Parkland (Movie Tie-In Edition)

by Vincent Bugliosi

  After returning to his office, Curry calls Captain Fritz and asks if he will be ready to transfer Oswald by 4:00 p.m. Fritz says he doesn’t think he will be finished questioning Oswald by then.1119

  Under normal circumstances, an arrested person becomes the responsibility of Sheriff Bill Decker and goes to the county jail as soon as he has been booked. Details of the transfer are usually left to Decker, who has deputies from his office pick the prisoner up at the police department and transport him to the county jail. But this one may be too hot for the relatively small sheriff’s department to handle. The Dallas Police Department has far more men and resources. The transfer will be from City Hall straight down Main Street to the Criminal Courts Building at Main and Houston, less than a mile away, ironically following the path of yesterday’s motorcade. The problem of how and when to move Lee Oswald to the county jail will occupy much of the chief’s time and attention over the next twenty-four hours.1120

  12:35 p.m.

  Captain Fritz orders Detectives Senkel and Turner to bring Oswald down from the jail for another interview. This time the questioning is perfunctory, aimed at getting a list of addresses where Oswald lived in Dallas, and in particular, where the bulk of his personal property might be stored. The questioning lasts about a half hour, during which Oswald says that most of his belongings are stored in the garage at Mrs. Paine’s house in Irving.1121

  Captain Fritz steps outside his office and dispatches Detectives Guy Rose and Richard Stovall to Irving with instructions to pick up anything and everything in storage there. This will be the second search of the Paine residence, but the first thorough search of the Paine garage. Only the blanket that had been used to store the rifle had been recovered from the garage on Friday.1122

  As they head out the door, Fritz orders two visitor passes for Oswald’s wife and mother to see Oswald in the fourth-floor jail office.1123

  1:07 p.m.

  Robert Oswald is rather put out that three passes haven’t been arranged so that he too can see his brother. Secret Service agent Mike Howard tells him that he’ll see what he can do about arranging another pass for him. Robert reluctantly agrees to remain behind and let his mother and Marina use the two passes to go up and see Lee.1124

  The policewoman from the Juvenile Bureau takes care of the babies, and the two women are led through the pack of reporters in the hallway toward the fourth-floor elevators. They are forced to wait momentarily for the next elevator car, giving the reporters a chance to descend on them like hungry vultures. The two women ignore the bushel of questions tossed at them until Marguerite finally caves in and tells them they are going up to see Lee now. The elevator doors finally open and they escape the onslaught of questions, gliding up the elevator shaft to the floor above.1125 A gaggle of reporters turn their attention to District Attorney Henry Wade, who is leaning against a corridor wall nearby. “Mr. Wade, do you expect to call Mrs. Kennedy or Governor Connally, if he’s able, in this trial as witnesses?”

  “We will not, unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Wade tells them, “and at this point I don’t think it’ll be necessary.”

  “How soon can we expect a trial?”

  “I’d say around the middle of January,” Wade answers.

  “Has Mr. Oswald expressed any hatred, ill will, toward President Kennedy or, for that matter, any regret over his death?” a reporter asks.

  “He has expressed no regret that I know of,” Wade replies.

  “This man, it seems, wasn’t close to anybody,” a reporter interjects. “Have you discovered any close friends in Dallas?”

  “No, sir,” Wade replies, agreeing with the reporter that this suggests an introverted personality.

  “It’s rumored that perhaps this case would be tried by a military court because, of course, President Kennedy is our commander in chief,” a reporter suggests.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” Wade corrects. “We have him charged in the state court and he’s a state prisoner at present.”

  “And you will conduct the trial?”

  “Yes, sir,” Wade says. “I plan to.”

  “And you will ask the capital verdict?”

  “We’ll ask the death penalty,” Wade says firmly.

  “In how many cases of this type have you been involved, that is, when the death penalty is involved?”

  “Since I’ve been district attorney we’ve asked—I’ve asked the death penalty in twenty-four cases,” Wade replies.

  “How many times have you obtained it?”

  The district attorney looks the reporter in the eye.

  “Twenty-three,” he says. Elected district attorney five consecutive times over the last twenty years, Wade is confident that the Oswald case will bring him a twenty-fourth death penalty verdict. Texas juries—Texans, period—are strong believers in capital punishment.1126 In a recent Dallas murder case of Wade’s, after a long and impassioned plea by the defense attorney asking the jurors to spare the life of his client, Wade rose and gave one of the shortest summations ever delivered. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” the DA said, “this boy belongs in the electric chair.” The jury returned a verdict of death after three hours of deliberation.1127

  1:15 p.m.

  Marina and Marguerite Oswald wait nervously in the fourth-floor visiting room to meet Lee for the first time since the murders. The long, narrow room is divided in two by a heavy glass window, one side for visitors, the other for prisoners. Rounded-off plywood wings divide the partition into several cubicles. There are no chairs in the booths, just a wood shelf and a telephone—the only communication across the grimy, dusty glass barrier. It is a stale, claustrophobic room haunted by the thousands of visitors who have crossed its threshold over the years.1128

  Although Marina has managed to convince herself of Lee’s innocence, the minute she sees him caged in glass, troubled, pitiful, and alone, her confidence deserts her. They pick up the telephones on each side of the barrier.

  “Why did you bring that fool with you?” Lee says in Russian, glancing over her shoulder at his mother. “I don’t want to talk to her.”

  “She’s your mother,” Marina says. “Of course she came.”

  Marina stares at the cuts and bruises on her husband’s face.

  “Have they been beating you?” she asks.

  “Oh no,” he answers. “They treat me fine. Did you bring Junie and Rachel?”

  “They’re downstairs,” Marina says, anxious to talk to Lee about something weighing on her mind. “Alik [Marina’s Russian nickname for Lee], can we talk about anything we like?”

  That morning, Marina had tucked two photographs of Lee and his rifle inside one of the shoes she was now wearing. They were there now. She desperately wants to ask him what she should do with them.

  “Oh, of course,” he said sarcastically. “We can speak about absolutely anything.”

  Marina could tell from his tone that he was warning her to say nothing.

  “They asked me about the gun,” she says.

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” he answers, his voice rising, the words coming quickly.1129

  Marina can’t bring herself to ask him if he did it. After all, he is her husband.

  “I don’t believe that you did that,” she finally manages to say. “Everything will turn out well.”1130

  “Oh sure,” he says, “there is a lawyer in New York who will help me. You shouldn’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

  On the surface, it is the same old Lee, full of bravado. But this time there is something different. This time, the pitch of his voice is higher. There is also fear in his eyes, betraying his guilt. He is telling her everything will turn out all right, but Marina feels that even he does not believe it. Tears start to roll down her cheek.

  “Don’t cry,” he says tenderly. “There’s nothing to cry about. Try not to think about it. And if they ask you anything, you have a right not to answer. You have the right to refuse. Do you understand?”

  “
Yes,” Marina says, wiping the tears away. She looks him in the eye. There are tears in his eyes too, but he’s working hard to hold them back.1131

  Marguerite doesn’t understand a word they’re saying, since the entire conversation is in Russian. Finally, Marina hands the phone to her.

  “Honey, you are so bruised up, your face,” Marguerite says. “What are they doing?”

  “Mother, don’t worry,” Lee says. “I got that in a scuffle.”

  Marguerite thinks that Lee is simply shielding his mother from the truth about the awful beatings behind the jail walls.

  “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “No, Mother, everything is fine,” Lee replies. “I know my rights. I have already requested to get in touch with an attorney, Mr. Abt. Don’t worry about a thing.”1132

  Marguerite isn’t about to insult him by asking him whether he shot President Kennedy. She heard him on television saying he didn’t do it and that is enough for her. Eventually she yields the phone back to Marina. Lee again tells Marina not to worry.

  “You have friends,” he says. “They’ll help you. If it comes to that, you can ask the Red Cross for help. You mustn’t worry about me. Kiss Junie and Rachel for me.”

  “I will,” Marina promises, tears welling up in her eyes.

  Two guards enter the room behind him.

  “Alka,” Marina says, using a variant of Alik she often used, “remember that I love you.” It was her way of letting him know that he could count on her not to betray him.

  “I love you very much,” he says. “Make sure you buy shoes for June.”1133

  Oswald backs out of the room so that he can look at her until the very last second.

  Marina now knows Lee is guilty. She knows that if he were truly innocent, he would be raising the roof about his persecution, the denial of his rights, and the evils of the system, just as he had always done over the slightest perceived transgressions by others. His very docility in his predicament tells her more than he could ever say in words. There is also a certain tranquility about his personality. She remembers how tense he was after the failed attempt to shoot General Walker. Now he is altogether different. There seems to almost be a certain glow of satisfaction. As she watches him leave, it seems he is saying good-bye with his eyes.

  The door shuts behind him and Marina starts crying.

  Downstairs, the women are forced once again to run the gauntlet of reporters, some of them shouting questions in Russian.

  “What did he say? What did your husband say?”

  “Leave me alone, it is hard for me now,” Marina wants to cry out. Instead, she maintains a stoical silence.1134

  1:40 p.m.

  Lee Oswald has just been returned to his cell when word comes from the Homicide and Robbery office to let him make any telephone calls he wishes. Assistant jailer Arthur E. Eaves and the patrolman assigned to the suicide watch, Buel T. Beddingfield, take Lee from his cell and lead him over to the telephone, which is in a booth.

  “Who do you want to call?” the assistant jailer asks.

  “New York City, collect,” Oswald replies.

  The jailer gets the City Hall operator on the line and tells her that the prisoner would like to call New York City collect. The jailer hands Oswald the phone and overhears Oswald call New York City, then place a local call, after which he is returned to his cell.1135

  In Irving, Ruth Paine is out in the front yard with her children. She’s thinking about doing some grocery shopping so that she’ll be prepared to stay home and deal with the press and the police, who’ll no doubt want to ask her questions. She’s about to go inside when Dallas police detectives Rose, Stovall, Adamcik, and Moore arrive with Detective McCabe of the Irving Police Department. The men have a warrant signed by Judge Joe Brown Jr. and want to search the premises again.1136

  She has no objection to the search but doesn’t want to wait for them. They assure her that this time they are looking for something specific—the items Oswald keeps stored in the garage. Mrs. Paine takes them to the garage and shows them where the Oswalds kept their things.1137

  “I want to go to the grocery store,” she says. “I’ll just go and you go ahead and do your searching.”

  As Mrs. Paine leaves, the detectives begin pawing through the Oswalds’ effects that they missed in their first search the day before—two seabags, three suitcases, and two cardboard boxes of odds and ends. It doesn’t take long before Detective Rose finds some things Marina would have surely destroyed or hidden had she known they existed.

  “Look at this!” he says to the others, waving two negatives and a snapshot showing Oswald, dressed in black, holding a rifle that looks very much like the weapon found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, the same photo Marina had been hiding from the authorities and trying to give to Marguerite. On Oswald’s hip, a holstered pistol—probably, they assume, the gun he used to shoot Officer Tippit. A moment later, Detective McCabe finds the second snapshot that matches the other negative.1138

  In the same cardboard carton Stovall finds a page torn from a magazine advertising weapons available from Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago. One of the offerings is circled. It is for a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.1139

  That’s not all the detectives find. They turn up some more interesting negatives, shots of a Selective Service card with something on the back of the negative to block out the space where the name would be typed in. Several prints made from the negatives were bundled with them. The resulting prints were, in effect, blank Selective Service cards. The detectives immediately recognized them as identical to the false Selective Service card that Oswald had in his wallet in the name of “Alek James Hidell.”1140

  The detectives take their time combing through the rest of the inventory, careful not to overlook anything. It takes two and a half hours to complete the task. When they’re finished, they cart everything off to their car. Mrs. Paine hasn’t returned from her shopping trip, so they flip the latch, lock the front door, and head back toward Dallas City Hall.1141

  2:05 p.m.

  Captain Fritz emerges from the Homicide and Robbery office and wades into the newsmen, Chief Curry at his side. “Captain, can you give us a résumé of what you now know concerning the assassination of the president and Mr. Oswald’s role in it?” a television reporter asks.

  “There is only one thing that I can tell you,” Fritz replies in his gravely voice, “without going into the evidence before first talking to the district attorney. I can tell you that this case is cinched—that this man killed the president. There’s no question in my mind about it.”

  “Well, what is the basis for that statement?” the reporter asks.

  “I don’t want to go into the basis,” Fritz says. “In fact, I don’t want to get into the evidence. I just want to tell you that we are convinced beyond any doubt that he did the killing.”

  “Was it spur-of-the-moment or a well-planned, long-thought-out plot?”

  “I’d rather not discuss that,” Fritz answers, “if you don’t mind, please, thank you.”

  The homicide captain brushes the reporters aside and begins making his way toward the stairwell, near the elevators. A trail of reporters follow.

  “Will you be moving him today, Captain? Is he going to remain here?”

  “He’ll be here today,” Fritz finally answers, “yes, sir.”1142

  2:14 p.m.

  Detective Jim Leavelle leads cabdrivers William Whaley and William Scoggins into the show-up room to view Oswald in a lineup. Whaley drove Oswald to his Oak Cliff apartment after the assassination, and Scoggins witnessed the shooting of Officer J. D. Tippit. In a moment they are joined by Detective C. N. Dhority and Assistant District Attorney Bill Alexander.1143

  In the hallway just outside, Detectives Hall, Senkel, Potts, and Brown meet the fifth-floor jailers, who have brought Oswald and three other prisoners down in handcuffs. This time, Oswald is in the number 3 position.1144 Oswald is complaining bitterly
about not being allowed to put on a shirt over his T-shirt. A nearby NBC cameraman captures a snippet of Oswald badgering the jailers.

  “I’ve been photographed in a T-shirt,” Oswald is heard to say, “now they’re taking me to a lineup among these men. Naturally, I will be picked out. Right?”1145

  The detectives tug Oswald toward the stage entrance.

  Inside the show-up room, the lights are dimmed as Detective Leavelle instructs Whaley and Scoggins to look over each man carefully. “If you recognize any of these men as the one you saw yesterday,” Leavelle tells them, “just hold up the number of fingers that match the number over the man in the lineup.”1146 Oswald is belligerent, complaining in a loud voice as the prisoners are led out under the bright lights of the stage.

  “It’s not right to put me in line with these teenagers,”* Oswald cries. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to railroad me! I want my lawyer!”1147

  Oswald shows no respect for the detectives around him, and tells them what he thinks of them. It matters little to Whaley, though. As soon as he sees Oswald, he knows he is the man he drove to Oak Cliff yesterday. When you drive a cab as long as Whaley has—thirty-seven years—you learn to judge people by looking them over very carefully. It’s the way he’s learned to determine whether he can trust them or not.

  When Whaley saw Oswald’s picture in the newspaper this morning, he recognized him immediately. Now, in the flesh, there is no doubt that Oswald is the man who got in his cab.1148

  Leavelle asks each of the prisoners a question so that the witnesses can hear them speak, although Oswald is spared the procedure.1149

  “Anybody up there look like the man you saw?” Leavelle asks Whaley.

  “Yes, number 3, the man in the T-shirt,” Whaley says. “That’s him all right.”1150

  Detective Leavelle turns to Scoggins, who is holding up three fingers at his waist.1151

  “Are you sure?” Leavelle asks.

  “Well, he can bitch and holler all he wants,” Scoggins says to Detective Leavelle, “but that’s the man I saw running from the scene. Number 3.”1152