Gravestone, page 28
The streets glistened and steamed from the morning rain as the cars moved slowly along the route. Kennedy was all smiles and waved with enthusiasm. He even instructed his car to stop, twice, to allow him to shake the hands of the people of Dallas under the nervous eye of the Secret Service and the Dallas City Police.
The atmosphere was that of a grand parade. There was a general feeling of overwhelming pride in America as people shouted support, cried with joy and tried hard to catch the eye of this popular President. Many felt their eyes begin to mist or at least had a lump in their throat as the President of the United States of America passed by. It was a good day to be an American.
THE BUZZER SOUNDED at the Texas School Book Depository signaling that it was noon, lunch break. The fifteen employees would take an extra few minutes today to line the streets along Elm or Houston to see JFK and Jacqueline (Jackie). All but five left the building. Fletcher had posted on the cork board outside the lunchroom that he would allow all employees any extra time needed beyond the normal 30 minute lunch break to watch the motorcade pass by. They would not lose any wages for the extra time away from the job. It showed generosity and spoke of his patriotism but in reality he wanted to clear the way for Oswald to make his move.
In addition to Fletcher, who remained in his second floor office, the office manager was filing a few of her papers at her desk. Two other female employees decided to go to the fourth floor to gain a better view of the President as the streets were getting crowded and were already nearly four people deep. Then there was Lee Harvey Oswald who was calmly sitting in the lunchroom eating an apple and trying to read a paperback book. He was waiting for the telephone to ring in the lunchroom giving him the okay to proceed. He looked at the clock on the wall as the minute hand swept past 12:15.
Fletcher’s mouth was dry in anticipation of the assassination plot. He knew that Oswald couldn’t be acting alone in this. He knew Oswald, and his assessment of him was that he was not very bright. He was a stool-pigeon. His actions always seemed a little slow, and well, to pull something like what was about to happen, alone of his own accord, was beyond Oswald’s capabilities. Fletcher needed a drink. He found himself perspiring and actually trembling with anticipation. He looked out the window and could read the large digital clock above the bank building across the street. 12:18. He left his office for the lunchroom to get a glass of cold water.
Opening the double doors, his heart stopped and his face went white. “What are you doing here Oswald?” He couldn’t believe his own eyes. “Why aren’t you upstairs?”
Oswald slowly looked up from his book. He was taken back from the reaction of his boss. “I don’t know what you mean. It’s my lunch break.”
Fletcher again blurted, “It’s 12:20. What about President Kennedy?”
“I have no interest in seeing that traitor and I don’t know what all this fuss is about. I just want to be left alone.”
Fletcher didn’t know what to do. He turned and left the room forgetting his thirst and walked into his office trying to gather his thoughts.
“Mr. Blake, I think I’ll go outside now and wait for the President,” his office manager announced sweetly. He just waved her off and shouted “Go!”
Sitting down behind his desk he realized for the first time that he could not change what was about to happen, it was just going to happen. His mind turned to Doug Collins. What was that kid up to? What is he going to do today in the next few minutes? He had threatened to stop Fletcher and to stop Oswald, but it was 12:22 and nothing. He sat there alone, listening to the crowds outside as the excitement was growing. He heard some sirens and commotion and he got up to look out his window.
He could see a man lying on the ground in some sort of spastic fit. People were gathered around him. Looked like an epileptic having a seizure or something. Then he noticed an ambulance driving up almost directly outside his office. There were several policemen assisting and the crowd’s attention was diverted for several minutes as the man was loaded into the ambulance and driven away. The digital bank clock now flashed 12:25.
Fletcher, nearly panicked, thought of Oswald, then Doug. He ran from his office and burst into the lunchroom only to find it empty.
OSWALD COULD WAIT NO longer for the telephone call. He had to act. He had heard the sirens also and the clock was passing critical time, 12:22. It was time. He had waited too long. He had wanted to be in position by now and he’d have to hurry. Oswald walked over to one of the two freight elevators and rode it up to the sixth floor.
He pulled up the elevator’s wooden door and hurried to the window at the southeast corner. He had stacked the book crates three high and created a hidden area just in case someone should happen to come into the room unexpectedly. The window was already open halfway, so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself if someone below looked up and saw the window opening. He reached behind the steam pipes where he had previously hidden the three rifle bullets. After finding them exactly where he had left them he placed them on the brick window ledge.
Then he opened the double long crate that contained the high powered rifle and assembled the scope. This all took only two minutes, but now every second counted. Oswald could see the bank clock across the street showing 12:26 as he checked the optics of the rifle scope, placing the cross-hairs on the heads of several people across the street waiting at Dealey Plaza. He didn’t have a pocket in his T-shirt to place the bullets in so he held them in his hand. He slipped one into the chamber and moved the rifle bolt back and forth to place the bullet into its firing rack. 12:28.
He took aim again, with his rifle loaded this time, at people standing, waiting across the street. He couldn’t hold the two remaining bullets in his sweating hands and shoot the rifle with any accuracy, so once again he laid them on the window ledge.
He could hear crowds cheering in the distance, getting louder as the motorcade drew nearer. 12:29. He looked through the scope. He could see in its round image the huge Texas oak tree that would present the most challenging obstacle to his shot. He’d be lucky not to clip one of those branches.
He continued to pan the crowds looking through the scope. Then he saw in the cross-hairs of the scope someone he recognized. That kid Fletcher sent him to talk to about a job was standing there beyond the oak tree, almost exactly where he’d planned to take his first shot. Oswald’s blood ran cold and a shiver ran down his spine when, as he was looking through his scope, this kid slowly turned around, looked up to the sixth floor window and stared directly into the cross-hairs at Oswald.
Oswald fell back, hitting his head on the steam pipe nearly knocking the cartridges off the window’s ledge in the process. He gathered himself quickly and looked down at Elm Street toward the kid who was now facing him full on. What’s this? He was holding a sign. Not being able to read it, Oswald again focused his rifle’s magnifying scope on Doug’s image and clearly read the single word that he was holding up in his direction. In bold dark letters it simply read, “Patsy”!
DOUG HAD DONE ABOUT all he could do to Oswald. He had successfully delayed him from leaving the lunchroom by making him wait for a call that never came. Now he had shaken him with his sign and called him for what history was to remember Oswald as, a patsy. Someone’s pawn.
Doug sensed the crowd around him getting more excited now and he could actually hear the noise building up like a wave a couple blocks away. Someone next to him was listening to a transistor radio and the announcer was saying that the President’s car had just turned onto Houston. He was only three blocks away. Doug saw the large bank clock turn to 12:30. He remembered that during this minute shots would echo and the President would be hit and killed. He wondered if he did nothing more would Kennedy still be assassinated or could he possibly do something?
He couldn’t take the chance. Acting on the idea that many people in the future later believed, as they analyzed the film footage and any detail that surfaced, that another set of shots was fired from behind the picket fence. That is where Doug was going to be waiting. He’d heard and seen men yesterday at the fence. He was already standing on the grass a few feet behind the crowded sidewalk on what was known as the grassy knoll. In fact the grassy area did incline from the street back toward the picket fence, creating a small hill or knoll. Now he could even see that old oak tree about twenty yards away, where he’d sat yesterday. Time to do something!
As Doug took steps up toward the picket fence, he could hear loudly now the screams and cheers of the crowds lining both sides of the street. He glanced back for a moment and was spellbound. There in front of him about 100 yards away was the presidential motorcade slowing down to take the turn from Houston Street on to Elm. It was about to happen. Doug could plainly see President Kennedy smiling and waving at those well-wishers and he could also see Jackie Kennedy sitting to his left in that all too familiar round pink hat. It was like watching the old news films that he’d seen hundreds of times as the limousines with presidential flags flying were approaching. He knew that Oswald was taking aim.
Doug turned toward the fence and ran hard up the knoll. He covered the ground quickly, heading directly for the oak tree. Now with just ten yards of grass to cover Doug could plainly see the barrel of a rifle resting between the branches of the oak. With no time to think, and with no real plan in mind Doug sprang into view of the two men standing behind the fence. One man was Latin looking, dark complexion, tall, thin and bald. He was completely surprised by Doug’s unexpected appearance. The man taking aim with the rifle only caught Doug out of the corner of his eye as he held steady his aim at the President. Then a shot was fired. A loud crack that would live with Doug forever. Then in quick succession a second shot sounded, echoing among the shocked screams of those in the crowds who realized what must be happening.
Both shots came from behind Doug, from the Depository. Oswald!! The first bullet struck the President at the base of his neck from behind, and President Kennedy’s hands went to his neck. He slumped forward and to the left toward his wife, blood splattering the interior of the back seat of the limousine. The second shot went wild, again coming from the sixth floor. It had cracked about four seconds later and didn’t hit its target. Doug had rattled Oswald enough that he’d become rushed in getting off the second round. Actually, the bullet over shot the motorcade and struck a cement pillar of the underpass of Stemmons Freeway, wounding someone in the crowd with the ricochet.
Doug’s momentum slammed his body into the picket fence with some force and noise that greatly alarmed and distracted the two men about to take the ‘third’ shot. Doug shouted, “NO!” He reached out toward the rifle, but was three or four feet away and couldn’t stop the man from squeezing out a round. The rifle bolted and smoked. Several people turned and saw the commotion and smoke from atop the knoll. The shot wounded Governor Connally and missed the President all together. No other shots were fired at the motorcade as the Dallas Police were already reacting to the situation. Two officers began to run toward the fence and when the two men saw this, they looked Doug directly in the face, turned and ran toward an open train car still carrying the rifle.
President Kennedy was instantly rushed four miles to Parkland Memorial Hospital. The motorcade and Secret Service were in full action leaving the scene with the wounded President. Oswald heard the other shot being fired and knew that he’d never have time to get off his third round. He could see below that the motorcade had accelerated. Staying in this building was no longer an option. He had just ejected the second cartridge from the bolt action rifle and had already loaded his third and last cartridge when he heard the door of the second elevator open. He dropped to the floor and froze. He could hear footsteps coming in his direction. How could the police react so fast?
No, it couldn’t be the police, there was no other sound except footsteps coming closer. No voices, no hurrying about just someone walking slowly on the squeaky wooden floor in his direction.
“Oswald, I know you’re there. I know you shot the President and I don’t care. You need to get out of here.” Fletcher was talking in a calm and controlled voice.
Oswald was a cornered animal desperate to escape and with no time to waste. He stood up and faced Fletcher with his rifle lying atop a crate aimed at Fletcher’s chest, his finger wrapped around the trigger. “Old man, you should have never come up here. I haven’t any time, and I don’t need any witnesses,” he said nervously. His voice raised crazily, “I just shot the President of the United States!” He adjusted the rifle, sliding it off the crates and held it in both hands taking aim. “And now I’m gonna shoot you Mr. Blake.”
Fletcher’s narrow eyes widened, his mind instantly flashed back to the obituary that Jason Smith had read to him about a Fletcher Blake dying on this day in Dallas. Was it really him after all? He always knew it was. He wasn’t stupid and he came to the sixth floor prepared. He came to kill, not be killed. To side-step his death which was what the time travel project was all about in the first place. Fletcher produced a .38 caliber handgun from behind his back and held it outstretched toward Oswald. “Looks like we have a standoff, Mr. Oswald.” That evil slight grin crossed his face. “Let’s just both put our weapons down and you walk out of here.”
“Why did you come up here Mr. Blake? They sent you didn’t they? They never intended for me to escape. They’re playing me for a patsy, but I’m not taking the blame alone!” He was raving, going crazy. He needed out! He looked at Fletcher with glazed eyes, not hearing the words he was speaking.
Fletcher remained his cold self not letting his emotions get control. “You wouldn’t understand if I told you why I’m here. Suffice it to say that my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to be here, to be part of this, to see this with my own eyes. You and I are a lot alike Mr. Oswald.”
“I don’t think so.” Oswald fired his third shot. It found its target in the chest, and passing through the heart of Fletcher Blake, killing him instantly. Fletcher fell back, his eyes staring in disbelief. His gun dropped into his own pool of blood.
Oswald wiped the rifle clean of prints, threw it in a corner across the room and bolted down the stairwell as fast as he could go. When he reached the second floor he heard people coming from the offices. He entered the lunchroom and ran over to grab his cola from the table he’d been at earlier. When the office manager and the police superintendent entered the room, they were both out of breath, excited, and looking for someone waving a gun around. They identified Oswald as an employee. He appeared relaxed as he sipped on a soft drink and they headed for the stairs going up. He told them he didn’t hear anything. It was 12:34 according to Oswald’s watch but the lunchroom clock said only 12:32. It was always a couple minutes slow. Oswald took a second to catch his breath and absentmindedly adjusted the lunchroom clock to the correct time. Then, at 12:35, he walked out the front door facing Elm Street and disappeared into the panic on the street. History would take care of him two days from now, when Jack Ruby, a nightclub mobster, would send him to Hell where he’d join Fletcher Blake.
DOUG COLLINS HOPPED over the fence and was trying to get the attention of the police, motioning to them, yelling and pointing in the direction that the two men with the gun had gone. All attention now was directed toward the train boxcar that they had jumped into. Doug was feeling weak and dizzy from the excitement and danger he’d just experienced. He knew that Kennedy was going to die. He felt sick. His heart felt like it was going to jump out of his chest. He dropped to his knees in the mud of the parking lot.
In the Dallas police report that was filed that afternoon, an obscure paragraph would give slight mention to a witness who allegedly saw men with a rifle behind the picket fence. The witness, a man in his early twenties, must have disappeared into the crowds as one minute he was seen kneeling in the train-yard parking lot, emotions overcoming him, and the next instant he had simply vanished.
Chapter 28: May 2020 - Ellensburg
Michael James had been jogging for the past hour, slow but steady, heading for the Baxter Memorial Cemetery outside of town. It was the cemetery that Professor Smith had told him to visit, the cemetery that all the Chamber members had agreed to be buried in when that final day did arrive. The day they were trying to avoid. The sun had gone down already and the landscape was bathed in soft twilight. He had thought about waiting until tomorrow morning to come out here, but he had no idea how long the Radium would be in his system. On his first trip into the future he was only given eight hours, but of course this time was very different. He’d already been gone two weeks, most of the time spent in 1941, and now he had ‘overshot’ 1981, skipping over his own time-period, and arriving here in the year 2020. Well, at least this time there would be results and it all would be over. Morbid results to be sure. None of the Chamber guys could possibly be alive 39 years later. They were already old men.
He was approaching an eerie scene directly out of an old Hitchcock film. Michael stopped and walked slowly toward the wrought-iron gate that held a rusting metal sign with the raised words, BAXTER MEMORIAL CEMETERY. The sky was now black, full of stars, and the bright full moon made the earth glow as it dimly reflected off the hundreds of stone gravestones marking final permanent residences. There was a strong wind whistling in the tree branches. Michael smiled to himself thinking that all this place needed was some howling dog in the distance and a few bats. Just then, a dog barked somewhere.
He stood at the gate looking through its rusty metal bars. The trees and large shrubs in the graveyard took on shapes that the imagination could run wild with. The wind was forcing the trees to bend and sway over the tombstones and even rake their woody branches against themselves making a clattering noise.
