December 23, 1963
n the ground in DC, three PM, the temperature was in the low O twenties. The pilot taxied to a stop alongside another black Olds. Casey thanked the crew for the smooth landing, walked down the steps and to the passenger side of the Olds. He nodded to a man in a dark suit standing at the driver’s door. “Agent Smith, right?”
Casey said.
“No Sir, Jones.”
Casey smiled as he got in, “I should-a guessed. Ok, where we headed, Agent Jones?”
Jones offered Casey a light jacket and stocking hat, which Casey accepted with thanks, and gave Casey an address in Rosslyn.
He said it was near the Potomac, and they got on the road.
Thirty minutes later, they pulled up to a small but stately home on a street of similar homes. Jones rang the doorbell. A small, middle-aged woman dressed as a housemaid answered it. After exchanging greetings, the two of them ushered Casey down one hallway, left down another, and to a door at the end: a man’s study, fifteen feet square, with beveled wood paneling, a large, leather-72
topped desk, lots of dark wood bookshelves, and two comfortable looking, dark leather chairs that faced each other six or eight feet from a burning fireplace.
Agent Jones told Casey to make himself at home, explore the room if he wished, and he would have to wait an hour or two for his host to arrive.
Casey went first to the desk, in an alcove on the right side of the door. An exquisite roll-top. Had to be two hundred years old, he thought. A swivel chair stood in front of the desk and faced away, not as old or ornate, but still well made. He wanted to open the desk drawers, but that would be snooping, so instead he took a knee and pulled the top right one out about an inch, just enough to get a gan-der at the dovetailed joinery. He wondered if the master who had cut them could have known they would still perform their function two centuries later.
He checked out the chairs by the fireplace, realized he was warm now in the jacket and hat, removed them and hung them on a coat rack by the door. He browsed through the books, mostly nine-teenth and early twentieth century histories, quite a few first edi-tions. When his stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten in ten hours, a soft knock on the door announced the woman dressed as a maid.
She carried a large tray of cold cuts, cheeses, rolls, pickles and carrots. She set it on a small table near the desk, said she heard he might not have eaten, showed him a small icebox with an assortment of beers, soft drinks and water, and left.
Forty minutes later, after having made a sizeable dent in the tray and polishing off his second beer, another soft knock announced the maid, who said if he was finished, she would remove the tray. Casey thanked her and she left.
The fire needed tending. He selected two medium-sized pieces of firewood from the caddy and added them to the fire. It had been a hard day. Add to that the long flight, full belly, two beers, and a soft chair in front of a glowing fireplace. Nearly an hour later, at 6:30 PM, Casey woke up and came to his feet quickly as the door opened, this time with no knock.
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Two new agents strode in. All business. Asked if Casey would please raise his arms and submit to a search, but their manner suggested he didn’t have a choice.
With all the Agents hanging around, and the body search, Casey thought he might be right after all about who his host was. He started to panic. He didn’t know what he’d say. He couldn’t imagine why this man would want to talk to him; he had nothing to gain.
There was nothing he could take from Casey that he hadn’t already lost. He started wondering if he would disappear too, like the man he’d shot.
With the search of Casey complete, the agents thanked him, stepped into the hall, left the door open, and stood to the side. They left Casey standing just inside the room. He heard a small commotion further down the hall, voices, and then a figure, familiar even in the dark hallway, turned the corner and strode into the room. He offered his right hand as he said, “Thanks for coming, Mr. Peterson.”
Casey managed a mechanical handshake, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Kennedy turned to the two agents, who were just about to step into the room, and said, “Thank you, gentlemen.
I’ll call if I need you,” and closed the door.
While Casey stood mute, mouth hanging open, JFK walked further into the room and glanced around. “Ah, how nice, they’ve got a fire going for us. Care to join me, Mr. Peterson?” Without waiting for an answer, he moved toward a chair by the fireplace. When Casey only stood there, Kennedy turned and said, “I know I’m the president. But I need to ask you to get over it. We have a lot to cover, and I haven’t much time. An hour or so is all.”
What? That got Casey’s attention. An hour with President Kennedy? What would he talk about, with the president, for an hour?
Then it hit him. He hadn’t even considered it before. He walked to the fireplace, turned, and spoke to the president for the first time.
“You know, don’t you, Sir? You know?”
Seated, Kennedy turned to his left to look at Casey. “Care to grab us a couple beers before you sit, Mr. Peterson? Can I call you 74
“Yes, Sir,” Casey said. He retrieved two beers from the little icebox and as Kennedy watched, he used the opener hanging from the side to open them. He walked to the fireplace and handed one to Kennedy. Kennedy reached out and accepted the bottle, but he kept his arm stretched out, thought for a moment, and said, “To your health, Casey?”
His arm remained raised until Casey moved to clink bottles.
“And to yours, Mr. President, Sir,” he said.
As Casey walked toward his chair, JFK said, “To answer your question, Casey, I know you claimed to have shot someone in Dallas while I was riding by on Elm Street. I know there is no evidence of that shooting, but I’m inclined to believe you anyway.”
Casey felt a burst of emotions that took his breath away. He’d been trying not to think about pulling the trigger, the blood, his parents, his job. By not thinking of those things, he didn’t have to wonder about his sanity; he didn’t have to explain to himself how he could have gone through the experience of shooting someone who never existed. He had decided it would be easier if he just accepted, and believed, that it had never happened.
Now, with the President of the United States believing him, it all became real again, and those thoughts he’d been walling off came at him all at once. It nearly drove him to his knees, and he dropped to the chair behind him instead.
Kennedy appeared not to notice. “In fact, Casey, I’m certain that had you not shot that man, I’d be pushin’ up daisies right now.
That gives you the right to call me by any name you’d like. But I’d be pleased if you’d just call me Jack.”
“Yes, Sir,” Casey said. Kennedy only stared at him. “Oh, sorry, Sir. Jack. I’ll call you Jack. Might take a little time to get used to.”
“Time. Time is a commodity for which I have a new appreciation, these days, Casey.”
It had taken Casey a few minutes, but he realized that if he were to gain anything at all from this meeting, he needed to take the president’s advice. He needed to get past the novelty of speaking with 75
the president. He forced himself to make the mental adjustment, and once he’d done that, he found one question foremost on his mind.
“But how?” he asked. “How could you know? There was nothing. No… evidence…” He pictured the gunman’s body leaking life on a floor that was dry and clean a few minutes later. “It was all gone… there was no…” Casey’s voice broke, and his eyes welled up, but he blinked it away and recovered. “There was no way anyone could believe me, even if they wanted to.” Then, raising his voice, he demanded again, “So how? How can you know?” Then he added, more quietly, “Sir. I mean, Jack.”
Kennedy stood then and backed away two steps. He took a moment to study the young cop’s face. When he had walked into the room a scant minute ago, Casey had appeared to be in control, like he had managed, in the last few weeks, to reconcile with himself for the shooting and its aftermath. Then Kennedy waltzes in and turns upside down the world Casey had been reconstructing, by telling Casey he was right after all, he did shoot and kill another human being. He could see the emotions playing across Casey’s face, the agitation, the disbelief that he had contrived to make such a mess of his life.
“Well, the story, it was in the Dallas paper,” Kennedy said. “A cop reported he shot someone dead, a man who’d been pointing a rifle out a window as I passed by in the motorcade. I know in subsequent news stories it turned into a dark comedy for you, missing evidence and all. I didn’t need to read those other stories. It was that first one that rang true for me, brought a bit of clarity to a confusing experience of my own.
“I know, I know. What you really want to know is, how do I know the first story was true, that you really shot an assassin. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll answer that question by asking one.” Kennedy thought for a moment and said. “Did anything…” he paused, searching for the right word, “… unnatural? Yes. Did anything unnatural happen to you, just before the shooting? Something you can’t explain? That you’ve told no one?”
The look on Casey’s face gave Kennedy his answer. Hands in 76
his jacket pockets, Kennedy began pacing in front of the fireplace.
“I thought so,” he said. “Because something unnatural happened to me. I couldn’t explain it, still can’t. A clipping from the Dallas paper made its way to my desk the following Monday. It was about you. When I read that, I knew your incident connects to what happened to me. I knew you had to be telling the truth.
“I’m sorry I didn’t help you through the ordeal you’ve endured for the past month. I couldn’t, you understand? I’d have made things worse. I sent two agents to snoop around, see if they could come up with any more information, but they came back empty-handed. And just so you know, I also sent an investigator up north, to learn all I could about you.”
Casey smiled. “Must have been a boring report, Jack,” he said.
“Quite the contrary,” Kennedy said. “The report described an exceptional person, one whose friendship would be highly valued, by anyone.”
Casey said nothing, looked embarrassed. Kennedy moved on.
“With you leaving the department, I saw an opportunity.
They’d expect you to leave Dallas now. Won’t attract attention.
You’ll drop off the radar, as a news item. Now we can talk, try to figure out what happened, without having it become another news event.”
“That would be great, if we could do that. But unless you brought all the answers with you… well, all I got is questions.” Casey said.
“I’ve got some answers, but they only give rise to more questions. Perhaps we can start by just comparing notes. First, would you tell me the details, exactly how the shooting happened?”
Casey spent five minutes describing the shooting, starting when he saw the man with the case enter the back door of the book building, including his dalliance in the janitor’s closet, and ending when his Captain called him back into the empty room. When he finished, Kennedy said, “It’s too bad you couldn’t have seen just a few minutes into the future. You could have kept quiet, said nothing of the shooting, and no one would have known, or cared. You ever 77
“Only once or twice a day.”
Kennedy grinned. “Yes, I suppose you would have. Do you suppose you would have kept quiet though? If you had known all the evidence would disappear?”
Casey grimaced, looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Thought about that. Fortunately, I didn’t go back into the room after the shooting, so I never had that option, to pretend it didn’t happen. I think I’m glad of that. If I had known all the evidence was gone, I couldn’t have reported it. How could I?
Anyone, in that situation, would have to assume no one would believe the story. There’d have been only one option: keep quiet. In which case, I think I’d have earned myself a rubber room by now, trying to keep it all to myself.”
“I can understand that,” Kennedy said. “Interesting. If you had kept quiet, I would never have known about you, what you did.
Your silence would have left us both alone to deal with our impossible reality. It all hinged on you not going back into that room until after you reported the incident.”
Casey looked puzzled. “You’re saying you didn’t know about my… shooting, except for what was in the papers?”
“Yep.”
“But unlike everyone else, you knew the shooting really happened, because of what happened to you?” Casey asked.
“Yep.”
Staring into the fire, Casey said, “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what happened to you, Jack?”
The president returned to his leather chair and turned to face Casey. “It’s complicated. First, I saw my own death, Casey. I saw myself die, in my mind, in color, exactly the way it would have happened. I saw nothing of assassins, nor of you, or your shooting.
All I saw was the bullets: one in the neck, then the top of my head was gone. It was unnerving. So vivid, I thought it had really happened, at first. Then I saw myself leaning on Jackie, blood and brains all over her. That’s when I really got rattled, and I went into 78
a sort of trance state. What Jackie called it. She said it lasted ten or twelve seconds before she poked me. I was already dead then. I was still in the car, but I also looked down at myself from above, as if I were floating a few feet above the limo. A little distorted, but clear enough, believe me. I stayed with the limo as the driver raced my lifeless body to a hospital. Saw myself on a gurney and saw doctors in white gowns shaking their heads. It’s clear to me. I saw what would have happened, had you not intervened.”
Casey, wide-eyed, said, “Jesus. It sounds horrible. But how can that be? How could you see something that didn’t happen?”
“I wish I knew. I’d guess it’s connected to whatever you have not told me yet. There was something else, in addition to the man with the case, that drove you to follow him to the sixth floor. Am I right?”
Casey knew he would tell the president everything, but still, he hesitated, reluctant to admit those things that could label him a wacko. However, he understood he and the president were unique in all the world. They were the only two who could possibly believe each other. Something he didn’t understand had forced them to become partners, and if the president could admit seeing himself die, then Casey could admit…
“A voice,” he said, but too soft for Kennedy to hear.
“What?” Kennedy asked.
“A voice,” Casey said, a little louder. “But not a real voice. It was… in my head. No one… No one else heard it.”
“I see,” Kennedy said. He noticed that Casey stared at the floor, like he was ashamed, and Kennedy understood for the first time how difficult it was for Casey to admit he had stalked and killed a person, following instructions from a voice in his head.
“I came here,” Kennedy said, “clinging to hope that we’d explain the things that happened to us that day. Explain it logically, without involvement of the supernatural. It’s looking like that will not happen, isn’t it?”
“No Sir. I’d say not.”
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