by Dave Conifer
“I would say so,” Jonas said.
At the airport they chose the rental agency with the shortest line. Their eyes darted around the terminal as they advanced through the line towards the service counter. There wasn’t really any point in looking around. It could be any of the people around them. Or none of them. The line moved, but very slowly. “What are they doing up there?” Reno wondered allowed several times. Finally they reached the front and were called to the counter by a beaming middle-aged woman.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” she asked when she saw Reno’s red eyes and mascara streaks.
“Yes,” Reno said. She worked through the rental transaction, which took longer than Jonas thought it should have. Finally they walked away from the counter with a key and an envelope of paper work. “We should have stopped in the bathroom,” Jonas said. “You look like Alice Cooper.” He felt better when he saw a trace of a smile on her face.
They hurried through the breezeway into the parking garage, hoping desperately not to be noticed. Jonas thought about how brash and optimistic they both had felt about the story when they passed through that breezeway just a few days earlier. Things changed fast. Now he wished he’d never heard of Mark McBride and he was certain that his partner felt the same way.
“Here it is,” Reno said when they came to the parking spot with a number that matched the rental agreement.
Jonas laughed when he saw that they would again be travelling in a Taurus. At least it isn’t blue. “Unbelievable,” he muttered.
“I thought you’d like it,” she said. “I feel like driving. Would you mind?”
“Sure. As long as you’re okay. I’ll start out as navigator.”
-- Chapter 16 --
“Mr. Braden? This is Frank Marino from downstairs.”
“How did it go? Any news?” Braden asked.
“Mission accomplished, sir,” Marino said. “I heard from our people down there. It just came off in the last few minutes. The fire’s still burning. It was a rush job but they pulled it off.”
Braden was quiet. His mind was overrun with questions but it wasn’t the time or place for details. They were speaking in code out of habit. Even within the walls of their own offices they could never be too cautious. It all sounded so antiseptic but at times like this he never lost sight of what they were really talking about. There were mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who would be on the receiving end of some horrible news very shortly. It never got any easier. “Let’s hope this is the last time,” he sighed. “Thanks for the update. Can you see to it that I get those transcripts from last night? We did the messy part. Let’s make sure we do the easy part.”
“I’ll call them back as soon as we’re done here.”
“Okay,” Braden said. “You did good work, Marino. And pass that down the line, will you?”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll pass it on.”
-- Chapter 17 --
Jonas directed Reno to Interstate 77, which would take them north out of North Carolina and through the western tip of Virginia into West Virginia. “My maps burned up in the car,” he said. “I guess all my luggage did, too. All I have is the shirt on my back. Literally. How many times do you ever get to say that?”
“How many times do you get to watch an explosion that was meant for you?” Reno asked. “I still can’t believe it happened. I just can’t believe it. Somebody really wants to stop us, even if they have to kill us. There’s no denying it anymore.”
“Look at it this way. It means we’re on the right track.”
She tried to smile. “That’s twisted. God, I wish we’d never gotten into it. I’d give anything.”
“It’s 381 miles to Morgantown,” he said. “I checked it out last night. Becton’s a little more than halfway.”
As they drove, the density and urgency of the city gave way to the green openness of Western Carolina, with the Smoky Mountains in view to the west. Soon there weren’t many other cars around. “With any luck, we lost them for now,” he said. “I’ll bet they still haven’t figured out that you’re not getting on a plane. And by the time they know you rented a car, we’ll be long gone. And they won’t know what direction we went.”
“I’m still nervous.”
“Don’t fall for my bullshit. I’m scared, too.”
“Why don’t we switch in an hour? Then I’ll start reading to you. I wrote some pretty good stuff while you were sleeping.”
“Deal,” Jonas said. “You shouldn’t be driving anyway. You were up all night.”
~~~
They made their first stop after crossing the state line. As they pulled into the ‘Welcome to Virginia’ rest stop they watched carefully to see if they were followed, but saw nothing suspicious. They waited for nearly an hour before resuming their trip.
“I hope we can find a place to shop later,” Jonas said from behind the wheel as they prepared to get back on the road. “I’d like to get some clothes, or at least a toothbrush.”
“You can borrow mine,” she offered.
“The clothes or the toothbrush?” After everything they’d been through together, he thought she would probably let him use either.
“I want to talk about the Warren Commission Report,” she said. “I’ve lived and breathed it for a month now. Not just reading it, but also reading about it.”
“I’m no expert like you are,” Jonas said, “but I’ve never heard anybody say anything good about that whole investigation.”
“For good reason. It was really weak. The way it’s written, you can tell they didn’t want you thinking about anything except their own conclusion. Oswald killed Kennedy and then Ruby killed Oswald. Case closed.”
“I always thought they were right,” Jonas said. “Now I’m not so sure it was that simple.”
“I’m most interested in the part about Jack Ruby,” she said. “Because I think Pomeroy was right in the middle of that. He knew all about it and somebody knew that he knew. That’s how he lands that high-end job in Pittsburgh when he had no qualifications at all. They had to get him out of there. It’s also why he’s dead, I think.”
“But Ruby killed Oswald on live TV,” Jonas said. “There’s no doubt that he did it. I don’t understand the big deal about Ruby.”
“Yeah, he pulled the trigger,” she agreed. “No question about that. But think about it. How in the world did he get close enough to do it? Remember, the entire Dallas police force is on call. They’re transferring their most important prisoner ever, the guy who shot the president. They’re doing it right there in the basement of their own building. They had already gotten hundreds of death threats for Oswald. How do they screw that up? By accident?”
“Shit happens?” Jonas offered.
“The report goes on and on when it comes to anything that supports their conclusions,” she continued. “Pages and pages of filler. But guess how much they had to say about how Ruby got into the basement and killed Oswald?”
“No idea.”
“Not much,” she said. “They said they don’t know how he got in. That’s all. One of the most important and unexplained parts of the entire case, but that one lame sentence is all they could come up with.”
“That was some investigation,” Jonas said.
“Everything the police did with Oswald was weird,” she said. “They started announcing Friday night that Oswald would be transferred on Sunday morning. They even gave the time. Why spread the word like that? Shouldn’t they have wanted to keep it a little quieter, especially with the death threats? Some of the police told the commission they wanted to do it on the sly, at a different time and place than what was announced. But the decision was made to announce the schedule and stick to it.”
“Ruby stuck to the schedule too.”
“More than you know,” she said. “The announced time was ten o’clock. Ruby didn’t get there until eleven-fifteen or eleven-twenty. They know that because he sent a telegram or something just before he came in. Over an hour late, bu
t somehow he was right on time. Coincidence? And I haven’t found a tape yet, but they say if you watch the video you can hear a car horn beep in that basement just before Oswald comes out. The only cars in that basement were police cars, Joe.”
“Kind of like a signal to Ruby?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I’m not saying, one way or another. I don’t even know if it’s true. Maybe it really was just another coincidence. But the coincidences are starting to pile up. I want to know how he got down there. Not just at the right time, but how did he get in at all? He told the investigators and everybody else with the Warren Commission that he just walked right in.”
She reached into the back seat and pulled a sheaf of papers from the canvas sack. “I’m glad I couldn’t sleep last night because I really needed to sift through all this and write it up. I wrote thirty-two pages by hand.” She flipped pages until she found what she was looking for.
“Sounds like you’ve already written our article,” Jonas remarked.
“I’m not sure if you’re getting it yet. There’s a lot more than an article to be written. We’re going to rewrite history. If we survive, that is.”
“You know,” he remarked. “Twenty-four hours ago I would have laughed if you said that.”
“Now, the report says Ruby came down into the basement on the ramp from Main Street. That ramp was supposedly guarded by a group of officers led by a man named Edward Vincent. That’s straight out of the report. Now, if you remember, Pomeroy talked about this with us. Remember?”
“I do. He was saying he was there but somebody else was in charge.”
“That’s exactly what I remember him saying. Thanks to the report we have a name for the guy in charge. Edward Vincent. Now, keep in mind what I told you. The report downplays this kind of problem because it goes against their conclusion, but there’s a problem here and they knew it. They buried it in one of the twenty-six appendices instead of putting it in the main report. One of the policemen says to the Warren Commission that he saw a man walk past Vincent and into the basement. He gave a spot-on description of Ruby. He says that it was right before the shooting, and he’s pretty sure he looked down the ramp in time to see this guy pull out the gun and do it. It’s right there in black and white. Don’t you see? Ruby walked right past them!”
“Hold on,” Jonas said. “You’re going too fast. The report says a policeman told them they saw somebody slip past the guards, walk down the ramp, and shoot Lee Harvey Oswald?”
“Right, except that it wasn’t in the report. It was buried in one of the appendices. He said he saw the man right when a police car was either entering or leaving, I can’t remember which. But he swears somebody walked past. Somebody who looked like Ruby.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Jonas said. “That should be on page one of the report, not hidden away. But I guess you already said that.”
“Joe, I really think the officer they’re talking about in the appendix is Pomeroy. The name was different, but for all we know he took a new name when he moved. His name probably wasn’t Pomeroy until months later. That would make sense if somebody was trying to hide him. And everything else we know about what he did that day fits perfectly.”
“But why would he let Ruby pass? Pomeroy, I mean. Are you saying he was in on some kind of conspiracy?”
“No, I’m not saying that at all,” she replied. “I think there was something going on but Pomeroy wasn’t in on it. If he was, he wouldn’t have been so honest with the Warren Commission. When they finally asked him about it, Pomeroy – I’m calling him Pomeroy to keep it simple – explained why he kept his mouth shut and let the man pass. He said Vincent, his boss, clearly saw Ruby and didn’t do anything about it, so he – Pomeroy – figured that whoever it was, he must be okay. When they went back to Vincent, he tells them that that if it happened, it must have been because he was distracted by a police car that just happened to be passing by, which he just happens to remember. The perfect alibi.”
“Let me think this through for a second,” Jonas said as they rolled through the Virginia hills. “I think I need this written down for me.”
“Don’t you see it?” Reno asked. “Pomeroy wasn’t part of it! He just happened to see something that he wasn’t supposed to see! He talked a little too much in Dallas but they were able to ship him off to Pittsburgh and keep the lid on it. But I think he knew the police let Ruby come down there and kill Oswald. He knew it until the day he died!”
“Why would they want Oswald killed?” Jonas asked.
“I’m not really on top of the Oswald part,” she admitted. “I focused on Ruby because we know all about Pomeroy. I’ll work on Oswald next. But here’s my best guess. Oswald really did shoot JFK, but it was all set up for him by somebody. He was a scapegoat, or a patsy, as the conspiracy nuts call him. Oswald served his purpose but he knew too much about who made it happen. He had to go.”
“I’m afraid we’re going to sound just like all the other wacky conspiracy nuts.”
“Maybe they’re not so wacky after all,” Reno remarked. “Maybe they were right all along.”
“Wow,” Jonas said slowly. “Wow.”
“You see, Oswald was a simpleton,” she said. “He was gullible and easily led. And he had just the right background for the setup. He was a marksman in the military so it was on the record that he knew how to handle a rifle. And he was politically active in all the wrong causes. Some of them were really goofy. He was all over the place. It was easy to make the world believe he did it, and all on his own. I’m not sure about the Oswald part yet. I’m pretty confident about the Ruby part.”
“Jesus, Abby,” Jonas said. “No wonder somebody’s trying to kill us.”
“Yeah,” she said, leaning back. “I know.”
~~~
This looks like a decent-sized town coming up,” Jonas said. “Should we stop and eat? I could do my shopping, too.”
When she agreed he moved to the right lane, watching the rear view mirror as he did it. They pulled into a gas station and watched traffic carefully as the tank was filled. Next they enjoyed a fast food lunch before walking next door to a department store. An hour later they each had some new clothes and everything else they thought they’d need for the rest of the trip. When they were back on the interstate they saw a sign that indicated that they were only 67 miles from West Virginia.
“So what were we talking about?” Reno asked.
“I think we need a reality check here,” Jonas said. “If that was Pomeroy in the report, it probably means that Kent Castle and Eastern Steel were behind the assassination. Right? The whole thing is that they kiss Pomeroy’s ass with the primo job in Pittsburgh to keep him quiet. If Pomeroy is who you think he is, it’s got to be Castle.”
“Pretty much,” agreed Reno. “So what’s the problem?”
“Well, I’m not completely sold on Castle throwing his life away taking a chance like this,” Jonas said. “He was the president of Eastern Steel. He worked hard to get there. Things were good. I understand that he was pissed, but come on. Why kill the president and risk all that?”
“Don’t you remember how bitter the price hike confrontation was?” Reno said. “The man literally walked right into the Oval Office and shoved his price hike in Kennedy’s face. Don’t you remember how ugly it got before Castle had to back down?”
“But is that enough?” Jonas asked. “Would he go that far for revenge? I don’t think so. That was just business. It seems to me that if enough people thought like that, there’d be presidents getting shot every year. There’s always somebody getting pissed at the president.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re saying,” Reno conceded. “This is good. We need to try to poke holes in this.”
“But we can’t have Pomeroy without Eastern Steel,” Jonas said. “Pomeroy and Kent Castle go together for us. Hiring Pomeroy and taking him to Pittsburgh is something that we have to account for.”
“Maybe we’re thin on mot
ive,” she acknowledged. “In some ways Pomeroy isn’t even that important, even if he is the guy in the report. He’s just a link to Eastern Steel. That’s all he was for us. But we can’t ignore the fact that as soon as he talked to us somebody bumped him off.”
“He probably didn’t even know anything specific, right?” Jonas asked. “He just seemed to know that something was happening.” As he spoke he watched a white van as it slowly passed several cars before slipping in behind their rented Taurus. The van looked oddly familiar to him, like it had been with them since Charlotte. Since he wasn’t sure, he saw no reason to mention it to Reno. They each had enough to worry about.
“That’s how I see it. And there’s another problem,” Reno said. “Oswald’s gone, but they’ve got Ruby walking around knowing too much. Now Ruby, he’s not the simpleton that Oswald was. He’s a sharp guy, a successful businessman, and a real good friend of the police department. He wouldn’t be so easy to shake off for whoever was orchestrating all this. That’s another weakness in my theory. Why Ruby?”
“Successful businessman? Didn’t he run strip clubs?”
“That’s a business, isn’t it?” Reno laughed. “And it’s part of the strength of his relationship with the police. They had free run at all his clubs. Everything was on the house for them.”
“What ever happened with Ruby?” Jonas asked. “Did he ever come clean about any of this?”
“That’s what I’m getting at,” she answered. “The Warren Commission didn’t even interview him until six months after the assassination. Twenty-six volumes of interview transcripts but they didn’t get around to interview the man who shot Oswald until June 1964. By then he’d already been convicted for Oswald’s murder.”
“They didn’t kid around back then.”
“I’m still thinking it through,” Reno said. “But if Ruby was part of something, and I think he was, he ended up getting double-crossed. Even after he realized what was happening, he never had a chance to say much. Nobody wanted to hear it. He died in prison in 1967.”
