by Lis Wiehl
Lisa pinched the skin between her eyes where a headache was forming. “So is she your girlfriend or not?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Lisa didn’t want the details to become more personal, so she dropped the questions that bounced in her head.
Dad unlocked the padlock to the workshop door. He flipped a switch, and rows of fluorescent lights flickered on and brightened as they warmed. Lisa stepped inside to what looked like a secret police headquarters. No wonder Rosalyn called it the Bat Cave. The walls were broken into sections and covered with photographs, diagrams, and notes. The counters no longer housed Dad’s organized tools, vise grip, and projects, but were covered with files, stacks of papers and books, and file boxes.
“This is … extensive,” Lisa said.
Dad’s setup reminded her of a museum display compared to her resources or even Drew’s studio with its illuminated counters, film equipment, and computers.
This wasn’t a normal search for answers. This was an obsession. Lisa knew from her years as a federal prosecutor how a consuming passion could blind people in numerous ways. If Dad’s doctor was concerned about stress, this certainly was feeding it.
“I have more to show you in the garage,” he said. “I’m trying to recreate the story of what happened. Somewhere in all this, I believe we’ll find the real killer and the truth.”
Lisa followed Dad to the side door of the workshop that connected to the adjacent garage, and her eyes widened. Where the old wagon had been parked, Dad had set up a reenactment of the crime scene.
The cement floor was outlined with duct tape to depict the streets and angle of turns. Several mannequins stood in the street and off to the sides. Dad pointed out how one mannequin was Benjamin Gray, and behind it, the shape of his corpse was outlined on the garage floor. Red poles with strings attached depicted possible bullet trajectories.
As Dad explained this, Lisa realized that there were mannequins outside of the street line representing her father, herself, and the little black girl sitting beside her when Benjamin Gray was shot.
Dad had brought the copy of the photograph of Gray’s corpse. He carried it in front of the man’s mannequin, carefully avoiding the bullet poles.
“This is where the photographer was standing.”
He stared at the printed photo and the outline on the floor, then off toward the left. Lisa followed his line of sight to the mannequins representing them. On the wall beyond, in the dim light, she noticed a poster-sized image beyond Dad’s reenactment. The pixilation in such a large format made the image blurry, but Lisa recognized it as the snapshot of herself and the little girl sitting on the round concrete pillar.
She wondered how many hours Dad had spent out here setting this up, staring at it and studying it from every angle. He might not be as obsessed as he was haunted, she realized, but that was little comfort.
She tried to refocus on what they were here to do. A quick solve would clear out the garage and get the old station wagon where it belonged—she hoped.
“The picture Rosalyn found today was obviously taken at least ten minutes postshooting, probably longer,” she said. “There wouldn’t be as many prints if the blood was in the initial flow stages. It had to have been taken before police arrived, or else it was a crime photo of theirs. I wonder if paramedics were called. How long did you stay on the scene?”
“I got you out of there almost immediately. That’s why I know Dubois wasn’t the killer. Let me show you.”
Dad took a notepad from a workbench and handed it to her. “These are my notes from that day. You can go over them when you get a chance, but everything I’ve set up correlates with these.”
Lisa flipped through the pad filled with her dad’s familiar handwriting and the scribbled diagrams and one-word notes he’d scrawled into the edges. The familiarity brought a desire to cherish his written words, though the sudden feeling also surprised her.
“Benjamin Gray had come up the street with the other marchers.” Dad pointed to the street behind the corpse. The road veered from straight to a diagonal toward the left. “He stopped with the others gathering here while the rest of the parade concluded. He would have proceeded that way.” He pointed the opposite direction from where Gray had walked. “It’s not set up because of course I ran out of room, and it wasn’t relevant. But beyond the garage door, that would be the platform where Gray would have given a speech if he hadn’t been shot.”
Lisa reached for a stool in the corner and pulled it closer to her father before sitting down.
“No, don’t sit on that, you’re too heavy,” Dad said, reaching out for her as Lisa heard a distinct crack. She hopped up and looked at the stool suspiciously.
“Gee thanks, Dad,” she said with a wry grin.
“I meant the stool is too weak. Sorry. A few years ago I discovered that my retirement dream of doing woodwork wasn’t realistic. I’m terrible. That was one of my failed projects.”
“Okay, go on,” Lisa said and jumped up on the workbench, then thumbed through Dad’s notes.
“When I was taking pictures of you, I had my back to Benjamin Gray. Most people were still looking the opposite direction of him, like the two women in the snapshots I took, watching the remaining marchers coming up the street.” Dad walked to the workbench and picked up a stopwatch, then moved in front of the mannequin that represented him.
“Bang!” he shouted and pressed the stopwatch. “I reached you before there was another gunshot. We ducked low, then after the second shot I looked around and saw the person down. I almost ran toward Gray on the ground—instinct from the job—then I grabbed you instead and ran down the alleyway behind us.”
Dad took one of the mannequins and ran to the back corner of the garage. He then turned and clicked the stopwatch.
“That’s additional time for my explanations,” he said.
Lisa was amazed at how having the actual setup of the scene made everything clearer. She’d worked with 3-D computerized renderings that depicted crime scenes, bullet trajectories, and blood splatter, but having the scene surrounding her presented a unique perspective.
“When we reached the end of the alley, I spotted Leonard Dubois being arrested. First off, it’s not possible that Leonard Dubois shot Benjamin Gray, then ran past us and around to that alley directly opposite the shooting. He would’ve had to go right by us. I’d have seen him. But let’s say that I didn’t. Even then, he couldn’t have run down the alley, crossed through the parade, and been arrested in that time period.” Dad held up his stopwatch. “It was only around thirty seconds. And the police already had him surrounded.”
“What does that mean?” Lisa said.
“Leonard Dubois was already being cornered by police during the shooting. In Dubois’s testimony, he said he pulled out his gun when he heard gunfire, and immediately the police surrounded him.”
“You think the Fort Worth police were in on this?”
“No, not in on the killing. I really don’t believe that, at least I hope not. A lot of evidence was buried, eyewitnesses ignored, and my own inquiries hit a brick wall. But I don’t see any reason for the police or anyone besides a fanatic to have killed Benjamin Gray. He was impressive and growing in power but not overly controversial.”
“Then the police were already following Leonard Dubois?”
“Yes. I think they were after Dubois for some reason. He was part of early Black Panther groups. I’m not sure what else. But how could the police already have him surrounded in less than a minute? Perhaps he made a convenient killer.”
“That makes our job a lot harder, unless we can find a guilt-ridden retired policeman who wants to confess to a cover-up or to smudging evidence. That would get Dubois free without much more effort—if we could prove the conviction was tainted with false evidence and a police conspiracy.”
“I have the names of every guy there written in that notepad. Three are dead, one is in a home with Alzheimer’s, and that leaves Sergeant Ro
ss. He won’t answer my calls.”
Lisa knew it was a stretch but made a mental note to do some more digging about Sergeant Ross.
“The real shooter would have escaped in that direction.” Dad pointed behind them, the opposite diagonal from where their mannequins were placed and beyond where Benjamin Gray was shot.
“There were fewer marchers that way, plenty of exit routes. A car could’ve easily been parked on one of the streets beyond here because there weren’t parade roadblocks that way. Not only does it not work logistically for the shooter to run in the direction where Leonard Dubois was captured, it makes no sense. He was running into the marchers, toward road blockades, and into an even denser population of police officers.”
Lisa nodded. “This other direction makes sense. Unless he was a complete imbecile, he would’ve gone that opposite way. I see in your notes that this is where most of the eyewitnesses said they saw a white man running from the scene?”
“None of those reports was taken seriously by the police.”
“Interesting,” Lisa mused.
“I want you to see something that I noticed recently.” Dad went to a shelf and handed her the two snapshots he’d taken of her and the other girl. These were the originals that Dad had kept in pristine condition for decades. He positioned them in the place of his mannequin, moving it aside.
Lisa hopped down from the edge of the workbench.
“I was taking pictures here.” He held up his hands as if holding a camera. In the first image, the white girl, Lisa, was walking up to see the little black girl sitting on the stone round.
“The second photo was taken at the precise moment that I heard the gunfire behind me.”
In the second image, the girls sat together and appeared to be looking into the camera as if Dad might have gotten their attention.
“We’re both looking at the camera in this one,” Lisa said.
“Are you? That’s what I thought, but look closer,” Dad said. He motioned for her to follow him to the workbench, where he turned on a lighted magnifying glass over the image. Lisa pushed the elbow of the magnifying glass toward the paper. The light illuminated the paper, and Lisa could see the girl’s dark eyes.
“Oh, she’s not looking at you. Not directly. She’s looking behind you.”
“Yes,” Dad said. “That’s what I thought, but with these old eyes, even with two sets of glass on the photo, I couldn’t be sure.”
“And in that line of sight behind you was Benjamin Gray?”
Lisa walked to the mannequin representing the other little girl and faced Dad. Right beyond Dad and a little over his right side was Benjamin Gray. It was nearly exactly the placement of the shooting.
“The street was crowded with the parade, but that girl was looking in the exact direction of Gray before the shots were fired.”
Dad nodded. “We need to find that girl.”
“Uh, that should be easy,” Lisa said. They had an old photograph of a young black girl in Fort Worth from 1965. How would they ever find her?
“You have people looking at the photo?” Dad asked.
“Yes, a friend of mine. He sent a copy to a forensic photo expert he knows. But I can’t imagine that he could find that little girl from these snapshots.”
“Maybe they will turn something up,” Dad said, studying the layout in the garage again.
“And you don’t have the police report or crime scene photographs?” Lisa asked.
“The Fort Worth Police Department was less than helpful, as I said. My boss said it was because of that old grudge against federal officers.”
“What’s the grudge about?”
“The JFK assassination.”
Lisa frowned, trying to catch the connection.
“There was sort of a fight over the still-warm body of our president. Dallas police wanted to keep President Kennedy in Texas. Secret Service, the Feds, Jackie, and the family wanted him out of there. Vice President Johnson needed to get out of Dallas; they were worried about him being killed too. No one knew Oswald was the shooter. It could’ve been the Communists or Mafia or a government coup. But Jackie wouldn’t leave her husband here. It nearly came to blows, and by all rights the jurisdiction was Dallas.” Dad chuckled. “But the Secret Service pushed through and loaded the president’s coffin into Air Force One, and they got out of there.”
Lisa watched Dad, realizing he’d never told her any details about the assassination or his investigation. She only knew the generalities.
“Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as the new president before they left the runway. It was pretty dramatic, from what my old buddies tell me, though of course everyone was in utter shock that President Kennedy was leaving in a coffin after arriving at Love Field only hours earlier. Awful times, those were. But the police in Texas were livid about the move. Not just in Dallas, but Fort Worth, everywhere.”
“So they were never cooperative in your investigations afterward?”
“Not very,” Dad said with a grimace. “But it was more than being uncooperative when it came to Benjamin Gray’s death. They were a roadblock.”
The door suddenly creaked open, and Lisa saw her father make an involuntary reach for his belt as if he were armed.
Rosalyn leaned in, looking flustered. “It’s the Ripley case. I found out the wife and kids are on the Arizona-Mexico border. I need to get over to the house.”
“Need me to help?” Dad asked.
“I can handle it. Unless you want to?”
Dad turned to Lisa. “I’ve been helping her with this domestic case. Rosalyn was hired to find a wife who cleaned out the couple’s bank accounts and took the kids. She crossed state lines, making it a federal offense, but we thought she might make a run back to Mexico where she’s from.”
“Go ahead, Dad. We’ll do this tomorrow. I’m a little tired anyway,” Lisa said, though she wasn’t. There was a lot to process, and she did that best alone.
“Oh, then get some rest. You’ll be all right tonight? I could meet you later for supper?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll make some calls, and tomorrow morning I think I’ll stop in at the Fort Worth Police Department before coming here,” Lisa said.
Dad raised his eyebrows. “That should be interesting.”
Lisa smiled. “We’ll see if I can get anywhere.”
“Good luck,” he said, and she caught the doubt heavy in his tone.
Lisa always took doubt as a challenge … especially when it came to her father.
CHAPTER NINE
James stood to the side of the window in the darkened dining room and parted the edge of the curtain. Across the street, he could make out the bumper of an automobile. It had parked in that location within minutes of his evening arrival. The foreclosed house where it was parked had been vacant for six months, and few other cars lined Oak Street.
“That’s a professional?” James said under his breath. He’d noticed a similar sedan parked near the PI office that afternoon. Yet now, this obvious move could mean they wanted him to know he was being tailed.
Opening the curtain farther, he squinted to make out any details, but night was falling too fast.
The questions remained. Who would be following him? And why?
A vehicle moved down the suburban street, and the headlights flashed over the parked car. The color appeared light, maybe gray or silver. He strained to see more.
The timing was suspicious. They weren’t following Rosalyn. The only thing different from his work with her was his digging around in the killing of Benjamin Gray and the Leonard Dubois trial.
Thirty years ago James would’ve approached the car or sneaked over neighbors’ fences until he could get a license, make, and model on the car. It would’ve been a matter of whether or not he wanted the perpetrator to know he was onto him. Today his considerations included a bum knee, diminished speed, and recent inconsistencies at the shooting range.
The house phone rang, piercing the quiet. James moved along the w
all as he hurried to grab the kitchen phone.
Rosalyn sounded out of breath and jumped right into talking before he’d barely said hello. She was probably hurrying to her car or popping into the office and had called him as she raced around. The woman had more energy than he’d had as a teenager.
“Can you believe we got her? I’m so thrilled! If she’d crossed that border, Matt would’ve never seen those kids again. They just found her loser cousin hidden inside the car—he was trying to get through the border with them. Who has trouble getting into Mexico?”
“You did good work,” James said. He flipped on the kitchen light, pulling out the phone cord as he took a bottle from a grocery bag on the counter and put it into the refrigerator.
“We did good work.”
“I barely contributed. I’m giving you the credit for this one, so take it.”
James could actually hear her smile through the line.
“Well, tonight deserves champagne either way,” she said in that silky tone she only used on certain occasions. James felt his ole ticker pick up a few beats.
“I just put some into the refrigerator,” he said with a chuckle. What this woman saw in him, he didn’t understand. He kept expecting her to grow tired of him, move on, open her eyes, get her head examined. But as long as she was around, James would try to enjoy it.
“Should I grab some takeout from Giovanni’s?” she asked. He heard the ping of her car door opening.
“Got that too,” he said. He’d bought enough at Giovanni’s for three, on the off chance that Lisa would still be at the house when he arrived. As expected, his daughter was gone, but he held a slight hope that she’d change her mind and move her luggage from that ridiculously opulent hotel to her old room down the hall.
“Jimmy Waldren, I am impressed. I’m on my way now.”
As happy as Rosalyn sounded, perhaps he was glad his daughter wouldn’t be staying at the house tonight. His eyes swept the room for one of those fancy candles Rosalyn had brought over on a night she’d cooked for him and stayed over.
“Great,” he said, then suddenly remembered the vehicle outside. Another thought occurred to him—what if the house was bugged? “Wait, will you bring home that little computerized thing that we used in the Brickman case? You know what I’m talking about, right?”