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Sixth floor, southeast window. The one with the best view of Dealey Plaza and Elm Street, where it
curved toward the Triple Underpass.
I began shivering. I clutched my upper arms in my fists with my arms tightly locked over my
chest. It made the left one—broken by the felt-wrapped pipe—ache, but I didn’t mind. I was glad. It
tied me to the world.
When the shakes finally passed, I loaded the unfinished book manuscript, the precious blue
notebook, and everything else into my briefcase. I reached for the button that would summon Melvin,
then dummy-checked the very back of the box. There I found two more items. One was the cheap
pawnshop wedding ring I’d purchased to support my cover story at Satellite Electronics. The other was
the red baby rattle that had belonged to the Oswalds’ little girl ( June, not April). The rattle went
into the briefcase, the ring into the watch pocket of my slacks. I would throw it away on my drive
home. If and when the time came, Sadie would have a much nicer one.
8
Knocking on glass. Then a voice: “—all right? Mister, are you all right?”
I opened my eyes, at first with no idea where I was. I looked to my left and saw a uniformed beatcop
knocking on the driver’s side window of my Chevy. Then it came. Halfway back to Eden Fallows,
tired and exalted and terrified all at the same time, that I’m going to sleep feeling had drifted into my
head. I’d pulled into a handy parking space immediately. That had been around two o’clock. Now,
from the look of the lowering light, it had to be around four.
I cranked my window down and said, “Sorry, Officer. All at once I started to feel very sleepy, and it
seemed safer to pull over.”
He nodded. “Yup, yup, booze’ll do that. How many did you have before you jumped into your car?”
“None. I suffered a head injury a few months ago.” I swiveled my neck so he could see the place
where the hair hadn’t grown back.
He was halfway convinced, but still asked me to exhale in his face. That got him the rest of the
way.
“Lemme see your ticket,” he said.
I showed him my Texas driver’s license.
“Not thinking of motoring all the way back to Jodie, are you?”
“No, Officer, just to North Dallas. I’m staying at a rehabilitation center called Eden Fallows.”
I was sweating. I hoped that if he saw it, he’d just put it down to a man who’d been snoozing in a
closed car on a warmish November day. I also hoped—fervently—that he wouldn’t ask to see what was
in the briefcase on the bench seat beside me. In 2011, I could refuse such a request, saying that
sleeping in my car wasn’t probable cause. Hell, the parking space wasn’t even metered. In 1963,
however, a cop might just start rummaging. He wouldn’t find drugs, but he would find loose cash, a
manuscript with the word murder in its title, and a notebook full of delusional weirdness about Dallas
and JFK. Would I be taken either to the nearest police station for questioning, or back to Parkland for
psychiatric evaluation? Did the Waltons take way too long to say goodnight?
He stood there a moment, big and red-faced, a Norman Rockwell cop who belonged on a Saturday
Evening Post cover. Then he handed back my license. “Okay, Mr. Amberson. Go on back to this
Fallows place, and I suggest you park your car for the night when you get there. You’re looking peaky,
nap or no nap.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”
I could see him in my rearview as I drove away, watching. I felt certain I was going to fall asleep