Chapter Fifty-Two
“WE’VE GOT TO GET THE HECK OUT OF DODGE”
Exactly forty-nine hours and thirty-four minutes earlier. Lee Harvey Oswald left the Texas School Book Depository and inadvertently bumps into Bud and Lou. Two short days later Oswald will think these two men were Secret Service agents. Darn what luck! Now Oswald will know what we look like. This is going to make following him more difficult, thought Bud.
Across from TSBD on the north side of Dealy Plaza Lonnie Joe and Rocky were beginning to make their way across Elm Street toward the TSBD entrance where they had just seen Oswald exiting. Bud turned and gave a motion toward Oswald to his two partners as they hurried toward his location. He was afraid they might not have seen Oswald coming out of the building. Rocky nodded his head signaling he had seen Oswald and had him in sight.
Oswald crossed Houston and began walking east on Elm Street; Rocky was shadowing him from a half block back. The crowds were heavy – many panicky people were fleeing trying to escape the scene of the recent carnage, curious others were just as swiftly attempting to make their way toward Dealy Plaza to see what happened.
Rocky blended into the mass of hysterical humanity becoming just another face in the crowd. From previous historical reports, Rocky knew Oswald would head east about seven blocks then board the Dallas City Transit bus. The bus would continue west toward Dealy Plaza, but after two blocks, Oswald will get off at the corner of Lamar Street and Elm, and head for the bus station. Instead of closely following Oswald Lonnie Joe turns right on Houston Street and goes one block south to his parked car at the Stephen Austin Hotel. A short three block drive east on Wood Street finds him at the corner of Lamar. A left and one block he arrives at the Greyhound bus terminal. A row of taxis is lined up at the taxi stand.
Lonnie parked where he could observe anyone entering one of the yellow cabs, realizing it would be just a matter of minutes until Lee Harvey Oswald walks down from Lamar and enters William Whatley’s cab. Before Oswald could arrive Rocky swiftly came walking down the east side of Lamar, seeing Lonnie Joe parked at the curb on the northwest corner of Jackson and Lamar, he quickly crosses Jackson and got into the car with Lonnie Joe.
Only a few minutes remained until Oswald arrived to ask Whatley to carry him to the 500 block of Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff.
While Lonnie Joe and Rocky sat waiting for Oswald to make his appearance at the bus station a startling development was beginning to take place back at the TSBD, Bud and Lou had followed Lonnie Joe back to their cars at the Austin Hotel. Rocky and Lonnie Joe would follow Oswald from the bus station; meanwhile, Bud and Lou would be driving to the vicinity of 10th Street and Patton. At this location, they are going to witness the murder of J. D. Tippit.
As Captain Scarburg, Forrest and Olive Marie turn the northwestern corner of the Texas School Book Depository from Elm onto Houston they observe something quite unusual.
As they began to cross Houston Street to the Dal-Tex building heading towards their truck and Army Jeep parked in the lot just north of the Dal-Tex building, they watched a black ’62, four-door, Cadillac, Sedan DeVille pull up to the curb next to the TSBD building. A young man, of slender build, with dark hair, wearing a brown ‘Ike’ jacket with dark trousers, appeared from the back of the building and quickly jumped into the back seat of the car. The driver appeared to be an older gentleman with a dark complexion. Black? Hispanic? Asian? They could not see clearly enough to tell. The car door had not quite slammed shut when the car ‘tore out like a scalded dog’ headed south on Houston. A mile or so south and over the Houston Street viaduct the car and its passengers would be in the suburb of Oak Cliff.
Forrest turned to the Captain, “Grandpa, did you see that? Was that Lee Harvey Oswald...wasn’t that him? Did you all see him?”
“Yes... yes... but this can’t be right,” answered Captain Scarburg. “I know he is walking east on Elm Street at this very minute – Rocky is following him!”
“Hurry guys, we’ll follow that car and see where it goes,” demanded Captain Scarburg beginning to run north on Houston Street toward their vehicles. By the time they arrived at the parking lot the station wagon with “Lee Harvey Oswald” had disappeared into the mass of traffic headed south on Houston. The Cadillac was completely out of sight. A quick input of Lonnie Joe’s phone number validated their assumption that LJ’s Lee Harvey Oswald was at that very minute, getting into Mr. Whatley’s cab at the Greyhound bus station. Turning back to Forrest and Olive Marie, “LJ and Rocky are watching Oswald as we speak, what is the meaning of this? Who was the “Oswald” that just got into that car?”
“What do we do, Grandpa?”
“Nothing, there is nothing we can do... we will just have to see if we can put these pieces together when we get back home. Maybe we can make some sense out of it all once we get Bud, Lou, Lonnie Joe and Rocky’s reports. Right now we’ve got to get the heck out of Dodge.” Forrest pulled his cell phone out and put in a call to Bud and Lonnie Joe. He reminded them that once they had wound up their surveillance to meet them at the Ponderosa if they have time, if not, he cautioned, they must be, and he reemphasized - must be at the cow pasture not later than 11:55 a.m. tomorrow. Pegasus will leave at precisely high noon, with or without them. “Hmmm,” Captain Scarburg said hearing Forrest talking on his end of the conversation, “I liked that movie,” as he began quietly singing,
♪“Do not forsake me, oh, my darlin’ on this our weddin’ day...♪
The background song for the old western favorite, ‘High Noon’ sung originally by Tex Ritter. Walking up to their Ford truck, the Captain did his best imitation of the swagger of the star of High Noon, Gary Cooper.
“Cut it out, Grandpa, act your age!” Olive Marie said rolling her eyes.
“Grandpa, don’t give up your day job!!” replied Forrest.
TENTH AND PATTON STREET
Leaving the parking lot next to the Austin Hotel, Bud and Lou traveled the 2.7 miles to Tenth and Patton in a matter of minutes. The pulled into the driveway of 326, the small white framed, unoccupied house on the north side of Tenth Street where the night before a small “For Sale” sign had been, they replaced the sign and sat and waited. Waited for Lee Harvey Oswald to come walking down Tenth Street. They knew from the official records that Oswald killed J. D. Tippit near the corner of Tenth and Patton. Now they would wait... wait for the inevitable murder they knew would occur. They both felt bad... they knew it was a murder they could prevent.
What is this? A black Cadillac sedan had pulled up to the curb about a half a block west of the Tenth and Patton intersection. A man got out. “What! This cannot be!” Bud said. “That is Lee Harvey Oswald, he is supposed to be walking! Quick Lou, grab the camera with the telephoto lens, we must get a picture of this.” As Lou began to adjust the camera’s prodigious, telescopic lens they both noticed this “person” began walking west toward the next block. That would be Denver Street. Denver Street was only three blocks from the apartment of Jack Ruby – was this man attempting to get to Ruby’s apartment? Or was he trying to leave the impression Ruby’s place was where he was headed? If so, why get out of the car he was riding in?
“Hold on Lou, look to your left... there’s a police car coming down Tenth. That must be Tippit.”
Both men slide down in their car seat until only their eyes protruded above the bottom of the door window. “Lou, you have to get pictures!”
“Okay, Bud, okay... I’ll get ’em, don’t worry.”
The police cruiser approached the man walking on the south sidewalk; it slowed and pulled up beside “Oswald.” The man on the sidewalk walked over to the patrol car and began conversing with the policemen through the open passenger’s window. Officer Tippit opened his driver’s door and stepped out onto the asphalt pavement. He took one step around his door and started around the front of the squad car. A passenger riding in the patrol car slid out onto the street from the driver’s side also.
This man, without takin
g aim fired three bullets into Officer J. D. Tippit. Bud and Lou would later describe the mystery man as short and fat with black curly hair. Tippit crumpled on the roadway, probably already dead before hitting the asphalt; however, the assassin was not finished... he walked up to the policemen and without hesitation fired another round, point blank into Officer Tippit’s head. This one shot tore a gaping hole in the right rear of his head. Almost an identical wound that was inflicted on President John Kennedy’s head a mere few minutes earlier at Dealey Plaza; however, the wound to the President’s head was a bullet to the front that exited in the rear, on Tippit the bullet entered the rear and exited the front.
As the shots were being fired at Tippit the man that had approached the patrol car hurried away, this “Oswald” looking fellow turned south and headed down Patton Street toward Jefferson. The ‘shooter’ quickly removed the spent shells from his revolver and tossed them to the ground a few hundred yards to the east of the patrol car on Tenth. After hastily reloading, the same black Cadillac pulled alongside, the shooter entered, and the car hastily drove away. Later these spent cartridges will be identified as shells used in a .38 caliber automatic pistol. Did no one in the Secret Service, FBI or the Dallas Police Department realize automatic .38 shells are different from .38 shells that fit in a revolver pistol?
“Did you get it all Lou?”
“Get what... what? Get what?”
“Pictures!! Pictures, did you get pictures of the Cadillac, the “Oswald” man, and the man who did the shooting?”
“Uh... uh... sorry Bud, I was so caught up in what was happening I failed to take a single picture.”
“No pictures?? No pictures?? Wait ‘till Grandpa hears about this... I could have done that well!!”
“The camera was just as close to you as it was to me... why didn’t you take the pictures Mr. Smarty, I-Know-Everything, Pants?” Replied Lou. “I’m sorry Bud... well, I... I... was just hypnotized, I have never seen a man murdered before. I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from that grisly scene; I’ve never seen anything so horrible. Bud, I think I’m going to be sick.”
“So,” Bud said arrogantly trying hard to bolster himself up, “think of it as if you were watching a movie, come-on pull yourself together Brother.”
“Bud,” Lou said speaking barely above a whisper with his head bowed, “you mean it didn’t bother you? Bud... Bud... we could have stopped Officer Tippit from being murdered!!”
Realizing Lou had suffered traumatically watching the brutal murder Bud tried to comfort him, “I’m sorry... Lou what am I thinking... you’re right... we both have never witnessed anything as horrible as this... mur... mur... uh... thing that just unfolded before us, and yes it bothered me... it bothered me a great deal. I hope we never have to be a party to something like that again, but no we could not have interfered. Remember what Anhur told Grandpa, ‘simple things done in the past can cause great changes in the future.’ Don’t worry Grandpa will understand. It wasn’t your fault.”
Later Helen Markson a witness to the J. D. Tippit shooting, will attempt to identify the murderer through a number of lineup’s conducted at Police Headquarters. She was unable to do so. She said, the police pressured her to make a decision, so she finally picked Lee Harvey Oswald as the shooter. She said she just wanted to get out of that place and go home. A few days before she testified before the Warren Commission she admitted it was not Oswald. The man she saw was short, fat and had black, bushy hair.
During the commotion, which ensued after the shooting, Lou backed the car out of the driveway and slowly drove in an opposite direction from the murder scene. “Where to now Lou?” Bud asked.
“We’re done, we’ve got to head this ‘pony’ back to the Ponderosa.”
1026 NORTH BECKLEY AVENUE
Lonnie Joe and Rocky would make reasonable facsimiles of private eyes. After watching Lee Harvey Oswald approach and enter the taxicab, they had as skillfully as Sherlock Holmes, followed the cab unobserved. From the Greyhound bus terminal to the turn-off onto North Beckley Avenue they had remained behind the taxi far enough to watch, but not close enough to be noticed. At 1026 North Beckley, the cab kept right on going – it did not stop at Lee Harvey Oswald’s rooming house.
It traveled on until it reached the 700 block. Noticing the brake lights coming on Lonnie Joe pulled into a parking spot along the curb. Carefully the two of them watched the taxicab. The right front passenger door opened and out stepped Lee Harvey Oswald. They could see him pay the driver who then drove south toward Jefferson Avenue. Oswald hurried across the street and began walking back toward his rooming house. When he was within a short distance from Lonnie Joe and Rocky the two of them slid down and hid themselves to keep Oswald from detecting them as he walked by on the opposite side of North Beckley. Once he was a safe distance away they made a U-turn and followed him back to the rooming house.
Parking a half block or so below Oswald’s place they sat waiting for him to emerge. Again, they knew he only would be in there for a couple of minutes. As they sat watching a Dallas police car pulled up to the curb and honked its horn - twice. Oswald emerged from his boarding house zipping up his jacket. He walked directly to the police car and received something one of the officers passed out the passenger’s window, placing whatever he received in his jacket pocket; he then walked to the corner of North Beckley and Zang Street. Beckley and Zang was the corner for the local bus stop; also, this location was northwest of the rooming house. The murder of J. D. Tippit occurred at Tenth and Patton – a location southeast of the rooming house.
A minute or two after standing at the bus stop a black, four-door Cadillac pulled up alongside Oswald. He approached the car, leaned over, spoke something to those inside then the back door opened, and he stepped into the rear seat.
“Quick Rocky, get a picture! I know it’s a Cadillac, but I don’t know what year or model. Get a picture, we can identify it later.”
“I’ll get the picture LJ, you just don’t lose that car.”
As the black Cadillac pulled away from the bus stop with Lee Harvey Oswald, the Cadillac driver did not realize just a few hundred yards behind was a unpretentious, black 1954 four-door municipal Ford sedan, following quietly and unobtrusively. The destination was the Texas Theater only 1.4 miles away. The route the Cadillac took was straightforward – down North Beckley to West Jefferson, turn right, and the Texas Theater was but a short distant on the right.
At the corner of West Neely Street and North Beckley, a uniformed policeman stepped out into the road and held up his hand gesturing for the Ford to stop as Lonnie Joe and Rocky approached. Lonnie Joe removed his foot from the accelerator and gently touched the brake. Slowing down they pulled the car up to the officer, rolled down the window and inquired as to the delay. “Got a report of a gas leak on the next block”, he said authoritatively, “you folks will have to go back to the next street East Canty, cut over to Zang Boulevard and proceed on your way from there.” The Cadillac they were following had preceded them by only a few seconds. Obviously, the police officer had allowed it to drive through.
“But, officer, I don’t see any emergency vehicles along the street. Shouldn’t there be someone from the gas company checking this out?” Both Lonnie Joe and Rocky assumed this ‘police officer’ was not a real Dallas policeman, obviously he was stationed on the street to keep people away from the Texas Theater. Why? Maybe Oswald was meeting his contact there, and his CIA ‘handler’ did not want to be seen and identified?
“We are on our way to another job, we work for Dallas City Services maybe we could take a look at the leak? It sounds serious.” Lonnie Joe said, knowing full well neither he nor Rocky could even light a gas pilot light.
“The gas company repairmen are on their way – now turn this vehicle around and head back to East Canty Street as I said, or I’m goin’ have to give you a ticket.”
“Okay, okay we get the message... loud and clear... we’ll turn around, but if the place blows up don
’t blame us... we tried to help!”
By the time, Lonnie Joe and Rocky had detoured around the block between West Neely Street and West Davis Street they had lost sight of the black Cadillac. “What should we do?” asked Lou.
“Let’s just get over to Zang Boulevard and head for the Texas Theater. We know that is their destination.”
Approximately ten blocks down Zang the Boulevard dead-ends into West Jefferson. The Texas Theater was located at 231 West Jefferson Boulevard. A right turn and they saw the Cadillac parked at the curb close to the theater. A couple of turns on the Ford’s steering wheel had them parked a couple hundred feet from the Texas Theater also. Far enough away to be unnoticed, but close enough to see everything going on. Switching the motor off, Lonnie Joe and Rocky watched as Lee Harvey Oswald got out and walked up to the cashier, purchased a ticket and entered the theater.
“LJ, I thought the official story was Oswald slipped into the theater. That was the reason the police were notified. Isn’t that right?”
“Yeah, Rocky that is the way it was reported. Obviously that was a fabrication on someone’s part also.”
THE TEXAS THEATER
Julia Portal, the Texas Theater cashier, only sold twenty-four tickets to the afternoon showing of Battle Cry, starring Van Heflin. It was just as well, she was spending her entire shift sitting in her booth listening to the President Kennedy news on KRLD, 1080 A.M., a local Dallas radio station. Testifying before the Warren Commission Miss Portal stated she did not know whether she sold Lee Harvey Oswald a ticket or not. She admitted she was paying more attention to the assassination news on her radio than who was purchasing tickets. When questioned about anyone who might have acted suspicious she at first said she did not remember anyone, then quickly added, “Oh yeah, there was this one fellow – he got out of a big ole black limousine car”. When asked if the car might have been a four-door Cadillac she answered, “Yes, I suppose it could have been a Cadillac.”
The Warren Commission investigator asked, “Did you sell this man a ticket?”
She answered, “No, I don’t think so but I might have.”
When asked at what time the man in the black car arrived she answered, “Best I can remember it was a little after one o’clock.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Well, Butch Burroughs the concession stand operator said it was just a few minutes after one o’clock. Anyway, the police were called, and they arrived and arrested the man, Lee Harvey Oswald, I suppose.”
“You called the police?”
“No, I don’t know who called, but it wasn’t me.”
Watching as the Cadillac pulled up to the Texas Theater, and Lee Harvey Oswald enters the theater, Lonnie Joe and Rocky knew the rest of the scenario. The police would arrive and arrest Lee Harvey Oswald.
“You know,” said LJ. “I’ve been sitting here giving this some thought. I believe Oswald was supposed to have been killed by Officer Tippit. And I believe that other guy in the patrol car was supposed to shoot Tippit, but things did not work out. Now I believe their fall back plan was to have Oswald killed in this theater, but something goes wrong here too. What do you think Rocky?”
“I dunno LJ, that’s too much figuring for me. What I seriously think is we need to get out of here and head back to the Ponderosa and meet up with Captain Scarburg.”
The earlier phone call from Forrest said that he, the Captain and Olive Marie had just left the parking lot behind the Dal-Tex building and was heading back to Clem and Penelope’s Ponderosa. Now it was time for Lonnie Joe and Rocky to do the same.
The time was 1:41 p.m., Friday, November 22, 1963.