Authors: Graham Masterton
‘Where was this taken?’ Patsy asked.
‘Are you ready for this? According to Joe’s inscription on the back, it was taken on November 22, 1963, from the east side of Dealey Plaza, Dallas.’
There was a very long pause. Then Patsy looked at the photographs again. ‘But Dealey Plaza, Dallas ... that was where President Kennedy was shot.’
‘That’s correct.’
She thought about that for a moment or two, while Michael watched her. At last she said, ‘But ... how could those men have been there ... in 1963, when they were here today, looking just the same?’
‘That’s what Joe was trying to find out. That’s what
I
have to find out.’
‘Oh, Michael ... they
can’t
be the same men. The men I saw were no more than twenty-four or twenty-five ... thirty at a pinch. They would have been
babies
when Kennedy was assassinated. Anyway ... are you sure these pictures are genuine? They don’t look like any pictures I ever saw before. They didn’t show them on that Kennedy documentary, did they?’
‘No, they didn’t. According to Joe, they were taken by a guy named Jacob Parrot, who owned a music store in Grand Prairie. He was one of the few amateur cameramen at the scene of the assassination who didn’t have his pictures confiscated by the police or the FBI. When he saw that people were having their cameras taken, he wound on the film, took it out, and dropped it into his pocket.
‘Apparently, Jacob Parrot had borrowed the camera from a friend, and he hadn’t set the focus correctly. In most of his pictures, President Kennedy is quite blurred, but the people on the grassy knoll and the fence behind it are in pretty sharp focus. And here they are.’
‘You really believe they’re the same men?’
‘Take a look at
this
picture.’
Michael handed her a photograph which clearly showed one of the men in dark glasses with a rifle raised to his shoulder. The other man was turning away, one hand lifted against his ear, as if he were trying to shield himself from the blast.
Patsy had only to glance at it before she dropped it back on the desk and said, ‘Yes ... it’s them. It really is. It’s them.’
‘Positive?’
‘No doubt about it. That’s Spock-ears all right. And the other one ... there’s something kind of
square
about him.
Even if I’d seen a photograph of just one of them, I would have said yes. But the two together? It has to be them.’
Michael gave her another kiss. ‘All I need to know now is – why did Joe leave these pictures here?’
‘To hide them, I guess.’
‘Well, that’s obvious. But why did he need to hide them
here
?
Couldn’t he have hidden them at home, or in the office, or in a bus station locker, or something?’
‘Maybe he knew they were on to him.’
‘All the same
‘Maybe he knew they were on to him and he simply didn’t have the time to hide them anyplace else.’
Michael leafed through the grassy knoll pictures and slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t know ... I hate having these here. These are the kind of photographs that people get killed for.’
‘Why don’t you discuss it with Joe?’
‘With a mobile phone call, that even your kid sister could pick up? You have to be kidding.’
‘You don’t have to mention “Kennedy” specifically. You could always talk vague ... like, “Joe, thanks very much for that interesting file you sent me.” Or, “I really enjoyed seeing those pictures of the kids.” ‘
Michael squeezed her, and laughed. ‘What do you think this is?
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.?
No ... he’ll be back at the office soon, I’ll call him then.’
Through the window, they could see Victor and Jason walking back to the house. ‘Seriously,’ said Patsy, ‘what are you going to do now? Are you going to call in the police?’
‘Unh-hunh. Not yet. We’ll have to produce a whole lot more evidence than this. Besides, if these guys get wind of the fact that we’re on to them, and that we know who they are, they could very well come after us, too. Look at that guy, what’s-his-name, the one who was going to prove in court that Lee Harvey Oswald had a direct connection with Clay Shaw? David Ferrie, that’s it.
‘David Ferrie “died in mysterious circumstances” before he could take the stand. And so did scores of other people. Anybody who could prove what we can prove ... that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t shoot President Kennedy – didn’t and couldn’t ... and that
these
men
did. These white-faced guys in their hats and their suits and their weird little shades.’
‘Michael ... you’re not going to try to track them down by yourself?’
‘No, Joe and me are going to track them down together ... provided we get a little help from the coroner’s office and the police department.’
Victor came into the study, his eyes watering from the breeze, closely followed by a grinning Jason.
‘Jesus, it’s windy out there!’ he panted.
‘Any luck with the kite?’
‘Nosedive City,’ said Jason, scathingly.
‘That’s the story of my life,’ said Victor. He sat down and took off his glasses. ‘Disappointment at every turn.’
‘Jason, you want to get yourself a Coke?’ Michael suggested.
Jason had already flung himself onto the couch. ‘Oh, I get it. You want to talk adult talk.’
Michael ruffled his hair. ‘I never realized that anyone so astute could ever have sprung from my loins.’
‘Loins? What are loins?’
‘Just get yourself a Coke, okay?’
‘I want to know what loins are.’
‘Loins are genitalia.’
‘Like, your dick, you mean?’
‘Yes, Jason, like your dick.’
‘Well, why didn’t you say so? “Loins.” You can just imagine them at school, “Hey, Bradley, put your loins away!” ‘
‘God, thirteen-year-olds,’ said Michael, when Jason had left (without closing the door properly).
But Victor had already picked up the Kennedy photographs, and was sorting through them. ‘What do you think?’ he asked Patsy.
Patsy was tight-lipped. ‘I think it’s really frightening. I think you should hand it all over to the police or the FBI, let them handle it.’
‘I’m not so sure that would be a good idea,’ said Victor.
‘Oh?’
‘Think about it. Joe seems to have found a connection between these men and the killing of President Kennedy. But Joe was also strongly implying that they’re tied in with John O’Brien’s murder, too – which the Boston police are making every conceivable effort to explain away as an accident.’
‘So you’re saying that the police are involved in the killings, too?’
Victor shrugged. ‘Maybe not directly involved. But they’re certainly doing everything they can to cover up the evidence. My advice is that as far as the police are concerned we should tread very, very carefully indeed.’
Michael went to the study door and opened it. Down below, the yard was empty and the street was deserted. Sand sizzled softly through the grass, and swirled across the sidewalk.
‘I suggest we go back to Boston and do some more digging,’ he said. ‘We can trust Thomas Boyle, can’t we?’
‘I guess so. As much as anybody.’
‘We need to talk to Thomas about the official police line on this business. Then we need to go back and talk to Dr Moorpath. We have to have him explain how on God’s earth he could have reported that the O’Brien party were killed accidentally. We need to talk to Edgar Bedford, at Plymouth, and ask him why he wants to put a lid on our investigation. We need to talk to Kevin Murray and Artur Rolbein. I’ve read their reports but I still have plenty of unanswered questions.’
‘You’re going to be stirring up a whole nest of hornets, if you ask me,’ said Victor.
Michael nodded. ‘I know that. And I’m going to talk to Joe first. I want to know why he’s so frightened ... and just how frightened
we
ought to be.’
‘I think pretty damned frightened,’ said Victor.
Patsy glanced at him anxiously. ‘You’re not going to go back to Boston
now
?’
she asked.
Michael checked his watch and it was eleven minutes after three. ‘Not immediately. I have to discuss this with Joe first. I don’t want to leave him with his ass hanging out in the breeze.’
Shortly after four o’clock, he phoned Joe at Plymouth Insurance. Joe’s assistant said that he hadn’t yet returned from New Seabury. It wasn’t much more than a two-hour drive, even if the traffic was snarled up, but maybe Joe had stopped for lunch, or maybe he had decided to go home first. Michael called Joe’s private number and Marcia answered; but Marcia hadn’t seen Joe, either.
She gave him Joe’s mobile number and Michael tried that. A flat, nasal recorded voice told him that the mobile phone was out of service.
Michael told Victor, ‘He’s not at the office yet, and he’s not home, and his mobile’s on the fritz.’
‘Give him another half-hour,’ Victor suggested.
Michael called the office again at five, and then at five-thirty. He phoned one more time, at ten minutes to six, and this time the offices were closed and all he heard was the answering machine. ‘
If you know the extension of the person you’re calling, you may press that number now ...
‘
He pressed Joe’s extension and all he got was Joe’s desktop answering machine. ‘
Hi, this is Joe Garboden ... I’m away from my desk right now ...
‘
He held the receiver up so that Victor could hear the message, too. ‘Something’s wrong,’ he said. ‘I just hope he hasn’t had an accident.’
Victor shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t worry too much. He probably met somebody and got held up.’
Michael called Kevin Murray, but Kevin Murray’s mother said he was away for the weekend in Maine. He called Artur Rolbein, and Artur agreed to meet him at 2 p.m. the following day. All the same, he sounded oddly guarded.
‘Is everything okay?’ Michael asked him.
‘Oh, for sure. It’s just that the word is, the O’Brien investigation is firmly closed.’
‘Have you seen Dr Moorpath’s report?’
‘I haven’t read it yet but it was mentioned on the four o’clock news.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I don’t think anything. The investigation’s closed. Accidental death, Plymouth coughs up.’
‘Do
you
believe that it was accidental death?’
There was a lengthy silence. Then Artur Rolbein said, ‘I’m working on something else now.’
‘Artur ... I need your opinion on this.’
‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ said Artur, and put the phone down so quickly that Michael didn’t even have time to say ‘Goodbye.’
Victor swigged beer from the bottle and said, ‘What did I tell you? Tread very,
very
carefully indeed.’
Twelve
He kept on calling Joe every half hour until well after midnight. He called the Highway Patrol but the Highway Patrol had no reports of any accidents in Barnstable or Plymouth counties involving a metallic-blue Cadillac. A man and a woman had died on 495 just north-east of West Wareham in a head-on collision with a refrigerated Kenworth semi, but they had been travelling in a silver Lincoln. A Camaro had been found burned out on 151, but there was no sign of injury, and the Highway Patrol had assumed that somebody had torched a stolen or broken-down vehicle, either to hide the evidence or to claim the insurance. In the end, Michael decided to call it a night.
Victor was already lying on the couch, covered in a pond-green woven blanket, his glasses folded on the floor beside him.
‘No luck?’ he said, as Michael put down the phone.
‘I don’t know where the hell he’s got to.’
‘Oh, come on ... we’ll find him tomorrow in Boston. What time do you want to leave?’
‘Early. I’m supposed to be seeing Dr Rice at quarter to ten, but I can cancel.’
‘Does that really help you, that hypnotherapy?’
‘I don’t know. Sometimes I think it makes me even more screwy than I was to start with. But other times ... well, it gives me the strength to do things that I might not have been able to do without it.’
‘We were talking about post-hypnotic suggestion this morning. Does Dr Rice give you any of that?’
Michael gathered together the Kennedy photographs on his desk. ‘Only in pretty general terms. You know, like, “today you’re going to feel more positive.” ‘
‘And you
do
feel more positive?’