Frame 232 (2 page)

He was interrupted, presumably by a news editor who had just pulled an Associated Press bulletin from one of the wire machines. Cronkite put on the horn-rimmed glasses that gave him the academic bearing of a nuclear physicist. He read through the bulletin once while America waited, then turned back to the camera.

“From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official. President Kennedy died
 
—”

At this point he removed the glasses again, and Margaret Baker let out a warbling, uneven cry.

“
 
—at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, two o’clock Eastern Standard Time . . . some thirty-eight minutes ago.”

The glasses went back on again, and a clearly affected Cronkite took a moment to compose himself. “Vice President Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded; presumably
 
—”

Margaret switched it off. She then covered her face and wept. Kennedy had offered so much hope, so much promise. He had fresh and exciting ideas that represented the dawn of a new age.
And it’s all gone now.

When the tears dried up, she went to the mirror and wiped her face with the hardened tissue mass. Then she found some busywork, putting the glasses in their case and back into the forgotten reaches of her top drawer and setting the scarf by
her jewelry box so she wouldn’t forget to bring it back to the neighbor who’d loaned it to her.

She took hold of the overcoat, planning to put it back up in the attic, where it had been stored. Then she felt the weight of it, of something semi-heavy that was
 
—

The camera.

She stopped. Every function in the universe, in fact, seemed to pause while she digested the magnitude of the discovery. She reached into the pocket, found the hard metal shape, and brought it out. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she stared at it as if it were a living, breathing thing. Then the unavoidable question came.
The film
 
—what should I do with it?

A litany of possibilities marched through her mind, none of them palatable. From a financial standpoint, it would likely be worth a small fortune. She had been about thirty feet from the car when the president was struck, and she was certain the quality was above average. But . . .
No,
she decided.
I will not profit from this. Absolutely not.

Should the film be turned over as evidence?
Maybe. . . .
Surely there would be a massive investigation. But what about the people pointing to the high window in the book depository?
If that really was where the assassin fired from, I never turned the camera in that direction. And even if I had, what good would it do now? Would it bring the president back?

Realistically, then, there was only one option
 
—keep quiet about it. That was almost certainly the safest choice.
Or is it?
Had anyone recognized her while she was there? She had friends all over town. She went out for lunch at least twice a week, and she did a fair share of shopping in the area. Some of the people she saw on a regular basis had to be Kennedy supporters. It followed, then, that at least a few of them had also come out to see him.
Did they see me, too?

Of one thing she was absolutely certain
 
—she would never watch the film. There was no reason to relive the experience. Besides, the film had to be developed, which presented an assortment of new problems. Sometimes the people who worked in those labs looked at the things they were developing. They weren’t supposed to, of course, but they did. If some technician saw those images, what were the odds he’d keep his mouth shut? A person in that position might even feel it was his responsibility to say something to the authorities. If that happened, Margaret might be criminally liable for withholding
 
—

Or . . . what if the film didn’t come out right? What if it got “accidentally” ruined before I even had the chance to develop it?
The story came together easily in her mind
 
—
I was running with the rest of the crowd immediately after the shooting. I fell down. . . . The camera tumbled out of my hand. . . . It popped open, and the film was exposed.
Then she would show the police (or FBI or CIA or whomever) the exposed and ruined roll as proof, and that would be that. They wouldn’t suspect her of anything dubious. Why would they?

She ran her hand over the camera and found the little ring that opened the protective panel. She sat staring at it for a long time, taking slow, measured breaths. Then she slipped her forefinger into it.

There was a metallic
clunk
downstairs
 
—the lock on the front door being opened
 
—followed by the familiar rattle of Ronnie’s keys. The door squealed, and he called out, “Honey? Honey! Where are you?”

She took a deep breath and slid her finger back out.

“Margaret? Are you
 
—?”

“I’m up here, Ronnie.”

“In the bedroom?”

“Yes. I’ll be down in a minute.”

“All right.”

She gave the Bolex one last look, hoping a decision would come. It did not, and she didn’t want to marinate in the uncertainty for another dreadful minute. Ron would want to talk about the events of the day. That would be followed by hours in front of the television and dozens of phone calls from friends and family. The film could be dealt with later. When, exactly, she didn’t know. Just . . .
later
.

She opened her bedroom closet and knelt down to retrieve the Bolex box. She laid the camera carefully inside, set the lid on, then stored the box in a far corner next to a shoe-shine kit.

The two people responsible for what she did next were her husband and a local blowhard named Ellis Clayton.

The capture of Lee Harvey Oswald did not sway her one way or another. She never had any doubt the authorities would make an arrest. The fact that the shooter turned out to be some defiant little pip-squeak didn’t shock her as much as it did some people.
It’s always a nameless face from the crowd,
she thought as she watched him whine to journalists about police brutality and being someone’s patsy.
Another nobody with delusions of grandeur.
She found his own murder two days later at the hands of nightclub owner Jack Ruby as shocking as the rest of the nation, but more due to the fact that it occurred on live television than anything else.

The following week, Ron said he wanted to take a break from the media madness in the area and drive out to Granbury, a town southwest of Fort Worth where he’d spent his childhood. Then he added, “Let’s bring the camera, too.
I’d like to take some movies that I can watch when I’m feeling homesick.”

Margaret decided at that moment that the film would be disposed of.
Stuffed in the trash
 
—and out of my life forever. The president’s gone; his killer is gone. . . . Why hold on to it?

What changed her mind was a routine trip to the supermarket the following afternoon. Standing in one of the checkout lanes, yammering to one of the clerks and slowing everyone else down as usual, was Ellis Clayton. Clayton was a retired municipal utilities worker who padded about town in shorts and a tank top. He had a harsh, growling voice that he used as if certain every syllable that fell from his lips was sacred.

When Margaret first spotted him, she deviated to the only other lane that was open and tried to tune him out. As she unloaded the carriage, however, her attention was drawn by something he was saying about a possible conspiracy in the assassination
 
—that Oswald might not have acted alone, might in fact have been part of a larger organization
 
—and that new president Lyndon Johnson was ordering a group headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to look into the matter. Margaret was trembling by the time she reached the car.

She knew she could still destroy the film if she wished . . . but that option no longer seemed realistic.
What if it’s true? What if there really were more people behind the killing?
From there her imagination sailed.
The Russians? The Cubans? Fidel Castro? Or maybe President Johnson himsel
f
?
Anyone who paid attention to politics knew Johnson had loathed being vice president.
That would make sense,
she thought, unaware that she was among the first to dabble in the kind of wild speculation that would occupy much of society for a generation.
The fact that he launched the investigation would give him good cover. . . .

Regardless of who was responsible, of this much she was certain
 
—these kinds of things occurred on a level of society so far removed from her own that it might as well have been part of a different universe. And if the president’s murder had, in fact, been a carefully coordinated effort among multiple parties, then those involved were likely well connected, well funded, and frighteningly powerful. In other words, very, very dangerous.

The following Monday
 
—the office was closed on Mondays so Lomax could play golf at his country club
 
—she drove all the way to Plano because she’d found a developing lab listed in the yellow pages and, more importantly, because she didn’t know anyone out there. She used a false name and paid in cash, including an extra fee to have the processing done within two hours. She was so nervous when she walked back into the shop that the technician, still wearing his rubber apron, asked if she was feeling all right. She lied, saying she was in the early stages of her first pregnancy and still experiencing the effects of morning sickness. He congratulated her as he handed her the change, the receipt, and the finished film in a brown paper bag. There was nothing in his manner that gave her the slightest impression he had looked at it. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help asking, “Did it come out all right?”

The tech appeared to be horrified at the suggestion of such unprofessionalism
 
—precisely the reaction Margaret was hoping for. “I wouldn’t look at a customer’s film, ma’am,” he explained, with patience colored ever so slightly by prideful irritation.

Back home, Margaret made a point of securing the front door not just with the dead bolt but also with the chain. She didn’t expect Ronnie to arrive home from work for a few
hours, but if he came early for any reason, she’d be alerted when he had to ring the bell. She would explain that a salesman had come earlier in the day, so she had decided to put the chain on before opening the door and had neglected to remove it.

She went into the basement pantry, unfolded the stepladder, and slid one of the ceiling tiles aside. She had chosen the pantry because it was dark and cool
 
—ideal for film storage. She never removed the reel from its flat yellow box, nor the box from its brown paper bag. She simply set the whole package up there, then moved the tile back into place. At no point did she feel the need to put the film on the projector they kept in the hall closet upstairs. Seeing John Kennedy murdered once was more than enough.

After refolding the ladder and wiping the dust from her hands, she whispered a little prayer that she would not have to take the film out of its hiding place for any reason.

And the Lord would grant this request . . . for a time.

April 1976

Margaret opened the basement door and felt around for the light switch. This simple action was not as easy as it had once been, as her diminishing vision made depth perception difficult. Also, abrupt shifts from light to dark gave her instant headaches, often compounding the chronic migraines that already arrived, unannounced, several days a week. Bright sunlight, which she had loved as a child, was the worst. One look into a clear sky at high noon sent knife blades into her eyes.

She found the switch and flicked it, shielding her face like a frightened animal. Compromised vision and paralyzing
migraines weren’t the only manifestations of the hypertension that had become a relentless presence in her life. In spite of being only forty-one, she had acquired obvious streaks of gray in the thick wave of brown hair that had once shimmered with such radiance it earned the envy of many of her girlfriends. And her face, which had retained much of its youthful clarity well into adulthood, now bore the first lines, blemishes, and discolorations that commonly flow in the wake of unyielding anxiety.