I said, “Your fourth, sixth and eighth trajectories make damn little sense.”
He batted the air as if at an irritating fly. “They’re not mine — it’s that clown Wolf again. Here’s just one example — that fourth bullet had to pass through the Senator’s suitcoat, at an 80-degree upward angle. Schrade would need to be nine feet tall to take that hit where he was standing.”
I thought about all of that. “Sirhan’s .22 held eight bullets. Sounds like the prosecution had to make eight bullets sing and dance to keep the count down.”
Will gave up half a grin. “And they did it with audacious imagination — have to give ’em that. But let’s keep the count going, shall we?”
“Who’s stopping you?”
He tapped the first page of the clipboard where it rested on the stainless steel counter. “The autopsy indicates two bullet tracks in the victim’s brain from one entry point — in court, the prosecution took care to call the two bullets ‘fragments,’ as if they added up to one. Not to confuse a layman, but a twelve-millimeter ‘fragment’ from the victim’s brain could not have fit through the barrel of a .22 revolver. I don’t believe it was a frag, rather a flattened .22 bullet... which of course adds a ninth bullet.”
“Forensics experts might disagree on that,” I pointed out.
“Possibly — one like Wolf, in the bag for the prosecution, sure as hell would... and did.” The little man in the bucket hat glanced around. “Let’s have a look at those swinging double doors where you and the Senator and his party came in.”
We took the few steps over there and I frowned. “This door frame looks new — did they paint it?”
“It is new. The original had a pair of bullet holes here, about two inches apart...” He pointed to the center door frame, about his shoulder level. “...one above the other.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I remember noticing that in the photos.”
Will indicated the left vertical side of the door frame, where a photo had shown two LAPD officers identifying two more bullet holes, a bit lower than the center post ones, staggered.
“There was also a small caliber bullet lodged in the door jamb,” Will said. “If you’re keeping track, we’re up to fourteen bullets now. And that doesn’t address the ceiling tiles, which you may note all look fresh and clean... replaced after a number of tiles were removed as evidence.”
I reared back. “Why would they be considered evidence unless they had bullet holes?”
“You’re not as dumb as you look, Nate. Of course, you might expect those tiles, and that original doorframe, to be in the evidence locker at Parker Center.”
“And they aren’t?”
“No, they’ve all been destroyed. Recently, right after the trial. Space issues is the reason given. That wasn’t information I dug out of the material you gave me — I still have sources at the LAPD. But let’s be generous. Let’s say I’m wrong and only one bullet entered Robert Kennedy’s brain and fragmented. Let’s say any bullet holes in the ceiling tiles were ricochets made by the official bullets. That still brings us up to...” He counted on his fingers.
“Call it too many bullets.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Listen, if I can get my hands on Wolf’s test bullets, who knows what I might find? But I can tell you this much right now — at least two .22 caliber guns were used here. The kill shot came from behind, close-up, but you knew that. The surviving gunshot victims were mostly in front of RFK. And it’s highly unlikely any of Sirhan’s bullets hit the Senator... if Sirhan was firing bullets.”
I frowned. “What else could he have been firing?”
“Blanks. Creating a diversion, one hell of a distraction. And with another shooter or two in the room, would you have wanted Sirhan firing willy nilly at a crowd you were part of? Eyewitnesses report his weapon producing long, visible flames, some recall getting hit by the residue of what might have been flash-burn paper.”
I’d been one of them.
At the east end of the Pantry, a sturdy-looking blond man in his early forties in a gray suit and thin blue tie came suddenly in; he had the confidence of someone who worked here and I wondered for a moment if he’d come to toss us out. Then I recognized him, though we hadn’t exactly met: this was the hotel man who had led Bob off the stage and later joined in with Grier, Johnson, Plimpton and me, among others, in subduing Sirhan.
“Nathan Heller,” Will said, gesturing to me with one hand and indicating the newcomer with the other, “this is Karl Uecker, maître d’ at the Cocoanut Grove.”
Uecker came forward with a tight smile and we shook hands, traded nods. I said I remembered him and he said he remembered me.
With a hand on the maître d’s shoulder, Will smiled and said, “Karl arranged this for us tonight. And I wanted you to chat with him about what you both witnessed.”
I said, “I’d like that.”
Karl nodded and started right in, his German accent thick but easily penetrable: “I was guiding the Senator by the hand, you know. I believe I was closest of anyone to him, with the exception of the security guard, who was just behind us.”
I asked, “Did Sirhan at any time position himself behind the Senator? If so, did you see him fire his weapon?”
“No! No! He was never an inch from Kennedy’s head — that’s ridiculous. I would have seen it. And for that little man to get close enough for that, he would’ve had to pass by me, and he didn’t! After his second shot, I get hold of Sirhan very tight and push him against the serving table while the Senator staggers back, hit.”
Will said, “Tell him the important part, Karl. The part you weren’t asked about on the witness stand.”
His light blue eyes were wide. “That guard has his gun out! I don’t think many people saw that. And I yell at him, ‘You must be crazy to wave a gun around in this chaos!’”
I’d seen that, too!
With a satisfied smile, Will said to me, “That security guard, Thane Cesar, was in a perfect position to take those shots from behind your friend Bob. Maybe you’d like to talk to Mr. Cesar? I made a few calls and can give you his address.”
“Please,” I said.
Eleven
Chicken ranches, dairy farms and apricot orchards dominated the Conjeo Valley back when Thousand Oaks — a tourist court got out of hand — surrounded a farm that rented trained animals to the movies. By a decade ago, it had developed into a quiet community of several thousand, known for extending a warm welcome to film productions in the market for typical Americana. The L.A. suburb’s population now numbered near thirty thousand, thanks in part to the technology-driven Newbury industrial park.
Yucca Lane, a short narrow excuse for a working-class street, had never attracted Hollywood (or any) attention, its shabby little houses hiding behind coyote brush and other scrubby native greenery. I tooled my Jag around a massive gnarled oak that stood mid-lane like an ancient witch playing traffic cop. Then I pulled into the driveway behind the yellow mid-’60s Chevy Chevelle, a muscle car starting to look a little flabby.
The same might be said of its apparent owner, who sat in a metal lawn chair under the overhang of the entry area of the low-slung modest gray clapboard-and-brick ranch-style adorned with a small, struggling lawn.
When I’d called Thane Eugene Cesar’s number, he started out wary but warmed up when I introduced myself over the line. He said he’d read some articles about me and was fine with me stopping by. His attitude did not change when I explained, almost as an afterthought, that my reason for coming was to gather background information on the RFK assassination for a national columnist.