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again before I got out of his sight. There’d be no warning this time; I’d just veer off the street and
onto the sidewalk, maybe mowing down a pedestrian or three before winding up in the show window
of a furniture store.
When I finally parked in front of my little cottage with the ramp leading up to the front door, my
head was aching, my eyes were watering, my knee was throbbing . . . but my memories of Oswald
remained firm and clear. I slung my briefcase on the kitchen table and called Sadie.
“I tried you when I got home from school, but you weren’t there,” she said. “I was worried.”
“I was next door, playing cribbage with Mr. Kenopensky.” These lies were necessary. I had to
remember that. And I had to tell them smoothly, because she knew me.
“Well, that’s good.” Then, without a pause or a change of inflection: “What’s his name? What’s the
man’s name?”
Lee Oswald. She almost surprised it out of me, after all.
“I . . . I still don’t know.”
“You hesitated. I heard you.”
I waited for the accusation, gripping the phone hard enough to hurt.
“This time it almost popped into your head, didn’t it?”
“There was something,” I agreed cautiously.
We talked for fifteen minutes while I looked at the briefcase with Al’s notes inside it. She asked
me to call her later that evening. I promised I would.
9
I decided to wait until after The Huntley-Brinkley Report to open the blue notebook again. I didn’t
think I’d find much of practical value at this point. Al’s final notes were sketchy and hurried; he had
never expected Mission Oswald to go on so long. Neither had I. Getting to the disaffected little twerp
was like traveling on a road littered with fallen branches, and in the end the past might succeed in
protecting itself, after all. But I had stopped Dunning. That gave me hope. I had the glimmerings of a
plan that might allow me to stop Oswald without going to prison or the electric chair in Huntsville. I
had excellent reasons to want to remain free. The best one of all was in Jodie this evening, probably
feeding Deke Simmons chicken soup.
I worked my way methodically through my little invalid-friendly apartment, collecting stuff.
Other than my old typewriter, I didn’t want to leave a trace of George Amberson behind when I left. I
hoped that wouldn’t be until Wednesday, but if Sadie said that Deke was better and she was planning
to come back on Tuesday night, I’d have to speed things up. And where would I hide out until my job
was done? A very good question.
A trumpet-blast announced the network news. Chet Huntley appeared. “After spending the
weekend in Florida, where he watched the test-firing of a Polaris missile and visited his ailing father,
President Kennedy had a busy Monday, making five speeches in nine hours.”
A helicopter—Marine One—descended while a waiting crowd cheered. The next shot featured
Kennedy approaching the crowd behind a makeshift barrier, brushing at his shaggy hair with one
hand and his tie with the other. He strode well ahead of the Secret Service contingent, which jogged
to keep up. I watched, fascinated, as he actually slipped through a break in the barrier and plunged
into the waiting mass of people, shaking hands left and right. The agents with him looked dismayed
as they hurried after.
“This was the scene in Tampa,” Huntley continued, “where Kennedy pressed the flesh for almost
ten minutes. He worries the men whose job it is to keep him safe, but you can see that the crowd loves