Frame 232 (12 page)

“Mr. Hammond, my mother was the person they called the Babushka Lady.”

The distance between them seemed endless, the movement of time and space ropy and out of sync. Hammond absorbed this last bit of information and came to the only conclusion possible.

“Ms. Baker, stay where you are and don’t tell anyone else about this, okay? Don’t tell
anyone
.”

“Okay.”

“I’m on my way.”

THE FRONT DOORBELL
rang just after six, and Sheila had to stop her current project
 
—going through the kitchen cabinets
 
—to answer it.

She stepped into the hallway and opened the door, and the figure that had been silhouetted against the curtain a moment earlier became a person. The face was familiar
 
—from television, the Internet, and most recently, an issue of
People
she had been browsing through while in her dentist’s waiting room.

The first thing she noticed was the smile.
Dazzling
was the word that came to mind; perfect teeth framed by a rugged jaw. Then the eyes, as cheerful as the smile, with a spirited glow that so many people lost over time. He wasn’t handsome in the conventional sense, like a movie star. But he had . . .
presence
, she thought.

It reminded her of the time she ran into Dustin Hoffman in New York City. She’d gone into a camera shop to pick up some film, and Hoffman was there with his youngest son. They exchanged brief hellos and no more. She figured he probably got pawed by people all the time, and she didn’t want to be one of those types. But she couldn’t help sensing
a certain power about him, a feeling that the universe just might be revolving around the spot where he stood at any moment. She never thought she’d sense that in anyone again, but Jason Hammond had a touch of it for sure.
But does charisma necessarily make him trustworthy?

“Hi,” he said. “I hope I have the right house. Are you Ms. Baker?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, great. I’m Jason.” He said this as if he were a door-to-door salesman rather than a minor celebrity.

“Hello, Jason. I’m Sheila.”

“Hello, Sheila.”

“Please come in.”

“Thanks.”

He pulled the screen door back and stepped inside. He was nicely dressed, with dark trousers and a pea-green short-sleeved shirt. Both were immaculately pressed and made from some exotic material. The Piaget watch had a black strap and matching face. One of the guys Sheila had dated back home had worn a similar model, but it was an obvious fake. The gold trim had begun to fade, but he kept wearing it instead of having the good sense to buy a new one every few months to maintain the illusion. Sheila didn’t have to consult a professional jeweler to know that the one wrapped around Hammond’s wrist was genuine. She also noticed the backpack slung over his shoulder, which was bulging and looked very heavy.

“I’m sorry about the short notice,” he said. “I hope it isn’t too much of an imposition.”

“Oh no, that’s okay.”
At least he’s polite,
she thought, and another comparison came to mind
 
—all the stories she’d heard about other people meeting celebrities and coming away with the opinion that they were jerks or full of themselves.

“This is a nice home. It looks like your mom kept it well.”

“She was very big on neatness and order.” Simple, ice-breaking talk. “So was my dad.”

“Then you must be too.”

She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I try, but I usually don’t succeed.”

“Ah, well, the fact that you try is good enough.”

“Can I get you something to drink?” It felt like a dumb thing to say, but she couldn’t think of anything else.
So do you want to go downstairs and watch the film my mother made of our thirty-fifth president being murdered in broad daylight?
She doubted there was proper etiquette for this occasion. “I have Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, orange juice, bottled water . . .”

“Water would be fine, thank you.”

As they went to the kitchen, she opened the fridge and realized that it, too, had to be cleaned out. There were piles of leftovers from the postfuneral reception, and there was no way she’d eat even a fraction of them.

She found a bottle of Poland Spring and held it out. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. Looks like you’re doing some organizing.” The contents of the cabinets were scattered everywhere.

“It needs to be done now that my mother is gone.”

“Sure, of course. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“She had lung cancer; is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“She battled it for about three years.”

“Brave woman.”

“She really was.”
You have no idea. . . .

After a brief and awkward silence, Sheila surprised herself by laughing. “Well, this is a strange situation, isn’t it?”

“A little bit, yes.”

“I’m guessing you’d like to see the film?”

He took a deep breath. “I just hope I’m ready for it.”

“It’s pretty harsh.”

“Based on your description, I’d say it’s pretty
historic
.”

“I think you’re right. Please don’t scare me any more than I already am.”

“Sorry.”

They went down the basement steps, careful not to trip on more piles of soon-to-be-organized stuff. When they entered what Sheila now thought of as the “film room,” Hammond spotted the projector, and she saw the twinkle in his eyes intensify. He moved toward it in a cautious, almost-reverent manner, leaning down to inspect the reel.

“Kodachrome Super 8,” he said, “just like Abraham Zapruder used.”

“Is that good?”

“Well, it’s
correct
. The time frame is right. And it appears to be in great condition. Your mom was smart to keep it at the bank, in a climate-controlled environment. Even some movie studios haven’t been so smart. Do you know how many original classics have been lost or almost lost because they were stored improperly?”

“Didn’t something like that happen to
My Fair Lady
?”

“Yes, that was one. It was salvaged just in time. A few more years and
poof
 
—” he accompanied this with a hand gesture
 
—“it would’ve been gone forever.” He moved to the other side of the table, as if the film might look different from that angle. “But that’s not the case here. This one’s immaculate, which is very fortunate.”

“Depends on what you consider good fortune,” Sheila said.

Hammond looked at her, his smile disappearing. “This is probably very difficult for you, isn’t it.”

“Um . . . It’s been a bizarre few days for sure.”

“Well, please don’t worry about this. Everything will be okay.”

She wanted to believe it, wanted to be able to set all her fears aside and place her faith in this man. He had a remarkably soothing way about him. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to come from all this
 
—if not from him, then from somewhere else.
Maybe I should’ve followed my first instinct and thrown it in the fireplace.

She took her mother’s letter from her pocket. “I guess you should read this before you watch.”

He took the letter and unfolded it. As his eyes moved over each line, his lips parted in astonishment.

“So do you want to see it now?” She wasn’t sure if she could stand to watch it a second time herself, but she’d at least get it rolling for him.

“Yes, but before we do that
 
—” He slid off his knapsack, set it on the couch, and removed two large items
 
—a silver laptop with the familiar Apple symbol and a second movie projector. The latter was about the same size as her parents’ but with more buttons, meters, and other bells and whistles. It had an expensive look about it. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to run it through this projector instead of that one. Okay with you?”

“It won’t damage the film in any way, will it?”

“Not a bit. What it will do is transfer it into a digital format. That way we’ll have a file to work with. Also, if anything happens to the original, we’ll have a backup.”

“Oh, okay. Sure.”

Hammond found an old table and dragged it over. Then Sheila located an extension cord and plugged it into an outlet by the washing machine. There was a pile of dirty laundry on the floor, which she found embarrassing even though Hammond appeared not to notice.

Another few minutes passed as he connected the devices and got them synced. He detached the film from the old projector with the meticulous care of a professional archivist. Once it was in place, he pulled up two chairs.

“Here, have a seat,” he said, getting behind the laptop.

Sheila hesitated
 
—
Do I have to?
 
—but sat anyway.

He launched a program from the task bar, and a new window opened. Along the top were the words
Avid Technology Digital Transfer
. “This is industrial software. It’s designed to do nothing but transfer analog film into digital format. And this laptop is about the best there is for such work.”

He opened more screens, made further adjustments. “All right, I think we’re ready.” Then he turned to her. “Do you mind watching this again?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“I’d be very grateful if you did, just so you could point out the things you saw.”

“I’ll try.”

“I promise
 
—just this one time.”

“Okay.”

He checked everything once more, then started the projector. When the reels began to rotate, he tapped the touch pad to initiate the transfer.

In a large window, the film that thousands of assassination researchers had sought for decades came to life once more.

“Amazing,” Hammond said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Look at the quality, the sharpness.”

The advance motorcycles disappeared, and the presidential limousine came into view again. Sheila’s throat went dry; she knew what was coming.

“There’s Bill Greer,” Hammond said, “and Roy Kellerman. They’re Secret Service agents. Greer is the driver; Kellerman is the one on the passenger side, up front.”

As the limo came closer, the camera panned left to follow it. The handsome president and his beautiful wife waved to the crowd, dazzling and vibrant in their youth and the promises they offered to an America that would remain idealistic and innocent for only a few more moments.

“Zapruder!” Hammond said. “There he is, as plain as
 
—”

“Look down there,” Sheila interrupted, pointing.

He followed the imaginary line from her finger to the horizontal gap of the Elm Street storm drain, where the head of a dark-haired man appeared for the briefest instant. And to his right
 
—Margaret Baker’s left
 
—was the rifle. The man turned once, facing forward, then to the side again as he lifted the weapon. Hammond strained for a closer look, but the limousine rolled in front of the drain, blocking it. And as Margaret Baker continued panning, it passed out of view.

The president jerked as he absorbed Oswald’s second bullet. Then came the third, followed by the hideous explosion of flesh and bone. Sheila made a point of looking away.

Hammond leaned forward as the grassy knoll came into view. “No evidence of a shooter there. That takes care of Ed Hoffman’s story,” he whispered.

“Who’s Ed Hoffman?” Sheila asked.

“A deaf-mute who came to Dealey Plaza to watch the president from the shoulder of the Stemmons Freeway. He claimed he saw a man with a rifle moving in a westward
direction along the stockade fence immediately after the shooting. He supposedly tossed the rifle to a second man, dressed in a railroad worker’s uniform, who disassembled it and placed the parts in a bag. Both men then moved off in separate directions. When Hoffman went to the FBI with this report, he was largely ignored. Rightly, as it turns out, based on what I’m seeing here.”

The crowd scattered as the limousine sped under the bridge on its way to Parkland Memorial Hospital. Then Margaret Baker’s film came to an end.

Hammond continued to stare into the monitor as if something were still there.

“Shouldn’t you stop the transfer now?”

“What?”

“The digital transfer.”

“Oh . . . yeah.” He reached over and tapped the touch pad. “Unbelievable. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s incredible.”

“I know.”

“Do you understand the magnitude of this?” His tone was in no way accusatory or condescending. “This changes
everything
we know about the assassination. All the theories, all the official reports
 
—this isn’t just your mom’s film; this could be
the
key piece of evidence.”