The President's Killers (13 page)

FIFTY-THREE

When Bambrick showed up before 9 A.M. and declined a cup of coffee, Jim Moran knew something was wrong.

“We’re bringing in Steve Libretti,” Bambrick said.

It felt like he had been hit in the stomach with a baseball bat. Libretti was the special agent-in-charge of the Bureau’s Chicago field office, a highly respected veteran, with far more credentials than Moran.

“This is too big for one man,” Bambrick said, his manner and voice unapologetic.

Moran nodded.

“I want the two of you to work together. There’s no Number 1 in this. You’ll both run this thing, together.”

“All right.”

The queasiness in his stomach eased a little. At least he was not being shoved completely aside. But an hour later he was still finding it hard to concentrate when his phone rang.

“When are you guys going to catch this Kinney character?”

“Who is this?”

“What a bunch of screw-ups you are!”

“Jack, you bastard!” Jack Metcalf in the bureau’s Newark office had been a good friend ever since their days together as agents in L.A. “How are you?”

“Hey, Jimbo! Despite that ugly face and your grumpy disposition, you’re a pretty decent guy. So I’ve got a little tip for you.”

“Yeah?”

“On your friend Denis Kinney.”

“What? What you got?”

“I think you ought to send your troopers up to Wisconsin.”

“Wisconsin? What do you have, Jack?”

“Just a gut feeling I have.”

“Come on, Jack. I’m under a lot of pressure here. Bambrick is practically sleeping with me.”

“I’ll bet. Look, Kinney has a brother here in Jersey. Last night Kinney was stupid enough to call him. He was calling from Madison, Wisconsin.”

North, Moran thought. They were betting Kinney had headed south or west, and the son-of-a-bitch had gone north. Jesus H. Christ! He remembered the truck recovered in Iowa. It was one of more than a dozen vehicles reported stolen in St. Louis and Jefferson counties in the seventy-two hours following the assassination.

“Hey, you’re a sweetheart, Metcalf! Did I ever tell you that?”

“Yeah, well just keep your pants zipped.”

“You’re keeping a lid on this, I hope. If the media find out, the guy’s gone.”

“We are, buddy.”

“Terrific. If Kinney is in Wisconsin, we’ll have his ass by the weekend.”

FIFTY-FOUR

Sipping beer in a rear booth in a noisy State Street bar, Denny was watching two students throwing darts when their comments about the big football game on Saturday gave him an idea.

Wisconsin, ranked sixth in one poll and eighth in another, was playing Ohio State, No.1 in both polls. Thousands of people would pour into Madison to see the game. The 80,000-seat stadium would be packed.

“Know anybody who’s got tickets to sell?” he asked the dart throwers.

“No way,” the one with the shaved head said. “Not for this game.”

“This is the Game of the Year, dude,” said the blond with lamb-chop sideburns and a navy Corona-beer cap.

“I’m desperate,” Denny said. “My brother’s coming and I’m trying to come up with two tickets.”

“How much you willing to put up?”

“A hundred bucks each.”

“Cool!”

“The dude’s serious!”

Lamb Chops mentioned a dormitory roommate.

“Let me check around for you.”

If he could swing it, he said he’d bring the tickets to the bar the next day.

The next afternoon he was back, two tickets in hand.

“Only they’re not together,” Lambchops said. “One’s on the twenty, a really terrific seat. The other’s in the end zone, but it’s halfway up. You can see the whole field.”

“Fine.”

“But the guy wants a hundred-and-fifty each.”

Denny hesitated. He was going to need every penny he had. “One-twenty-five.”

“Deal.”

By now, the FBI was sure to have Meesh under around-the-clock surveillance, but Denny had thought of a way he might be able to get word to her. The Bureau might not know about her mother. Her mother didn’t have a computer, but he could send her a note and one of the football tickets through good old-fashioned snail mail. She could deliver them to Meesh.

He made the note as simple and precise as he could, explaining that he needed lots of money and a stubby blue pencil that was somewhere in his apartment, probably in the desk in his bedroom. The pencil had an imprint of some sort on it and was very important. He warned her that The FBI was probably watching her every move. If she could somehow give them the slip, she should bring the pencil and money to the football game in Madison on Saturday.

“I don’t have my cell,” he said. “When the game clock shows seven minutes left to play in the second quarter, go to the nearest ladies’ rest room. If it looks safe, I’ll contact you. Otherwise, go to the same rest room when the clock shows seven minutes left in the third quarter. Can’t wait to see you! Love, D (PS – Please wear your yellow jacket!)”

From his car in the street in front of Michelle Walker’s yellow-brick high-rise in Summit, Groark watched the darkened windows of her fourth-floor apartment and saw no movement.

It was mid-morning and he had sat there watching for twenty minutes. She should be at her job.

He removed the tool box from the trunk of the car and crossed the street. The glass doors beneath the building’s maroon awning were unlocked. There were no security guards in the lobby. How nice it was of the young lady to live in a classy, crime-free suburb. It made things much easier.

He passed a well-dressed woman in the foyer and gave her a big smile and hello. She glanced at his tool box and his green work clothes and nodded curtly.

The fourth-floor hallway was empty. To be sure no one was in Walker’s apartment, Groark pressed the buzzer beside her door. There was no response.

The lock was easy. He had pry bars, but they tended to scratch the door and would look a bit awkward if someone came along. All he needed was his metal shim.

He slid it between the door and the door frame and pressed the latch back into the door.

The apartment was much fancier than Kinney’s apartment. Big and airy, with shiny hardwood floors and expensive furniture covered with an almond fabric.

The colors were perfect. His three-outlet plug adapters, each fitted with a tiny microphone and transmitter, were beige.

He inserted one adaptor in the electrical outlet behind the sofa. He put the other one in Walker’s bedroom, in an outlet behind a heavy dresser. Then he checked both rooms to be sure everything was exactly as he’d found it. Perfect.

He went back to his car, slipped off his green work shirt, and pulled on a bright plaid short-sleeve shirt.

Directly across the street from Walker’s building was another apartment building. In a ground floor window of the building there was a “Vacancies” sign.

Inside, he talked with the building superintendent and inspected three units before putting down a deposit and a month’s rent for one of them. It was a fifth-floor studio that looked down on Meesh Walker’s living room and kitchen windows.

FIFTY-FIVE

Laura McKesson, the only secretary in the FBI’s cozy little office in Madison, was in a state of perpetual astonishment.

“Three more!” she exclaimed as yet another group of agents arrived. They were streaming into Madison from field offices and small satellite offices all across the Midwest,

Larry Fagan, the agent-in-charge of the local office, took Jim Moran and Steve Libretti on a tour of the Madison area. He drove them around the city’s central business district, up and down the streets that crisscrossed the sprawling university campus, and through several residential areas.

Libretti peered out the car window but said little. He was a short, stocky man with curly black hair and a graying mustache. There was an air of self-assurance about him that commanded respect.

They headed up University Avenue. On either side of the wide street the sidewalks were filled with students in faded jeans and dark shorts, sweatshirts and brightly colored t-shirts, sneakers and flip-flops. There were lots of backpacks, baseball caps, and heads with long, stringy hair.

“How many students did you say there are?” Moran asked.

“More than forty thousand,” Fagan said.

“And Kinney is not much older than many of them,” Moran said. “He looks younger than he really is.”

Libretti gazed at a young man with rounded glasses and a goatee. Hanging from his shoulder was a children’s multi-colored dinosaur knapsack.

“For all we know,” Libretti said, “the son-of-a-bitch could be walking past us right now.”

“That’s right,” Fagin said.

He gave them a run-down on local law enforcement agencies. Most were quite professional and cooperative, and he felt he had a good relationship with them.

“But the cop shop is a sieve. If they find out we’re centering our search on Madison, it’ll be all over the
State-Tribune
in the morning.”

“Figures,” Libretti said. “We’ve got to keep them in the dark as long as we can.”

The agents from other cities were booked into a dozen different motels in and around Madison. Fagan rented two large meeting rooms at a Ramada Inn. His secretary posted signs for a fake pharmaceutical conference and provided the out-of-town agents with phony name tags identifying them as sales representatives.

Within forty-eight hours, the inhabitants of Madison’s streets, bars, coffee houses, and university buildings included more than a hundred FBI agents. They masqueraded as students, faculty members, tourists, street vendors, and even panhandlers.

To make sure the Bureau was aware of any suspicious activities that might involve Denis Kinney, one of Fagan’s agents kept close watch on the offense reports filed by Madison and campus police.

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies across the country continued to receive reports of possible sightings of the suspected assassin. Fresh reports poured in every day.

While efforts were made to check out every report, the FBI focused its attention on southern Wisconsin. Bambrick arrived in Madison only fifteen hours after Moran. Two hours later, fifty more agents were dispatched to the Wisconsin capital.

That was more than Moran and Libretti wanted in a city of fewer than 250,000. The more agents they put on its streets, the more likely their presence would be detected.

If Kinney learned they were hot on his heels, he’d flee — or, worse, lock himself in a room somewhere and never show his face.

On Langdon Street, just off the campus, Greta Kolb didn’t like what she was learning about young Mr. Bayless.

Grumbling as she searched for her handyman, she found Otto trimming the hedge in the backyard.

“Did you fix that window?” She pointed towards the second floor.

He turned off the electric trimmer. “What did you say?”

She crossed the yard. “Did you put the new glass in that bathroom window?”

“Yah, yah, it’s done.” He shook his head. “Funny fellow, that one.”

“Who?”

“That fellow from Iowa. The young fellow in that room.”

“He’s not from Iowa. He’s from Pennsylvania.”

Otto shrugged. “Got Iowa plates on his car.”

“He does?” Funny, she thought, he’d never mentioned Iowa to her.

“He didn’t care about the window. Didn’t even want to let me in.”

Greta Kolb was indignant. “A cracked window! My land, we don’t live like that. You put the new glass in?”

“Yah, yah.” He turned on the clippers. “He’s got nothing in that room,” he shouted. “No clothes. Nothing.”

Oh, dear. And young Bayless had paid her in cash, too. She hoped he wasn’t another one of those campus dope peddlers. She wouldn’t stand for that.

FIFTY-SIX

The note stunned Meesh.

When she read parts of it aloud, her mother was puzzled. “What in the world is he doing in Wisconsin?”

Meesh ignored the question. “Do you want some tea or something, Mom?”

“Oh, I can’t stay. Tinker Bell is all alone.”

“She’ll be all right, Mom. I don’t know any human beings who have it as good as that poodle.”

“She has the sniffles, poor thing. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I knew you’d want Denny’s note. Why in the world is he way up there where it’s so cold?”

“I don’t know, Mom. He just wound up there, I guess.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s not in Mexico, for goodness sake. The TV said he was in Mexico.”

“He needs money. I’m going to take him some money.”

Her mother looked stunned. “All the way to Wisconsin?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I don’t think you should do that, dear. I talked with Beth last night. She thinks you should stay away from Denny.”

“I’m sure she does.”

Now that Meesh’s father was gone, her mother’s Final Authority was Beth. Even when her father was alive, Beth’s opinions seemed to count more than Meesh’s.

“Beth says you could end up in jail if you’re not careful.”

“What the hell does Beth know, Mom? She’s a glorified waitress in the sky. She doles out coffee and pretzels in the clouds. Big deal.”

Her mother shook her head. “I think you’re asking for trouble, both of you.”

“Asking for trouble?” Meesh fought back tears. My God, the FBI not only thought Denny knew something about the assassination; they thought he was the assassin. “What do you think he’s in now, Mom?”

“You don’t have to raise your voice, young lady. You know I like Denny. He’s a fine boy, but… Can’t you just wire him some money? Western Union will do that, you know.”

“No. I have something else he needs. Something that might help him prove he had nothing to do with this whole business.”

“Where’s he staying out there?”

“I don’t know. He’s being very careful, because the whole country is looking for him.”

Her mother waggled her head. “He’s such a nice, polite boy.”

“There’s a big football game there. I’m going to meet him at the game.”

“Shit!”

Groark couldn’t believe his rotten luck.

In the apartment above Walker’s, the babe with the great boobs was about to step into the shower when he heard the voices on his receiver-recorder across the room.

“Why now, for chrissake?” He put his binoculars down, ran to the kitchen counter, grabbed the compact recorder and receiver, and raced back to the window.

The young woman was gone.

“Stupid bitch!”

He was still fuming when he realized the voices in Walker’s apartment were talking about Denny Kinney. He grabbed a glazed doughnut and bit into it while he listened.

The conversation told him all he needed to know.

On his laptop he quickly found stories about Saturday’s college football games that mentioned the Wisconsin-Ohio State game. It was to be played in Madison.

He phoned the Madison Chamber of Commerce.

“Oh, yes,” the woman said. “It’s a very big game.”

“Where is it? What time does it start?”

“Just one minute, sir.” He heard her talking to someone else. “It’s a late game. Apparently it’s going to be on ABC. It starts at three.”

“Fine.”

“All the games here are at Camp Randall.”

“How can I get a ticket?”

A man’s voice came on the line. “I’m afraid it’s impossible to get tickets at this late date. It’s our biggest game of the season.”

“What about scalpers? You got ticket scalpers out there?”

“Oh,sure. You bet. There are always some enterprising students outside the stadium trying to make a few dollars by selling their tickets.”