Page 106 of The 9th Man

“Habits of a lifetime.”

“How do you power this place?” he asked.

“There are a few cabins up here, all on private lands. But there’s a ranger station a few miles away. They got power, so we got power.”

“Internet?”

“I have a satellite dish. That’s how we stayed in contact.”

He’d brought inside his trail pack that contained the laptop they used in Louisiana and Texas, which he opened and used to give a condensed version of the play-by-play assassination presentation he’d given Jillian.

“You figured all this out on your own?” Eckstein asked. “Pretty impressive. Tell me how you got this far.”

Jillian handled that inquiry, recounting her and Luke’s journey starting in Belgium and ending with their discovery of the Find3Points phone app.

Luke motioned to the combined graphic on the computer. “That’s you there, in the center, perpendicular to the motorcade. DE6.”

Eckstein nodded. “That was a terrible day. Third worst of my life. What was done to that man. He deserved better.”

“Did you go there to see the president?” Luke asked.

“Not exactly. See, my boy was born in 1962. There was a problem with his heart and he needed an operation. We didn’t have the money. I was an optical engineer. At the time I was working for Belvor Labs in Fort Worth. We prototyped stuff, did quality assurance, that kind of thing. We had a contract with Canon to pressure-test an experimental camera—”

“Model 814?”

“Yep. Just like it says there on the diagram. Way ahead of its time. I figured it was going to be a big moneymaker. So I dropped a fishing line to Canon’s biggest competitor at the time. They were interested. Said that if the 814 was as good as I claimed they’d pay me $10,000 just to borrow it a bit. Not steal. Borrow for a few hours. I assumed they planned to do some reverse engineering. That was a lot of money. More than I had ever known, and it would get my boy the care he needed. November 22 was the day I was supposed to meet them and make the exchange. I get to the meeting early and have some time to kill. I think, what better way to convince my buyers of the camera’s quality than to film a presidential motorcade? So I start walking toward Dealey. As I’m crossing Main I see the motorcade coming toward Houston. I run across the grass, plant myself at the Elm Street curb, and start rolling. I catch Kennedy and the First Lady turning the corner onto Elm.”

The old man paused and pursed his lips, a glint of tears in his eyes.

“It always chokes me up remembering that day. It all happened so fast, but I stayed focused on the motorcade until it went through the underpass. I saw it all. Then it hits me. I’m not supposed to have that camera. I could go to jail, lose my job, so I panic and start running. Everybody else was running, too, so I hoped nobody would notice me. I found my car and tore outta there, driving until my hands stopped shaking, then I went back to the lab and put the camera in the equipment locker. Nobody ever knew. But I kept the film. For weeks afterward I was a wreck, waiting for the FBI, or the Secret Service, to break down my door. But nobody ever came.”

“And you’ve never been mentioned anywhere in anything?” Jillian asked.

“I had the camera in a backpack that I was holding. You couldn’t see it. In the confusion nobody noticed, nor was I photographed. Believe me, I’ve checked them all as they were published.”

“What about your son?” Jillian asked.

“He died three months later.”

Though a long time ago every bit of the pain from that loss was clearly still there.

“All over the news they were asking for cameras and pictures, anything folks may have taken that day. But I couldn’t come forward. I thought about sending it anonymously, but if it was traced back to me, I was gone. I needed my job more than I needed to help the government. That’s when my wife had her fall.”

Luke waited for an explanation.

“While I was at work one day she went headfirst down our basement stairs and broke her neck. Accidental, they said.”

“Was it?”

He nodded. “It was. A terrible accident. Nobody ever came after me. I was unknown. Which was great. My wife was gone, my son buried, so I left Fort Worth and wandered the country taking jobs where I could. Back then you could still disappear, and I did. Eventually I settled outside Boston and got a job with Kodak.”

“How did you and Ray and Benji come together?” Luke asked.

“That was about twenty years ago. We were all part of an online chat group that dealt with the assassination. We developed a connection and branched out, communicating only among the three of us. Ray was a ballistics guy and damn good. He also had a link to the rifle Oswald used. Benji, as a military man, had the government clearances to get access to things. For a long time I refused to meet with either of them, but after a while I decided they were trustworthy. That’s when Ray came and I showed him the film. After that we three started our own investigation. We became a team. Studying the timeline, the different players involved, the books and articles, dissecting the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations reports. We also ran a lot of ballistic tests. Ray and I did them right out there in the meadow. Between the three of us we figured it out that Thomas Rowland killed John Kennedy.”

53

ROWLAND HAD ALWAYS ADMIRED ABRAHAM LINCOLN. SURE, LINCOLNwas remembered for his monumental successes. Elected president twice. Saved the Union. Ended slavery. Won the war.