering wheel had them parked a
couple hundred feet from the Texas Theater also. Far enough away to
be unnoticed, but close enough to see everything going on.
Switching the motor off, Lonnie Joe and Rocky watched as Lee Harvey
Oswald got out and walked up to the cashier, purchased a ticket and
entered the theater.

“
LJ, I thought the
official story was Oswald slipped into the theater. That was the
reason the police were notified. Isn’t that right?”

“
Yeah, Rocky that is the
way it was reported. Obviously that was a fabrication on someone’s
part also.”

THE TEXAS
THEATER

Julia Portal, the
Texas Theater cashier, only sold twenty-four tickets to the
afternoon showing of
Battle
Cry
, starring Van Heflin. It was just as
well, she was spending her entire shift sitting in her booth
listening to the President Kennedy news on KRLD, 1080 A.M., a local
Dallas radio station. Testifying before the Warren Commission Miss
Portal stated she did not know whether she sold Lee Harvey Oswald a
ticket or not. She admitted she was paying more attention to the
assassination news on her radio than who was purchasing tickets.
When questioned about anyone who might have acted suspicious she at
first said she did not remember anyone, then quickly added, “Oh
yeah, there was this one fellow – he got out of a big ole black
limousine car”. When asked if the car might have been a four-door
Cadillac she answered, “Yes, I suppose it could have been a
Cadillac.”

The Warren Commission
investigator asked, “Did you sell this man a ticket?”

She answered, “No, I don’t
think so but I might have.”

When asked at what time
the man in the black car arrived she answered, “Best I can remember
it was a little after one o’clock.”

“
Can you be more
specific?”

“
Well, Butch Burroughs the
concession stand operator said it was just a few minutes after one
o’clock. Anyway, the police were called, and they arrived and
arrested the man, Lee Harvey Oswald, I suppose.”

“
You called the
police?”

“
No, I don’t know who
called, but it wasn’t me.”

Watching as the Cadillac
pulled up to the Texas Theater, and Lee Harvey Oswald enters the
theater, Lonnie Joe and Rocky knew the rest of the scenario. The
police would arrive and arrest Lee Harvey Oswald.

“
You know,” said LJ. “I’ve
been sitting here giving this some thought. I believe Oswald was
supposed to have been killed by Officer Tippit. And I believe that
other guy in the patrol car was supposed to shoot Tippit, but
things did not work out. Now I believe their fall back plan was to
have Oswald killed in this theater, but something goes wrong here
too. What do you think Rocky?”

“
I dunno LJ, that’s too
much figuring for me. What I seriously think is we need to get out
of here and head back to the Ponderosa and meet up with Captain
Scarburg.”

The earlier phone call
from Forrest said that he, the Captain and Olive Marie had just
left the parking lot behind the Dal-Tex building and was heading
back to Clem and Penelope’s Ponderosa. Now it was time for Lonnie
Joe and Rocky to do the same.

The time was 1:41 p.m.,
Friday, November 22, 1963.

Chapter
Fifty-Three

BACK TO THE COW
PASTURE

“
Hey Sis get on the phone
to Grandpa. I see a congregation of police cars at the intersection
of Texas Highway 77 and U.S. Highway 183 a mile or two in front of
us. Call Grandpa, quick, he might want to ditch his .45 caliber
pistol he is carrying.”

The traffic on 77 began to
slow to a crawl; Olive Marie relayed the troublesome news to
Grandpa Scarburg. If he were worried, he didn’t act like it, but he
did call Bud and Lou. “Bud,” he said, “where are you all...?
Good... say you’re just leaving the Tippit murder scene...? Okay...
listen, the police must be setting up roadblocks all around
downtown Dallas. I’m just approaching Highway 77 and Highway 183.
Looks like the whole Texas Highway Patrol, Texas Rangers and Dallas
City police are up here... No... I think we will be okay... they
will be looking for someone matching Oswald’s description, and we
don’t fit. No... no... we will be fine... but listen... get back
over on North Beckley Street, drive north until it intersects with
U.S. Highway 30. Turn left on 30 and go about two or three miles
until you see West Mockingbird Lane. Turn right on it and follow it
north until you come to the airport at Dallas’s Love Field. This
route will take you around the downtown area and all the police.
Once you all get to the airport pull into the main parking lot and
park somewhere in the middle of all the cars. Call Lonnie Joe and
give him the same instructions. You both must get rid of those two
stolen 1954 Ford municipal cars. They are like having a bull’s eye
painted on them. Forrest, Olive Marie and I will pick you guys up
at the airport. Good luck.”