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CHAPTER 40
May 30, 1979
Acouple of days later, with Jenny staying at her grandma’s, Dean was in the station, the Billy Nimitz file on his desk. The hospital search had turned up nothing, which meant Billy had not stopped for treatment after being beaten by factory workers or the hospital people had not recognized the photo. Either resulted in a dead end.
With the Grim Devils untouchable until the FBI and DEA gave Zion PD the all-clear, which might be months at best, that path of investigation was limited. And so with all the dead ends facing him, Dean flipped open the file and started looking. He pulled out the photos. The gruesome ones and the ones provided by Billy’s parents. He reviewed the coroner’s report and the crime-scene report. Everything he knew about the death of Billy Nimitz summarized and ordered on sheets of paper and tucked into a folder. He pulled up the report on the gun. The Remington M1911A1 found at the scene, buried under some snow.
Purchased by Dennis Kowlowski in 1952. He died the same day JFK was shot in Dallas. And the trail stops. Dean looked at the report. Guthrie had signed his name at the bottom. Dean was already convinced his fellow detective was corrupt, handing information over to the Grim Devils, derailing investigations where he could, even helping in an ambush of police. And now, knowing that, Dean doubted every bit of Guthrie’s part of the investigation. Had Guthrie done the necessary work on confirming the history of the gun?
Dean walked to the Carnegie Zion Library, a two-story brick building, five blocks from the station. Lisa Munadi smiled at him as he walked through the double-glass door entrance. She had graduated two years before Dean and washed out of SUNY-Buffalo while he was heading to Vietnam. During school, she had acted as if she were better than everyone else except for the jocks she threw herself after. Now she worked as a librarian in the town she had said she was going to abandon. Wasn’t that the American reality?
“Hey Dean,” she said. “What can we do for you?”
He smiled at her. “You keep archives of the paper, right?”
“Yeah. We keep it on microfilm.”
“I need to see the Zion Beacon for 1963. November 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. Start with those.”
“Doing research on Kennedy?” She walked from behind the counter toward the stairs leading upward.
“No. But a fellow in a nearby town died the same day. I want to see his obituary.”
“Sure. Sure.” She led him up the stairs to the single microfilm machine, patted him on the shoulder, and said she would return a few minutes later. She did with two square boxes. She turned on the machine and pulled out the tray, lifting the glass covering. She inserted the reel of film on the spindle, unspooled a bit of the film, and slipped it beneath the roller and into the uptake reel, which she rolled a few times. She set the glass down and pushed the tray in, revealing the Zion Beacon’s front page of the November 22, 1963. She adjusted the rotation knob to flip the image upright. “There you go.”
He heard her footsteps fade away and looked at the screen. The headline for that day was, “Kennedy Shot. Johnson Sworn In.” A photo of the dead president and new president alongside the article. Dean fast forwarded to the obituary section. He did not find one for Dennis, so he moved on to November 23rd. More JFK assassination coverage, including a prominent “Marxist Accused of Murder” headline.
On the bottom half of the page, a photo of Zion’s mayor and Eric Wallace. Dean paused and lingered over the image. Despite his dad wearing the dress campaign hat, Dean could see that his father had grayed significantly since then. He had also gained some weight around the middle, but the image reminded him of how vigorous his dad had been. And then he thought how active and strong his dad was yet and hoped that he remained so in his later years.
He moved on to the obituaries and found one for Dennis that day. From there, Dean learned Dennis was survived by a brother and a son: Jacob and Curtis. Dean rewound the microfilm. Handed the boxes back to Lisa and walked back to the station. He had Laura call into the state dispatcher to pull the license information for both Jacob and Curtis Kowlowski.
While she did that, Dean smoked a cigarette and pulled up the day’s memo on any changes to the laws and guidelines. He stuffed them into a manila folder and shoved that into a desk drawer. He walked back over to Laura, who put her hand over the mouthpiece. “I don’t have the information yet.”
He nodded. “My question was, ‘Where’s Guthrie?’”
She shrugged so he walked outside, smoked another cigarette, and walked back in. She gave him a slip of note paper. Jacob did not have a license on file. The last one issued was in 1968. Curtis’s address was in Monrovia, a smaller town than Zion and to the west on Route 11 toward Chateaugay. He looked at his watch. Too early to go. Curtis was probably at work already, and Dean did not want to waste the day in Monrovia. He looked back at the reports awaiting his attention and knew he would not be able to focus on them. His mind was too hungry for an answer. So he told Laura he would be back later and drove to his mom’s house and absconded with Jenny. He drove her to Montreal, where they bought tickets for the Expos-Phillies game. While downing a hot dog bathed in mustard, they watched Gary Carter hit a two-run homer in the second from their left field seats. Dean bought Jenny a hat and mitt. Carter’s home run was the only score of the game. After watching the Expos, Dean thought they, perhaps, had a winning team that season. He dropped his daughter off with his mom before heading over to Monrovia. The day Jenny’s dad played hooky from work and took her to a baseball game—to a foreign country even—would long remain precious and special to her.
The short drive to Monrovia along a tree-lined and farm field highway passed by with few other cars. He pulled to a stop on the street outside the home listed as Curtis’s address, a split-level minimal Tudor cottage style house with olive wood siding and black shutters in need of painting. Dean walked up the driveway and the sidewalk, which was framed in a flower bed of begonias and marigolds. Standing beneath the small covered porch, he rang the bell. He started to ring again, when he noticed movement behind the lace curtain covering the front door’s window.
A finger moved the lace curtain, exposing a bald head. The finger disappeared and the curtain fell back in place. A dead bolt clicked and the door swung open.
A thin, frail man stood at the entrance. An oxygen tube hung from his nostrils to a small silver tank with a red valve he had on wheels behind him. Even though he was a couple of inches shorter than Dean, the man’s frailness made him seem much smaller, diminutive. Silver stubble dusted his face and he had no eyebrows above his blue-green eyes. “Hello?” he asked.
Dean flipped open his badge. “Detective Dean Wallace from Zion PD. I’m looking for Curtis Kowlowski.”
“Well, you found him.” He turned and slowly walked down the hallway. “Close the door behind you, please.”
Dean stepped into the house and closed the door. He caught up with Curtis as he was turning into a dining room with a dark, brilliant table surrounded by six chairs. An ivory, lace table runner a foot wide cut across the length of the table, and two crystal candle holders with virgin white candles sat in the center. He started to pull out one of the end chairs with armrests and a floral cushion pattern. Dean grabbed the chair and pulled it out. Curtis sat down and breathed deeply. “Thank you.”
Dean pulled out a chair next to him and sat down. Across from him stood a large china cabinet in a darker wood but also much older than the table. However, the cabinet seemed to hold only a few mugs and not much else.
“I’d get you something,” said Curtis, “but….” He gestured to the tank and held up the tube.
“That’s okay. I don’t think it’ll take much time.”
“Mm. Francis, my wife, should be back soon.”
“Sure.”
“She’s been good to me since. Well—”
“Can I get you something?”
“No.” Curtis shook his head. “So how can I help?”
“I’m here about a gun your father purchased. It was used in a homicide in Zion. The records indicate he bought it, but nothing after that.”
“My dad had several. Which gun?”
“It was a pistol. A Remington M1911A1.”
A car pulled into the driveway.
“Dad had a number of rifles, but he had only one pistol. I don’t like guns. Ah.” The garage door was opened. “Francis is home now.”
They waited in silence as the car was pulled in, the garage door closed, and the door to the house from the garage was opened. “Curt, I’m home.” Keys landing on a counter.
“In here, Francis. We’ve a visitor.”
“I wondered about the car in the driveway.” She walked into the kitchen, the sounds of her shoes hitting the floor changing as she walked from carpet to linoleum. “Hello,” she said when she saw Dean.
Dean stood up. “Hello ma’am. Sorry to disturb you. I’m Detective Dean Wallace with the Zion police.”
Her smile faded. She wore a brown business suit with a large, silk tan scarf. Gold hoop earrings dangled along her neck. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“That’s not necessary,” said Dean.
“Maybe not for you, but after the day I’ve had, I need it.” She pulled open a cabinet.
“Do you remember Dad’s guns?” asked Curtis.
“Oh yes. I hated those.”
“Me too. This detective’s here about the pistol. What we’d do with that?”
As she measured Folger’s into a paper filter, she tapped her right foot. “Let’s see. We sold a couple of the rifles to Stephen—Stephen what’s his name—Mc or something.”
“McHugh. Stephen McHugh. Has the kid, Joey, who’s a heck of a winger. Used to be at least, years ago.”
“Right. Yep, that’s him.” She filled the carafe and started pouring it into the coffee maker.
“The pistol. Oh that’s right. We sold it to that fella from the FBI. Remember?”
“FBI?” Dean could not hide the perplexity from his question.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“When was this?” asked Dean.
“So Dad died in sixty-three.” Curtis looked at Dean. “Same day as Kennedy. And we took all of it. Except the guns and a few things, which my uncle took. He used them on his farm and he went turkey hunting every fall. And then he passed. Oh, last year some time. Lived to be ninety-two. Imagine that. I won’t get there.”
“Don’t think that way,” said Francis, out of Dean’s sight now but in the kitchen.
Curtis mouthed “cancer” to Dean. “Yeah, yeah. Anyways, we got the stuff and we knew some people that still farm around here and asked if they wanted the guns. A few did and took them. But I knew a young man, worked down at the Webster’s restaurant downtown. Good fried chicken if you’re interested. He said—Taylor Parker is his name—he knew someone who was interested in the pistol. I said, ‘Have him give me a call.’ A couple of days later, he did. He drove out here. He’s not from Monrovia. From out in your parts or more east, I think. He bought it. Gave us a hundred cash. I have no idea if it was worth that or not, but I got more out of the cash than I would’ve out of the gun.”
The coffee maker started to drip. “That’s right,” said Francis, who appeared in the dining room and took a seat across from Dean. She patted Curtis’s hand and smiled at him.
“Do you know his name? The one who bought the pistol,” asked Dean.
Francis wagged her finger. “You know what? Since I didn’t know him, I wrote his name down.” She stood up and walked to the cabinet behind Dean. She pulled open a drawer, from which she pulled out a small box, the kind of which his mother stored recipes on index cards. Francis said she forgot her glasses, disappeared, and returned a few minutes later with them sitting low on her nose. She asked if he wanted sugar or cream, and he said no. He was anxious to find out who this FBI agent was that had purchased the gun, but he could not bring himself to be rude to Curtis and Francis. She pulled some mugs down.
Curtis leaned over. “She loves to have any company. So she’s excited to be able to serve coffee,” he whispered.
A few minutes later, each had a coffee adjusted to their liking. Francis, who splashed a bit of cream into hers, opened the box on the table and started flipping through pieces of paper.
Curtis started into a lengthy foray into his chemotherapy treatments for lung cancer. The prognosis did not look good, but Francis told him to be positive, that that was as important as the chemo. They responded to each other’s cues, which Dean could not see but knew were there nonetheless. His parents had them. He and Cindy had had them.
“Ah, here it is.” She pulled out a piece of paper. “That’s right. He was a handsome fellow.”
“Hey, now,” said Curtis.
“You’ve nothing to be jealous of.” She smiled at Curtis. To Dean, she said, “His name was Anthony Wallace.”
“Is that any relation?” asked Curtis.
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