The Legacy

by Stephen W. Frey

  “We are following up on that possibility,” Walsh assured Bianco. “We have someone very close to Cole Egan. If there is a second tape, we will find it.”

  Bianco stared at Walsh for several moments. “Perhaps it would help to have some of my people involved.” He nodded at the man sitting in the chair across the room.

  “Let us take care of this,” Walsh urged gently. Jamison didn’t want Bianco’s people nosing around when the government was following Cole so closely. There was no reason to have the two organizations both on the scene in case things got nasty. That might create the possibility of a link between the Mafia and the Jamison administration, which was something both parties had to avoid at all costs. “Please let us handle it.”

  “For now,” Bianco conceded. He was naturally uneasy about anything not under his direct control, but he also understood the need to keep the two organizations as far apart as possible.

  “Why do you have such an interest in the tape, Mr. Bianco?” Walsh had never asked the question before, though he’d always been tempted to.

  Bianco made a face, as if the answer should be obvious. “This country has been fascinated with President Kennedy’s assassination for thirty-five years. People still want to know who killed him today as badly as they did in 1963. They don’t believe it was Oswald, at least not acting alone. Lyndon Johnson didn’t. Why should anyone else? If that tape became public, the investigation would be reopened immediately. I’d have federal agents crawling all over my fucking empire trying to get answers. I still have people around who knew Jack Ruby. People would have to start turning up dead. I don’t want to have to go through that. Not after we’ve spent years toning down our profile.”

  “I—”

  But Bianco wasn’t finished. “That operation in the DIA blamed it on us thirty-five years ago. People would remember that. I don’t need people fishing around.” He smiled. “Nobody in the government needs it, either. Not with the suspicions most Americans already have about senior officials conspiring to keep sensitive information away from them.”

  “You’re right,” Walsh agreed.

  Bianco tapped the arm of the sofa. “I have some information I want you to give to the president.”

  “What is that?”

  “After careful analysis, I believe we can deliver New York, Illinois, Texas and Florida to him in the election next November. That’s well over one hundred electoral votes. That ought to make him feel pretty good about his chances.”

  Walsh smiled, but not because he knew that would make Jamison feel very good. It was General Zahn’s comment about the irony of it all that brought the smirk to Walsh’s face. Kennedy had been accused of using the Mafia’s help to win the 1960 presidential election, specifically of winning Illinois thanks to a few crime bosses and their influence over the unions. And here was Jamison, in deep with the Mafia himself, doing his best to keep the tape of Kennedy’s assassination away from the public.

  19

  “God, it’s desolate out here.” Tori gazed through the windshield of the rented Jeep Cherokee at the dense northern Wisconsin pine forest, which seemed to be closing in around them at the edge of the headlights’ glow. “We haven’t passed a house for thirty miles, much less a town. And I can’t remember seeing a car coming the other way. Are you sure we didn’t take a detour to Siberia?”

  Cole laughed. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Does all this isolation make you nervous?” He knew the forest did that to some people.

  “You’re darn right it does. I’m a city girl. I grew up in Los Angeles and now I live in New York. Those are places where people can get to you in the winter without needing a snowmobile or a team of huskies.”

  “You don’t have much of that pioneer spirit, do you?”

  “None at all. If it had been up to me to explore, we’d all still be back in Europe ruled by monarchs.”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, Tori?” Cole teased.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t like being alone,” she admitted quietly, looking apprehensively into the pitch-black night outside.

  Cole nodded. If you kept peeling away the layers long enough, you could always make it to the heart of the matter.

  “Are there bears here?” she asked.

  Cole shook his head. “No.” He hesitated only long enough for her to feel a slight sense of relief. “Just wolves.”

  “Wolves?”

  “Well, I’ve heard there are,” Cole said. “I’ve never actually seen any wolf packs around here. But I have seen them in Minnesota, up on the Boundary Waters near Canada. People around here say those packs have migrated into Wisconsin over the last few years, but I don’t know if that’s true. Wolves won’t hurt you,” Cole assured her.

  “Cole, I think it’s time you tell me what this is all about.” If she was going to deal with wolves, she was going to know why they were here.

  Cole checked for stars, but they were hidden by an ominous cloud cover hanging low over the territory. The forecast was for heavy snow tonight and it wasn’t even December. But that didn’t matter here. He’d seen storms dump a foot of snow in a single November day in northern Wisconsin. “Not yet.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not yet’?” She was irritated. “So far I’ve purchased airline tickets and rented a Jeep for who knows how long. I deserve answers.”

  When the plane landed in Minneapolis four hours ago, Cole had decided to drive straight to the town of Hubbard and the Lassiter River instead of staying at his aunt and uncle’s house in Duluth tonight. It would be too easy for his pursuers to stake out that house—maybe they already had—and he didn’t want to endanger his aunt and uncle in any way. Plus, he didn’t want the extra fifty-mile drive early tomorrow morning from Duluth if the snow turned out to be heavy tonight.

  Cole reached in front of Tori and opened the glove compartment. “Here.” He pulled out a Wisconsin map he had purchased when they stopped for gas an hour ago and handed it to her. “Turn on the map light and entertain yourself. I’ll show you where we’re headed.”

  “I don’t really care.”

  “That’s not a very good attitude.”

  Tori smiled for the first time in a while. “You’re really good at that.”

  “At what?” He knew what she was about to say.

  “At changing the subject.”

  “What are you talking about?” He continued to deflect.

  “You want me to become interested in the map and forget that I’ve asked you what on God’s green earth we’re doing here.” She too checked the sky for stars. “Or white earth, as the case may soon be.” She had heard the weather forecast as well. “But I’m not going to be distracted this time. Now, what are we doing here? What is this all about?”

  “I’ll tell you later, promise.”

  “Now,” she said firmly. “Or I’ll stop paying for everything, Cole.”

  “Look, there’s a couple of deer.” He pointed at two does standing like statues on the side of the road, mesmerized by the Jeep’s high beams.

  “I’m not looking,” she said defiantly.

  “You’re missing them.”

  “Cole!”

  “Okay.” The time to explain the situation had come. There was no getting around it now, but that was all right. He was convinced at this point that she was trustworthy. “Look, you were right on the button at lunch the other day,” he began. “My father did take a film away from a woman named Andrea Sage in Dealey Plaza the day President Kennedy was shot.”

  “I knew it!” Tori slapped the dashboard.

  Cole jerked the steering wheel left, taken off guard by her violent reaction to the news. “Easy,” he warned.

  “Sorry.”

  Cole smi
led. “It’s all right, but please, let’s demonstrate a little control.”

  “I did get a little excited, didn’t I?” she asked sheepishly. “But can you blame me?”

  “No. Here’s another interesting piece of information for you,” Cole volunteered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Andrea Sage and Mary Thomas were the same person.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No.” Cole quickly explained how Jim Egan had ultimately married the woman from whom he’d taken the movie camera.

  “That’s incredible.”

  “It really is,” Cole agreed. “Anyway, at some point my father made a tape copy of the film, then hid it in a safe-deposit box in New York City. A man named Bennett Smith gave me an envelope with a key to the safe-deposit box inside after I found out my father had died. In fact, Bennett was the one who informed me of his death. Bennett was my father’s best friend.” Cole shook his head. “I had my hands on that tape last week in Manhattan, but someone took it away from me at gunpoint after I retrieved it from the box.”

  “What?” Tori’s eyes widened.

  “Yes.”

  “Who took it from you? Do you know?”

  “I’m not sure.” He would tell her more about Bennett’s conjecture later.

  “It’s too bad you lost it,” she said, suddenly crestfallen.

  “That’s an understatement. But now I’ve found out that there’s one more tape,” he said quietly.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. My father must have made two.”

  “That’s fantastic.” Her excitement returned instantly. “And it’s stored somewhere up here?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have a chance to view the first tape before the person took it away from you?” Her voice was trembling slightly.

  It was the first time Cole had heard that kind of emotion in her gravelly voice. He nodded.

  “And? Come on! Tell me what was on it.”

  “It showed that John Kennedy was killed by someone firing a rifle from behind the fence on the grassy knoll.”

  “Oh my God!” She banged the dashboard once more, then glanced at Cole apologetically. “Sorry again.”

  “It’s okay.” He had been ready for her reaction this time.

  “Does the tape prove conspiracy?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “If you assume that someone was up in the Book Depository, too, which I think you can.”

  “That explains all your secrecy. Why we got on the flight to Los Angeles, and why we sat in the first row. It was so we could deplane without someone behind us seeing us.”

  “That’s correct.” He paused. “If I told you half of what happened to me in Manhattan last week, you’d probably have me pull over so you could get out.”

  “Not in the middle of this Black Forest, I wouldn’t,” Tori assured him. “And what’s the matter, don’t you think I can hold my own in a tough situation?”

  “You didn’t seem too happy about the prospect of meeting up with wolves and bears.”

  “That’s different.” She turned on the map light, then reached for the Wisconsin map Cole had placed on the dashboard and spread it out across her lap. “Show me where we’re going,” she demanded.

  He leaned across the seat and pointed at a thin blue line on the map snaking north toward Lake Superior.

  She squinted. “The Lassiter?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s so special about it?”

  “I spent a lot of time on the Lassiter when I was growing up.”

  “Does that have anything to do with why your father put the second tape here?”

  “I think so.”

  “Where exactly is the tape?” Tori asked.

  “I won’t tell you that.”

  “You still don’t trust me.”

  “I don’t completely trust anyone at this point,” Cole said honestly.

  “I want your word that NBC will get this tape,” she said quickly. “As I told you at lunch, I’m prepared to pay a lot of money for it. And I’ve funded this entire trip,” she reminded him, “and apparently put myself at some personal risk, though you didn’t bother telling me that.”

  “Don’t try to hang a guilt trip on me about that. You would have come anyway, even if I had told you.”

  “That’s beside the point. And how do you know I would have come anyway?”

  “You just said you could handle yourself in a tough situation. And you want this tape so badly it’s eating you up inside. This tape is your Holy Grail. You want to be able to show your bosses at NBC you aren’t a second-stringer. And there’s one more reason you wouldn’t have missed all this.”

  “And what’s that, Mr. Know-me-so-well?”

  “You want to show your mother you can do something pretty special all on your own.”

  Tori gazed at him for a few moments, then broke into a wide smile. “So you were listening in the cab on the way up to your grandparents’ apartment.” She was impressed. “A lot of men can convince you they’re listening when they really aren’t. Then you find out later they haven’t heard a word.” She hesitated. “I want the tape, Cole. You owe me that.”

  “For your troubles, I’ll promise you the right of first refusal on the tape,” Cole answered definitively. “I give you my word that I’ll make certain you have a chance to match the highest offer of any other bidder.”

  “You’re going to be a trader to the end, huh?” she asked, disappointment obvious in her tone. She knew someone might pay more than what she could offer. “Always looking for the best deal, always hungry for the money.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with being a trader,” Cole snapped. People outside the financial business always accused you of being money-hungry when they knew you were a trader. They always accused you of bringing everything in life down to the lowest common denominator—cash. As if they weren’t trying their hardest to make as much money as they could, too. “You’d do the same thing if you were in my position.”

  “I suppose I would,” she admitted.

  “Besides, there’s no reason to get excited,” Cole warned. “I don’t have the damn thing yet.” He checked the rearview mirror, but there were no headlights. Maybe he really had eluded the pursuers. He glanced at Tori, who was staring off into the darkness again. Or maybe they already had someone very close to him and could follow from a distance.

  Fifteen minutes later Cole slowed the Jeep as the road turned rough.

  “What’s going on?” Tori asked. She had been hypnotized by the unbroken line of trees flashing past the window.

  “We crossed into Oswego County,” Cole explained. “It’s the county the Lassiter River runs through. We’re almost home.”

  “Why is the road so bad?”

  “Oswego County is responsible for the road now, and the county isn’t what you’d call cash-rich.”

  “Why not?”

  “There isn’t a whole lot of industry up here. Not much of a tax base.”

  The line of trees moved suddenly away from the road and Cole guided the Jeep off the crumbling asphalt onto a gravel driveway leading steeply up into the dense pines.

  “Where are we going?” Tori asked, grabbing the handle above the door as Cole guided the vehicle up the hill.

  “To our lodgings for the evening.”

  This wasn’t the same place Cole and Bennett Smith had stayed last week. The town of Hubbard and that campground were still twenty miles to the north.

  Finally the driveway leveled off and a light appeared through the trees. Cole brought the Jeep to a stop and pulled the emergency brake. “We’re here.”

  “Hey, Cole!” On the porch of the log home stood an older man in a checkered flannel shirt, jeans and suspenders. Straight black hair fell to his shoulders
.

  “Who is that?” Tori asked hesitantly, looking at the man in the Jeep’s headlights.

  “Billy Threefeathers.” Cole smiled as he opened the driver-side door. “He’s an old friend of mine. He’s the one who taught me every rapid and every bend of the Lassiter River, and he’s our host tonight.” Cole hopped out of the Jeep, jogged across the driveway and shook Billy’s hand warmly as the man stepped down off the porch.

  Tori watched Billy Threefeathers and Cole shake hands. In the woods behind the log home she could barely make out a few tiny lights, probably coming from the guest cabins Cole had described to her on the way from Minneapolis. The smaller outer cabins would be their accommodations for the evening. She shivered at the prospect of a night alone in the North Woods. But if it meant getting her hands on that tape, it was a small price to pay.

  * * *

  —

  A touch of the lighted match to the tinder and the fireplace burst into flames. Billy hunched over the hearth a few moments longer, fanning the fire until he was satisfied it would burn for some time. “You’ll be warm all night now,” he said.

  “Thanks.” Tori looked around the small cabin. Flames danced on the cedar walls, creating strange shapes that licked their way to the ceiling. “You sure you guys don’t want to go back to the main house and tell a few more stories? All that fly-fishing stuff was so fascinating.” After a late dinner, Cole and Billy had talked at length about flies, lines, rods and reels, as well as huge fish they had caught. The conversation had bored her to tears, but anything was better than being alone out in this small cabin. “It’s only midnight, let’s drink another bottle of wine.”

  “Sorry,” Billy responded. He spoke in a solemn, gentle voice. “It’s way past my bedtime.”

  “I’m tired too,” Cole seconded.

  “Is that fire really going to keep me warm all night?” Tori asked dubiously, wrapping her arms around her torso.

  “The best heat is body heat.” Billy laughed, showing two rows of crooked teeth. “I don’t know why you two want to stay in separate cabins.”