The Day Kennedy Was Shot (76 page)

For Ruth Paine it was a new and exciting existence. Within the span of one afternoon, she had been whirled up and out of the drab life of dirty diapers and high chairs and the Book-of-the-Month Club and set onto the edges of the story of the century. She was a celebrity. Policemen, reporters, and photographers hung on her words, her opinions, and she, Ruth Paine, Quaker, was the umbilical cord between Marina Oswald and the U.S. government. Everything would turn out good in the end, because, to a dedicated Christian, it always does. To a woman hitherto stranded on the sandbars of marital discord, this was an exciting ride down the rapids.

Robert Oswald understood Marguerite. The dear, sweet, protective mother would fall asleep on time and wake up on time. Guilt or innocence could be secondary to the last, the final chance to stand before a derisive world and take a bow. All of the earlier bitterness, the lack of understanding by others, the snubs of the fine ladies in the shops where she worked, the marrying and losing of men, the teenage loss of three sons—all of it might be prelude leading to this great shining moment when once more she could storm into the capital city of Washington
demanding to see the high and mighty and assert herself as a mother. If, in addition, there was a dollar to be earned, it might be a most attractive buck.

Marina felt pity for the grandmother tonight. The poor thing hadn't known that she was a grandmother again until she arrived at the police station. The first vague distrust of Ruth Paine was in Marina's mind. The young Mrs. Oswald, in her muteness, felt that she had been thrust aside. Ruth was too gay and buoyant a mouthpiece for Marina. Her personal opinions were strong and sometimes meticulous, as in her verdict that all guns were black or dark brown; they all looked alike in their deadly venom; one could not differentiate between one with a telescopic sight and one without—nor could any amount of interrogation alter that opinion.

There was female accommodation in the hair dryer, but, underlying it was Marguerite's determination that the euphoric Mrs. Paine would not be permitted to answer the questions and resolve the mystery. Grandma would cultivate the confidence of her daughter-in-law only so long as both of them agreed upon who was running the show. Disagreement, which was bound to occur, would cause Marguerite to revert to her original notion that Marina was nothing more than a “foreign person.”

In a little while, all the lights would go out in that house. All of them.

There was irritation in Jesse Curry's telephone ear. For a couple of hours he had been receiving calls from men of importance in Dallas County which began: “I received a call from Washington . . .” or “I got a call from the White House . . .” The message was the same: please turn the evidence over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for a day or two. The chief did not think he should. His captain of Homicide did not think he should. Who called from Washington? “Well, somebody pretty high up . . .” or “I'm not at liberty to disclose a name . . .”

What most people did not seem to understand, Curry kept saying with exaggerated patience, was that this was a Dallas County case. “It is a straight homicide as far as I'm concerned. Fritz says we need the evidence here. I have to back my men.” The calls kept coming. They came to Captain Fritz, who deferred to his chief, and to Curry, who deferred to the captain. One call came in to Fritz from Henry Wade asking whether the prisoner was to be transferred to the county jail for security. Justice of the Peace Johnston had ordered him handed over to Sheriff Decker.

Fritz understood the order but had no intention of complying. “We don't want to transfer him yet,” he said. “We want to talk to him some more.” His opinion was that Oswald would neither crack nor confess. And yet, as the man in charge of the police work, he owed it to his department to keep tapping at what he could see of the iceberg in the other chair in hopes that one final rap would split it.

The district attorney backed off. He was pleased that the department had made so much progress in the face of official confusion. Wade was seldom sure who was in charge: Dallas Police Department, Secret Service, FBI, Texas Rangers, the United States Department of Justice. All of them were busy asking questions, exercising prerogatives, assuming responsibility. Each had an interest a priori which was not to be denied. There was no hostility between the groups, although the Dallas department felt frustrated and irritated with outside attention. Some, in ironic tones, asked if Governor Connally was strong enough to call out the National Guard.

Progress on the case was steady and inexorable, a masterful amount of minutiae which kept growing, kept pointing directly at Lee Harvey Oswald. Fritz didn't need help to pin this case on this man. He was convinced that, in a day or so, he would have sufficient evidence to convict him of either or both of the murders. The captain emitted an aura of shaggy modesty, but
he would be foolish to want to share this one with any other agency. All he asked, at this hour, in addition to the evidence he had, was to connect the spent bullets to that rifle and that revolver, to prove that A. Hidell had bought both guns, and that Alex Hidell and Lee Harvey Oswald were the same person.

Fritz was an old-line, experienced officer. All the other homicides were preparatory to this one. He would like to have wrung a confession from Oswald, but it wouldn't be necessary, he thought, to the successful prosecution of the case. He had his man “coming and going.” As soon as he could get a justice of the peace, Fritz would formally charge Oswald with the assassination. The captain had confidence in himself and in his men.

Additional help might have been welcome. A naïve police department, beset by sectional jealousy, would decline the services of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Curry and Fritz were aware that, after they had catalogued and tested evidence, there would be no use for it in Dallas until the day of trial. They had no intention of lending it to any agency. They resisted the phone calls in concert, and this represented one of the times they were in agreement.

Fatigue was not obvious on the faces of the three doctors. The work was exacting, and weariness was there as they strode around the corpse, making their observations, nodding agreement, trying too strenuously not to overlook any aspect of the body and its wounds. The trio of white ghosts walked the post of the dead with such infinite care that their signed conclusions were predestined toward error. When mistakes are most costly, careful craftsmen are the first to pay.

With the chest and belly open, Humes, Boswell, and Finck examined the lining of the thoracic cavity and found it “unremarkable.” The organs were removed one at a time to be washed, weighed, and examined for grossness. The man on the table, in spite of his chronic back pain, was a healthy human. The coronary arteries were smooth-walled and elastic. In the abdomen there was no increase in peritoneal fluid. An old appendectomy displayed a few minor adhesions between the cecum and the ventral abdominal wall.

Fresh bruises were found on the upper tip of the right pleural area near the bottom of the throat. There were also contusions in the lower neck. Humes called his doctors away from the table and asked the Navy photographer to shoot additional Kodachrome pictures. The lens picked up a bruise in the form of an inverted pyramid. It was a fraction short of two inches across the top, coming to a point at the bottom. A few of the contused neck muscles were removed for further examination.

The autopsy was complete. The men of medicine had been on their feet a long time. The outer covering of the body was
sewed in place again. The Navy passed the polite word—this time to Admiral Burkley—that it had completed the autopsy and declined to do the embalming. The Navy photographer passed the cassettes of film to Roy Kellerman and waited for a receipt. A long sheet was floated across the body. Enlisted men began to untie the backs of medical gowns and the doctors peeled gossamer-thin gloves from their fingers.
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Witnesses stood. They stretched their limbs. The last act was over, but the spotlight remained focused on the long sheet. The long bony feet stuck out. Greer looked and remarked that they were amazingly white. The toes turned slightly outward. He wondered why the vision struck an echo in his mind. He had seen those feet looking like this at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Trauma One. A man could be forgiven for asking himself how long ago that might be. No one noticed the enlisted men hosing down the floor.

The dead man was scarred, but so were the living. He would not remember his scars, but they could not forget theirs. Greer, solid, strong, middle-aged, had years of dependable work in him but the thought had crossed his mind to get out of the Secret Service and spend more time with Mrs. Greer, who was not strong, and a growing son, who would appreciate male guidance. Kellerman was granite, but for years to come his mind would freeze in immobility when he thought of November 22, 1963. He could not force himself to discuss the day.

Some Federal officers would quit within the next month. Others would ask for other assignments. A few became embit
tered. Rowley, the Chief, would remain on to defend his men and expand the Secret Service, even though he had sustained the greatest loss—losing “the boss”—and the private knowledge that, at home, a most attractive daughter was losing her sight.

In the nation's capital, the day began its final hour by collecting the ticking seconds and forming them into sedate minutes. They were stacked neatly, one on top of the other, and they should have brought a resignation to the people, but the country remained in a continuing trance, shaken and disbelieving. In Lafayette Park a bronze general stared across the broad boulevard to the big light on the portico of the White House. Beneath him people stood in groups, staring as he stared.

It was now a blustery night. Gusts combed the crisp leaves from the branches. Behind the White House, a claret-colored light winked solemnly near the top of the Washington Monument. The people remained in Lafayette Park, and more passersby paused to look, to whisper questions, to wait. They knew, even if he came home now, they would see a vehicle, perhaps a box lifted from the back of it, but the people remained steadfast and cold, not in morbid curiosity, but to get a glimpse of the box and convince themselves that it had really happened. This would tell them that he was dead.

The salads glistened under glass. The ham, the corned beef, the imported salami reposed on wooden boards. In wells, the potato salad, the cole slaw, the tuna fish salad reposed. Behind the counter, John Frickstad waited for the customers who sit and talk and nibble. This, of all nights, was a time when Dallas could be expected to frequent the neighborhood restaurants—the pizza-pie pickups, the short-order beaneries, and the German-Jewish delicatessens. The housewives were too depressed for full-scale work in the kitchens.

A few people sat at tables, sipping coffee, chewing on Danish pastry, but most of the orders tonight came by phone. Phil's Del
icatessen at 3531 Oaklawn was patronized by those who enjoyed a thick meaty sandwich on Jewish rye bread. The tables were peopled, but business was not overwhelming. The counterman glanced at a table where five young people sat idling the time away. They had a
Dallas News
and Robert Sindelar read parts of the big story aloud. He was a student at Southern Methodist University, and he and his friends, having no other place to go, had spent two hours dissecting the crime. Dennis Martin had an opinion; so did Rita Silberman, Bill Nikolis, and Marguerite Riegler. The repeated phrase—even after the dishes had been removed—was “. . . but here in Dallas!”

A stout, middle-aged man walked in, but they did not notice him. Frickstad did, because he had filled orders for Jack Ruby for two years. The nightclub owner appeared to be in a hurry. He walked over to the table where the five young people were in conversation and yanked the newspaper from Sindelar's hand. “Excuse me,” the stranger said. “May I borrow the paper?” Young Mr. Sindelar was thinking of something to say when he saw the stranger riffle through the pages, study something, and set the News back on the table.

The five stopped talking. The man shoved a gray fedora back off his forehead and walked into a phone booth. A coin clinked and he sat with the door open, dialing. He asked someone a question, then said: “I'm at Phil's Delicatessen. If you need me, I'll be here a few minutes.” He came out and turned to the counter. Johnny Frickstad said hello and asked if Mr. Ruby didn't think the assassination was a terrible thing. The nightclub owner was giving the counterman part of his attention. Yes, he said. It was terrible. Terrible.

Then he strode back into the phone booth and dialed RI 8—9711. The city hall operator came on and Ruby said: “Homicide and Robbery.” The phone was picked up by Detective Richard Sims. “This is Jack Ruby,” the voice said. “I know you guys are working late. I have some sandwiches for you.” Sims
said: “Thanks, Jack. We have been eating in relays, but we're wrapping it up now.” “Oh.” “Yeah, Jack. We won't need any sandwiches now.” “All right,” Ruby said and hung up.

The entrepreneur bounced out of the booth and said to Frickstad: “Give me eight corned beef sandwiches with mustard. Give me eight black cherries cold and two celery tonics. Also I want three cups of butter, a half loaf of Jewish rye, and some extra pickles.” The counterman went to work. Pickles and potato salad were supplied free with each sandwich. Jack Ruby watched a moment as Frickstad began to slice the corned beef, the slices curling away from the electric knife onto a piece of paper. “I'm taking this to the disc jockeys at KLIF,” Ruby said. “They're working late.” The counterman kept working. “I still don't know how I'll get in; they lock the station up. But I'll get in with the sandwiches.”

He went back to the phone and dialed someone and said: “If you want me, I'll be at KLIF. If anything should come up . . .” There was a pretension toward busyness, an important man with important connections. Mr. Ruby returned to the students' table and asked if he might see the paper again. Mutely it was given to him. The pages were flipped, and the stranger murmured: “I own the Carousel and Vegas clubs. I want to see if the ads appear as I ordered them.” The students sat around the big table, looking up at the man. “My clubs,” he said, “are the only two closed on account of the assassination.”