“Nobody’s gonna have to hide from the Sclafanis,” said Columbo. “I’ve got one confession that’ll convict them of murder. Maybe I’ll have two. Maybe three. One will be enough to have both Sclafanis arrested and held without bail.”
“Well, I’m not confessing to anything,” said Bell.
“You don’t have to,” said Alicia. “I did, and I didn’t leave you out. Neither will Tim. And neither will Phil Sclafani. You talked about the omertii. What you don’t know about the omertii is that it only applies to other Sicilians. Even if Phil follows the code, it doesn’t help you.”
“I imagine Lieutenant Columbo would know about that,” said Bell scornfully.
“I wouldn’t know about omertii, sir. I’m not Sicilian. My family came from Perugia.”
Bell flexed his shoulders. “Okay,” he said. He coughed and for a moment weaved as though he were going to faint. He struggled against his handcuffs. “Okay,” he whispered hoarsely. “Everything’s gone to hell. Bring my hands around front, and I’ll give you a statement.”
“Yeah. We can do that. Do that for both of them,” said Columbo.
With his hands in front, Bell rubbed his eyes, and for a moment it looked as though he might cry. Then he drew a deep breath, stared for a moment at his manacles, and said, “Okay. Okay…”
“We’d like to record this on tape, Mr. Bell.”
“What’s the difference? The whole damned thing has got out of control.”
Martha asked the questions and got the answers that established that Bell had heard his rights. She sat staring at the reels turning on the tape recorder, as though she wanted to be sure the machine was running right and capturing everything said.
“All right, sir. The enhanced photograph shows two men on the Grassy Knoll on November 22, 1963. One of those men was Philip Sclafani. And the other one was you. Right?”
“Yes.”
“All right. So what were you doin’ there?”
Bell sighed loudly. “We killed Paul Drury to keep this from coming out. But I guess it’s coming out anyway. Okay. Phil and I were there to attempt to assassinate President Kennedy.”
* * *
The first car of the motorcade was the pilot car, a Dallas police car running about a quarter of a mile ahead of the main section of the motorcade. The Dallas police officers inside scanned the crowd and buildings, looking for any sign of trouble. That car was followed by six motorcycles, charged with the duty of "trimming the curbs”—that is, keeping the crowds back. Next came the command car, an unmarked white Dallas police car driven by the chief of police. Also in that car were the county sheriff and two agents of the Secret Service. They, too, scanned the crowds.
About three car lengths behind the command car came the presidential limousine, a black 1961 Lincoln convertible, given to the White House by the Ford Motor Company to replace the old Cadillac used by Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. The flag and the presidential standard whipped from small masts on the front fenders. Sunlight flashed from its highly polished surfaces. The car was equipped with a clear plastic bubble top, which was for protection against the weather only, since it was not bullet resistant. In today’s fine weather it had been left off. The limousine was also equipped with running boards and steel grips, so Secret Service agents could stand outside the car to either side of the President. This President had given strict orders that agents were not to ride there and block people’s view of him and the First Lady.
Four motorcycles followed, two on each side. Their purpose was to keep the crowd from swelling into the street after the limousine passed.
The Secret Service car followed. It was a 1955 Cadillac convertible. The eight agents in that car were heavily armed.
Next came the Vice President’s limousine, another Lincoln convertible, this one obtained locally. The follow-up car, corresponding to the Secret Service car, was another Dallas police car. Several more cars, filled with local dignitaries and members of Congress, made up the rest of the motorcade, which ended with another police car and more motorcycles.
The crowds were thick and enthusiastic as the motorcade moved along Main Street. The motorcade moved slowly.
Then the lead car turned right onto Houston Street. The crowd was much thinner there, and the motorcade picked up speed. The open park here was called Dealey Plaza. The motorcade would make a sharp left turn onto Elm Street, which sloped gently toward the underpasses, along the west side of the Plaza. On Elm Street it would continue to accelerate, until it passed under the Triple Underpass. With that the parade would be over.
The building directly ahead, at the intersection of Houston and Elm streets, was called the Texas School Book Depository.
“That’s very interestin’. I guess that’s kind of obvious when you look at the enhanced picture. Sclafani had a rifle. What about you, Mr. Bell? Did you have a weapon?”
Bell shook his head. “No.”
“You didn’t drop an Iver-Johnson revolver?”
“No, but I know who did.”
Columbo sat down at last, leaning forward with his hands on his knees, his raincoat hanging like a drape between his legs.
“Why don’t you just start at the beginnin’ and tell us the story, sir? Probably that’s the easiest way.”
Bell nodded despondently. “I’ve been trying to protect my father’s name as well as to avoid being arrested on a charge of conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States. My father… my father’s name was Austin Bell. He was a businessman in Texas. He made a lot of money, in oil and other things. He hated Franklin D. Roosevelt. He hated Harry S. Truman. And he hated John F. Kennedy. He hated the way they used the power of government to interfere in the way a businessman ran his business so as to make as much money as he could.”
“Yes, sir. I read your father’s biography.”
“You read—!”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Drury’s copy.”
“He hated Kennedy in particular,” Bell went on. “He fervently believed Kennedy was— He had a lot of names for him: ‘pinko,’ ‘Com-symp,’ ‘bleeding heart,’ ‘nigger lover,’ and… traitor.’ He called him a traitor. He used the word ‘treason.’ “
“Your father was an idiot,” said Alicia.
Bell ignored her. “There was talk about repealing the oil depletion allowance, and that drove my father into a rage.”
“Sir,” said Columbo. “Had your father been an investor in the Riviera Hotel in Havana?”
Bell nodded. “With Meyer Lansky. The Castro government confiscated it. My father put more than a million dollars into training the Cubans to go in and overthrow Castro.”
“The Bay of Pigs,” said Alicia. She sat slipping her handcuffs back and forth on her wrists, as though she couldn’t quite believe she couldn’t pull them off. “Kennedy didn’t—”
“Kennedy didn’t send in air cover that he’d promised,” said Bell. “To my father that confirmed everything he thought about Kennedy: that the President was a Communist sympathizer and a traitor. You have to understand, he read all the right-wing newspapers and magazines. He read nothing but. He was absolutely sure Kennedy was selling out the country.”
“So he hired the Sclafanis,” said Alicia.
“When he found out Kennedy was coming to Dallas, he went to Meyer Lansky. Lansky wouldn’t have anything to do with his crazy idea. But my father had other contacts. He contacted Sam Giancana. Giancana didn’t want anything to do with the idea either, but he referred my father to Giuseppe Sclafani. The Sclafani Family had lost millions when Castro took over their hotel, the same way Lansky had lost the Riviera. Giuseppe Sclafani had expected to recover his hotel when the Cuban ‘freedom fighters,’ as we called them, invaded and overthrew Castro. But… Bay of Pigs. He hated Kennedy almost as much as my father did.”
Bell ran his hands down across his eyes and cheeks. “I’ve kept this secret for thirty years,” he said.
“Yeah, I figured you were carrying around a deep secret,” said Columbo
. “When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you get a nose for stuff like that. Carryin’ a big secret around for years some way puts a mark on a man. Anyway… Anybody got a match?”
Alicia watched Columbo light a cigar, and she asked, “Can somebody give me a cigarette? My own are on the kitchen table. Uh…? They do let you smoke in jail, don’t they?”
Bell stared at her as if she had suddenly demonstrated she was insane.
“Go ahead, Mr. Bell,” said Columbo.
“My father and Giuseppe Sclafani met in Las Vegas. The Sclafani Family wasn’t established there yet, and they thought it was a place where neither one of them would be known. I wasn’t with them. Neither was Philip Sclafani. The two fathers struck a deal. My father agreed to pay four million dollars for the assassination of John F. Kennedy, one million just for trying, and three million more if Kennedy was actually killed. There was a kind of pledge between them, too. Phil was the hit man. I was to be present to be sure he did what he was supposed to.
“It was Phil who decided the Grassy Knoll was the place where he’d fire his shot. He was absolutely convinced he could walk away afterward, that the crowd would be terrified and wouldn’t touch him. Just in case there was any trouble, three Sclafani soldiers were around. They had pistols. If they had to, they’d kill anybody who interfered. But their instructions were to fire in the air and into the ground. The crowd would be terrified. Phil was sure nobody would move against him.”
“What about cops?” asked Columbo.
“He said his boys could scare and confuse them for a minute or two.”
“Go on.”
“The picture. What I was doing there was handing him the keys to a Ford. He’d seen it and knew where it was. It was in the parking lot behind the Grassy Knoll. I’d parked it there two hours before. The parking lot was for employees of the railroad, but I gave the man five dollars. I told him I wanted to park so I could see the President go by and then get on to my job. Anyway, I gave Phil the keys to the Ford. A million dollars’ cash was in the trunk. My father had told me to make sure he went out on the knoll and had his rifle with him before I gave him the keys. I gave them to him just before the presidential limousine came down Elm Street. Then I got fifty feet or so away from him. I was to watch him do it.”
“Didn’t anybody see that Sclafani had a rifle?” asked Martha.
Bell shook his head. “He’d detached the stock. The barrel and the action were wrapped in red and white cloth and looked something like a golf umbrella. One of the Sclafani soldiers handed him the stock just before I walked up to him. By that time, the motorcycles were in front of us, and everybody was staring at the limousine that was coming along the street.”
“What kind of a rifle was that, sir?” Columbo asked.
“It was a Weatherby, a big-game hunting rifle, .460 magnum. The magazine held just two shots. It was an elephant gun! No matter where a slug from that rifle hit a man, it would have torn him apart.”
“So what happened?”
“I walked away, up toward the trees on the knoll. I couldn’t see the President so well from there, but I could watch Phil Sclafani. And he was ready. He wasn’t going to lift the rifle to his shoulder till the last moment, because someone might have noticed him doing that. But he was ready. And then— Then all hell broke loose. I… Jesus!”
* * *
Everyone in the motorcade relaxed a little. Dallas was what the Secret Service called a "hot” city— that is, one with potential for trouble. But they had driven through crowds estimated at a quarter of a million; and, though they had seen a few hostile placards, the people had cheered and waved, and on the whole Dallas had given President Kennedy a warm welcome.
Driving the presidential. limousine was Secret Service Agent William Greer. He was experienced at driving the President of the United States in motorcades and knew what he was doing. Beside him in the front seat was Agent-in-Charge Roy Kellerman.
Sitting in the two collapsible jump seats between the front and back seats were the Governor of Texas, John Connally, and his wife, Nellie Connally. The President had come to Texas, in part, to twist the governor’s arm about a rift in the Texas Democratic Party, and the governor’s smile as he waved to the people along the route was a bit forced.
President John F. Kennedy sat to the right in the rear seat. He was forty-six years old and a handsome, winning man, as even his detractors acknowledged. His presidency had captured the imagination of the American people, and even editorialists and pundits who judged his administration harshly were all but unanimous in judging that he would be reelected by a landslide vote in 1964. He was comfortable with politics, with the presidency too, and the smile he showed the crowd was broad and relaxed.
Sitting to his left was the elegant Jacqueline Kennedy. She was an asset to her husband’s presidency, probably the most popular First Lady the nation had ever known—not excluding Eleanor Roosevelt. She had been nervous about Dallas, as everyone in the presidential party had been. For the moment she was extremely uncomfortable from the heat and was glad the motorcade would soon pick up speed and rush on to the air-conditioned Trade Mart, where the President was to speak at a luncheon.
For a long time there had been no conversation in the car. No one could speak over the roar of the crowds. Now Nellie Connally turned and said, "Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”
Bell flushed and hesitated. For a moment he covered his face with his hands, then for another moment stared at his handcuffs. “We heard shots. I don’t know how many. The motorcycles were backfiring, and you couldn’t tell how many. People started screaming. I’ve never heard so much horror. It was just…”
“Where were you at this point?” asked Columbo.
“I was under the trees along the curving driveway that leads to the pergola. A man ahead of me raised a pistol, braced it against a tree, and fired. I was behind him and saw his shot miss the presidential car and knock a chip off a curbstone on the south side of Elm Street. He took aim again, but by then the limousine had stopped, and the President was down. The man shoved the pistol—it was a target pistol with a long barrel—down inside his jacket and trotted up the slope toward me. I was afraid he would kill me, because he must have seen me staring at him. But he ran on past.”
“What was Sclafani doing?” Columbo asked, leaning forward.
“The limousine was stopped out there on the street,” Bell went on, ignoring the question. “I mean, it was almost stopped, just barely moving. I could just barely see the President. He was down! I could see blood. People were screaming, and I ran down the slope to get a better look. The President was… Blood! All blood! Mrs. Kennedy was trying to crawl out across the back of the car, and an agent was grabbing at her. Well…? You’ve seen the Zapruder film. I guess we’ve all seen it.”
* * *
Agent Greer now executed a rehearsed maneuver. It had been called a number of things, but the most often used name for it was Getting the Hell Out of Here. The Lincoln was a powerful car, and when he shoved down the accelerator it lurched forward, pushing the people in the rear seats backward.
Agent Clinton Hill, who was assigned to Mrs. Kennedy and had been in the follow-up Cadillac, had sprinted forward and reached the presidential limousine in time to grab one of its exterior handles and get his foot on one of the rear steps where Secret Service agents often rode. He shoved Mrs. Kennedy off the rear of the car and into the seats, then himself crawled forward.
In the vice-presidential convertible, Agent Rufus Youngblood shoved Vice President Lyndon Johnson to the floor and then vaulted over the front seat and threw himself down on him, shielding him with his own body.
On Dealey Plaza hundreds of people had dropped to the ground, some of them shielding loved ones by lying on top of them.
Abraham Zapruder remained erect, exposing his 8mm movie film.
The presidential limousine, followed by the vice-presidential limousine, passed the command car and roared i
nto the cool dark tunnel of the underpasses.
Dealey Plaza fell silent, and people began to stand. up.
The Secret Service, men shouting from one car to another, had already transferred its chief protection to President Lyndon Johnson.
“What was Sclafani doing?”
“Nothing. I looked back up the slope at him. He was standing there with his mouth open.”
“Are you saying Phil Sclafani never fired a shot?” asked Columbo.
“At what? The President was already shot. He was already down, hardly visible.”
“The second picture shows Sclafani escaping.”
Bell nodded. “I spotted him going over the picket
fence, headed for the parking lot. When I saw the enhanced pictures, I knew exactly what was happening. Phil was going toward the fence. The Sclafani soldiers were following him.”
“So the only reason Phil Sclafani didn’t shoot President Kennedy,” said Martha, “was that he was already shot.”
Bell nodded. “I’ve read since about other riflemen who were supposed to have been around, maybe on the underpass bridge. I’ve read that other shots were fired from the Grassy Knoll. I can tell you one thing for sure. President Kennedy was fatally wounded before Phil Sclafani could get off a shot. Maybe Phil would have, if he’d had the chance. But he didn’t have the chance.”
“What about the Iver-Johnson revolver?” Martha asked. “You said you knew about that.”
“It belonged to one of Sclafani’s hoodlums. He figured it wasn’t a good idea to be caught carrying a gun. Phil had to carry the Weatherby rifle away. It had his fingerprints on it. But the Iver-Johnson was clean—as was any weapon those boys were carrying.”
“So the Sclafanis got their million?” asked Alicia.
“The Sclafanis got four million,” said Bell. “My father and Giuseppe Sclafani were holed up in a suite in the Rice Hotel in Houston, together with half a dozen right-wing loonies. They had three television sets going, one for ABC, one for CBS, and one for NBC. They were eating oysters and drinking bourbon, if you can imagine. It’s ironic that my father drank bourbon with his oysters. A man he detested did that. Harry Hopkins. Anyway, when the flash came that Kennedy had been shot, they were all delirious—or so I was told. When the word finally came that Kennedy was dead, my father took Giuseppe Sclafani into a bedroom of the suite and gave him a suitcase containing three million dollars. It was two days before he finally got it through his head that Lee Harvey Oswald had killed Kennedy. Or probably had. Anyway, it was damned clear that Phil Sclafani hadn’t done it. Then my father wanted his three million back. No chance. The Sclafanis used the four million to build the Piping Rock. My father could hardly go to the law and complain he’d paid someone four million dollars to kill the President of the United States and felt cheated because someone else had done it.”
Columbo: Grassy Knoll Page 23