ME: So why didn’t Marcello blow up when Frank didn’t leave the rifle at Dealey Plaza?
STONE: [chuckles] When we think about mobsters like Carlos Marcello, we inflate their powers in our minds. We see them as fearless. But Carlos had watched Frank Knox train Cuban exiles at his camp. He’d heard the stories of what Frank had done in the Pacific. The medal-winning assaults, the mutilation of prisoners, the black market skulls. Compared to Frank Knox, a Mafia hit man with a snubnose .38 was a clown.
KAISER: There are some guys it doesn’t pay to go to war with. Especially when they only live three hours away from you.
ME: But the ballistics . . . How could the bullet fired from Frank’s Remington match the bullets fired from Oswald’s Carcano?
STONE: Ferrie would have provided ammunition to both Oswald and Knox. That would further tie the two shooters in an apparent conspiracy. Lee was poor as dirt, so he wouldn’t have bought new ammo if he didn’t have to.
ME: You’re missing my point. If Frank didn’t use that second Carcano, then he couldn’t have used the bullets that matched Oswald’s lot. You said he needed a rifle that fired a super-fast round, didn’t you? How did the metallurgy of Frank’s bullets—fired from a Remington 700—match the bullets Oswald fired from his 6.58 Mannlicher-Carcano?
STONE: That’s where Frank Knox proved his genius. Frank’s bullet was designed to explode on impact with Kennedy’s skull, remember? It left very little trace. But the metallurgy of the fragments did match Oswald’s bullet. New tests were done only a few months ago. There are a couple of ways that this match could have been accomplished. You get into complex gunsmithing work and reloading issues, but Frank was an old hand at all that stuff. All the Knoxes were. The only requirement would have been that Frank had a sample of the ammo Oswald used, and he did. With that, he could have used any rifle he wanted. Trust me, Penn—it can be done.
ME: I’d rather hear the explanation.
Leaning forward, I fast-forward past the complex ballistics and stop on the revelation that floored me. I dread hearing it again, but I want to evaluate it once more before Caitlin arrives and distracts me.
STONE: Tell him, John. He’s gone beyond the call for us.
KAISER: I told you I sent two agents up to the Mississippi field office today. That’s how I found the Triton medical excuse. But once the director was on board, I also put out a Bureau-wide request for any and all files of any type on all the principals in this case. Late this afternoon, a clerk at the Jackson field office sent me a digitized copy of one more file.
ME: Which was?
KAISER: In 1993, a file clerk at the Triton Battery Corporation requested the return of Frank Knox’s personnel record.
ME: So?
KAISER: They didn’t do that out of the blue. They’d been contacted by a former company physician who wanted to see the record. You know who that was.
ME: Bullshit.
STONE: It was your father, Penn. About a month after Carlos Marcello died in New Orleans, Tom requested Frank Knox’s Triton personnel record from the company. You see, he had no idea that the Bureau would have the file.
ME: And what do you conclude from that?
STONE: Well. Either Tom had just figured out what he’d been a part of, and wanted to check it, or . . .
KAISER: That’s not it, guys. I know you don’t want to hear it, but he wouldn’t risk asking for that file out of simple curiosity. Dr. Cage knew what he’d done back in ’63. And once Marcello was dead, he did what he could to wipe out the traces. He just didn’t count on the Bureau having that record.
STONE: John—
KAISER: He nearly got away with it, too. Because nobody at the Bureau could find the file when Triton Battery made their request. They simply reported back to Triton that the file couldn’t be found. If a conscientious Bureau clerk hadn’t decided to open a file to note the unfulfilled request, the whole event would have been lost in the sands of time.
As I listen to Stone try to ameliorate the effects of Kaiser’s accusation, my cell phone vibrates on Caitlin’s desk. The incoming text reads: I just pulled into the lot. I see your car. Be inside in a sec. Love you!
I switch off the recorder, glad to be spared the last two minutes of conversation. My argument with Kaiser was as intense as it was pointless. I won’t know what prompted Dad to request that medical record until I can question him directly, and until he’ll tell me the truth. But what lingers in my mind is the lump in my throat as I took leave of Stone. Though the old agent put on a brave face, and I tried to match it, I couldn’t suppress the conviction that I would never see him again. And though he’d brought me unwelcome news, I knew that Stone’s heart had always been in the right place. The tragedy was that his news had made me confront even more starkly the question of whether the same was true of my father.
I’ve barely gotten my recorder back into my pocket when Caitlin’s office door flies open and she steps inside, obviously looking for me.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. Where have you been? I’ve been worried.”
It’s instantly obvious my tone has angered her. “I went to see a couple of my contacts in the black community,” she says, setting her purse down on the desk.
I try to make eye contact, but she turns away and begins heating water for tea. She speaks with her back to me.
“The Jackson radio station has been running that Lincoln Turner interview all day, and I heard he’s been swaying some people—persuading them I’ve been protecting Tom in the Examiner. As I told you this afternoon, some of my own reporters seem to believe the same thing.”