by Glen Carter
A short while later, he was driving a serpentine stretch of pavement next to an ocean that shimmered like crusted diamonds. A perfect offshore wind had brought out long slivers of gleaming fiberglass, aboard which weekenders escaped their frantic lives in the city. This was home to him and Kaitlin. Always had been. The apartment in New York satisfied their needs while they worked. Kaitlin spent more time there because it was her job to feed the network monster every day. Jack’s presence was required less. He anchored the network’s highly rated news magazine show. They taped but once a week with Jack riding herd on stories and deciding editorial content. Three days in New York with the rest of the week on his boat or tooling around the house. To top it off, Lou Perlman had negotiated a seven-figure pay cheque.
“If it’s what you want Jack—done. But why not shoot for the nightly anchor spot?”
“No thanks. Not interested.”
That was that. Kaitlin, who had been his producer, was promoted to reporter in the New York bureau, and Jack had his own show.Very nice gig, he decided, pulling around a sharp bend in the highway.
Jack wondered again about Ed Malloy. Special Agent. Retired. He was still peeved about being taken in and had no intention of letting it slide.
Thirty seconds later, he hit the brakes.
Shafts of sunlight streaked through dusty windows onto rough wooden tables in the nooks and crannies of Finnegan’s Pub.
Jack spied the regulars and a few who definitely weren’t.
Hank Breen was wearing his old rubber boots, bleached white at the toes by years of salt. He looked over at Jack and waved. At the table next to Hank’s sat a guy wearing crisp new blue jeans and a sweater the colour of egg yolk. He wore a white captain’s hat. Captain Kangaroo’s wife had a matching getup.
An athletic looking woman in an apron ambled over, wiping strands of black hair from her narrow pretty face. “Hey stranger,” she said.
“Hi Lucy, you all alone today?”
“Mom had to go to the city for the day so she left her capable daughter in charge.” Lucy wiped her hands on the apron.“That would be me.”
“As capable as anyone I’ve ever seen.” Jack smiled, bringing a red glow to Lucy’s thin cheeks.
“Here for lunch, you charmer?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Jack said distractedly.
“Chowder’s on special.”
“Then how can I refuse? I’ll grab a table.”
“Be over to take your drink order in a minute.” With that Lucy was gone.
He’d caught Malloy’s rental in the parking lot, and it took only a moment for Jack to spot him. Malloy was seated in a dark booth at the back of the bar, drinking a large glass of beer. Jack charged over. “How’s the chowder?”
It startled him. Malloy took a moment. “Chowder’s great,” he said, giving Jack a quick once over. “Better than anything I’ve had in Florida.”
“Then that part wasn’t a lie.”
“Huh?”
“You are from Florida.”
“Not originally.”
“Cut the crap, Malloy. Or should I say Special Agent Malloy?”
“Retired,” Malloy said,with a look of surprise. “How’d you…?”
“Never mind how. That’s my business. Mind if I sit?”
“Free country.”
Jack pulled out a chair and sat. A minute later, Lucy walked over and Jack ordered a beer. He told her lunch was off, he’d lost his appetite.
She took Malloy’s empty bowl and then left them alone.
“How’d you know?” Malloy asked again.
Jack ignored the question. “Now that I’m sitting here looking at you I’m thinking—yeah, cop. Don’t know why I bought that realestate garbage. Guess I’m too trusting. Not cynical enough even after all these years.” Jack looked around to see where Lucy was.
“That’s probably a good thing,” Malloy replied. “Shows you’re still human.”
“Like I need a lesson in humanity from a liar and a B and E artist.”
Malloy shook his head. “I wouldn’t call it B and E. You invited me in. Though I’ll admit I might have been disingenuous in my approach.”
Lucy returned with Jack’s beer and set it down. She quickly disappeared.
“Which brings us exactly to that,” Jack said, taking a sip. “Would you like to start talking? Or do I make a citizen’s arrest and besmudge that unspectacular Bureau record of yours?”
Malloy seemed to tense at the warning. “How do you know a goddamn thing about my Bureau record?”
“That’smy business.” Jack placed both hands on the table, balled them into fists. He held Malloy in his glare. “Do we call the cops or do you wanna come clean?”
Malloy didn’t have much choice. Jack guessed he was smart enough to know it. Malloy was taking his sweet time while he sipped his beer.
Jack leaned back in his chair, incredulous at the man on the other side of the table. He was certain Malloy was brawling inside. A full minute passed. “Well?”
“Off the record.” Malloy finally said. “Nothing comes out of my mouth without your word.” He looked at his watch. “If not, take your best shot. I’ve got a boat to catch.”
Jack swallowed more beer. The need to know was a killer. Another moment passed when he couldn’t take it anymore. “Deal,” Jack said.
Malloy looked around, then leaned across the table. “Have you ever heard of the Babushka Lady?”
DIARY OF HELENA STOROZHENKO
It was horrible. The assassin, Oswald, was murdered on television. They killed him. I don’t feel safe. Dr. Leonard knows something is wrong. Even the children notice. They came to my room when I was crying. They cried too until I told them everything was good. Dr. Leonard says I am depressed. He said there are pills he will get for me. Today, Dr. Leonard said he would help me if I want to leave.
“Helena was in a bad way,” Malloy offered. “So the good doctor prescribed whatever it was they fed people back then to keep them level.” Jack looked at the diary Malloy was holding in his hands, a worn book with a blue cover he had carefully extracted from his briefcase. “Nice story. But it doesn’t tell me anything. A depressive woman named Helena was in fear for her life a long time ago. Someone caught up in a fantasy involving the JFK thing. Another nut bar. We’ve both seen plenty.”
“Maybe not a nut bar,” Malloy said.
“Whaddya mean?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Do we need more beer?”
“I think so.”
Jack caught Lucy’s attention. Malloy continued.
“Helena Storozhenko defected to America from Odessa. That’s on the Black Sea.”
“I know where it is.”
“Right. This is well before the collapse of communism, so she’s a stowaway on a ship that docks in Galveston, Texas, in late September of 1963. A freighter named Yeny-Dunya—that’s Ukrainian for ‘New World’.”
“Nice touch.”
Malloy nodded. “Her uncle’s the captain,” he said. “And some kind of naval hero from the Black Sea Fleet, maybe even a mucky muck, but not too much of a mucky muck because he’s retired from the navy and basically driving a ship full of root vegetables. Anyway, the political officer on board the ship either looks the other way so the captain’s niece can defect, or the crew has thrown him overboard—the diary is murky on the details.” Malloy sipped his beer, unconsciously tapped his pocket where he’d normally find his cigarettes. “So Helena Storozhenko makes it, unharassed, to the new world and she presents herself as a political refugee. Claims her family’s persecuted on the other side of the Iron Curtain because her old man’s some kind of dissident, a writer or something. Anyway, she’s processed through the system and is taken in by a local priest until immigration can deal with her file.”
“The Cold War’s raging.”
“Big time. We were constantly chasing shadows,” Malloy said. “Hoover was extremely paranoid about the communists, at the expense of ever
ything else I might add, even the mob which was a far bigger problem for the Bureau than the pinkos. Things were kinda fuzzy back then when it came to who the bad guys actually were.”
“Hoover sounds like he was confused about a lot.”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.”
Malloy continued. “So the priest who took in our little Helena is a cousin of Dr. Leonard Carvel,whose wife had been killed by a drunk driver not two months before. He’s got three small children and he’s not only grief-stricken but also totally incapable of dealing with the kids. So—”
“So the priest connects Helena, young and eager to start a life in the ‘new world’ with our grieving husband and father who’s way over his head with the practice and the kids and all that.”
“You got it.”
“Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
Malloy looked at him. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“I’m all ears,” Jack said, drumming his fingers on the table.
Malloy grinned. “You too?”
“Quit last year.”
“I hear the craving never goes away.” Malloy looked sympathetic. “Stick with it.”
Malloy spent the next ten minutes telling Jack about Helena’s struggle through immigration red tape and her move to Dallas where she was hired as a housekeeper for the busy surgeon. “Everything was going swimmingly for her until—”
“You were there.”
Malloy drifted off for a moment. “Yeah. I was there.” He paused, waiting for Lucy to deliver fresh beers. A minute later she placed them on the table and left. Malloy continued. “Everyone was on duty that day. I was working the telephone threats. Chasing down wackos who said Kennedy wasn’t going to make it off the tarmac at Love Field.”
Jack could only imagine what it must have been like on that November day. “So what does Helena Storozhenko have to do with the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy?”
“Lots,” Malloy said, looking him straight in the eye. “Well, maybe lots.”At that moment, Malloy began to flip backwards through the pages in Helena Storozhenko’s diary.
DIARY OF HELENA STOROZHENKO
I cannot sleep. Dr. Leonard says the man who shot President Kennedy was a communist. He looks at me different now. Last night a friend of his came to dinner. He got drunk and he asked me if I was a communist. Such hatred in his face. Dr. Leonard told me the man’s brother was killed by communists in Korea. My father taught me to think as a free person. That is why I came to America.
The newspapers have pictures of that place. I have seen myself, standing there when the President was shot. Would they blame me, too? Would they call me a communist? They don’t know me. They will never know.
The place was thinning out while Jack finished his chowder. He was hungry, after all, and ate while Malloy drank his beer and talked. He told Jack about the days following the President’s murder. The Babushka Lady who was standing directly across from the grassy knoll when Kennedy was hit.
“The head shot, nothing but pink mist.”
“Yeah. Jackie is bent over him and then boom. His skull disintegrates. That image is seared in my head.”
“Seared into a whole generation,” Jack added.
Malloy stopped a moment, seemed to be regrouping. “There were lots of people with cameras in Dealey Plaza that day. We actually had a pretty good photographic record of every foot travelled by the motorcade as soon as it drove from Union onto Elm Street. Kennedy’s waving. Jackie’s smiling and the Connallys are happy, having a good time. Everything’s hunky dory until it happened.”
“Then all hell broke loose.”
“That’s right. Everyone scattered. Bloody mayhem. It’s all in the history books and the conspiracy theories get wilder and more stupid by the day.” Malloy shook his head. “Have you heard Oswald was an alien?”
“Must have missed that one.”
Malloy laughed. Paused a moment. “We were able to locate all the people with cameras in Dealey Plaza that day. Except for one.”
“Let me guess.”
“Go ahead.”
“The Babushka Lady.”
Malloy skipped over Jack’s answer. Rubbed his face before continuing. “At least we think she had a camera. It certainly looks that way in the other photographs. Woman with her hands to her face like this.” Malloy brought both hands up like taking a picture. “There’s been some debate over whether it was a film or a still camera. In any event, it looks like she got the best angle of anyone, at the exact second Kennedy’s head explodes. Nobody can touch her, not Zapruder, not Muchmore, or any of the other shutterbugs that day. There was plenty of film and photographs from north, south, east, and west. Problem was no one was pointed at exactly the right time at exactly the right place, with exactly the right goddamn film and camera settings.”
“The grassy knoll?”
“The stockade fence on the grassy knoll.”
Jack smirked. “Phantom cops. Bad guys. Wisps of smoke. The JFK conspiracy is an industry.”
Malloy added. “Crazy nut bars obsessing about things that were never proven and never will be. It’s still coming.”
“Not to mention the fact the stockade fence provided a horrible firing angle.”
“I was there.”
“Then you know.”
“Yes. A second shooter, attempting to fire from that position, would have had spectators and a cement wall preventing a clear shot. Besides, the trajectory of the headshot didn’t support the grassy knoll as a firing perch. They’ve been arguing for years now about ballistic dynamics and such. The way Kennedy’s head snapped when he was hit.”
“There was that mute guy, remember. He said he saw two guys at the fence. One guy takes the shot. Then the second guy disassembles the weapon behind some electrical box and takes off.”
Malloy remembered the guy. “Yeah, and the experts said what he saw doesn’tmake any sense. They also said a second shooter would have to have been suspended thirteen feet in the air near the railroad overpass to hit Kennedy the way he was hit.”
Interesting, but old news. Jack still had no bloody idea where Malloy was leading. He looked at him straight and hard. “Which brings us back to you and the reason for your felonious and fraudulent visit today.”
“I’m not a felon and I’m no fraud.”
“We can argue about that later.”
“And I’m no nut bar either.”
“Never said you were.”
Malloy stopped for a moment—tipped his glass so he could inspect a sudsy ring that had dried around the rim. What he said next floored Jack. “Helena Storozhenko, the Babushka Lady, spent two years as Alvin Gumb’s housekeeper. She slept in that room you’re currently demolishing.”
Jack stammered something unintelligible and then wiped a hand across his mouth.
“And don’t forget our deal.”
“Deal?”
“Yes,” Malloy replied harshly. “Remember, it’s all off the record. And I can’t tell you how bloody bad it hurts to have to trust you on this.”
“Then why are we sitting here?”
“Because there’s no other way I can gain access to Helena’s bedroom,” Malloy said. Silence filled the gap.
Jack waited for more.
“And here’s the kicker,”Malloy went on. “Helena claims she left something behind.”
10
They were in the kitchen at Jack’s place ten minutes after paying the bill at Finnegan’s. Jack barely acknowledged Lucy’s goodbye as they rushed out the door.The road was a blur while Jack grappled with the magnitude of Malloy’s revelation.The so-called Babushka Lady had once lived in his house.Had left something. Jackwas certain he knew what that was. No matter what, this was a story.Then, he remembered. Everything Malloy said was off the record. He should never have agreed to it. But he had, and now he’d have to convince Malloy to let him off the hook. Off the record wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Not a chance.
Seated in his kitchen, Jack was curious. Malloy had said it started with a letter. From Odessa. “After all these years, how’d Helena get pointed to you?” he asked.
Malloy considered it. “I wondered the same thing,” he said.“Why me?Turns out it’s a simple answer.A long while back I testified at this Washington thing.A public hearing on assassination stuff.My partner and I did a lot of the footwork tracking down witnesses. We did the interviews and transcripts. It’s all in the FBI report.”
“The Assassination Records Review Board,” Jack said.
“Yeah, that sounds right. Anyway, this senator makes a big deal about the Babushka Lady. He’s looking to generate a headline, no doubt to justify his big fat paycheck. I tell him there was no definitive identification for her, or the pictures she might have snapped, but he wouldn’t let it go.What if, he kept saying. What if.”
“And the press loved it.”
“He got his headline. I got quoted.”
“To live for eternity in the ARRB’s final report.”
“Yes. And the Internet. Helena’s granddaughter found the report and the rest is history.”
“I think that senator dredged up more than a headline.”
Malloy thought about that. “Truth is,” he replied, “over the years, I’ve thought about her. A lot.Wondered myself, what if.”
Jack was satisfied. He placed the Japanese puzzle box gently on the table between them. Finders keepers, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He’d fight that battle later, once he’d seduced Malloy with what was very likely Helena’s hidden treasure.
Malloy stared at the box, dumbfounded. For a time, speechless. “Jesus,” he whispered. “You’ve got to be shittin’me.”
“I shit you not.”
“Christ.”
“We need to talk.”
“You start.”
Jack took two breaths and began. He told Malloy about the demolished room, Helena’s bedroom if her diary could be believed. Tommy finding the box hidden in the floor. Frowning, Jack also told him that as much as he’d tried, the box was impossible to open.