ME: And the second record?

STONE: During Jim Garrison’s investigation of Clay Shaw in 1965, an FBI agent based in Dallas saw a close-up picture of David Ferrie. At that time he told his SAC that he believed he’d seen Ferrie in Dallas on the weekend prior to the assassination—at a diner, alone. With Ferrie’s fake eyebrows and hairpiece, it’s hard to believe that agent could have been mistaken.

ME: What happened to that report?

KAISER: Hoover ordered it buried.

ME: But why would Oswald have agreed to kill Kennedy for Ferrie? It may seem an obvious question, but I’m not sure I understand his motive.

STONE: This is where the psychologists are right. Lee strongly prefigured the later killers such as John Hinckley, Mark David Chapman, and the school shooters. His life had been one long string of failures. Emigrating to Cuba was his final fantasy. The Russians didn’t want him, employers didn’t want him, his wife had left him. When the Cubans said no to his defection, he basically had nothing left. Three weeks before the black hole weekend, Lee actually attended a rally where General Walker spoke, almost as if he was planning to try once more to assassinate him. Lee was truly ready for anything at that point, so long as it was sensational.

KAISER: In behavioral science parlance, Oswald was decompensating. He’d endured stressor after stressor. Killing Kennedy—who had been actively trying to overthrow and even kill Castro—would have made Lee a hero to Castro and the Cuban people. I’m sure Oswald could see himself driving along the Malecón with Fidel in a big convertible, waving to the adoring crowds.

ME: What about the Cuban student, Cruz? The one who bought the Carcano that was in Brody’s house?

STONE: I think Ferrie came up with that angle the night he thought of the Oswald plan. If the goal was to sell the world on a Cuban plot—and Marcello on his plan—then they needed a Cuban conspiracy. The way to create that was to pin a rifle like Oswald’s to another loyal Communist—ideally, a native Cuban.

KAISER: One with a criminal record, so his prints would be on file.

ME: You make Ferrie sound like a criminal genius.

KAISER: Some Cuban exiles actually called him “the master of intrigue.” His brilliance is exaggerated, but he was a devious guy. In any case, all Ferrie had to do to get that second Carcano was walk into a Texas gun shop and buy one.

STONE: And two boxes of ammunition. Western Cartridge Company 6.58-millimeter, manufactured in the U.S. for Italy during the war.

KAISER: Right. The ammunition’s key.

ME: So how did they frame Eladio Cruz? They killed him and put his prints on the rifle?

KAISER: And dumped him in the swamp. You nailed it. Probably on the night of Tuesday, November nineteenth.

STONE: But first Ferrie had to carry the revised mission order to Frank Knox. He probably flew out of Dallas on the Sunday after seeing Oswald. We’re trying to check his movements during that period, but access to a Marcello plane means he could have traveled as his schedule allowed, with no one the wiser.

ME: You think Frank Knox just went along with the Oswald scheme?

STONE: Frank was a soldier. He would have seen the advantages. He simply went from being the primary shooter to the backup.

ME: But that second Carcano was never found. It was never associated with the assassination in any way. What was the point in getting it? Was Knox supposed to use it against Kennedy?

STONE: I think he was. But Frank would have known better than to trust a critical shot to a junk rifle. My guess is that he told Ferrie he’d leave the Carcano at the scene, but he wasn’t going to shoot with it. Otherwise, Marcello might have gotten angry when things didn’t go the way he expected.

ME: Then why wasn’t the rifle found?

KAISER: Maybe Frank didn’t want to risk carrying two rifles into the Dal-Tex Building. That’s a serious tactical challenge.

STONE: Or maybe he worried that the FBI or CIA had forensic abilities he knew nothing about. Frank would have known that a presidential assassin’s rifle would be subjected to more scrutiny than any weapon in history.

KAISER: Or he might have kept it as insurance. Frank knew he was dealing with the mob, and he knew how those guys handled loose ends. Maybe he figured he could use the Carcano as leverage later.

ME: So why didn’t Marcello blow up when Frank didn’t leave the rifle at Dealey Plaza?

STONE: [chuckles] When we think about mobsters like Carlos Marcello, we inflate their powers in our minds. We see them as fearless. But Carlos had watched Frank Knox train Cuban exiles at his camp. He’d heard the stories of what Frank had done in the Pacific. The medal-winning assaults, the mutilation of prisoners, the black market skulls. Compared to Frank Knox, a Mafia hit man with a snubnose .38 was a clown.

KAISER: There are some guys it doesn’t pay to go to war with. Especially when they only live three hours away from you.

ME: But the ballistics . . . How could the bullet fired from Frank’s Remington match the bullets fired from Oswald’s Carcano?

STONE: Ferrie would have provided ammunition to both Oswald and Knox. That would further tie the two shooters in an apparent conspiracy. Lee was poor as dirt, so he wouldn’t have bought new ammo if he didn’t have to.

ME: You’re missing my point. If Frank didn’t use that second Carcano, then he couldn’t have used the bullets that matched Oswald’s lot. You said he needed a rifle that fired a super-fast round, didn’t you? How did the metallurgy of Frank’s bullets—fired from a Remington 700—match the bullets Oswald fired from his 6.58 Mannlicher-Carcano?

STONE: That’s where Frank Knox proved his genius. Frank’s bullet was designed to explode on impact with Kennedy’s skull, remember? It left very little trace. But the metallurgy of the fragments did match Oswald’s bullet. New tests were done only a few months ago. There are a couple of ways that this match could have been accomplished. You get into complex gunsmithing work and reloading issues, but Frank was an old hand at all that stuff. All the Knoxes were. The only requirement would have been that Frank had a sample of the ammo Oswald used, and he did. With that, he could have used any rifle he wanted. Trust me, Penn—it can be done.

ME: I’d rather hear the explanation.

Leaning forward, I fast-forward past the complex ballistics and stop on the revelation that floored me. I dread hearing it again, but I want to evaluate it once more before Caitlin arrives and distracts me.

STONE: Tell him, John. He’s gone beyond the call for us.

KAISER: I told you I sent two agents up to the Mississippi field office today. That’s how I found the Triton medical excuse. But once the director was on board, I also put out a Bureau-wide request for any and all files of any type on all the principals in this case. Late this afternoon, a clerk at the Jackson field office sent me a digitized copy of one more file.

ME: Which was?

KAISER: In 1993, a file clerk at the Triton Battery Corporation requested the return of Frank Knox’s personnel record.

ME: So?

KAISER: They didn’t do that out of the blue. They’d been contacted by a former company physician who wanted to see the record. You know who that was.

ME: Bullshit.

STONE: It was your father, Penn. About a month after Carlos Marcello died in New Orleans, Tom requested Frank Knox’s Triton personnel record from the company. You see, he had no idea that the Bureau would have the file.

ME: And what do you conclude from that?