by Lis Wiehl
ADVANCE ACCLAIM FOR SNAPSHOT
“A pitch-perfect plot that tackles some tough issues with a lot of heart. Snapshot brings our world into pristine focus. It’s fast-paced, edgy, and loaded with plenty of menace. Lis Wiehl knows what readers crave and she delivers it. Make room on your bookshelves for this one—it’s a keeper.”
—STEVE BERRY, NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR
“Snapshot is fiction. But it takes us along the twisted path of race in America in a way that is closer to the human experience than most history books.”
—JUAN WILLIAMS, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF EYES ON THE PRIZE: AMERICA’S CIVIL RIGHTS YEARS
“Once again Lis combines her keen legal mind with her generous heart to bring us a gripping human story of justice too long delayed.”
—KATHIE LEE GIFFORD
“Inspired by actual historical events and informed by Lis Wiehl’s formidable personal and professional background, Snapshot captivates and enthralls.”
—JEANINE PIRRO, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF SLY FOX
“Riveting from the first page …”
—PAM VEASEY, SCREENWRITER AND EXECTIVE PRODUCER
ACCLAIM FOR A MATTER OF TRUST
“This suspenseful first in a new series from Wiehl and Henry opens with a bang.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Wiehl begins an exciting new series with prosecutor Mia at the center. The side storyline about bullying is timely and will hit close to home for many.”
—RT BOOK REVIEWS, 4 STARS
“Dramatic, moving, intense. A Matter of Trust gives us an amazing insight into the life of a prosecutor—and mom. Mia Quinn reminds me of Lis.”
—MAXINE PAETRO, NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR
“A Matter of Trust is a stunning crime series debut from one of my favorite authors, Lis Wiehl. Smart, suspenseful, and full of twists that only an insider like Wiehl could pull off. I want prosecutor Mia Quinn in my corner when murder’s on the docket—she’s a compelling new character and I look forward to seeing her again soon.”
—LINDA FAIRSTEIN, NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR
ACCLAIM FOR THE TRIPLE THREAT SERIES
“Only a brilliant lawyer, prosecutor, and journalist like Lis Wiehl could put together a mystery this thrilling! The incredible characters and nonstop twists will leave you mesmerized. Open [Face of Betrayal] and find a comfortable seat because you won’t want to put it down!”
—E. D. HILL, FOX NEWS ANCHOR
“Who killed loudmouth radio guy Jim Fate? The game is afoot! Hand of Fate is a fun thriller, taking you inside the media world and the justice system—scary places to be!”
—BILL O’REILLY, FOX TV AND RADIO ANCHOR
“Beautiful, successful and charismatic on the outside but underneath a twisted killer. She’s brilliant and crazy and comes racing at the reader with knives and a smile. The most chilling villain you’ll meet … because she could live next door to you.”
—DR. DALE ARCHER, CLINICAL PSYCHIATRIST, REGARDING HEART OF ICE
ALSO BY LIS WIEHL
The Mia Quinn Mysteries (with April Henry)
A Matter of Trust
The Triple Threat series (with April Henry)
Face of Betrayal
Hand of Fate
Heart of Ice
Eyes of Justice
The East Salem Trilogy (with Pete Nelson)
Waking Hours
Darkness Rising
Fatal Tide
© 2014 by Lis Wiehl
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
ISBN 978-1-4016-9072-4 (ITPE)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wiehl, Lis W.
Snapshot / Lis Wiehl.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4016-8952-0 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-4016-8953-7 (eBook)
1. Government investigators—Fiction. 2. Cold cases (Criminal investigation) 3. Civil rights—United States—Fiction. 4. Photographs—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.I382S63 2014
813’.6—dc23
2013029522
Printed in the United States of America
14 15 16 17 18 19 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1
For retired FBI Special Agent Richard Wiehl, the man who took the snapshot in 1965 and began this story. But most of all, for just being my dad.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
READING GROUP GUIDE
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
CHILDHOOD PHOTOS OF LIS WIEHL
LIS WIEHL INTERVIEWS HER FATHER, RICHARD L. WIEHL
ESSAY FROM JUAN WILLIAMS
ESSAY FROM BILL O’REILLY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AN EXCERPT FROM A MATTER OF TRUST
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
APRIL 10, 1965
Fort Worth, Texas
Special Agent James Waldren reached around his jacket and felt the Smith & Wesson .38 Special concealed at the small of his back. He scanned the pedestrians up and down the street before responding to the tugs at his sleeve.
“Daddy, look. Daddy, I’m skipping.” Lisa took off in an awkward hop and skip up the sidewalk.
“Wait for me,” James said, picking up his pace. The camera hanging around his neck slapped his chest as he reached out for her arm. “Hold my hand now.”
“And look both ways,” Lisa said as they reached an intersection. The light turned green, and they crossed the street with a growing crowd hurrying forward.
James was keenly aware of the glances, and of how people moved ever so slightly away—some even crossed to the other sidewalk—when they saw him. This wasn’t a neighborhood where a white man and his blond-haired daughter would normally be seen. Lisa skipped along, oblivious.
The sounds of cheering and shouts echoing through a bullhorn increased as they closed in on the throng of people. As a tall man raced by, th
e placard he carried clattered to the sidewalk. Lisa released James’s hand to run a few steps ahead, reaching the sign as the man bent to pick it up.
“Here you go, sir,” Lisa chirped. She picked up the edge of the sign that had FREEDOM NOW painted in bold red against the white.
The man glanced from Lisa to James, then back to the child. She pushed the end of the wooden pole as high as she could with two hands.
“Thank you, li’l miss,” the man said.
“You’re welcome, sir,” Lisa said, smiling back as he picked up the placard.
He gave James a tentative nod before racing up the street, sign in hand.
As the sidewalk congestion grew, James scooped Lisa into his arms, eliciting a joyful squeal. She rested in the crook of his elbow, and her soft hand reached around his neck, curling her fingers into his hair.
At the corner, the streets lined with tall brick buildings opened to a small park and public square. The air was electric with the energy of the growing crowd.
James surveyed the plaza where at least a hundred people lined the adjacent street, waiting for the approaching marchers: women in Sunday dresses, many with hats and white gloves, pantyhose, and dress shoes; men in crisp button-down shirts and slacks, some with ties and jackets even on this warm spring morning.
“Where is the important man, Daddy?” Lisa craned her neck.
“We’ll see him very soon,” James said, moving closer toward the parade route. His eight years with the Bureau had altered training into instinct, but in the eighteen months since President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, every important event held the threat of danger, no matter how peaceful it was planned to be.
James had spent countless hours and overtime investigating the JFK assassination. He was assigned to the killer, the deceased Lee Harvey Oswald—his activities, friends, coworkers, family, and especially his Russian wife, Marina Oswald. Good ole cowboy country hid numerous underground connections and secret groups throughout Dallas, Fort Worth, and outward from the South and across the nation. There were Russian expats with connections in the USSR, hidden KKK members in political positions, and a growing group of black freedom fighters.
But today James tried to blend in. Just another bystander, a normal guy who’d brought his daughter to witness a historical event. Just any white dad who happened to have a revolver and FBI credentials in his wallet. The truth was, James couldn’t be just a bystander. A special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation was never off duty, and an event like this had layers of possible intrigue. His wife would be furious if she knew he’d brought Lisa with him. She thought they were going to the park.
“Here he comes.” James lifted Lisa onto his shoulders. She patted the top of his head, bouncing up and down with the cheers erupting around them. “See that man, the one in the middle?”
“The man with the big hat?” Lisa leaned down toward his ear. The girl was hat obsessed. She’d wanted to break out her Easter bonnet today, but his wife wanted it saved for Easter Sunday.
“Not that one. The shorter man with the red necktie.” He lifted his camera with one hand and snapped a picture, then advanced the film and snapped another.
“I see him,” she said, bouncing again.
“He’s an important man, a very good writer and speaker.”
James took pictures as they watched the progression down the street. Benjamin Gray was surrounded by marchers holding signs, the cry for freedom and equality on their lips. The crowd took up singing “We Shall Overcome.” Benjamin Gray carried a Bible under his arm and slapped his hands together as he joined in the singing.
Lisa wiggled on James’s shoulders, trying to slide down just as he spotted his partner, Agent Peter Hughes, up a block and across the street.
“Want down, Daddy,” Lisa said.
The marchers made a sharp turn and moved into the square where Gray and other leaders would speak to the crowd.
James set Lisa on the ground, holding on to her arm, but she tugged away from him.
“Wait!” he called, weaving through the crowd after the blond head.
James watched as Lisa stopped a few feet from a little black girl close to her age who sat on a cylindrical concrete seat. The girl stared back at Lisa, then smiled when his daughter waved. Lisa clambered up the seat, pushing higher with her toes. It seemed that thoughts of parades and important men were pushed aside by the more interesting distraction of a potential playmate.
“I’m four,” Lisa said as she held up three fingers, then the fourth.
James didn’t hear the other girl but saw her show Lisa four fingers back. A nearby woman in a large white hat kept a watchful eye from an adjacent, slightly taller bench.
“Can I take a picture?” he asked her.
She leaned back, studying him and then the two girls before winking and breaking into a smile.
“Go right ahead,” she said, and returned to watching the progression of marchers as they looped from behind them to curve around James toward the central square at his back.
He clicked several photos, struck by the poignancy of the images. These two little girls, one white and one black, sitting side by side, were the symbol of today’s event.
James snapped another picture as the two girls leaned close, smiling and talking as if already friends.
A gunshot pierced the air. Then another.
James jumped to shield Lisa as he grabbed his gun. He moved the two girls directly behind him. His eyes jumped around the crowded plaza behind him, where the shots had come from.
The rally turned into instant chaos, with people running in all directions.
The black girl’s mother screamed at James, hitting him with her purse as she reached for her child.
“It’s okay, I’m FBI.” He flipped out his wallet with the large letters clearly visible, but the woman continued to cry out, gloved hands at her mouth. James passed the child to her, and they were immediately enveloped into the crowd and out of sight.
“They shot him! Help, please help!” someone screamed.
Through the commotion James glimpsed a man on the ground. Beside the body, a Bible lay covered in blood.
James pushed forward with Lisa held against his chest. “Close your eyes,” he demanded.
The faces around him reflected terror and confusion.
As he turned toward the man on the ground, James was certain that Benjamin Gray was already dead.
NOVEMBER 1971
Queens, New York
Former Special Agent Peter Hughes sat with the gun on the desk beside him as he looked out the second-story window at bare trees reaching like hands toward a gray sky.
Outside, Peter knew, people were preparing for the holidays. Thanksgiving was a week away, and Christmas carols already played in the stores. Peter wondered if Lisa was performing at her elementary school. He wished he could be there and see her wave to “Uncle Peter” as she’d done last year from the stage. He hoped she knew that he didn’t want to go away.
Peter reached beneath the desk to the very far corner. He pulled back the wood and removed the object he’d hidden there.
He held up an old brass key and set it beside his revolver. He recalled watching as Robert Kennedy used the key to unlock a drawer. Together they’d admired the craftsmanship of the massive cabinet.
“Every drawer has a unique key. Isn’t that remarkable?” Bobby had said.
“Sounds like a lot of work to me. And a lot to keep track of,” was Peter’s response.
“Brilliant, really.” Bobby told Peter how the queen of England had given the cabinet to his brother John when he was elected to the presidency. Originally it had been given to the royal family three hundred years earlier.
Peter and Bobby believed they were doing the right thing that day, locking away the proof of a crime. It was for the greater good, and for only a short time. Bobby would be president, probably within the next few years. He’d pick up his brother’s mantle and bring some right back to all th
at was going wrong. They’d wait just a little while longer, till Bobby was in office, then set everything right.
Bobby had turned the key, locking the secrets away.
And then he was shot dead, just when change seemed within grasp.
Peter wanted to fix things, but every attempt seemed to dig him in deeper. First he couldn’t find the key. Then the cabinet was moved, along with the secrets it held.
Now he had the key. Right here in his hands. But he was hated and reviled by those he loved most. Peter knew his old friend James Waldren could right the wrongs.
A car turned around in front of the house and parked on the street.
He peered down and saw a young man rise from behind the driver’s seat. The kid took a worn briefcase from the backseat, adjusted his tie, and moved up the walkway.
Peter recognized the look on the young man’s face. He’d once had such dreams, and a belief in a world that could be better than it turned out to be.
The doorbell rang, and Peter heard his sister’s footsteps moving toward the door.
He thought of little Lisa Waldren again. How many times he’d wished he had a child like her of his own. But that, too, could never be.
Peter placed the key and letter into a large envelope and sealed the top as he heard his sister talking to the visitor at the door. He set the envelope in the top compartment of the desk.
“There’s someone here to see you, Peter!” his sister shouted from downstairs.
Peter looked again at the empty trees. Then he picked up the gun, placed it beneath his chin, and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER ONE
PRESENT TIME