What would be the chances?
He bounced back and forth again to the two photos, and then realized what the expression was on each face, frozen in time almost five years apart.
It was satisfaction.
That’s what.
Satisfaction for a job well done.
He slowly got up and left the office, leaving the lights on, and then went back to bed and stayed awake until it was time for breakfast.
Three weeks after the night he had spent with the photos, Kevin was in a rental car, shivering, wondering if he would have the guts to take it this far. For nearly the past month, he had gone down a twisting and turning path, trying to identify the police officer who appeared in both photographs, separated by nearly five years and thousands of miles. Luckily for him, his university had a library that was one of the best in the region. Through its research assistants and some microfilm files and in searching old newspapers and magazines, he had found captions identifying the officer in the Dallas photo as Mike McKenna and the officer in Los Angeles as Ron Carpenter. That had taken almost a week of backbreaking work, sitting in hard chairs, blinking as the black-and-white microfilm reels whirred by, almost like a time machine, taking him back to tumultuous times when it seemed like the two princes would make a difference in the American empire.
Once he had the names, what next?
Then came frustrating contacts with the police departments of Dallas and Los Angeles, trying to find out who Mike McKenna and Ron Carpenter were, and if they were still living. Another couple of days, blocked, for the departments weren’t cooperative, not at all. Then, not really enjoying what he had to do next, he delved deeper into the outlands of the Internet, looking into the different conspiracy pages put up by people still investigating the deaths of JFK and RFK Then, this was followed by flights to Dallas and Los Angeles — spending the latest money from Lancaster — to two separate offices, where obsessive men and women were keepers of what they felt was the real truth, and he made some additional contacts. In turn, they led him to other people, who gave him two interesting facts: the names of Mike McKenna and Ron Carpenter still existed in the systems of the Dallas and Los Angeles police departments, and forwarding addresses for pension and disability information were exactly the same: 14 Old Mast Road, Nansen, Maine.
Unbelievable. So here he was, on a dirt road in a rural part of Maine, and after doing some additional work at the local town hall, looking at tax rolls, he found out who lived at 14 Old Mast Road: one Harold Brown, age seventy-nine. Retired. And that’s it.
So here he was, at a place where the driveway intersected Old Mast Road, waiting in his rental car. The driveway — also dirt — went up to a Cape Cod house on top of a hill, painted gray. Smoke tendriled up from a brick chimney. Kevin rubbed at his chin, kept an eye on the house. Could this be it, right up here? All the years of controversy, investigations, claims, counterclaims, all brought to this one point, this little hill in a remote section of Maine? And all coming about because of him, Kevin Tanner, assistant professor of English?
Insane. It all sounded so insane.
And now what? That he had debated with himself for a couple of days, before he had worked up some courage, rented a car — his old Toyota would have never made it — and spent nearly four hours on the road. All along the way, he had practiced and repracticed his approach, what he would say, what he was going to try to come away with.
Now it was time.
He opened the door, shivered from the early November cold. He walked up the muddy dirt driveway, looking at the old Cape Cod house, one of thousands sprinkled throughout the rural regions of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. A very insignificant house, one easily ignored, except if the book was written and was published and became a bestseller, this sagging collection of wood and windows would become one of the most famous houses in the world.
The front lawn was brown, stunted grass, and Kevin went to the concrete stoop and knocked at the door. There was no doorbell, so he knocked again, harder. He could hear movement from inside. Kevin stood still, feeling his heart race away in his chest. Could this be it? Truly?
The door slowly opened, and an old man appeared, dressed in baggy jeans and a gray sweatshirt. His face was gaunt, his white hair was spread thinly across his freckled scalp, his eyes were watery and filmed, and his prominent nose was lined with red veins. Kevin felt his breath catch. This was him, the man in the photos.
“Yes?” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
Kevin cleared his throat. “Mister Brown? Harold Brown?”
“Yes,” the man said. “Are you the tax assessor? Is that it?”
“No, no sir, I’m not,” he said. “My name is Kevin Tanner. I’m a professor of English.”
The old man blinked. “An English professor? Are you lost, is that it?”
“No, I’m not lost,” Kevin said. “I was wondering if I could talk to you, just for a couple of minutes.”
Brown looked suspicious. “You’re not one of the those door-to-door religious types, are you?”
“No, sir, I’m not. Just a professor of English. That’s all.”
Brown moved away from the door. “All right, come on in. I guess there won’t be no harm in it.”
Kevin walked into the house, breathing slowly, trying to calm down. The house had the scent of dust and old cooking odors, and he followed Brown as he moved into the living room. Kevin felt a faint flush of shame, watching the shuffling steps of Brown as he used a metal walker to move into the room. The black bedroom slippers he was wearing made a whispering noise against the carpeting.
Brown settled heavily into an old couch, and Kevin sat near him in an easy chair, balancing an envelope on his knees. The wallpaper was a light blue, and there were framed photos of lighthouses and ships, but nothing that showed people. There were piles of newspapers around the floor of the small living room, and even piles on top of the television set. Brown coughed and said, “So. An English professor. Where do you teach?”
“Lovecraft University, in Massachusetts.”
The old man shook his head. “Never heard of it. And why are you in this part of Maine?”
“To see you.”
“Me?” Brown said, sounding shocked. “Whatever for?”
“Because I’m working on a book, and I think you have some information I could use,” Kevin said.
“Me?” Brown said again. “I think you’ve come a long way for the wrong reason, young man.”
Kevin remembered how he had thought this would go, and decided it was time to just bring it out in the open, just barrel right ahead. He opened up the envelope and took out the two black-and-white photos that Lancaster had provided him and passed them over. Brown looked at the photos and then fumbled in his shirt pocket, to pull out a pair of glasses. With the glasses on, Brown examined each photo, and then there was a quick intake of breath. Kevin leaned forward, wondering if he would have to pull out the other bits of information he had when Brown would deny that it was him in the photos. From the college newspaper research, he had additional photos, showing Brown in a variety of photos at each murder scene. From information supplied by the conspiracy buffs, he had old police department records, placing him at each scene. Kevin waited for the answer, and when the answer came, he was shocked and surprised.
Brown looked up. “Are you here to kill me?”
Kevin said, “No, no, not at all. I really am a college professor, and I really am working on a book. About the deaths of both JFK and his brother. And my research led to these photographs, and then to you, Mister Brown. So that’s really you, isn’t it? You were present at both assassinations.”