Inside it there was a barrage of information and old photos of Dallas, the secret service, ambulances, streets thronged with anxious bystanders and JFK himself. He pushed all the photos aside save two; they were a standard police mug-shot of Lee Harvey Oswald in his worn shabby prison uniform and the other of a well dressed man whom he recognised as his father’s partner when he was working for the Bureau. Intrigued he began to scan-read the enclosed report, about a minute later he packed the whole file into his black, silver edged briefcase and left the building.
The next day at work he sat down in his small basement office and read the joint CIA FBI report and enclosed autopsy of ‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy – 22/11/63.’ Whilst reading the coroner’s report and going over the photos of the president’s car and bullet wounds, he realised that if Oswald was where he claimed he was, he couldn’t have been guilty of shooting the President. However his theory posed the question, who did shoot him?
Tony’s Father knew that his son would have been intrigued by the assassination, (particularly because his father was there when it happened and helped compile the official report afterwards.) It was later in that day, following a brief phone call between father and son about the events that happened on the 22nd November nearly forty years ago, he told him that at least one of the shots came from the Dallas Federal H.Q. and security at that building is severe and access is for authorised personal only.
Tony was keenly curious to this mystery now, after a little research he had found out who was in that building at approximately 12.30p.m., when the shots were fired. He established that two FBI agents were in the building at the time; the others were either out watching the convoy or were on duty. Of the two who were inside one had died but the other, Rob Simpson was a seventy-eight year old man living in Monterey, a picturesque coastal town in western California.
Two days later, having checked in at the Travel Lodge Motel, California. Tony Fabrri unpacked his only black hold-all suitcase, left the motel and hailed down a taxi. He entered the taxi and gave the Puerto Rican driver the address to go to, which he acquired back in Washington - 1174 Mapeltree Av. Monterey. After a rough thirty minute drive though downtown Monterey, Tony arrived at Mapeltree Av.
He approached the front door of the large robust white bungalow which almost had a surreal aurora about it. He rang the doorbell and not knowing what to expect Tony uncharacteristically felt slightly frightened. Before long an old man, probably in his late seventies answered the door. After going through his usual routine of flashing his identification and asking entry to his house to ask questions about his involvement in John F. Kennedy’s death, the old man slammed the door shut and locked it.
Feeling a bit more relaxed Tony shouted a warning of forced entry. His warning proved not to be needed; Mr. Simpson probably feeling scared and vulnerable unlocked the door and let the Agent in.
Tony walked into the sitting area of Simpson’s house, and not being offered a seat he choose to sit in the sofa adjacent to old Mr. Simpsons armchair. Feeling proud of himself for having got this close to the mystery of who shot John F Kennedy, he couldn’t help but ask the question that had been on his mind ever since he opened that file, “Who shot J.F.K.?”
No sooner than the words had left his mouth, a look of guilt shot across Mr. Simpsons’ face, his secret was out. He excused himself for a minute, and upon his return he handed Tony a small, red, hard backed-notebook, edges worn away with age. The words on the outside were simply written in blue biro, ‘The Plan – Nov ‘63’. Inside Tony had hit the jackpot. A carefully devised plan was set out; the CIA had wanted Kennedy dead, but why? He didn’t know, but as he looked up to this old man he saw his wrinkled face moist with tears, and thought, ‘Is it worth putting him through a case that most have forgotten, and to see him be jailed for the few years he has left?’ This thought was still in his mind as he turned the steering wheel to turn into his reserved motel parking space. “He is old let him be.”
Later that night two men lay awake in California, thinking about the same day almost forty years before. As Simpson lay, wheezing in and out, he thought of that day, when the sweat clung to his sparkly white shirt, looking down the sight of his gun down onto the 35th President of the United States.
By Andrew Lavery
