Corruption of Blood (7 page)

Karp was openmouthed. “You must be joking.”

“Not really. They’re all worried, especially Flores. This Kennedy thing is a can of worms, with no real political payoff for anyone. The House leadership launched into it
very
reluctantly.”

“Yeah, you said that before. So why did they go for it at all?”

“Well, there you have me. My own theory was that it was a payoff to the black caucus in an election year. Launching a King investigation is something they can sell at home, and it’s kind of hard for the House Democratic leadership to buck something having to do with King. Once you’re looking into King, Kennedy kind of follows. Plus the stuff about federal agencies not being forthcoming with Warren, the stuff that’s turning up in the Church committee’s work. And the assassination nuts keep yawping at their heels. A lot of people believe it and it has to be answered. O’Neill’s the key player, of course, and he hates this kind of thing, and consented
very
reluctantly. Warren is gospel with Tip. The old ‘protecting the family’ business.”

“This is not good for us, right?”

“Right, but meanwhile here we are.” Crane checked his watch. “Look, I have to roll. Let me take you by Hank’s place. If he’s in, I’ll introduce you; if not, we’ll set up a date to get the two of you together.”

This, as it proved, was not necessary. As they entered the elevator, Crane greeted a tall, lean, sandy-haired man already in the car.

“Hank! This is a piece of luck. I have to run off and here you are to take the pass. This is Butch Karp from New York.”

One of those Norman Rockwell kids grown up was Karp’s first impression as he shook hands with Henry Dobbs, Democrat of Connecticut. As their eyes met he revised his take. Dobbs had the freckled skin, the even, understated features, the crisp short hair, but the cornflower eyes were not innocent ones. There was a careful intelligence there, a wariness, some complexity of character that was not ever seen on the covers of the old
Saturday Evening Post.

By the time the car had gone two floors, it was agreed that Karp and Dobbs would lunch together. Crane took his leave. Dobbs led Karp to his own office. It was like Flores’s, with different flags, seals, and posters. Dobbs checked his messages, excused himself and made a short call, dealt with several matters pressed on him by staff, and then broke free. He seemed to run a happier and lower-keyed ship than Flores did.

The Capitol has a restaurant reserved for members and their guests during the lunch hours, and Dobbs took Karp there on the little subway that connects the various congressional buildings.

“I hear you met George,” he said when they were seated. “What did you think?”

“A great American and a fine public servant,” Karp answered.

Dobbs smiled. “You’re learning. Keep that up and you’ll be a big hit in Washington.”

“Well, about that—I’m starting to think this might be a major misunderstanding, me doing this job.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I tried to explain to Bert about being politically impaired. It’s a form of epilepsy. If I think an investigation is being screwed up because of politics, my eyes roll up, I foam at the mouth, and I become uncontrollable.”

Dobbs laughed but Karp went on, deadpan. “I’m serious. I don’t want to mess things up and destroy lives and careers. I
want
to kiss ass, and go along to get along, and be one of the boys. I just … can’t … do it. It’s my personal tragedy, like being one of Jerry’s kids. And now you know my shame.”

Dobbs wiped his eyes with his napkin. “Thank you for sharing. Actually, I think you’re just what we need. Look, in all seriousness, here’s the picture on Flores. Like the rest of us, he’s got more committee assignments than he knows what to do with. Two things interest him, Hispanic affairs and migrants—to his credit he’s sincere about helping out his people—and energy, because he’s in the oil patch down there and that’s how he stays elected. His interest in the Kennedy thing is twofold: first, if you do come up with something rich, it’ll get him on TV in Dallas, and two … that’s a bit more complex.” Dobbs took a sip of water and continued.

“One assumption some people have is that the mystery behind JFK is a Dallas mystery. Oswald’s life there. Ruby and the cops. What really happened in the half hour or so after the first shots. George is connected to the people who run Dallas, and to the extent that the investigation might affect them, especially in a negative way, George has got to be on top of it. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does. But the question is, if it turns out that one of his associates needs to be leaned on, will he balk?”

Dobbs grinned. “Oh, yeah. He might balk. He might do worse than that. Which is why you have me.”

Karp thought about this for a moment, and then, looking into the blue eyes, asked, “And why
do
we have you, Mr. Dobbs? Are the people of Connecticut burning to find out if old Earl Warren went into the tank on this one? Or what … ?”

The waiter came and they ordered. When the man left, Dobbs said, “That’s the right question, all right. What’s in it for Dobbs. I like you, Mr. Karp, or, if I may, Butch. I’m Hank. You get right to the point, which is sometimes like a dose of oxygen around here, although I should warn you it’s a violation of the Federal Anti-Confrontation and Bullshitters’ Protection Act of 1973, As Amended.” He smiled at the small joke and Karp smiled too.

Dobbs leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “How to put it? Well, first, my constituents. The people of the great state of Connecticut are mainly interested in keeping the insurance industry happy and making sure that when ships and weapons get built, they get built in the great state of Connecticut, as a result of which I spend most of my time on the Banking and Armed Services Committees. In my spare time, I try to do an occasional favor for the United States. As far as personally goes, in 1963, I was at Yale. I’d worked on the presidential campaign in Hartford, and my family had some connections in the past with Jack Kennedy. I’d actually shaken his hand, once, when he was in the Senate. I remember I told him that I was interested in politics and that I was off to Yale that year, and he laughed and told me that if I worked hard I could overcome even that obstacle. I was in Dwight eating a sandwich when some kid ran into the dining room and yelled out that Kennedy’d been shot in Dallas. I went into shock—well, everybody did, really, but I guess I imagined mine was worse. My dad had just passed on that summer and I suppose I conflated the two losses in my mind. It was an extremely bad year for me; I nearly flunked out, as a matter of fact, and had to repeat the semester. Okay, that’s personal aspects. There’s a political aspect too. I think practically everyone understands that when Kennedy was assassinated, the country started on a downward slope. I think it had more of an effect on the country than Lincoln’s did, because Lincoln had mainly finished his work and Kennedy had barely started his. Not that I’m comparing Kennedy to Lincoln—that’s not the point. The point is that the country was tipped out of one track and into another, which we’re still on and which is no good.”

“Because Kennedy died?” Karp asked.

“Actually, as much as I mourn his loss, no, not exactly. It was mainly because of what happened afterward. The government didn’t tell the truth about what happened. Some people decided that a higher national purpose would be served if the facts about the assassination were bent to prove a point. Have you read the Report?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I won’t say anything about it; make up your own mind. But give me the point for a moment. That lie was the forerunner of the lies in service of a higher national purpose that got us into Vietnam, and kept us there until the army and the country were nearly wrecked. It was the premise for all the stuff that Nixon’s cronies did. The good of the country, as any bozo wants to define it, is more important than the truth. Hey, the good of the country demands that Nixon gets reelected? No problem, we’ll burgle, we’ll lie, we’ll cover up the truth. After a while the people stop believing
anything
the government says. Hell, we’ve got a presidential candidate now whose main platform is ‘I’ll never lie to you.’ Like it was a big thing. It’s pathetic! And it all started in Dallas, and what we made of it in the Warren Report. If we’re ever going to get the country back on the right track, we have to go back to the point when we ran off the rails. That’s why I’m pushing this investigation, my little favor, as I said, for the United States of America. Does that answer your question?”

Karp nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. It was a convincing speech. On the other hand, Dobbs was a politician; his profession was giving convincing speeches. Maybe he had even given this one before, like Flores with his hoe routine. Maybe it was even true. In any case, it was at least possible that Dobbs was prepared to support a serious investigation. Karp found himself liking the man, despite what Crane had said about Washington and dogs. Karp was himself a connoisseur of fine speeches, and lies, and his instinct told him that Dobbs at least believed what he was saying. Also, the contrast between the patronizing, overbearing Flores and the frankness of Dobbs, a man only two or three years Karp’s senior, was gratifying. A
congressman,
after all.

The food came and they began eating and resumed talking, the subject having been changed by unspoken agreement to fields less fraught with passion and consequence.

Karp walked back down the Hill to the office on Fourth Street. When he entered, Bea Sondergard was sitting on the floor amid a chaos of file boxes, moving papers among file folders of various colors. She looked up at him over the rims of her spectacles.

“How was lunch? I heard you dined with Congress.”

“I had the chicken,” said Karp.

“That’s the first step. Chicken, then sirloin, then bribes and fancy girls. He’s in his office. Oh, and I had some furniture moved into your place. I took the liberty of deciding on a color scheme.”

“Gosh, I had my heart set on something in rusting gray metal.”

She flashed teeth. “Then you’ll be pleased.”

Bert Crane was on the phone when Karp walked in. The office had been tidied some and Crane now sat in a high leather chair behind a handsome new mahogany desk. And the phones obviously worked. Karp sat down on a new-smelling black leather couch, and waited.

When Crane got off the phone and turned to him, Karp observed, “You guys work fast.”

“Yeah, it’s great, if we stay out of jail. Bea sometimes cuts the corners in procurement. I think she paid for all this stuff with an account that’s not quite authorized yet. How was your lunch?”

“I had the chicken. How was yours?”

“As I said, I ate with the press. We just went out on the veldt and they found a dead zebra. But, really—how did you make out with Dobbs?”

“Pretty good, I think. He seems like a straight shooter.”

“I agree. For a politician, anyway. What did you talk about?”

“He filled me in on Flores, similar to what you said. And we exchanged boyish confidences. He told me a story about why he’s serious about doing the Kennedy investigation right.”

“The one about JFK and his dad?”

“Just hinted at it. I gathered they were political allies of the Kennedys in some way.”

“More than that. Richard Dobbs was with Kennedy in the Pacific during the war. He was some kind of operations or intelligence officer with Kennedy’s PT boat squadron. They’d been at Harvard together, although Dobbs was a little older, and I think they were pretty close. He finished the war as a lieutenant commander and then went right into the Navy Department. When the shit hit the fan in the fifties, JFK was the only politician of any stature who stood by him. An unusual profile in courage for Kennedy, I might add. He was not prone to gestures that might have hurt him politically, and defending Richard Ewing Dobbs was sure as hell in that class.”

“Well, none of that got mentioned. He also talked about how bad it was for the country, the doubts about Warren and all. He sounded sincere.”

“No doubt. Sounding sincere is in his job description.”

“Is being cynical in mine?”

Crane laughed enthusiastically. “Yes it is, the
sine qua non,
in fact. But seriously, Dobbs is solid on this investigation, and on most other things too. I didn’t mean to denigrate the man. If things get sticky, and they will, I think we can count on him. All you have to remember with Dobbs is, his daddy didn’t do it.”

FOUR

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Karp to the ceiling. He was in his office at the New York DA, his soon-to-be-former office. On a nearby chair, a chunky, milk chocolate-skinned man in a tan, pin-striped, double-breasted suit was bent over with helpless laughter. It was the hiccupping kind of laughter, nearly soundless, the infectious kind, and Karp himself felt it tickling his own face.

“It’s a good opportunity—,” he added.

The laughter increased in intensity, and the other man, who was a detective lieutenant in the New York Police Department, started to lose control of his limbs and slide off his seat.

Karp started to laugh too, as the thought of trying to convince a hysterically laughing man to take charge of the field investigation of the death of John F. Kennedy suddenly struck him as hilarious.

Several minutes passed in this way, and when the lieutenant, whose name was Clay Fulton, and who was Karp’s oldest and best friend in the cops, had advanced to the stage of gasping “Oh, God” and wiping his eyes with his lemon silk handkerchief, Karp took up his case again.

“Seriously, Clay… .”

“Oh, God, don’t start,” Fulton groaned. “My heart can’t take much of this anymore.”

“Seriously,” Karp persisted. “I think it’s a good deal. You were set to retire from the job anyway.”

“You
are
serious about this,” said Fulton, sitting up again.

“I keep saying.”

“You’re going to go find out who aced JFK, and you want me to help you?”

“You got the picture. What’s your problem?”

Fulton let out a whoosh of breath and scratched the side of his heavy jaw. He regarded Karp through narrowed eyes. “Well, I got a couple. One, what makes you think we’re gonna do any good on a thirteen-year-old investigation, that the guys who were there when the corpse was still warm couldn’t’ve done?”