Man of Steel

Dave Conifer

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2009 Dave Conifer

Cover photo by Robert Jackson

Cover design by J.L. Penn, author of bestselling women’s fiction books

Discover other titles by Dave Conifer:

Throwback

Firehouse

eBully

Snodgrass Vacation

Chapter 1

When Jerry Bremer stuck his head in Frank Marino’s office he found Marino staring out the window running his fingers through his hair. “Frank, you were looking for me?” He already knew the answer, especially after he saw the look on Marino’s face. Anytime Marino needed to talk it took priority over anything else.

“Yeah, I was. Come on in.” Marino had been called in off the golf course, and looked like it. He struggled with a lock of hair that wouldn’t stay out of his eyes as he spoke. Bremer looked away until the smile was gone from his lips. This was the first time he’d ever seen his boss without a jacket and tie, or without his jet black hair plastered onto his scalp. He wouldn’t have thought it possible but Marino actually looked more helpless than usual without the fancy Italian suit.

Bremer closed the door and walked over to the window. “They all look like ants, huh?” he remarked. Marino’s expression didn’t change. “So what’s up?”

“Braden called. The cop’s son is talking again. He’s called a press conference for tomorrow afternoon.”

“McBride?”

“McBride,” Marino said as he smoothed his hair back yet again. “Mark McBride. The guy who keeps telling everybody his dad killed Kennedy. This time he says he’s got proof. His father’s diary.”

“His father’s diary!” Bremer parroted in a mock sinister tone. “He’s got nothing. There couldn’t possibly be anything in that diary. It probably doesn’t even exist or we’d know about it.”

“Do we know that for sure? Has the diary ever come up before?”

“No, this angle’s new,” Bremer conceded as he sat on the corner of Marino’s desk. “But it doesn’t matter. Charlie McBride didn’t know anything. He was just a placeholder.”

Marino yanked a gray folder from beneath Bremer’s thigh and dropped it onto the blotter where it landed with a slap. “From what I understand he was more than just a placeholder. And he might have learned something after it all went down.”

Oops, Bremer thought as he hopped off the desk. Neat freak. “If he had anything we’d know about it,” Bremer said confidently. “I don’t care if he’s got a diary or not.”

“Just the same, we better get somebody down there. Just to make sure he doesn’t say anything we weren’t expecting. I’ll pass up the word that we have it covered.”

“If you ask me, this clown’s doing us a favor every time he opens his mouth. He does more to shut the conspiracy nuts up than we could ever do. He’s the greatest thing that ever happened to us. We hardly have to lift a finger.”

“So you’re on it?”

“Yeah. Maybe I can check it out from here.”

“Braden will ask me if we took care of it,” Marino reminded him.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go. I’ll leave tonight. I had tickets for the Pirates but I’ll just give them away.” It wouldn’t kill you to get out in the field and do something for yourself. Maybe you’d learn which end of a gun goes bang.

“Thanks Jerry. Our work’s almost done. There’s nobody left but a bunch of crackpots.”

Chapter 2

Joe Jonas was running late thanks to a delayed flight and a Dallas cab driver who took the long way from the airport to run up a bigger fare. He threw fifteen dollars into the front seat and scrambled out of the cab with his suitcase. He planned on staying overnight at the Bradford, where Mark McBride had scheduled the press conference, but there was no time to check in. He hustled through the lobby until he found a men’s room where he washed his hands and face, and looked himself over in the mirror. His brown hair was a little too long for a grown up, even a twenty-something journalist. The casual clothes were rumpled and he could still see the stain from the bloody Mary he’d spilled on the flight but it was too late to change into the suit he’d packed. There was three days worth of stubble on his face but a shave was out of the question too. It didn’t matter. He was passable.

He hurried out of the bathroom because there were only two minutes left before the press conference and the room was probably going to be crowded. It wasn’t every day that somebody revealed a secret that had tantalized the country for nineteen years. Jonas cursed the cab driver as he searched for the room. He knew he’d be sitting way in the back.

Jonas was startled by what he didn’t find when he finally came across the room. It was far too quiet. Equally disturbing was the lack of security, crowd control or even a greeter at the door. He wondered if he was in the wrong place even though he’d confirmed the date and location five times. He shifted the suitcase to his other hand, pulled a notepad out of his pocket and walked in.

The cavernous room was a sea of empty chairs. There were only about seven or eight other people there, scattered randomly towards the front. This can’t be right, he worried. Two men sat at a table in the front of the room. One of them, immaculately dressed in a gray double-breasted suit, fiddled with a microphone, emitting clicks and booms that reverberated around the room. The other, in cowboy boots and a western style button down shirt, slouched in his chair with his ankles crossed on the floor in front of him. A grimy red baseball cap rested on the table. Jonas guessed that the man in the boots was McBride.

He headed for the front row. Besides being the best vantage point, he noticed immediately that the only interesting person in the room was there. A pretty blonde who looked to be about his age was sitting in the center of the row, fifteen feet from the men with the microphone. Jonas walked to the front and then across the row in her direction, almost as if he knew her. After he took the seat next to her he wondered if he’d been too obvious, but it was too late. He felt her eyes on him as he maneuvered the suitcase under his chair.

“Hi,” she said. “Not much of a crowd here.”

She’s not shy. There’s nothing wrong with that. “No,” he agreed. “I thought the place would be packed. This cab driver nearly got me lost coming from the airport so I was late. Then I wanted to change my clothes, but--” His voice tailed off when he realized that he was rambling.

“This is a repeat performance for this guy. He tried this a few years ago and it was packed with reporters that time. Most of the press didn’t bother coming back today. I’m Abby Reno,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m from Austin. Where are you from? You don’t sound like a Texan. You must be from up north.”

Her hand felt soft in his. He felt himself smiling and nodding. “I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina. No Yankee here.” The pleasant smell of her perfume wafted into his personal space as he spoke.

“Are you done with this?” she asked as she tugged on her hand.

“Sorry,” he said as he let go.

“So you came all the way from North Carolina. Too bad it was for nothing. I think Lee Harvey Oswald did it all by himself. My boss says McBride’s just trying to clinch a spot on all the twentieth anniversary documentaries. You know the networks are going to suffocate us with this next year. Do you get to travel a lot?”

“Hardly ever. I’m not on the national desk or anything. I’m on Metro. I was surprised when my editor sent me here. He said his boss owed him a favor so he threw us a bone.”

“Some bone. This story isn’t going anywhere.”

“Well, it sounded good at the time. I don’t know that much about JFK. But if this guy’s going to tell us who killed him I was glad to come down. It beats what I was writing about yesterday. The courthouse bathrooms in Hickory were renovated by non-union plumbers,” he said, rolling his eyes.

A sharp squeal of feedback pealed through the room before she could answer. The men at the podium had been delaying the start of the conference, probably hoping for some late arrivals, but nobody had come after Jonas. Finally, fifteen minutes after the scheduled start time, the man in the suit moved to the podium and made one last adjustment to the microphone.

~~~

“Ben Burkhardt speaking.”

“Hi Mr. Burkhardt,” Jonas said. “It’s Joe Jonas. I’m still down in Dallas. I’m just about to file the story.”

“Joe! How did it go? Anything interesting?”

“Not really. Everybody there covering it pretty much agreed that he was just some bozo trying to get on TV. That’s what I thought too.”

“What did he have to say?”

Jonas regretted his words. Burkhardt had taken a personal interest in the story. If he didn’t show a little more enthusiasm he might assign the next interesting story to somebody else. “Okay,” he said after opening his notepad. “He says his father was working for the CIA when he joined the Dallas police force in September 1963. His father may have fired the fatal shots at President Kennedy. He said his father had served in the Marine Corps with Lee Harvey Oswald. All of this is based on what he read out of his father’s diary. Oh, yeah. He also says his father was the one who shot J.D. Tippit, another policeman.”

“Tippit, right,” Burkhardt said. “That’s what Oswald was originally arrested for. You said ‘may have fired the shots?’ That’s pretty vague. What else was in the diary?”

Jonas made a note to revise his story to include what Burkhardt had just said about Tippit. “He didn’t say anything else, and we didn’t get to look at the diary. The father’s name was Charles McBride. He died in a fire in 1964.”

“So what did you find out about Mark McBride? Why would he sit on this for all these years? Did you confirm any of this?”

Jonas felt his face flush. “We didn’t get much time to ask questions. He disappeared real quick right after his statement. Maybe I could track him down.”

“Sounds like that’s what he wants you to do. When are you coming home?”

“I’m booked on a flight in the morning.”

“Why don’t you cancel that? I’d like you to find out a little more about this fellow McBride. It might be worthwhile since you’re down there anyway. We ought to try to get a look at that diary before we put a check mark next to this story.”

“Sure, Mr. Burkhardt. If that’s what you want.”

“Good. Take as much time as you need. Get some background on this guy so we can do the story right. Don’t worry about your beat here. We’ve got it covered. Call me back tomorrow.”

After hanging up the phone Jonas sank back into the soft chair by the window. The room was bathed in the green glow from the neon-trimmed skyscraper next to the hotel. Burkhardt’s interest in the story baffled him, especially now that it seemed to be just another empty conspiracy theory. And how was he supposed to find McBride, a man he knew nothing about in a place where he had never been? The only thing he had was the phone number of the cute reporter from The Austin Statesman. It had taken all his courage to ask for her phone number but now he was thankful that he had. She probably didn’t expect to hear from him but now he had a reason to call.

~~~

The next morning Jonas picked up the phone and dialed her number. It only rang once before he heard her voice. “This is Abby Reno.”

“Hi, Ms. Reno?” he asked. Of course it is. She just said that. “Hi. It’s Joe Jonas from The Charlotte Sentinel. Do you have a second?”

“Joe! From yesterday in Dallas, right? Are you back home?”

“No, I’m still in Dallas. My editor wants me to follow up on the McBride story. I don’t understand why.”

“Me neither,” she said. “We dropped it here. I wrote a paragraph that we ran today, and that’s it. Nobody cares. At least some of the JFK stories are a little more creative. This one’s a bore.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m just doing what I’m told. Can you help me out on Mark McBride? Do you know anything about him?”

“I’ll give you everything I have. Hold on, let me grab my notes.” Jonas pulled out his own notepad while he waited, and flipped to a fresh page.

“I don’t have a lot for you,” she said when she came back on the line. “We checked him out some last time. His father really was a Dallas policeman. He joined in September 1963, just before the assassination. Mark was born after they came to Texas. He’s never lived anyplace else.”

“At least something he said was true,” Jonas remarked.

“I can tell you that he works for United Oil Equipment Company. At least he did back then. We never followed up on that. I don’t know what he does or if he’s even with them anymore.”

“United Oil Equipment Company,” Jonas repeated as he scribbled on his pad. “Are they in Dallas?”

“They’re based in Midland but they have offices all over the state. I don’t know where McBride works out of.”

“Good information. Thanks, Ms. Reno.”

“Call me Abby, alright? I already started calling you Joe.”

“Okay.”

“So Joe, you’re really going ahead with this? It just sounds so, you know, stupid.”

“Yeah, I know. This guy rents out a meeting room, holds a press conference, tells some dull stories and we’re supposed to be interested. He didn’t even try.”

“To be honest, he doesn’t look like the kind of guy who could come up with anything better.”

“I know what you mean. I’m just following orders but first I have to find him.”

“I can tell you exactly where he is. They were handing out contact information at the door before you got there. He’s all set up for the big media onslaught at a hotel right here in Austin. I’ll bet you any amount we’ll be the only ones there.” She read off the name and room number at a hotel in Austin. “Are you coming down to see him? It’s only a couple hours away. You can get down here by lunch time.”

“Yeah, I think I will. That ought to keep my editor happy.”

“Can I come? If you stop by and pick me up I’ll lead you to him. What do you say?”

He tried not to let on how much he liked the idea. “Sure, why not?” She told him how to find her office in Austin and he promised to leave soon.

After a quick shave he called to arrange for a rental car and then bought some maps in the hotel lobby. After working his way through the busy streets of downtown Dallas he reached the interstate and headed out of town. As the landscape faded from urban to prairie Jonas was struck by how flat the land was. Twenty minutes after he left his rear view mirror still framed the Dallas skyline as it shimmered in the afternoon heat.

Chapter 3

Reno told him the trip would take just two hours but after looking at a map Jonas decided it would take four. He reviewed his schedule as he sped south toward Austin. Even if they were able to see McBride that afternoon it was too late to try to get a flight home in the evening. Whenever the interview was over he’d drive back to Dallas, file a story and then spend one more night in Texas.

It was nearly three o’clock before he made it to the offices of The Austin Statesman. He hardly recognized Reno when she came down to meet him. Her hair was redder than he remembered and she was wearing a lot more makeup. Instead of a knee length business suit like the one from the day before she wore a tight mini-skirt and a pair of boots with heels that made her taller than he was. “Hey!” she said when she saw him.

“Hi,” he answered. “Sorry I took so long.”

“Come on, let’s sit over here,” she said, guiding him to a small waiting area. “Did you see this yet?” She pushed a copy of The Dallas Examiner at him. A tiny story below the fold on the front page made their day’s work seem less frivolous. Mark McBride had made the papers. The article, entitled “CIA Denies Association with JFK Assassination Accuser,” somehow lent credibility to McBride even though it was a flat denial of everything he’d said. A CIA spokesman had made a statement the previous evening in which he denied that the organization had ever had anything to do with McBride.

These allegations – that Charles McBride worked

for the agency and that the agency had

involvement in the assassination of President

Kennedy – are completely groundless. Normally

we neither confirm nor deny employment but

because of the outrageousness of what Mark

McBride said earlier today we are going on the

record in stating that Charles McBride never

worked for or with the CIA.

Jonas looked up. “Did we get scooped?”

“I wouldn’t get too worked up about it. Remember, this is the second time around for McBride. I don’t remember the CIA saying anything last time. They’re probably hoping he’ll go away again now that they’ve denounced him. That is, if he knows enough to be embarrassed, which I doubt.”

“I don’t know. To me it makes him seem more legitimate. There are nuts talking about the CIA all the time. Usually nobody pays any attention. Why did they respond to this guy?”

“I can’t answer that one,” she said. “He’s just a wacko, though. We have somebody in Washington that checked it out last time. This CIA guy was telling the truth. The CIA’s never heard of McBride.”

“If we agree that the CIA connection is bogus, I don’t think we should bring it up with him at all. It might piss him off.”

“That’s a tough call. You could be right. But he probably believes the CIA part. He’s probably just reading through a diary and filling in the blanks himself. It’s your interview though.”

“Speaking of interview, I better call him.”

“I took care of it. We’re meeting him at five o’clock in the restaurant at his hotel.”

“Wow. Nice work, Abby.”

“Yeah, I was guessing that you don’t drive like I do so we better do dinner instead of lunch.”

“That gives us an hour or two. Let’s come up with a few questions.”

“Good idea. We can go up to my desk.” They got up and walked over to a bank of elevators. “Don’t you like my skirt?” she teased Jonas after catching him staring for the third time.

“I do,” he answered, feeling his face redden. “But aren’t you afraid of attracting too much attention?”

“Too much attention?” she asked. “What’s that?”

~~~

At five o’clock they took a table at the Carmelita Grill, where McBride had promised to meet them. It was decorated in a southwestern motif that looked artificial even to Jonas, who had never been west of the Mississippi before. “Reminds me of Taco Bell,” he commented. When a waitress stopped by they both ordered draft beer.

“If I remember correctly from last time,” Reno said, “He’s got his own agenda. He doesn’t want to answer any questions. He’ll tell us what he wants to talk about and that’ll be it. I’m warning you, this is going nowhere. I only came because I wanted to hang out with you.”

The thermometer on the bank across the street indicated that the temperature was ninety-two degrees and it felt just as warm inside the restaurant. Jonas yanked his tie off and stuffed it in a pocket. “I don’t think he’ll mind,” he said. “He’ll be looking at you anyway.”

They saw him immediately when he came in. He was a big man. Jonas guessed that he was about 6’3”. “You’d think he’d remember what we look like,” Reno said. “We were right in the front.” They flagged him down as he squinted from table to table.

“Good evening,” he said stiffly when he reached them.

“Good evening, Mr. McBride,” Jonas answered. “Thanks for coming.”

A waitress came over when she saw McBride arrive. “I’ll have what they’re having,” he said, waving at the frosty mug of beer in front of each reporter.

“Glad to do it,” he drawled to Jonas as he nodded at Reno. “It’s important to me that this story be told. I didn’t really get too specific at the press conference. Mostly I wanted to build up some interest.”

“Have you been doing many follow ups?” Jonas asked.

“I talked with a couple guys last night,” he said. “They were just going through the motions, I think. You see, I tried to release this information about a year and a half ago but it didn’t go well. I hadn’t done my homework and I ended up looked like a fraud. This time will be better. I’m just getting started.” He looked Jonas in the eye as he said it, almost as if he knew he’d read the CIA denials. “Where are you two from anyway?”

“I’m from North Carolina and Abby is from right here in Austin,” Jonas answered.

“Okay,” McBride said approvingly.

Jonas was surprised at the poise of the man seated across the table. This was a different man than the countrified, down-home McBride that had been at the press conference.

“I’ve always suspected that my father was involved in the assassination. But when I spoke out last time that’s pretty much all I said. I didn’t have any evidence. I had my father’s diary but I couldn’t make sense of it so I didn’t bring it up. Now I can. I did some checking of my own and I have a pretty good idea what happened.”

“What exactly did you find in the diary?” Reno asked, speaking for the first time.

“Well, there’s no doubt that the CIA was behind it,” McBride said. “You know, lots of folks think he had it coming. Kennedy, I mean. He fucked up the Bay of Pigs invasion single-handedly but the CIA got the blame. After that he fired Allen Dulles, the Director. But Dulles got mad and so did everybody at the CIA who knew it was Kennedy that blew it. It looks like they had the last laugh.”

“How long did your father work for the CIA?” Jonas asked. “How was he involved in the shooting?”

“I don’t know details yet but in the diary he mentions cash payments. There were several small payments during September and October. Then, a few days after the killing, there was a big one. That was right after my father drove all the way to Veedersburg, Indiana in a Dallas squad car to pick up some money. From that date on there’s no mention of the CIA anywhere.”

“Well, he didn’t live too much longer after that, did he?” Reno asked.

“No he didn’t. My father died when our house burned down in January 1964. Nobody ever said much about that fire, but I know. My father was a very careful man.”

“What’s in Veedersburg?” Jonas asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Are there any other clues in the diary?” Jonas asked.

“Sure there are,” McBride said, folding his arms across his chest.

“How many people were involved?” Reno asked.

“I don’t want to say.”

“It sounds like you’re still doing some investigating yourself,” Reno said. “Same as we are.”

“I guess you could say that. I keep meaning to get to P-burg to see R.J. Pomeroy. He was another cop that was in on it.”

Jonas had seen signs for Pittsburg on the interstate while driving to Austin. It wouldn’t have taken McBride long to get there and it seemed odd that he hadn’t already done this. “Did he work for the CIA too?” he asked.

“There’s a lot more in the diary. I’m not ready to share it yet. Not until there are some understandings.”

“What kind of understandings?” Reno asked.

“Are you two in this together? You’re a Texas gal,” he allowed to Reno, “but you’re not from around here,” he said, looking over at Jonas.

“Yeah, we’re pairing up for this one,” Jonas answered before Reno could.

“You see, I think anybody in your profession who got hold of a story like this could cut themselves a pretty good deal on a book. Maybe even a movie. I want to be involved in that.”

“A book and movie deal?” Reno asked. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not at all, young lady. But of course, the important thing is that this story gets told,” he added quickly. “The people have a right to know.”

It was clear to Jonas that this wasn’t a case of somebody volunteering information about a nineteen-year-old mystery. McBride was out to make some money. That motive brought into question the issue of integrity. Was he making it all up?

“So how should we proceed?” Jonas asked.

“I’m getting to that. First, we have to keep the story quiet until we work out some kind of deal.”

“Mr. McBride, that’s not how journalism works,” Reno protested. “We’re in the business of breaking stories. Eventually somebody else will write it up and run it. If you’re so worried about getting this story out there before it gets distorted we have to do it right now. We could still do a book later if there’s any interest.”

“If you print what I’ve already told you then we’re finished,” McBride snapped. “This is only the tip of the iceberg. This can be a blockbuster for you but it isn’t yet. I think you should approach some publishers with this and see what kind of advances they’ll offer.” He picked up his beer, gulped what was left, and put it back on the table with a thud.

“I’ll have to discuss this with my editor,” Jonas said. “I can’t bypass The Sentinel. It’s their story, not mine.”

“That sounds slow,” McBride said. “You might miss out.”

“I’m sure he’ll insist that we see the diary before committing,” Jonas continued. He didn’t know any such thing but he wanted to see how McBride would react.

“That isn’t going to happen,” McBride said. “But we can talk about that when the time comes. Now whenever the little lady gets back we can see about getting some supper.”

Chapter 4

Marino waited until ten-thirty for Bremer to come by even though he knew it wouldn’t happen. Then he picked up the phone. “Jerry, this is Frank,” he said when Bremer came on the line. “How about dropping by when you have a chance?” Fifteen minutes later Bremer was in his office.

“So?” Marino asked from behind his desk. “What happened in Texas? Pull that door closed, will you?”

Bremer settled into the chair facing his boss without bothering with the door. He considered propping a foot on the desk to irritate Marino but crossed one leg over the other instead.

“Nothing,” he said. “It was just what we expected, a big waste of time. He had nothing. I brought Decker down with me. I figured why should I have all the fun?”

“McBride bombed out?” Marino asked after walking over and closing the door himself and returning to his desk.

Bremer smiled. “That’s giving the man too much credit,” he said. “It was a snooze. He didn’t even tell any good stories. It definitely wasn’t worth missing the Pirates for. Did you end up using those tickets?” He watched Marino scribble notes onto a yellow legal pad and wondered what he could possibly be writing. The report was pretty simple.

“No, I couldn’t go. I’d already promised to meet my wife at Heinz Hall.”

“Christ almighty! You picked opera over baseball?”

“It was the symphony. What about the diary?”

“He mentioned it over and over but he never said what was in it. He knows less about his own father than we do.”

“How many people showed up?”

“Ten, tops. They were all local press with nothing better to do.”

“Did you get a list of everyone who attended?”

“No, it wasn’t even that organized. There was no way to get a list.”

“Anybody at all take him seriously?”

“It didn’t look like it. We hunted him down later to see if he had anything else to say. We pretended to be reporters. He told us we were the only ones who came by.”

“He could be lying.”

“You’re giving him too much credit,” Bremer said. “There’s nothing to worry about. If this guy had polaroids of you or me killing Kennedy he couldn’t make it stick. He thinks he’s got a book deal coming but nobody’s paying attention.”

“Okay,” Marino said as he capped his pen and placed it in a canister next to a bin of paper clips. “I’d like to have seen the diary but I’m sure you’re right. Sorry you had to make the trip. We just had to be sure.”

Chapter 5

Jonas was back at his desk at The Sentinel by mid-afternoon the next day. Working from his notes he immediately began a memo to Burkhardt in which he would summarize all that he had learned about McBride and his claims. He wrote with the purpose of making Burkhardt realize that there was nothing to the story except a down-on-his-luck schemer looking for an easy payoff. After two hours had passed he was only halfway through his notes. In need of a cup of coffee and some rest for his bleary eyes, he left his desk and headed in the direction of Michelle Griffin, Burkhardt’s executive assistant.

“Welcome back,” she said. “How was Texas?”

“A lot hotter than here,” Jonas said. “I was on a wild goose chase. The story’s a dud.”

“Mr. Burkhardt kept asking if you were back. Doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s a dud.”

“Yeah I know. I’m writing it up for him now. After he reads it he’ll agree. Is he even here today?”

“Not anymore. He’s gone for the day. He’ll be back in tomorrow.”

“Just as well,” Jonas said. “I’ll be done by then.”

He returned to his desk in the noisy newsroom and continued his work. He had to put it aside several times but by seven-thirty he had put the finishing touches on his memo and dropped a copy into Burkhardt’s mail slot. Ten minutes later he was on his way back home, certain that Mark McBride and his father’s diary were out of his life.

~~~

Griffin intercepted Jonas the next morning even before he reached his desk. “Mr. Burkhardt read your memo thingamajig. He wants you to drop by this morning as soon as you can.”

“Okay,” Jonas said. “I better grab my notes first. How did he sound?”

“He liked it,” Michelle said.

Great, Jonas thought. Something tells me I’m not done with Mark McBride after all. He pulled his file of notes from a desk drawer and walked over to Burkhardt’s office. Before he had a chance to knock Burkhardt waved him in. “Come on in, Joe. This is good stuff you gave me here. I want to go over it with you.”

Jonas walked in and sat across the desk from Burkhardt. Stacks of paper covered every surface in the room but Jonas’s eyes were drawn to a copy of his own memo, which was spread out on the desk and marked up with red ink. It didn’t look like something that was about to go away. “Nice job on this,” Burkhardt said. “I’ve read through it. Now let me make sure I have it straight. The long and short of it is that McBride says he’s got the goods on the CIA but he won’t spill it until we get him paid somehow. Is that about the size of it?”

“That’s right, pretty much,” Jonas agreed. “I have to tell you, Mr. Burkhardt. I don’t believe this story. I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the CIA. My gut feeling is that there’s nothing in the diary that would prove anything at all.”

“Yeah, I can read between the lines.”

“Then he starts with the money talk, and threatening to go to a different reporter if we don’t move fast enough. Something about him just rubs me the wrong way.”

“Maybe I should talk to him,” Burkhardt said. “Maybe I could get him to open up more.”

“Be my guest. But he had his limits on how far he would go and that was it. No more information until we work out a book deal.”

“A book deal?” Burkhardt howled. “Maybe you’re right, he is crazy. He didn’t bring anything to the table yet. Not even enough for a decent article.” He ripped his glasses off and sat back in his chair. “Damn it, Joe, I’ve just got to start writing about something real again. I’m so sick of the city politics bullshit we do in Metro. We were lucky to get this and goddamn, I want to make something of it.”

“I know what you mean,” Jonas said, “But I don’t think this is it.”

Burkhardt put his glasses back on and hunched forward to pore over the memo again. “What about this other officer you mentioned? Did you try to track him down? How many days were you down there, anyway?”

“You’re probably talking about R.J. Pomeroy. Look, Mr. Burkhardt, I just found out about him about at the last minute. McBride barely mentioned him.”

“I know, Joe. You did great. Don’t get all steamed up. Now, the next thing we need to do is to see what this other fellow has to say.”

“Who, Pomeroy? We have to find him first. I don’t even know if I got his name right.”

“Any reason we shouldn’t be able to find him?”

“McBride told us he lived in Pittsburg, Texas. I don’t think he meant to give that to us. It kind of slipped out. Pittsburg’s a little town east of Dallas, halfway to Arkansas. We checked the phone books and didn’t come up with anything. That’s as far as it went.”

“We?” Burkhardt asked, looking over the top of his glasses at Jonas.

“I was working with a reporter from a paper in Austin. A lot of the background on McBride in that memo came from her.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Has she run any of this?”

Jonas smiled. “No. They had enough of McBride the last time he came out of the woodwork.”

“Well, anyway, try to find the friend. Maybe he’s a little more down-to-earth than McBride.”

~~~

Jonas spent the next several hours on the phone talking to people in and around Pittsburg, Texas. There just didn’t seem to be anybody in the area by the name of R.J. Pomeroy. He called Reno, who did some checking on her own but was also unsuccessful. The last thing he did was to call Mark McBride himself, who was still in his Austin hotel room. That didn’t yield any information either.

“I could serve Pomeroy up to you,” McBride said. “But not until we firm up our arrangement. Did you talk with your editor?”

“I did. He was just as firm as I told you he’d be. There can’t be a book deal yet because you haven’t given us anything to write a book about.”

“Well, not everybody feels that way. You better change his mind and talk to some publishers or you’ll miss out. I’m meeting with a writer later in the week but I’ll cancel if you come through. This is probably your last chance.”

He’s got to be bluffing, Jonas decided later. Otherwise he wouldn’t have sounded so desperate. If he was really meeting with a legitimate writer why would he be so anxious to work with some unknown reporter from Charlotte?

~~~

Over the weekend Jonas surprised himself by thinking constantly about McBride and the faceless R.J. Pomeroy. Every time he replayed the conversation he was more certain that McBride had spoken about Pomeroy as if he was currently in Pittsburg. But if that was the case why was he so hard to find? Maybe it was because he wasn’t there anymore. An experienced Texas reporter like Abby Reno should have been able to locate him but so far she hadn’t come up with anything.

Monday morning he called Reno from his desk, hoping that she’d found Pomeroy. “So did you have any more luck than I did looking for our friend?” she asked when the small talk was out of the way.

“No,” Jonas answered. “I was hoping you had.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard to find somebody who isn’t hiding,” she said.

“Maybe he’s hiding or maybe he doesn’t even exist.”

“I wouldn’t put it past McBride. What a shyster.”

“I’ve been replaying the conversation over and over. I’m sure we got it right. He said something like ‘I ought to take a ride over there to Pittsburg to see him.’ Is that how you remember it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I remember,” Reno said. She paused for a moment. “Except for one thing. I don’t think he said ‘Pittsburg.’ I think he said ‘P-burg.’”

Jonas’s forehead wrinkled as he thought it over. “I don’t remember either way,” he finally said.

“Don’t ask me why but I’m sure of it,” she said.

“In that case, what else could it be? Is there a Pottsburg, or Pemburg, or some other place he would call ‘P-burg’?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Why don’t you give me a couple hours? I’ll work on it from my end and call you back.”

~~~

It was only about twenty minutes later when Reno called back to tell Jonas that there were no other municipalities in Texas with a name that fit the pattern. “Well, if it’s not in Texas, it’s not in Texas,” Jonas said. “Where else should we look?”

“I guess I could try Oklahoma and Arkansas. What about Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?” Reno suggested. “That’s the biggest ‘P-burg’ I can think of.”

“Maybe. But would McBride talk about driving there? All the way to Pennsylvania?”

“You’re getting hung up on words he may not have said. We don’t really remember his exact words.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can come up with in Pennsylvania. You could be right.”

He hung up the phone and rode the elevator down three floors to the resource room where he knew he could find a current phone book for every city in the country. He pulled the Pittsburgh book off the shelf and carried it to a nearby table. One minute later he was elated at what he found.

Ronald James Pomeroy 62 Grace St.(412) 291-1925

He was so excited as he copied the number onto his notepad that he couldn’t read his own writing, and had to force himself to do it again. Without bothering to put the book back on the shelf he raced past a startled librarian and out of the resource room. Instead of waiting for the elevator he scrambled up the stairs and burst into Burkhardt’s office. “I think I found him!” he said, still out of breath.

Burkhardt put his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone receiver that Jonas hadn’t noticed. “Found who?” he whispered.

Jonas gritted his teeth when he realized what he’d done. “Sorry,” he mouthed.

Burkhardt waved his hand impatiently. “Who did you find?” he whispered.

“Pomeroy,” Jonas said, holding the pad up.

Burkhardt gave him a thumbs-up and pointed to the chair. Jonas took a seat and waited. When the phone call finally ended Jonas couldn’t contain himself. “We thought Pomeroy was in Texas but it turns out he’s in Pennsylvania!” He explained the confusion about the town’s name and how he and Reno had eventually guessed Pittsburgh.

“This is the friend of the father?” Burkhardt asked. “The policeman?”

“That’s right. He was on the force with Charles McBride. He might know something about this.”

“Good work. Are you warming up to this story any yet?”

“Yeah, some, I guess.”

“How can we be completely sure that this is the guy?”

“Come on, Mr. Burkhardt. It’s got to be him.”

“’Got to be’ and ‘is’ are two different things.”

“I guess I should call him. They’re in our time zone aren’t they?” he asked as he reached for the phone. “Can I call from here?”

“Wait a minute,” Burkhardt said. “Slow down. First of all, we don’t even know if it’s him. Secondly, we don’t know enough about him. He could turn out to be just another blowhard like McBride. We have to take a closer look at him first, I think. What would you think about another road trip? I’ll do the paperwork right now.”

“To Pittsburgh? Sure. But what about my regular stuff? I haven’t done anything but JFK since I went to Dallas.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got somebody covering it.”

“So what do I do when I get there if I can’t call this guy?”

“Just play it by ear. You have his address. See if he’s the right age. And race. Trust your instincts. If he was a Dallas policeman in 1963 he probably should be white. And what the hell is a down home Texas boy doing in Pittsburgh?”

~~~

Jonas called Reno when he returned to his desk. “You were right. I found a guy by that name in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”

“You’re kidding!” she asked excitedly. “Is he our man? Did you talk with him?”

“My editor told me not to. Not yet. He wants to be sure it’s him first. I’m flying up there tonight to check him out.”

“Ooh! Ooh! Can I come?”

“Can you get away? I’d love to have some help.”

“I’ll call you back. I have to go twist somebody’s arm to get permission.”

“Man or woman?”

Reno giggled. “Woman. Too bad, that would have made it so much easier.”

Chapter 6

Jonas’s plane touched down first so he wandered over to meet Reno at her gate at Pittsburgh International Airport that night. Both were traveling with nothing but carry-on luggage so they were able to get on the road in a rental car just a few minutes after landing. After they reached Interstate 79 Reno pulled out the city map she’d bought in a gift shop. “Where are we staying, anyway?” she asked.

“I have to stay at the Hilton, downtown,” Jonas replied. “Hilton is standard company procedure.”

“You poor thing,” Reno said. “I didn’t have time to make a reservation so I guess I’ll get a room there too.” She studied the map and called out directions as Jonas drove. “We’re looking for the Fort Pitt Tunnel,” she announced.

“Are we lost?” Jonas asked a few minutes later after they’d passed several exits. “Where the hell is the city?”

“We should be close,” Reno said. Her head swiveled between the map and the road. “I don’t get it. We’re right on top of it.”

Even before the words were out of her mouth a sign directing them to the tunnel appeared. Jonas eased the car to the right, followed the ramp and entered the tunnel. When they emerged from the tunnel all their questions were answered in the form of a dazzling skyline that had been hidden behind a mountain ridge. They crossed the Monongahela River on a yellow steel skeleton bridge and were suddenly in the heart of the city. Only a few more turns were needed to find the Hilton.

“My boss is worried about us working together,” Reno said as they stood in line to check in.

“Mine too,” Jonas answered.

“How does that work? Can we both write our own stories for our own paper? Who owns the story?”

“I don’t know,” Jonas admitted. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t work that way. It doesn’t matter if we’re doing the research together, I don’t think.”

“Whatever. If you’re not worried I guess I won’t either. But now that I’ve made this trip they’ll expect me to publish something.”

“Then do it. Let’s just make sure we do our writing separately. Then there’s no debating who owns what.”

“Cool. Hey, I tell you what. After we move into our rooms let’s come back down here and get something to eat. And drink.”

~~~

“So what do we do next?” Reno asked after taking her first sip of beer. They were in a mostly-empty bar on the ground floor of the hotel. The bartender and a man in blue coveralls were watching baseball on a TV that was suspended over the bar. A large plate of Buffalo wings rested on the table between them. “I say we call him in the morning.”

“I’d rather follow my orders,” Jonas said. “Burkhardt told me to get a look at him before I call.”

“How do we do that? Stake out his house?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” he replied, grinning. “Let’s get up early and find his house. We’ll watch and learn.”

“I don’t see why we can’t just call. But alright, if it makes you feel better we’ll do it your way.”

~~~

They were back in the car before the sun came up the next morning. Like the night before, Jonas drove while Reno navigated. Grace Street was nestled in a residential neighborhood on the far side of Mt. Washington. It wasn’t difficult to find, even in the dark. It was a tiny street, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. There were houses on the left side but not on the right, which tapered to a thirty-foot drop into a meadow. “I wonder how many people have rolled their cars off that cliff,” Jonas wondered aloud.

“Don’t jinx us.”

The first house was number Sixty-two. That was the one Pomeroy lived in according to the phone book. They drove past slowly, not even sure what they were looking for. When they reached the end of the street they turned around and parked within sight of the house.

“I feel like we’re wasting our time,” Reno said. “Let’s say we see somebody walk out of the house. What does that tell us? Nothing, except that a human being lives there. We can already assume that.”

“Just bear with me. I want to be able to say I did what I was told.”

“I’m going back to sleep,” she said as she reclined her seat. “Wake me up when you get a life.”

Jonas smiled as she closed her eyes. He liked her saucy personality, even when she turned it full blast at him.

It wasn’t long before a man emerged from the house and carefully walked down the concrete steps to the street. Jonas took a good look at him when he passed under a streetlight. He had a full head of graying hair and moved as though he was about the right age. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to think that he could have been a young policeman in 1963. Jonas shook Reno’s shoulder. “Abby! There he is!”

She snapped awake and sat up. “He looks a lot older than McBride,” she said after watching the man walk to a car.

“He’s not supposed to be Mark McBride’s age, remember?” Jonas said. “He’s old enough to be his father. He’s Charlie McBride’s age.”

“Oops. I can’t keep that straight. What should we do?”

“Let’s follow him.”

“Maybe I should stay here while you follow,” Reno suggested.

“Good idea. Maybe this is just Pomeroy’s roommate.”

By then he was driving away in a blue Oldsmobile. “Go!” Reno said as she stepped onto the curb. Jonas followed Pomeroy, who had already turned off Grace Street into a line of traffic heading back towards downtown. Worried that he was losing ground, he tried to remember as many details about the car as possible. He still hadn’t come any closer than two cars back as they rolled downhill toward the Fort Pitt Tunnel in the thickening rush hour traffic. Just before the tunnel entrance Pomeroy veered right onto another street. A few blocks later he entered a different tunnel through the mountain. Jonas could no longer see Pomeroy after he came out of the tunnel onto yet another steel bridge.

He was halfway across the bridge before he saw the Oldsmobile again. He cut into the leftmost lane, sped past a line of cars, and carefully eased back over. He was still four or five cars behind but at least he was within following distance.

The rest of the chase was low-speed but tedious. By dodging cars and weaving through city traffic Jonas managed to catch up with Pomeroy just as he was turning onto Grant Street. After several blocks he made a right turn into an underground parking facility. Jonas noted the address on a well-lit sign as he entered:

ERC Corporation

600 Grant Street

He spiraled downward through levels of the garage until he reached a gate and a booth. “Excuse me, sir,” a uniformed attendant said to Jonas after he rolled the window down. “You can’t park here without a permit.”

Jonas watched helplessly as Pomeroy disappeared down another ramp. “I must be lost,” he said. “I thought this was a public garage.”

“No, sir,” the attendant said. “This is the Steel Building. There’s a public garage up the street at Fifth.”

“Sorry,” Jonas said. “How can I get out of here?”

The attendant directed him back to street level. He drove halfway up the block before abruptly pulling out of traffic and stopping at the curb. He stepped out of the car and looked back at the building he’d just come out of just so he’d be sure to remember where he’d been. It was still relatively dark at street level but the sun was already brushing the top of the building, leaving an eerie pink glow that made it stand out even more. It was a plain, dark skyscraper that dominated the cityscape as much by its blandness as by its height. There was a glass castle-like tower nearby that wasn’t quite as tall. By the looks of it he’d just chased Pomeroy into the most important building in town.

Jonas retraced his path over the bridge and through the tunnel to get back to Grace Street. After two passes up and down the street he saw no sign of Reno. Worried, he pulled over to the side and waited. Finally he saw her walking down the steps in front of Pomeroy’s house. Maintaining a look of calm, she made her way up the street and climbed into the car.

“Whew,” she said after exhaling dramatically. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“Where were you?”

“I didn’t know where to go so I went up on his porch. I figured Pomeroy was gone so nobody would notice me.”

Jonas shook his head and scowled at her. “Are you out of your mind? We don’t know that there’s nobody else in there. That was too risky, Abby. We don’t even know for sure that it’s Pomeroy’s house.”

“We do now. He’s got a mailbox doesn’t he?”

“And you ransacked it?” Jonas asked incredulously. “You’re starting to worry me here.”

“No, I didn’t ransack the mailbox. There was an outgoing letter. What was I supposed to do, not look at it? I put it back when I was done with it.”

“Wow. You’re something else. So?”

“So?” she repeated.

“What did it say? Are we in the right place?”

“I’m afraid so. The return address was Pomeroy. Ronald Pomeroy.”

“I think we better get out of here,” he said as he started the car and pulled away from the curb. “We need to think about what to do next.” On the way back to the hotel he told her about how he trailed Pomeroy into the Steel Building. The chase through traffic sounded more exciting now that there was a good chance he’d been following the real R.J. Pomeroy.

They headed back to Reno’s room when they reached the hotel. Each collapsed onto one of the beds. “I say we call him at the office. It shouldn’t be hard to get a number. Or we could just walk over. That’s probably it right there,” she said, pointing out the window.

“How are we going to say we found him if he asks?”

“Well, we can tell him the truth about how we knew he was in Pittsburgh,” Reno said. “McBride told us. After that, if he asks, we’ll just have to tell him that us reporters have our ways, or something like that. That’s usually enough.”

“Okay. Who should call?” Jonas asked.

“You, I think,” Reno replied. “It’s your story, really. I’ll do my part. I’ll work the phone and try to get a number. Then you’re up.”

“Okay. But I don’t want to call until after lunchtime. Somehow that’ll feel less like I’m bothering him. I’m going downstairs to pick up something for breakfast. Want anything?”

“Just get me whatever you’re having,” she said before sitting up and reaching for the phone.

~~~

When Jonas returned with newspapers and muffins Reno updated him on what she’d learned. “He’s a vice-president,” she said. “In security. Imagine that? I guess all that police experience in Dallas paid off. All three months of it. Here’s his number,” she said, passing him a scrap of paper.

Jonas took the paper and dialed the number with no idea what to expect. “Mr. Pomeroy?” he asked after somebody answered. “This is Joe Jonas of The Charlotte Sentinel. I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of your time.”

“For what?” Pomeroy asked. “I’m very busy.”

“Mark McBride gave us your name,” Jonas said. “He told us his father worked with you in Dallas and you might know something about some of his duties there.”

“That goddamn kid!” Pomeroy exploded. “Whatever his kid told you, don’t believe it. I wish he’d leave me out of his publicity stunts.”

Jonas was relieved at Pomeroy’s outburst. Now they knew they had found the right man. “We’re over at the Hilton, just around the corner,” he said. “Could we come by and talk for a few minutes?”

“No,” Pomeroy said. “Don’t ever call me again.” Before Jonas could respond he heard a click.

“He’s gone,” Jonas said out loud.

“He’s going to live to regret that,” Reno warned. “The worst thing you can do if I’m tracking you is hang up on me.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We know where he lives. I say we wait for him to get home and go pound on his door. I’m not backing off until he minds his manners,” she said. He noticed that her Texas accent intensified when she was angry.

“I don’t know. What’s the point? It doesn’t sound like he wants to talk.”

She flopped backwards onto the bed without answering. Jonas stared out the window at the city. He knew from a travel magazine he read on the plane that Pittsburgh’s compact downtown was called ‘the Golden Triangle’ and he could see why. It occupied a wedge of land framed by the Monongahela and the Allegheny. The rivers merged at the tip of the wedge, known as The Point, where they formed the third of Pittsburgh’s famed three rivers, the Ohio. He was studying the football stadium across the Ohio when the ring of the phone startled him. He reached over and picked it up before the second ring. “Jonas,” he said out of habit.

“Mr. Jonas?” the voice asked. Jonas knew instantly that it was Pomeroy.

“Yes. Mr. Pomeroy?”

“I wanted to make sure you were who you said you were. That’s why I walked across the street and called you back,” Pomeroy explained. “I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Chances? Chances with what?” He mouthed “Pomeroy,” at Reno, who had sat up on the bed.

“Don’t ever call me at the office again,” Pomeroy said. “That’s the worst place you could call me.”

“Alright,” Jonas said, growing more confused. “Can we come by your house tonight?”

“That’s the second-worst place. I’ll meet with you one time and I’ll tell you where. Make sure nobody follows you. I mean it. Look around carefully whenever you can. Once you get there, watch for a few minutes to make sure there’s nobody tailing you.”

“Who would follow us?” Jonas asked. He was excited, confused and worried all at the same time.

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“I’m working with a reporter from Texas.”

“What’s her name?”

“Abby Reno, from The Austin Statesman.”

“I guess that’s okay,” Pomeroy said. “Grab a pencil. Here’s where we’re getting together. It’ll be the first and last time we ever meet.”

Chapter 7

At three o’clock Jonas and Reno left the hotel through the front door. They walked seven blocks along Third Avenue, entered the Steel City Trolley station and boarded the trolley car marked ‘Strawberry Square’ just as the doors groaned shut. The trolley crawled out of the station and picked up speed before disappearing beneath the streets. When it emerged from underground they were on the other side of the Monongahela River. Passengers came and went during the ride but there were never many others sitting in the car with them. The ride continued through several more stations, staying underground when in downtown and riding along the surface in less dense areas. When the trolley stopped forty minutes later they recognized the station as the one where they had originally boarded. They’d ridden the entire circuit. “Are we sure we got our instructions right?” Reno whispered.

They knew they had when Pomeroy walked onto the trolley, looked around carefully and then took a seat behind them. “This is the last time we do this,” he said.

“Hi Mr. Pomeroy,” Reno said. “I’m Abby Reno from The Austin Statesman.”

“We have to keep this short,” Pomeroy answered. “I’ll do most of the talking. Don’t turn around. And you’re not to use my name or refer to me in any way. I don’t exist.”

“We understand,” Reno answered solemnly.

“I’m talking with you this one time, and only because I know you won’t go away if I don’t. But this is it. You will leave me alone after this,” Pomeroy directed.

“Why so secretive?” Jonas asked. “You don’t believe a word that Mark McBride says anyway.”

“I don’t,” he said. “We’ll get to that. He’s a con-artist and you two are his latest marks. But just because he’s a liar doesn’t mean that nobody pays attention to him. The truth is that you’re not going to break any stories based on anything Charlie’s kid told you. All you’ll do is call a lot of attention to where it isn’t wanted.”

The trolley pulled into another station and a small group of passengers bustled past. Jonas lost his focus as he watched them descend on two rows of seats in the back of the trolley. When he looked back Pomeroy had a look on his face that said ‘Get on with it.’

“McBride said his dad fired shots at the president,” Jonas said in a near whisper. “Are you telling us that it isn’t true?”

“And supposedly it came out of Charlie’s diary, right?” Pomeroy asked. His voice had a haggard, scratchy quality, making him seem older than he was supposed to be. “The CIA was behind it, if I remember what he was claiming last time.”

He paused. Jonas could see his reflection in the window as he looked carefully at the group that had moved to the back a moment earlier. “You never know who might be here with us,” he said. “Yeah, he tried spinning that one a few years ago but nobody bought it. He must have jazzed it up this time, right? Well, I can’t imagine Charlie wrote anything like that. And I know for sure he had nothing to do with any shooting.”

“Is it true that you and Charles McBride were Dallas policemen, at least?” Reno asked.

“Yes, that much is true,” Pomeroy said. “We joined up the same week in September 1963.”

A man in an old-fashioned conductor costume appeared through a doorway in the front of the trolley car and walked down the aisle nodding at passengers. As soon as he was gone Pomeroy resumed speaking. “You really need to understand that there’s no story here. Don’t let his son talk you into this.”

“Then why are we meeting in an underground trolley?” Reno asked.

Pomeroy sagged in his seat. “I only want to live my life out in peace. I’m just tired of this after all these years. I really need this job. I have a wife who depends on me.”

Jonas waited until he could see that Pomeroy had looked up again before asking another question. “Did you and Charles McBride know each other before you were policemen?”

“No, we met on the job.”

“How long had he been on the force when you were hired?” Reno asked.

“About two days. We were hired the same week. It was odd. Neither of us had any law enforcement experience.”

“Did you wonder would they hire two inexperienced guys?” Jonas asked. “Especially at the same time?”

“Of course I did. And there were a lot more than the two of us,” Pomeroy said. “The pay was triple what I was making so I took the job without asking any questions.”

“What were you doing for a living?” Jonas asked.

“I was selling men’s clothing in a department store downtown.”

“Nice qualifications,” Reno noted sarcastically.

“My qualifications were about the same as the rest of the guys I was in with,” Pomeroy said. “We had a unit full of guys with no experience.”

“Didn’t you think that was weird?” Reno asked.

“What were we going to do, turn it down? It was good money, and who wouldn’t want to be a policeman?”

“What kind of things did the unit do?” Jonas asked.

“Training, mostly. Handling firearms, stuff like that. It was pretty exciting for a guy like me. We were isolated from the rest of the force but I figured it was because we were still in training. Never did work with anybody else. But we weren’t complaining.”

“Were you on duty when JFK was shot?” Reno asked.

“No. I was in the building when Lee Harvey Oswald was killed though. I’m sure you already know that. It was on Sunday morning. Some captain called me the night before and told me to be there. They were moving Oswald from the city jail to the county jail. I was part of the group that was guarding an entrance to the underground garage. That’s where he was shot, down in the garage. And that’s about all I know. The rest comes from that kid’s imagination. So I think we’re done now.”

“The transfer of Oswald didn’t work out too well, did it?” Reno asked.

“We were told not to let anybody down that ramp into the basement,” Pomeroy said. “So that’s what we did.”

“Including Jack Ruby?” asked Reno.

“Including everybody,” Pomeroy answered.

“Ruby walked down the Main Street ramp from the street level, according to the Warren Commission Report,” Reno said. “Was that the entrance you were at?” Jonas turned to her with raised eyebrows.

“That’s all speculation,” Pomeroy snapped in a voice had that became suddenly loud and hoarse. “I don’t even remember. Are you one of those people that believes anything they read? Nobody could know for sure how he got down there. Maybe he was pretending to be a reporter. They were all over the place. But anyway, I’ve told you all I know. I left the force a few weeks later.” His back slapped against the seat as he exhaled heavily.

“Why did you quit?” Jonas asked.

“I didn’t quit. A week or so after Kennedy and Oswald got shot we were told that we were going to be let go. The entire unit was disbanded. They didn’t say why. The next day I was out of work, but not for long. The very same day a man from the Eastern Steel Company came by my apartment. He said they needed people with police experience for security. He offered me a job on the spot.”

“Didn’t you think that was odd?” Reno asked.

“You keep asking that. Again, I was a young guy with a wife and no job. I followed the money. The only catch was that I had to move to Pittsburgh. They needed me right away. And that’s the end of the story.”

“That explains why you moved up here,” Jonas observed. “How long did that job last?”

“I still have that job. Eastern Steel became ERC about ten years ago. I’ve been with them since December 1963.”

“How about McBride?” Jonas asked. “Did he get hired too?”

“I lost touch with him. The next time I thought about him was in January or February when I heard he died. His house burned down.”

“Kind of weird how ERC was suddenly interested in you,” Reno said. “You only had a few weeks of experience.”

“No weirder than the police hiring me out of the men’s department,” he answered while looking from side to side.

“My point exactly,” Reno said.

“I got two lucky breaks that year,” Pomeroy said. “I never questioned it. Those kinds of things always even out.”

“You never even thought about it?” Reno asked.

“Charlie and I talked about it. We found one thing we had in common. We both sent in lots of letters to a newsletter called LIFELINE. I was a real right-wing tough guy back then. Turns out that Charlie sent a lot of letters in too. Maybe they were looking for guys with certain tastes in reading,” he said with a shrug.

When the trolley pulled into the next station Pomeroy stood up. “I’m out of time,” he said before walking up the aisle and out the door. They watched out the window as he hurried to the end of the platform and disappeared up a flight of stairs without looking back.

“I didn’t know you were such an expert on the assassination. It really shook him up that you knew so much. I think he knows something,” Jonas said.

“We’ll never see him again,” Reno answered. “He certainly made that clear didn’t he?”

~~~

After the Pomeroy interview both Jonas and Reno flew back to their respective homes. Jonas rushed into Burkhardt’s office to tell him everything that Pomeroy had said. “Clear as mud,” Burkhardt said. “Try writing something up. You’ll probably come up with ten different directions you need to go in. Don’t worry about getting it done soon. This may be bigger than we realized. Or not. But let’s get it right.”

Jonas was disappointed because he wanted to publish something the next day but he did as he was told. He forced himself to focus on routine work, not all of which had been taken on by colleagues as it turned out. Before long the JFK story was a pile of paper on the corner of his desk to be looked at whenever there was time.

~~~

“Hi Abby,” Jonas said when she reached him at his desk a few weeks later. “How’s it going out there?”

“It’s going,” she said. “Hey, are you doing anything with the JFK story?”

“It’s on the back-burner. I look through my notes once in a while but that’s about it.”

“I did a little fact-checking,” she told him. “Remember how Pomeroy said he was guarding the basement entrance? It had to be on the Main Street side. The only other entrance was blocked with vehicles. That’s where Jack Ruby sneaked in. He said so himself to the Warren Commission.”

“He sure seemed pissed that you knew so much about it.”

“And remember what Pomeroy said about joining the police? He joked around that maybe they were recruiting from a newsletter called LIFELINE?”

“Vaguely,” he confessed.

“Well, that’s what he said. I remember it. I checked out this LIFELINE thing. Nobody’s sure if it was a newsletter or a radio show or both. But it’s pretty interesting. The owners of LIFELINE hated Kennedy. An oil gazillionaire named Hank Harlan and his sons ran it. Well it just so happens that Harlan and his cronies put a huge ad in the Dallas papers on the very day of the assassination. It’s known as the ‘Welcome to Dallas’ ad to all the conspiracy kooks. It listed a bunch of issues they had with him. Real nasty. I can’t imagine anybody doing something like it today. They called him a Communist, un-American, everything in the book. It says he abandoned ‘The Monroe Doctrine’ and adopted ‘The Spirit of Moscow.’”

“Hank Harlan?” Jonas asked. “Never heard of him.”

“You know ‘Dallas’, the TV show, right?” she asked. “They say the main character was based on Harlan.”

“Does this tie in to anything else we have?”

“Sure it does. If guys who were involved with a known-Kennedy hater are being signed up as policemen? Right there in the city where Kennedy ends up getting shot? And then two days later Oswald is murdered in the basement of the police station?”

“Okay,” Jonas said. “So why did they hate Kennedy enough to kill him? Was it just a right versus left kind of thing?”

“I’m sure that played into it,” Reno said. “But get this. Harlan made his millions in oil, right? Well just a few months before he was killed, let’s say early 1963, Kennedy had just started coming after the oil companies. He took away some tax breaks and said he wasn’t done yet. One article I found said the oil industry might lose like three hundred million dollars a year if Kennedy got his way. Some kind of tax thing.”

“Interesting, I guess. But you’re all over the place with this.”

“Yeah. I’m still brainstorming,” she admitted. “Just think about it. And give me a call sometime, okay?”

~~~

The next morning Michelle Griffin grabbed Jonas’s arm as he was on his way to Burkhardt’s office to tell him about LIFELINE. “He’s not there,” she told him. “He’s in Trappe’s office. They’re screaming at each other. It started yesterday afternoon.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nobody knows. But it sounds big.”

“By the way, has anybody been poking around my desk?” Jonas asked. “All my stuff is moved around, even in my drawers.”

“Somebody was in your drawers?” Michelle asked. “That’s bad. God help us if your stapler is in the wrong spot.”

Jonas found out what the yelling was about later that day when he was summoned to Burkhardt’s office. “I’m leaving,” Burkhardt said as soon as Jonas had sat down. “I got an offer at a paper back home in Sacramento,” he explained. “I’ve been kicking around the idea of moving back for a while now. The timing is perfect.”

Kind of like the timing for Pomeroy when he became a policeman, and again when he joined ERC, Jonas thought. “Sounds like it,” he said. “How long before you leave?”

“Today’s my last day,” Burkhardt said. “That’s the thing. They offered me the job but they need me right away. Trappe’s been screaming at me for two hours but I’m not passing this up.”

They talked for a few minutes more. When people began poking their heads into the office Jonas got up, shook Burkhardt’s hand, and walked back to his own desk. It was only after he sat down that he regretted not asking about the fate of the Kennedy story. Without a sponsor at the editor level there was no guarantee that he would have the chance to finish the story. By the time he went back to ask about it Burkhardt was gone.

Chapter 8

The bespectacled man in the plaid shirt looked up from the workbench in his basement when he heard the footsteps. “Max,” he said calmly when he saw who it was. “Come on in. What brings you up this way? Not business, I hope. How long has it been?”

Max, a stout man dressed in an oxford shirt and khakis, stood on the stairs in silence while his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting before carefully walking down the remaining steps.

“It’s been a long time, Eddie,” Max said.

“Not long enough,” Eddie answered with a smirk. “You look good,” he said after they embraced.

“I’m not alone. Remember Bremer? He dropped in this morning. He wanted to call but I told him we ought to just take a ride over and do this in person.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Something’s come up. I’ll let Bremer tell you all about it. He had to go back for something in the car.”

“I was hoping we were done with this. I’m tired.”

“We’re down here in the basement!” Max yelled up the stairs when he heard the front door close. Footsteps approached the basement door. “Down here!”

“Can we talk here?” Bremer asked after coming down.

“Yeah, it’s clear,” Eddie said. Whenever he and Max referred to each other by their aliases it meant there was trouble, so he braced himself. Bremer’s presence meant it was serious. “What’s up?” he asked, putting his sandpaper aside.

“It’s Pomeroy,” Bremer said. “A couple reporters got to him. New ones. I just got a report on it this morning. This is top priority for us now. Pomeroy doesn’t take a crap anymore without us close enough to get a whiff of it. That’s straight from the top. And he’s out of chances.”

“Damn it,” Eddie said softly. “I thought he was smarter than that. Who are the reporters? What do they know?”

“A couple of kids,” Bremer said. “We’ve never heard of either one of them. One’s from North Carolina. Marino’s got somebody taking a closer look. I don’t know where the girl’s from yet.”

“There aren’t supposed to be any surprises anymore,” Eddie said.

“Somebody goofed,” Bremer answered.

“And we get to clean it up,” Eddie said. “I tell you, I’m getting too old for this. What did Pomeroy tell them?” he asked.

“We don’t know,” Bremer said. “We couldn’t get anybody close enough to hear. We’re lucky we know about it at all.”

“The guy doesn’t even know anything,” Eddie said. “Maybe we should just leave him alone.”

“He spent over an hour with these reporters,” Bremer said. “He’s never flapped his gums like this before. Not like this. It was a pre-arranged meeting.”

“He knows nothing,” Eddie repeated.

“You have no idea what he knows, and I don’t either,” Bremer said. “He knows something happened. And he’s a link. We can’t have anybody poking around. There’s still a trail. We can’t let anybody follow it.”

“I always thought we only signed on to do this for twenty years,” Eddie said. “I’m about ready to get out of this business.”

“It’s been nineteen,” Max reminded him. “And you don’t really mean that. This is a lifetime obligation. If you don’t look at it that way you’ll be sorry. We all will.”

“We were practically kids back then, Max,” Eddie said. “Did you ever think this was going to be your whole career?”

“No, but the pay is good,” Max answered. “Your kids went to college. So did mine. I can’t complain.”

“I never would have guessed that I’d spend my life doing something that I’m not allowed to talk about,” Eddie said. He picked up the sandpaper and examined a corner of the cabinet door he was refinishing.

“Are you guys done?” Bremer asked. “Can we get back to business?”

“Sure, Jerry,” Max said. “What do we have to do?”

“We need to slow these reporters down,” Bremer said. “But that’s not your end of it. Marino already started on the North Carolina kid. Let’s just say he called in a favor. The kid’s boss just got a plumb job offer and he’s already left for California. If we’re lucky that’ll kill the story.”

“That’s clean,” Eddie said.

“Pomeroy is your end of it,” Bremer said. “We’re definitely doing something about Pomeroy. If he hasn’t learned his lesson about talking too much by now, he never will. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep him quiet. That’s why you two are going downtown for a little while.”

“Just leave him alone,” Eddie said. “He’s just a harmless old man now.”

“You said that already,” Bremer replied curtly.

“Careful, Eddie,” Max said. “Before you know it they’ll be saying that about us.”

Chapter 9

The next week brought a deluge of mundane reporting work for Jonas. Without Burkhardt around to handpick his assignments he was forced to go back to work on stories for the Metro section. The only story that interested him, the JFK story, was slipping away. Not ready to let that happen, he picked up the stack of notes one slow morning late in the week and holed up in an empty conference room where he reviewed everything they had learned.

The discrepancies between what Pomeroy had said and what McBride had told them weren’t troubling at all. It was easy to agree with Pomeroy that McBride was a buffoon who knew very little about what had really happened. Jonas wondered if McBride had followed through on his threat to release his story to other reporters if he and Reno didn’t take him seriously. He hadn’t heard anything but he was a thousand miles away. The best way to find out was to call Reno.

“Abby, this is Joe,” he said when she picked up the phone.

“I’m so pissed,” Reno answered without saying hello. “I spent a few days organizing my notes and writing a few pages about that ‘Welcome to Dallas’ ad I told you about. But somebody broke into my apartment yesterday and took my computer. Everything I wrote was on there, and I can’t find my notes either.”

“You got robbed?”

“They wrecked the place. Must have been a couple geeks if all they wanted was the computer.”

“I still have my notes but they’re not as good as yours.”

“I still have copies of everything here in the office, at least. Except for the article I was writing. I guess that one’s not getting published.”

“I never work at home,” Jonas declared. “I don’t have a computer there, or notes. Nothing.”

“Me neither, now. Oh, by the way, remember when we were talking to McBride? The son, not the dad.”

“Not the dead guy?”

“Right,” she snickered. “Remember at the last minute he mentioned that his dad was sent to pick up some money up in Indiana?”

“I remember. What about it?”

“Do you remember the name of the town? I swear he said Veedersburg.”

“Could have been,” Jonas said.

“I’m sure he said Veedersburg,” she said. “I’ve been reading up on ERC. I can’t just accept how they showed up right when he got fired and offered him a job on the spot. I don’t believe in coincidence. Not like this one, anyway. There has to be something there that we don’t know about. So I’ve been learning as much as I can about them. It turns out that they have some kind of steel mill in Veedersburg. Is that bizarre? Is it a coincidence?”

“You just said you don’t believe in coincidence.” Jonas thought about it for a moment while Reno waited silently. “Very good, Abby,” he finally said. “Very good. Hard to believe it’s a coincidence. Let’s see. A Dallas police officer drove all the way to Indiana. And it happens that ERC, the company that mysteriously hired Pomeroy just a few days later, has a mill there. You’re right. There’s got to be something we’re not seeing.”

“I wish I’d noticed it sooner. We could have asked Pomeroy when we had him cornered. There’s an ERC connection here but what is it?”

“I could call him,” Jonas offered. “It’d be pretty interesting to hear what he said about it. Even if he dodged the question it would tell us something.”

“He’s not telling us everything he knows.”

“I’ll give him a call. It can’t hurt anything. He just didn’t want us calling him at work. I’ll call him at home.”

“I don’t think he wanted that either. The arrangement was clear. We never call, write or visit. He’s done with us.”

“I’ll promise him it’ll be the last time. I’ll call you at home tonight if he has anything interesting to say.”

~~~

He didn’t get around to calling Pomeroy until the following weekend and when he did, Pomeroy wasn’t happy. “I thought we had a deal,” he said.

“There’s one little thing I was hoping you could help me out with,” Jonas said. “It’ll only take a minute. McBride told us his father drove to Veedersburg, Indiana on his last day on the force. Abby found out that ERC has offices there. Isn’t that an odd coincidence? You know, given that they hired you on the spot as soon as you lost your job?”

“I don’t know anything about Charlie driving to Veedersburg,” Pomeroy said. “This is the first time I’ve ever heard of that.” Jonas heard a woman’s voice in the background, and then Pomeroy’s muffled voice as he answered her. “We’re late for church. We never miss the Saturday night mass. Yeah, we have a finishing mill there. I was out there a few years ago helping them with some security protocols.”

“What do you think Charlie McBride was doing up there?”

“I don’t know anything about it. I have to get going.”

~~~

One by one the twenty-one members of the Metro Department straggled into the break room for the emergency staff meeting called by Steve Trappe. The steady murmur of conversation stopped immediately when Trappe rushed into the room. He moved to the front and dropped a stack of files on the counter next to the sink before facing the group. “First of all, I’d like to thank everybody for coming on such short notice. I know everybody is busy. I’ll keep it short.”

He removed his jacket and slung it over the microwave oven, knocking over a carton of plastic spoons. “You’ve all probably heard that Ben Burkhardt left last week. That’s why we’re here. We’re already looking for a replacement but that’ll take some time. Since all of you reported directly to Ben we need to work around this for a while.”

He picked up a stack of papers and passed them around. “What we’ve decided to do is divide you up between other editors. You’ve all been assigned to one of five groups, each reporting to a designated editor. We’re calling them ‘surrogate editors.’ It’s sloppy but it can work. At the end of the day I’ll oversee a review of what’s going out in the Metro section so if there are any lapses we’ll catch them then.”

He gave everybody a chance to read what he had handed out before he continued. “This is going to be difficult for all of you,” he said. “We understand that. Let’s just get through it. These surrogate editors, and I’m one of them, aren’t going to have much time to listen to your problems. We’re probably not going to win any Pulitzers this month. You’ll have to do as much as you can on your own. Make routine decisions yourself. Try to solve problems before coming to us. If it isn’t urgent, put it on hold.”

He picked up his jacket after glancing at his watch. “That’s all I have for now. Try to schedule some time with your surrogate in the next couple of days.” He scooped up the stack of files and ran out the door as fast as he’d come in. The meeting had lasted no more than three minutes.

Jonas wasn’t sure how he felt when he saw that he was in the group reporting to Trappe himself. Trappe intimidated him. On the other hand, Trappe was always so busy that Jonas was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be watching very closely. Maybe he could squeeze out some time for the Kennedy story after all.

~~~

On Monday morning R.J. Pomeroy kissed his sleeping wife goodbye and left for work long before the sun came up. He’d been doing it that way since coming to Pittsburgh almost twenty years before. It surprised him that west bound Crafton Boulevard was blocked by construction barriers. Normally the roads department was pretty good about warning drivers about detours. He dutifully turned left, following the directions of the disinterested worker with the orange flag and cone-tipped flashlight.

As he drove deeper into the belt of suburbia along the still-empty road he plotted a new course to get downtown. He didn’t notice the tow truck until it pulled beside him and crashed into the side of his Oldsmobile. Pomeroy reflexively tried to hold his ground as he tried to understand what was happening. He steered into his attackers as hard as he could but the force of the truck was too strong. Before long he was driving on the shoulder. When he slammed on his brakes the truck slowed right along with him. Fear on his face, Pomeroy looked over helplessly into the cab of the truck. He knew what this was about.

When his eyes turned back to the road he realized with terror that he was headed straight for a concrete barrier. The car was moving too fast to stop in time and he knew it. He couldn’t veer back onto the road because the tow truck was there. Unless he wanted to drive head-on into the barrier there was only one other option. The Oldsmobile tumbled into Moon Run Ravine, flipping over several times before coming to rest at the bottom.

The truck pulled to the side of the road and sped back in reverse to the place where Pomeroy went over the bank. The two men inside, both wearing ski masks, looked at each other as they waited for the sound of an explosion. When it didn’t come one climbed out of the truck and disappeared over the side. Two minutes later greasy black smoke billowed up the embankment. After the man had scrambled back up and into the truck it pulled back onto Crafton Boulevard and vanished into the suburbs. A mile up the road in both directions men threw flashlights and traffic cones into the trunks of their cars and melted away onto the sidestreets.

Chapter 10

Halfway through the week, just when Jonas was worried that the story was stalling again, he heard from his partner in Texas. “Joe, this is Abby. Did you wrap up that assassination story yet?” she asked.

“Not even close,” Jonas laughed. “My editor walked out just a couple days ago so I guess the story’s on hold. How about you?”

“Same here, pretty much. He’s gone? Permanently?”

“Yeah. I hope I still get to work on it. My temporary boss doesn’t know shit about it.”

“Listen, I did some more research on ERC,” she said. “There was all kinds of nastiness going on between them and Kennedy. And I’m talking like right before he was killed. It was bad.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“It’s all on the public record,” she said. “I’ve got stacks of stuff I want to show you. Kennedy and the head of ERC really fought it out over steel prices, all on the front page. You’ll love it. It was really bitter.”

“I’d like to see it. Maybe you’re onto something.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I showed it to my boss and she said to keep going with it. I told her the first thing I needed to do was get up there to talk to you and she was okay with it. So when am I invited?”

“You’re coming here? I better make sure I have clearance to work on it.”

“Have you talked with anybody about it yet?”

“I tried, but my new boss is swamped with his own stuff. I can’t even get in to see him.”

“That’s his problem if he’s too busy. Why would you stop if nobody came and told you to stop? I think you’re fine.”

“That’s pretty good. I hope I can remember that when I’m getting reamed out.”

“Can I come on Monday then? I need a few days to clear the decks here.”

“Okay,” he said. “We can work out the details later. Just call me back.”

~~~

She didn’t call back until late Friday afternoon. Jonas, who’d been leaving urgent messages for her all day, was relieved to finally hear from her. “Abby, Pomeroy is dead,” he said. “I just confirmed it.”

“What? What happened?”

“He crashed his car. They said he drove off the side of the road and down a cliff. But his wife has no idea why he was there in the first place. He should have been on his way to work.”

“Oh my God. I can’t believe it!”

“It happened the morning after I called him back, Abby. Remember how worried he was about being watched? That’s why he made us promise never to call him again. You warned me not to do it. I feel like it’s my fault he’s dead.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“That’s even creepier. Somebody sent me an envelope with the obituary clipping yesterday. It was sent by inter-office mail. That means it came from an employee here at The Sentinel. Or at least somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it look that way.”

“There’s no way to trace it back and find out who sent it?”

“I already tried. If only I hadn’t called,” he lamented, “he’d still be alive.”

“You don’t know that it had anything to do with us,” she said. “Car accidents happen all the time.”

“The police say there were skid marks that made it look like another car was involved. Plus, somebody sent me the obituary. There’s no way to explain that.”

“Let’s talk about it when I get there. Don’t get down on yourself, Joe. Let’s say it did happen because you called. That doesn’t change anything. Somebody else did it, not you. That’s who should be feeling guilty about it.”

“I’m not so sure we should keep working on this, Abby.”

“If somebody really did get killed over it,” she argued, “That’s all the more reason why we should keep working on this story. It means we’re onto something here.”

“Yeah, maybe, but it could also mean that we’ll end up like Pomeroy,” he countered. “Would you feel the same way if they sent the obit to you? If they can send me inter-office mail that means they can get to me anyplace, anytime. Same for you.”

“Don’t get carried away here. You’re reading too much into this. We’ll talk it through on Monday. Can you last that long without me?”

“Yeah, I’ll try to survive that long,” he said. She recited her flight information and he promised to be there to pick her up.

~~~

Jonas was at the Charlotte airport an hour before Reno was scheduled to land. By the time her plane pulled into the gate he had read his copy of The Sentinel from cover to cover and was already re-reading the sports page. She looked upset when she finally emerged. Clutching a small overnight bag and a bulky white canvas sack, she walked quickly towards Jonas as soon as she spotted him. “Come on,” she said, hooking his arm without breaking stride.

“What’s going on?” Jonas demanded.

“I think somebody’s following me. Let’s go in here,” she said as she dragged him into a gift shop. “Watch,” she said after pulling him behind a rack of paperbacks. “Tall guy, reddish hair, sideburns and glasses, white button-down.” As soon as she’d said it he appeared. He jogged past the shop before stopping and looking around. Reno bent down out of view so Jonas did the same. When they looked back out a minute later he was gone.

“I was freaking out back there on the plane,” she said as she plopped Indian style onto the floor. “That never happened to me before.”

“Are you sure he was following you?” Jonas asked as he knelt beside her.

“Are you sure somebody killed a guy in Pittsburgh because you called him?” she shot back.

Neither spoke for a minute. After several patrons eyeballed them on the floor Jonas stood up and pretended to browse through books. Reno reached up and he pulled her to her feet. “Sorry for what I said,” she told him. “I’m just freaked.”

“It’s okay. Are you hungry?”

“No, let’s just get out of here.”

“What makes you so sure he was following you?” he asked as they left the shop. “Maybe you were just going to the same place.”

“No way. He followed me all around the airport in Austin. I was testing him. Wherever I went, he went. If I made a wrong turn, he did too. When I went into the ladies room he hung around at the door by the men’s room. He’s an amateur but he was definitely following me.”

“Even so, it could still be a coincidence. Or maybe he thinks you’re hot and wanted to ask you for your phone number.”

“You’re a tiger sometimes,” she said with a coy smile. “But I don’t think so. It happened too many times. I didn’t see him on the flight but he was there again in Atlanta when I had to change planes.”

They walked through a breezeway over a four-lane access road and into a parking garage. “I’m parked one level up,” Jonas said.

“Let’s not talk about the story once we’re in the car.”

“What?” he asked with a quizzical look on his face. “Why?”

“You think somebody killed because of your phone call. I think somebody followed me through three airports. Maybe this story is a lot more serious than we thought. Maybe they bugged your car. Let’s give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.”

“How is this even possible? It all happened so long ago,” Jonas said. “Everybody who was there is practically dead by now.”

“You know what I’m talking about or you wouldn’t have been so upset about Pomeroy.” They walked past a row of cars underneath an Hertz sign. “If we knew what we were doing we’d rent a car. Then we’d know it wasn’t bugged.”

“I’m not convinced yet,” Jonas said. “It doesn’t happen this way in real life. But I’ll go along with it. We’ll just talk about the weather until we get there. Where are you staying?”

“The Marriott.”

“You should have tried the Midlothian. It has more character than those chain hotels.”

“I don’t like surprises,” she told him.

“Or coincidences,” he said as he unlocked the car door for her. “Especially not tonight.” Neither of them said much on the ride out of the airport. Fifteen minutes later they pulled into the front driveway at the Marriott.

“Do you want to come up and see what I found on ERC?” she asked, forgetting the pledge not to talk business in the car.

“Yeah, why not? And we can work on it tomorrow in the office, too. I’ll introduce you around.”

“Go park. I’ll check in.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you near the counter.” After he parked on the street and fed some coins into the meter he caught himself looking around for the red-haired man with the sideburns.

Reno was waiting near the counter when he went inside. Jonas thought she still looked rattled. That was such a different side to her than he’d seen before. Until now she’d been so plucky that he worried she would get them into trouble. Maybe she’s right about what she saw, he speculated. She surprised him by taking his hand as they walked to the elevator in silence. By the time the elevator opened on the eleventh floor she’d let go and was fumbling in her canvas sack for the electronic hotel room key. They wandered through the halls, backtracking a few times until they found the the room.

“I thought Charlotte was smaller,” she said as she looked out the window at the skyline. “It looks like Pittsburgh.”

“Most people are surprised when they see it for the first time.”

“I’m pretty beat,” she said, falling into the stuffed chair by the window. “I changed my mind. Let’s order a few pints of ice cream and get a movie. We can talk shop in the morning.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of late,” he said. “I’ll pass on the ice cream though. I should get home. The room’s probably bugged anyway, right?” he teased.

“Should I call you at work tomorrow? I’m not getting up any earlier than I have to.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s right around the corner from here. You can walk over. Just give me a call.” He stood up from the edge of the bed and backed his way to the door. “And relax, Abby. You’re safe.”

“I know. See you in the morning.”

Chapter 11

Reno didn’t call until mid-morning, which was about what Jonas expected. He gave her directions to The Sentinel Building and arranged for a visitor’s pass to be waiting for her at the front desk. When she arrived with the canvas sack slung over her shoulder he thought she looked much better than she had the night before. “Hi,” she said. “I brought some food from the hotel since it’s just about lunchtime,” she explained as he eyed the brown bags in her left hand.

“I thought we could take over my old boss’s room,” he said as they weaved through the newsroom. He cleared Burkhardt’s leftover office detritus off the two chairs while Reno spread lunch out on the small table near the window. “I hope you like lemonade. And deli sandwiches.” Both were fine, he told her. For him lunch that day was something to get over with so he could see what she had found about ERC. Half an hour later, after they cleared the debris of lunch from the table, she began emptying the contents of the canvas bag and organizing the paper into stacks.

“Sorry about all the paper,” she said. “This was from about ten hours in front of the microfilm readers. I got a little crazy.”

“Doesn’t look too bad,” Jonas said. “We’ll get through it.”

“I’ll try to start at the beginning. But you never know what I might have missed. Don’t take notes, just listen. It’s all in the articles anyway. You can read through it later. I highlighted the important stuff.”

“Okay,” Jonas said. He dropped his pencil on the table and sat back with his hands behind his head. “Ready.”

“Now, remember, you’re going to hear about Eastern Steel over and over here. That’s ERC. In 1974 they changed their name to Eastern Resources Consortium when they decided to branch out. Up until then they just did steel, so they were just Eastern Steel. Nowadays, they do just about everything.”

“I’ll remember.”

“Alright. Now, early in his administration, Kennedy sent a letter to all the steel companies,” she began. “There were eleven of them, I think. He basically said that he thought they were already making plenty of money and he hoped they wouldn’t raise prices. He was worried that if they did, it would cause inflation. For some reason he was sure that the economy would rise or fall based on what happened in certain industries. Steel was one of them. And he promised the steel companies that if they held the line on prices he’d pressure the steelworkers union not to demand huge pay increases the next time their contracts came up, which was going to be pretty soon. Okay so far? That’s in early September 1961.” She passed a page across the table. “Here’s a copy of the letter to the steel company presidents.”

“I’ll read it later. I get the point. You’re good, Abby.”

“Damn right, I am,” she said. “Now, none of the steel companies liked getting lectured by Kennedy. Kent Castle, the president of Eastern Steel, was the maddest about it. He confronted Kennedy by writing him a public letter. It’s summarized in this article here, from TIME Magazine.” She slid another couple of pages over to Jonas.

“He was all over Kennedy. To be honest, I don’t understand any of it. The important thing is that he challenged Kennedy right out in the open by publishing this letter. They’re going face to face here and Castle didn’t mince words. First he picked Kennedy’s argument apart point by point. You know, where Kennedy says that the economy depends on what the steel industry does. I don’t know who was right. Maybe they were both wrong. The point is that they’re having this nasty fight, and it’s all public. Anyway, back to the letter. Castle starts ripping into Kennedy policies. I marked the top of the second page. See it?”

“Yeah,” Jonas said. He read the passage aloud.

The causes of inflation are clearly associated with the fiscal, monetary,

labor and other policies of the government. The president seems to be

assuming the role of informal price setter for steel. But if for steel,

what then for automobiles, or rubber, or machinery, or a thousand

other products?

“So he’s giving it right back to Kennedy? In return for the Economics 101 lecture?”

“That’s how I see it. And after Castle had his say, the presidents of the other steel companies chimed in, backing Castle up.”

“The ERC guy is the ringleader,” Jonas remarked.

“Exactly. It makes sense. They were the biggest steel producer in the world at the time.”

“And this is 1961? Kennedy’s been in office for just a few months. All of a sudden he gets called on the carpet by this Castle guy.”

“It wasn’t over yet,” Reno said. “The next year it turns out that even though they got in Kennedy’s face about it, the steel companies didn’t raise prices. They went along with Kennedy. So Kennedy goes to the unions just like he said he would. He leaned on them hard to cut back on their demands. By the time the negotiations were done, in the spring of 1962, the unions had gone even further than Kennedy had asked. There was no wage increase at all in the first year of the new contract. That’s unheard of. These contracts are almost always front-loaded with goodies, but not this one.”

Jonas skimmed the article in silence as Reno looked on. “Okay, ready,” he finally said when he looked up.

“Now, keep in mind, Kennedy was an old-style Democrat,” she said. “He probably wouldn’t even have been elected without the support of organized labor. But here he was sticking his neck out asking the unions for sacrifices. He was taking a big risk but they went along with it. Castle and Eastern were the first company to sign the new contract after the union ratified it. But that’s when it all broke down.”

“Don’t tell me,” Jonas said. “They raised prices.”

“Check this out,” she said after digging through the pile of documents. “They did, and it wasn’t even a week after contract negotiations were complete and the new contract was in place.” She tossed him a two-page copy of the front page of The New York Times from April 11, 1962. The headline said it all. Jonas read it out loud in a deep, booming voice that made Reno laugh.

EASTERN STEEL RAISES PRICE $6 A TON;

KENNEDY ANGERED, SEES AFFRONT;

TWO INVESTIGATIONS ARE ORDERED

“That was fast. How long before Kennedy struck back?” Jonas asked. “It almost looks like it was the same day.”

“It may have been the same day the increase was announced,” she answered. “I lost track. But it wasn’t just the price increase that pissed Kennedy off. It was also how Castle did it. No warning at all. He came personally to the White House at the last minute on April 10 to tell Kennedy, but only after it was too late to do anything about it. The price increase was going to happen no matter what was said in the Oval Office that day. It was almost like he wanted to dig the knife in personally and watch Kennedy’s face while he twisted it.”

“How do you know all this? Is this firm?” Jonas asked.

“Check this out,” she said after finding the appropriate pile and removing another document. “Here’s another article from TIME. It tells all about when Castle dropped in to see his White House buddy.”

Jonas took the article and began reading aloud.

In a mid-afternoon call to the White House Kent Castle said ‘I would

like to see the President on a very important matter concerning steel.

Could an appointment be arranged later in the day?’

He read silently for another minute before looking up. “Kennedy thought he was there to thank him for keeping the union demands in check and that there would be no price increase. He must have shit a brick when he heard why Castle was really there.”

“Yup,” Reno said. “Keep reading.”

After the barest exchange of amenities, Castle handed Kennedy a

mimeographed statement. As he read it Kennedy’s disbelief turned to

fury. Castle’s statement was an announcement that Eastern Steel was

increasing its prices by six dollars a ton. “You double-crossed me!”

Kennedy told Castle after reading the statement.

Wow,” Jonas said, shaking his head and grinning. “He must have been pissed. This is all starting to seem so real. Pomeroy getting picked up by ERC isn’t looking like some random chance thing anymore. Not that I can make any sense of it.”

“It was Eastern Steel at the time, of course. It is scary. You can’t make stuff like this up. Nobody would believe it. Keep reading. He was mad. It talks about what happened after Castle left.”

Kennedy stomped around the office yelling about what had just

happened. Labor Secretary Arthur Goldberg, who was at the

meeting, said he’d never seen him so angry. “They fucked me! They

fucked us and we’ve got to fuck them back!” Kennedy reportedly

railed. To Kennedy, the price-hike was a personal affront.

He looked up. “What does all this mean?”

“I don’t know yet. Read the next paragraph,” Reno told him. “The part about what the unnamed White House aide said.”

‘Eastern Steel picked the wrong President to double-cross,’ an aide

said. ‘Kennedy can be a hater, and right now I don’t think there’s

any doubt that he hates Kent Castle and Eastern Steel.’

“It’s pretty incredible, huh?” Reno asked with a half-smile. “I’m surprised nobody ever noticed this before. Of course, nobody seemed to know about guys like Pomeroy. That’s why we understand more than anybody else why this is important.”

“You did good,” Jonas said. “Kennedy had no choice. He couldn’t just go along with it. Otherwise the steelworkers would have eaten him alive. All the unions would have. Who could blame them? They agree to take a hit on their contract and then Castle raises prices anyway. Kennedy had to fight.”

“He fought, alright,” Reno said. “Here’s the New York Times headline from the next day, April 12,” she said, handing him a single sheet.

PRESIDENT ASSAILS STEEL

FOR ‘IRRESPONSIBLE’ RISE

AND ‘CONTEMPT’ OF NATION

“The letters on that headline are as big as when World War II ended,” Jonas said.

“And read this transcript of his press conference that day,” Reno continued. “The reporters said he looked like he was ready to punch somebody out when he walked in. It said his fists were clenched and his voice was hard. He was waving his arms and jabbing his finger in the air. And that was just for the opening statement.”

“Kind of like what you’re doing right now.” He continued reading aloud, fascinated with every word.

“In this serious hour in our nation’s history,” said Kennedy, “When

we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia,

when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability,

when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and families for

months on end and servicemen to risk their lives – and four were

killed in the last two days in Vietnam – and asking union members to

hold down their wage increases, at a time when restraint and sacrifice

are being asked of every citizen, the American people will find it hard,

as I do, to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel

executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their

sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the

interest of 185 million Americans.”

“These weren’t just words,” Reno said. “He used everything he had to force them to back down.” She pulled out a handwritten list. “The FBI raided Eastern Steel offices in Pittsburgh and took away documents. The Justice Department announced it would investigate price fixing since nearly all the steel companies enacted price hikes at the same time. Advisors wrote papers and did interviews where they countered the steel industry’s arguments. And a bunch of committees in Congress announced all kinds of investigations they were going to start.”

“It says here that the Defense Department took away a contract from Eastern and gave it to another company that didn’t raise prices,” Jonas noted.

“Kennedy was doing everything he could think of. Now we’re up to day three. Kennedy’s winning now. Here’s the headline from Friday the 13th.” Jonas assumed the deep voice again and read aloud.

STEEL RISE INVESTIGATION

BY GRAND JURY ORDERED;

CASTLE DEFENDS PRICING

“It was all over by the end of that day,” Reno said. “The head of Rankin Steel over in Ohio was a friend of the administration. Kennedy talked him into being the first steel company to announce that they wouldn’t enact a price increase. That was it. Once one held out, the others all canceled the price increases, one by one. The last to roll it back was Eastern.”

“What do you think?” Reno asked.

“Pretty compelling. Nice job. Damn good job.”

“Thanks. And don’t forget about the oil guys we already learned about. They were pretty worried about what Kennedy had planned for them, remember? I thought I’d take a look at them next.”

“I think we can already make a case that ERC had a motive,” Jonas said. “One thing bothers me though. If they killed the president, they got away with it. It’s over and done with. Are there really people out there twenty years later trying to stop us from figuring it all out? Who would send a tall red-haired guy with sideburns to follow you around? Are any of these people even still alive? Who would do this?”

“You’re right,” she said. “There are a lot of questions. But I’m sure there are plenty that were young enough that they’re still alive. And I know what I saw. Why else would somebody follow me? And I wonder if they’re the ones who stole my computer?”

“Or sent me Pomeroy’s obituary,” Jonas added. “And I didn’t mention it before but I think somebody’s been snooping around my desk.”

“Are you still onboard with this?” Reno asked. “Because I’m not quitting. I think this is real.”

“Maybe that’s exactly why we should quit. But count me in.”

“So what’s next?” she asked.

“It’s late,” Jonas said. “I think dinner is next. What do you say?”

“Okay,” she agreed. “But then we need to study up some on Kent Castle. I’ve got a few more piles of paper I haven’t shown you yet.”

Chapter 12

Ted Braden was trying hard to look like he cared. Some young sales supervisor whose name he couldn’t recall was projecting graphs and charts onto the screen in the dark conference room faster than anybody could read them, least of all somebody who wasn’t interested. Braden had been a staple on the org chart in the International Sales Division of ERC for decades but most people had an idea that it was just a cover for something else. Braden didn’t care what anybody thought anyway, but he was strictly forbidden to tell anybody what his responsibilities really were.

The light from the hallway snapped Braden out of his daze when the door opened. An intern passed in the dark from person to person along the table, whispering to each one. Finally somebody told him which man was Braden. “Sir, you’re needed downstairs in your office,” he whispered to Braden after circling the table and ducking below the pie chart on the screen. Without a word to the intern Braden scooped up his coffee cup and notepad, both of which were empty, and left the room.

As he walked to the elevator he already knew what it was about because he’d received several highly confidential memorandums from his direct reports. Somebody was being nosy. It was Braden’s job to put a stop to that the way he’d been doing for almost two decades. In one way he was glad for the interruption. As the years went by there were fewer and fewer problems like this. That meant that as part of his cover he had to attend more and more meetings like the one he’d just been called out of.

Having urgent business to tend to was good even though he didn’t want to be as busy as he was in 1964 and 1965. Back then he was putting out fires nearly every day. The Warren Commission investigators were incompetent, and that was probably by somebody’s design, but it still took a significant effort to make sure they didn’t stumble across anything by accident. The challenge was to find the lowest level of interference and intimidation needed to discourage each person from sharing any information they might have. Every one of them was different. Sometimes it took only a few anonymous phone calls but it often took more than that. There were even a handful of witnesses who hadn’t been left alive long enough to cooperate with investigators.

During the elevator ride he thought about the recent traffic accident on Crafton Boulevard. That man was an ERC employee, he thought with a twinge of regret. I probably passed him in the halls once in a while. He had no idea who I was. But we had always been connected, at least since November 1963.

The younger man who was waiting in Braden’s office was impeccably dressed in a blue suit. His dark hair was slicked straight back with gel. Braden had never come to terms with having a man so young involved in the project. Even though he could do the math he wondered how Frank Marino could be old enough to even remember 1963. But Marino was good at his job. Braden knew that whatever order he gave, Marino would see that it was done well and on time.

“What’s going on?” Braden asked as he walked past Marino to the desk and slapped the notepad down. “Were there any complications from the traffic accident?”

“No, sir,” Marino answered as he nudged the door closed with a wing-tipped shoe. “But that’s related to why I’m here. The reporters he was talking to aren’t going away. Right now they’re in Charlotte doing research.”

“Charlotte? Why Charlotte?”

“One of them writes for The Charlotte Sentinel. The woman is from Texas.”

“They know about the traffic accident?”

“Yes, sir. We made sure they saw the obituary. It didn’t slow them down at all.”

Braden considered the situation and found all of his options distasteful. Maybe he was just getting too old for this. “What do you think we need to do?” he asked Marino. “You know everything I know.”

“I don’t think we can give them too many more chances, sir. Reporters can gather information pretty quick. Who knows how far they’ll get, and how fast.”

“What do you recommend?” Braden asked again.

“We can have phone taps and bugs everywhere we need them within an hour or two. I already have technical people in place. They can get it done as soon as you give the order.”

“Okay. Go ahead with it. Come by again tomorrow, in the morning. Sooner if you have anything concrete.”

“Will do, sir.” He stood and opened the door to leave.

“Marino,” Braden called to his visitor before he was gone. “Good work on this.”

“Thank you, sir,” Marino said before fading out the door and into the corporate world of ERC.

Chapter 13

“I was thinking,” Reno said as she wound spaghetti onto her fork. “ERC is still around. I could see them not wanting this story to get out, if it’s true. Maybe they’re even doing something about it. Maybe that’s where this is all coming from.” They had left the Sentinel Building on foot and wandered downtown until settling on a plain Italian restaurant for dinner. ”Maybe there’ve been Joe Jonases popping up over the years here and there.”

“And Abby Renos,” said Jonas. “What do you think happens to them?”

“I don’t want to go there,” she answered. “Let’s put it this way. Have we ever seen any of their stories in print?”

“It’s worth thinking about,” Jonas said. “If you’re right that it’s the story of the century, why hasn’t anybody written it? Maybe they tried to.”

“Can I come back in tomorrow and do some work on Castle? I don’t want to go home yet.”

“Sure. I can help. Ever since my editor left I’ve fallen through the cracks. As long as I look busy I can work on it too.”

“Any way you could find out who sent that obituary to you? I’m dying to know.”

“I tried to trace it. They said that anybody could stuff something in an envelope and drop it in the inter-office mail slot. The trick is getting into the building in the first place.”

“Don’t you wonder who sent it?” she asked. “You haven’t said much about it. Somebody in that building knows that you might be interested that Pomeroy is dead.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” he admitted. “Burkhardt’s the only one that has a clue why we were in Pittsburgh. But I think he was gone before it was sent.”

“Do you think it was a warning from somebody?”

“Maybe it was. Or maybe it was a threat. What’s the difference?”

“Didn’t he quit without giving any notice?” Reno asked. “Maybe somebody was threatening him, too. Or maybe he was forced out for assigning the story to you. Maybe you’re next.”

“That’s a lot of maybes. He wasn’t forced out, anyway. Somebody offered him a dream job back home in Sacramento.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. That just doesn’t ring true to me,” she said. “It was so urgent that they didn’t have the decency to give him a couple weeks to wrap up his work here? And what, he’s afraid there are so many editors lining up to move to Sacramento that he had to grab it right away? Does that sound reasonable to you?”

“I don’t know about Sacramento but I know Mr. Burkhardt,” Jonas said, sounding irritated. “He wanted this bad and it came up. That makes as much sense as whatever you’re talking about. Don’t make such a big deal of it, okay?”

“Right, okay. Your boss quits overnight and moves three thousand miles away to some no-name newspaper, but not before anonymously sending you a copy of the obituary of the last guy you interviewed. But I shouldn’t make a big deal of it. Okay, gotcha.”

“We don’t know it was him.”

“Yeah we do,” she snapped. “You said it yourself. Who else even knew?”

Jonas jammed a slab of Tuscan T-bone steak in his mouth and looked away while he chewed. Reno lifted her water glass but froze when the glass was at her lips. “Holy shit!” she whispered.

“What? What happened?”

“It was him! My secret admirer! He just walked past the door to the kitchen, like he came out of the bar! The guy I showed you in the airport!”

“The guy with the sideburns?”

“Yeah. He looked like he was heading outside!”

Jonas stood up. “I’m going out there to get a better look. I’ll know if it’s the same guy.”

“No! Do you think that’s smart?”

He flopped back into his seat. “I don’t know. What if I just asked him why he was following us around? What would it hurt?”

“It might hurt you,” she said. “And if he’s leaving, it probably means there’s somebody else watching now, somebody we’ve never noticed. He’s probably part of a team. Just keep your cool.”

A hunk of steak hovered over his plate on the end of his fork. “You know, sometimes I think you’re onto something,” he said with his mouth full. “But mostly I think you’ve got a wild imagination. We’re not in some detective movie. This is real life.”

“Joe, do you have a phone number for your old boss? In Sacramento?”

“No. There wasn’t time. All of a sudden he was just gone.”

“I hope he made it out there.”

After dinner they walked back and retrieved Jonas’s car at the Sentinel Building. On the way back to the hotel they took an indirect route across the city, stopping and turning around unpredictably hoping to expose anybody who might be trailing them. After a half hour they realized that nobody was, and gave up.

~~~

The next morning found them in the Sentinel Resource room. The day’s mission was to find out everything they could about Kent Castle. Reno started with the periodical directories while Jonas paged through a biographical dictionary. “Hey Abby,” he called across the room. “Castle left Eastern in January 1964. It doesn’t say why. Kind of sudden, don’t you think? Just a few months after Kennedy got shot. Is it just another coincidence?”

“I’ll look for some articles about that. There must have been some kind of press release at the time.”

“He lived until 1978,” Jonas reported a few minutes later. “That’s not that long ago. I wonder what he was doing those last few years.”

“I got a few obituary articles here. No surprises. He died of heart failure in Pittsburgh. He’d lived there for twenty years.”

They both continued looking through microfilm, periodical guides and every other source that was available in the Sentinel resource room. After a few hours they each had a few pages of notes but neither looked very happy with what they found. “Maybe we were wrong about Castle,” Reno said. “He’s turning out to be the world’s most boring man.”

“This might be useful,” Jonas said. He held out a copy of an article from The Pittsburgh Post- Gazette entitled ‘West Virginia Historian to Write Castle Biography.’ She probably knows more than anybody by now,” he said. “This article is four years old.”

The article was relatively short, only about five paragraphs. It explained that Elizabeth Van Scoy, Professor of History at West Virginia University, had taken possession of the personal papers of Kent Castle after having been chosen to write his biography by Castle’s son. It turned out that Castle was a West Virginia native and a graduate of West Virginia University. Van Scoy, considered to be an expert on the steel industry, was quoted as saying that the project would involve eight to ten years of research. It would be at least five years before anything was published, she also said. “There might be something written by now,” he said. “How long could it take to research one guy?”

“We ought to get in touch with her.”

“Yeah. Good idea.”

“You know, it’s discouraging in a way to know somebody else studied this guy,” Reno said. “She’s got all his papers and didn’t find anything interesting? I hope we’re not on a wild goose chase.”

~~~

Later that afternoon Reno called her boss in Austin to update her on the story. She expected to be called home so she was beaming when she reported to Jonas that she’d been given a few more days, and permission to interview Professor Van Scoy. “I got some travel money,” she said. “I was thinking about going up there. You know, West Virginia University is pretty close to Pittsburgh.”

“Yeah? Does that matter?”

“I’m not sure. Should I go up?”

“You could just call.”

“I’d rather call,” she admitted. “I still have the jitters from the last time I was in an airport.”

“But a face to face interview is always better. What if I came with you?”

“Can you?”

“I don’t know if I can get travel money like you did,” he told her. “I don’t have anybody to ask right now. I couldn’t fly but maybe we could drive.”

“How far is it?” she asked, and then found an atlas to help answer her own question. “Pretty far,” she said. “It would be a lot of driving.”

“While we’re at it, how about this for an idea? Castle is from West Virginia. In a place called Becton. Maybe we could stop off there and snoop around. That might break up the ride and maybe we’d learn something.”

“I wonder if Sideburns would follow us all the way up there,” Reno wondered aloud.

“Nah,” Jonas said. “Secret spy guys like that just call ahead and have somebody waiting. You know, scary guys in shiny cars.”

~~~

Reno called Professor Van Scoy that afternoon while Jonas looked for Steve Trappe. The professor was receptive to being interviewed whenever Reno and Jonas made it to Morgantown. “Just give me a buzz when you get here,” she told Reno.

“When would you go?”

“It would have to be tomorrow. They want me back in Austin Monday morning.”

“I couldn’t find my manager,” Jonas said. “I’ll just tell the secretaries and then go with you.” They ate a simple dinner in the first floor cafeteria before leaving at the end of the day. “I don’t feel like going to the hotel. Can we just go to your place for a while?” Reno asked.

A few minutes later they walked into the small bungalow near Charlotte Coliseum that Jonas had owned for several years. “Very bachelor,” she said as she inspected it. “Do you have something against interior decorating?”

“It’s plain but everything’s paid for. You can stay over if you want,” he offered. “I’ll sleep on the couch. Otherwise I’ll take you back downtown whenever you’re ready.”

“I’ll take the couch, if I stay. But I might need to borrow some clothes. Mine are all at the hotel.”

Jonas wasn’t in the mood for working on the story and from the looks of it Reno wasn’t either. He flipped through channels on the TV while Reno stretched out on the floor with a thick book. Jonas gave up an hour later and turned the TV off. He couldn’t stop thinking about Kent Castle.

“Have you ever seen this?” Reno asked when she saw him staring into space. She held up the book she was reading. “It’s the Warren Commission Report on the JFK Assassination.”

“No kidding!” Jonas said. “And I thought you were relaxing. Anybody we know in there? That would make our job easier.”

“I’m not sure yet. My brain’s crunching away,” she said as she tapped her temple with a finger.

Before he had a chance to answer they heard the crash of breaking glass. Reno screamed. Jonas jumped out of his seat and ran to the kitchen. The window over the kitchen sink was shattered. Shards and crystals of glass covered the countertop and floor. There was a section of heavy black pipe in the sink surrounded by broken glass and the remains of a coffee mug. “Somebody threw that pipe through my fucking window!” he shouted when Reno came in. “I’m going out back!”

“I’m sure they’re gone,” Reno said, but he was already out the door.

“What the hell is going on, Abby?” he asked when he was back inside. “Who’s doing all this?”

“Somebody wants us to stop what we’re doing,” she said. “Don’t you think that’s what this is all about?”

“If that’s true, I’m thinking of going along with it.”

“I hear you. I was already spooked.”

“This shit’s starting to get out of hand, don’t you think?” He went out back again looked around because he suddenly needed the air more than because he thought he’d find anything. When he came back inside Reno had found a broom and was pushing the glass into heaps on the floor. “I better board that window up since we’re leaving tomorrow.” Without waiting for an answer he went out to the garage.

After a few minutes he came back in with a five-sided piece of scrap plywood that had been there when he bought the house. “This looks like it’ll cover it,” he said. Reno had finished cleaning up glass and was arranging herself at the kitchen table. She’d already pulled more books from her canvas sack and was arranging them into piles. He held the board in place and hammered in two nails. “Warren Report again?”

“Yeah,” she said. “There are a few things rolling around in my head that I wanted to read up on. I know I won’t be able to sleep.”

He stopped pounding and looked over. “All those books are part of the Warren Report? I thought it was just one book.”

“The final report is in one book,” she explained. “But the whole thing is like twenty-six volumes. The appendices of witness testimony is where the good stuff is. I ordered the whole set after I got home from Pittsburgh. As a matter of fact, I read just about everything I could about the assassination after I got back.”

“I could tell. You’ve got twenty-six of those in that bag?” he asked between swings of the hammer.

“No. Pomeroy only seems to be involved in Jack Ruby’s end of the assassination. I’ve been concentrating on the parts that involve him so those are the only ones I brought. I have some pretty wild ideas about what we stumbled onto, Joe.”

“Shit fire!” he barked as the hammer tumbled onto the counter. He grabbed his finger with his other hand and squeezed. “Shit!”

“Are you okay?” she asked. “Hit your finger?”

“Yeah, I hit my fucking finger,” he said angrily. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

She snapped the book closed and jumped to her feet. “Give me that hammer! I used to help my dad fixing fences. I’m pretty good with one.”

“I don’t need any help,” he sputtered. “Besides, you’re too busy with that damn Warren Report.”

She stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you dare start shitting on me,” she warned. “It’s not my fault you smashed your finger. Screw you if you’re going to turn on me. I don’t put up with shit like this. Not from anybody, even if this is the most important story I ever worked.”

“What are we doing with this story anyway, Abby? What makes you think that after twenty years, you’re the one who’s got it solved? Why--”

“I never said I had it solved! Don’t put words in my mouth! But I don’t see you doing much research! It’s all me!”

“I’m doing plenty! If you don’t like it then go find your own fucking story. But answer me this, Abby. What makes you think that after all these years, and a wall full of conspiracy theory books at every library, that we’re the only ones who were able to solve the mystery?”

“Maybe we aren’t the only ones,” she answered angrily. “Maybe all the others got thrown over a cliff like Pomeroy.”

Jonas climbed back onto the countertop and finished nailing the board over the window. He already regretted how he’d treated her, all because he’d lost his temper after hammering his finger. He could hear the thump of Reno’s books as she threw them into her sack on the table. “I need a ride back to the hotel.”

He hopped down and walked over to her but she turned away to adjust the books inside the sack. With a hand on her shoulder he gently twisted her in his direction. He was relieved that she didn’t resist. “I’m sorry, Abby.”

She sighed and pushed her hair back. “Me too. It’s okay.” After a few seconds she pulled away. “You didn’t get any blood on my shirt, did you? I like this shirt.” When she picked up her sack and carried it into the living room, he followed.

“You’re right about this. It’s hard to believe,” she said. “I just feel like we’re on the right track. McBride’s so dense he had no idea what he was giving us when he let Pomeroy’s name slip. Pomeroy’s the key to this whole thing. I’m surprised he lived as long as he did.”

Jonas nodded, then walked over and turned the TV back on. He’d had enough of the story for one night. Maybe the Braves game wasn’t over yet.

“That’s why so many strange things are happening all of a sudden,” she continued, raising her voice. “I think we found something, or maybe even somebody, that nobody else ever found. ‘Noticed’ might be a better word.”

“I guess it’s possible,” Jonas answered without looking at her.

“I’m not reading you, Joe. Do you think I’m wrong? Or are you having second thoughts because you think I’m right?”

He finally looked over at her. “If I had to say one way or another,” he finally answered. “I’d have to say I think you’re right.” He walked into the kitchen and pulled a cup from a cabinet. She came in as he filled it with ice and jammed his finger in.

“Do you still think we should go tomorrow?” she asked. “This is getting pretty intense. I don’t think these people are kidding around.”

“I don’t know,” Jonas said, surveying the jagged board that covered the window. “I just want to sleep.”

“I think I should go back to the hotel. We need to pull back, at least for tonight.”

“I wish you’d stay here. I’d worry about you.”

She smiled. “It’d be easier,” she said. “But no more talk about the story. Not tonight. I’ll sleep over there on the couch. We can decide about the trip in the morning. Deal?”

“Deal,” he agreed. He set her up with blankets and some sweats to sleep in and then collapsed onto his own bed without even changing his clothes. The last thought he had before dropping off to sleep was that if Reno was right about the house being bugged, they could be in serious danger after everything that had been said that night.

Chapter 14

“Hello? Mr. Braden?” It was after ten o’clock at night but he was still at work at his desk, forty-four floors above the streets of Pittsburgh. “This is Frank Marino. I’m sorry to bother you at home.”

“Marino, I’m going to have call you right back. This line isn’t secure. Are you at home?”

“I’m still downtown, at the office.”

“At this hour? You’re still in the office? That doesn’t sound good. I’ll get right back to you.”

Marino punched some buttons on the phone console. “He’s calling right back,” he said to Max and Eddie, who were on another line. “Stay quiet while I set the scene for him first. Then just let him ask the questions when I bring you into the call.” Seconds later the call from Braden came in.

“Sir, we got the taps in place this afternoon,” Marino said. “It doesn’t look good. I’ve got Max and Eddie on the other line. They’re the men down in North Carolina who installed the taps, and they’ve been monitoring the take all night. I think it would be a good idea if I conference them in to our call.”

“If you know how to do it, go ahead,” Braden said. “Do I know these men?”

“I’m sure you know their work,” Marino said. “I doubt if you’ve seen them in person.” Marino started pushing buttons. “Max? Are you guys in?” he asked.

“Right here,” Max said.

“Mr. Braden,” Marino said, “Max and Eddie are in a van on the street near the residence of one of the reporters. I’ll let Max update you on what he’s heard.”

“Things have quieted down but they did a lot of talking,” Max said. “I’ll send up a transcript tomorrow. But they’re really moving. They tracked it almost all the way up. When’s the last time anybody got that far?”

“What do they know?”

“They know this isn’t just another story,” Max said. “They know what happened to Pomeroy, and why. They’re smart, especially the girl.”

“That’s not good,” Braden said. “It means we’re short on time.”

“We remembered that you wanted us to try to shake them up,” Max said. “So a few minutes after they arrived I threw a section of gas pipe through a window. It was solid steel,” he added.

“It got to them,” Eddie said, speaking for the first time. “Next thing we know they’re at each other’s throats. They’re starting to sound a little frayed around the edges, if you know what I mean. I think it’s just dawning on them what they got themselves into.”

“That could work against us,” Braden said. “Until they panic we have some breathing space.”

“The girl’s an expert on the Warren Commission Report,” Eddie said. “She brought most of it with her.”

“They’re suspicious about being watched,” Max added. “But it doesn’t occur to them that somebody might also be listening. At least we haven’t heard them mention it.”

Marino grimaced at the ironic stupidity of the remark but said nothing. His men weren’t making much of an impression on Braden.

“We kept them busy sweeping up glass,” Eddie said.

“I’m going to need that transcript,” Braden said. “But we need to make some decisions right now. Marino, what do you think? Do we keep an eye on them and hope they don’t get anywhere?”

“Sir, with all due respect, we’re past that point,” Marino said. “They know a lot. The longer we wait, the worse it gets.”

“Marino, cut those fellows out for a minute,” Braden said.

“Hey guys, stick around,” Marino said to Max and Eddie. “I’ll call you back in a few.” He pushed a button and they were gone.

“It’s just us now?” Braden asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve lost track of our team. Are these men any good? Do you think they’re right about what they reported?”

“Absolutely,” Marino replied without hesitation. “They’ve never failed me.”

“I think the reporters have to go. It’s a no-brainer, really.”

“I agree, sir.”

“They’re young, aren’t they? I have kids about their age. But I don’t see that we have any choice. They’re cutting close to the bone, and moving fast. I’ve been reading your reports.”

“I’m sorry too but it can’t be avoided.”

“Are these men up to the task?” Braden asked. “They made me nervous with that business with the pipe through the window. They don’t seem very professional.”

Marino bristled. He’d told Max not to mention the pipe. “That was a bonehead stunt but I’ve never heard of them pulling anything like that before. And they’ve done a lot of work for us.”

“How will they do it? Do you think it can happen tonight?”

“I think tonight is pushing it. They’ll need time to set it up. If we rush them there’s more chance of a screw-up.”

“How will they do it?” Braden asked. “Are they shooters?”

“Why don’t we tell them what needs to be done and let them sweat the details, sir? The fewer people that know about it the better, don’t you think?”

“Alright, Marino. Go ahead and give them the order. And please remind them to get those transcripts up to me. I’ve got to get to work on damage control.”

Chapter 15

Jonas woke up early the next morning out of habit and decided instantly that he was going to Morgantown even if Reno had changed her mind. On his way to the kitchen he was surprised to see her sitting on the living room floor, once again surrounded by books and papers. When she saw him fully dressed with a packed suitcase she announced her own decision. “If you’re going, I’m going too.”

“Have you been up long?” he asked.

“I stayed up all night. I wrote up everything I’ve been thinking about from the Warren Report. Maybe I can read it to you in the car.”

“Sure. I’m really sorry about last night, Abby. I shouldn’t have gone nuts like that. I’ve always been a klutz with tools. I guess I was embarrassed.”

“We were both a little crazy. Do you think it’s safe to go?”

“It’s too late to back out as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “If there’s really anybody watching us they won’t leave us alone even if we promised to forget what we know.”

~~~

They finished packing and then ate cold cereal in the kitchen. Neither mentioned the boarded-up window but both stole an occasional glance at it. “I was thinking,” Jonas whispered. “Maybe we should rent a car for the trip.” He knew she’d understand why he was whispering.

“I could get one,” she whispered back between spoonfuls of Cheerios. “The paper would pick up the cost.” She tapped her ear and nodded. She understood.

After they finished eating they drove downtown to pick up Reno’s luggage. “I’ll come up with you,” he said when they reached the hotel. He drove to the tiny parking lot in back.

“I think this is the valet lot, Joe. I was watching them park the cars yesterday while my nails were drying. I don’t know if we’re allowed in here.”

“The gate’s up,” Jonas said with a shrug as he drove into the lot. “We’ll only be here for a minute. They’ll live.”

~~~

“Renting a car is a good idea, especially if we do it at the airport,” he said softly as they waited for the elevator. “If we do it there maybe we can lose them. They might think we’re flying somewhere.”

“That’s actually pretty good,” she said. “I’m still booked on the flight back home later today. Even if they have some way of checking out the airlines they’ll think you’re just dropping me off. By the time they figure it out we’ll be gone.”

“And I know it’s crazy,” Jonas continued. “But what if they have my car bugged?”

“At this point, I wouldn’t rule anything out. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find my room ransacked,” she said as she slid her electronic key card into the door. But when they entered the room nothing appeared to be out of order. She began gathering up her clothes and laying them into an open suitcase.

“I lost respect for them after they threw that pipe through the window,” Jonas said. “They seemed scary when then they took Pomeroy out. They really freaked me out the way they sent me that obituary. But any clod can throw a pipe through a window. Maybe they’re just amateurs.”

“I don’t know about that,” she yelled from the bathroom, where she was stuffing cosmetics into a satchel. “I’m respecting them just fine.”

~~~

“Hey, Abby, can you take a look at this?” Jonas said when Reno came back in the room. He was standing at the window holding the drapes aside. “I think there’s somebody in my car. Every couple of seconds I see something moving. There! Did you see it?”

“I haven’t even found your car yet.”

“I’m going down there,” he said as he let the drapes fall back into place.

“Why? What are you going to do, ask them how they like your car? Joe, if somebody’s really in there we don’t want to mess with them.”

“I just want a closer look. I’ll stay out of sight,” he promised as he headed towards the door.

After he was gone she moved the drapes again to watch. Within seconds after locating the car she saw a man get out from the passenger side and walk away. When he nodded towards the building Reno pressed her face against the window trying to look straight down but couldn’t see who the signal was intended for. She collapsed into the chair and closed her eyes but popped out of the chair just as quickly. She had to warn Jonas.

A loud knock startled her. “Who is it?” she called through the door.

“Abby, it’s Joe,” Jonas yelled back.

“Okay, sorry,” she yelled as she scrambled to open the door. “Sorry, you scared me,” she said after he was back in the room.

“I didn’t see anything. Now it’s my imagination is that’s playing tricks.”

She pulled him into the bathroom and turned on the shower. “I don’t think so,” she whispered. “Somebody got out of your car right after you left. There was somebody else down there too.” She told him everything she’d seen.

“If we saw what we think we saw, they must have been planting bugs. It’s not going to matter,” he said. “We’ll talk about football or something on the way to the airport and then we’ll be out of earshot after we change cars.”

~~~

This time the gate was down when they returned to the parking lot and there was an attendant in the glass booth. “Damn,” Jonas said. “I guess you were right.”

“Excuse me,” a voice called out from the booth after they walked past. “You can’t go in there.”

Jonas sighed as he backtracked to the booth. “I parked my car in there a few minutes ago,” he explained. “I didn’t know it was the valet lot. Can I just pull it out?”

“No can do,” the attendant said. “Nobody’s allowed back there. It’s about insurance. I could get in trouble. You’ll have to let us go get it.” She pulled a walkie-talkie off her belt and barked into it. “I’ll have somebody get it for you right now. Where’s the key?”

“It’s right over there,” Jonas said, raising his voice in exasparation. “I’m looking right at it. Just let me go get it myself.”

“Just give him the key, Joe,” Reno said. “We don’t need this.”

He handed over the keys, which were already in his hand. The attendant told them to wait in front of the hotel before disappearing back into the booth. “We’re waiting right here,” Jonas snarled, looking for an issue he could stand his ground on. “They don’t care about any insurance. She just wants to squeeze a tip out of me.”

Reno walked over to the booth without answering him. “It’s a blue Taurus, about three rows back,” she said. By then another uniformed employee was approaching the lot, presumably to retrieve the car. Wearing the same sullen look that was on the attendant’s face, he took the key without a word and walked away. “It’s a blue Taurus,” Reno said to his back.

Jonas had already pulled his wallet out and was fishing for small bills when they heard the explosion. Reno screamed just before a wave of heat pulsed over them. When she saw the fireball where the Taurus had been she clapped her hand over her mouth. Jonas stared at the flames with his mouth open as he shoved the wallet into his back pocket. “Holy shit!” he breathed. Ashes and bits of metal were already in the air around them.

The car was already unrecognizable by the time the initial burst of smoke cleared. The fire was most intense at the rear of the car but it was burning from bumper to bumper. Black smoke poured from the fire, forming a dark cloud that drifted toward the hotel. The tires on the car to one side had already caught fire. The pickup truck on the other wide was charred black and it’s windows had been blown out but it hadn’t been touched by the flames yet. The attendant stepped out of the booth without a word. She looked at the car, then at Jonas, and then back at the car.

“Call somebody!” Jonas shouted at her. The roar of the burning car was so loud that he didn’t know if she heard him but she went back inside the booth. He picked up Reno’s canvas sack with one hand and took her hand with the other. “Come on!” he yelled. “We have to get out of here!”

She still hadn’t said a word but she followed him after snatching up her suitcase. They walked quickly up Brevard Street, away from the hotel. “We need to get a taxi,” Jonas said, breathing hard. People who’d heard the explosion or seen the smoke were running toward the hotel. Jonas heard the distinct wail of a fire truck’s siren, punctuated by the blasts of its deep horn.

“There’s a cab!” Reno said, speaking for the first time since the car exploded. She let go of Jonas and waved it down. The driver made an illegal U-turn and slammed to a stop at the curb. Reno pulled the rear door open and climbed in, still clutching her suitcase. “Airport please,” Jonas said after he was in beside her. A lot had happened since they’d left his home thirty minutes earlier.

Reno held her head in her hands as the cab moved through the streets. “Oh my God,” she said several times. “That could have been us! That guy was in there.” She paused. “It was supposed to be us, wasn’t it?”

“I would say so,” Jonas said.

At the airport they chose the rental agency with the shortest line. Their eyes darted around the terminal as they advanced through the line towards the service counter. There wasn’t really any point in looking around. It could be any of the people around them that was watching. Or none of them. The line moved, but very slowly. “What are they doing up there?” Reno wondered allowed several times. Finally they reached the front and were called to the counter by a beaming middle-aged woman.

“Are you alright, mam?” she asked when she saw Reno’s red eyes and streaks of mascara.

“Yes,” Reno said. She worked through the rental transaction, which took longer than Jonas thought it should have. Finally they walked away from the counter with a key and an envelope of paper work. “We should have stopped in the bathroom,” Jonas said. “You look like Alice Cooper.” He felt better when he saw a trace of a smile on her face.

They hurried through the breezeway into the parking garage hoping desperately not to be noticed. Jonas thought about how brash and optimistic they both had felt about the story when they passed through that breezeway just a few days earlier. Things changed fast. Now he wished he’d never heard of Mark McBride and he was certain that his partner felt the same way.

“Here it is,” Reno said when they came to the parking spot with a number that matched the rental agreement she held. Jonas laughed when he saw that they would again be travelling in a Taurus. At least it isn’t blue.

“I thought you’d like it. I feel like driving. Would you mind?”

“Sure. As long as you’re okay. I’ll start out as navigator.”

Chapter 16

“Mr. Braden?” Marino asked. “This is Frank Marino from downstairs.”

“How did it go? Any news?” Braden asked.

“Mission accomplished, sir,” Marino said. “I heard from our people down there. It just came off in the last few minutes. The fire’s still burning. It was a rush job but they pulled it off.”

Braden was quiet. His mind was overrun with questions but it wasn’t the time or place for details. They were speaking in code out of habit. Even within the walls of their own offices they could never be too cautious. It all sounded so antiseptic but at times like this he never lost sight of what they were really talking about. There were mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who would be on the receiving end of some horrible news very shortly. It never got any easier. “Let’s hope this is the last time,” he sighed. “Thanks for the update. Can you see to it that I get those transcripts? We did the messy part. Let’s make sure we do the easy part.”

“I’ll call them back as soon as we’re done here.”

“Okay,” Braden said. “You did good work, Marino. And pass that down the line, will you?”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll pass it on.”

Chapter 17

Jonas directed Reno to Interstate 77, which would take them north out of North Carolina and through the western tip of Virginia into West Virginia. “My maps burned up in the car,” he said. “I guess all my luggage did too. All I have is the shirt on my back. How many times do you ever get to say that?”

“How many times do you get to watch an explosion that was meant for you?” Reno asked. “I still can’t believe it happened. I just can’t believe it. Somebody really wants to stop us even if they have to kill us. There’s no denying it anymore.”

“Look at it this way. It means we’re on the right track.”

She tried to smile. “That’s twisted. God, I wish we’d never gotten into it. I’d give anything.”

“It’s 381 miles to Morgantown,” he said. “I remember checking that. Becton’s a little more than halfway.”

As they drove the density and urgency of the city gave way to the green openness of Western Carolina, with the Smoky Mountains in view to the west. Soon there weren’t many other cars around. Jonas forced himself to keep track of the cars behind them. “With any luck, we lost them for now,” he said. “I’ll bet they still haven’t figured out that you’re not getting on a plane,” he said. “And by the time they know you rented a car we’ll be long gone. And they won’t know what direction we went.”

“I’m still nervous.”

“Don’t fall for my bullshit. I’m scared too.”

“Why don’t we switch in about an hour? Then I’ll start reading to you. I wrote some pretty good stuff while you were sleeping.”

“Deal,” Jonas said. “You shouldn’t be driving anyway. You were up all night.”

~~~

They made their first stop after crossing the state line. As they pulled into the ‘Welcome to Virginia’ rest stop they watched carefully to see if they were followed but saw nothing suspicious. They waited for nearly an hour before resuming their trip.

“I hope we can find a place to shop later,” Jonas said from behind the wheel as they prepared to get back on the road. “I’d like to get some clothes, or at least a toothbrush.”

“You can borrow mine,” she offered.

“The clothes or the toothbrush?” After everything they’d been through together he thought she would probably let him use either.

“I want to talk about the Warren Commission Report,” she said. “I’ve lived and breathed it for a month now. Not just reading it, but also reading about it.”

“I’m no expert like you are, but I’ve never heard anybody say anything good about that whole investigation.”

“For good reason. It’s really weak. The way it’s written, you can tell they don’t want you thinking about anything except their own conclusion. Oswald killed Kennedy, and then Ruby killed Oswald. Case closed.”

“I always thought they were right,” Jonas said. “Now I’m not so sure it was that simple.”

“I’m most interested in the part about Jack Ruby,” she said. “Because I think Pomeroy was right in the middle of that. He knew all about it and somebody knew that he knew. That’s how he lands that high-end job in Pittsburgh when he had no qualifications at all. They had to get him out of there. It’s also why he’s dead, I think.”

“But Ruby killed Oswald on live TV,” Jonas said. “There’s no doubt that he did it. I don’t understand the big deal about Ruby.”

“Yeah, he pulled the trigger,” she agreed. “No doubt about that. But think about it. How in the world did he get close enough to pull the trigger? Remember, the entire Dallas police force is on call. They’re transferring their most important prisoner ever, the guy who shot the president. Their doing it right there in the basement of their own building. They had already gotten hundreds of death threats for Oswald. How do they screw that up? By accident?”

“Shit happens.”

“The report goes on and on when it comes to anything that supports their conclusions,” she continued. “Pages and pages of filler. But guess how much they had to say about how Ruby got into the basement and killed Oswald?”

“No idea..”

“Not much,” she said. “They said they don’t know how he got in. That’s all. One of the most important and unexplained parts of the entire case, but that one lame sentence is all they could come up with.”

“That was some investigation,” Jonas said.

“Everything the police did with Oswald was weird,” she said. “They started announcing as early as Friday night that Oswald would be transferred on Sunday morning. They even gave the time. Why spread the word like that? Shouldn’t they have wanted to keep it a little quieter, especially with the death threats? Some of the police told the commission they wanted to do it on the sly, at a different time and place than what was announced. But the decision was made to announce the schedule and stick to it.”

“Ruby stuck to the schedule too.”

“More than you know,” she said. “The announced time was ten o’clock. Ruby didn’t get there until eleven-fifteen or eleven-twenty. They know that because he sent a telegram or something just before he came in. Over an hour late, but somehow he was right on time. Coincidence? And I haven’t found a tape yet but they say if you watch the video you can hear a car horn beep in that basement just before Oswald comes out. The only cars in that basement were police cars, Joe.”

“Kind of like a signal to Ruby?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I’m not saying, one way or another. I don’t even know if it’s true. Maybe it really was just another coincidence. But the coincidences are starting to pile up. I want to know how he got down there. Not just at the right time, but how did he get in at all? He told the investigators and everybody else with the Warren Commission that he just walked right in.”

She reached into the back seat and pulled a sheaf of papers from the canvas sack. “I’m glad I couldn’t sleep last night because I really needed to sift through all this and write it up. I wrote thirty-two pages by hand.” She flipped pages until she found what she was looking for.

“Sounds like you’ve already written our article,” Jonas remarked.

“I’m not sure if you’re getting it yet. There’s a lot more than an article to be written. We’re going to rewrite history. If we survive, that is.”

“You know,” he remarked. “Twenty-four hours ago I would have laughed if you said that.”

“Now, the report says Ruby came down into the basement on the ramp from Main Street. That ramp was supposedly guarded by a group of officers led by a man named Edward Vincent. That’s straight out of the report. Now, if you remember, Pomeroy talked about this with us. He said himself that he was right there at that entrance. Remember?”

“I do. He was saying he was there but somebody else was in charge.”

“That’s exactly what I remember him saying. Thanks to the report we have a name for the guy in charge. Edward Vincent. Now, keep in mind what I told you. The report downplays this kind of problem because it goes against their conclusion but there’s a problem here and they knew it. They buried it in one of the twenty-six appendices instead of putting it in the main report. One of the policemen says to the Warren Commission that he saw a man walk past Vincent and into the basement. He gave a spot-on description of Ruby. He says that it was right before the shooting, and he’s pretty sure he looked down the ramp in time to see this exact guy pull out the gun and do it. It’s right there in black and white. Don’t you see? Ruby walked right past them!”

“Hold on,” Jonas said. “You’re going too fast. The report says a policeman told them they saw somebody slip past the guards, walk down the ramp, and shoot Lee Harvey Oswald?”

“Right, except that it wasn’t in the report. It was buried in one of the appendices. He said he saw the man right when a police car was either entering or leaving, I can’t remember which. But he swears somebody walked past. Somebody who looked like Ruby.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Jonas said. “That should be on page one of the report, not hidden away. But I guess you already said that.”

“Joe, I really think the officer they’re talking about in the appendix is Pomeroy. He had a different name in the report but for all we know he took a new name when he moved. His name probably wasn’t Pomeroy until months later. That would make sense if somebody was trying to hide him. And everything else we know about what he did that day fits perfectly.”

“But why would he let Ruby pass? Pomeroy, I mean. Are you saying he was in on some kind of conspiracy?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all,” she replied. “I think there was something going on but Pomeroy wasn’t in on it. If he was he wouldn’t have been so honest with the Warren Commission. When they finally asked him about it, Pomeroy – I’m calling him Pomeroy to keep it simple – explained why he kept his mouth shut and let the man pass. He said Vincent, his boss, clearly saw Ruby and didn’t do anything about it, so he – Pomeroy – figured that whoever it was, he must be okay. When they went back to Vincent, he tells them that that if it happened, it must have been because he was distracted by a police car that just happened to be passing by, which he just happens to remember. The perfect alibi.”

“Let me think this through for a second,” Jonas said as they rolled through the Virginia hills. “I think I need this written down for me.”

“Don’t you see it?” Reno asked. “Pomeroy wasn’t part of it! He just happened to see something that he wasn’t supposed to see! He talked a little too much in Dallas but they were able to ship him off to Pittsburgh and keep the lid on it. But I think he knew the police let Ruby come down there and kill Oswald. He knew it until the day he died!”

“Why would they want Oswald killed?” Jonas asked.

“I’m not really on top of the Oswald part,” she admitted. “I focused on Ruby because we know all about Pomeroy. I’ll work on Oswald next. But here’s my best guess. Oswald really did shoot JFK but it was all set up for him by somebody. He was a scapegoat, or a patsy, as the conspiracy nuts call him. Oswald served their purpose but he knew too much about who made it happen. He had to go.”

“I’m afraid we’re going to sound just like all the other wacky conspiracy nuts.”

“Maybe they’re not so wacky after all. Maybe they were right all along.”

“Wow,” Jonas said slowly. “Wow.”

“You see, Oswald was a simpleton,” she said. “He was gullible and easily led. And he had just the right background for the setup. He was a marksman in the military so it was on the record that he knew how to handle a rifle. And he was politically active in all the wrong causes. Some of them were really goofy. He was all over the place. It was easy to make the world believe he did it, and all on his own. I’m not sure about the Oswald part yet. I’m pretty confident about the Ruby part.”

“Jesus, Abby,” Jonas said. “No wonder somebody’s trying to kill us.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back. “I know.”

~~~

This looks like a decent-sized town coming up,” Jonas said. “Should we stop and eat? I could do my shopping too.”

When she agreed he moved to the right lane, watching the rear view mirror as he did it. They pulled into a gas station and watched traffic carefully as the tank was filled. Next they enjoyed a fast food lunch before walking next door to a department store. When they came out an hour later they each had some new clothes and everything else they thought they’d need for the rest of the trip.

When they were back on the interstate they saw a sign that indicated that they were only 67 miles from West Virginia. “So what were we talking about?”

“I think we need a reality check here,” Jonas said. “If that was Pomeroy in the report, it can only mean that Kent Castle and Eastern Steel were behind the assassination. Right? The whole thing is that they kiss Pomeroy’s ass with the primo job in Pittsburgh to keep him quiet. If Pomeroy is who you think he is, it’s got to be Castle.”

“Pretty much,” agreed Reno. “So what’s the problem?”

“Well, I’m not completely sold on Castle throwing his life away taking a chance like this,” Jonas said. “He was the president of Eastern Steel. He worked hard to get there. Things were good. I understand that he was pissed, but come on. Why kill the president and risk all that?”

“Don’t you remember how bitter the price hike confrontation was?” Reno said. “The man literally walked right into the Oval Office and shoved his price hike in Kennedy’s face. Don’t you remember how ugly it got before Castle had to back down?”

“But is that enough? Would he go that far for revenge? I don’t think so. That was just business. It seems to me that if enough people thought like that there’d be presidents getting shot every year. There’s always somebody getting pissed at the president.”

“Yeah, I hear you. This is good. We need to try to poke holes in it. Maybe it’s weak.”

“But we can’t have Pomeroy without Eastern Steel,” Jonas said. “Pomeroy and Kent Castle go together for us. Hiring Pomeroy and taking him to Pittsburgh is something that we have to account for.”

“Maybe we’re thin on motive,” she acknowledged. “In some ways Pomeroy isn’t even that important even if he is the guy in the report. He’s just a link to Eastern Steel. That’s all he was for us. But we can’t ignore the fact that as soon as he talked to us somebody bumped him off.”

“He probably didn’t even know anything specific, right?” Jonas asked. “He just seemed to know that something was happening.” As he spoke he watched a white van as it slowly passed several cars before slipping in behind their rented Taurus. The van looked oddly familiar to him, like it had been with them since Charlotte. Since he wasn’t sure, he saw no reason to mention it to Reno. They each had enough to worry about.

“That’s how I see it. And there’s another problem,” Reno said. “Oswald’s gone, but now they’ve got Ruby walking around knowing too much. Now Ruby, he’s not the simpleton that Oswald was. He’s a sharp guy, a successful businessman, and a real good friend of the police department. He wouldn’t be so easy to shake off for whoever was orchestrating all this. That’s another weakness in my theory. Why Ruby?”

“Successful businessman? Didn’t he run strip clubs?”

“That’s a business, isn’t it?” Reno laughed. “And that’s one reason he was such a buddy to the police. They had free run at all his clubs. Everything was on the house for them.”

“What ever happened with Ruby?” Jonas asked. “Did he ever talk about any of this?”

“That’s what I’m getting at,” she answered. “The Warren Commission didn’t even interview him until six months after the assassination. Twenty-six volumes of interview transcripts but they didn’t get around to interview the man who shot Oswald until June 1964. By then he’d already been convicted of Oswald’s murder!”

“They didn’t kid around back then.”

“I’m still thinking it through,” Reno said. “But if Ruby was part of something, and I think he was, he ended up getting double-crossed. But even after he realized what was happening he never had a chance to say much. He died in prison in 1967.”

“But why didn’t he tell the Warren guys what happened when they finally did talk to him?” Jonas asked. “If he’d already been convicted he must have known he’d been double-crossed. That’s even more reason to talk. We’re talking Texas. They fry people who shoot the president. You should know.”

“For one thing, I think he was afraid,” she said. “And they really made it clear that they didn’t want to hear what he had to say. When you read the transcripts of his interrogation you can tell they wanted to get his testimony over quick. They hardly asked him anything. They just didn’t want to know. They didn’t even ask him if anybody let him into the basement! Can you imagine? Is there a more important question to ask than that?”

“I don’t know how they got away with it, if this is all true.”

“And as much as I think he knew, he hardly said anything. He knew something had gone wrong for him but he was afraid. He kept asking them to take him out of Texas, to take him to Washington. It’s right there in the report. Not in the main report, I mean, but in the appendices if you look. The transcripts of his testimony are right there. He said over and over again that he thought his life was in danger if he didn’t get out of there. Now, remember who’s probably holding him. The police. His life depends on them. They might be the same people who don’t want him telling what he knows.”

“Sounds like somebody had a conflict of interest here,” Jonas said. “And that’s putting it mildly.”

“Listen to some of the things Ruby said to them,” Reno continued. “Just a few minutes after they swore him in he said ‘It’s too late, I won’t be able to tell you everything.’ He said that same thing over and over. I wrote these quotes down because they were so shocking to me,” she said. “They never once asked him to explain what he meant. These are quotes directly out of the report. He says ‘Gentleman, my life is in danger here.’ ‘I want to tell the truth and I can’t tell it here.’ ‘I want to tell the truth about why I did it but I can’t tell it here.’ And ‘Gentlemen, unless you get me to Washington you can’t get a fair shake out of me.’” She flipped a page. “Later he says ‘Now, maybe certain people don’t want to know the truth that may come out of me.’ One time he was rambling about getting into the basement, and he says ‘If it were timed that way then someone in the police department is guilty.’ This is all right there in the report, in the twenty-six volumes. I’m not making this up.“

“Abby, how can this be?” Jonas asked. “How did they get away with this? You’re making it sound like the commission and the report were a complete sham. They didn’t investigate anything.”

“Makes you look differently at the conspiracy nuts, doesn’t it?” she answered. “Now eventually after Ruby kept yammering about being taken away to Washington they addressed it. Sort of. Gerald Ford finally asks ‘Is there anything more you could tell us if we took you to Washington?’ Of course Ruby says ‘Yes.’”

“Duh,” Jonas said. “They can really take a hint.”

“Yeah,” Reno laughed. “So finally, Ruby starts questioning them. He asks them point blank whether or not they have the power to take him back to Washington. Earl Warren hemmed and hawed, but finally said something about maybe eventually doing it. But Ruby wants to be taken immediately and he knows it’s not going to happen. He says ‘Well, you won’t ever see me again, I tell you that.’ Then, when they’re wrapping it up, he says ‘You can get more out of me. Let’s not break up too soon.’”

“I don’t want to get into bashing the Warren Commission,” Jonas said. “Maybe that’s our next project, if we survive this one. But the important thing is that Ruby knew something. Right? He wasn’t just some guy who walked in off the street and killed Oswald out of patriotism. Hell, he couldn’t have even gotten into the building if he was just some lone nut bag.”

“Exactly. But that’s pretty much the position of the Commission. Ruby, the nutty, misguided patriot avenges his president’s death. Like I said, I’m not an expert on that part,” Reno said. “But it all fits what I was saying about Pomeroy. That Ruby was in on a plot and Pomeroy accidentally found out about it. Pomeroy is sent to Pittsburgh and watched carefully. Ruby is doublecrossed.”

“We have work to do on Ruby,” Jonas said.

“Yeah, we do,” Reno agreed. “But we’re pretty sure that somebody let him into that basement to kill Oswald, right? That’s pretty big.”

“We also need to work on Castle,” Jonas said. “And his motive.”

“Definitely,” she agreed. “We’re thin there. You’re right. Getting whipped by the president might have been embarrassing but it may not be enough.”

“Remember last night when you said you didn’t think we were the first ones who ever figured any of this out?” he asked. “You know, what happens to anybody who gets to the point we’re at now?”

“I remember,” she said.

“Well, I didn’t really take you seriously,” he said. “But after today I’m pretty upset about that too.”

“Welcome to my world.”

Chapter 18

It was later than they expected before they saw signs for the Becton exit. The excitement from earlier in the day had faded away after a few hundred miles in the car. Jonas guessed that Reno didn’t feel any more like poking around Becton than he did. “We’re not going to make it in time to get anything done,” he said. “Should we wait until tomorrow? I think I’ve had it for today.”

“I’m with you,” she answered. “I just want to take a shower and go to sleep. “I’m ready for this day to be over.”

“Longest day of my life,” Jonas said. They left the interstate a few exits south of Becton without bothering to learn the name of the town. Dinner was at a forgettable steakhouse hidden at the end of a half-vacant strip mall that they spotted after they drove past. After eating they continued along the two-lane road for several miles until they came to The Ridge Runner, a dreary motel at the base of a mountain laced with rusty coal sluices.

“Should we keep looking?” Jonas asked.

“Looks pretty seedy but I have to get out of this car.”

“Do we risk using a credit card? I’d hate to give away our location. I don’t think anybody knows where we are. Wouldn’t that make it easy for them to find us?”

“A room is only thirty bucks,” Reno said as she pointed to a decrepit electric sign in front of the motel. “We can use cash.”

“Thirty bucks times two, you mean.”

“Can’t we just get one room? We almost got killed together. I think that makes it okay to sleep in the same room.”

“I just wanted to make sure. That’s kind of how I felt too.”

~~~

By eight-thirty they were each laying on one of the musty queen-size beds staring at the stained ceiling of a dank motel room. An ancient television rested on a table between two heavy oak bureaus but neither of them had bothered to see if it worked.

“I wonder if the Charlotte police are looking for us. They must have figured out that was your car,” Reno said.

“I guess so,” Jonas answered. “I don’t know how that works. It’s not like I was the one who burned it.”

“But they don’t know that. I mean, they at least have to ask you about it. Unless they think that was you inside.”

Later Jonas rolled onto his side and called over to Reno just when it sounded like she was about to drop off to sleep. “Abby? What’s your gut feeling? Should we bail out on the story? It’s just hitting me now. Somebody tried to kill us today. We have to face up to that.”

“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Reno said. “And somebody did get killed. It just wasn’t us. But I think it’s too late. We can’t unlearn any of it. We just have to keep on our toes.”

“Forever? I mean, eventually we won’t be lucky like we were today. Eventually they’ll get us. It’ll never end, will it?”

“If this day was lucky, then God help us,” Reno said.

“Even if we figure this whole thing out, they’ll still want us dead, right? Whoever’s after us is still on the job after all these years. They probably always will be, though I don’t know why. For all we know, the real killer is long dead. Even Castle died.”

“Hey, Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for cheering me up.”

“Anytime.”

“Where do we start tomorrow?” Reno asked. “I’m afraid nobody will want to talk to us.”

“I hear you. Especially when we ask if the hometown boy was the one who killed Kennedy.”

“Maybe we could find a library. We could bullshit the librarian. Maybe pretend that we thought there were some Kent Castle books there. Whatever it takes to get somebody talking.”

“That could work,” Jonas said, not really believing it. “We also have that address from the obituary we could look into. But talk about a cold call.”

“Let’s not be too shy. We’ve earned some answers after everything that’s happened. I say we act as polite as possible, but we don’t leave without learning something important.”

“Sounds good to me, but you do the talking.”

~~~

They checked out of the motel as soon as they woke up. After a greasy breakfast at a restaurant along the road they got back onto Interstate 77 and followed it north to the Becton exit. For the first few minutes after leaving the interstate the scenery was so similar to where they spent the night that Jonas worried they had accidentally doubled back. Then they began passing school busses, an occasional house and a few other signs of commercial life that were different. When they reached the first traffic light they knew they were getting close.

“I’m going to pull in there to get a map,” Jonas said when they came to a convenience store.

“Can you get me a coffee?” Reno asked. “As big as it comes?”

“Good idea. I think I’ll have one too.”

He came back out with two huge Styrofoam cups of coffee and a handful of maps. “Let’s figure out where we’re going,” he said. The windows clouded up where the steam from their coffee drifted. He opened the Hickam County map, which was so wide that part of it rested in Reno’s lap. “What was that address again?”

“I never had it. It’s in your notes.”

“Shit,” Jonas said. “Those burned up in the goddamn car. I was thinking we should hit the old Castle place first but now we don’t know how to find it.” He pushed back into the seat and closed his eyes.

“You know, while were here, I think I better check in with the home office,” Reno said. “I never cancelled my flight yesterday so they might be wondering where I am.”

“I thought of that too,” Jonas said. “But they’re too busy to know I’m gone anyway. I’m better off not calling. I’ll get some gas while you call.”

~~~

“I didn’t really tell them much,” she said when she came back. “If they knew what happened they’d make me come home. Anyway, you’re not going to believe this,” she said. “There was a message from June Pomeroy waiting for me. Is that Pomeroy’s wife? She wants me to call her.”

“She called you at the home office? In Austin?”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“I guess Pomeroy told her all about us. Funny that he would bother.”

“It’s got to be his wife, right?”

“Got to be. His grieving wife, thanks to me. Are you going to call her back?”

“Of course. I thought we should talk about it first. And we already have a busy day ahead of us. It can wait. Let’s stick to the plan.”

“Okay. What was it again?”

~~~

Jonas knew when he looked over at Reno that she had the same idea he did when they drove past the brick building with the mailboxes and flag pole out front. The post office was the perfect place to start. Without a word he turned the car around. They rehearsed their lines twice before going inside.

There were no other customers in the building. A lone clerk stood behind the counter. She looked to be in her fifties judging by the dull teeth and gray hair. When they approached she waved them forward. “What can I do for you?” she asked in a pleasant West Virginia lilt.

“Mam, I’m Joe Jonas from The Charlotte Sentinel and this is Abby Reno from The Austin Statesman,” he began. “We’re doing some research on Kent Castle’s relationship with John F. Kennedy. We found an old address from his obituary. Would you be able to tell us if any of his family is still living in the house?” he asked. “We wanted to check first before we went knocking on doors.”

“They’re not there anymore. Somebody’s living there but it ain’t the Castles.”

“Do you know anybody we could talk to about Kent Castle?” Reno asked.

“Well, he was older than me. I know who he was. Everybody does. But I never knew him myself.” She stopped and thought for a moment. “Just up the street is Gerson’s Diner,” she finally said. “Old man Gerson still hangs around there even though his kids are running the place. Hell, even his kids are older than I am. But Clyde Gerson is the man you want to talk to. He knows everything about everybody in this county going back about fifty years.”

Excited about a possible lead, they couldn’t get out of there fast enough. They jumped into the car and sped two miles up the road where they found the diner. It was a long and low chrome building with exposed neon tubes running the entire length. The front door was open so they walked in. Either the diner didn’t serve breakfast or it was a slow day because there was nobody inside except for a teenager who was wiping crud off laminated menus. “We’re not open until eleven today,” she said pleasantly.

“Hi,” Jonas said. “We’re not looking to eat. We’re newspaper reporters and we wanted to talk with Clyde Gerson.”

“That’s my grandfather.”

“We wanted to talk about Kent Castle,” Reno said. “We were wondering if your grandfather knew anything about him and President Kennedy.”

“Oh, the Kennedys,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He’s always happy to talk about the Kennedys.”

“We’d love to talk with him,” Reno said. “Is he here?”

“He’s usually here,” the teenager said. “I guess it’ll be okay. I’ll see if he’s in the back.” She disappeared through a door behind the counter.

“If I hear any shotgun blasts I’m out of here,” Jonas said. “I don’t feel welcome at all. How about you?”

Before she could answer the teenager returned. “He’s here,” she told them. “He’ll go off on you when you bring up the Kennedys. I hope you won’t take it personal.”

“We’re just working a story, that’s all,” Reno told her. “It’s never personal. When will he see us?”

“He isn’t doing anything but breaking plates right now. Go on back. You’ll know him when you see him. He’ll tell you anyway. He’s lived in these parts his whole life. Same as me, I guess,” she added with a shrug. “If it happened, he’ll know about it.”

They saw him as soon as they walked through the doorway. He was a tiny white-haired man in dirty pants and a green polo shirt that looked brand new. The broad plastic bin in his hands contained only a few cups and saucers. He was shuffling across the floor towards a sink but stopped when he saw Jonas and Reno. “So you’re the ones wantin’ to know why nobody ‘round here votes for those damn Kennedys,” he cackled.

“Not exactly,” Jonas answered.

“Yes, that’s right,” Reno said. She dug an elbow into his ribs as soon as the old man turned towards the sink. “We also wanted to talk about Kent Castle. Your granddaughter said you knew him.”

“I never met the man, seein’ that I lived in Scoop ‘til about ten years ago,” Gerson said. “He passed more than ten years ago. Why are you pokin’ around?”

“We’re interested in what happened between him and John F. Kennedy,” Jonas said.

“You mean the PT boat?” Gerson asked in a high-pitched rasp.

“PT boat?” Jonas replied. “No, we mean when Castle was at Eastern Steel.”

“Just come back here, I’ll talk while I’m workin’. I know all about what happened on that boat. Come on, now,” he said before disappearing through the door.

“Go ahead,” the teenager said after poking her head through the doorway. “He’s not as scary as he seems. And he’s not really working. Don’t worry about that.”

When they caught up with Gerson he was dragging a stool across the room to a wall of cabinets. The effort left him breathless. Reno grabbed a stool for herself without asking and carried it over to where he was. After looking around the room Jonas did the same.

“Your name is Clyde Gerson?” Reno asked.

“It is. But don’t you go printin’ my name any place,” he snarled. “I don’t need no trouble from no damn newspaper.”

“No, sir, we won’t print it,” Jonas assured him. “What about that boat?”

“Ain’t you ever heard the story of PT 109?” he asked with disbelief.

“Sort of,” Jonas answered. “JFK was some kind of war hero.”

“War he-ro my ass,” he hissed. “You don’t know nothin’. But we do. You better believe we do.”

“So tell us,” Reno said.

He removed his glasses and rubbed the two red indentations they’d left on his nose. “A local boy was kilt servin’ on that boat. Norwood Strunk. That boy was just three months out of school. It was Kennedy’s boat.” He slipped his glasses back on and paused to adjust them. “It happened at night, over somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Kennedy wasn’t payin’ no attention. Next thing anybody knew a Jap ship rammed it. Cut that little boat clean in half,” the old man railed. “Damn Japs never knew they done it. Strunk and one other boy were kilt.”

He removed his glasses a second time. “The boy’s mama was so upset when they told her that she couldn’t get hold of herself. Wasn’t long before she took her own life. Hung herself right on her own front porch.”

“That’s so sad,” Reno said. “Was it her only son?”

“It was,” he said. “When the story came out it was all Kennedy, the he-ro,” he said in a voice dripping with spite. “His mama couldn’t get a straight answer about what happened. The local folks started callin’ and writin’ letters trying to get the truth, and get the boy’s body back. Nothin’ but a damn shame. That damn Kennedy didn’t even know there was a Jap ship there at all. He wasn’t payin’ no attention. But it didn’t matter. They pinned a big medal on him. We didn’t even get the boy’s body back.”

“I never knew any of this,” Jonas said.

“Damn right you didn’t,” Gerson said. “Nobody cares that some hillbilly got kilt. That’s why we don’t like the Kennedys in this county. Even General Douglas MacArthur wanted him court-martialed. Now there’s a war he-ro. Too bad that piss ant Harry Truman got too big for his britches.”

“Was Kent Castle living here at the time?” Reno asked.

“Damn right he did! Norwood Strunk was Castle’s kin! That was his sister that hung herself while Kennedy was gettin’ that medal!”

“Jesus!” Reno said before clapping her hand over mouth.

“I knew all about it even over there in Scoop,” Gerson said. “Folks say Kent Castle was the type that got mad real easy. It just didn’t sit right with him, seeing that damn Kennedy paradin’ around when he lost his sister and the boy. He wrote him up a long story about what really happened on that boat. Most papers and magazines didn’t want nothin’ to do with it. But finally, he got Reader’s Digest to take it. Well, ole Joe Kennedy must have heard about it. That’s Kennedy’s moonshinin’ daddy. Reader’s Digest did finally come up with a PT 109 article, but a different one. It was just another he-ro story. His daddy probably paid for it. So Kent Castle finally gave up. He just plumb gave up.”

That’s what you think, Jonas thought. Before he was able to ask another question a middle-aged man slammed the door open and barreled into the room. “Who are you? Why are you badgering my father? Who said you could come in here? People like you, all you want to do is stir up trouble.”

“We’re in the middle of interview,” Reno snapped. “We were invited in.”

“The interview is over,” he said. “I know what you’re up to. You’re some of those Kennedy lovers from back east trying to make us look bad. Well Kent Castle’s maybe the best thing that ever came out of this town. Picked hisself up by his own bootstraps. We don’t need any punk newsies coming in here and tearing him down.”

Jonas looked the man over. His polyester clothes were from another time, although they were in good repair. Something isn’t right with him. We don’t want anything to do with this guy. He could feel it. “It’s not that at all,” he heard Reno say.

“Don’t come in here trying to take advantage of my father,” the intruder continued, cutting her off. “You’re just waiting for him to shoot his mouth off so you can make everybody laugh. ‘Look at these toothless mountaineers who don’t know shit!’ We seen it all before. Now get out of here. My dad’s done talking to you.”

“We’ll leave,” Jonas said. “Come on, Abby.”

“Could we have your name, sir?” Reno asked.

“Hail no!”

“Come on, Abby. Thank you for your time,” he said to Clyde Gerson. He eased off his stool and headed back the way they’d come in. When he reached the door he looked back and saw that Reno hadn’t moved, but was perched on her stool glaring at him. She caught up with him outside.

When they were in the car Reno turned angrily to Jonas. “Why’d you let that guy push us around?” she demanded. “We had every right to that interview, even if it is his father. I hate how you always back down.”

Jonas maneuvered the car back onto the main road before answering. “Get off it. We already had everything we were getting from him. I’m not going to sit in there fighting with some lunatic. He was wearing leftovers from the seventies. Sometimes you’ve got to know when to quit. That guy was about to flip out on us if he didn’t have a heart attack first.”

They drove without talking. He didn’t know her well enough to handle her when she was this angry, even after all the time they’d spent together. And he was as upset about what happened as she was. By default he steered the car out of town and back towards Interstate 77. He waited for Reno to protest but she didn’t, so he found himself merging onto the highway, heading north in the direction of Morgantown.

Chapter 19

It wasn’t until they were twenty miles out of Becton before a word was spoken. “I guess we’re driving all the way to Morgantown now, huh?” Jonas asked, trying to jump start a conversation and test Reno’s mood at the same time. A few minutes later he broke the silence again. “What do you think? Morgantown?” That time she tilted her seat all the way back and rested her forearm across her eyes as if she was going to sleep.

“Any idea what Mrs. Pomeroy wants to talk about?” he asked ten miles later. When she failed to respond again he slapped the dashboard as hard as he could. “Next exit we’re turning around and going back to Becton. We’ll chase after anybody you want to.”

“Just keep going,” she mumbled without opening her eyes. “We have a lot to do in Morgantown.”

The car climbed and plummeted through the mountains of southern West Virginia. Jonas stopped trying to figure his partner out and instead tried to make sense of what they’d just heard in Becton. He wanted to discuss it but Reno was still pretending to sleep. As far as he was concerned the PT 109 story was all they needed when it came to a motive for Kent Castle, if they could confirm it.

“That was pretty amazing,” Jonas said later after Reno returned her seat to the upright position.

“What was?” Reno answered bluntly.

“That stuff the old guy was telling us about Kennedy,” Jonas said. “If Castle thought Kennedy was behind the death of his sister and nephew, even if it wasn’t true, that’s way more of a motive then what happened to Eastern Steel. It explains a lot. Don’t you think?”

“We’ll have to check the facts out,” she said flatly.

“No shit. Come on, Abby. Give me a break. We got a lot out of that interview. Probably as much as we were going to get.”

“That guy did look like some kind of weirdo,” she said with a smirk.

“What about the PT 109 thing? Even after everything that’s happened I was still skeptical, but this is a clincher for me.”

“Let’s think about this,” Reno said. “If we confirm the facts about the PT 109, where does it get us? We can’t know what Castle was thinking for the next twenty years.”

“I think it’s pretty important. His sister killed herself. Then you throw in the nephew. Case closed in my book. It’s a slam dunk. We can assume it was on his mind when he walked in on Kennedy at the White House. Personally, I think that’s an understatement. I think that’s why he challenged him over the steel prices.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “Are we going all the way to Morgantown now?”

“I’ve been asking you that for two hours. We don’t have anywhere else to go. We may as well go there.”

“Well, we can check his story out pretty easily once we get there,” she said. “I also need to call Mrs. Pomeroy back. Have you been watching to see if we have company?”

“Yeah,” he said. “There’s nobody following us. Not yesterday either. I think we’ve lost them. For now, at least.”

“How far is Morgantown?” she asked.

“I think we’re three hours away,” he said. He was watching the wind expose the silvery underside of the leaves on the trees along the highway. A storm was coming.

“It’ll be pretty late to go see that professor. Let’s just shack up tonight once we get to Morgantown and be ready tomorrow. We can check the geezer’s story and talk to the professor. I’ll call Mrs. Pomeroy tonight.”

“That’s a plan,” Jonas said, relieved that she was talking again.

~~~

It was early evening when they reached Morgantown. As they drove along High Street, which appeared to be the heart of downtown, they watched clusters of students moving along the sidewalks. “Brings back memories,” Jonas said. “This reminds me of Raleigh except for the hills.”

“I was kind of thinking the same thing,” Reno said. “Except that there are more trees than where I went to school. Where’d you go again?”

“NC State. How about you?”

“UTEP. Texas El-Paso.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Jonas remarked. “They usually make it into the NCAAs.”

“Life was simpler back then, huh?” she said as she watched three young men standing in the rain outside a pub. “Those guys don’t have a care in the world.”

“I never thought anybody would try to kill me over a story, that’s for sure. Otherwise I’d have chosen a different major.”

“That’s a hotel right there,” Reno said, pointing at a cream-colored stone building next to an old-fashioned theater. “I bet it’s nice, since it’s right in the middle of town. Should we stay there?”

“Yeah, let’s,” he agreed. “The sooner I get out of this car the better.”

~~~

“It won’t be much longer before I’m out of cash,” Reno said after paying for the room.

“I guess that means we shouldn’t eat there, then,” Jonas said, pointing to the lavish restaurant across the lobby.

“We better do fast food.”

“Let’s at least go where I can get a beer. I’m buying,” he said with an impish smile.

“With what, your charm and good looks?” she asked. “I’ll just put it on your tab.” They left the hotel walked around a few corners until they found a sandwich shop with neon beer signs in the windows. They agreed on foot-long hoagies and a pitcher of beer with a pair of mason jars to drink it from.

“Here’s what worries me about PT 109,” Jonas said after the sandwiches came. “It’s the same kind of thing I’ve been worried about all along. It’s an incredible story. If it all checks out it’s a perfect motive. So don’t you think somebody else would already have figured it out as a motive for Castle?”

“Not necessarily,” Reno answered. “You have to be looking at Castle in the first place or the PT 109 story means nothing. To come up with Castle, you have to go through Pomeroy. That’s what you keep forgetting. We have Pomeroy. I don’t think anybody else ever knew about him.”

“Speaking of Pomeroy, I thought of something earlier. I don’t think you should call Mrs. Pomeroy,” Jonas said. “Remember what happened last time we called? Somebody will be listening this time too.”

“True,” Reno said. She bit off a hunk of roast beef and turkey then washed it down with what was left in her jar. “So what do we do? I definitely want to hear what she called about.”

“I have an idea,” he said. By then a steady trickle of students were coming in and filling the nearby tables. They looked genuinely disinterested but Jonas lowered his voice anyway. “The last thing Pomeroy told me was that they always attended Saturday night mass. I’ll bet she still goes. That’s tomorrow. We could stake out her house and follow there. It’s not like anybody knows what we’re driving. We could corner her in the church where nobody would bother us.”

“Sanctuary in the church?” Reno asked. “I like it. And that would give us all day tomorrow to pump the Professor for anything useful about Castle. And I can’t wait to check out the PT 109 angle.” She stopped talking and jerked her head down towards her empty beer jar. “Don’t look over yet,” she said. “But there’s somebody over in the corner by the pinball machines that I don’t feel good about. They look too old to be college students and they’re staring at us now.”

“Tell me when I can look,” Jonas whispered back.

“Okay, but be careful. Now.”

He looked at them briefly before turning the other way as if he was looking for somebody. “I can’t tell,” he finally said. “Maybe they’re just grad students.”

“After we finish let’s stop off in another bar and see if they follow us.” Before they could, however, the group at the table got up and left.

“False alarm?”

“I’m not so sure,” Reno said. “The guy with the long face caught me staring a few times. Maybe they knew I was on to them so they left. Then again, maybe it was nothing.”

~~~

Both slept well that night at the Hotel Morgan, which was as plush as Reno had hoped. They rode down on the elevator the next morning after hammering out a plan. Instead of working together they would split up. Reno, who loved the painstaking task of collecting information, would head to the library to research the PT 109 incident. Jonas had already called ahead to firm up a meeting with Professor Van Scoy to talk about Kent Castle. They agreed to meet for dinner at the Mountain Lair, the student union building at the center of campus. “Be careful,” Jonas said as they walked out of the hotel. “Don’t forget about that crew you saw last night.”

“Relax, Joe. You worry too much. The only thing I’m worried about is getting into a library without an ID.”

If I hadn’t said it you’d have been pissed,” he said with a grin.

Reno turned left out of the hotel, up High Street towards the main campus where she knew she could find libraries. For Jonas, getting to where he needed to be wouldn’t be as simple. Professor Van Scoy’s office was on the Evansdale Campus, a few miles away. To get there he would ride the PRT, West Virginia University’s subway-tram transportation system that he’d read about the night before. Following the city map he found on a counter in the hotel lobby he walked three blocks to the Walnut Street station.

He climbed the austere concrete steps and found the station platform crowded with riders. While moving towards the turnstile he fished for change in his pockets. When he reached the turnstile a freckle-faced student reached over the gate, inserted a card, and waved Jonas through. “Nobody pays,” he said simply.

“Thanks,” Jonas said. “Now I just need to figure which train to get on.”

“Where are you going?” the student asked.

“Bailey Hall. I think it’s near the football stadium.”

“It is. Go over to that gate. It’s express. It’s a long ride but you won’t have any stops.”

A horde of riders appeared behind Jonas shortly after he moved to the proper line. When the door of the tiny PRT car opened he boarded just ahead of a crowd of students and found himself pressed against the window. That turned out to have its advantages. He watched the scenery as the subway car whizzed silently across Beechurst Avenue and then hovered along the shoreline of the Monongahela. He recognized the green river from the recent visit to Pittsburgh, where it came to an end at the Golden Triangle. As they traced a bend in the river Morgantown faded from view. The blue and gold car sped past a basketball arena and a concert hall before weaving through some sand-colored towers that Jonas guessed were dormitories. He knew the ride was nearing an end when the huge empty football stadium appeared from behind a ridge. As he followed the crowd through the station platform he looked forward to the ride back.

Ten minutes later he was standing outside Professor Van Scoy’s office in Bailey Hall. He knew he was early so he sat down to wait. Eventually a woman came out of the office to greet him. “Good morning, Mr. Jonas. I’m Liz Van Scoy.”

The professor looked like many of the earthy-crunchy professors from his own college days. Although her straight hair had gone gray, she left it long as a younger woman would. She wore wire glasses that framed her plump face. Her most distinguishing feature was her enthusiasm. It was clear that she was somebody who hadn’t grown tired of her work.

Instead of going into her office she led him down a short corridor and around a corner to a lounge and took a seat on a threadbare brown couch. “Have a seat,” she said. “Anyplace that looks comfortable.” The only place he saw that wasn’t covered with books was the other end of the couch so he dropped himself there and twisted to face her. “So what can I do for a reporter who came all the way from Charlotte?” she asked.

“I read that you’re working on the biography of Kent Castle,” he said as he pulled a small notepad from his back pocket. “I’m especially interested in his years at Eastern Steel for a story I’m working on.”

“What’s the story about?” she asked as she drummed her fingers on a thigh.

“I’m writing about his relationship with the Kennedy Administration,” Jonas said, thankful that Reno had reminded him to be ready for that question.

“They weren’t exactly comrades-in-arms. But I guess you know that.”

“I know you’re an expert on the steel industry. Is that why you’re doing the biography?”

“The short answer is that I’m doing it because ERC commissioned it. But they wouldn’t have picked me except for my background. You know Eastern Steel became ERC, of course.”

“Yes. In 1974, right? How much has been written?”

“Not much. We haven’t had full access to his papers and I refuse to work until we have access to everything.”

“Where are the papers?”

“They’re here on campus. But I’m not allowed to see them yet. There’s a court order.”

“A court order?”

“Long story,” she said. “ERC contacted me a few years ago when Castle died. I told them I’d love to take the project on. We agreed on a contract that was very generous. It would have kept my grad students busy for years.But then we hit a snag. It turns out that one hand of ERC doesn’t know what the other is doing. Their Community Relations people were anxious to get the project underway and shipped the entire set of papers down. It filled up one of those little trucks, like the ones that deliver newspapers in the morning. But ERC also has some kind of security department up there that doesn’t want me looking at anything they haven’t combed through first. As soon as they heard I had the Papers they were all over me.”

“But what did the other department say about it?” Jonas asked. “The one that gave you the Papers in the first place, I mean? I don’t understand.”

“They clammed right up. As soon as the security folks pushed, the other group backed off. I worked them hard over the phone for weeks. Eventually they wouldn’t even answer my calls.”

“But the Papers are here?”

“Sure, they’re here. But they’re sealed. To me that just means the tape is still on the boxes but it means a whole lot more to the lawyers. I’d be violating a court order if I opened them up. An injunction,” she said, drawing the last word out with a flourish.

“But didn’t the ERC security guys want them back?”

“You bet your buttons they did. So we filed a counter-injunction, or maybe they called it something else, so we wouldn’t have to give them back until the case is completely resolved. They were aggressive so I was too. ERC sent a truck down to pick the Papers up. They thought I’d let them pat me on the head and take my project away. But because we had our counter-injunction those trucks went back to Pittsburgh empty,” she said with obvious pride.

“You didn’t give them back?” Jonas asked.

“No way,” she said firmly. “A deal’s a deal. I have the signed contracts. According to the deal those Papers are mine until I’m done with them. I called a university lawyer as soon as it started getting nasty. He had the boxes moved to a safe location, and filed another bunch of paperwork. That’s where it stands as of now.”

“Is the safe location somewhere on campus?”

“There’s a document storage vault in the engineering tower. If you rode the PRT you went right past it. It’s a tall gray building. I don’t know if it’s really a vault, like in a bank. I’ve never seen it but my Papers are taking up a lot of space there.”

“So you’ve never seen the Papers?”

“I’ve seen the boxes they’re in, but that’s it.”

“And nothing’s been written?” Jonas asked, still finding it hard to believe.

“Almost nothing was written. We received some private material directly from Castle’s son Christopher,” she explained. “We got through some basic biographical sections based on that. It wasn’t covered by the court order. ERC tried to have it included but that didn’t fly. But it doesn’t matter. As soon as the injunction came in we shut the project down.

“I wonder why ERC is being so stubborn,” he said, hoping to find out what the professor knew about it.

“The security branch, you mean,” said Van Scoy. “The Community Relations branch was very cooperative. They still are. In fact, they’re still funding us fully even though they know we’re not working on it.”

“That’s odd,” Jonas said.

“Not really,” she said. “It’s not much money for them. It’s not worth the paperwork they’d have to go through to cut it off. It’s a big help to us. Corporations are always throwing money away. Why shouldn’t we accept it?”

“So do you think there’s anything interesting about Kennedy in the Papers?” Jonas asked.

“Well, that’s a very broad question, but sure,” she replied. “We know he strongly disliked the president, and the feeling was mutual. I’m sure we’d find evidence of that.”

“How long have the Papers been here?” he asked.

She got up motioned for him to follow her around the corner to where they’d initially met. They walked into her office to a bank of filing cabinets just inside the door. She studied the labels on each drawer before pulling one open. After extracting a manila folder she walked around behind a desk and sat.

“Let’s see,” she said as she pulled pages from the folder. “The shipment arrived on December 12, 1979. There were nineteen cartons of documents. That’s a lot of paper.”

“And they’ve been sitting here untouched ever since then?” Jonas asked. “That’s almost four years.”

“Except for being moved once or twice.” She put down the folder and looked out the window. “The first class of grad students I recruited to work on the Papers have come and gone now. I feel like I betrayed them. Or let them down, at least.”

“How long after the Papers arrived did all this legal mumbo-jumbo start?”

Her eyes returned to the document in her hand. “It all happened within two days,” she said after studying it. “December fourteenth. At least that’s according to the court record. Really, though, it was all on the same day.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“We’ll win,” she said firmly. “Until then I’m standing on principle and not looking at any of the Papers. If we lose it’ll be a different story. I’ll probably photocopy all nineteen boxes before giving them back.”

Jonas couldn’t tell if she was serious but it didn’t matter to him anyway. They talked for a few minutes more but there wasn’t much more to say. After promising to keep in touch, Jonas said goodbye and left the building. Disappointed that the papers were off-limits for the time being, he didn’t enjoy the ride back downtown as much as he’d been expecting to.

Chapter 20

Frank Marino could tell something was seriously wrong as soon as he heard the terse phone message from Braden. As he walked along Heinz Street towards The Point, where Braden had told him they would meet, Marino knew there was only one thing it could be about. It had to be something extremely sensitive to draw the two men out of their offices in the Steel Building to a park that was a dozen blocks away.

He spotted Braden next to the fountain, exactly where he said he would be. “Let’s take a walk,” Braden suggested. They strolled toward the stone markers that outlined the spot where the French Fort Duquesne and later the British Fort Pitt once stood in unspoiled wilderness. Marino knew to wait for Braden to explain rather than ask why they were there. The answer came soon enough.

“Remember the reporters?” Braden said after glancing around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear. “The ones you had responsibility for handling? Well, it turns out they’re not as dead as we hoped.”

Marino’s mouth fell open. “Are you sure? We had an eyewitness confirmation on that.”

“Was the eyewitness confirmation from the two clowns with the pipe?” Braden asked. “Anyway, the reporters are in West Virginia. They’re poking around in Becton. That’s Castle’s hometown. So not only are they alive, they’re still digging.”

“But how did you know they were there?”

“We operate on a ‘Need to Know’ basis, even at your level,” Braden said. “I shouldn’t have to remind you of that. What I need you to do is find out what they’re up to, where they’re headed and what they know.”

“I will, sir, believe me.” They walked to the tip of the Point and stopped. “I didn’t know we had anybody in West Virginia, sir,” Marino remarked.

“Don’t you think there are people in Becton that want secrets to stay secret? Think about it.”

“Sir, I accept complete responsibility for this,” Marino said.

“Cut it out, Marino. Just get on it. We can’t afford to lose them again.”

Chapter 21

It took several passes through the crowded snack bar tables before Reno found Jonas in the Mountain Lair. She finally spotted him leaning against the wall sipping a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper. “Didn’t you see me? I’ve been walking up and down here for twenty minutes!”

“Sorry. Hey, check out the student newspaper,” he said, holding up a copy of The Daily Athenaeum. “They do a pretty good job.”

“There’s no place to sit,” Reno said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Okay by me. How’d the research go? Was the Becton guy full of it?” Jonas asked as they headed for an exit.

“He left out a few parts but most of it checked out.”

“You’re kidding! That old coot? He was on the money?”

“In a way. Where are we going?”

“How about back to the hotel?” he suggested when they were outside.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Yeah, I am. Let’s go in there,” he said, pointing to a tiny Greek eatery. ”I haven’t had a gyro in years.”

“Okay. By the looks of it I’d say we can afford it.”

The smell of well-seasoned lamb washed over them over as they walked inside. They found an empty booth by the window and slid in on opposite sides. A heavily-accented teen immediately appeared at the table with menus. They both ordered the Number Ten platter, which featured the “Big Fat Gyro.” After the waitress disappeared Reno started talking about what she’d found at the library.

“I feel kind of bad about all the copies I made. They were all on the house,” she said as she pulled out stacks of paper. “It was ten cents a page but they used the honor system. I just couldn’t be bothered.”

“We’ll pay them back with our Pulitzer money,” Jonas deadpanned.

“I couldn’t believe how much has been written about this PT-109 thing. Everybody has their own take on it. Some people think Kennedy is the greatest hero of all time and some think he was just a rich guy who crashed a boat. They’re still fighting about it today. I’m still not completely sure what to make of it. I just didn’t have enough time.”

“It’s a big deal to Gerson, that’s for sure.”

“The way I look at it is this. I know Gerson thinks Kennedy screwed up. It’s not our job to decide what really happened. We’re just trying to find a motive for Castle. So while I was looking I concentrated on what the Gersons of the day are saying. And were saying.”

“Makes sense.”

“Okay. Here’s what I found. Kennedy commanded a boat called PT 109. A PT boat is a little thing. They didn’t even get names. They got numbers. They were little wooden boats with a few guns bolted on. They could also shoot torpedoes. PT boats weren’t the greatest weapon on the ocean because the bigger steel ships could knock them out from long range.”

“Nice boat,” Jonas said.

“Some of the sailors called them ‘plywood coffins.’ But they were good for sneaking around because they were so small and easy to maneuver, especially in the dark.”

“Sounds more like a little sailboat.”

“It had three engines. Sometimes if they were trying to hide they only ran the center one. That one had a deep propeller so it didn’t kick up as big a wake so it was harder to spot from the sky. That’s important. They ran on that single engine a lot for just that reason.”

They took a break to devour the gyros that had arrived. “Yow! That stuff’s hot!” Jonas said as white sauce dribbled down his chin. “At any rate, those little boats seem pretty useless. But I guess that doesn’t matter for us.”

“Yeah, let’s not get bogged down with that. So his boat was sent to the Solomon Islands. They were supposed to harass Japanese ships that were carrying supplies.” She continued to flip and sort the documents on the table, reading from them whenever she needed to. “You know, the PT boats weren’t as helpless as I’m making it sound. They could skip and dodge around, and surprise the bigger ships. Plenty of big Japanese ships were torpedoed by PT boats.”

Jonas nodded as he wiped more sauce from his chin after his first bite. He knew the taste of gyros would always remind him of PT 109 from that moment on.

“Okay. It’s two in the morning on August 2, 1943. There are Japanese warships all over the place. They’d just gotten shot at by Japanese planes the previous day so Kennedy was running just the one engine. That’s one of the complaints by the Gerson types. I don’t understand why he was worried about a wake because it was really dark with no moon, but what do I know?”

Jonas nodded. “You better eat. I’ll be done before you even start.”

Reno took a healthy bite from her sandwich before continuing with her mouth full. “Now, all of a sudden this Japanese destroyer, the Amagiri, appears out of nowhere.” She paused to dab at her face with a napkin. “It was right on top of them. It rammed the PT boat. It either broke in two, or a big chunk was sliced off, or something pretty drastic. Everybody said something different but we don’t care. Some say the crew of the Amagiri never even knew it had happened because their wake put the fire out real quick. They just kept on going. Of course, the commander of the Amagiri said later that he saw the PT 109 the whole time.”

“A destroyer is huge. It’s hard to imagine Kennedy’s guys not seeing a destroyer. They didn’t even hear it?”

“Easy for us to say,” Reno said. “Remember, it was pitch-black out there.”

“Have you ever seen a destroyer?”

“It gets hairier. A lot of the PT boats had search radar on board. I didn’t have time to check for sure if PT 109 did. But if it did and somebody had been using it the way they should have they’d have known the destroyer was there no matter how dark it was. Plus, with only one engine he might not have been able to move out of the way fast enough anyway. I got the feeling he was violating a lot of regulations. It sounded like all the PT boats did. They were new boats and the sailors were learning as they went along. But it looks like all these things added up and may have cost him his boat that night.”

“And it cost Kent Castle his nephew, assuming that part’s true.”

“It is. There were eleven on the boat including Kennedy. Two of them were killed. One was from Massachusetts. The other was Norwood Strunk, from Granville, West Virginia. I’m guessing that’s near Becton. He was Torpedoman’s Mate.”

“So the old fellow pretty much had it right. So far, at least.”

A tiny bell on the door tinkled as somebody entered the restaurant, startling Jonas. It reminded him that anybody around them could be watching. It hadn’t been very long since somebody had blown up his car. He took a quick look around the restaurant. Even if nobody looked suspicious he wanted to know it if any of these people showed up somewhere else later.

“It doesn’t sound that bad to me,” he argued.. It sounds like he had a reason for everything he did. Easy for us to sit here and criticize. He was driving a boat through the middle of a war.”

“That’s not the point. What matters is what people like Gerson think about it. Would you be so defensive if it had been your sister who hung herself?”

“Good point.”

“Gerson said that Douglas MacArthur wanted Kennedy court-martialed. I couldn’t find that directly, just some hearsay about it. The closest I found was that he did say a boat like that should have been able to get out of the way of a destroyer.”

“I guess if somebody got a medal for crashing a boat and killing my nephew I’d be pissed too,” Jonas conceded. “If that’s how he sees it.”

“That’s not what the medal was for. The medal was for what he did after the boat sank.”

“Which was?” Jonas asked.

“Before I get to that, you have to understand that the Navy investigates anytime any boat goes down. I found a summary of court-martial preliminary hearings.”

“And that’s where Kennedy’s dad comes in, if I’m paraphrasing Gerson correctly?”

“Supposedly,” she said. “I wouldn’t doubt it but of course nothing’s on the record. Joe Kennedy was close with President Roosevelt. He was Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and then Ambassador to England,” she said as she looked up and down from her copied pages. “But the most important thing about him was that he was loaded. That helped FDR when he was campaigning.”

“Some things never change.”

“So the Navy investigation goes nowhere. It just never gets mentioned again. And then, of course, Lieutenant Kennedy ends up getting the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and a Purple Heart too.”

“What happened after the crash that was so great?”

“It was pretty heroic,” Reno said. “There’s no denying it. He led his men to a nearby island. He actually swam while pulling an injured man by a strap he held in his teeth. Pretty cool. They swam for miles. After he got his men onto the island he carved a note on a coconut and gave it to a native to deliver to some American forces that were in the area. Next thing they knew they were rescued. He probably saved their lives.”

“Except for the Castle kid.”

“You mean the Strunk kid. Oh yeah, remember the Reader’s Digest story he talked about? I couldn’t pin down where it came from but every time JFK ran for anything for the rest of his life they reprinted that story and passed it around,” Reno said. “So Castle got a reminder every few years. Especially in 1960, I’ll bet. The key race in the Democratic primaries was right here in West Virginia. How many copies of that article were flying around here to remind Castle of what happened?”

“If he ever forgot in the first place,” Jonas said. “Which I doubt.”

“How did your meeting go?” Reno asked. “Did you get to see anything interesting?”

“No. There’s a court battle going on over Castle’s papers. Nobody’s been allowed to look at them at all.” He pulled the plastic lid off his soda and shook some ice into his mouth before relating what Van Scoy had told him.

“We’re on the right track, don’t you think? We sure have motive,” Reno said. “But I can’t stop asking myself that same question. How did we figure it out when nobody else did?”

Chapter 22

Jonas could hear Reno breathing in the other bed when he woke up the next morning. It surprised him how quickly he’d gotten used to living with her. He wondered if they would stay in touch after this was all over, assuming they survived. He hoped so.

“What time do you think Mrs. Pomeroy leaves for mass?” Reno asked when she saw that Jonas was awake.

He cleared the nighttime accumulations out of his throat as he thought about it. “Could be anytime after four or five o’clock, I would guess,” he said. “That’s about the time I called that day.”

“Hey, where do we stand with Dr. Van Scoy?” she asked, sitting up in bed. “You conked out last night. Do you even remember getting back here?” She sat up in bed. He tried not to notice that her shirt was pushed up nearly to her shoulders.

“I was pretty beat. You weren’t?”

“I was just getting started. There you were, copping Z’s.”

“Van Scoy has no idea when the fight over the Papers will be over but she’s sure she’ll win,” he said. “We really need to see them.”

“So what else did she say?”

“Not much about what’s in the Papers. They’ve never seen them either. They haven’t gotten very far with it.”

“No kidding. I wonder what this ERC security department is all about. Wasn’t Pomeroy in security?”

“Yeah,” Jonas said. “Maybe his old group is holding it up.”

“Or maybe he was doing it himself. He’s only been dead a week.”

“I wonder if these are the same people that are chasing us around,” Jonas said.

“It would explain a lot.”

“It would?” Jonas said. “Like what?”

“Well, for one thing, it might explain how they knew you called Pomeroy,” she said.

“Yeah,” Jonas said. “I see what you mean.”

“All of a sudden I’m not feeling so good about going to Pittsburgh today.”

“I don’t think you should go by yourself. She wanted you, not me, but now I think we should stick together.”

“I really don’t want to go alone,” she said slowly. “I was even thinking about dying my hair a different color. I’m really feeling weird about it all.”

“They probably don’t know where we are right now,” Jonas said. “They know we left Charlotte but they have no way of knowing where we went. If we go we’ll probably lose our cover. We’ll be driving right into their home base.”

“They probably don’t know what we’re driving, at least,” Reno said.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. We left a trail when we rented the car. They may have access to it. They just don’t know where we went.”

“Let’s stop talking about it,” Reno said. “I’m going out to get some dye and stuff.”

She was gone within ten minutes and back in twenty-five. From a shopping bag she pulled scissors, several boxes of dye and a set of chrome-colored electric shears. “These were only twenty bucks,” she said, holding the shears up. “I thought you might want a haircut yourself.”

“Me?” Jonas asked from his bed. “I haven’t had a crew cut since grade school.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Keep letting that beard grow and let me at you with these. You’ll look like a different person.”

~~~

It took nearly an hour to wipe up the dye and scoop up the hair. When they stood in line to check out of the hotel they were barely recognizable to themselves. Reno’s long blond locks were gone and in their place was straight brown hair cut neatly into a bob with bangs that hung into her eyes. Jonas’s hair was shaved down to a half inch, which changed its hue even without a dye job. He had shaved his emerging beard down to a goatee. “I can’t believe that’s us,” he said when they caught their reflections in the smoked mirror wall behind the counter. “I look like I should be in a porno flick.”

~~~

“I was thinking,” Jonas said after they had checked out. “We don’t have to leave for Pittsburgh for a few hours. Do you think Van Scoy’s in the office today?”

“I never met the woman. You’d know better than I do.”

“We really need to see those Papers. Do you think they’re really in a vault? Or is that just a figure of speech?”

“I have no idea. You can’t possibly think we have a chance to get anywhere near them, do you?”

“I think I remember where her files on the Castle Papers were kept. If we could get that file, or at least see it, we’d know where the Papers are. You could distract her with a bunch of questions and I could sneak in and take a look.”

“I think it’s too risky. What are the chances that you’ll actually find something we can use? Besides, it’s not like the Papers aren’t under lock and key anyway.”

“If I can find what I need, damn right I’ll take it. Those papers could firm everything up for us. There’s no harm in trying. Are you forgetting that somebody tried to kill us just a few days ago? This is serious business. It’s no time to mind our manners.”

“True,” she said. “Maybe it’s worth a shot. But do we have to take anything? Can’t we just look?”

“It would be even more dangerous to stand there reading it. Think about it while I go get the car.” A few minutes later they were on their way to see the professor. When they reached Bailey Hall he drove past and parked down the hill. “This’ll make it easier to sneak away if we have to.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“What are you going to ask her about?” Jonas asked as they walked up the hill.

“The same thing you asked her about, I guess.”

“She won’t care. She loves to talk. If it looks right I’ll disappear to the bathroom or something. Then I’ll sneak in and get the files.”

“The secret files. It sounds so easy.”

They walked inside and up to the second floor. “She’s in those offices at the end of the hall,” Jonas said. “It looks like she’s here.” When they reached her office they peered in and found her glaring at something on her desk. Jonas knocked on the metal doorway. “Professor?” he said.

She looked up with a puzzled expression. “It’s me, Joe Jonas. I was out here last night.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “Come on in. That was quite a haircut.”

“This is Abby Reno. We’re working on this story together.”

“Nice to meet you, Abby,” Van Scoy said, extending a hand.

“We spoke on the phone,” Reno said.

“Abby wanted to ask you a few things about Kent Castle. She knows more about the Kennedy years than I do.”

“I’ll be glad to help if I can,” Van Scoy said. “Let’s not talk here. There’s not enough room for all of us.” She led them back to the cluttered alcove. “Sit down, please.”

“I need to use the men’s room,” Jonas said. “I’ll be right back.” After excusing himself he walked back to Van Scoy’s office. He could hear Reno peppering Van Scoy with questions. They’re not going anywhere, he told himself. After one last check of the hallway he slipped into the office and headed for the filing cabinets.

He was sure he’d opened the right drawer, but the label tabs on the files were no help at all. Instead of words, they contained nothing but meaningless digits. He froze long enough to make sure Reno and Van Scoy were still talking and then began opening files.

As he pulled open the fourth one he heard footsteps. He knew it wasn’t Reno or Van Scoy because he could still hear them talking in the alcove. After pushing the drawer closed he flattened his body against the cabinet as somebody walked past. Time was about to run out but he didn’t want to leave empty-handed after the risks he’d taken. He yanked the drawer back open and pulled out a wad of documents. When he heard Van Scoy say “It’s still in my in-box,” he knew he was in trouble.

The next voice he heard was Reno’s. “If you’re going back that way could you look for my partner?” It was too late to bolt from the office. Without closing the file drawer he dove underneath the desk. His wrists burned where he scraped them on the carpet. The lights snapped on just as he came to a stop. Afraid that the sound of his breathing would give him away, he held his breath.

Two leather-clad feet appeared inches away from his face on the other side of the desk. He heard the shuffling of papers and a man quietly humming. He was desperate to fill his lungs with air but willed himself to hold out. Finally the visitor had what he was looking for and walked out. Jonas gasped and sucked in air as quietly as he could, then counted to ten before crawling out from his hiding place. On his way back to the alcove he stuffed the pages into his pants and made sure to brush the dust off his clothes. The three talked for a few minutes more before Reno announced that it was time to leave.

“I have to know,” she said as they walked back to the car. “How close did you cut it?”

“Thank God you warned me. You were right. This wasn’t such a good idea.”

“You didn’t get anything good?”

“I’m not sure but I don’t think so. The secret filmes are in my underwear. I’ll look at them after my heart starts beating again.”

Chapter 23

“So what’s the plan?” Reno asked after they were back in the car.

“Let’s decide now,” Jonas suggested as he looked at his watch. “It’s a little after two o’clock.” He thought it over. “There really isn’t much to decide. If we want to follow her to church all we can do is sit outside her house and wait. We don’t know for sure what time it starts. We don’t even know if she’s going.”

“I hope she doesn’t mind me just showing up.”

“Or following her.”

“If she’s upset I’ll just leave. Whatever.”

“That stuff in your hair still smells. I hope it doesn’t give you away. Somebody might figure out you’re really a blonde.”

“I’m not planning on letting anybody get that close,” she answered.

“Don’t look,” he said as he unzipped his pants and pulled out the papers.

“Anything good?” she asked after he’d examined them for half a minute.

“Bunch of crap. I’m not surprised,” he said as he crumpled the papers up and dropped them onto the floor. “It was a random grab.”

~~~

They reached the Pomeroy residence on Grace Street before four o’clock. Just as they’d done a few weeks earlier they parked within view of the house and waited. There was no way for them to know if or when June Pomeroy would come out of the house and go to mass, except for her husband’s remark over the phone on one of the last nights of his life.

“I think we should switch places,” Reno suggested. “If we have to follow you should drive. Then you can drop me at the church, if it goes that far.”

They changed places without getting out of the car just in case somebody was watching. Then both of them kept an eye on the house and as time went by, the clock. Just before six o’clock a brown sedan rolled past before stopping at the curb in front of the Pomeroy house.

“It’s a carload of women. That’s got to be her churchgoing biddy friends,” Reno said. Before he could answer a woman in a turquoise pantsuit came out of the house and worked her way down the steps to the waiting car. “I can’t believe this is going to work. We’ll be able to spot her a mile away in that outfit. Is she color blind?”

“She looks like just about the right age. It’s got to be her. So as soon as they take off, we follow, right? Are you just going to walk into the church behind her?”

“I’ll play it by ear,” she answered as she pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Where are you going to be?”

They heard the car door thump closed. Seconds later the sedan pulled away from the curb. Jonas waited until it had reached the end of Grace Street. He was about to follow when a sturdy black Chevrolet shot by. “Where did they come from?” he wondered aloud.

Reno grabbed his arm. “Let’s call it off. I’ve got a bad feeling about that car. That’s probably them. They’re here doing the same thing we are.”

“We don’t know that,” Jonas said, but he slammed the gearshift lever back into park. “We’re perfectly safe. It could be anybody. They couldn’t possibly know we’re here.”

“If they didn’t they do now. Would you be so sure of yourself if it was you that was going into the church with her instead of me?”

“You mean assuming it’s them in the first place?” he answered. He watched as the brown sedan and the black Chevrolet turned left onto Crafton Boulevard and disappeared. “We’re losing them!” he said as he threw the car back into gear and raced to the end of the street. His head swiveled as he watched for a break in traffic from both directions. “Can you still see them?”

“Yes, barely,” she said. “They’re way up there. But we have to think this through. We’re not the only ones keeping tabs on Mrs. Pomeroy anymore.”

“No,” Jonas said, “but we’re the only ones who were invited.” He saw a narrow gap in traffic and floored the accelerator. The car fishtailed as it narrowly missed a Honda whose driver leaned on the horn. “I say we go for it.”

“We just shook these guys two days ago!” Reno protested as Jonas inched closer to the rear bumper of the car ahead of them. “I want to stay lost! I want to live!”

“I see them!” Jonas yelled, trying to be heard over the air rushing in through his window. He stepped the accelerator and barreled around two cars when there was a break in oncoming traffic. “Look, somebody’s already decided if we’re going to live or die, just like they did for Pomeroy! It’s too late!”

“But we’re walking straight into this! Turn here!”

He slammed on the brakes and wrenched the wheel to the right. Tires squealed and the back end skidded wide as the car lurched onto a side street. The two cars were in clear view about a quarter mile ahead.

“They’re right up ahead. Can you slow down now?”

“Yeah. We don’t want to attract attention anyway. We need to stay in the shadows.”

“How am I supposed to stay in the shadows if I’m going to talk to Mrs. Pomeroy?” Reno asked angrily. “What am I going to do, hide in a potted plant and tap her on the shoulder when she walks by?”

“Let’s take a deep breath, both of us.”

“I don’t need one,” Reno snapped.

They followed the cars through suburban streets lined with fast food restaurants and car dealerships. Finally, after one last left turn they saw a modest stone church. Brake lights flashed as the brown sedan turned in. The black Chevrolet continued past the church and disappeared around a bend.

”See,” Jonas said. “You were worried about nothing. Whoever that was had nothing to do with us.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’ll just park here on the street. I don’t want to get stuck in there. Nobody’s moving.”

“No way, Jose. If I’m doing this you’re dropping me at the door. I’m not strutting across the street in full view.”

“Okay. So how do you think you’ll do it?”

“Do what?”

“Get her attention.”

“I guess I’ll try to get close to her after the service.”

“I would have thought they were Baptists.” He stopped behind a line of cars dropping passengers. “Do you remember what she was wearing?”

“How could I forget? That’s her, walking through the doorway,” she said, pointing her out.

“Okay,” Jonas said. “I’ll be close by. I’ll try to pick you up right here, just like we’re doing now,” he said as she pushed the door open. “I won’t leave without you.” She scowled at him before slamming the door shut.

~~~

Reno looked around once she was inside the church but didn’t see Mrs. Pomeroy. There were at least ten empty pews in the back so she slipped into one of them and slid towards the middle. Her sunglasses didn’t come off until she was seated. The priest was fifteen minutes into the mass before Reno saw where Mrs. Pomeroy was sitting. Having noted that the only exits were in the rear she came up with a plan. She found a pen and a scrap of paper in her pocketbook and scrawled a note.

~~~

When the mass was over Reno carefully watched to see which aisle Mrs. Pomeroy would leave by, and slid to the end of the pew in that direction. After she passed Reno stepped out behind her, pretending not to notice that she’d rudely cut off Mrs. Pomeroy’s friends until it was too late. “Mrs. Pomeroy,” she said softly.

Mrs. Pomeroy seemed startled and turned around to see what had happened. Reno looked her in the eye as she forced the note into her hand. “Read it,” she whispered. Mrs. Pomeroy turned away and looked at what was in her hand as they all shuffled towards the door. A moment later she turned back to Reno with a surprised look on her face.

“How did you find me?” she asked, forgetting to lower her voice.

“Can we talk?” Reno whispered. Pomeroy’s friends craned their necks from behind to get a glimpse of the interloper. “In private?”

A few steps later Mrs. Pomeroy looked like she’d collected herself. “We can go to the basement,” she whispered over her shoulder. She veered right towards a door on the side. “It’s okay,” she said quietly to her gaping friends. “I know her. Just go home without me. I’ll call later.” None of the friends moved but Mrs. Pomeroy and Reno walked through the door and out of sight. Their footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell as they made their way to the basement.

“Hi Mrs. Pomeroy,” Reno said when they’d reached the bottom of the stairs. “Sorry I never called you back.”

Mrs. Pomeroy smiled. “You’re one of the last people to see my husband alive.”

“I’m sorry about your husband’s accident. He was a very nice man.”

“Yes he was. But we both know it was no accident.”

“My partner is outside waiting with a car. Can we go someplace and talk?”

“I’d like that,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “There are some things I need to say before I go.”

“Would you mind taking off your jacket? I’m pretty sure there’s somebody else looking for you tonight and they’ll be looking for that color.”

Mrs. Pomeroy nodded and took it off. “I’ll carry it,” Reno said. She took the jacket and rolled it up as carefully as she could before tucking it out of sight under her arm. “Is there a way outside from here?”

Mrs. Pomeroy pointed to a door. “That leads out back.” They walked over and looked out. It was nearly dark. Reno could see rain falling in front of each set of headlights. A long line of cars was crawling by, presumably on their way back to the street.

“Perfect,” Reno said. “We’ll just wait for Joe. I’m sure he’ll be in that line.”

No sooner had she said it then the rented Taurus appeared. They waited just inside the basement door until the car was directly in front and then walked out the door. Reno followed Mrs. Pomeroy up a few concrete steps and then opened the rear door of the car for her. After she was safely inside Reno pushed the door closed and jumped into the front seat rather than wait for Mrs. Pomeroy to make room. “Done,” Reno said as soon as her door was closed. “Joe, this is June Pomeroy. Let’s go.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jonas said as he looked in the rear view mirror. There would be time for a warmer introduction later after they got her away from the church.

Chapter 24

Ted Braden had just gotten home when the secure phone in the den rang. He hadn’t even had a chance to remove his bow tie or loosen his cummerbund. “That’s never good news,” he muttered softly as he dropped his dripping umbrella into the stand by the door. He checked to make sure his wife was already up the stairs and then walked quickly to the desk in the den. “Braden,” he said into the receiver.

“Sir, this is Marino,” a voice said. “I’m on a secure line. Can we talk?”

“Is there trouble?”

“No, sir. Something interesting happened in the last hour that I thought you might want to know. We’ve been tailing Pomeroy’s wife for a week. I didn’t want any surprises so I put a good team on it.”

“Pomeroy never gave us too much trouble,” Braden said. “Not until the end, at least. And even that’s debatable. His wife doesn’t worry me. Should she?”

“I didn’t want to chance it. Who knows how much he’s told her, although I don’t imagine this is something the Pomeroys talked about at the dinner table.”

“I would hope not.”

“She doesn’t leave the house much,” Marino said. “She just lost her husband, after all. But tonight she was at church. Our men think the reporters were there too.”

“Oh? Right here in the city? Did they see the reporters? They’re not sure?”

“The women that brought Mrs. Pomeroy to church left without her,” Marino explained. “It was dark and rainy but our men think they saw her come out through a different door with a younger woman and get into a car.”

“This is vague. Very vague. Is this the best information you have?” asked Braden, clearly annoyed.

“There was a lot of activity after the mass ended,” Marino said. “They had a hard time getting close enough. We’re following the car that she got into. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything more.”

“That’ll have to do, I suppose.”

“Sir, do you want Mrs. Pomeroy taken out if we have the chance?”

“Good God, Marino! Have you lost your mind? Absolutely not. Leave the poor woman alone. She’s suffered enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about the reporters?” Braden asked. “Do you have any idea what they’re up to?”

We don’t have a firm sighting of the reporters since they were spotted in Becton,” Marino said. “Unless it was them at the church.”

“Those two worry me far more than Mrs. Pomeroy does. Maybe that’s where your best team should be. Find them. Then get back to me.” He pushed a button and ended the call before Marino was able to say another word.

Chapter 25

“Where are we headed?” Jonas asked.

“It’s just about dinner time,” Reno said. “Anybody hungry?”

“Let’s drive for a few minutes to see if we have any company,” Jonas said before making the first of several random turns as he watched headlights behind them.

“I’d like to go home,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “We can talk there.”

“That’s probably not a good idea, Mrs. Pomeroy,” Reno said. “If somebody’s looking for us, that’s the first place they’ll go.”

“I can’t imagine anybody’s after me,” she said.

Guess again, Jonas wanted to say but didn’t. Once anybody hangs out with us their days are numbered.

“It was my husband they were after. But they got him and that’s that.”

“Why did you call me, Mrs. Pomeroy?” Reno asked.

“Please call me June,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “I suppose I just wanted to talk about R.J. with somebody who knew all about his past. With everybody else I have to watch what I say. God, I miss him.”

“Looks like we’re clean,” Jonas said. “Nobody’s following us. Did we decide what we’re doing?”

“It’s up to June,” Reno said.

“I’m not hungry,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “But I’ll sit with you two if you want to eat.”

“Would you rather sit in the car and talk?” Reno asked.

“That would be better for me,” she answered. “If we can’t go home.”

Jonas parked at a diner on the side of the road and turned around to face Mrs. Pomeroy. “I’m really sorry. I feel like I’m responsible for what happened. We should have left your husband alone.”

“It’s alright,” she said. “Don’t take the blame for somebody else’s evil. He always knew somebody was watching him. Somebody close by.”

“We know your husband had nothing to do with the assassination,” Reno said. “And he didn’t seem to know too much about it. Why was he being watched?”

“You’re fishing, honey,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “But that’s okay. I want to talk about it.” She paused as a car pulled into the lot and drove slowly past.

“It’s not them,” Jonas assured her.

“R.J. didn’t do anything wrong,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “He’d never hurt a fly. But he was there. You know what I’m talking about. He saw some things that he couldn’t explain. He was right in the middle of something without even knowing it. All these years it always seemed as though there was somebody out there who thought R.J. knew more than he really did.”

“He saw somebody let Jack Ruby into the basement to kill Lee Harvey Oswald, didn’t he?” Reno asked.

“He thought so,” she said without elaborating.

“That’s in the assassination report even though they didn’t get his name right,” Reno said.

Mrs. Pomeroy smiled. “We were given a new name when we came here. But yes, it looked to R.J. like they knew Ruby was coming and they let him pass. He wasn’t supposed to see that.”

“When you say ‘they’ who do you mean?” Jonas asked. “Other cops?”

“We were never sure,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “R.J. was one of a group of men who joined the force just a few months earlier. None of them had any experience. None of them had any idea why they were hired. We were young and needed the money so he didn’t ask many questions. I’m afraid the group was used by somebody, somehow, to do something terrible. That’s all we ever knew. They broke it up so quickly afterwards that none of them ever got a chance to make any sense out of any of it.”

“How did R.J. end up joining ERC?” Reno asked.

“You’re fishing again,” Mrs. Pomeroy said with a smile. “But I don’t care anymore. I really don’t care about anything anymore. It feels good to talk about it. There isn’t anything anybody can do to me now. They’d be doing me a favor.”

An awkward silence followed, which Mrs. Pomeroy broke herself. “We knew right away that it wasn’t a coincidence that ERC offered R.J. a job right after that. A few of the other new cops came up too. We never figured out the connection. We never wanted to. It was something we tried not to think about. ERC gave us a good life. But R.J. always knew the price was that he had to keep his mouth shut. And he tried to. He didn’t know very much anyway.”

“Even the little bit he did know had nothing to do with the assassination,” Reno said. “Just Oswald. What a shame.”

“R.J. always believed that Oswald shot the president, but that Oswald was working with somebody. He always figured Oswald was told he’d be allowed to escape.”

“Who was in charge of this special group of policemen?” Reno asked.

“We never knew. R.J. didn’t ask a lot of questions.”

“Do you believe it?” Jonas asked. “About letting Oswald get away?”

“You mean, pretending to let him get away, right?” Reno asked.

“R.J. saw his partner’s squad car behind the Texas Schoolbook Depository that day,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “You know, the building Oswald was shooting from. A little while later, after the president was shot, Oswald’s landlady saw that same car in from of Oswald’s rented room. You figure it out.”

“He never told us that,” Jonas said.

“It’s in the report,” Reno told them. “I remember it.”

“They were good friends, R.J. and his partner,” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “Charlie McBride. R.J. never saw him again. He died when his house burned down a few weeks later. That was one reason we kept quiet. Something wasn’t right. They said the fire started when he fell asleep in bed with a cigarette. Charlie never smoked a day in his life as far as we knew.”

“It must have been awful, knowing all of this without being able to talk about it,” Reno said. “All these years.”

“It wasn’t so hard,” she answered. “We knew what would happen if we talked. And life was good here in Pittsburgh except you can’t get decent barbecue. We couldn’t complain. But it does feel good to get it off my chest now. I just don’t care anymore. There’s nothing more they can do to me.”

“But sometimes it was hard,” she admitted after another pause. “In some ways it changed everything we did. We always wanted kids but we were afraid of what could happen. It would have been too easy to use them against us if anything went wrong.”

Nobody spoke for a few minutes. There was just too much to think about.

“Can you take me home now?” Mrs. Pomeroy said. “I’m ready. I’m really ready. Let it come.”

Jonas talked her into letting them drop her off at a friend’s house rather than take her home. He wasn’t worried about her safety as much as his own and Reno’s. If he and Reno showed up on Grace Street their cover would be blown, and probably for the last time.

“That was weird,” Reno said after Mrs. Pomeroy was safely inside her friend’s house. “I would have felt better if she cried a little.”

Chapter 26

“Weird isn’t the word for it. I feel horrible about what we did,” Jonas said after Mrs. Pomeroy was gone. “She spent her whole life with the guy. She was willing to keep the secret. So was he. Then we came along and wrecked it.”

“I know,” said Reno. “I know.”

“Where are we going for the night? Any ideas? Do we head back to Morgantown?”

“I don’t know where else we could go,” Reno said. “We do need to go see the professor again. There’s got to be a way for us to get at those Papers.”

“You mean the ones in the vault? We can try, but it sounds like a tall order.”

“Our cash isn’t going to last forever. Living on the run like this is getting old. Maybe if we settled in some place we could start writing and publishing what we already know. Our bosses would be happy too.”

“I forgot we actually work for a living,” Jonas said. “Maybe you’re right. We’ve got enough material in our heads to write something decent. It’d be a good idea to get it all on paper anyway while it’s fresh.”

“I thought of something else, too,” Reno said. “Maybe that’s exactly what we need to do to get these people off our backs. Writing what we know is the only way we can fight back. Maybe if our articles start popping up it won’t be us who needs to run anymore. It’ll be them.”

“On the other hand it might make them even more desperate, which would be bad for us,” Jonas pointed out.

“I think they’re pretty desperate already. What’s the body count so far?” Reno asked.

“True. But let’s go back and see if we can get something from the professor before we start writing.”

Ninety minutes later they were in Morgantown again. Jonas turned the car toward downtown, where their day had begun. “Should we just stay at the same place?”

“Yeah,” Reno agreed. “Why did we bother checking out this morning?”

They drove around the block twice looking for a place to park. “Party night, I guess,” Jonas said. They found a space after venturing a few blocks further from the hotel. After so many hours in the car it felt good to walk. It didn’t take long before they were in front of the hotel. Just before they went inside Reno’s eyes went wide.

“Oh my God!” She yanked Jonas behind a minibus just as a black Chevrolet passed slowly in front of the hotel. This time the windows were down.

What’s wrong?” Jonas asked. Then he noticed the black car. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes! And that was Sideburns! The red-haired guy from the airport! He was in the back of the car! I swear to God! I swear it was him!”

“How can you tell? You hardly had a chance to see.”

“He was fifteen feet away. I saw him and he saw me. This guy chased me through airports. I know what he looks like by now. Weren’t you watching traffic behind us on the way back down? I thought we were clean!”

“Damn!” Jonas said. “If they knew it was us in the first place why’d they follow us all the way back down here?”

The question was barely off his lips when the Chevrolet lurched to the curb. Its rear end jutted into traffic as all the doors popped open. “They saw us! Come on!” Jonas yelled as he pulled Reno towards the hotel. Jonas saw three figures emerge from the car as they escaped inside. “We need to find a back door!” They sprinted past the front desk and around the corner where there was nowhere to go except into the restaurant. “In here!” Jonas shouted.

A man stationed inside the restaurant door raised a feeble arm as they ran past. Jonas sidestepped a woman carrying two meals on a tray and then ran in the direction she had come from with Reno right on his heels. They burst through a set of swinging doors and found themselves in the kitchen. There were so many white-clad workers in the confined area that they were forced to slow to a walk, twisting and turning when necessary to avoid collisions. Several of the culinary staff gawked at them but they were gone before there was time to protest. Jonas looked back in time to see his partner send a stack of bowls clattering to the floor after a direct hit from her swinging bag. “Pardon me,” he said several times as they weaved through the kitchen. Finally they found an exit just past a bank of stainless steel sinks. After pushing their way through they found themselves in an alley.

“There’s a PRT station right over here somewhere,” Jonas said as he grabbed her bag and began running deeper into the alley. “I was there yesterday. Come on!” His shirt ripped open at the abdomen when it got caught on a sharp prong as he scaled the wet fence at the end of the alley. As he threw himself over the top he felt the pain of tearing skin along one of his ribs as another part of the fence gored him. Reno took longer to climb. Her hands slipped on the top of the fence as she stepped over. Her momentum carried her forward and down on the other side where she landed awkwardly on her shoulder. Jonas ran back to pull her to her feet but she was already up and moving by the time he got there. As she resumed running she rubbed a dark blot of blood on her chin where it had struck the pavement.

“This is Chestnut Street, it’s one block over!” Jonas yelled.

They reached Walnut Street and scrambled up the stairway to the platform just as a PRT car was pulling in. Jonas put one hand on the rail and vaulted it while retaining his hold on the sack. “Hurry!” he shouted back to Reno, who needed two hands but got over the railing quicker than he did. They pushed their way onto the car with no concern for where it was going. Both were sweating, bleeding and breathing hard. Nobody among the handful of students aboard with them said a word, either to Jonas and Reno or to each other. They just stared. Jonas nervously watched the platform and counted the seconds until the doors closed and the car pulled out of the station.

It seemed that the car was moving in slow motion. The interior fluorescent lighting would make it easy for them to be spotted by anybody watching from the streets below. They couldn’t see much except for the reflections in the windows because it was dark outside. That changed ten minutes later when they approached the Towers dormitories which were surrounded by the busy commercial strip along University Avenue. As the car pulled into the Towers station Jonas gestured toward the door with his head when he caught Reno’s eye.

“I saw a little motel along here yesterday,” Jonas said. “We need a place to hide.” Reno nodded her approval. They walked past the dormitories and onto University Avenue, with its array of souvenir shops, bars and fast food. From there it was another half mile to the cheap motel. They tucked in shirts, wiped away dirt and blood checked in under an alias. Neither felt very confident about their chances of staying hidden for long. Jonas walked next door and bought a bag of hot food at a burger joint, and then they holed up in the room behind a steel door with a deadbolt lock.

“Where did we go wrong?” Reno finally asked after they devoured the cheeseburgers and coke. “I didn’t think they even knew we were in Pittsburgh. I wonder if they’ve known where we are all along.”

“We’re out of our league here. We’re really pressing our luck anytime we go out at all. These guys are professionals. We’re just a couple of reporters.”

“I’m glad we did what we did today,” she said. “It was worth it to meet Mrs. Pomeroy. I feel like we owed her that.”

“I don’t know if it was worth it. I guess our disguises didn’t work the way we hoped.”

“It was a pretty good try for a couple amateurs.”

“I need a shower,” Jonas said. “Do you mind? I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

~~~

When he returned from the bathroom mopping his clipped hair with a towel he found Reno collapsed across the bed wrapped in nothing but a bedspread with the Warren Commission Report books spread around her. “Now that’s hot,” he said as he framed her with his fingers. “Check this out,” he said, pointing to the oozing wound above his abdomen. “It doesn’t want to stop bleeding.”

“I saw that,” she said. “Is it from the fence?”

“Yeah. Your chin’s bleeding, too.”

“Maybe I’ll shower,” she said as she rose from the bed.

“You know, Abby, you’re so right. Screw the professor. We need to write some articles right now. I’m thinking of staying up and working on it tonight. The only thing that worries me is that I’m afraid to call my editor. I can’t remember if he knows what I’m doing at all. He’s probably pissed.”

“After all that’s happened that’s your biggest worry?” she asked. “Come on, you’ve got bigger problems than that.”

“I figure we can write it first and call him later. And you should send it to your editor too, of course.”

“Everything that Mrs. Pomeroy said was spot on with what’s in here,” Reno said. “Not in the main report, of course. But if you read the verbatim testimony it confirms what she told us about the police car. I knew it sounded familiar when she told us that.”

“What police car?” Jonas asked as he walked back towards the bathroom. “Keep talking,” he yelled. “I’m going to put some clothes on.”

“You don’t have any, remember? We lost all our clothes again!”

“Yeah, I know. I guess I have to put the same shit back on. Do you think we need to go back and take care of the car?”

“No way. Are you crazy? We can’t go back there. Besides, it’s probably wired to explode by now.”

“Yeah, true.”

“It’s getting way too complicated, huh?”

What did Mrs. Pomeroy say about that police car again?” Jonas asked.

“She said Pomeroy saw his partner’s car parked behind the Texas School Book Depository around lunchtime,” Reno said. “And his partner was none other than Charlie McBride. That was new. We didn’t know that for sure.”

“The late Charlie McBride,” Jonas said. “And then she said the same car was at Oswald’s pad a few minutes later. Right?”

“Slow down. That’s right here,” she said, pushing one book aside and reaching for another. “Mrs. Earlene Roberts was the housekeeper at Oswald’s rooming house. She told the Warren Commission that at one o’clock she saw a police car outside the house. They beeped the horn twice and then left. She said Oswald had just gotten there.” She flipped forward a few pages, then flipped back and continued. “She said there were two uniformed policemen in the car. I can’t find it right now but I remember where somebody from the police department confirmed that the car was at the Texas Schoolbook Depository at the time of the assassination.”

“What does that mean?”

“Simple. Nobody was supposed to reveal that it was at the Depository. That must have been a slip up. I think Oswald shot Kennedy and then caught a ride back home in that squad car. It’s just more evidence that the police were in on this, just like when they let Ruby kill Oswald two days later. But not the real police. It was that bogus group that Pomeroy was with.”

“You’re good, Abby. But this is right in the report? Why haven’t we ever heard of it before?”

“No,” she said impatiently, “It isn’t in the report. This is the report,” she said, slapping the smallest of the volumes on the bed. “If that’s all you read you wouldn’t know any of this. I found all this in these other volumes, where you see what the witnesses said under oath.”

“Sorry. I forgot.”

“And there’s something else I’ve been kicking around,” she continued. “It makes more sense now. Just some real bad luck for Oswald. He ran into J.D. Tippit about a half hour after he left the scene. Tippit was a real policeman, not one of the phonies Pomeroy was in with. I’m a hundred percent sure he had nothing to do with the plot. Oswald probably expected Tippit to help him because he figured the whole police force was in on it. Tippit didn’t know anything at all except what the shooter looked like because a description was already on the air. So he was probably trying to arrest Oswald, not help him. It must have gotten out of control and Oswald killed him. Before that I think the plan was for Oswald to slip away. But the instant he turned into a cop-killer the real cops weren’t going to let that happen no matter what. They chased him down in a movie theater, beat him up, and brought him in.”

“Wouldn’t they have chased him anyway even if he didn’t kill a cop? Isn’t killing the president just as bad?”

“Not if he hadn’t run into Tippit and gotten caught in the first place. The escape plan would have worked except for Tippit. Talk about a bad break. It all unraveled because Tippit saw him by chance. At least that’s what I think.”

“And Oswald knew too much,” Jonas said. “Once the real police grabbed him, it wasn’t safe for the plotters to leave him alive because he would eventually spill his guts. It wasn’t enough just to double-cross him. They had to kill him to keep it all secret. Yes!” he said, pumping his fist. “I believe we nailed this!”

“So where are you planning to start? For your article, I mean?”

“Abby, it’s our article,” he reminded her. “You’ve done twice the work I have. Are you up for writing it tonight? I’m feeling a real sense of urgency.”

“No kidding. Yeah, let’s do it,” she said. “Are we naming names? Pomeroy told us not to use his.”

“Yeah, but you’re forgetting one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s dead.”

Reno laughed out loud. “You’re bad.”

“A lot of our information came straight out of the Warren Report or else was confirmed by it. Is that okay as a source?”

“Everything in there’s heavily footnoted,” Reno said. “We’ll just name the names in the footnotes. Whenever something came from there we’ll make it crystal clear.”

“What about Mark McBride?”

“He’s a buffoon. If we mention him we lose credibility. We can leave him out, but not his father.”

Jonas nodded. “I say we write this big and bold. There are a few cracks we haven’t filled in but let’s write it like it’s one-hundred percent solid. It’s got to be a home run. We’re not just reporting the news. We’re trying to stay alive.”

“Where do we send it when it’s done?” Reno asked. “Your place or mine?”

“I don’t really care. Let’s send it to both. Can we do that?”

“Let’s just worry about that after we write it,” she suggested. “I’d be surprised if my editors will touch it without studying it for a month, especially when we send it in handwritten.”

“You think you’ve got it tough?” Jonas said. “I don’t even know who to send it to. My boss doesn’t even know me.”

“We don’t have much time. Let’s write,” she said. “If our papers don’t want it, somebody else will. It’s the story of the century, isn’t it?”

“Damn straight it is,” he said. “But not until we write it.”

Chapter 27

Braden’s den phone rang again an hour later. He muted the Pirates game with one hand while answering the phone with the other. “Braden.”

“Mr. Braden, this is Frank Marino again. Sir, I have more information on the reporters,” Marino said.

“Go ahead, Marino.”

“They’re in Morgantown, West Virginia,” Marino said. “One of our teams tailed them from Pittsburgh. They checked into The Hotel Morgan a few minutes ago and they’re still inside. We have somebody at every exit.”

“Excellent! Why don’t you just go in and get them?”

“We don’t have any contacts at the front desk. We decided we’d just wait them out.”

“Do not let them out of that building. We have them this time. Do whatever it takes. When they show up you know what to do. Keep it quiet, play it cool, but get it done. Understood?”

“Will do, sir,” Marino answered.

“Now, what are they doing in Morgantown? Do they know about the biography project?”

“I don’t know,” Marino admitted. “They haven’t left the hotel so we don’t know what they’re up to.”

“I’m not sure how much you know,” Braden said. “A few years ago ERC sent a few trucks of historical documents down there to some history professor. Problem is, those papers weren’t sanitized. We never had anybody go through them so we don’t know what’s in them. It’s probably okay but we don’t know for sure. Do you follow me?”

“Yes. I remember this.”

“We have the court order to stop her from picking through the papers, but she still has them. Or somebody down there does. The judge ordered that they be locked away. It would be bad if she was offering to let them see any of it. Very bad. But why else would they be there?”

“I’ll look into it,” Marino promised. “do we have any contacts at the university?”

“Call me in the office tomorrow. I don’t keep any of that here.”

“Yes, sir. In the meantime I’ll get down to Morgantown. Something tells me I have some business to take care of there.”

Chapter 28

Eastern Steel Chairman Orchestrated Ordered JFK Assassination

By Abby Reno (The Austin Statesman) and Joe Jonas (The Charlotte Sentinel)

Morgantown, WV -- Kent Castle, who served as Chairman of Eastern Steel from April May 1959 through March 1964, orchestrated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The scheme was facilitated by a division of handpicked Dallas policemen officers, all of whom were hired in September 1963. All members of this special cell on the police force were fired in December 1963. MostSome were immediately hired by the security department of Eastern Steel Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The shooter was Lee Harvey Oswald just as the 1964 Warren Commission indicated determined. He was working closely with the Castle plot, however, and was not a ‘lone gunman’ as that report concluded. After fatally wounding the president President Kennedy, Oswald was transported taken away from the scene and to his home rooming house in a Dallas Police Department squad car number 207. The car was driven by Officer Charlie Charles McBride, a member of the special cell. Another unidentified policeman was in the car with McBride and Oswald as well. Housekeeper Landlady Earlene Roberts testified under oath before the Warren Commission that after dropping Oswald at his home the two officers beeped sounded the horn twice before driving away.

Minutes after returning to his home Oswald left and quickly encountered Officer J.D. Tippit. A struggle ensued and according to eyewitnesses (documented by the Warren Commission report) Tippit was fatally shot by Oswald. Tippit was not a member of the special cell and who most likely knew nothing of the scheme. Tippit possibly may have tried to arrest Oswald based on a description of the shooter assassin that was being broadcast. Oswald may have been confused by Tippit’s ignorance of the plot and shot the officer out of desperation.

After Oswald killed Tippit the plotters decided that they could not allow him to be rescued go free, as was originally planned. But the need for secrecy required that he be silenced once he was taken into custody for the murder of Tippit. Instead, they The plotters were forced to devised a plan for his execution.

The new plan culminated in the shooting of Oswald on live television by Jack Ruby on Sunday, November 24, 1963. The shooting occurred in the basement of the Dallas Police Department Building as Oswald was being transferred from the City Jail to the County Jail. Dallas police officer R.J. Pomeroy, a member of the secret cell, admitted to the Warren Commission that he watched as another secret cell officer, Edward Vincent, allowed Ruby to walk freely down the ramp from Main Street into the basement moments before the transfer was to take place. Within minutes Ruby killed Oswald with no interference from the dozens of police officers that were present.

LikeAs Oswald was, Ruby was double-crossed by the plotters after playing his part in the conspiracy. For months while being held in prison after killing Oswald Ruby regularly told Warren Commission interviewers interrogators commissioners and investigators that his life was in danger he could expose the conspiracy if he was taken out of the custody of Dallas law enforcement officials. “My life is in danger,” he said repeatedly, according to transcripts of interrogations testimony in front of the by Warren Commission interrogations hearings testimony. “If you don’t take me back to Washington with you, you’ll never see me again,” he said. Ruby had already been was convicted of murdering Oswald before he was ever interviewed by the Warren Commission. He languished in prison until his death in 1967.

Kent Castle first became embittered towards Kennedy in 1943. His nephew, Norwood Strunk of West Virginia, was killed in action while serving on PT 109, a small naval vessel commanded by Lieutenant John Kennedy. During the night of August 1-2, 1943 in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific, a Japanese Destroyer the Yamagachi, rammed PT 109 and cut it in half sliced it in two. A Naval Investigation by the Navy Department A preliminary investigation by the Navy Department concluded alluded to the possibility that the accident incident was caused by the negligence of Kennedy, who was running only one engine in direct violation of regulations operating the ship boat in violation of several regulations. The investigation preliminary report further criticized Kennedy for his lack of awareness of the presence of the Yamagachi Japanese warship despite the presence existence of sophisticated radar gear on the boat PT 109.

Strunk’s mother (and Castle’s sister) took her own life when she learned of the death of her only son. She was forty-two years old.

After the preliminary Navy report was issued, Joseph Kennedy (John Kennedy’s father) pressured the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration to drop the investigation. The elder Kennedy, a former cabinet member and former Ambassador to England, was a prominent contributor to and fundraiser to for FDR presidential campaigns. The investigation was canceled prematurely despite calls for a court-martial by from many military figures allegedly including General Douglas MacArthur. When John Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for bravery in connection to the incident, the shocked and angry Castle told acquaintances that he would “even the score” with Kennedy Castle made it clear to acquaintances that he would someday find and confront Kennedy over the matter.

By 1959 Castle had risen through the ranks at Eastern Steel to become Chairman and CEO. In 1962 Eastern Steel and all domestic steel producers were the beneficiaries of a stingy contract with the steelworkers union that included very few wage increases. President Kennedy had pressured union negotiators to accept the contract in order to fight help avoid prevent wage-price spirals which could lead to inflation. Exerting pressure on Pushing organized labor this way was a political risk to a president who relied on the votes of working Americans but his concerns over inflation overrode politics. Kennedy hoped that the steel industry would respond by holding down steel prices. Instead, Castle himself personally visited the White House Oval Office in April 1962 to tell Kennedy that Eastern Steel would raise prices later that day by six dollars per ton. Other steel companies producers quickly announced their own price increases.

Using all the resources at his disposal, including press conferences the withholding and cancellation of federal contracts as well as and federal economic investigations into price-fixing and government policy tweaks regarding procurement of steel,President Kennedy the Kennedy Administration waged a brutal campaign of public relations against Eastern Steel, often personalizing the attacks by invoking Castle’s name. By the end of the week, after rivals of Eastern Steel had rolled back cancelled their price hikes price increases in the face of government pressure, Castle and Eastern were forced to give in to the president and do the same. Comments from Eastern Steel sources indicate that Planning for the assassination began shortly afterwards. Eighteen months later President Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas.

Eastern Steel, still the nation’s largest producer of steel, is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company underwent a major diversification in 1974, at which time its name was changed to Eastern Resources Consortium or ERC.

Chapter 29

Jonas dropped the sheaf of papers on the table and leaned back in his chair. He was up early despite being awake nearly all night with Reno working on the first draft of the article. It was an odd way to start a Monday. He was in a dirty motel room with a woman from Texas that he had known only for a few weeks. The clothes on his back were literally the only ones he had. He was proofreading a handwritten story that probably would never appear in any newspaper. Less than a week had passed since he and Reno had spent those leisurely days researching the story back in Charlotte. If only we could turn back the clock and forget the whole thing.

“This turned out pretty good,” he said when he realized that Reno was watching him from the bed. “We may have overstated some of our assumptions but who cares? I think we’re right. Besides, we have to be aggressive. We’re literally fighting for our lives.”

“We work well under pressure,” she said. “Too bad it’ll never matter.”

“You don’t think it’ll be printed either? Damn. I thought you had some hope. That’s what kept me going last night.”

“I don’t even think we’ll live through this day,” she said. “I just hope it’s quick.” She rolled onto her stomach and turned her face toward the wall.

“What happened, Abby?” he asked softly. “You weren’t like this last night. All of a sudden you’re giving up? We can still get this done.” He waited but she didn’t respond.

“I won’t lie,” he said. “I’m scared too. But we still have a chance. Anyway, there’s no point in quitting without taking our best shot.”

“What if we went to the police or the FBI?” she asked. “We could tell them everything.”

“I don’t know what they could do, even if they took us seriously,” he said. “We don’t have any proof. We don’t even know who’s after us.”

“There’s got to be somebody we could go to for protection,” she said.

“These guys aren’t going away. It’s been twenty years. They’d be even more desperate if we went to the law. I think the only answer is to get our story published. That would knock them back on their heels. They killed a president, not us. Whoever they are.”

“Okay,” she said as she sat up. “I’m in. But how do we do it?”

“I think we should both call our editors. If they think they can run it maybe we could find a fax machine somewhere. We’ll have to send in our handwritten copy. Best case scenario is that this story hits the streets in twenty-four hours and all our troubles are over,” he said, grinning ear to ear.

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” she said sarcastically. “But it beats every other scenario. I feel like we can’t even leave this room. I’d like to go out and buy a toothbrush at least, even if I have to keep wearing these clothes.”

“It’s too risky, don’t you think? They must have figured out that we’re not downtown anymore.”

“Is there any reason we have to stay in Morgantown at all?” she asked. “Maybe we’re making it too easy.”

“Remember, there’s something important here,” Jonas reminded her. “Besides the Castle Papers, we have Professor Van Scoy. If we level with her about everything that’s happened she might be more helpful. Maybe she’ll even get us in to see the Papers.”

“The Papers might be a bust and she’s not going to let us see them anyway. I like the idea of running away better.”

“Even if we could get to our car it wouldn’t be safe. God help whoever gets in it and turns the key. No, I think our story ends here.”

“I wish you’d choose your words more carefully,” Reno said.

“Maybe I did.”

“I never thought it would come to this.”

“Me neither. Sorry, Abby. I feel like I dragged you into this.”

“No. I volunteered.” She pushed off the covers and stood up. “I think I need another shower.”

“While you’re doing that I’ll try calling in to the office. I’ll introduce myself to my editor and ask him if he wants the biggest story in the history of The Charlotte Sentinel.”

~~~

After Reno left the room Jonas sat on the bed next to the phone. It was going to be a difficult call. He had kept meaning to check in, but with the explosion and everything else he’d never gotten around to it. Trappe would be angry and wasn’t going to believe a word of what had happened. But he had to try. The stakes were as high as they could be. The story had to be published.

~~~

“Hi, Michelle? This is Joe.”

“Joe! Where are you? Where have you been?”

“I’m in West Virginia,” he answered, knowing that would explain nothing. “I told you about the JFK assassination story, didn’t I?”

“Not that much.”

“Well, it’s out of control. I had to go back to Pittsburgh, and now I’m here.”

“But nobody here knows where you are! You didn’t do any travel paperwork! You didn’t even tell anybody you were leaving!”

“Has anybody noticed?”

“How should I know?”

“Good. I really need to talk to Trappe. I have a story but it has to be run as soon as possible. Otherwise it’s too late.”

“I’ll put you through. If he doesn’t answer call me back.”

He heard a series of clicks and beeps. “Steve Trappe’s office,” a new voice said.

“Hi, this is Joe Jonas from Metro. I need to speak with Mr. Trappe right away. It’s extremely urgent.”

“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “He’s in a meeting right now.”

“Get him out of the meeting. It’s important.”

“Excuse me?” the voice said indignantly. “Who is this?”

“You heard me,” Jonas said. “Get him on the phone right now. Please.”

“Just a moment,” she said after pausing.

Within a minute he heard Trappe’s voice. “Jonas. Where are you?”

“I’m in Morgantown, West Virginia. I’m working on a story that involves the JFK Assassination. I don’t know if Mr. Burkhardt ever told you about it.”

“No, he didn’t,” Trappe said. “How did you get your travel voucher approved?”

“I didn’t. You were always too busy.” He explained everything as quickly as he could, including his working relationship with Reno. “We have to run this now,” he said firmly when he was finished.

“Settle down,” Trappe answered. “Nobody tries to kill a junior reporter over a story. Who do you think you are?”

“Somebody is trying to kill me. Why don’t you call over to the Marriott if you don’t believe me? Ask them about my car.”

“You’ll need to do some explaining to the police about that. I want you back in town by tomorrow morning. Bring what you have and we’ll take a look at it.”

“I can’t do that, Mr. Trappe. I’m not even sure if I can leave this motel. I can fax the story to you but if you don’t get moving on it I’ll give it to somebody else.”

“Be in my office tomorrow morning or you don’t work here anymore. Have the final draft of the story in your hand. Understood?”

Jonas slammed the phone down in frustration without answering. “Fuck!” he screamed at the empty room. As expected, Trappe hadn’t believed a word of what he’d said, but he didn’t have to be so belligerent about it. He punched the wall, leaving four small round indentations.

A few minutes later he called Michelle back and told her to look for a fax. “Trappe says he won’t look at it until I’m back in town, but we’re desperate. If I get it to you, will you deliver it to him?”

“You’re scaring me, Joe,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Not really. There’s no time to explain right now.” He scrawled her fax number onto a take-out menu he found in the drawer between the beds.

After moving the drapes to make sure nobody was watching he grabbed a room key and scooped up the pages of the story. The rusty door had to be slammed twice in order to get it to close properly. He scanned the mostly-empty parking lot one floor below through the iron railing that ran the length of the building. The tail of his shredded shirt flapped as he descended a concrete stairway and headed for the office.

A man with rumply hair and thick glasses looked up from behind the counter before his eyes returned to his newspaper. Jonas spoke loudly at the man as he approached. “Do you have a fax machine?”

“No,” he answered without looking up.

“I think you do.”

“It’s not for guests,” he said, his eyes still glued to the newspaper.

“I don’t have time for this.” Jonas walked to the end of the counter and pushed his way through the half-door that swung back and forth after he passed. “Where is it?”

The man stared. Jonas knew he was trying to decide if it would be easier to give in. “This needs to go out right the fuck now. And I might have another one in a few minutes,” he added, remembering that they might also be faxing the story to Austin. “If I do I’ll be back and you’ll let me use it again.”

“Alright, alright, keep your shirt on,” the man said. “Let me finish this page.”

Jonas didn’t wait. He walked around a corner and found the machine. He would have to make his best guess on how to operate it because the lazy clerk wasn’t going to help. He laid the sheets facedown on the intake tray, typed in the number Michelle had given him and waited. “Yes!” he yelled when he heard the warble of a fax machine on the other end of the connection. On his way out he noticed that the clerk hadn’t even moved. “Thanks. I might be back with another one.”

Reno was on the phone with a worried expression on her face when he returned to the room. “No, that’s not a good idea,” she said before turning to face Jonas. “We can’t get out right now.” She was having the same conversation he’d had with Trappe a few minutes earlier.

She continued to look at Jonas while listening to whoever was on the line. “No. You don’t understand. If we went back for the car they’d kill us. There’s no way I can get home.” She listened to the response. “I’m as calm as I need to be,” she said. “There’s nothing the police can do.” Another pause. “No, don’t bother. Thanks for nothing.” Jonas could hear a squawking voice as Reno pulled the receiver away from her ear and hung up. “That was my editor. She thinks I’m nuts. I explained it and she just didn’t believe me. She told me to get on a plane home and then we’ll talk about the story. I couldn’t make her understand that we can’t just walk out of here and head to the airport.”

“I didn’t do much better,” Jonas said. “My editor was pissed off that I was on the road. I just faxed the article in but I doubt if he’ll do anything with it. We should fax it to your editor too. Maybe one of them will change their mind.”

“I’m really scared, Joe. They know we don’t have a car. I’m sure they staked out every rental agency within a hundred miles so we can’t get one. Same for bus stations and airports. We’re stuck here and they know it. Eventually they’ll find us.”

“I’m scared too. Let’s gather up all our stuff just in case we need to make a quick getaway,” Jonas said. “And we should get rid of what we can’t carry. Especially that goddamned Warren Report.”

“I’ll be glad to see it go. I wish I’d never seen it in the first place.” Reno said. “But what do I do with it?”

“There’s a dumpster out back.”

“I don’t want to go outside. I’ll just shove them under the bed for now. You still don’t think the professor would help us out?”

“I’m not sure,” Jonas answered. “I don’t get the impression she knows as much as we do. She might not believe us. Nobody else seems to.” He walked over to the window and peeked out. “Do you think we need to leave?”

“We don’t have any place to go. Let’s try staying here one more night.”

“Okay,” Jonas said. “It’s about four o’clock now. I’ll call again in an hour. Maybe Trappe liked what he read.”

Chapter 30

Braden nodded at the two men in the lobby of the Hotel Morgan. He didn’t remember their names or even recognize their faces but he knew they worked for him. Why else would they be there? There was no need to stop at the front desk because Marino had booked the entire fifth floor as a command post. He wished he’d brought his suitcase in. A fresh shirt would have been nice after sweating through his clothes on the ride down from Pittsburgh even with the air conditioning in the Lincoln turned all the way up.

He rode the elevator upstairs and then followed the sound of arguing voices. Without bothering to check numbers he walked into a room to which the door had been propped open with a trash can. “Pretty lax, gentlemen,” he said. The heads of all four men, dressed in dark suits and gathered around a small table, snapped in his direction. “I could hear every word as soon as I stepped off the elevator.”

“Mr. Braden!” Marino said. He scrambled out of his chair and over to the door where he nudged the trash can out of the way and pulled the door closed. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“Apparently not,” he said as he removed his tie and popped open the top buttons of his damp shirt. “What’s happening? Where are they?”

“They checked in last night. We’ve got every exit covered. It’s only a matter of time.”

“A matter of time? Are you telling me they’re right here in this building?” Braden asked, dumbfounded. “And you haven’t found them yet? It’s now Monday afternoon. That’s almost twenty-four hours. Where are they? Still in their room? Have you checked room service records?”

“We got a look at registrations,” Marino said. “None of them matched up. We’ve been handing out cash to every maid and bellhop we can find but none of them were any help.”

“You don’t really believe they’re here, do you Marino?” Braden asked. “I know I don’t.”

“I don’t know how they could have gotten out,” Marino said before blowing out a long breath and plopping backwards onto a chair. “But we should have found them by now. There are only thirteen floors in this building.”

“So think it through,” Braden said. “Where could they be? Do they know anybody here? It’ll be tough finding them in a college town. It’s crawling with people who look just like them.”

“I don’t know where they could go,” Marino said. “It’s not like they know anybody here.”

“The car’s still here?”

“Right where they left it, on the street a few blocks away.”

“I think they’re still in town. We need to watch every airport, bus terminal and rental agency within twenty miles. If anybody tries to leave town on roller skates I want to know about it.”

“I already have that taken care of,” Marino said.

“How many extra men do you have?”

“There are twenty available. Everybody else has an assignment already.”

“We have that many here?”

“Most of them don’t know much,” Marino said.

“It’s not going to matter anymore after this. They’re here. We’ll find them.”

“Frank!” yelled Jerry Bremer as he burst into the room. “We have major trouble!” He slammed the door behind him and rushed past the men in suits. “Oh. Mr. Braden. I didn’t know you were here.”

“What happened?” Braden said.

“I just got a call,” Bremer said. “Somebody from the newspaper in Charlotte called the ERC Public Relations Office to get some background information on Kent Castle. One of our people who fronts in that office took the call. She played along with it. But the questions started hitting home. He asked about Kennedy and PT 109. Then he asked about the price hike in 1962. This is bad. She knew we were in trouble so she told him she’d call him back.”

“When did this happen?”

“No more than twenty minutes ago,” Bremer said.

Braden looked at Marino. “Somebody’s doing some grunt work. Getting ready to print an article. Calling for background is standard procedure. Could Jonas have escaped back to Charlotte? This just got a whole lot more serious.”

“It wasn’t Jonas,” Bremer said. “It was a guy named Trappe. He was the head editor of this or that. I didn’t write it down. ”

“That just means Jonas is talking to his editor back home in Charlotte,” Braden said. “It’s bad, but not fatal yet. We can still hang on. They can’t run anything like this without checking it out. They’d get eaten alive. Even the Kennedy brigade wouldn’t like it. They can’t take a chance on being wrong.”

“Yeah, but they’re not wrong,” Bremer blurted.

Marino grimaced. “We know that,” Braden snapped, “But they don’t know that. Just do what you’re told and keep your brain in neutral.”

Braden started for the door but turned around. “Do we know where those Castle Papers are?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“We have to have those Papers, or at least make sure nobody else gets them. We can’t take a chance that there’s something in there. Find out where they are and burn the building down if you have to. See to it that nobody gets a look.”

“I’ll get on it, sir,” Marino said.

“We’re now at DEFCON 1,” Braden said. “I still think they’re right here in Morgantown. Get as many men down here as you can,” he barked at Marino. “I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care how it looks. This is our last stand. They have to be found.”

Chapter 31

Just before five o’clock Jonas sat down to make another desperate phone call to Steve Trappe. He had already decided to bluff him by saying that Reno’s newspaper would be running a similar article in the next few days. He hadn’t dialed yet when Reno, who was peeking outside from behind the drapes, called him over.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said as he put the phone down. “Either this motel has the fastest plumbers I’ve ever seen or we’ve got problems.” His heart sank as he walked over. He was already thinking about an escape plan before he even looked out the window.

“Careful,” she said as he pushed the drapes away. “Over there. Two guys are pushing some kind of tool cart from door to door but I don’t think they’re plunging toilets. I don’t think they’re maintenance men or whatever they dressed up as. For one thing they’re wearing suits under those coveralls. Check out the shoes when they come out. And they get in and out of each room in about three minutes.”

Sure enough, two men emerged from a room across the parking lot just as she finished her description. They wheeled their cart to the next door and knocked. After nobody answered one of the men bent over, out of sight behind the cart. Fifteen seconds passed before the door opened. “They’re not using a key to open those doors,” Jonas said. “You’re right. We have to get out of here.”

“Should we leave separately? We can meet up by that dumpster.”

“Good idea. You go first, after they finish the next room. Maybe you should go into the woods. I’ll meet you there in a few.”

“Better get the article, too. It’s there on the table.”

“They just came out!” he said. “They weren’t in there for even a minute that time. Are you ready?”

“Ready. I guess we’re not checking out, huh?”

“And they’re in!” he announced. “Go!"

After she was gone he made a quick inspection of the room. When he returned to the window he didn’t see the searchers or the cart where it had been before. “Shit!” he said under his breath as he scanned in every direction.

Then he saw them. Instead of continuing along the ground floor they had detoured to the second level. Had they seen Reno leave? They were no more than six rooms away. Unless he timed it perfectly he was going to be caught.

The next time they emerged from a room Jonas had to squeeze his face against the window to see them. The cart was so close that he could see the untouched tools that hung on its sides. He was set to run out the door as soon as they went in another room but they crossed him up. One man went in as soon as the door was opened but the other remained outside. Jonas froze with fear until the man turned away. He must have been counting doors, he decided. He finally joined his colleague inside the room but by then it was too late. Jonas would have to wait for one more room. They were so near that he worried they might hear the door shut when he left, but leaving it open would be even more dangerous.

After they entered another room he crept outside and pulled the stubborn door closed as quietly as possible. He felt naked as he walked toward the stairway. When he glanced back the men were just stepping out of the room. He disappeared around the corner and sneaked past the dumpster and into the woods.

“I was starting to worry,” Reno said.

“They moved upstairs right after you left. We just made it, Abby.”

“Yeah, and now we’re in the middle of the woods,” Reno said. “Where do we go?”

“Think of it, Abby,” Jonas said. “They’re in our room right now! We’d be dead ducks! It was damn lucky that you happened to be looking out the window.”

“I don’t want to think about it right now. Let’s just keep moving.”

“Let’s head up the road. There’s all kinds of stuff up there,” Jonas suggested. “We can’t stay in the woods forever. It’ll be easier to blend in where there are other people. We’re just a couple of students now, right?”

“I’d give anything to be just another student right about now.” They walked through the patch of woods until they reached University Avenue.

“Lots of people,” Jonas said. “That’s good.” They crossed the road and followed a cluster of students into the Book Exchange. After passing shelf after shelf of Mountaineer trinkets they found themselves in the back corner of the store. Safely hidden behind a rack of blue and gold sweatshirts they felt safe enough to talk again.

“What do we do now?” Jonas asked. “It’s obvious they know we’re here. We’re almost out of time. We’re screwed until somebody decides they’ll print our story.”

“What about the Professor?” Reno asked. “I still think if she knew what ERC was up to, she’d let us see the Papers.”

“That would have been a good idea a week ago. Now it’s too late. We’d be walking right into their trap. If we know about her, they know about her.”

He absentmindedly twirled the drawstring of a sweatshirt in a display bin as he tried to think logically. The pervasive smell of new merchandise was making him nauseous. The fleeting serenity was interrupted by the metal-on-metal screech of a steel clothes hanger as it slid on the rail of the display rack. They backed out of the way as a student examined sweatshirts before pulling one off. Jonas studied him carefully and decided with relief that he’d never seen him before.

“Life used to be so simple,” Reno said as she watched two girls walk past with an armload of new textbooks each.

“And safer. But look at it this way. If we weren’t working this story you’d never have met me,” he said, forcing a smile.

“Okay. I wouldn’t take that part back. Satisfied?”

“Maybe the room will be safe now,” he said.

“Maybe it isn’t.”

“They’ve already searched it and we weren’t there. It might be the safest place we could go.”

“Could be,” she allowed.

“Let’s go next door and eat,” he suggested. “It’s probably packed with kids. We can blend right in. It’ll give us time to think it over.”

“I can’t wait until the sun goes down,” Reno said. “I don’t know. I used to love sunshine but now I just feel better when it’s dark out.”

~~~

“I can’t make up my mind about going back. Are we doing the right thing?” Reno asked during dinner.

“Yeah, I think so. Why would they stay? There are probably thousands of rooms in this city, right? Once they finish one place they have to move on.”

“And we just don’t have anywhere else to go,” she added. “Maybe we can talk our editors into printing the story if we try again. It’s worth one last try.”

“Yeah, but if that doesn’t work we just have to get out of here. If we stay long enough they’ll eventually find us, even if it’s by accident.”

“Too bad we don’t have a car anymore.”

They crossed the road and disappeared into the trees. They had to move slowly in the dark and each managed to stumble and trip several times. The lights of the motel were visible through the trees so they walked towards them without speaking. By the time they reached the edge of the woods they both had a few new scratches and bumps. “We should go separately again,” Reno suggested when they reached the edge of the woods.

“Yeah, just in case,” Jonas agreed. “Do you still have your key?”

She patted her back pocket. It was still there. “Yup.”

“I’ll go first. Give me a couple minutes. If I see anything strange I’ll run back into the woods. If that happens, stay still. No use both of us getting nabbed.”

“Okay. Be careful, Joe. Keep your eyes open. If it looks clear I’ll be there right behind you.”

He walked out of the woods and down the gentle slope of grass toward the motel. The walk across the lot felt like it took years as he imagined sets of eyes watching him. He ran his finger over the sharp edge of the room key in his pocket as he walked. Finally he reached the building. Before continuing he took advantage of the darkness and checked out his surroundings. He could see the woods, about fifty yards away, where he knew Reno was still hiding and probably watching him. When he was satisfied that he hadn’t been spotted he turned and climbed the stairs to the second level of rooms.

His heart was pounding when he reached the door and dug the key out of his pocket. He inserted it in the lock, twisted the knob and forced the door open. Even though he was sure the room was empty he immediately snapped the light on. Nobody was there but it was obvious that somebody else had been. All the drawers were pulled open and one of the beds had been completely stripped. He fought the urge to go back and signal an all-clear to Reno because that would attract attention. Instead, he checked the bathroom and then went to the sink and threw some cold water on his face. He heard her key slide into the doorknob just as he was turning off the bathroom light.

Before he reached the bathroom doorway he knew something had gone wrong. Very wrong. He heard what sounded like the door slamming into the wall just before Reno screamed. “Shut up!” grunted a male voice. There was an unmistakable slapping sound of a fist striking flesh followed by a thud.

The motel room door slammed shut. Jonas heard the door chain rapping and scratching against the doorjamb as it dangled freely. He poked his head out of the dark bathroom far enough to see what had happened. Reno was face down on the floor at the end of one of the beds. She appeared to be unconscious. Even from the other side of the room he could see blood smears on the filthy beige carpet next to her head. A man in a business suit with well-trimmed dark hair was turned toward the door as he slid the security chain into position. The net had just gotten much tighter and they were both inside it.

Chapter 32

Jonas was surprised at how he reacted to the sight of Reno bleeding on the floor. He’d lived in fear for the past week but at that moment he felt more angry than scared. For the first time, he understood that the people they were up against were mere human beings. He didn’t know if Reno was still alive but there was one thing he did know. Whatever happened, the intruder at the door was going to pay for what he had just done.

He heard the scratchy static of a two-way radio. “Bremer here. Over.” Jonas watched as he opened the door and pulled a blue bag into the room. The radio squawked but Jonas couldn’t make out the garbled words. “Bremer here. I got the girl,” Bremer said. “She popped out of the woods and I grabbed her.” He heard the motel room door slam closed. “Wake up, shit sticks,” Bremer snarled to the room as he waited for a response. After another pause Bremer spoke into the radio again. “Is there anybody on? Acknowledge. Over.”

“Bunch of ass hats,” Bremer muttered. Jonas heard the radio land on the bed. “Where in the hell are you guys?” Jonas stifled the urge to burst out from the bathroom to attack the man who called himself Bremer because he wasn’t ready. He still held the element of surprise and knew he shouldn’t squander it. Besides, he reasoned. This man is probably a trained killer. I don’t stand a chance unless I finish him off quick before he can react. He would need every edge he could get. It was likely that Bremer was well-armed. Jonas could expect to have a weapon in his face within seconds after the confrontation started unless he made that impossible.

“You dumb bitch,” Bremer sneered under his breath. Jonas burned with anger but he stayed quiet even as he heard Reno’s body being dragged across the carpet. Bremer’s back was to the bathroom so Jonas was able to watch what was happening. After positioning Reno between the beds Bremer went to look for something in the bag he’d retrieved from outside. When he returned he had a shiny razor knife in his hand. A sick feeling came over Jonas but when he saw a roll of duct tape in the other hand he breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Working far too efficiently for Jonas’s taste Bremer slashed a hunk of cloth from a pillow case and bent between the beds with it after balling it up. Jonas could only guess that he was stuffing it into Reno’s mouth to keep her quiet. Maybe she was still alive. The piercing whine and snap of tape being ripped from the roll and sliced it into pieces was unnerving. He backed deeper into the bathroom and pushed himself up against the wall, trying to calm himself with some deep breaths. There was nothing to see anyway and he had plans to make.

If there was going to be a fight he would need a weapon. He looked around in the near-dark bathroom to see what was available and quickly settled on the glass pot from the drip coffee maker. It was heavy enough to hurt and light enough to get some good licks in with. With any luck it would break if he hit Bremer in the right place, turning it into an even more brutal weapon.

He padded across the room and extricated the pot without making any noise. The pace of the duct taping slowed markedly, reminding him that he’d waited too long to begin his preparations. Taping up Reno was probably the last thing Bremer would be preoccupied with.

The room went quiet. He heard a soft moan that he recognized as having come from Reno. That was both a tremendous relief and a powerful motivator. He was fighting for Reno’s survival as well as his own. He moved toward the door to try to get a look at what Bremer was doing. Before he got there a shadow appeared on the floor. His grip on the handle of the coffee pot tightened as he flattened his body against the wall behind the door.

The fight was about to go down. He could feel it. If Bremer was coming into the bathroom he would almost certainly reach for the light switch as he entered the room. Jonas moved in tighter, planning to belt him before the light was on. He lifted the pot over his head and waited.

The instant he saw the hand reaching for the switch Jonas advanced. Bremer managed to turn the light on and may even have caught a glimpse of Jonas before the pot crashed savagely onto his head at the hairline. Glass flew as the pot shattered. Time passed in slow motion as shiny beads of blood appeared above Bremer’s eyebrows even before any broken glass hit the floor. It was a good start. He had hurt Bremer. More importantly, he could see by the confused expression on Bremer’s face that he had stunned him.

But he would have to do more because Bremer was still standing. As he jerked back what was left of the pot for another swing he could hear slivers rattling on the counter and in the sink. Bremer moved his hands into a defensive position but not before Jonas slammed the pot on the top of Bremer’s head, resulting in another shower of blood and glass. He pulled back and jammed the now unrecognizable mass into Bremer’s face with all his strength. This time Bremer crumpled onto the floor and fell away from the bathroom. He twisted onto his back and stared up at Jonas with his mouth open. Blood dripped down his forehead and over his face before running down the sides of his head onto the carpet.

“If you move a muscle I’ll bury this in your jugular vein,” Jonas warned, waving a healthy jag of glass that was still attached to the handle. “You’ll bleed to death in five minutes. If you stay still I’ll tape you up and let you live.”

Bremer closed his eyes. He tried to roll onto his side but couldn’t. Jonas bent over him and patted him down for weapons. It didn’t take long to find a sleek black pistol in the jacket of his suit. There was a smaller handgun strapped to one calf and a sheathed knife with a six-inch blade strapped to the other. Jonas dropped the weapons on the bed and studied them. The site of the arsenal lessened his remorse about what he had done.

He wouldn’t turn his back on Bremer but he knew he wasn’t going to be getting off the floor anytime soon, if ever. Bremer had left a few tools on the other bed, including his walkie-talkie, the razor knife and a bloody set of brass knuckles. Jonas picked up the razor knife and walked over to where Reno was still bound and gagged.

She wasn’t nearly as bloody as Bremer but the thick, purple mush that oozed from the gash that extended from her temple to her eye was as ghastly as any of his wounds. That eye was closed but Jonas could see that her other eye was halfway open. He wondered how much she’d seen or heard as he pulled her into a sitting position and propped her up against the bed. She watched carefully with her one eye as he carefully cut the tape from around her mouth. “This is going to hurt,” he said as he peeled the tape from her cheeks and out of her hair. She looked at him blankly. He pulled the gag out of her mouth and dropped it on the floor before looking back over to check on Bremer. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”

She nodded. “How about you?” she mumbled before coughing up bits of cloth and thread.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You got the worst of it.”

“No. I think he did.”

“I’m going to tape him up before I finish cutting you loose. It won’t take long.”

She nodded as he picked up the roll of duct tape and the knife and crawled over to Bremer’s bleeding body. He was groggy but partially conscious. “Don’t try anything,” he warned Bremer. “After I tie you up I’ll see what I can do for you.” Instead of cutting strips of tape the way Bremer had he simply wrapped a thick layer of tape around his ankles, and did the same with his wrists. “Sit up, Bremer. You’ll bleed less if your head’s not on the floor.” When Bremer didn’t move Jonas pulled him up by the shirt to a sitting position and propped him in the corner where he’d fallen. “How could you do that to a woman?” he demanded, thinking of the brass knuckles. Bremer’s eyes opened halfway. When fresh blood trickled down his nose and into his tear ducts he closed them again without trying to answer.

“Untie me, Joe,” Reno said, her voice still faint. He let go of Bremer’s shirt. Bremer’s head rubbed the wall as he slumped, leaving a thick red smear that began to drip.

He cut the tape away from Reno’s body, starting at the wrists. “How do you feel?” he asked. “Do you think you can walk? I heard him on the radio. We may not have much time.”

“I don’t know but I’ll have to try. I feel all cloudy. What happened? The last thing I remember is waiting in the woods.”

“I’m pretty sure you walked here by yourself. I was back there in the bathroom when you came in,” he explained as he finished freeing her hands. “He must have clocked you with those brass knuckles. I’ve never been hit like that. You can really take a punch, partner. I hunkered down like a weasel until I could surprise him with the coffee pot.” He looked at Bremer again. “I think he’s going to die. What else could I do?”

“Fuck him,” Reno answered. “You did the right thing. He’d have done it to us if he had the chance. Is this really happening?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jonas answered as he sliced the tape that bound her ankles. “We better get out of here. He’s not going anywhere.” He pulled slivers of bloody glass off his forearm and wiped his hands on his pants. “You two are a bloody mess but I hardly have a scratch on me.”

“He’s probably got a car,” Reno mumbled.

“Good thinking.” Jonas walked over to Bremer and searched his pockets. Reno braced herself against the bed but was unable to pull herself to her feet. Jonas came back to her and shoved his hands into her armpits to hoist her up but she fell backward onto the bed next to the weapons when he let go. He jammed the guns into his pockets before pulling her back up. “I won’t let go this time,” he promised. They staggered around the bed towards the door.

“Are those guns loaded? Be careful.” She gasped when she saw her reflection in the mirror. “I look like some kind of zombie,” she said. “Is that my blood?”

“It sure is. We can clean you up later. I found the keys so you only have to make it to the parking lot. I grabbed his walkie-talkie, too. Maybe we’ll pick up some information.”

“Since we’re stealing his car and his guns, we may as well take his money if he has any. We’re just about broke.”

“Good idea.” Jonas walked over to Bremer. He was still breathing but didn’t look like he was conscious. Jonas patted him down until he found a wallet in a pocket inside his jacket. “Holy shit. He’s got a stack of bills that could choke a horse, or a dinosaur, or whatever.” He jammed the money into his pocket and shoved the wallet under the mattress. “I’m glad you thought of that.”

“I hope we can find his car,” Reno said as she hobbled out the door with an arm around his neck.

“Just look for a sedan, in basic black,” Jonas said. “If it’s here we shouldn’t have any trouble picking it out.”

Chapter 33

Finding the car wasn’t a problem in the near-empty lot. Jonas inserted the key in the door of a black Impala parked near the office and unlocked it. After helping Reno into the passenger seat he started the car and they drove away. He left the headlights off until they were away from the motel just in case Bremer’s friends arrived but they encountered no oncoming traffic until they were on University Avenue.

“How does it feel?” Jonas asked. “I’m worried about you. That cut’s still bleeding.”

“Groggy.”

“The first thing we need to do is find a drugstore. We’ve got to get you cleaned up. You might even need the emergency room. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a concussion.”

“I don’t like emergency rooms,” she said. “The drugstore is better. Maybe I can get a new shirt there. And a bottle of Motrin or something.”

They passed through an intersection as they headed away from the campus. Within five minutes they came across a huge drugstore. Jonas drove to a dark corner of the parking lot, locked Reno into the car and went inside alone. He picked up a shopping basket and walked the aisles of the store, looking for anything they might need. Before long he walked out with a shopping bag full of medical supplies as well as a gold and blue West Virginia Basketball tee shirt.

“I got a few bottles of water so we can wash the blood off. But I need a rag or something. I’ll use my shirt,” he said as he started to take it off. “I should have gotten a shirt for myself too. This one’s had it. You should have seen the look I got from the cashier.”

“Don’t waste your shirt,” she said. “Mine’s toast anyway.” She started undoing the buttons that ran down the front as Jonas turned away in embarrassment. “Stop being so shy,” she said, smiling weakly as she pulled it off and held it out. “After all we’ve been through I think it’s okay if you see me in a bra.”

He poured water on the shirt after wadding it up and then wiped at the blood that seemed to cover Reno from the shoulders upward. Trying to be as tender as he could, he moved towards to the wound. She winced through gritted teeth with each dab. “Aah!” she finally yelled while pulling away. She flipped down the sun visor and turned her head as she examined the injury by the light of the tiny bulb next to the vanity mirror. “That’s sick,” she mumbled, falling back into the seat.

Jonas put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just give me a second. That’s the first time I saw it up close.” She took a few deep breaths and sat back up. “I’m alright. Just get it over with.” When the cleanup was done he turned the shirt inside out, trying to expose a fresh section. After dousing it with a liberal dose of hydrogen peroxide he pressed it gently at the torn, bloody flesh around her temple. “This is bad. There’s still a bunch of gunk coming out. I guess those brass knuckles go deep enough to do a lot of damage. Does it hurt bad?”

“A lot. And my head’s really starting to pound.”

He reached into the bag and pulled out the Motrin. After ripping the cap off the bottle he poured three pills into her open palm. She pushed them into her mouth one by one and took a sip from the water bottle.

“I don’t know, Abby. I’m doing the best I can but this is pretty bad. It just won’t stop bleeding, and it’s swelling up around the edges. We might need to find you a real doctor.” When he felt like there was nothing more he could do he rummaged through the bag until he found a box of gauze pads, three of which he taped over the gash.

“I’ve had enough tape on my body tonight to last me for the rest of my life. But thanks for patching me up. I feel better.”

“I bought an ice pack,” he said as he reached into the bag again. “This might help with the swelling, at least. Maybe you should put your shirt on first.”

“You’re so uptight. Loosen up a little, will you?”

He dug the shirt out of the bag and helped her slip it over her head. After pulling it down to her waist she leaned back against the door and applied the ice pack. “It could be worse. At least we have a car.”

“That might not be such a good thing,” he answered. “They might already be looking for it.”

“Hey, remember this morning when I said we wouldn’t live through the day? Well, here we are. We made it.”

“Barely. But that’s more than we can say about that guy back in the room,” Jonas said. “Bremer. What if he bleeds to death? I was thinking about using the radio to call his friends to tell them he’s in bad shape.”

“And let them know where we are? We have to save ourselves first. They’d be glad to come kill us if they knew where we were. They’ve already tried.” She closed her eyes and sat back, breathing heavily.

“You don’t think they could figure out where we are through this thing, do you?” he asked after picking up the walkie-talkie and turning it over as he examined it. “I don’t think it works that way.” He switched it on and dropped it onto the seat beside him. “We can listen, at least. Maybe we’ll learn something. But there’s nothing here for us anymore. We have to go. I say we do it now when it’s still dark.”

They sat in the car for a few more minutes without talking. Occasionally the radio squawked but neither could understand the transmission. Jonas picked it up again and looked for a way to clarify the sound. After he’d given up and put it on the dashboard he sensed that Reno had gone to sleep. “Lucky you,” he said quietly. He carefully pulled the seatbelt across Reno’s body and clicked it into place before starting the car. He turned left out of the drugstore, determined to put some distance between them and Morgantown.

They’d probably found Bremer by now. He resisted the urge to floor the accelerator while driving for another five miles. When he remembered the pistols that he’d shoved into his pockets he laughed softly. “I can’t believe I walked around the drug store with loaded guns.” She didn’t answer as he carefully pulled them out and slid them under his seat. “You never know when we might need these.”

Without opening her eyes Reno moved awkwardly across the bench seat and up against him. He lifted his arm so she could push up against his body. While his arm was dropping back around her shoulder he felt a slick coating of fresh blood on her neck. The bleeding wasn’t stopping. If anything it was heavier. Staying in the shadows might not be an option for much longer, he worried as he drove.

~~~

He had slipped into an exhausted daze when he heard a voice barking from the radio. This time he thought he was able to make out the words. “What did you do about Bremer?” one man seemed to be asking over and over without receiving a response. After the fourth time Jonas snatched up the radio and pushed the transmit button. “Hello? I have information about Bremer.” He impulsively pulled off the road behind a clump of bushes beneath a billboard.

When nobody answered immediately he put it back on the dashboard. The bloody remains of his shirt still rested next to it. When he tried to push the shirt away he found that had adhered to the vinyl, probably held in place by dried blood. He peeled it up and tossed it over his shoulder into the back seat. That’s the best part of driving somebody else’s car. The walkie-talkie crackled to life just as he was about to check Reno for fresh blood. “What do you know about Bremer?” the voice said. It was much clearer than before. Jonas wondered if that was because they were closer. The thought gave him chills.

“I know everything about Bremer,” he said after picking the radio back up. “He’s hurt pretty bad.”

There was silence again. Jonas hoped the voices would wake Reno but so far she hadn’t responded. He could still feel her breathing slowly.

“Who is this?” the voice said.

“This is Joe Jonas.”

“The reporter? Where are you?”

“That’s your problem. But I’ll tell you where Bremer is. He’s back in the motel room. He got beat up pretty bad. You better get him some help before he bleeds to death.”

There was more silence. They had almost certainly found Bremer and already knew he’d been attacked. He was probably dead. “Who beat him up?”

“I did,” Jonas said, seeing no reason to lie. “Why are you chasing us?”

“You know why. How did you get Bremer’s radio?”

“I took it, that’s how. I took his weapons too.”

There was no answer. Jonas worried that they wouldn’t talk to him anymore and although he knew it was absurd, he couldn’t live with that. He craved contact with them, whoever they were. “We didn’t do anything wrong,” he said into the radio. “It’s been twenty years. Who are you protecting? What difference does it make anymore?”

“That’s none of your business,” the voice answered immediately. “Where are you?”

“What if we promised never to breathe a word of what we found out? Would you let us alone?”

“We all have our jobs to do.”

“If we never ran the story nobody would ever know,” Jonas said, his voice cracking.

“No deals. I don’t have the authority anyway.”

“What’s your name? You already know mine.”

“Braden,” the voice said after a pause. “Ted Braden.”

“What do you want from us?”

“Your silence. We have to have your silence. It’s out of my hands. See you in a few minutes. Over and out.”

He threw the radio onto the dashboard and shook Reno gently. “Abby! Wake up! Did you hear any of that?” He let go of her only to watch her fall away onto the seat like a rag doll. When he reached over he could feel warm blood that soaked her shirt. “Abby!” he said. “Wake up!”

He turned on the dome light, hoping it might rouse her. She was a gruesome sight. The bandages were sopping and red. Blood had run down her neck and turned the top third of her gold shirt to a disturbing reddish brown shade. She looks a lot like Bremer. “Abby!” he yelled again, pulling her back up and shaking her gently. He could feel her breathing so he knew she was still alive. Having no idea what to do he lifted one of her eyelids and saw nothing but the white of her eye. “Holy shit! Abby, can you hear me?” He leaned her back down onto the seat with her bloody face on his lap and then started the car. “Abby, if you can hear me, don’t worry. I’m getting you to the hospital before it’s too late!” Dirt and gravel spewed as he pealed out of the bushes and onto the road back towards Morgantown.

Chapter 34

There was still too much traffic for Jonas to drive as fast as he wanted to. “Abby! Wake up!” he called over and over as he drove. He poked and shook her with his free hand but was unable to get any response. After he reached the hospital he followed the signs for the emergency room. He parked the car along the curb and then tried one last time to wake Reno up. She opened her eyes but only for a moment. There was no way she was going inside under her own power.

He ran inside to get help but stopped short when he spotted a wheelchair against the wall. Without bothering to ask he grabbed the chair and rolled it outside. After opening the passenger door he pushed the chair as close as he could to Reno.

She was sprawled away from the door but had regained consciousness. This time her eyes stayed open as she watched Jonas reach toward her. “We’re at the hospital,” he said. “They’ll get you fixed up. How do you feel?”

“I’m so weak,” she whispered. “I’m all dizzy.”

“I’ve got to move you into the chair.”

“Okay. I can do it.” She leaned forward but that was as far as she got before listing sideways. He reached in and pulled her by the shoulders far enough that she was able to swing her body onto the chair.

“That’s all you have to do,” Jonas promised as he rolled her inside. “I’ll take care of the rest.” He wheeled her inside and towards a woman in a round reception desk. Now that he was out of the dark he was reminded of his shredded clothing that was freshly smeared with Reno’s blood.

Reno looked worse and the receptionist noticed right away. Matted hair framed her ashen face, which was slathered with crusted blood. The bandages on her temple dangled uselessly by a strand of tape, having fallen out of place due to the weight of the blood that saturated them. A dark, wet trail ran down her face and neck where it soaked her gold shirt, which had been new little more than an hour earlier.

“Oh my,” the receptionist said when they were close. “We’ll take her back right away,” she said as she stood. She punched a few buttons on the phone before walking around to the wheel chair. “Are you okay, honey?” she asked as she smiled reassuringly at Reno. When Reno didn’t answer she moved between Jonas and the chair and grabbed the handles. Without a word she expertly navigated across the waiting room and through a set of automatic doors. Unsure what to do, he followed, his eyes burning in the fluorescent lighting. Reno was wheeled around a corner and down another hallway. He didn’t catch up until the receptionist had parked the chair in a small examination room. “Somebody will be right in,” she said. “So what happened?”

“Somebody hit her. Hard,” he answered. Until then he hadn’t thought about the difficulty of explaining the injury.

“Somebody? Was it anybody in particular?” Before he could answer she had backed out to the doorway where she collided with a nurse. She mumbled something to the nurse before she left.

“I’m Beth Staley,” the nurse said. “We’ll need to get a lot of information from you two, but first we need to have a look at her. Anything hurt besides her head? Is that her own blood on her shirt?”

“Yeah,” Jonas nodded.

“Let’s get her onto the examination table.”

“I’ll try to lift her out of the chair,” Jonas said. He dug his hands under Reno’s arms and hoisted her up. Staley picked up Reno’s legs and pivoted until Reno was on the table, then stepped around to where she could get a look at the head wound.

She pulled the blood-soaked pads from the wound with efficiency. Jonas went queasy as he watched dark gristle drip and fall away. “Good Lord! What did she get hit with?” Staley asked as she wiped at the accumulation of blood and loose tissue. “This is a very serious contusion. We’re going to have to keep her overnight, I can tell you right now.” She stopped what she was doing long enough to look Jonas in the eye. “Did you do this?”

“No!” Jonas snapped back, his face twisting into a scowl. “Who do you think you are, asking me a question like that?”

“I’ll ask any question I want to ask. That’s my job. I’ve seen a lot of battered women. The man always reacts that way when I ask. That won’t stop me from asking.”

“She’s not a battered woman,” Jonas argued. “She was attacked from behind. By somebody else.”

“Hmm,” Staley said. “By who?”

“I can’t talk about it. Just get her fixed up. Please.”

“Oh, you’ll talk,” Nurse Staley said, drawing the words out to a patronizing tone.

“You can ask her when she comes out of it,” Jonas insisted. “She’ll tell you.”

“I intend to. But they don’t usually tell the truth now, do they? If they do they pay for it later.”

Jonas tried to stay calm. The nurse was complicating the situation far past the point where he could consider everything. He needed time to think. “I have to go move the car. I’ll be right back.”

The car was right where he’d left it and the passenger door was still wide open. Moving the car was more than a ploy to stall for time. Besides being parked illegally it was a dead giveaway to its owners, who were probably looking for it by then. He drove it down the hill past the football stadium and slipped into a crowded parking lot.

Once the car was parked he walked back up the hill towards the hospital, trying to decide how much he could disclose about what had happened. The truth was out of the question. Whoever they told it to would hold them just long enough for Braden to set up his team. By the time he reached the emergency room he’d decided to go with a generic burglar story. The nurse wouldn’t believe him but as long as Reno was taken care of it didn’t matter, at least for the moment. He walked inside and past the receptionist without a word but when he looked back he noticed she was watching him with the telephone in her hand.

Finding his way back to the examination room through the labyrinth of corridors proved more difficult than he expected. When he finally saw Nurse Staley ahead he was relieved, but the feeling didn’t last. She disappeared from view as he approached, and two uniformed policemen popped out of the room to take her place. Jonas knew instantly what had happened. The busybody nurse had called the police to report the case as an incident of domestic violence. He reversed course and veered down another hallway. As of that moment, in addition to the problems he already faced, he became a fugitive of the law.

He could hear the clattering footsteps of the cops as they ran after him. When he came to a stairway he pushed the door open as far as it would go before darting into a room across the hall from the stairwell. The footsteps of the officers quickly grew louder. He crushed his body into the corner behind a soda machine. When he heard them rushing past and up the stairs he knew his ruse had worked.

Going back the same way he came was out of the question because Nurse Staley was almost certainly still on guard. Before continuing his flight in the other direction he grabbed a lab coat from a hook and put it on, covering his tattered shirt. He bounded down the first set of stairs he came across and found himself in a dank, austere corridor. This has to be the basement, he decided. Good.

Before he’d taken a step one of the officers appeared. When he saw Jonas he broke into a run. While Jonas scurried back to the stairs he heard the officer radio his partner. He dove behind a green plastic trash barrel that was jammed into the triangular opening beneath the stairs. The officer burst through the door and up the stairs without hesitating. After the footsteps had faded Jonas returned to the hallway and found an exit. The cool breeze of night chilled the sticky mixture of reconstituted blood and perspiration that coated his skin, but it didn’t matter. He was out.

He had intended to leave the car behind but the feeling of security it provided once he was inside it changed his mind. He needed to get downtown, where it would be easier to hide. If he drove he could be there in ten minutes. Then he would ditch the car once and for all. It felt wrong to leave Reno behind but he knew he had no choice. She needed medical attention, and he could move quicker without her.

The next round of trouble started as he was idling at a red light across the street from the Coliseum. When the light turned green two sets of headlights flicked on across the intersection. There was no doubt in his mind that whoever was in those cars had been waiting for him, the same way somebody was probably waiting at every intersection across town. He saw a PRT car roll by on the overpass above the intersection and remembered that there was a station nearby. Without waiting for the light to change Jonas floored the accelerator and nearly lost control of the Impala as he made a wide U-turn. Tires squealed as he fishtailed off the road and up a driveway.

Just before he reached a “T” intersection he could see one of the cars in hot pursuit. He yanked the steering wheel to the left and hopped the curb. Driving wildly, he sped through the grass around the building and slammed the car onto another roadway. There didn’t seem to be any place else to go so he parked and jumped out. He could see the Engineering station of the PRT at the top of the hill and it looked as though he could get to it without leaving the safety of darkness. The fatigue of the day was finally setting in as he huffed his way up the hill, tearing off the lab coat as he ran. A chain link fence cost him more of his wind as well as a layer of skin on his forearm, but he was undaunted as he scaled it and kept moving toward the station.

After running up the concrete steps he vaulted onto the platform without even looking at the students who were already there. An approaching PRT car was within sight but when he heard footsteps pounding on the concrete he knew it wouldn’t arrive soon enough to board. Leading the charge was Sideburns, the red-haired man who had been tailing them for days. Jonas looked around frantically for a way out but this time it appeared that he was out of options.

Chapter 35

Sideburns cast a wicked smile at Jonas when they locked eyes across the platform. Jonas recognized the “I’ve got you now!” expression as his heart sank. Sideburns’s partner didn’t appear to share the sense of urgency as he reached into his pocket in search of the coins required to get them through the turnstile. “Fuck that!” Sideburns yelled. “Just jump!”

Jonas had lost track of the number of times somebody thought they had him cornered in recent days. So far he’d surprised himself with his own resourcefulness. This time it came to him as he watched Sideburns place his hands on the turnstile to climb over. He saw the headlight of the approaching PRT car flash between Sideburn’s arm and torso. It was moving so fast that it had to be an express, which would pass underneath the platform without stopping. His idea was risky but there was no alternative. It was a far better chance to get away than he could have reasonably expected.

The PRT car disappeared from view just after Sideburns hopped the turnstile. Jonas moved along the opposite edge of the platform to the spot directly above the express track. He looked back at Sideburns, who had closed to within ten feet. A student in a green tank top shouted “Whoa!” when he saw Jonas scramble over the railing. You said it, Jonas thought without looking back.

By then Sideburns had to know what was about to happen. He felt Sideburns’s touch on his arm at the same time that he saw the glow of the oncoming PRT car’s headlight below him. With a twist of his upper body he was free, just as the car appeared below him.

It wasn’t so much a leap as it was a fall forward. The drop was about ten feet. He pushed off the edge of the concrete platform towards the path of the car and landed on a knee at the rear of the roof. Pain knifed through his leg as he flattened out and grabbed for something to hold onto. There were a series of ridges and grooves on the roof that were deep enough for him to grip with his fingertips. That worked for the moment but he worried about what would happen when the car picked up speed.

He could hear shouting on the platform behind him but it faded quickly. As the car headed through a curve he fought to keep his body from sliding. Moving forward was harder than he had imagined. After the car rolled through a tunnel it accelerated. He was able to pull himself forward but it was painstakingly slow. By the time they passed the Coliseum he’d reached the front and was clinging with both hands to hook-shaped brackets that he could feel but not see. Two good handholds made him feel more confident about staying on top. The rush of the wind was loud enough now that it blocked out all other sound. He wondered if the passengers inside the car even knew he was there.

The car slowed to turn when it reached the bottom of an incline but immediately resumed cruising speed as it moved along the bank of the river. Riding all the way to the next station was completely out of the question because undoubtedly somebody would be there waiting for him. If he wanted to avoid another confrontation he would have to get off the PRT car, and there was only one way to do that. He would have to jump.

The view of the terrain surrounding the track was surprisingly poor from his vantage point, sprawled flat on the roof of the car. Even if it hadn’t been dark he couldn’t see over the sides. He could only hope he’d be lucky enough not to land on anything hard. The car swerved unexpectedly to the right just as he flung himself. His left elbow grazed the window before crashing against the concrete wall of the elevated track. The unexpected contact spun him around in the air. His body was racked with pain but he was too concerned with the impending impact to focus on it.

He landed on his side in a patch of dirt and rolled away from the track. When he felt safe he lay perfectly still, waiting for the initial wave of pain to subside before assessing the damage. Nothing felt broken, he decided with relief. His head, elbow and left hip hurt but not enough to slow him down. He struggled to his feet and watched the red taillights of the PRT car as it sped away.

Getting downtown remained his mission but it was going to be harder to accomplish now that somebody was back on his tail. His first concern was to get away from the PRT, which would be the first place they would look. The tracks ran alongside a busy four-lane road. Across the road was a dense, low-lying section of the city that looked like student housing. That would be a good place to hide. He climbed a tall fence and lowered himself carefully onto the shoulder of the road. When there was a break in traffic he ran across as quickly as his aching body could take him. Luckily there were no obstacles on the other side so he was able to slip easily into the neighborhood.

Half a block away he dropped onto his back in somebody’s front yard. Still breathing hard, he pulled the copy of the article from his back pocket for what seemed like the thousandth time that day. By then it was looking rather shabby, even in the weak glow of a streetlight. The smudged papers had been folded and unfolded so many times that the creases were beginning to tear open. Wishing he had a safe place to store it, he refolded the pages and carefully slid it back into his pocket. He wasn’t even sure why he’d taken it out in the first place. He’d been doing it all day.

The street seemed barren for a college town even at midnight. He trudged up a steep hill not knowing where he was going except that it felt like he was heading toward the campus and downtown. As he neared the top more students began to appear, many with plastic cups in their hands. His suspicions were confirmed when he came across a sidewalk teeming with people. The street was lined with seedy bars. Bands of drinkers were coming and going from every doorway. He’d stumbled across a center of student partying.

His first impulse was to walk away but he quickly changed his mind. Being among crowds of people would work in his favor because he could blend in, and at that moment what he needed most was information. None of the students he came across would know or care about what he was involved in and they were sure to know the answers to his questions. Trying not to think about his bedraggled appearance he limped into the closest bar up the sidewalk.

The place was only half-lit but he could see crowds seated at and standing around a half-dozen round picnic tables. Others milled around in the space between the tables, many heading to and coming from the wooden counter carrying clear plastic pitchers. Rock music that he didn’t recognize blared from every direction. Three young men behind the bar were filling pitchers with beer as fast as they were handed to them. The sticky floor was littered with flattened plastic cups that crunched and snapped with every step. From an empty corner he watched bar patrons, looking for somebody he could approach. Now that life had slowed down he became aware of throbbing pain from various parts of his body. That reminded him that Reno was lying alone in a hospital across town. He had work to do.

He decided that as soon as somebody got up from one of the crowded tables he would take their place. The worst that would happen would be that he would be told to get lost. When a group of men in fraternity shirts left a table of similarly clad coeds he saw his chance. None noticed him until he had stepped over the bench seat and sat down. One of the women giggled and others made faces at each other. They all fidgeted away from where he sat. I don’t blame them. I better start talking.

“Hi ladies,” he said cheerfully, realizing that what he said mattered less than how he said it. “I’ve had a rough night. Mind if I sit down for a minute?”

“Whatever,” a blonde from across the table said. “We’re leaving anyway.”

“Are you a homeless guy?” another asked.

“Oh brother,” said the girl next to Jonas. “Get a grip.”

“I’m a newspaper reporter,” he told them, thinking that a little truth might help.

“Oh yeah? Then what are you doing here?” asked one of the women from across the table. “Nothing but a bunch of drunk sorority sluts here,” she said. The other women laughed.

“I’m working on a story. My name’s Joe Jonas.”

“I’m Robin,” said the girl next to him. “Don’t listen to them.”

“Hi. Look, I need to find out where The Daily Athenaeum office is. If you tell me where it is, I’ll leave.”

“I thought you were a reporter,” Robin asked. “Oh, wait a minute, I get it. You’re a reporter but not from the D.A.”

“Right, but I have a story for them. I think they’ll be interested but I don’t know where they are.”

“They’re in a little house near Arnold Hall.”

“Arnold Hall?” Jonas repeated. “I don’t really know the campus.”

A scruffy man emerged from the crowd and squeezed in on the bench on Robin’s other side. “What’s up?” he asked as he put his arm around her shoulder.

“Rob, this is Joe,” Robin said. “He just dropped in.” Jonas was struck by contrast between Rob, with his beard and shoulder length hair, and the majority of students in the bar including the ones who’d just left the table. He decided on the spot to rely on Rob and Robin as much as they would let him.

“Hi,” Jonas said. Rob waved his hand without saying anything. “So where’s Arnold Hall?” Jonas asked Robin.

“It’s on Prospect Street. What kind of story is it? Is it why you got all beat up?”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t intended to explain more than he had to but once he started he found he couldn’t stop himself. For the next five minutes the entire story poured out of his mouth as fast as he could form the words. When he was done he dragged a pitcher across the wooden tabletop and took several healthy gulps from it. Beer dribbled down his chin as he looked around the table at suddenly blank faces. He wasn’t sure how much any of them had understood but he certainly had their attention.

Robin shifted sideways so she was facing Jonas squarely. “Do you want us to take you there?”

“Yeah, but I doubt they’re open at this hour. Geez, I don’t even know what day it is.”

“It’s Tuesday night.”

“I’d like to be there when they open up in the morning. But somebody’s still chasing me. I have to stay hidden until then.”

“Somebody’s chasing you?” Rob asked. “Right here in Sunnyside?”

“Is that where I am?”

“Where’d you find this guy?” Rob asked Robin.

“He found us.”

“They don’t know exactly where I am,” Jonas continued, “and I want to keep it that way. I jumped off the PRT but they don’t know where I landed.”

“You jumped off the PRT?” Rob said in disbelief. “How’d you get the door open?”

“I wasn’t in it. I was on it.”

“We live a few streets away from Prospect,” Robin said. “Maybe you could come home with us. We won’t turn you in,” she said with a smile.

“That’s just what I need. But I don’t want to get you involved in all this.”

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” Rob said.

“I just need to drop off my story and beg them to print it. Then I have to get out to the hospital and get Abby out of there.”

“So this is all legit?” Rob asked. “You’re not snowing us? It sounds pretty off the wall, man.”

“I wish none of it was true but it is. If you come out to the hospital with me tomorrow you can meet my partner.”

“I want to believe it,” Rob said. “It’s a cool tale. I’m from down state. I know where Becton is but I’ve never heard of that guy.”

“It’s more than a tale to me,” Jonas said. “But I’d appreciate a place to hide out tonight. You’d be saving my life. At least for another day.”

Chapter 36

“So you’ll need me to give you a ride out to the hospital sometime tomorrow?” Rob asked. The entire group from the table had left the bar en masse to head home for the night. Rob carefully choreographed the exit so Jonas was in the middle of the pack, shielded from view. Only Rob and Robin knew why.

“Yeah, if you could,” Jonas answered. It felt ridiculous, even embarrassing, to be asking such an important favor of somebody he just met but there was no point in trying to make sense of anything anymore. It was only about survival.

“It’s cool. Just let me know. Hopefully I’ll be around when you need me.”

“On second thought,” Jonas said, “Maybe you could take me to get my car first. The car I stole, I mean.” By then they were crossing a gorge on on a steel footbridge that hung off the back of the crumbling, unused downtown football stadium.

Rob laughed. “You stole a car? It just keeps getting better and better. Who’d you steal it from?”

“I stole it from the guy who knocked my partner out with the brass knuckles. I doubt he’ll miss it. He won’t be driving anytime soon. I’m pretty sure he bled to death after we were done with him. Death by coffee pot.”

“Payback,” Robin murmured from behind. Rob looked over at Jonas with an amused look on his face. Jonas hoped nobody else had been listening closely.

“It might not even be there anymore,” he remarked as they passed in front of the Mountain Lair. “Really, it’s useless to me now anyway. They already blew up my other car. I probably shouldn’t even go near it. Too bad, I’m going to need transportation.”

“I can’t tell if you’re bullshitting me or not,” Rob said. “I think I believe you. I’ll check it out if you want. I’m pretty good with that kind of shit. Just tell me where it is.”

“Rob’s in the engineering program,” Robin explained. “He was that little kid everybody knew who was always taking everything apart.”

“Well that works out. The car’s at the Engineering Building. You could tell if it was rigged?”

“Most likely I could. How did the other one explode?”

“My car back in Charlotte? I’m not exactly sure,” Jonas admitted. “It seemed like the guy couldn’t have done anything but turn the key before it went off.”

“Just like in the movies. There’s usually a metal box with all the guts of a bomb jammed under the dashboard. Whatever it is in the box would probably be pretty basic. It’s wired right into the ignition. It’ll be visible. I’ll check it out and let you know how it looks.”

“Are you sure?” Jonas asked. He could hardly believe his luck. He’d accidentally met somebody who was solving problem after problem. “These guys don’t fuck around.”

“Neither do I,” Rob answered. “Can it wait until tomorrow? It’d be better in daylight. I’ll be out there in the morning anyway. Make sure you give me the key before I leave. But if I can’t tell what it is I’m leaving it alone.”

“Thanks. It would really be sweet to have that car.” He fished Bremer’s keys from his pocket and handed them over.

“Here, wear this,” Rob said after fishing a baseball cap from his backpack. “It’ll keep you hidden just in case the bad guys are looking.” Jonas looked up from the sidewalk at Rob, trying to determine if he was being facetious, but there was a serious expression on his face. He slipped the cap on and readjusted his position in the middle of the group.. Every so often members of the group peeled away with hardly a word and headed to their own homes. By the time they reached the apartment in the basement of a shabby green house on Redwood Street there was nobody left except the three of them.

Jonas felt safer than he had in days. A university campus was the perfect place for him to hide. Unless somebody got close he looked like just another student coming home after a night of drinking. Towards the end of the walk he’d gone quiet as he processed the details of his predicament. If things went just right, he thought that he and Reno could be free within twenty-four hours. Where they could go and what they would do with their freedom was an entirely different matter.

~~~

“So who lives here?” Jonas asked after they were inside. Robin disappeared momentarily but returned with a tall glass of water. “I don’t want to have a hangover tomorrow,” she explained before lifting the glass to her lips.

“This is my place,” Rob answered as he threw his backpack in a corner and plopped himself onto a wooden chair. “But Robin stays over a lot.”

“Gamma house gets too loud, especially after being there two years,” Robin explained. She walked behind Rob after placing the glass on the table and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“How did you two end up together, anyway?” Jonas asked. “You don’t exactly look like a frat boy to me.”

“No, but lucky for me the Greeks let her out once in a while.”

“Tell the truth,” Robin teased. “We met at a Fraternity Row block party that he crashed.”

“I was just passing through but I stopped for free beer,” Rob said with a laugh. “So anyway, are you okay sleeping on the couch?”

“Anything’s fine. I feel safe here. But I really want to be at the door when they open up at the school paper.”

“I’m an early riser,” Rob said. “How does five o’clock sound? That’s not very far away.”

After the lights were out Jonas lay in the dark thinking about what was going to happen the next day. Success hinged on whether he could talk the story into print. Even a college newspaper would hold themselves to some standards, and they might not be willing to print the story without verifying some details. But there was hope. Getting the story into print, if only in a college newspaper, just might provide the leverage they needed to save themselves. Otherwise he didn’t think there was much chance they could survive even one more day.

More and more he regretted leaving Reno at the hospital but at the same time he knew there was nothing else he could have done. Hopefully nobody had found her. He smiled in the dark as he remembered how spicy and carefree she’d been before all their troubles. He wondered if she’d ever be that way again. There was no way to know what would happen but he hoped when it was over they’d be alive and together.

~~~

He felt like he’d been asleep for only a few minutes when he startled at the touch of Rob’s hand. “Dude, it’s time to get up. The paper could open anytime.”

“Okay, thanks, I’m awake,” Jonas said after sitting up. “Did I sleep at all?”

“I couldn’t tell you. Guess what?”

“What?”

“I checked out your car. It was right where you said it was.”

“You’re kidding! When did you do it?”

“It doesn’t look like anybody touched it. It’s clean. Except for the bloody rags you left. You even remembered to lock it.”

“When did you do it? Did you start it up?”

“Yes I did. As a matter of fact, I drove it. I couldn’t sleep after you crashed so I called my friend. We took the liberty of moving it to a safer location. I hope that’s cool. It probably would have been towed by now.”

“That’s perfect. Thanks, Rob. You don’t know how much that helps, really.”

“No biggie. It’s out at his house at Cheat Lake. Nobody will look there for it. It’ll be covered with bird shit, that’s all. Here, this was on the floor.” He handed the walkie-talkie over.

“You know,” Jonas said. “At times like this I think I just might survive.”

“Beats the alternative,” Rob said.

“So how should I go about this when I get over to the D.A.? Should I just spill my guts? Maybe I could tell them I’m a ‘real’ reporter. You know, pull rank.”

“I couldn’t tell you, pal. I only read the sports page.”

“Do I have time for a shower?” Jonas asked.

“You have time for anything you want but I wouldn’t bother, seeing that you’re in such a hurry. With those clothes you’re wearing I don’t think it matters what you smell like. Unless you want to borrow some of mine.”

“No, I’ll just go like this,” Jonas told him as he stood up. “Hell, it might make my story more believable.”

“I got the coffee going already. Help yourself,” Rob said. “I guess I’ll just see you back here sometime then?”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” Jonas said, rubbing his eyes. “But one way or another I’m hoping to get out of this town before the sun goes down.”

~~~

He kept his head down and walked at a brisk pace after leaving Rob’s place. Just as Robin had said, The Daily Athenaeum offices were in a bland gray clapboard house on the corner of Prospect and Spruce Streets. Aside from a handwritten label on the mailbox there was no indication that the newspaper was based there at all. He walked up the wooden steps and onto the porch. It didn’t look like anybody was inside yet. After pushing a white doorbell button several times with no result he sat down against the porch wall and pulled his knees to his chin. He was glad for the safety of the enclosed porch. Now that daylight was coming he intended to stay out of view as much as possible. He fingered the worn copy of the story in his pocket while he waited for someone to arrive. The paper the story was written on wasn’t going to last much longer. He wondered if the same was true for the authors.

Despite his efforts to stay awake he dozed off within ten minutes. The young woman who appeared on the porch gasped when she nearly stumbled over the hunched figure at her feet. “Oh!” she said. “I didn’t see you there!”

“Hi,” Jonas said. The pain in his hip reawakened as he grabbed the wall and pulled himself to his feet. He knew he’d have to talk fast before she disappeared inside the house. “I’m Joe Jonas, from The Charlotte Sentinel. I was hoping to get a chance to talk with the editor. Do you know what time he gets in?”

“The editor?” the woman asked.

“Whoever’s in charge,” he said patiently, understanding that maybe the D.A. wasn’t run the same way the Wolfpacker had been back at N.C. State. “I have a controversial story I want to pass on.”

The woman reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a jumble of keys. “That would be Valerie Milstead. Sometimes she stops in early but she’s always here by the afternoon.”

“That’s too late,” Jonas said. “Is there somebody else I should talk to?”

“What’s the story about?” she asked. Her key crunched into the weather-beaten lock. After turning it she forced the door open with her shoulder. “You can come in.”

“Thanks,” Jonas said as he followed her. They walked through a narrow foyer past a staircase on which books and papers were stacked. The hardwood floor creaked and groaned as they passed through. She entered a room and dropped her purse onto a metal table. “Have a seat. I’m Jan,” she said, extending her hand. “You’re Joe?”

“Yeah,” Jonas answered.

“Where are you from again?” Jan asked.

“The Charlotte Sentinel, in North Carolina.”

“So you’re a real-live reporter? That’ll carry a lot of weight around here. Most of us can’t really believe we’ll ever get jobs out there.”

“You will,” Jonas assured her. “They’ll always be a need for us. Don’t expect to make a lot of money, that’s all. Unless you’re Woodward or Bernstein.”

“I’ll settle for any job, I don’t care what they pay me,” she said. “So what’s you’re story about?”

“It’s about the Kennedy Assassination,” Jonas said. “It’s a little wacky.”

“Who did it?”

“ERC. Do you want to hear it?”

“ERC? The steel company? You’re serious about this?”

“Deadly serious. No pun intended.”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind. It’s a long story.”

“Something like this, you want to talk to Darius Ledger,” Jan said. “He’s a senior and he’s been here for three years. Some of the stuff he’s gotten printed is really out there, if you know what I mean.”

“Got it. Every college paper has at least one of those. Is he here?” he asked, already knowing the answer. There was obviously nobody else in the building.

“No, but I can call him and see what his schedule looks like. I’ll let him sleep a few more minutes first but I’ll bet he’ll want to talk with you.”

“Thanks. This is probably the last chance I’ll have to get this into a newspaper. Don’t ask.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll try to get a hold of Darius.”

“Hey, would you mind if I used the phone while I waited? I want to talk to my partner.”

“Sure, feel free. If it’s local you can just dial nine and then the number.”

After she walked out he punched in the number for directory information and scratched the number down on the surface of the desk with a blunt pencil he found. Just as a feminine voice answered “University Hospital,” he had a change of heart. As badly as he wanted to make sure Reno was safe, it wasn’t worth the risk. Somebody could be listening. He dropped the receiver back into its cradle and sat back in the chair to wait.

Chapter 37

For the next few hours nothing happened, and Jonas wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Bordom equaled safety and it felt good, so much so that he had to fight the urge to sleep. But the temporary sanctuaries that he and Reno currently occupied didn’t diminish the urgency of the danger they faced. The anxiety was back after nine and ten o’clock came and went. He listened carefully to each set of footsteps that rustled past. His nerves were jarred each time a D.A. staffer peered in at him. The growing number of unfamiliar people in the building made him nervous. Some relief came when Jan popped her head back into the office, even though the news wasn’t particularly good. “Darius won’t be around until lunchtime. Sorry.”

“That’s just another hour,” Jonas replied hopefully.

“Who knows with Darius? Could be sooner, could be later. You could always come back,” she suggested. “Once he’s here he usually stays a while.”

“I don’t have a place to go. Can I wait?”

“Sure. Suit yourself. You might get booted out of this room, that’s all. It depends on who shows up.”

He had an idea. “Is there any way I could type my story up while I’m waiting?” he asked. He pulled the handwritten pages from his pocket and held them out without unfolding them. “These are getting hard to read.”

“I don’t see why not. But you can’t use a terminal since it isn’t our story. That would put it into our system. They’re strict about that. We can’t use it for homework either.”

“Whatever. Just thought I’d ask.”

“I could grab a typewriter for you,” she offered. “They’re all over the place.”

“If you can get one. I’d rather not hand this mess over to anybody. Not like this.”

A few minutes later she rolled a cart into the office. On top was a standard beige-colored IBM Selectric typewriter. A black electrical cord rattled on the floor behind the cart, catching momentarily on the doorjamb before knocking free. “There’s a pack of paper on the bottom,” she said. “Have at it.”

Grateful for something to do, Jonas moved the cart into position and plugged the typewriter in. He opened the pack of paper and rolled a sheet into the machine the way he’d done so many times before. After this I can throw these rags away, he thought as he unfolded the handwritten pages and smoothed them out on the desk. Occasionally he glanced at the clock on the wall over the desk as he worked, wondering when the unpredictable Darius Ledger might appear. By eleven-thirty he was well over halfway through with the task. Since Ledger hadn’t arrived he continued to type.

He was nearing the final paragraphs of the story when he heard the front door slam shut. Somehow he knew. The floor in the hall squeaked as whomever it was that had entered made his way deeper into the building but this was the loudest it had been. Jonas turned back toward the typewriter just in time to avoid being caught staring. Sensing that it was Ledger that had arrived, Jonas typed faster. There was a single sentence left to type when he looked up to see a man standing in the doorway.

“I’m Darius,” the man said in a deep baritone. “I heard you’re looking for me.” Jonas immediately understood why the floor had protested so noticeably wherever Ledger walked on it. He was huge. The black frames of his glasses and a thick soul patch dangling from his chin bracketed his brown face. He wore his hair in beaded dreadlocks that swung from side to side as he made his way over to the desk. “You’ve got some crazy story you wanted to show me?”

“Hi Darius,” Jonas said, sticking his hand out awkwardly. “Glad to meet you. I’m Joe Jonas from The Charlotte Sentinel. Yeah, I’ve got a story. Do you have a few hours?” he said with a smirk.

Ledger shook his head. “Not really. Does anybody?” Instead of grabbing Jonas’s hand he slapped it softly, palm to palm. “But Jan said it was pretty wild. I’m listening.”

“How about if I cover the main points, and then I’ll give you a copy of this?” Jonas said as he gestured toward the typewriter. Before Ledger could object he began to explain what he and Reno had been up to and how it had led to trouble. He had intended to get to the end in five minutes but it ended up being more like twenty. By the time he was done Ledger had pulled up a chair.

“Well, Jan was right. That’s one crazy fucking story,” Ledger said when Jonas finally stopped talking. “I don’t suppose you have any way to back any of that up, do you?”

“No,” Jonas said with a shrug. “We’ve been on the run. But the fact that somebody’s chasing us should tell you something, don’t you think? If you think I look bad you should see Abby.”

“She’s out at University Hospital?”

“Yeah. I’m going out to get her whenever I can. I’m not sure when yet. We’ve got to get out of here while we’re still alive. There’s no way our luck can hold out much longer.”

Ledger stood and stretched his giant frame before taking a seat on the corner of the desk. “You killed a guy right here in town,” he said after a pause. “Seems to me I should be able to confirm that part, at least. Maybe I can do something with this,” he said, mostly to himself.

“I left him for dead, but don’t know for sure that he finished dying. I’m sure you’ll never find a trace of him. These guys are pretty good.”

“Can I see it?” Ledger asked, pointing at the typewriter.

Jonas typed the final sentence and then yanked the page from the typewriter. After adding it to the bottom of the stack of typewritten pages and handed it over. “I know it’s thin,” he said apologetically. “We had to travel light.”

“There’s no way I can write this straight up,” Ledger said. “We just don’t have any proof. For me, at least, it would just be hearsay. At best. Why don’t you print it in your own damn paper? At least it would be firsthand.”

“Same reason you don’t like it,” Jonas admitted. “My editors in Charlotte rejected it. I can’t really blame them. I believe this story but I can’t prove it yet.”

Before Ledger could respond somebody stuck his head in the door. “Are you Joe Jonas? Somebody’s here looking for you.” Jonas tensed up, assuming the worst. Then Rob appeared.

“I’ve walked past here a thousand times,” he said.

“Hey Rob,” Jonas said. “I’m glad it’s you. Rob, this is Darius. He’s a reporter. I stayed at Rob’s last night,” he explained to Ledger.

“I read your stuff all the time,” Rob said as he and Ledger shook hands. Jonas smiled as he remembered Rob mentioning that he only read the sports page.

“So you’re in on this too?” Ledger asked Rob. “This isn’t just some nut job fantasy?”

“Look, I just met this guy last night,” Rob said, jerking his thumb at Jonas. “It could be a nut job fantasy for all I know. He showed up in a bar in Sunnyside, all beat up and woozy, telling stories. It seems like it’s all on the level, I’ll give him that. So far everything he said checks out.”

“Sorry, Darius,” Jonas said. “I forgot to mention Rob. I know how crazy this looks.”

“No shit. Here’s what I’m thinking I want to do,” Ledger said. “This can’t be an article. Way too fuzzy. But I usually write a column about once a week. I just write about something funny, or something I feel strongly about. This week I’ll write about you and your story. Kind of like ‘I met this wild guy and he told me this wild story’ kind of thing. It won’t be an article, just a column. You know the difference. We wouldn’t be, you know, saying it’s all fact. But at least it’ll be in print. That helps you out, right?”

“Yeah, that helps me out,” Jonas answered. “At least I think it will. Maybe somebody with more time will pick it up and run with it. Like I said, I’m hoping that once it’s in print they’ll have to worry more about hiding than chasing me.”

“I’ll keep this if you don’t mind,” Ledger said, holding up the typed pages. “I might even print it verbatim. At least part of it.”

“Would you mind making a copy of it for me?” Jonas asked. “Just in case?”

“Sure, I’ll do that right now.”

“Thanks,” Jonas said. “Then I just have to get out to the hospital.”

“I can take you,” Rob said. “But I thought of something. Do you know what room she’s in? You left her in the emergency room. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to go in the front door and ask for her room number. What if they know she’s there and they’re waiting for you?”

“That’s something I’ve been worrying about too,” Jonas said. “And it isn’t just them. The police chased me out last time I was there. They accused me of beating her up myself.”

“You can’t make this shit up,” Darius said, a smile breaking out on his face.

“Maybe I could go in and ask,” Rob said.

“Or me,” Darius suggested.

“It’s a good idea,” Jonas agreed. “All I need is a room number.”

“What’s up when you find her?” Ledger asked. “What are you going to do next?”

“Run like hell,” Jonas said. “We’ll disappear.”

“First you have to get her out of there,” Rob reminded him. “Then you can disappear.”

“So much for any follow-up,” Ledger said. “Hey, can I come with you dudes? I’d like to meet this girl.”

“Aren’t you going to be busy writing your story?” asked Jonas.

“Not until I interview the girl,” Ledger said, smiling. “When do we leave?”

“Whenever Rob can take us, I guess. But what about my car? I mean, my stolen car? I’m going to need it.”

“We’ll get it later,” Rob promised. “By the time we pull this off it’ll probably be dark. For you, dark is good.”

“If we pull it off,” Jonas said. Fifteen minutes later they were in Rob’s battered blue Ford pickup truck. Twenty-four hours earlier Jonas had never met either of the men in the truck with him. Now he was relying on them to save his life, and Reno’s too. After sizing Rob and Ledger up he decided he liked their chances.

Chapter 38

“Aren’t we going to the hospital?” Jonas asked as the truck weaved up the side of a mountain on Willey Street. “This doesn’t look familiar. Where are we?”

“We’re taking the back route,” Rob answered. “Less traffic.”

“It’s faster. Chill, man,” said Ledger.

“I guess I’m a little jumpy.”

“No sweat,” Rob said. “Listen, I was thinking about this. The bad guys don’t know your partner is out there in the hospital. Are you one hundred percent sure of that?”

“I can hardly remember who knows what. Let’s see. It was the police that ran me out of the hospital, but only because they thought I attacked my girlfriend. I lost the other guys on the PRT right before I met you guys at the bar. I don’t think they had a clue that I was coming from the hospital.”

“I knew I should have brought my notepad,” Ledger said.

“Your plan is for us to get the room number, and then you’ll sneak in,” Rob said. “Right?”

“Pretty much,” agreed Jonas.

“So what I’m thinking is, and sorry if I’m butting in, but is it a good idea for you to show yourself right now? If somebody’s watching you, aren’t you going to lead them right to her when you go up to her room? Or it could be the other way around. If somebody’s watching her, they find you.”

“How else am I going to get her out?”

“But we’re not going there to get her out,” Rob countered. “Not today. Not until the article is in the paper. Right? That’s not until tomorrow. I’m just saying maybe you should wait.”

“It’s not an article,” Ledger said. “It’s a column.”

“Whatever,” Rob said. “The point is, wasn’t the plan for you to hide until it’s printed? You managed to get away from them last night. It sounds like that was a break for you, a very lucky break. Aren’t you throwing that away by showing your face again?”

“She probably doesn’t even know where she is or how she got there. She’s got to be scared,” Jonas countered.

“Better scared than dead,” Rob said. “If these guys are as bad-ass as you say they are. It’s just one more night she has to hang on.”

“This’ll be in tomorrow’s paper,” Ledger said. “Count on it. He’s right, man. Maybe you should wait. It’s only one more day.”

“But look at it from Abby’s perspective.”

“Even if the bad guys aren’t there, what about the police?” Rob asked. “That’s the last place they saw you. It’s the only place, as a matter of fact.”

They’re right, Jonas thought. I’m lucky they’re here.

The terrain finally leveled off. Jonas wondered how much altitude they’d gained in the previous few minutes. As he watched a steady stream of car dealerships, laundromats and convenience stores fly by he felt himself drifting off. He could hear Ledger and Rob talking but it was as though they were in another room.

“What about that, Joe Jonas?” Ledger asked.

Jonas opened his eyes. “Sorry, I was out of it. What about what?”

“We were trying to come up with a way to keep you from going inside that hospital,” Rob said.

“So what are we doing then?” Jonas snapped. “We may as well turn around and go back.”

“That’s no good either,” Ledger argued. “You can’t leave her hanging.” He shook his head. “God almighty. It’s like I know her now.”

“We were thinking that one of us, probably Darius, should be the one to go in and tell her what’s going on,” Rob said. “That way, nobody gets tipped off. Even if somebody saw you with me last night, they couldn’t possibly know about Darius. There’s no connection at all.”

“Yeah, great idea,” Jonas answered sarcastically. “Nothing inconspicuous about that. A two hundred and fifty pound black guy walks in and asks where he can find Abby.”

“He’s a lot less conspicuous than you are,” Rob said. “The police didn’t chase him out of that building last night. Who says she can’t have any friends checking on her?”

By then they were parked at the hospital. Rob cut the engine and turned to Jonas. “It’s your call. We just want to help, so long as it doesn’t get us killed. What’s the plan?”

Jonas exhaled deeply as he stared out the window at the faded green Astroturf in the football stadium. “I think you guys are right. I don’t mean to be such a prick. But what about tomorrow? That’s the day I want to get her out. She needs to know the plan.”

“Yeah, good point,” said Rob. “But what are we planning?”

“How did you get out yesterday?” Ledger asked. “I could just tell her to do whatever you did.”

“I went to the basement and out the back,” Jonas said. “Can you tell her to do that? Go down and then out?”

“Yeah, but what time?” Ledger asked.

“She’s probably got a phone in her room, right?” Rob asked. “Just tell her we’ll call her when we know more. Can you get the number?” he asked Darius.

“No problem,” Ledger said. “Good.” He opened the door to get out of the truck.

“Darius, what are you going to say if somebody asks who the fuck you are?” Rob asked.

“Yeah, good question,” Jonas said. “Remember, she’s not from around here. She’s from Texas. How would some writer for the college paper know who she is or that she’s even here?”

“I’m not some writer for the college paper,” he said with a sly smile. “I’m a friend from Texas who came up when he heard what happened.”

“That’s some down-home Texas accent you got there,” Jonas said.

“Hip black dudes don’t have accents no matter where they’re from.”

Rob laughed. “By the way, if they ask, what did happen?”

“I didn’t make that part up yet,” Darius told him with a straight face.

“We better keep it simple,” Jonas said. “It doesn’t really matter. If anybody starts asking too many questions we aren’t getting away with it anyway.”

“I’ll be fine. Relax, I’ll be right back.” He stepped out and threw the door closed.

They watched as Ledger walked away. Rob pulled out a pack of cigarettes from under the seat and hunted for a match. Jonas watched Ledger until he disappeared through a set of automatic glass doors into the front of the hospital. The quick-moving doors reminded him of the emergency room entrance they’d used the night before. Suddenly he turned to Rob. “Why are you guys doing so much to help me out here? I’m not sure if I’d do all this for a stranger. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but it’s kind of weird, you know? I’ve gotten used to not trusting anybody. Now, you two come along.”

Rob lit his cigarette and blew a long stream of blue smoke out the window. “I don’t know. It just seems like the right thing to do, and it’s kind of exciting. I can’t answer for him,” he said, waving the cigarette towards the hospital. “I didn’t do that much. I was happy to let you sack out and give you a ride out here.”

“And move my car, too. That was huge. It could have been dangerous. You didn’t have to do that.”

“No, I didn’t. I just felt like helping out.”

~~~

For the next hour Jonas watched the hospital doors while Rob nursed a few more cigarettes. It was frustrating to be trapped in the truck knowing that Reno was somewhere inside the building. But as much as he wanted to go find her he knew that Rob and Ledger were right. Finally, as afternoon began giving way to evening, the lobby doors slid open and Ledger emerged.

“How’d it go?” Jonas asked when he reached the truck.

“Good as we could have hoped,” Ledger answered. “Let’s get out of here. The cops spooked me.”

“How was she?” Jonas asked as Rob eased the truck away from the hospital. “Did she look alright? Was she worried?”

“She looked okay, considering it all,” Ledger said. “She’s got those butterfly stitch thingies running up one side of her head, kind of behind her eye right up into her hair. They told her she lost a lot of blood but she looked fine to me. They want to send her home tomorrow so she was glad to hear from you.”

“Where should we go now?” Rob interrupted. “Back to the DA office?”

“Wherever I go, I’d like to stay there for a while,” Jonas said.

“Can you come back to my place?” Rob asked Darius. “We have a lot of planning to do.”

“None of this is going to happen if I don’t get this column written. I need to get back to the office and write the damn thing. You gotta’ drop me off there.”

“Can you come by later? I’m right around the corner pretty much.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know exactly when.”

“Just come whenever. We’ll wait.”

“So how was she?” Jonas asked again. “Was she scared?”

“Didn’t seem like it,” Ledger said. “She was keeping it real. She had no idea what happened to you. It looked like she was real glad to hear you were still alive. Surprised, too. She got a little teary-eyed. If I ever doubted your story I don’t anymore.”

“What were the cops doing?” Rob asked. “Did they try to stop you before you went in?”

“I went in and asked for her room number and the chick at the desk gave it to me, no problem. I didn’t see any cops until I got to the sixth floor. There was one at the end of the hall and another at the nurse’s station, leaning on the counter talking to somebody on the other side. They both looked me over but it wasn’t a big deal.”

“It’s good I didn’t go in. They’ll never lay eyes on me if all goes well. I’m not going in there tomorrow, either. She’s coming out. Did you get a phone number?”

~~~

Robin was back from classes by the time they returned to Rob’s apartment. They quickly filled her in. “I can’t believe it’s all true,” she said several times.

“I don’t think we need to wait for Darius,” Jonas said. “But he’ll need to know what we’re doing. I hope he shows up later.”

“So basically, we’re going out to the hospital to get Abby, and then you two are taking off,” Rob asked. “Is that about right?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a direct line of communication to the bad guys, thanks to that walkie-talkie you found in the car. It’s a good thing you grabbed it. First thing in the morning I’ll tell them about the column in the paper. Then they can worry about saving their own skins.”

“They’ll know you’re within walkie-talkie range,” Rob pointed out. “Aren’t you worried about that? They might have thought you already took off.”

“Yeah, I hate to give my location away,” Jonas conceded. “But it’s the only way I can get a message to them. Getting the story into print is my end game. I have to press them on it and hope they head for the hills. I can’t hide forever. At some point it’s all got to end.”

“You might be okay. The hospital’s right on the edge of town and the car is out in the boonies. They probably won’t be in the right place at the right time.”

“Yeah, and hopefully they’ll think I’m leaving town. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

They sat around the table for the next few hours and worked out the logistics. Darius appeared on the front porch as Robin was paying for the pizza that had just been delivered. “It’s done,” he told them after coming inside. He spread the pages of his column across the table. “It’ll run in tomorrow’s edition.”

“This ought to do it,” Jonas said through a mouthful of pizza after scanning the column. “Nice job, Darius.”

At nine o’clock Robin called Reno’s room at the hospital. “We’ll be at the loading dock at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. Make sure you’re ready to go.” After having Reno repeat the instruction to make sure she’d heard it correctly, Robin hung up without another word. Jonas felt sorry for Reno as he listened. It sounded scary, especially coming from somebody she’d never met. He wanted to make the call himself but it somehow seemed too dangerous. Like they said, it’s just one more night.

Chapter 39

When Ted Braden walked back into his room at the Hotel Morgan at seven-thirty that morning he had a cup of coffee in his hand, the way he always did. He didn’t notice the red flashing light on the phone until he’d opened the Morgantown Dominion Post and spread the baseball box scores across the table. Damn, he thought as he reached across to push the appropriate button. This can’t be good.

He knew there was going to be trouble when he heard the terse message from Frank Marino. Within thirty seconds he had Marino on the phone. “Mr. Braden, I’ve got some news,” Marino said. “It could be bad. Can you talk?”

“What’s going on?”

“We heard from the reporters. They’re still right here in Morgantown.”

“These kids have made your goons look bad. First they were holed up in the hotel, then they’re out of the city completely.”

“Well, it made sense at the time. Bremer’s car was gone.”

“Don’t get me started on that again,” Braden replied sharply. “The car means nothing. And how that car was left unattended is something I’ll never understand. But that’s water over the dam now.”

“They don’t know anybody here in town,” Marino said defensively. “We checked every motel room within twenty miles. It’s almost impossible that we didn’t find them.”

“Some things are more impossible than others. You missed at least one room, or your man would still be alive.”

“We got a message from Jonas morning. Apparently they still have Bremer’s radio. We know from the strength of the signal that they’re close by. Very close.”

“I think it’s safe to say they were here all along. What did they say? Don’t be cute. Tell me everything.”

“Jonas got on the radio a few minutes ago. It was completely out of the blue. He said his article went into print this morning.”

“Is he bluffing?”

“We haven’t found it anywhere so far but we only got the message about twenty minutes ago. We checked the Charlotte and Austin papers and it wasn’t in either one.”

“Hmm. I’m starting to feel like I know these kids. They wouldn’t come out of hiding just to bluff us. Something’s definitely up. Maybe tomorrow’s the day.”

“Maybe, but that isn’t what he said,” Marino insisted. “He said clearly that today is the day.”

“I take it you heard it yourself?”

“Yes. I happened to be there when it came over. We didn’t respond. Nobody knew what to say.”

“Good. Don’t let them feel like they can jerk us around so easily.”

“What do you want us to do next, sir?”

“Just hold tight. If you get any more messages, handle it the same way. Listen carefully but don’t reply. In the meantime, check out every newspaper in the country. Check the wire services too. If anything is in print we need to know about it.”

“Okay, Mr. Braden, we’re on it.”

“Good. Get everybody you can out on the streets. Make sure everybody’s busy. There’s a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.”

Chapter 40

After twenty-five minutes of unacknowledged broadcasting Jonas had given up. The sun wasn’t even up yet and the escape plan already seemed to be unraveling. By then he had hoped to have gotten the word out that the assassination story was about the hit the streets. But there wasn’t anybody out there hearing the message. So far he’d remained out of view since escaping at the PRT station but when it came time to rescue Reno there would be no place to hide.

Rob had been up for hours. He was the one that answered the pre-dawn phone call from Ledger, who informed him that the column had indeed been printed in the day’s edition of The Daily Athenaeum. He had sat silently at the table with his chin resting on his hand while Jonas tried unsuccessfully to contact the enemy by radio.

“They must have turned off their walkie-talkies,” Rob said after Jonas put the radio on the table and slouched back in his seat. “We never thought of that.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I just assumed they were always out there waiting to pounce. I still think they’re out there. Why would they give up now? But where are they?”

“Maybe they heard the message and decided to scram. Isn’t that what we were hoping for? If only we could know for sure.”

“Yeah, if only. What do you think I should do?”

“You have to stay the course. Look if nobody’s around to hear the message that’s even better. And you’ve got to go get your partner. No two ways about that.”

“You got that right. If only she hadn’t gotten hurt, it would all be so much simpler. But I guess I’d be at it all day if I let myself think that way.”

“Maybe you should have told them where to look for the article,” Rob said. “Or at least a big fat hint.”

“You mean in my walkie-talkie messages that nobody is listening to?”

“Yeah. Maybe somebody’s hearing them but just not answering. If they hear it they’ll probably check your North Carolina paper and then Abby’s Texas paper. If it isn’t there they might figure you’re full of shit. You don’t want that.”

“I wasn’t sure how seriously they’d take it if I admitted it was only in a college newspaper. Better to keep them guessing. Maybe they think I meant The New York Times.”

Robin, still sleepy-eyed in her blue bathrobe, trudged into the room and fell into the chair next to Jonas. “Anything going on yet?” They explained to her that the article was published and the radio transmissions had gone unanswered. Without replying she rubbed her eyes before pulling herself up and walking over to the coffeemaker. After setting it up to brew a fresh pot she disappeared from the room.

“It’s a pretty weird feeling,” Jonas said. “Today is the day. I know it’s over after today, one way or the other.”

“And when you say ‘over’ you mean over.”

“In twenty-four hours I’ll either be dead or far away from here.” He sighed. “I never thought I’d ever be in a mess like this. I still can’t get used to it. Somebody out there wants me dead.”

“Yeah,” Rob said. “It’s a pretty heavy deal. We’ll do whatever we can to help.”

“You already have. I don’t want you guys taking any more chances,” Jonas said firmly. “No use getting anybody else killed.”

“I know this is the part where I’m supposed to argue but I don’t want to get my head blown off. I guess I’m a coward.”

“No, you’re not. It’s not your battle. You’ve been great. I’d be screwed if I hadn’t run into you and Robin. I’d never have survived this long.”

“I guess the first thing we need to do is go get the car,” Rob said. “That worries me. I was thinking. Wouldn’t it be better to pick Abby up in my truck and then drive out to the lake? You’re a marked man in that car. I wonder how long you’ll last in it.”

“No, no way,” Jonas said. “I don’t want you exposed that way. You’ve done enough already. Once you get involved that deep it’ll be permanent.”

“I just felt like I had to say it.”

“I know. Thanks. There’s another reason. Once I come out of hiding at the hospital it’s all going to end. I want to be ready to run, not driving around swapping cars.”

Across the room the coffee machine gurgled and sputtered. “Coffee’s done,” Rob announced. His chair scraped the worn linoleum floor as he got up and walked over to a cabinet. “Well, you can’t say your life isn’t exciting,” he remarked as he pulled out three mugs. “Or should I say ‘wasn’t’?”

“Exciting, my ass. You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. Are you saying you wouldn’t have written the story if you knew it would turn out like this?”

“Of course I wouldn’t! You’re fucked in the head if you think I’d do it all over again. Would you?”

“Take it easy,” Rob said as he set a mug of coffee in front of Jonas. “I just didn’t think you’d let it go once you found it. Isn’t there some kind of Hippocratic oath for reporters? Leave no story unwritten?”

“You don’t even know me. How would you know what I’d let go? Especially when my life’s on the line.”

“Relax,” Rob said. “You’re right. You’re right. I got it. I wouldn’t either.”

~~~

The haze of dawn was burning off when Rob and Jonas climbed into the truck. “I guarantee nobody found that car,” Rob said. “It’s literally inside a barn in the middle of nowhere. I just hope nobody sees you cruising around once we get it out.”

“I’m hoping they stopped looking as soon as they heard about that article,” Jonas said as the truck rolled through Morgantown. “I’ll try getting somebody up on the radio again.” He droned into the walkie-talkie for a few minutes as the truck climbed and descended hills and wound through a forest on two-lane blacktop roads. When they emerged from the trees into the morning sun Jonas stopped talking in mid-sentence. The tires began to hum as they rode over the grating of a steel bridge. Through the grate roadway Jonas could see the green waters of a lake about thirty feet below. “Wow,” he said softly. “What is this?”

“Cheat Lake. Beautiful isn’t it? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve jumped off this bridge. We were out here just this last weekend.”

The lake was completely surrounded by thick green forest except for a cluster of buildings that appeared to be some type of resort. On the other side of the lake, near the opposite end of the bridge, was a narrow beach. The marina near the beach was already beginning to buzz with activity. “Beautiful isn’t the word,” Jonas said. “I was hiding out in the wrong place. I should have been out here.”

“I like it even better in winter. Robin and I spend half our time here or up at Cooper’s Rock. That’s right over there,” he said, pointing back over his shoulder with a thumb. “A crow could fly there in two minutes but it would take us all day to hike all the way to the top. When it snows there’s no other place I’d rather be. You can look right out over the river canyon that feeds this lake.” They reached the end of the bridge and made a sharp left turn. “My buddy’s place is just through these trees.”

A minute later they drove slowly past a small house in a clearing. Behind the house was a rotting barn that looked as though it hadn’t been used in years. “He bought this farm, but he’s no farmer,” Rob explained. “I really don’t have any idea how he pays the bills. The place is getting pretty run down. Kind of a shame, really.”

They both stepped out and walked over to the barn. Rob pushed up the latch and swung the door open and there it was – the stolen, shiny black Impala. Sunlight that came in through the decaying roof lit the inside of barn. “Gee, it’s a little less unnoticeable than I remembered.”

“You’ll be fine. We passed ten just like it on the way here. Well, we would have if we hadn’t come through the woods.”

“It is what it is,” Jonas said with a shrug. “It’s all I’ve got.”

“You’ve got transportation, at least. The keys should still be in it. It’s all yours, whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m not due at the hospital until seven. I sure don’t want to get there early and have to wait around.”

“I made some maps for you,” Rob said as he pulled some folded sheets from his pocket. “The first one will get you back to the hospital on the backroads. Wait a half hour before you leave. If you follow my map you’ll get there at exactly the right time.”

~~~

After Rob was gone Jonas figured he’d work the walkie-talkie to kill time before returning to Morgantown. From atop a rusty barrel behind the barn he made a few half-hearted broadcasts. He was about to give up when he remembered the name of the man he’d talked to before taking Reno to the hospital. On his way to the Impala he made one final broadcast, this time including the name. Again, there was no reply. He slipped into the driver’s seat and dropped the radio beside him. Dried blood was everywhere. He was about to turn the key, which was already in the ignition, when he heard his own name. It was scratchy and barely audible but Jonas remembered the voice instantly. “Come again, Jonas. Ted Braden here,” said the voice through intermittent static.

He froze. Should he break radio silence? He took one last look at Rob’s map before backing out of the barn. His hands shook and his palms began to sweat. After turning back towards Cheat Lake he picked up the radio. There was too much that needed saying to pass up the opportunity. He crossed back over the bridge before turning right to follow the signs toward the interstate. Then he took a deep breath and went on the air.

“Braden, this is Jonas.”

“I know,” came an immediate reply.

“Things have changed, Braden. Did you see the article? You’ve been exposed. Now it’s your turn to run. I outed you and ERC. The law’s probably on your tail already.” He knew he was overstating it and braced himself for Braden’s reply.

“I don’t think so. You didn’t try hard enough. It’s just a college newspaper. You’ll have to do better than that.”

“It’s a start. Somebody will notice it and pick it up. You can bet your ass there are reporters all over the country getting a new assignment right about now.”

“You flatter yourself. And you’re fooling yourself. You think you’ve bought your freedom with this? You’ve done the opposite. Before, it was private. Now that you went public it’ll all move fast. All you did is light a fire under somebody’s butt.”

Jonas swallowed hard. His stomach suddenly ached. “Where are you?” he asked. “I thought you’d be on your way out of town by now.”

“I thought the same about you two,” Braden answered. ‘So my question is ‘where are you?’”

Jonas’s heart leaped. They still don’t know Abby is in the hospital. So they don’t know where I’m going next.

“Sorry it’s going to end this way for you,” Braden continued. “I’m sure you’re a good kid. It couldn’t be helped. God help you, Jonas. You’ll need it. Over and out.”

Chapter 41

Ted Braden decided he needed to talk with his superiors about what needed to be done. His actions over the next hours would have repercussions for the rest of the lives of everybody he was working with, most of whom he’d never laid eyes on. Although he had the authority to make day-to-day decisions, this time he had to be sure. He owed that much to everybody else who had dedicated twenty years to the same cause that he had.

Knowing the reporters had access to at least some of his over-the-air communications, he chose a more common medium. Normally he wouldn’t hold such a sensitive conversation over an insecure channel but there was no time to search for an alternative. Besides, who’s going to be staking out a random pay phone in West Virginia? He dialed the number, voiced the appropriate code words and was quickly put through. Without wasting words he explained what was happening. When the briefing was complete he was told to ensure that his team had blanketed Morgantown and then head back towards Pittsburgh just in case he was needed there.

Chapter 42

As he watched the exit signs Jonas wondered if he’d made a tactical error. Perhaps it would have been wiser not to contact Braden and his thugs until after he had retrieved Reno from the hospital. Had he been aware of how little Braden actually knew he might have chosen not to reveal so much. To make matters worse, the benefit of warning Braden about the published article looked negligible. As soon as Braden learned that it was merely a column in a student newspaper he didn’t regard it as a serious threat, or at least that was the impression he’d tried to give. He’d have to hope that Rob’s roundabout route to the hospital would keep him out of view.

While waiting at a traffic light after exiting the highway he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Rob’s red cap reminded him that he had forgotten to change into the clean clothes that Rob and Robin had donated. When the light turned green he zoomed into the parking lot of a video store and parked next to a dumpster. Before changing into Rob’s fresh jeans and polo shirt he watched the road long enough to assure himself that nobody was watching. When he was finished changing he balled up his torn, bloody clothing and tossed the heap into the dumpster without leaving the car.

For most of the ride Jonas stayed calm but when the football stadium and hospital came into view he felt so nervous that thought he would vomit. He was increasingly certain that driving the stolen Impala in broad daylight after alerting Braden had been a mistake. As he eased past the stadium his eyes darted in all directions. The problem was that these people were very good at not being seen.

The original plan was to drive to the back of the hospital and get as close to the loading dock as possible. Two complications presented themselves after he drove around behind the building. The first was the presence of a large truck backed up to the dock. Half a dozen men were unloading blue-tinted water jugs from the truck and wheeling them into the building. The path was much less clear than he had expected.

He convinced himself that the crowded scene on the loading dock wouldn’t be a problem and might actually work to his advantage. The truck itself would provide cover, and a distraction. The door to the hospital was propped open, which presented opportunities he hadn’t expected. If necessary, he now had the option of going inside.

The second complication was the menacing presence of a Morgantown police cruiser parked at the opposite corner of the building, visible directly through the group of men on the loading dock. There was no way to know if the police presence was routine or if he was still being hunted. He would have to stay on his toes.

There was no turning back, though, and he knew it. Reno was expecting him to be there and she would have to take irreversible risks to meet him. Besides, there was still an outside chance that Braden hadn’t had time to mobilize his team. There would never be a better chance to get away. He started the engine when it was time for Reno to appear. His eyes were locked on the loading dock as time passed, second by agonizing second. Finally, after he’d waited for nearly ten minutes, he decided to go inside and find her rather than let any more precious time slip away.

The men on the loading dock were completely disinterested as Jonas stepped through them. “Hey guys,” he said without breaking stride, determined to look like he belonged there. He dodged a load of empty jugs being wheeled out the door before walking inside.

Not surprisingly, Reno wasn’t there. Since he had no idea where her room was there was no point in heading upstairs, at least not before giving her a little extra time to show up. His thoughts were interrupted by encroaching footsteps from the stairwell. Regardless of who was coming down those stairs, the worst mistake he could make would be to look out of place. As the footsteps grew louder he looked around for a way to hide. Parked against the wall was an unattended hand truck. He reached for it with his left hand while pulling the bill of his baseball cap lower with his right. Seconds later a policeman strode quickly past without saying a word. Just after the officer disappeared at the other end of the hall he heard the sound that changed everything.

“Joe! In here!” The voice was unmistakable even though it was a whisper. He turned and looked at the double wooden doors of a utility closet. “It’s me! Abby!” the voice hissed. “Open the door! I’m locked in!”

Jonas grabbed the brushed-chrome handle and turned it easily. When he pulled the door open he was face to face with Reno. For the first time he believed that there was a chance they could survive. All that was left was the escape.

The closet was dark. She shielded her eyes and shrank towards the back when the door opened but he got a clear look at her nevertheless. She wore a loose white hospital gown that ended at mid-thigh. There were flimsy paper slippers on her feet. Her hair was pulled back enough that he could see a stitched but unbandaged gash between her temple and eye. The cut was curved and was nearly three inches long. It had been so dark in the car that night that he hadn’t fully understood how badly she was injured. No wonder she bled so much, he thought as he walked into the closet and carefully hugged her. “Abby! Are you okay? Who locked you in?”

She drew a finger over her lips. “I did it myself,” she whispered. “There’s no knob on the inside. Those cops followed me down here so I felt like I jumped in here. Are they after us?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you about the cops later. I’m so sorry about this,” he said as he tenderly traced near the edges of the wound with his finger. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“Well, I was pretty worried about you, too. At least you knew where I was. I had no idea how I got here at all, let alone what happened to you. I figured, well, you know.”

“How’d you know it was me out here?”

“I could see out through the crack. And I knew you were coming. That big guy told me, don’t you remember? Who was that?”

“That was Darius.”

“Yeah, but who’s Darius? I have so many questions I don’t know where to start. Where’d you get the new clothes?”

“Speaking of that, here’s some for you,” Jonas said. “But they’re not new.” The brown grocery bag rustled as he opened it and pulled out a handful of clothing. “You’ll blend in better in these. Then we’re getting out of here.”

“Thanks. I’ve had enough of these hospital duds.”

“I got the article published. It came out this morning so now’s the time to go. I’ll explain it all later.”

He pulled the door partially closed. Knowing how particular she was about what she wore, he allowed himself a smile in the darkness. She couldn’t be happy about putting on clothing she couldn’t see.

“You got it printed? How’d you do it?”

“Darius did it. So how many cops were following you?” he asked.

“I think there were two of them. I don’t even know why I was running away. It’s a habit, I guess.”

“They chased me out of here the night I brought you in. The nurse took one look at you and decided that I did it. You were bloody as hell, Abby. They treated me like I was a wife beater or something. She called the cops on me and they’ve been waiting for me to come back. I guess they think you’ll lead them to me.”

“Who is Darius?” she asked again. “Is he from The Sentinel?”

“No, he’s a reporter from the student newspaper. It’s the best I could do but I think it’s working.”

“They told me I was only here two nights. Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Look, if the coast is clear, we’re just going to walk down the hall and out the door. Do you think they’ll be back?”

“How should I know? I don’t even know where I am.”

“At least you won’t stand out so much now that you’re dressed. The car’s just outside. You won’t have far to walk.”

“I’m fine. Except for these clothes. Where’d you get them, a flea market?”

“Nobody out there,” he said after peeking. “Let’s go now. They could be back any time.”

“Slow down. Hold on to me while I get these giant pants on.”

“I think you should let your hair down so nobody can see that cut.”

After her pants were on she reached back and yanked out the band that held her ponytail. “Hey Joe, why don’t we just turn ourselves in? Why are we running from the police? They could save us from all this running around.”

“No. First of all, they’ll arrest me. I think I killed somebody back in that motel room. You can bet the cops will get an anonymous tip about that as soon as Braden has a chance to think. To them I’m a murderer and a wife beater. We don’t need any new snags. But anyway, nothing’s changed, Abby. We could have done that anytime. What good would it do us? We still don’t really know who’s after us and we can’t even prove that they did anything wrong. The law just isn’t an option for us anymore. It isn’t for me, anyway.”

“Then it isn’t for me, either,” she replied. “Who’s Braden?”

He poked his face into the hallway again. “There’s still nobody out there. We have to go. Are you ready to run for your life again?”

He stepped out of the closet first, followed by Reno. They had taken only a few steps toward the loading dock door before stopping in their tracks. The same cop who’d bustled past Jonas a few minutes earlier popped back into the hallway. It was obvious by the look on his face that this time he wasn’t going to be as cooperative. He looked at Jonas, then Reno, and then Jonas again. “Both of you!” he shouted. “Hold it right there!”

They weren’t about to be caught so easily. “Come on,” Jonas said to Reno, who didn’t look like she understood what was happening. He took her hand and pulled her in the opposite direction. “I know you’re hurt but we have to fly.” Suddenly energized, she stumbled ahead of him through a doorway and up a set of stairs. Before he knew it she’d reached the ground floor.

“Go up another level!” Jonas yelled, his voice echoing in the stairwell. She reached the second floor landing before he caught up. “We’ve got to work our way to the back, where the car is,” he said as they panted. “Lucky for us they don’t know that.” They walked down a hallway and around a corner with their heads swiveling as they looked for escape routes and pursuers.

“Here’s more stairs!” Reno said. “Let’s go back down!” Jonas nodded his agreement but she had already charged ahead. He was glad to see her acting more like her old self, and her decision had been a good one. After descending they came to a door to the outside. A sticker on the glass indicated that the door was alarmed but they never slowed down. This was the only way out for them, alarmed or not.

Reno pushed the door open and they shuffled through. “Which way?” Reno asked when they were on a sidewalk outside.

“Back there,” Jonas said. “Across the grass. Then I can see where we are. Let’s slow down so we don’t attract too much attention.” They crossed the grassy patch and rushed through a small grove of evergreen trees. “Look! There’s the car!” he said. “We’ve got a clear shot!” They quickened their pace to a jog, knowing that speed was once again more important than stealth now that they were out in the open. “Just get in on this side and slide over!” he yelled when they reached the car.

Jonas saw a different cop on the loading dock watching them and speaking into his radio. “Shit! We’ve been spotted!”

The officer started towards them but gave up when he saw the fugitives squeezing into the Impala. Realizing he was too late, he doubled back in the direction he’d come from. “He’s heading for his car,” Jonas said as he jammed the key into the ignition. “We might be screwed. I thought we’d be gone by now.”

“He’s in the car,” Reno reported as Jonas slammed on the gas. The Impala lurched backwards out of the parking space. “Lights on, siren on. It looks like we’re in for a car chase.”

Tires squealed as Jonas searched frantically for a way out. “We can’t win a car chase but we have to try!” The car fishtailed as Jonas headed to the right where he saw an exit.

“Yes!” Reno suddenly shrieked. “He got blocked! He’s stuck!”

“So did we, damnit!” Jonas snarled as they waited behind a red sedan that was also exiting. “Come on!” he shouted at the driver. “Is the cop moving again?”

“No. The guy pulled in front of him and stopped before he could get going. Now they’re putting the hood up. Looks like somebody had car trouble at just the right time.”

“Fuck this,” Jonas said. The eight-cylinder engine roared as the Impala swerved around the sedan and onto the shoulder of the road. The driver of another car blasted his horn when Jonas flew past him on the shoulder. The sound of gravel knocking against the chassis filled the air as Jonas floored the accelerator and cut onto the roadway. “Is the cop following?” he yelled.

“No. I told you, he got blocked in!” she shouted back. Jonas drove even faster. It wasn’t long before the hospital disappeared from view. “We really got lucky for once, Joe. Really lucky.”

“Wait a minute,” Jonas said as they raced away. “What kind of car was it?”

“It was a blue pickup truck. I couldn’t tell what kind. It was all beat up.”

A wide smile crossed his face. “Abby, I have a lot of explaining to do. I’m pretty sure that was more than just a lucky break.”

Chapter 43

Reno stared at Jonas, who had an amused look on his face. “Are you trying to tell me you had that whole thing planned?”

“Not even close. I just made some really good friends while you were in the hospital. They’re looking out for us.”

“Who was in the truck?”

“No time, Abby. We’ve got too much to do right now. If it goes the way I think it will, we’ll be free in about an hour. But you’ve got to trust me because there’s no time to explain.”

“Okay. I don’t think I’m ready for it yet anyway.”

They stopped talking when they reached an intersection. Jonas considered driving on the shoulder and bypassing traffic but decided against it. The seconds that it would save wouldn’t be worth the unwanted attention.

“Here’s what we’re doing,” he said after turning right and heading back towards downtown. “We figured they’d be back on patrol looking for us by now, so Rob planned an escape route. We’re crossing the river into Westover and picking up a car he rented. Then we’re getting onto I-79 from over there at an exit he thinks they won’t know about.”

“Somebody rented a car for us?”

“A friend of Rob’s runs a repair shop,” Jonas said. “Not exactly Avis but it’ll do.”

“Where are we going after that?” Reno asked. She stared out the window momentarily. “Wouldn’t it have been a good idea to get the rental car before you came to get me? We stand out like a sore thumb in this thing.”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “This is a rush job. We didn’t have much time to plan. But if somebody saw us in a rental car at the hospital we’d be in big trouble anyway. We’d still have to change cars later. This way, all we have to do is get across the river and we’re gone. Forever.”

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. But it’s too late now,” Reno said with a shrug.

“Remember, it’s the police who knew enough to be waiting at the hospital, not Braden and his men. But the police don’t know this car. Only the Braden guys do.”

“You know them by name now?”

“A lot happened while you were in the hospital.”

“The same guys are chasing us. That hasn’t changed has it?”

“No, but the police don’t know what we’re driving.”

“Maybe they didn’t, but they do now. I’ll bet that cop got the word out pretty quick. It’s a good thing we’re on the move. What’s next?”

“After we get across the river we turn left and drive along the river bank for about a mile,” Jonas continued. “Rob says we’ll see some old warehouses. We’ll hide this car in there. Then we walk across the road and cut through some woods on foot. When we get out of the woods we’ll see a Texaco station. That’s where the rental car’s parked. I have the keys right here in my pocket.”

When Reno didn’t respond Jonas looked over and saw her staring blankly ahead. It worried him that she’d suddenly turned so vacant, and it wasn’t the first time he’d noticed it since he picked her up. Hopefully she’d been listening.

He squinted at a road sign when they reached a cluster of trees and then veered onto another road. “Stewart Street. This turns into College Avenue. At least that’s what Rob said. It runs down the side of this ridge and then right in front of the Mountain Lair.” He looked from side to side as he accelerated. “I sure hope knew what he was doing. It seems like we should be taking back roads.”

“These look like back roads to me.”

“Right now, maybe. But we’re going to come out right in the middle of campus. You’ll see. It just doesn’t seem right.” The car hurtled downward through residential areas that became increasingly dense as they descended. Gravity pushed the car down the mountain, forcing Jonas to pump the brakes to regulate their speed while negotiating curve after curve. The road finally leveled off when they reached the mast of the U.S.S. West Virginia, planted prominently in Oglebay Plaza. Jonas slammed on the brakes and they skidded to a noisy stop before he pulled Rob’s instructions from his pocket.

“I remember this,” Reno said as she watched book-toting students pass in all directions. “We were in there a few days ago, weren’t we?” she asked, pointing to the glass and marble-strutted face of the Mountain Lair. “Seems like years ago.”

“We need to go straight through here but then head down a hill,” Jonas said as the car began to move again. “Make sure I don’t run anybody over, okay? I’m looking for the sign. We want Route 119.”

“Uh, Joe, we might have trouble.”

“Here it is,” he said when he saw a Route 119 shield and turned. “What happened?”

“A car that looks kind of like ours just pulled out behind us. I don’t know where they came from but as soon as they saw us they were in a big hurry.” She twisted and took a good look through the rear window. “Did I say it looks ‘kind of like ours’? It’s the exact same car.”

“Just stay cool. It could be a coincidence.” But when he saw the black sedan for himself, two cars behind them as they approached a traffic light at the bottom of the hill, he knew it wasn’t. This was no time to take any chances. Time to hide.

“There’s the goddamn bridge, too, right there,” he said. With a clogged intersection looming ahead he turned into an alley. “Hey, that’s the hotel we stayed at,” he said as they neared the back of the tallest building in the city. A block-long parking garage abutted the hotel. Just before he pulled inside he caught sight of their pursuers in the rear-view mirror. Damn. Another two seconds and I’d have lost them.

The sound of their own engine and squealing wheels boomed off the concrete walls but faded after Jonas parked the car between a support column and a blue van. “We’re getting across that bridge,” he vowed. “I don’t even know what will happen once we do but we’re getting across. Can you drive?”

“I guess,” Reno stammered. “Where are you going?”

“We’re just switching seats.” They could hear the sounds of the tail car careening around the garage as its occupants searched for them. Once in the driver’s seat Reno drove slowly back to the entrance.

They crept out of the garage and up the alley the same way they came in. “Hold it here for a second. I’ll try to time the light in that intersection. When I say go, fly down that hill no matter what you see. Don’t stop for anything. Everyone else will just have to get out of our way. Do you remember everything I told you about where the getaway car is?”

“Park by the warehouse and walk through the woods.”

“Good. We might get split up. If we do, let’s meet at the Texaco. Make sure you hide the car real good.” He reached under the seat and pulled out Bremer’s guns. One he left on the floor. The other he placed carefully on the seat between him and Reno. “And bring your gun and the walkie-talkie, okay?”

She didn’t have a chance to answer. “Go! Now!” he shouted.

The oncoming traffic made her hesitate, but not for long. The car shot into the street so wildly that Jonas worried for a moment that they would run up onto the far sidewalk. Reno quickly straightened the car out and skillfully avoided a collision. The other black Impala appeared from the other direction in a line of cars as Reno approached the intersection. “There they are,” Jonas said. “Good. Time to get this done.” The light turned red just as they reached it.

“Run it!” Jonas said. “We want to attract attention now anyway,” he explained after they sped through the intersection and onto the bridge. “We need the police now that we’ve been found. Trust me. You’ll see. We just might be okay after all.” He picked up the silver pistol from the floor and let it settle into his palm. Plenty of traffic on the bridge. Good, lots of people watching.

Reno watched in horror from behind the wheel as he rolled down the window and leaned out. Securing the gun in his right hand, he held onto the window post and swung out until he was visible to oncoming traffic. As each car passed he pointed the gun at the driver. The first two drivers swerved away, one grazing the wall of the bridge and bouncing back across the lane. The driver of the fourth somehow appeared to be unfazed until he broadsided the car that suddenly appeared in his path. As a fifth car rushed past Jonas raised the gun and fired three shots across its hood and into the river.

“What are you doing?” Reno yelled at him after he pulled himself back inside. “What’s going on?”

“When we get about three quarters across, stop the car,” Jonas said. “Just stop on a dime, right in the road.” He looked back at the shoreline they’d come from. Not surprisingly, nobody had followed very closely after he’d started shooting. “They should be back there by now but I can’t see them.”

“Why stop on the bridge? We’ve almost gotten away.”

“Not really. They’re still right with us. They’d still run us down. Now, after I get out don’t worry about me. Just get out of here. I’ll be on foot so I can hide easy. You know the rest.”

“What about you? What are you going to do?”

He held up his gun. “We need a big scene so Braden will have to back off. The police are probably on their way already. There’s a maniac on the bridge, right? If everybody’s watching we’re a lot safer. Now! Stop the car now!”

She brought the car to a stop without asking any more questions. They were no more than thirty yards from the Westover end of the bridge. He picked up the black pistol and shoved it onto her lap. “It feels like it’s loaded. See you in a few minutes.” He opened the door and stepped onto the bridge. “Go!”

He hopped out of the car and moved to the edge of the bridge where he pressed against the side rail while Reno drove slowly forward. Traffic had come to a halt on the bridge. That changed just after Jonas looked back towards Morgantown and saw a dark sedan dart out from the line of cars and speed towards him. Did I get out before they saw me?

He could hear police sirens wailing in the distance. They hear it too, he thought. They’ll try something fast. They have to. He moved behind a concrete barrier that provided partial shelter but he knew that they would see him if they knew to look. Gray smoke and the smell of burning rubber filled the air as the other Impala skidded to a stop. Jonas recognized Sideburns in the passenger seat, brandishing a gun. Before he was able to take aim Jonas shot wildly from his hip with his own weapon, but after two errant shots he was out of ammunition. He dropped the empty gun and pressed his body against the concrete in desperation as he saw the pistol pointed at him. Maybe he’ll miss.

Instead of squeezing the trigger, Sideburns flinched and hunkered down in his seat. At the same instant the windshield turned to a white haze of flying glass as the staccato sound of gunfire briefly drowned out the approaching sirens.

Whatever had happened, Jonas knew Sideburns wouldn’t be distracted for long. There was only one direction to go if he didn’t want to die. He lifted his leg just high enough to slide over the rail. He remembered Rob telling him about leaping from the bridge at Cheat Lake. This can’t be much higher than that. He gritted his teeth and threw himself at the river. While plummeting toward the water he became aware of a searing pain in his right thigh. There was only one explanation he could think of. After all the dangers he’d managed to survive, this time he hadn’t been so lucky. He’d been shot.

Chapter 44

Jonas thought his body would never stop rushing toward the river bottom. He opened his eyes long enough to determine that the water was far too murky to see anything. The breath in his lungs was spent by the time his descent stopped. Inertia seemed to hold him in place forever. Trying to block out the pain in his thigh, he thrashed at the water trying to propel his body upward. As his body rose he sensed warmth and light. He fought the hysterical urge to open his mouth and inhale. Finally he reached the surface and sucked in fresh air as he bobbed in the gentle waves of the river.

The current had drawn him under the bridge and out of view. His world was eerily quiet until the water dripped out of his ears. The sirens were a lot louder now. The police must have reached the bridge. He could only hope that Reno had already left the scene. He knew he needed to escape too. Sideburns wasn’t the only one who had seen him leap into the river. There were plenty of witnesses up on the bridge who would be happy to tell what they’d seen. It wouldn’t be long before somebody was looking in the river for him.

He dog-paddled towards the shore, making sure to stay between the bridge pilings. When he felt the weeds of the riverbed brushing against his legs he tried to stand but the soft muck on the bottom wouldn’t support his weight. A few strokes later he tested it again and found it to be firm. He scrambled onto dry land and up the embankment beneath the steel trusses that supported the roadway. Without pausing he scurried from under the bridge into the wooded riverbank.

He wanted to stop and check out the leg but there was no time. As he scrambled through the trees and brush he worried about the wound. He’d never been shot before. It ached in a way that he’d never felt, and he knew that the river had washed it with filth. Worrying about it wasn’t something he could afford to do yet but he knew that bullet had to come out, and soon.

After he’d put a quarter of a mile between himself and the bridge he peeked back through the trees. At least a dozen police cruisers with flashing lights were now parked along the length of the span. Several figures peered over the side into the green water of the Monongahela. He wondered how easily they would pick up his trail through the woods once they figured out where he’d gone. The notion of being chased by police dogs was terrifying.

He knew Reno well enough to be confident that she’d gotten off that bridge safely. He was far more worried about Sideburns than the police when it came to her fate. But if all had gone well she was probably making her way through the woods on her way to the rental car at that very moment.

Fifteen minutes later he was panting after some strenuous, painful limping. His arms and face were criss-crossed with scratches from tree limbs and bushes. Shielded from the warmth of the sun, he shivered in his wet clothing. Worst of all, pain shot through his leg with every step despite the walking stick he’d picked up along the way.

After twenty more minutes of laborious trekking without finding the warehouse he wondered if he’d somehow missed it. As he stood and considered his next move he was startled by the sound of sirens. They were too loud to be coming all the way from the bridge. According to Rob, there was a road running parallel to the river. That must be where it’s coming from. Did the cops close in on me this quickly? Does that mean they already grabbed Abby?

He hadn’t gone very far inland since leaving the bridge. The sparkling river was still within sight through the trees. On the opposite bank he could see the gritty brick and stone Morgantown skyline with the university clinging to the hills behind it. He wasn’t worried about the police seeing him in the woods but he realized he’d made a mistake by not finding the road sooner. The road would have led him directly to the warehouse. He turned and walked away from the river as the sirens faded. He couldn’t hear them anymore by the time he reached the road.

The appearance of the police on that road rattled him, so much so that he stopped and sat on a log to gather his wits. He squeezed the wound, as if the bullet could be forced out like a splinter, but it only brought an acute burst of pain.

While he rested he speculated about what was happening. Reno was most likely long gone before the police reached the bridge so they probably didn’t even know she existed. Sideburns did, but there was no reason for him to tell the police about her, if in fact he had stayed long enough to encounter them at all. If the police had found anybody to chase, it was probably Sideburns, he decided. It couldn’t hurt that Sideburns and Reno were driving identical cars. Even if the police came across her car after she abandoned it, they’d think of Sideburns, not her. There was still hope. If he could stick to the plan and meet up with Reno at the rental car they could still survive.

He stayed in the trees along the road and moved back in the direction of the bridge until he saw a gray shape that just had to be the warehouse. It all adds up, he thought as he moved closer. I walked right past it. Occasional traffic moved along the road but he ignored it, knowing he couldn’t be seen. Just before he reached the tree line near the warehouse he stopped abruptly. He was in the right place. The warehouse was there. A black Impala was there. Unfortunately, a busy contingent of police had beaten him to it.

Unlike the police, Jonas knew it was Reno’s Impala because the windshield was intact. All the doors were open, as well as the trunk. As he watched from the trees police officers and detectives crawled all over it. Relief that Reno had gotten that far battled with concern that the car had been found so quickly. But now that he knew she’d reached the warehouse he was even more hopeful that she’d already crossed the road and may even have reached the rendezvous point. All he had to do was to get there himself, and he knew he’d better hurry. With all that law enforcement at the warehouse it was only a matter of time before they fanned out into the woods, regardless of their misconception of what they had found.

The pain from the bullet wound was worsening and he wished he could take a break, but there was no time. He struggled through the woods until the warehouse was nearly out of view and then moved back toward the road. After allowing a car to pass he threw away the stick and walked stiff-legged to the other side where he disappeared into the trees with only a vague idea of where he was heading. He could only drag the leg by then. With each step it scraped through the leaves that littered the ground, leaving an easy trail for anybody who might be looking for it.

Not long after the warehouse and the road had passed from view behind him he was sure he was lost. Rob had given him the impression that cutting through the woods after crossing the road wouldn’t take very long but it wasn’t turning out that way. There was nothing he could do but to push on because one thing he knew for sure was that he wouldn’t find the Texaco station by standing still. He headed for a bright spot far ahead, hoping for a lucky break.

The clearing he’d set his sights on was elusive. No matter how far he walked it never got any closer. But chasing it turned out to be a good idea anyway. He came across another narrow asphalt road with a double yellow line running down the center. Just up the crumbling road was a small brick building with a rusty Texaco sign in front. He’d made it. Before hobbling the rest of the way he jammed a damp, muddy hand into his pocket to make sure the car keys were still there.

Conveniently, the station didn’t appear to be open. In fact, it looked like it hadn’t been open in years. He walked past a bank of weather-beaten gas pumps and around to the side of the building, not completely sure what he was looking for. Reno was nowhere to be seen but that didn’t concern him. Even if she’d made it there he knew she was savvy enough to stay out of sight.

A pale yellow Buick Skylark was parked on the side along a chipped concrete curb. That’s got to be the one, he thought as he approached it. Otherwise we’re screwed. It was at least ten years old and not exactly what he had in mind when Rob told him he’d rented a car, but it would suffice so long as it was in working order. The door was unlocked so he pulled it open and slid in, grimacing when his thigh brushed against the steering wheel. The key slid perfectly into the ignition. He tried not to be melodramatic as he turned it but he knew this was a make or break moment. The engine started almost immediately. “Thank you, Rob,” he said aloud, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

When he opened them he saw her in the rear view mirror, approaching from behind the building. She carried the walkie-talkie in one hand and her gun in the other. It had only been an hour or two since they’d gone separate ways on the bridge but it was almost like he was seeing her for the first time in days. Leaving the engine running, he stepped back out of the car with his good leg and pulled the bad one out behind him. Neither spoke as Reno eyed his leg. When she reached the car she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. Then she backed away. “Thank God,” she said, tears spilling from her eyes. “I don’t know how you did it. They had you point blank, Joe. I didn’t know what I was going to do until I saw you come around the building.”

“That was you shooting, wasn’t it?” Jonas asked. “That’s what gave me a chance.”

“Yeah, it was me, but where did you go?”

“Into the river. Where else could I go? Lucky for me you were armed. Damn if I didn’t figure you’d never shot a gun before.”

“Any girl from Texas could do the same thing,” she said, beaming through her tears. “Any girl with brothers, anyway. Did you get hit? That looks like blood. You sure go through a lot of clothes.”

“I got shot before I went over the rail,” he told her as he touched his muddy thigh with a palm. “It hurts like hell. Do you mind driving?”

“Of course not,” she said, wiping her eyes. “But what are we going to do about that leg? We can’t really take you to the hospital, can we?”

“No. But I’ll have to do something about it soon. Right now I’m just happy to be alive.” He limped around the car and climbed into the passenger seat. She climbed in on the other side and pulled her door shut.

“The first thing we need to do is get it cleaned up,” she said. “All that mud’s making it worse.”

“Let’s just get out of here. The cops were already all over your car. Who knows when they’ll be up this direction? We can’t wait around for them.” He pulled the sheaf of papers from his pocket but they tore apart in his hands, waterlogged and useless. “I think I remember what Rob told me. Just make a right out of here.”

“You know,” she said after they were moving. “I interviewed one of those survivalist guys about a year ago. He said they got shot all the time when they were out hunting. He told me how to fix up a gunshot wound. I think I could do it but I’d need some tweezers or something. You have to rotate the bullet while you pull it out, he told me. Then you have to disinfect the hell out of it. But we don’t even have a band-aid.”

“This isn’t the time,” Jonas said. “We have to run. We’re close, Abby, we’re close. I can last. Look! Go left!” he said when he saw the red and blue Interstate 79 sign. They could see the white ribbon of interstate up ahead in the valley ahead after they turned. Three minutes later they rolled up an exit ramp and merged into traffic, attracting no attention at all in the nondescript Buick. They were away.

Chapter 45

“Where to?” Reno asked.

“I have no idea,” Jonas answered. “Where can we go? I feel like if they still want us they’ll always be able to find us.”

“Even if they do give up, we’ll never know about it,” she agreed. “There’s no end.”

“Unless they get caught. But we have a little more work to do before that happens. I doubt anybody else hits this story very hard. It’s not the first JFK conspiracy theory story and it won’t be the last.”

“We need to stop for some supplies so we can take care of that leg of yours.”

“Let’s go a few zillion miles first. It doesn’t hurt that bad now that I’m not walking. It’s not worth letting them catch up.”

“We shouldn’t wait too long. Maybe I can get that bullet out if I can keep from barfing.”

“You’re not in such great shape either,” he pointed out.

“If we find a store I’ll grab some aspirin.”

He picked up the walkie-talkie and switched it on. “Just in case they’re on the air,” he said. “Any information we can get can’t hurt.”

~~~

There was a lot to talk about but neither had the energy to start a conversation. After a half hour of quiet Reno finally spoke, just as Jonas was thinking about how to get some clean clothes. “Bad news, Joe. We’re going to run out of gas soon. As a matter of fact we’re on ‘E.’ Running on empty.”

Jonas craned his neck to look at the gauge. “Well, I did say it wasn’t exactly Avis. Shit. Shit. Rob’s first fuck up.”

“We’ll just have to stop for gas,” Reno said. “And we have to do it the next chance we get. No use debating it because we have no choice.”

“Why wouldn’t those dumb-asses gas it up?” Jonas snarled.

“I never met any of the dumb-asses, but except for this they’ve done pretty well,” Reno said. “I’d say they saved our hides.”

“This was pretty damn dumb.”

“After all we’ve been through, this is nothing. Relax, will you? I saw a sign for rest stop. We won’t even have to leave the highway. They’ll probably have one of those mini stores so I can go in and look for the stuff we need. It’ll be good, you’ll see.”

“Make sure you pull you hair across that gash before you go in. You don’t need any extra attention.”

Four miles later she pulled into the rest stop and headed for the gas pumps. “I’ll go to full serve so you don’t even have to get out,” she said. “It’s better if nobody sees you anyway. You look like hell. I’ll run inside and see what they’ve got.”

“Okay. I’ll handle the gas.”

He told the attendant to fill the tank and then settled back into the seat. By then Reno had disappeared into a stone building. People streamed in and out as he watched. He kept an eye out for her while listening to the ticking of the gas pump. Each drop of gas would take them further away from there, he thought with relief. The next time they filled up they’d be safe. Reno wasn’t back when he finished paying for the gas but since nobody was waiting he didn’t bother moving the car.

He was rolling down the passenger window to let some air into the car when the radio crackled to life. “Joe Jonas,” a voice said. It sounded like Braden. He froze, wondering if he had imagined it. Then it came again. “Jonas. I know you’re there.” There was no doubt that time. He regretted turning the radio back on. What difference could it make now anyway?

“Jonas. You’re wasting your time. We’re right on top of you,” the voice said.

His body collapsed forward in a combination of fear and disappointment. If Reno was there they could get back on the road, but she still hadn’t come back out yet. Even if she had, he thought, what good would it do? There’s no way to run when you can’t see what you’re running from.

He looked out the window and around the rest stop for a place to hide the car. His eyes kept returning to the store entrance, hoping to see Reno. He watched a dark sedan as it rolled slowly past the store, blocking his view. Then he heard the voice again. “Jonas, I’d keep your head down if I were you. And do a lot of praying. It won’t be long now.”

Hearing his name over the radio was chilling, but he sensed that there was something even more odd going on. For one thing, the sound of the transmission was changing. It was getting louder, but it wasn’t just that. It sounded different.

“Jonas. Don’t play dumb. I know you hear me.”

Time stood still. He noticed that the movement of one of the men in the car in front of the store coincided with the voice. Could it be?

“Did you hear me Jonas? You’re just about out of time.” By then the sedan was thirty feet away. He could see the shapes of several people in the car. All of them were looking at the stone building except the silver-haired man in the passenger seat, who held a walkie-talkie to his mouth as he stared directly at him. “Listen to me, Jonas.”

We’re right on top of you.

I’d keep my head down if I were you.

It won’t be long now.

You’re just about out of time.

Listen to me, Jonas.

Suddenly it all made sense. Braden was warning him. There was no time to wonder why. He threw himself down on the seat. Pain stabbed his thigh as he twisted toward the floor of the car and made himself as small as he could. Fresh blood from the wound appeared on his pants, seeping through dried mud just inches from his face. Seconds passed. He heard the passing car through the open window. If it stopped, he knew he was in trouble.

But Jonas knew it would pass without stopping. There was no doubt in his mind. Braden had chosen his words carefully enough that nobody in the car with him would know what he was up to. But Jonas did. Maybe Braden had a son of his own.

~~~

“Joe!” Reno asked when she saw him on the floor. “What are you doing? Are you alright?” Reno asked. She threw two plastic shopping bags into the back seat and got in. “What happened?”

Jonas pulled himself back onto the seat. “You’re not going to believe it.”

“Try me! What are you talking about?”

“Let’s get back on the road. Then I’ll tell you. He’s giving us a head start. Just drive, Abby.”

“Which way are we going?” Reno asked as she merged back onto the highway. “How about west?”

“I don’t like to be hot. How about north?”

“I don’t like to be cold.” she answered. “How about both?” she suggested.

“Northwest? I can live with that.”

She moved the Buick into the left lane and was soon doing eighty. After they crossed the border into Pennsylvania Jonas directed her onto westbound I-70. By the time they reached Columbus she had a smile on her face. Jonas took longer, probably because of the bullet in his leg. He didn’t crack a smile until Indianapolis. When they crossed into Illinois they had the windows down with the radio blaring. For them, at least, running away had never been so much fun.

T H E E N D

Epilogue

Although this story is a work of fiction, there is plenty of real history woven into the plot. The Warren Commission report really does include the testimony of a man who could be the fictitious R.J. Pomeroy (in chapter 5, page 221). This obscure police officer claimed to have watched Jack Ruby walk past a police guard post and into the basement of the Dallas police station where he subsequently murdered JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. The Warren Commission has been criticized over the past five decades for innumerable shortcomings. None are more glaring than the failure to effectively interrogate Ruby and a refusal to investigate how it was that neither Oswald nor Ruby lived long enough to explain their actions.

The “Welcome to Dallas” full-page ad, paid for by “The American Fact Finding Committee,” really did appear in the Dallas Morning News on the morning of the assassination. This disparaging and provocative attack questioned the patriotism and competence of the sitting president. Some historians believe that money from the oil industry was behind the ad. President Kennedy had been vocal about the idea of imposing financial restrictions and phasing out lucrative tax breaks used by the oil industry.

ERC is a fictitious steel maker modeled on a very real one. Although the company’s involvement in the assassination is merely a plot device in the story, enmity between its chairman and Kennedy was very palpable and very public. As detailed in the story, the chairman really did visit the Oval Office personally to inform Kennedy that steel prices would be increased and Kennedy didn’t hide his anger at the perceived double-cross. The banner headlines in the story really were splashed across the front page of The New York Times over a ten-day period in the spring of 1962. All the dialogue by the chairman, the president and his staff in the aftermath of the Oval Office confrontation is real and can be found exactly where Jonas and Reno found it.

PT 109, commanded by Lieutenant Kennedy, was sunk in the dark of night in August 1943 by a Japanese warship. Almost seventy years later many people share the opinion of the fictitious Clyde Gerson that Kennedy’s negligence contributed to the incident which led to the death of two crew members. Lieutenant Kennedy was awarded a Purple Heart and subsequently the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his unquestionably heroic leadership after the boat sank.

Contact Dave Conifer by email: daveconifer@rocketmail.com

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Man of Steel