“Watch this one, it’s the only nonexecution,” said V.T.
Wartime, a trench filled with men dressed in motley uniforms, many sporting crossbelts, bandoliers, and odd black, tasseled hats. The men scramble out of the trench and one of them, on rising above the protection of the earth, is struck in the head by a bullet. His head jerks away from the shot, a cloud of dark material seems to rise from his skull like a departing soul, the tassel on his hat bounces up, obscenely playful, and he is flung backward into the trench.
For nearly twenty minutes they watched gunshot deaths representing nearly every one of the monstrous governments and antigovernments the century has produced in such profusion. Karp, watching, wondered how the victims kept their apparent equanimity. None of them looked like they were going to the beach, but neither did they seem particularly concerned. One woman, standing in her underwear before the guns, smoothed the hair of her daughter, as if they were posing for a photograph. All the victims had but one thing in common: when the bullets struck them, they fell or jerked away from the shots, which was the point of the present show.
The film whipped out of the slot and chattered, the screen went white. V.T. clicked off the projector and switched on the lights. Karp and the two other men blinked and stretched. To break the silence, Karp said, “What, no cartoons?”
The laughter was brief and uncomfortable, and Karp was annoyed at himself for the flippancy. He looked around the room at the men. V.T. displayed his usual bland, contained exterior, although there were still those dark circles under his eyes that Karp did not recall from their years together in New York. Jim Phelps, the photo expert, appeared grim and suspicious, as he did when viewing any film that he had not personally examined with a hand lens. He tapped nervously on a pile of manila envelopes he had brought with him, as if anxious for his part of the session to begin. The fourth man, Dr. Casper Wendt, seemed most affected by the film. The coroner of a large Midwestern city, Wendt was a vociferous member of the forensic pathology panel Karp had set up. Although he had seen any number of dead bodies in his practice, he was obviously less familiar with the actual process that rendered them so, although he was also one of the great students of all the Kennedy assassination amateur films. Wendt was thin and tall with glabrous blue eyes and a prim, reserved expression. Pale and distracted now, he absently polished his glasses on his tie.
Karp now addressed him. “So, Doc, what do you make of all this?”
Wendt carefully donned his glasses and said, “Very … I’m not sure ‘interesting’ is the correct word. No, informative, in a hideous way. These are armed forces archival films?”
“Yeah, from Aberdeen,” said Karp. “There’s a group out there that studies battle wounds. They have a lot more than the ones we just saw, but I thought these might give us the idea. I guess you noticed the main point in all these shootings.”
“Quite,” said Wendt. “It is obvious that we do not observe in any of these events a movement in the direction from which the shot originated. Such a movement on the part of Kennedy has, of course, been noted by some observers in the Zapruder film. Nevertheless, I would hesitate to call these examples probative in the present case, as confirming that the backward movement of the president was the result of a shot from in front.”
“What do you mean?” asked Karp, surprised.
“I mean only that because the actual autopsy was so badly botched, we cannot recreate the possible neuromuscular sequelae of any of the shots that struck the president. Thus we cannot absolutely exclude the possibility that the observed motion was, in fact, the result of a shot from the rear. The various theories that have been put forward, that, for example, the pressure built up by the shock of the bullet, when expelled from the front of the skull, acted as a jet, propelling the body backward, or that some odd neurological event occurred that caused the muscles of the back to contract, with the same result, can therefore not be entirely contradicted. I personally think such sequelae are unlikely, highly unlikely, but they cannot be scientifically ruled out without extensive further experimentation.”
Wendt always talked like this, as if he were reading from a double-columned, small-print forensic pathology text. Karp tried to conceal his frustration, asking calmly, “What sort of experimentation? I thought the Warren Commission already did that.”
“They shot a goat, with inconclusive results,” said Wendt, not disguising his contempt. “Essentially, they were hoping to demonstrate that a bullet such as Warren exhibit 399, the famous magic bullet, could penetrate layers of bone and tissue and emerge as relatively unaffected as 399 was, which, if one believes the single-bullet theory, went through the president’s back, emerged through his neck, went through Governor Connally’s body, shattering a rib, exited his body, went through his wrist, producing a comminuted fracture of the radius, and penetrated his thigh. In this they were entirely unsuccessful, as, in my opinion, anyone is bound to be. You cannot make such wounds and end up with a bullet that looks like that.”
“Yeah, right, but we’re not talking about the magic bullet now. We know the magic bullet is garbage, not so much because it couldn’t do the things you said, or because the shot trajectories are doubtful, but because we have no damn idea what the bullet really is. All we know about it for sure is that it was fired from Oswald’s rifle. It was found on a stretcher at Parkland? What stretcher? Who found it? Who handled it? If it was pulled from Connally’s body and popped into an evidence bag in the operating room, then fine, we’d have to deal with it seriously, but since it wasn’t—well, I wasn’t brought up to consider crap like that real evidence.”
Wendt seemed taken aback at this, since he had devoted years to criticizing the magic bullet’s anomalously pristine appearance. Karp continued, “No, what we’re about today is the shot or shots that killed Kennedy, the head shots. Specifically, what’re the possibilities of a head shot from the front?”
Wendt pursed his lips, as if loath to let a speculative remark pass through them. “As to that, I would allow the possibility of an explosive or fragmenting bullet arriving from that direction, simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, with the shot from the rear. But since we do not have the brain correctly preserved in formalin, nor any sections that might have been made from the brain, we can never arrive at a definitive conclusion on this point.”
“But you do have something to work with,” Karp pressed. “I mean we do have an autopsy panel under way.”
Karp had been hearing odd things from the autopsy panel. Murray Selig had been uncharacteristically oblique on the few occasions that Karp had reached him by phone, and so he had invited Wendt, the maverick, and famous for his critique of the Warren procedures, for an informal consultation to try and get some straight answers. Which, in the event, he was finding hard to extract.
A smile suggested itself on Wendt’s thin lips. “Yes, assuredly, but an autopsy panel without a corpse to work on is more of a debating society than a panel of scientists. Essentially, we are limited to perusing secondhand evidence and with photographic material only, the Parkland and the autopsy photos and X rays. I have suggested, without much success, a program of—”
“The photos are faked,” said Phelps, loudly and confidently. “So are the skull X rays.”
He had their attention.
Without another word he pulled a packet of eight-by-ten glossies out of one of the envelopes and spread them across the desk.
“This is supposed to be the back of Kennedy’s head,” Phelps said, “with the entry wound of the head shot near the cowlick.” He indicated a photograph of the back of the dead man’s head, the hair damp and matted, a rubber-gloved hand holding it in position by a lock of hair. “This is an obvious composite forgery. You can see the matte lines where it was pieced together. That was done, of course, to hide the huge exit wound in the back of the skull.”
Karp stared at the photograph while Phelps traced the supposed join with a pencil. Karp shrugged and said “Okay, let’s say I take you
r word for it—”
“You don’t have to take my word for it. I spoke to Floyd Riebe, the photographer who took the photograph at Bethesda. He said there was a huge hole in the back of Kennedy’s head. The Parkland doctors said the same thing originally too. Also, look at this blowup of frame 335 of Zapruder.” He dealt a color eight-by-ten from the stack. “The top of his head is obviously missing.” They all stared at the blurry horror. Karp turned to Wendt. “Doc, what do you think?”
Wendt paused judiciously, then responded, “This is obviously inconsistent with the X rays we have been given.”
Phelps had an answer to that too. He pulled out a positive print of an X ray and placed it next to a different glossy, the most gruesome picture yet. It showed a three-quarter right-side view of the corpse’s face, with the brains bubbling up out of the skull like a party hat. “This is supposed to be a right-side lateral X ray. It shows massive damage to the right front side of the face. But no damage to that side of the face was ever described by any witness, either at Parkland or at Bethesda. And obviously, from this photograph, there’s no such damage.”
“Did the Warren people see this stuff?” asked V.T.
“Justice Earl Warren saw them,” replied Phelps in a sneering tone. “The story is, he was so shocked by them that he refused to allow them to be made public, and they were never shown to the commission.”
While they thought about this, Phelps brought out some more pictures and added them to his gallery on the wooden desk. “This is a picture of the top of the head. See this line? It’s surgery. And nobody ever mentioned a surgical procedure on the top of the head. The Bethesda autopsy team said that the skull was so shattered that they were able to lift the brain out without any further cutting of the skull.”
“What are you saying?” asked Karp uneasily.
“I’m saying that between Parkland and Bethesda, somebody worked on the body. They cut out the brain and modified the skull to make the single-shot-from-the-rear theory plausible.” This was said with profound assurance, as if anyone with eyes could plainly see it.
Karp snapped a lidded-eye look toward V.T., who kept his face blank. It was Wendt who responded first, and with some vigor:
“There is absolutely no evidence for any such interference. None. Nor would any such alterations be feasible in the time allowed, even if we assume that the president’s body was so poorly guarded that it could have been removed from its coffin on the presidential airplane and spirited away to a secret dissecting room before being delivered to Bethesda.”
“What about this photograph?” snapped Phelps “There is clearly evidence of surgery and—”
“So you say,” replied Wendt, “but I see a badly shattered calvarium from which nearly anything could be construed. I am not a photographic expert, of course, but I believe that interpreting autopsy photographs as to forensic content is well within my professional purview. You say the X rays and some of the prints are faked. It may well be so, but until I and the other members of the forensic pathology panel are so informed officially, we will continue to base our findings on them.”
“What, on faked evidence?” Phelps retorted. “What’s the goddamn point of that!” He addressed Karp, his eyes sparking. “This is big, damn it. This is evidence of conscious treason by a huge conspiracy involving people close to the top of the government. How else could they have—”
“Stop!” said Karp, holding up his big hand like a traffic cop. Dueling experts, the prosecutor’s nightmare, and he was sick of it. “First of all,” he said sharply, “treason is not a word I want to hear around this office. We’re not investigating treason, we’re investigating, if that’s still the right word, a homicide.”
“But, it’s the president … ,” Phelps began.
“Assassinating the president is not treason,” said Karp forcefully. “Even a coup is not treason. Treason shall consist in levying war against the United States and giving aid and comfort to its enemies. It’s in the Constitution, the only crime defined in the Constitution. So forget treason. Conspiracy to commit murder, interfering with an investigation, tampering with and withholding evidence—that’s different, and we may have found evidence of all of that. It’s enough.” He shot the famous stare around the table. Nobody spoke, and he resumed. “Now, as to these photos: Jim, write your report. We’ll get some independent source to confirm or reject your findings and then we’ll see. Dr. Wendt—I’ll try to get funds for the sort of experimental testing you’re interested in, if you’ll give me an outline of the sort of stuff you want to do.”
This speech was delivered in a tone of finality. Phelps, still bristling and muttering, shoved his photographs back into their envelopes. V.T. took him aside and spoke earnestly to him for some minutes in a low voice. Karp turned to the coroner. “Sorry about this, Doc. Things are apt to get heated around here.”
Wendt tried on a smile. “It was sweetness and light, I assure you, compared with some of our panel’s meetings.”
“Oh? What’s the problem? Murray throwing his weight around?”
“Not at all. But there seems to be a certain … reluctance to stray too far from the Warren findings. Whether Mr. Phelps’s theories about the documentary material will have any weight with them I can’t say.”
Karp couldn’t say either. Wendt took his leave and Phelps left too.
“Well, that was certainly fun,” said V.T. when they were alone. He fussed with the projector and began to rewind the film. “Don’t mind Phelps. He really is a top-notch photo analyst.”
“Yeah, with a good imagination. Did you see the back of Kennedy’s head missing in that film?”
V.T. shrugged. “Like you said, we’ll get somebody else to check it out.”
“Right. Meanwhile, the inmates are in charge of the asylum. The secret dissection, my God! You know we’re doomed, don’t you?”
“Semidoomed, maybe. One still has hopes. One of the little threads might pull something loose.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it,” said Karp. “And you know why?” He clenched his fists and adopted a Job-like pose, his arms and face raised to the uncaring heavens, and shouted, “Because this isn’t a real investigation!”
“My, my, Butch,” said V.T. in a soothing tone. “You seem to be having a nervous breakdown. Would you like to watch the executions film again? It might settle your nerves.”
Karp snorted and rumbled, “Speak for yourself, buddy. You look like shit—you must’ve dropped ten pounds since you got here.”
“Yes, well, as you know, you can’t get a decent knish in this town.”
There was some more of this weak humor, and they were laughing companionably when a secretary stuck her head in and said Fulton was on the line and did Karp want it sent in here.
“What’s happening, Clay?” said Karp when they were connected.
“I’m at the Sheraton in Reston,” said Fulton. “This old spooks’ meeting’s just breaking up.”
“And?”
“Zilch. I waltzed our boy up to Mr. David and he introduced himself as Antonio Veroa. David didn’t bat an eye. He just said, ‘I’m happy to meet you. I know the name, of course.’ Then Veroa moved on. When I asked him if David was Bishop, he looked sort of funny, and he said, ‘They are very similar in appearance but that is not Bishop.’ ”
“Oh, shit!”
“My feelings exactly. So—what should we do with Mr. Veroa now?”
“Crap, I don’t know! We might as well ship him back to Miami. Did Al Sangredo pull up anything on the drug charge against Veroa?”
“Yeah, it’s apparently some heavy weight of coke, found in his boat. He could go away for a long time.”
“Want to bet he doesn’t as long as he sticks to this line of bullshit? Want to bet they’d throw away the key if he testified that David was Bishop?”
“You think the fix is in, huh? Want Al to try and check it out?”
“No, fuck it,” said Karp wearily. “Why screw up his life too. I know when I�
��m whipped. Just thank the little bastard, kiss him for me, and stick him on a jet back to Miami.”
“What was that all about?” asked V.T. when Karp had finished the call. Karp told him.
“Well, then,” said V.T. brightly. “A perfect day.”
Marlene now found herself transported to a somewhat higher circle of purgatory. Early, yet not too early, she packed young Lucy up and made her way, via several buses, to the Dobbs home in McLean. Lucy played with the Dobbs children while Maggie and Marlene had coffee and cake and discussed the day’s research plans, and chatted amiably. Thereafter, Maggie disappeared, as did the children. Maggie either took them somewhere nice, or else she went on her own wife-of rounds, and left them to the efficient and grateful Gloria of El Salvador. Afternoons were spent at play group, except when it was Maggie’s turn to be hostess, at which time Marlene abandoned her duties on the book and helped out with the kids.
During most of most working days, however, Marlene was left delightfully alone, in a well-appointed and cozy little room that Maggie called “the study.” (This was different from “the den,” a larger room, where the congressman had his home office.) There were two windows looking out at an alley of bare and graceful dogwoods; inside, the room boasted built-in walnut bookshelves, several wooden filing cabinets, a long, shiny refectory table, a blue IBM Selectric on its own stand, lighting from desk and standard lamps, a worn chaise lounge of the Dr. Freud-in-Vienna type, and a working fireplace. This last was supplied daily with logs and kindling by Manuel, the Dobbses’ gardener and houseman. Marlene was thus often to be found working away in front of a cheerful blaze. In one corner of the room there was set up, incongruously, a movie projector on a rolling metal stand, and there was a folding screen that went with it.
The romance of the situation was not lost on Marlene. A poor but honest lady, down on her luck, finds genteel employment in the home of a powerful aristocrat with a dark secret—it was pure Brontë, and she luxuriated in it: the comfortable and elegant surroundings, the freedom from drudgery, the refuge from the ignominy of Federal Gardens. In that she regarded her Washington exile as a catastrophic hiatus in her real life, she had no trouble in slipping into the persona of a sort of upper servant. Sitting in front of her fire, laboring at her papers, she thought that, to complete the image, she lacked only a floor-length brown dress with buttons up the front, and a ring of keys at her waist. That and her hair in a neat bun with a center parting.
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