Snapshot

by Lis Wiehl

  When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?” … then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

  Lis Wiehl’s story of a fateful street-corner meeting between two girls, one white and one black, reads as an extension of King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It is in line with Huck Finn, a white boy, finding a friend in an escaped black slave. Childhood friendships across racial lines have been a tradition, a constant in America. Those pure hearts and innocent relationships often fade as they are complicated by the rules of race among adults. But as children, those young minds have no investment in the adult world’s racial hang-ups.

  Lisa and Molly, the girls in Wiehl’s book, find themselves caught in the web of history. At age four they have no idea about the larger historical picture. They know nothing about the nation’s two hundred years of struggle with the original sin of slavery; a Civil War in which six hundred thousand died and the Supreme Court’s approval of legal racial segregation—“separate but equal”—despite America’s founding declaration that “all men are created equal.”

  The girls also had no clue about the violence that so often surrounds race in America, including the history of lynchings, bombings, and assassinations. And as we see in Wiehl’s book, that violence includes making scapegoats out of black people when a bad guy is needed to satisfy the public’s outrage.

  The arrest of a black man for a crime he did not commit is reminiscent of Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird. In Lee’s novel, a white Southern lawyer named Atticus Finch defends a black man who allegedly raped a white woman. As he grapples with the prejudice of the Alabama town, he offers his two small children the example of an adult who holds on to values of tolerance and acceptance of all people.

  That lesson often involves getting children to open their eyes to the unpleasant reality of racial prejudice.

  Two years before Lisa and Molly arrived at the parade, four little girls about their age made real-world headlines. Racists with bombs blew a hole in the side of the 16th Street Baptist Church, killing the four black girls who were attending Sunday Bible school. Their tragic deaths became a story told in books and movies. It is also brought to life in a far more racially diverse America by the poignant personal recollection of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She was a young playmate of one of the girls. Rice would rise from the segregated streets of ‘Bombingham’ to become the first African American woman to be the US Secretary of State. Imagine the loss if America never knew Ms. Rice because she was killed by the bombs.

  In Snapshot, the two girls, who wear their pretty dresses for the big day, have no idea of the larger evils surrounding their simple pleasure of being at a parade. They can’t see the hidden hatred, the violent racial agendas about to unfold in the form of assassination, convenient lies, and corruption.

  The joyful innocence represented by the two girls watching the parade also extends to their nascent womanhood. They are two girls who look on with marvel in their eyes, with no predisposition about society’s color line cutting sharply between black and white female beauty. A white man’s sexual attraction to a pretty mulatto woman would not have puzzled the four-year-olds. The stunner for them would be the white man’s conflict between his love for this woman and his racist beliefs.

  What comes next reveals so much about what happens in America as young people grow up and get caught up in the racist stereotypes, the racial suspicions, and the social norms of racial separation that come to dominate our everyday adult experiences.

  In so many ways, that is the genius of Lis Wiehl’s fictional construct for Snapshot. The girls become the personification of the innocence lost during this 1960s period of shifting racial rules. Just as they watched the parade, they also watch as the adults in their world kill, lie, riot, and generally turn on each other even as Congress passes a civil rights law, a voting rights law to advance racial equality in the United States.

  Lisa and Molly then come to learn how difficult it can be to communicate honestly across racial lines as they see the complexities of the long history of racial distrust in the United States. The fact that the white girl’s father, an FBI agent, is asked by a black man to help him find the truth, offers hope. It is an example of pursuing truth across racial lines and shows there are adults who grew up in the midst of racial division but never lost their capacity to see truth across the color line. More importantly, they can pass these values on to their children and grandchildren.

  Even today, in the early twenty-first century, with America more racially diverse that ever, the heartbreaking divide between children of different races and classes continues to complicate simple friendships.

  The complicating factors begin at birth. They range from the higher infant mortality rates for black children to the high rate of out-of-wedlock birth rates that leave black children in poorer, single-parent families and goes on to the disproportionate rate of black high school dropouts. Segregated neighborhoods remain commonplace in America in the twenty-first century. And so do differences between blacks and whites in levels of education, economic class, and attitudes toward gun ownership rights, sentencing for drug crimes, and even how much racism remains in American society.

  And when it comes to crime, the instinct to retreat into old racial tribes quickly becomes apparent. Today about half the population in prison is made up of people of color, largely black men like the suspect in Snapshot. This connects directly to the frequency of violent crime committed by poorly educated, unemployed, and often impoverished young black men. This remains a disturbing fact of modern American life. It is still a taboo topic for most discussions in proper, polite society—be it black or white.

  Instead the conversation about race and crime moves to small-minded arguments, bickering over the discrepancies in sentencing for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine or the higher incidence of the police stopping blacks on the street as suspects, such as with the New York Police Department’s use of a controversial “Stop and Frisk” program that disproportionately targets black men.

  In 1960s America, there was no need to call such a policy “Stop and Frisk” as the two little girls observe in the streets of their town. The reality of a prejudiced, all-white police force was true to the time and harassment of black suspects was commonplace as we see in the novel. That’s no fiction.

  And it is no fiction that in 1989 a white man, Charles Stuart, said a black man had murdered his pregnant wife. Later Boston police found out he had done it. In 1994 Susan Smith, a white woman, said a black man hijacked her car and put it in a lake, killing her children. Police discovered she did it so she could marry a man who did not want children.

  The challenge that comes from reading Snapshot is in understanding that it is truly a snapshot of our lives and our times. It is a snapshot of racial fear mongering and blame games that still blind us to the possibility of seeing the best in each other or just seeing people doing their jobs. The distortions caused by race become obvious when Stanley Blackstone, the white racist in Snapshot, does not lower his gun because the policeman approaching is black.

  The story may be fictional, but its power comes from those two little girls and their very real moment of trust that is ultimately much larger than the adult corruption swirling around them. The final mystery would be whether they could find that same kind of friendship as adults.

  To quote Dr King at the 1963 March on Washington:

  I have a dream that one day … the so
ns of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood … I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character … I have a dream that one day … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

  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.

  ESSAY FROM BILL O’REILLY

  BILL O’REILLY, TELEVISION HOST AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR, WRITES ABOUT HIS OWN EXPERIENCES REPORTING IN THE YEARS FOLLOWING THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY.

  Thirteen years after John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas, I arrived in that dusty town from the Northeast. I had been hired as a reporter for WFAA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Dallas.

  The station was just a few blocks away from that historic West End district of downtown Dallas where JFK was shot, Dealey Plaza. I found myself wandering over there from time to time, looking up at the window where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots that ended the President’s life. What struck me about Dealey is how compact it is. An elevated marksman would have little trouble hitting a target in that zone.

  Dallas in 1963 was a far different place than it is today. Provincial and suspicious of outsiders, most folks wanted no part of any discussion about the assassination. Truth be told, they were ashamed. For many Dallasites, the story was over. My initial attempts to seek new leads with these folks didn’t get very far.

  But after a short time on the job, I began hearing rumors about a man named George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian immigrant who taught at Bishop College, a black school in town. The story was that de Mohrenschildt knew Marina and Lee Harvey very well. Also, that the Russian had CIA connections.

  Intriguing? You bet.

  I began investigating the teacher, but did not come up with much. Then I found out that investigators from the House of Representatives were also looking at de Morenschildt and that they’d called him to testify before a congressional committee concerning events from that November day in 1963. I convinced the news director at WFAA-TV that the man needed to be confronted by me and a camera crew.

  As detailed in my book Killing Kennedy, this led to an intense chase across state lines which finally ended in tragedy. As the camera crew and I approached the house of de Mohernschidt’s adult daughter, a shot rang out. He’d killed himself.

  For me after all these years, the Oswald-de Morenschildt connection remains a frustrating piece of mystery that remains largely incomprehensible.

  Though I know Oswald was the assassin, there are many questions I still want answered. During the writing of Killing Kennedy, I interviewed retired FBI Special Agent Richard Wiehl who had never spoken on the record about his involvement in investigating the Kennedy assassination and in debriefing Oswald’s widow, Marina. When I heard that he’d found some old snapshots from that time in Texas of his daughter, Lis Wiehl, I was intrigued. I had to read the manuscript for Snapshot. I found myself particularly intrigued by the character of William O’Ryan. He was clearly modeled after me.

  Like me, O’Ryan built a successful career and moved from college newspapers and small local news to a major network. But catching the scent of a good story still gets his blood pumping. He’s tempted to toss his responsibilities and join retired FBI Special Agent James Waldren to find answers.

  Though fictional, the ties to the real stories such as mine are woven throughout the book. Bobby Kennedy did change the locks on cabinets in the White House immediately after his brother JFK was assassinated. He instructed listening devices throughout the White House to be removed and the tapes hidden. Even while devastated by the loss, the younger Kennedy knew what needed to be done to protect his and the President’s secrets from people they didn’t trust, including FBI head Hoover and the newly-sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson. Many of these secrets have yet to be revealed today.

  These many decades later, the mysteries surrounding the 1960s are great fodder for new stories, like the one found in the pages of this book. And you can bet that, like my doppelganger, O’Ryan, I’d jump at the chance to follow new leads on de Mohenschildt or any connection to the Kennedy secrets.

  I might have to beat out Lis Wiehl for that story.

  Bill O’Reilly

  New York City

  September, 2013

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Cindy Coloma, my collaborative editor, who brought her vision, smarts, and humor to make writing this book a labor of love. Cindy and I share a passion for telling a story, and she jumped into this project with all of her amazing heart and soul. I am so grateful.

  Inga Wiehl, my mom. Thank you does not even begin to express how I feel. You knew those snapshots were meant to frame a story. Without your unwavering encouragement, I would not have had the courage to tell it.

  Let me tell you a bit about this publishing team. I arrived in Nashville two years ago to meet with them. I had two snapshots in hand. And an idea in my head. We sat around what I’ve affectionately dubbed the “King Arthur’s Roundtable” and brainstormed for hours. Daisy Hutton (Vice President and Publisher), Ami McConnell (Senior Acquisitions Editor), Amanda Bostic (Editorial Director), Becky Monds (Editor), Kristen Vasgaard (Manager of Packaging), Ruthie Dean (Marketing and Publicity Specialist), Jodi Hughes (Associate Editor), Kerri Potts (Marketing and Publicity Coordinator), Katie Bond (Director of Marketing and Publishing), and Allen Arnold (former Vice President and Publisher). We explored many questions. Why did an FBI agent take his little girl to a civil rights march in Texas, what did the girls see that day, how can the girls be reunited to save a wrongfully convicted man, and what is the connection to President Kennedy? And on and on. That meeting inspired me to craft this story. Thank you.

  And thank you to LB Norton, line editor with a keen eye, quick pen, and great sense of humor.

  Thank you to Bill O’Reilly (aka William O’Ryan in the book), who said about Snapshot, “You’ve got it.”

  And to Juan Williams, my colleague and friend. Thank you, too, to Deirdre and Don Imus. I showed them the snapshots early on in the process, and, for once, the I-Man had nothing negative to say. Thank you to Roger Ailes and Dianne Brandi.

  My book agent, Todd Shuster, of the Zachary, Shuster, and Harmsworth Literary Agency. My friend, you changed my life all those years ago when you said I had a book in me. Many books later, I am beginning to believe you. Thank you.

  Last but never ever least, Snapshot is for my children, Dani and Jacob. I hope you enjoy the story that your grandfather started all those years ago when he took the snapshots. To you I give my unconditional love. Always.

  All the mistakes are mine. All the credit is theirs. Thank you!

  AN EXCERPT FROM A MATTER OF TRUST

  If life was like a play, then the director had the ultimate power. The power to blight men’s lives, or to give them what they most longed for. Even the power to utter the ultimate yes or no.

  Tonight was a special engagement. One night only. Never to be repeated. The stage was a hundred-year-old two-story house, lit from top to bottom as if electricity cost nothing. The director watched from the quiet residential lane. At the director’s side was the killer. It was a walk-on role with no dialogue.

  Now for the lead actress to make her entrance.

  Anticipation grew, thrumming like a bow string.

  But where was she? Ah, there. In the basement by the window, phone clamped between ear and shoulder, pulling a box from a shelf.

  The director nodded, and the killer raised the gun.

  The lead bent over and set the box on the floor. Then she knelt beside it, dropping from view before the killer could take aim.

  The director motioned for the killer to wait. Exhaling slowly, the killer lowered the gun.

  “It was all right there on Facebook,” Mia Quinn
said into the phone as she tugged at the lid on the blue plastic eighteen-gallon storage tub. “Darin’s dad made screen captures in case anyone tries to take anything down. He showed me a few of them.”

  “Facebook is God’s gift to prosecutors,” Colleen Miller said. “A couple of months ago I had this defendant on the stand. He swore on his mama’s grave that he didn’t sell drugs and that he’d never even held a gun. Then I asked him to explain why, if that were true, he had a Facebook status update showing himself holding a Glock, smoking a blunt, and flashing a sheaf of hundreds.” Colleen laughed. “It was all over right there.”

  “It’s hard to argue with proof that we can put right up on the screen in front of the jury.” Mia finally managed to pry off the lid, revealing fishing supplies: a tan canvas vest, a tackle box, and a reel.

  There, that wasn’t so hard, she told herself. This stuff can go in the garage sale, no problem. The cold from the basement’s cement floor seeped through her old jeans, worn soft as flannel. Outside, the dark pressed up against the windows, half set in the ground. Summer had passed in a blur, and now winter was coming.

  Colleen said, “I love how defendants can’t help but post incriminating pictures of themselves flashing gang signs and all the stuff they’re not supposed to have. Now if only we could get our witnesses to stop using it. You know the other side is checking it as much as we are.”

  As prosecutors for Washington’s King County District Attorney’s Office, Mia and Colleen didn’t get to choose their clientele. The hard truth was that sometimes the victims and the witnesses they built a case around were only a little bit better than the bad guys they were trying to put away. This was blue-collar law, not white-shoe. It was down and dirty, blood and guts, real people as opposed to companies squabbling genteelly over money.

  But being a prosecutor also meant you made a real difference. Which was why Mia had been glad to go back to work at the same office she had left nearly five years earlier, even if the reason she needed to return was terrible.