The Second Shooter Read online

  The Second Shooter

  E. A. Briginshaw

  Copyright © 2015 Ernest A. Briginshaw

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the express written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Images of “Dealey Plaza” and “Shooter” used on the book cover are licensed through Shutterstock.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN: 978-0-9921390-4-9 (Book)

  ISBN: 978-0-9921390-5-6 (eBook)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Although the novel is a work of fiction, some of the characters are composite characters based on my family and friends. Thanks to all of the people who reviewed and critiqued numerous drafts of this novel including friends, members of my family and writers from the London Writers Society. Special thanks to Gary Barwin, Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario and the London Public Library for his help with several key chapters.

  *** Chapter 1 ***

  Stan gave a heavy sigh as he saw his boss approaching him with a worried look on his face. Stan was sure that he had already come to check up on him at least twenty times today.

  “How are things coming along?” his boss asked, giving a false smile that failed to hide his concern.

  “About the same as the last time you asked,” Stan replied with a scowl. Stan was the team supervisor with the National Archives who had been assigned to deal with a recent influx of documents and files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. According to the JFK Records Act of 1992, all records related to the assassination had to be released within 25 years of the enactment of that legislation. This was crunch time, as the deadline of October 26, 2017 was quickly approaching.

  “Let me know if you run into any problems,” his boss said as he headed back to his office.

  Stan knew he would be back again shortly. “It would be great if you could give me about ten more people to help,” Stan muttered to himself, “or God forbid, sit down at a keyboard yourself”. But Stan knew neither was going to happen. The Assassination Records Review Board had not been given enough staff or time to properly complete its mandate and many people had quit in frustration over the years.

  Stan glanced at his cell phone to make sure he hadn’t missed a text from his wife. He would have quit working here himself, except his wife was due with their second child at any moment. They couldn’t afford to be without health benefits at this point in their lives.

  Stan clicked his mouse to open another folder of files on his computer. The files consisted of digitized images of the thousands of police reports, photos and videos that had been filed regarding the assassination. The only records not required to be released were those designated by the President where their release would cause an identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or conduct of foreign relations. Furthermore, the identifiable harm must be of such gravity that it outweighed the public interest in disclosure.

  The President, to his credit, had recently turned down requests from the Secret Service, the FBI and the CIA to prevent the release of thousands of documents. There were some who thought that one or more of those organizations had somehow been involved in the assassination, but others felt they didn’t want the documents released because it showed how incompetent they had been that day in protecting the President. The declassification of many of those documents had dramatically increased the amount of work required over the last few weeks.

  Stan saw his boss heading toward him once again. “I’m not going to get this done if you keep interrupting me.”

  His boss took another look at his watch and headed back to his office. Stan could see that it was now 5:30 p.m. and the office was practically empty. Most of the other employees had already headed home, knowing that the latest salary freeze prevented them from getting paid for any overtime. Stan, as a supervisor, didn’t qualify and his boss had reminded him numerous times that he was expected to work whatever hours were required to get the job done.

  For the next few hours, Stan continued to review the files that had been prepared by his staff and then upload them to the National Archives website. He flew through the folders that had been prepared by most of his staff, as he trusted their work. However, the files prepared by Jamie would require closer scrutiny as he was a junior clerk and was known to be somewhat sloppy in his work. It took Stan about an hour to go through his files and it appeared that he had done a good job. However, he knew he had several more hours of work ahead when he opened the last folder. It didn’t appear to have any organization at all and everything in the directory was simply labelled with sequential numbers.

  Suddenly his cell phone chirped and the display showed the call was from his wife. “It’s time,” she said. “My water just broke. Mom is taking me to the hospital. Can you meet us there?”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Twenty minutes max.”

  After he hung up the phone, he could see there were at least a few hundred files he had left to review. But the birth of his child took precedence over the release of documents about the death of a President that had happened over fifty years earlier. Who would care at this point?

  He saw his boss emerge from his office and start walking toward him. He quickly selected the remaining files and clicked on the button to upload them to the National Archives website.

  “All done,” Stan said as he grabbed his coat and started toward the door.

  He did not realize the sequence of events he had just started with a simple click of his mouse.

  *** Chapter 2 ***

  Henry Shaw watched as his two sons carried the last few boxes from the house out to the small truck he had rented for the move. Henry had already taken several loads and he could feel the twinge in his back telling him it was time to let his sons handle the rest. He was approaching his mid-forties and he was finding that he couldn’t do what the young guys do anymore, something that annoyed him immensely.

  David, Henry’s youngest son, was heading off to Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. David had just turned nineteen and was the athlete of the family. He was tall and thin and it was impossible to miss the resemblance from his father’s side of the family.

  “I think that’s everything,” David said.

  “Let me give it one last check,” Henry said as he headed back into the house. As Henry surveyed his son’s empty room, he felt overwhelmed. Both of his sons would soon be out on their own.

  Robert, his oldest son, was twenty-two and just starting his second year in mathematics at Waterloo. Robert had graduated high school a few years ago, but it had taken him a while to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. Henry was pleased when he announced that he was going to the University of Waterloo, Henry’s alma mater.

  Henry looked out the bedroom window and saw both boys sitting on the back of the truck. While David looked like his father’s side of the family, Robert looked like his mother’s. Henry wished his wife could see how both of their boys had grown up, but she had died of cancer a few years ago. He fought back the tears that he could feel welling up and started scanning the room for anything they might have forgotten. He saw the soccer jerseys still pinned to the wall. One was David’s jersey from the Under-19 Canadian national team. Beside it were jerseys from the American and British teams they had played against in a tournament.

  “Aren’t you
going to take your jerseys with you?” Henry asked David when he got outside.

  “No, it’s probably best to leave them here. I’m hoping to put some new ones up at our place in Waterloo.”

  David was a sure-bet to make the soccer team at Laurier and was hoping to make the Canadian national team, but that was less certain. He would now be competing against full-grown men, not aspiring teenagers like he had with the U19 squad.

  They were heading to Waterloo a few weeks earlier than the regular students, as tryouts for school teams began before the semester started. Henry was pleased that both of his sons would be rooming together at a new residence, built in partnership between the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University. In fact, both of them rooming together was a forgone conclusion as David had started a new business venture called SchoolRoommate.com which proposed to provide better roommate matching at residences. David had tested the software matching program using himself and his brother as guinea pigs. He hadn’t been successful in selling the software to either university, but they had agreed to try it out for their new joint-partnership residence.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Henry said as they climbed into the moving truck.

  Robert and David played rock-paper-scissors to see who had to sit in the middle on the bench seat in the truck; David lost. But that didn’t dampen his spirit at all.

  “The three amigos begin their venture to take over the world!” David announced as Henry put the truck into gear.

  * * *

  As they approached the new residence, Henry was directed onto a makeshift path as the main entrance was blocked by a paver laying asphalt on the roadway and parking lot. They were told to park about a hundred metres from the main entrance.

  “Are you sure this place is ready for you to move in?” Henry asked.

  There were numerous tradesmen wearing hardhats still working on various aspects of the building. “Hold up there!” one of the workers yelled to them as soon as they started to walk toward the building. A truck filled with construction materials emitted a deafening beep-beep sound as it backed up in front of them.

  “It’s supposed to be completely done by the time the regular students arrive in a few weeks”, David shouted over the din, “but they promised our section would be ready by now.”

  “Don’t worry Dad,” Robert said. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  When they finally made their way to the main lobby, they had to walk between two rows of pylons as a tradesman was putting grout on the new tile floors and another was installing light fixtures. They headed into the elevator, which had tarps on the walls to prevent any damage during the construction and move-in period. They were pleased when the elevator doors opened to reveal the construction was completed on the third floor.

  “We’re supposed to be in W308,” David said as he pointed down the west hallway. When they got there, the door was open and it looked ready for them to move in. W308 consisted of two small bedrooms, each with built-in desks and shelving. They were separated by a small common area containing two lounge chairs that looked like they came from a military surplus store, a coffee table, a fridge and a sink. The bathrooms and showers were down the hall, shared among the occupants of the eight rooms in their pod.

  The rooms were sparsely furnished. Each tenant was expected to provide some of their own belongings to make it feel more like home. Henry had agreed to let the boys bring an old loveseat from his basement and some other things he really didn’t use any more. The boys had also talked him into letting them “borrow” a big-screen TV, but Henry knew he’d never get it back.

  Suddenly a blast from the fire alarm outside their room pierced the air.

  “Don’t worry,” one of the tradesmen yelled to them when they came out into the hallway. “You can ignore the alarm. We’ll be testing it for another few hours.” Sure enough, the alarm stopped about thirty seconds later.

  They spent the next hour or so lugging their belongings from the small moving truck up to their room. It would have taken less time except they continually had to maneuver around the tradesmen in the lobby. They also had to wait for the elevator when one of the workers commandeered it to move supplies up to another floor.

  “Do you want me to help you get things unpacked and organized?” Henry asked his sons.

  “No, I think we’ve got it from here,” David said. He took a box from his father and put it in the corner of the room with all of the others.

  Both boys immediately started setting up their computers in their respective rooms. They both had the latest-and-greatest computers, claiming they needed the power for their schoolwork, but Henry knew that the high-speed processors and graphics cards were mostly for their games.

  Henry felt totally useless at this stage and didn’t know what else he should be doing to help. It was Robert who noticed. “It looks like someone needs a hug.”

  He was right. Henry did need a hug. He wasn’t ready for his sons to be out on their own.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Robert said. “We’ll get all of this mess organized eventually. Is Laura coming up this weekend?”

  Laura Walsh was the woman who had come into Henry’s life a few years after their mother had died. She lived in Chicago and Henry lived in the suburbs of Toronto, so they didn’t see each other as often as Henry would like. However, the law firm that Henry worked for had merged with a Chicago firm so Henry used that as an excuse for as many trips to Chicago as he could. Henry wasn’t a lawyer; he was the Information Technology Manager for the firm.

  “No, she said she couldn’t get away this weekend. She’s working on some big story.” Laura was an investigative journalist with the Chicago Tribune. Lately, it seemed like she was always working on a big story.

  “Well, if you guys don’t need anything else, I should probably get the rental truck back.” Henry was hoping for an objection, but none came. Both boys gave him one last hug and he headed back out to the truck.

  It was just over an hour’s drive from Waterloo to the suburb outside of Toronto where Henry lived. He wasn’t looking forward to returning to an empty house. His mother had lived with them for a few years, except for the winter months which she spent in Florida, but even she had recently moved to live with Henry’s sister. With the boys all grown up now, she didn’t think they needed her help anymore.

  As he drove, Henry thought about Laura and how they had first met in the airport bar in Chicago – a night he would never forget. When he got home, the house seemed bigger and lonelier than ever, so he decided he would head to Chicago in the morning to see her. He was sure she would love the surprise. He was wrong.

  *** Chapter 3 ***

  David turned on his computer and was surprised that he didn’t see a private secured network for their building. “You seeing a network connection for our residence?” he yelled to Robert.

  “No,” Robert yelled back. “Maybe it’s not set up yet.”

  “Well they can’t expect us to stay here without Internet access. I’ve got the number of the building manager. We were told to call him if we have any problems.”

  David called the building manager using his cell phone, but it went straight to voice-mail. The message said the manager could be found in the administration office, so they both headed off to find him. When they arrived, they found him sitting in his office surrounded by a wall of unopened boxes. He was a middle-aged man who loved kids and wanted to be a teacher, but a recent downsizing had forced him to consider other options. He much preferred dealing with eight-year-olds who thought he was smart and looked up to him, rather than the university-aged kids who thought they already knew everything.

  “We don’t have Internet access,” David said as they navigated around the boxes.

  The building manager sighed. The last thing he needed was another problem to deal with. “Yeah, it’s not set up yet.”

  He was hoping they would simply leave. They didn’t.

  “What’s your name and what room a
re you in?” he finally asked.

  “I’m David Shaw and this is my brother Robert. We’re in W308.”

  “David Shaw,” the manager said. “You’re the kid who designed the roommate matching program, aren’t you? That’s another problem I’m dealing with. I can’t figure out how it works.” He pointed to his computer which was displaying an error.

  Robert sensed they weren’t going to get a quick resolution to any of their problems and tried a different approach. He knew it was important to get off on the right foot with the building manager. “I’m sure David can help you with that and maybe I can help you with the network problem.”

  “Do you know anything about phones, networks and computers?”

  “Yep, I’m in computer science at UW,” Robert said, “so I know enough to get me in trouble.”

  “Well, let’s tackle the network problem first,” the building manager said to both of them. “Grab a box and I’ll show you what to do.” Robert and David each grabbed a box from the pile in the office. “I’m Scott Porter by the way,” the building manager continued. “Sorry to be so short with you, but all of this was supposed to be completed by now, so I’m a bit under the gun.”

  “No problem,” Robert said. “I can’t imagine trying to get all of this organized before all of the students arrive.”

  “The computer network is actually tied into our phone system,” Scott said as he showed them how his phone and computer were connected. “Paul, the telecom guy, said it’s faster and more secure than having a wireless network. So, if your phone isn’t working, that means he hasn’t finished wiring them up yet and your computer connection won’t work either. He’s working in the wiring closet down at the end of the hall. He might be able to make yours a priority if you ask him nicely.”