“That rooftop would be ideal.”
“Prisoners in the jail, overlooking the Dal-Tex, saw a man on that roof... but I’m told they weren’t interviewed by the Commission.”
I pointed here and there and around. “We’re looking at a kill zone where multiple shooters could fire from all sides. And the least likely source of a fatal shot is that book depository.”
“Oswald claimed he was a patsy,” she said, smiling. “Maybe he was.”
She’d obviously already made up her mind about that, but I now knew that whatever Oswald had been, he was just a cog in the complex wheel of a military-style operation.
I said, “You’re sure you can get us in the book depository?”
“This will be my third trip. The office manager loves me, Nate. It’s all about serious journalistic credibility... That, and identifying the occasional ‘mystery guest’ on What’s My Line?” As she said that last bit, she was laughing.
Someone was sobbing.
We glanced toward the sound coming from the monument behind us and saw a young couple in their early twenties, the boy’s expression grave as he hugged the weeping girl to his chest. They were dressed like tourists, too. I hoped they would have more fun at the next attraction they took in.
“Am I terrible, Nate?” Flo whispered, grabbing my arm. “Making light of this?”
“You aren’t making light of this,” I said, patting her hand where it gripped me, “and I’m not, either. We’re just a pair of old pros at a crime scene. Anyway, there’s no ghosts here. It’s too goddamn sunny.”
That seemed the only haunting aspect of the place — that it was just a small, rather spare-looking sun-washed park with a handful of cold-looking monuments and a patch of green cut through by traffic lanes, a humdrum city scene that in no way said Texas, much less tragedy.
The Texas School Book Depository entrance on Elm was up six or seven steps to glass doors and a sign that said:
Those doors were unlocked, however, and took us into a very nondescript, wood-paneled reception area. We put our sunglasses away, and Flo checked in with the receptionist. Soon we were met by a manager — about forty, in horn-rimmed glasses and an off-the-rack brown suit — who was pleased and impressed to see his “friend” from TV stop by again. Flo introduced me, by name, as her assistant.
Chatting with Flo about last night’s show (Henry Fonda was the “mystery guest”), he walked us cheerfully through typical drop-ceiling office space where young women and a few young men sat at metal desks, making phone calls or pounding typewriters, the din not unlike that of a newsroom. The manager walked us up several flights of stairs at the rear of the building, past the lunchroom where Oswald had been controversially spotted immediately after the shooting.
On the ride up the service-type elevator, I asked the manager, “Is it true the original window in the sniper’s nest was taken out, as a sort of souvenir, by the building’s owner?”
“Yes, sir, it is. Colonel Byrd displays it in his home.”
“To what purpose?”
He shrugged, and no trace of opinion could be discerned from his tone. “As a conversation piece, I assume.”
With a grin, I asked, “This Colonel Byrd is one of your Texas oil tycoons?”
“You could say that. He’s a co-owner of Ling Electronics, among other things. Admiral Byrd’s nephew, you know.”
The elevator shuddered. We had reached the sixth floor, just as it was occurring to me that if this building had been controlled by a conspirator, that would provide an assassin (or assassins) easy access.
To America this floor was history, but to the book depository, just warehouse space still in use (though no one was around right now but us) with boxes of books piled high and making corridors among the open rafters and beams and brick walls. Arched windows let in plenty of dust-mote-streaming light to reveal that the place was a fairly disorganized-looking, messy affair, the building a dingy nonentity, particularly considering its celebrity status among other American edifices.
“Old building,” I said to the manager, as he led us toward the Elm Street side. “I assume the School Book Depository’s been here a good long while.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Heller. We only moved in last year. A few months before the tragedy, actually.”
Wasn’t that interesting?
The area near the window from which Oswald was said to have shot — the “sniper’s nest” — was literally roped off, with metal folding chairs as occasional hitching posts. Flo had told the manager we just wanted a brief look and he stood by patiently, a respectful distance away, while we stepped over the rope like gate-crashers.
There wasn’t much to the nest — just a wall of books blocking any view of someone standing, or crouching, at the window, plus a two-box stack by a box propped on the sill, an apparent arrangement for a sniper to steady a rifle against them. Nearby was another book box that could have been used as a seat by Oswald, as he waited for his target to roll by.
Flo was watching me; she’d seen all this before. “What do you think, Nate?”
“I think it’s a farce. The idea of trying to shoot out that window with those boxes in the way, plus that water pipe by the window? Nuts.” I jerked a thumb to the left. “Can we check out the next window over?”
“Of course.”
It was just as I’d thought. This window was a view onto Houston meeting Elm, where the President’s limo had slowed almost to a stop. I pointed my finger where the car would have made its slow curving turn, thirty-five yards below.
Bang.
Oswald wouldn’t have needed a second shot from this perch. Or at least, I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have needed a rifle with a scope, either — I could have used my goddamn nine-millimeter Browning automatic. If it hadn’t been tucked away in the trunk of the Galaxie, I might have used it for a little dramatic show-and-tell for Flo’s benefit, although the depository office manager might not have dug it.
“You may be right,” I told her, “about Oswald being a patsy. He sure as hell didn’t shoot Kennedy from that supposed nest — or if he did shoot, he sure as hell didn’t hit him.”
She frowned at me in thought. “So that sniper’s nest — it’s all theatrics? To cover what the real murderers were up to in the... kill zone, you called it?”
I nodded. “Oswald may have been a conspirator, and he may have been a nut, too, for all I know. But he was not a lone nut.”
She was nodding slowly.
Still at the window, I pointed down. “Anyone positioned in this building, intent on killing Kennedy, would have shot him when that limo made its left turn, with the target facing the shooter. You don’t wait till a target is going away from you, and nearly out of sight, before shooting.”
“Somebody was seen shooting from the other window, by a number of witnesses. One or two identified Oswald.”
“Well, I’m not saying Oswald or somebody didn’t shoot from that window. It only makes sense, though, one way.”
“Which is?”
“Multiple shooters. Your Grassy Knoll, for sure. Dal-Tex maybe, or some other tall-building rooftop... Let’s let your nice friend over there get back to work.”
We headed toward him, smiling. He smiled back.
Quietly, Flo asked, “What do you suggest we do next, Nate?”
I gave the sniper’s nest a dirty look as we passed it. “Something more worthwhile.”
“Such as?”
“Talk to some strippers.”
“Janet Mole Adams Bonney Cuffari Smallwood Conforto,” Janet said with a shrug, in response to Flo’s request for her full name. “What can I say? I been married a few times.”