Caitlin blushed again, but as soon as Mrs. Sexton left the office, she closed the door and hurried back behind the advertising desk. With Kaiser in the building, the journey to her office was too risky. This office door had no lock, but with FBI agents and techs roaming the newsroom and halls, this was as safe a place as any in the building.
Caitlin heard the blood rushing in her ears as she opened the manila envelope and spread its contents across the desk. There were only a few sheets of paper inside. An inkjet-printed photograph grabbed her attention and held it. A craggy-faced man with hollow eyes and cracked, tanned skin stared out at her with unsettling intensity. He reminded her of John Brown, the wild-eyed abolitionist. Or maybe Abraham Lincoln without a beard. She turned over the page and saw block letters written in pencil: ELAM KNOX. After looking once more into the wild eyes, she checked the rest of the pages.
One long, folded piece paper turned out to be a hand-drawn Knox family tree, beginning in the late 1800s. An FBI document that looked to be the heavily redacted version of the 302 detailing Jason Abbott’s 1972 interview about the Double Eagles and Forrest Knox came next. Then finally she found four sheets of notepaper covered with Henry’s now-familiar script, though in this case it looked as though he’d been drunk while he wrote. The first page began “Dear Caitlin.” She centered the letter before her and began to read at lightning speed.
Dear Caitlin,
Forgive me if I ramble. I’m weaning myself off the pain drugs, but my mind’s still foggy. Sherry’s dead, and the FBI’s put me in an office they converted to a hospital room. But I’m not going to stay here. I’ve thought a lot about the last three days, and either Royal or Forrest Knox had to be behind this attack. I believe it was Royal, and I’m going to confront him tonight. I’ve sat on the sidelines too long. I don’t know if I’ll survive the encounter or not, so I’m leaving this for you.
John Kaiser came to see me earlier today, before you. I trust his motives, for the most part, even though he’s FBI. He told me some things about the Knox family, which you’ll find in a separate note, and I told him most of what Glenn Morehouse told me on Monday. About Jimmy and Luther being murdered as part of a plan by Carlos Marcello to kill RFK, about Brody’s part, Frank Knox’s death, all of it. Kaiser looked shocked, but when he answered, he shocked me even more. He asked whether I thought Carlos could have hired Frank Knox to kill John F. Kennedy in 1963.
As dumb as it may seem to you, I’d never really considered this possibility. You’ve read my files, so you know that on the day Frank founded the Double Eagles, he talked about killing JFK, RFK, and MLK. It seems obvious now, but at the time Morehouse told me about the RFK plan, I was totally focused on Brody Royal. For so many years I’d been working to find out who killed Albert Norris that I missed the bigger picture.
Once Kaiser raised the JFK idea, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The relationship between Frank Knox and Carlos Marcello dated to well before the Bay of Pigs. If Marcello wanted the president dead, Frank would have been a natural choice, so long as Carlos trusted him. Carlos obviously did, because he went to Frank when he wanted to murder Robert Kennedy in ’68.
Now we come to the point. Though I suspected Kaiser was right, I didn’t tell him any more than I originally had. But I knew more. When Morehouse called me back Monday night, he told me something I didn’t even put in my journal. After he told me about the RFK plan, he told me Frank Knox had something on Marcello, something he’d kept as insurance, to protect himself in case things ever went bad between them. Remember, Brody used to lend the Double Eagles to Marcello as muscle on Florida real estate deals, so there was a long history there. And it was when I went to New Orleans to check out those deals that somebody sent me the photo with the rifle scope printed over my face. At the time, I figured that was Royal protecting his crooked deals, but now I think he or Forrest was keeping me away from the old conspiracy.
When I asked Morehouse what Frank had kept for “insurance,” he said it was a letter or document of some kind. Morehouse had seen it once, but he couldn’t read it because it was written in a foreign language. Snake once told him it was Russian, but he didn’t know for sure. Whatever the paper was, he said, it dealt with something so big that everything else paled in comparison—even the RFK plot. I thought that was bullshit, and I told him so. If there was anything bigger than the RFK plan, nobody would have left any paperwork. Morehouse told me that whatever the paper was, Frank kept it at the Bone Tree, so nobody could find it.
The night I talked to Morehouse, I made my first and only contact with Toby Rambin, who promised he could take me to the Bone Tree. But at that time I wasn’t thinking about Frank’s “insurance.” I was thinking about all the bodies that might have been dumped at the Bone Tree. Jimmy and Luther, Joe Louis Lewis, Pooky. It was only after Kaiser talked to me today that I realized how important Frank’s “insurance” might be, and that it must have to do with John Kennedy.
You’ve got Toby Rambin’s number now. I was stoned on Dilaudid when I told you about it, but I know you got it, because when I checked my cell phone, I saw you’d changed his last name and number in my contacts list. You’ve been a naughty girl, but I’m in no position to criticize. I held back a lot from Kaiser myself. If I’m honest, I guess down deep I’m as ambitious as you are.
If these pages reach you, then I’m probably not around anymore. If so, take them with my blessing and do what you can to get to the bottom of all this. If Kaiser finds them I guess that’s the second-best outcome. I’m tired now, and I’ve got a journey ahead of me. Maybe a fight, too. However it goes, you take care of yourself.
Henry