Sonny smiles strangely. “You can thank Frank for that. See, Carlos and Ferrie wanted him to use a rifle like Oswald’s for the hit, and then leave it at the scene. They wanted to sell a big Commie conspiracy and blame Castro.”

“To deflect suspicion from Carlos?”

“Sure, and to get Carlos’s casino action back. They figured if they could get the public mad enough at Castro, LBJ would invade.”

Kaiser happily clucks his tongue. “So, why didn’t Frank use the Carcano to kill Kennedy?”

“Because it was a piece of junk! The aftermarket Jap scope that came on it wasn’t good enough for a BB gun. Frank told ’em he’d use his own rifle for the hit but leave the Italian one at the scene. But Ferrie didn’t like that idea. He’d given Frank bullets from the same box as Oswald’s, and he said Frank had to use those. The bullets had to match, he said.”

I can only see Kaiser in profile, but an anticipatory smile has appeared on his face. “So what did Frank do?”

“He told Ferrie no problem. Frank was a genius with guns, see? Any kind of weapon, really. But guns were his specialty. He told Ferrie he could use his Remington and the bullets would still match—if the cops found any fragments at all.”

Kaiser’s face is practically glowing. “How could Frank manage that?”

Sonny chuckles with obvious admiration for his old sergeant. “First, he took those 6.58 Carcano bullets and removed them from the cartridges. Then he scraped the lead out of the copper jackets, so he’d have a lead-antimony mix that would match Oswald’s bullets to a T, or at least as well as could be done.”

“And then?”

“Then he used that lead to cast some .243 bullets to fit the cartridges for his Remington. He drilled out the cores so they’d blow apart on impact, and then he tested them to be sure.”

“How did he do that?”

“On some pigs.”

“Pigs. Did the bullets work as he wanted?”

“Hell, yeah. I told you he was a genius. The damn things exploded when they hit the skulls, and they hardly left a trace.”

Kaiser quietly considers all he has heard. “If Frank went to all that trouble, then why didn’t he leave the Carcano behind him after he made the shot, like he’d promised?”

Sonny settles back in his chair and folds his arms. “A couple of reasons. He said totin’ it around was too risky. He already had to carry the Remington—broke down, of course. Carrying two guns doubled the risk. But that wasn’t all. He was worried there might be forensic tests he didn’t know nothin’ about. Space-age stuff, you know? He’d handled that rifle himself, and he didn’t want it winding up in the Sandia National Lab or someplace like that.”

“Smart thinking.”

“Frank didn’t miss much, boy.” Sonny looks anxiously around the interrogation room. “Is that enough? Can I go back to the brig now?”

Kaiser shakes his head. “Not yet. You haven’t told us where he shot from. Was it the grassy knoll?”

Kaiser is testing Sonny again. There’s no way the kill shot could have been fired from the grassy knoll. In my view, this testing is a waste of time. Thornfield is obviously telling the truth as he knows it. The real question is, Was Frank Knox telling Sonny the truth when he told him all this?

“Sonny?” Kaiser prompts. “The grassy knoll?”

“Hell, no. That’s Hollywood bullshit. Frank shot from the building next to the Book Depository. Catty-corner to it. The Dal-Tex Building.”

“How do you remember the name?”

“I’ve seen some TV shows about it. Documentaries. Hell, I watch the History Channel. It’s pretty funny, the stuff they come up with, when you know what really happened. Everybody overthinks it, you know? Frank always took the shortest path between two points. I can’t tell you how many times he said to me, ‘Simplest is best, Son.’ From back when we were kids, all the way to the Pacific . . . he lived by the same rules.”

“How did he get into the Dal-Tex Building?”

Sonny chuckles again. “He went in as an elevator repairman, with a toolbox.”

Kaiser thinks this over. “And how did he get out? The Dal-Tex Building was one of the first to be shut down after the shots were fired.”

“As a cop,” Sonny says, amazement in his voice. “Isn’t that great? What could be simpler? He carried a Dallas police uniform in with him in the toolbox, wrapped around his rifle parts. Kept the gun from rattling. He put on the cop’s uniform as soon as he got to the office he shot from. After he fired, he just walked out carrying the rifle. Everybody assumed he was part of the security detail, hunting for the shooter. Even the Secret Service. Always hide in plain sight, right?”

“Did he carry the toolbox out?”

“Nope. He left it in the elevator machine room. Empty.” Sonny looks at me, then back to Kaiser. “Can’t I go? This is taking too long. And the mayor wants to know about his daddy, don’t he?”

“Yes, he does,” I say in a taut voice, my eyes on Kaiser.

“Just a little longer,” says Kaiser, not looking at me. “Tell me about Oswald, Sonny. Was Frank meant to fire the kill shot all along, or was he a backup for Oswald?”

“Backup. See, Ferrie thought Oswald could make the shot. Shows you how much he knew about rifles. Frank said the way that scope was attached, Oswald was lucky he hit anything. With only two mounting screws, you couldn’t even zero the damned thing.”

Yet another perfect correlation with Stone’s theory. “Did they mean for Oswald to be captured?”

“Found dead, more like.” A new light shines from Sonny’s eyes. “That was where the operation went wrong. Frank was supposed to kill the idiot right after the hit. Oswald was told to meet him in that stockyard parking lot behind the Book Depository, but on the day, he didn’t show up.”

“Why not?”

“Frank figured that when Oswald saw the president’s head explode in his scope, he knew he hadn’t made that shot. And that scared the shit out of him. That’s why he panicked and ran home to get the pistol he hadn’t even brought with him to Dealey Plaza. The one he used to shoot that cop later. Tippit.”

“If Oswald didn’t know anything about Frank, who did he think he was going to meet in the stockyard parking lot?”

“Ferrie, of course. That fool thought Ferrie was going to fly him to Havana! What a joke, right? But Frank told me Ferrie had actually run guns to Cuba, back before Castro allied with the Russians. And Oswald knew that. So maybe he wasn’t so dumb to believe it.”

“All right,” I say in the most conclusive tone I can. “You’ve got what you wanted. Time to get on with the next act of this show.”

Kaiser looks at his watch. “I think we’re okay, Penn.”

I try to mask my growing anger. “Sonny’s not. Wanting doesn’t make it so, John. Time’s passing. Send him back to the cellblock with Snake and give Dwight his victory call. That’s the gift you wanted to give him, and he deserves it. Then start interrogating all the other Eagles. Spend just as much time with each of them as you did with Sonny. And maybe—just maybe—you’ll get away with this.”

At this moment Kaiser regrets bringing me into this room. But at some level, he brought me in here to keep him from losing sight of his priorities.

“Then it’s time for the big question,” Kaiser says. “Sonny, you’ve given me a lot of details today, and I appreciate it. But do you have any way of proving anything you’ve told me? Anything besides what you say Frank told you?”

Sonny looks perplexed. “Like what? Like something physical?”

“Exactly.”

“You know . . . I think there was something he kept. Frank never told me about it, but Snake said something once.”

“What are you talking about? Something besides the rifles?”

“Yeah. A letter, maybe. Some kind of insurance.”

“A letter written by Frank?”

“No, no. Somebody else. Ferrie, maybe. Or even Oswald. It sure wouldn’t be Carlos. Carlos was like Frank. He never wrote nothing down. He was famous for that.”