by Lis Wiehl
“Just a few miles or so.” Lisa didn’t particularly enjoy running, but she needed to unwind her thoughts. The Radcliffe trial had put her in better shape than she’d been in since law school.
The concierge pulled out a city map and highlighted a circular route that would avoid the worst of the evening traffic. The map helped Lisa recall the layout of the city—she’d been away a long time.
She stepped outside the hotel, surprised at the heat still coming off the streets. She tied her light jacket around her waist.
After stretching for a few minutes, she took off at a slow pace down the street dotted with pedestrians. Streetlights flickered on as the sun dipped low toward the horizon and dodged behind high-rise buildings. She caught the scent of honeysuckle as she started running, and the smell mixed with the warm Texan evening reminded her of her teen years on the track team when she’d felt strong and fast. Now her doctor recommended walking with her worn knees. A steady jog was her compromise.
To the rhythm of her feet on the concrete streets, Lisa moved through the information she’d obtained today.
Who exactly didn’t want her digging around the archives at the Fort Worth PD? Why would it matter to them after all these years? In her searches, she hadn’t found anything incriminating about Sergeant Ross, so why was he so uncooperative toward Dad? Was Sweeney a reliable source or a complete head case? What kind of power could influence the police and DA to convict Leonard Dubois to death row for a murder he didn’t commit? There were dirty cops, but this was something much bigger. This went against the deepest ethical codes they were sworn to uphold. It also was more than a moral issue; it threatened every person involved with criminal prosecution. Why would they take such a risk?
Lisa jogged in place as a traffic light changed, then moved forward and down the block of older brick buildings. She caught a whiff of a steak house as she passed people sitting outside drinking beer and eating dinner. Her thoughts moved to Leonard Dubois. If he wasn’t the shooter, there had to be a reason that Dubois was targeted. His past might offer some answers.
She came to the harder questions she needed extra courage to ask. Why had Dad stopped pursuing answers in the Benjamin Gray case back in the midsixties? Why had he taken her to the rally in the first place?
Lisa could cross-examine suspects of a crime, but interrogating Dad was a different animal. He’d know instantly what she was doing if she tried a manipulative approach. Dad knew how to get information from people. Lisa didn’t delude herself into thinking she was better than he was in that area. A straight-out confrontation could be her only course of action.
At the sign for Houston Street, Lisa stopped. She stared up at it as several businessmen and a family with a baby stroller swept around her. She looked up and down the block, gaining her bearings as she took in the park, a reflection pool, and a brick building at the end of the street.
The sixth-floor window at the end closest to her street was significant. The lawn beyond the building and small rise were often called “the grassy knoll.”
Lisa’s jog turned into a walk as she approached the building of the former Texas School Book Depository. The sixth floor was now a museum that told the story of President John F. Kennedy’s final moments of life on November 22, 1963. From that window, Lee Harvey Oswald pointed his rifle and made the fateful shots.
Lisa had only been here on a school field trip, and when Dad had brought her to one of the anniversaries of President Kennedy’s death. Now the scent of freshly cut grass followed her as she moved by a fountain that bubbled cheerily as if to hide the ugly past. It had taken Dallas decades to escape the repercussions of JFK’s assassination. The city was despised by the world, and city officials worked hard to revamp its image and recover from the identity of “The City of Hate.” Even the park surrounding the site wasn’t dedicated to JFK. The cenotaph for him was a few blocks away, as if again to hide the guilt a city wished to bury.
Only time, the success of the Dallas Cowboys and their famous cheerleaders, and the drama of J. R. Ewing on Dallas had helped to subdue the city’s bad reputation.
Standing with all of this surrounding her, the past and the present, Lisa felt an odd connection to her father. He’d spent much of his life trying to know the truth of what happened to his favorite president. When new reports, studies, or movies about a conspiracy came out, he’d pore over the evidence again. Lisa’s mom once told her that Dad had spent years at this very location, studying and thinking.
But the Benjamin Gray shooting that occurred so close to Lisa and Dad had faded quietly into their past, as well as into Fort Worth’s history. Of course, Gray wasn’t the president of the United States. Yet Dad had chosen to walk away from that mystery. Only now did the obsession for answers consume him. What had changed?
Lisa shivered as the sweat on her back chilled. Night was coming on fast. She turned away from the quiet Dealey Plaza and street where violence had long ago ended the life of a US president.
When Lisa returned to the hotel, she called her father to say she was exhausted and would come to the house the next day. Concern shaped Dad’s voice as he asked to take her to dinner. Instead, they made plans for the morning and said good night.
Next Lisa called Drew before she could talk herself out of it again. “Hi,” she said when he answered, feeling terribly junior high.
“Hey. How’s it been with your father?”
“He has a girlfriend.” She rested against the hotel pillows, relieved to launch into a casual subject that was safely away from them.
“That’s … a good thing or not?”
“She’s much younger, maybe younger than I am. And very different from him, and nothing, I mean, nothing like my mother.” Lisa thought of Mom with her pearls and conservative style, her games of tennis at the country club and everything in its place at her home. Since remarrying, her mother enjoyed a busy social life and constant travel. She and Rosalyn were like different species.
Drew was quiet for a moment, then spoke. “Maybe that’s good for him. Someone different might be a good change this late in life.”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Lisa said. Drew never responded in the way she expected. Unlike her female friends, who would’ve sympathized or been suspicious of Rosalyn’s motives, heightening the drama, Drew considered every situation before responding and never told her just what she wanted to hear.
“It would be hard to be alone at that age.”
“I suppose so.” Lisa pictured the emptiness of her childhood home.
“I wouldn’t want that.” Drew’s voice held a note of something she couldn’t quite identify. “It sounds like your dad isn’t stuck in one place. He’s moving forward.”
Lisa knew Drew well enough to catch his implication. She sighed and stared at a Georgia O’Keeffe print on the wall. Did this mean Drew wanted to continue their conversation from the airport?
“You aren’t going to let this go, are you?”
Drew chuckled. “Okay, I won’t bring it up again. Not until you get back.”
“Promise?”
“Only if you promise to talk about it. Really talk?”
Lisa hesitated. “When I’m done with all of this with Dad?”
“Sure,” he said.
“All right then.”
Lisa studied the hard edges of O’Keeffe’s desert flower, trying to think of something to move beyond this sudden awkwardness.
Drew spoke first, in a bad imitation of Lisa’s voice. “So, Drew, what have you been up to in the past few days since I vowed never to speak to you again?” He switched to his own voice. “Well, Lisa, I’ve been researching the assassination of JFK and Benjamin Gray, and the civil rights movement in Texas during the 1960s. And I’ve been studying the snapshot you gave me.”
Lisa laughed lightly. “I didn’t vow never to speak to you again.”
“You considered it,” he said with that old teasing tone in his voice. “But moving on before we get into a debate, I know you s
aid your dad helped in the investigation of JFK’s killing, but I didn’t realize he was part of the Warren Commission.”
“Yeah, he was an integral part. He has notebooks full of his interviews and notes. But since President Johnson was the one who ordered the commission, its factuality has been questioned over the decades. But Dad says the report is completely accurate.”
“Interesting. So no secret plot or other shooters?”
“Dad insists there was no conspiracy. Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer, and he acted alone.”
“He should know. But how’s it going, other than the shock of your father’s girlfriend?”
“I have a lot to catch you up on. And I need your help.” Lisa heard the creak and roll of a chair that she recognized as the sound of Drew’s studio desk chair.
“I expected that was coming,” he said.
“And you wanted me to call?”
“Yes, but you go first.”
“Can you help me with background info on Rosalyn—the woman my dad is seeing? I’ll text you her full name. She has two middle names, of course.” Lisa hopped from the bed to retrieve her notes before settling back down.
“You want background information on your father’s girlfriend?”
“Well, I can’t get it as easily from my hotel. Do you mind?”
“I didn’t mean I couldn’t do it. I’ll say this again, more slowly; do you think you should be running backgrounds on your father’s girlfriend? Aren’t you the person who complained about your father doing that to your high school prom date?”
Lisa groaned. He had her there. “I just want to be sure about her.”
“I’ll do it, but you might understand your father a little better now.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “And I’m scanning you a photograph of Benjamin Gray’s corpse that Rosalyn found on the Internet. She already contacted the website for more information, but I wanted your thoughts. I’ll send that tonight.”
Lisa spent the next fifteen minutes updating Drew on her visit to the Fort Worth Police Department, then on her meeting with Sweeney at the diner. As she talked, she could hear the sound of Drew’s one finger tapping on the computer keyboard.
“I have a friend who works at a newspaper in Fort Worth,” Drew offered. “Maybe he can dig around for us. But the reason behind a cover-up should be our main focus. That could crack this open. I’ll see what I can find.”
“Great,” Lisa said, feeling better already. He’d helped her process the day better than her run. “And your text … you wanted me to call?”
“Yes. I have a lead on your girl.”
“My girl?” Lisa rubbed her eyes.
“The other little girl in the photograph.”
Lisa kicked her feet to the side of the bed. “Wait, you do? How did you do that?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal my sources. I’m a committed journalist, don’t you know?”
“Come on. Are you serious? This is the biggest news of all, and you’ve waited to tell me. What if I hadn’t called you?”
“You’d have missed out, I guess.”
Lisa wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. She started pacing the room as he talked.
“I started with the women in the photograph sitting beside you and the girl. I assumed that one was the mother. Your father said that the woman in the hat scooped up the girl after the shooting.”
Lisa stopped midstep. “You’ve been talking to my father?”
“I called him today with some questions. He’s in the phone directory.”
“What?” Lisa could hardly believe her ears.
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Of course.” Lisa walked to the large floor-to-ceiling window. The city lights sparkled across the horizon, then stopped abruptly as city met the open Texas flatlands.
“That hat she was wearing isn’t just an ordinary hat. It was made by a special local designer in Texas.”
“How did you find that out?”
“Intense research—eBay, actually. I did an image search on antique hats, and a similar one was for sale on eBay. That gave me the name of the hat and its designer, which was from a shop in Fort Worth.”
“You found the name of the shop? And there’s only one?” Lisa moved to the desk and started her computer. Her heart rate quickened as it did whenever she followed clues in an investigation.
“Yes. It was a small shop and changed owners in the eighties, but the designer continued to make hats for the new owners even when it became a little boutique. The designer’s granddaughter took over the craft after she retired.”
“This is good. I wonder if the hat lady in Dad’s snapshot continued to be a buyer. That might lead us to her.”
“Exactly,” Drew said.
Lisa’s mind clicked with other avenues they might follow to discover the name of the woman in the hat, the woman beside her, and the little girl.
“Last year I worked on a case with this college professor who jumped bail. He’d previously been a social media junkie, but he seemed to disappear. I had this idea to use facial recognition software on the major social media sites, and we found him under a different name and living in the Caribbean.”
“I remember that. But what are you thinking?”
“Many organizations and clubs are uploading member photographs on their websites or onto other media sources. It’s a long shot, but I can call a techie friend of mine to run some facial recognition software over organizations, historic societies, and churches in the Fort Worth area. If they’ve uploaded membership pictures from the 1960s, we may be able to match the little girl or the woman sitting beside the hat lady. We only have her profile, but it might still work.”
“I can Photoshop her profile to create a composite of what she’d look like facing the camera. That would make the software work better.”
Lisa typed in her log-in and password to gain access to secure software and search engines accessible only to federal employees with a high security clearance.
She heard Drew’s fingers on the keyboard again. He too was on the hunt.
“Most everybody attended church in 1965. I know my Southern black family well enough to know that. It’s quite possible they attended a local church that would have archives of members at the church or on their website.”
“It wasn’t just the black families in the South. But I agree. From your discovery of the hat designer, we can start the search in areas closest to those neighborhoods. People often did all of their shopping and social activities while attending church and school right in their own community.”
“This will keep us busy. I’m getting a lot of relevant hits in my searches,” Drew said.
“Me too. If the little girl was older, we could search school yearbooks as well. But I think she and I were the same age, so she wouldn’t have been in school yet. I’m not sure if my dad told me that or if I just remembered it, but I’m pretty sure she was four too.”
Lisa turned on the phone’s speaker and worked while talking with Drew. While he recreated the face of the second woman in the photograph, Lisa searched for a list of churches and community organizations in Fort Worth, marking any with images and those that still existed. The facial recognition software searched sites for the little girl and the woman from Dad’s snapshots. Lisa only wished the woman with the hat had turned enough for them to have her face as well.
Hours passed as they hit dead ends and kept working. Drew reminded her to eat something, and Lisa realized her fingers were shaking as she dug through her bag for a nutrition bar.
Later she plugged in her cell phone to recharge the battery and stood to stretch several times. They were getting close to something solid, she was sure of it. Then she heard a beep from the software program indicating a hit.
She switched to the program and saw the face of the little girl from the Sunday school directory of a Southern Baptist church.
“We may have found her,” Lisa said, leaning close to the screen a
nd comparing the girl’s face in the two photographs.
She sent the images to Drew, knowing he had a better eye.
“Molly Carter.”
“Yes, and it’s from 1965. Look at the directory for 1964. Molly Carter is there as well.”
“Yes, but look at the directory for 1966 and 1967. The girl isn’t there.”
“You’re faster than I am. I was just opening that link.”
“It’s a sad day when you get beat by a single-finger typist.”
“Well, I just found the rest of the Carter family in the member directory.” Lisa typed and clicked through the church’s historical sites. “The whole family left the church after 1965.”
“Let’s find out where they went,” Drew said.
Another few hours searching through employment and school reports, and Drew announced, “This has to be her. Pastor Molly Carter. She’s the same age as you, and until four years ago she was living in California.”
“She’s a minister?” Lisa couldn’t imagine that little girl as an adult, let alone a pastor. “And where is she now?”
“She went to seminary in Southern California and served at several churches around Los Angeles and San Diego. But two years ago she took a new position. I found medical bills in collections that indicate her mother is sick.”
“Where is she?” Lisa said, knowing Drew was dragging this out on purpose and enjoying it immensely.
“In a little town right outside of Dallas, Texas.”
Lisa could barely believe it. “She’s here?”
“That’s right. Molly Carter is right under your nose.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
James stared at his daughter.
“You found the other little girl in the snapshot?” Rosalyn said with her hands cupping her cheeks.
They sat in the workshop surrounded by stacks of research and bulletin boards of information that James had spent weeks organizing. In such a short time, Lisa had added much more to the collection.
Yet James was distracted by his daughter’s presence. At times all he could see was his little girl sitting on the stool with those big blue eyes, not the sophisticated woman discussing archives, old police reports, and secret meetings.
