She repeated the process five times until all of the upper pins were secured in the housing and all of the lower pins rested inside the plug. She turned the screwdriver and the plug spun freely, sliding back the bolt.
She smiled. Not bad training in Portland, she thought. Arthur would be proud of her. If only he knew.
Pamela took a thick piece of cardboard from her pocketbook and wedged it between the door and the frame just above the knob. Now, for the privacy lock in the knob. She pointed it downwards and slid it down along the jamb until it caught behind the spring-loaded latch. As she pulled it back, the door released and swung in. She listened for a moment and then pushed the door open wider, stepped inside, and softly closed it behind her. She stood inside the room listening. From somewhere above the record player continued to drone, although muffled now behind the wooden door.
So far, so good.
The room was dark. She resisted the urge to turn on a light and waited for her eyes to adjust. The wide Venetian blinds on the opposite facing windows were drawn. A tattered couch stood opposite a small television set which was propped on a metal stand. To the left, an open doorway led into a bedroom area. To the right, an archway opened onto a pantry. Pamela guessed that the bathroom was off the pantry. Apparently Lewis hadn’t been spending money on lavish accommodations. But then again, he had little choice.
Pamela moved to the far wall. She carefully inserted her fingers between two of the slats of the blinds and gently pried them apart. Five feet away the brick wall of the next building stared back at her. She reached for the string and tugged open the blinds.
Turning back into the room she saw a series of large paper drawings strewn over a maple kitchen table. She crossed the bare wooden floor and stared down at the sketches. She lifted the top drawing and studied the one underneath, and then repeated the process.
On the third drawing two dotted lines extended from a small box positioned inside a larger rectangle which resembled a two-dimensional building facade. The dotted lines ended at a profile of an automobile. The drawings were referenced with distances, angles, and times. Underneath the large rectangle the words “Book Depository” appeared in block lettering. One of the inner boxes five rows up had an arrow pointed to it with “Oswald” printed neatly at the right edge, also in block letters. The guy from New Orleans? Across the row of boxes the word “PATSY” had been impetuously scribbled with what must have been a red pen, as if in disgust. Ginter’s anger, she mused. The next page contained additional cryptic notes.
She flipped back to the top drawing and then moved around to the side of the table, her head tilted to one side. It was a map of city streets with “Houston” and “Elm” scrawled in.
The fourth drawing diagramed a metal bullet jacket showing a 6.5-millimeter jacket with what appeared to be a hand-packed charge.
She flipped through the drawings again. The references to Elm and Houston Streets were familiar. Where had she…? Of course!
She let the drawings fall back on the table and scanned the other two rooms. From a wastebasket she pulled out that morning’s Times Herald. She ripped through the pages until she found it.
“Oh, Lewis,” she whispered.
She refolded the newspaper and returned it to the trash. She had her own copy back at her hotel. She looked down at the drawings to make sure that they were positioned as she found them, but then flipped through them again to see if there was any further identifying information. Finding none, she completed her search of the rooms, closed the blinds, and let herself out into the hallway. Using the flathead screwdriver she moved the deadbolt back into the casing and picked the tumbler pins off their shelf. She turned left and walked down the back stairway.
DeVere dumped the suitcases on the double bed at the Holiday Inn and sat beside them. He grabbed the newspaper from Hutch’s hands.
“Why is Kennedy coming here if he has to be in Washington on Sunday? Do you think it’s a coincidence? Kennedy here two days before his meeting in D.C.?”
“No,” Amanda answered.
DeVere studied the parade route. “It’s like you said. He’s in and out in one day. A motorcade. A speech at the Trade Mart. Then back to Washington. The Vice-President will be with him. Hey, Johnson used to be Governor of Texas, didn’t he?”
“I don’t think he was ever governor,” Amanda said. “But he was from Texas. He was a congressman, I believe. No, a senator. Actually both,” she said, frowning. “He ran against Kennedy in the 1960 primaries. After he left the Vice Presidency in 1968 he ended up getting indicted over some radio station thing. The governor of Texas, John Connolly, will also be with him.”
DeVere nodded absently.
“By the way,” Amanda asked, leaning back against the pillows, “did you happen to notice the man in first class sitting on the right side of the plane when we boarded?”
DeVere looked up. Amanda looked so, so, so like she had in Ithaca. Lying back on the pillows like that…
”What?” he asked.
“When we boarded. The guy with the big jowls sitting by himself. Grey suit.”
DeVere shrugged. “Don’t remember anyone on the plane.”
Amanda nodded. “I couldn’t place him at first. I just caught a quick glimpse in New York. Hadn’t noticed him at the departure gate. Saw him again when we got off and finally figured out who he was when we were in the taxi.”
“And?”
“Nixon.”
“Who? The baseball player?”
Amanda sighed and rolled her eyes. “Richard Nixon.”
When Paul continued to stare at her blankly she continued. “Checkers dog speech? Anti-Communist zealot from the 1950s? Eisenhower’s vice-president?”
“Richard Nixon? I’m not good on vice presidents. You sure it was him?”
Amanda sat up suddenly and curled her legs under her. “Yuppa’, I am. Dead sure. Was the Republican nominee against Kennedy in 1960. They had a series of debates on TV. The first televised presidential debates. I’ve seen the films. That’s how I recognized him. That would have been three years ago. He’s put on a little weight but not much. It was Nixon who Kennedy beat in a close race. Later ran for governor of California. Lost again. Then he retired into oblivion.”
“So the man who ran against Kennedy in 1960 is in Dallas when Kennedy will be here.” DeVere shrugged. “So what?”
“So, maybe nothing. Bit of a coincidence though, with us here, Lewis here, Nixon here and Kennedy coming.”
“You think Ginter is going to do something with Kennedy and Nixon both?” deVere asked.
“I figure he’s angling on approaching Kennedy at the Trade Mart on Friday. Somehow getting information to him about Southeast Asia. Trying to change Kennedy’s mind one last time.”
“Do you think it will work?” deVere asked.
Hutch scoffed. “Has it worked for us? It’s absurd. No one gets close enough to the President of the United States to talk to him. And what would Lewis say?”
“We didn’t do well with Salisbury,” deVere sighed. “But the baseball thing softened him. Our time window is too short. We should have come back earlier.”
Amanda took a deep breath. “Salisbury later wrote that the United States should have intervened in Southeast Asia. He was a hawk in the 1970's. As for coming back earlier—what choice did we have?”
“Yeah, the best laid plans,” deVere scoffed. “Too bad there aren’t any games between now and Sunday that I remember the score of. I can still picture Salisbury’s face when we told him that the Soviet Union and China would fight a war.”
Amanda snickered. “That’s when he tried to run out the door. So, how is Ginter going to have any better luck?” she asked, turning serious.