Veil

5

Daybreak crested the fringe of Washington’s skyline and hung on the horizon like a luminous vapor. Charlie stooped low in the brush and waited. Another fifteen minutes and Tim Billingsly, the cemetery’s nightshift guard, would finish his rounds and not return for an hour. It would give him just enough time.

Tim disappeared down an endless black road. Charlie picked up his baggage and trotted toward the mausoleum. The icy wind made his bones ache, his knees creak.

Except for three small wooden pews, the mausoleum lay empty.

Charlie crept across the white marble floor as though he might wake the dead. Names on the crypts read like a guest list of old friends he’d come to know well. Martha Parker 1933-1986, Loving Mother; Percy Wintergreen 1913-1991, Husband and Father. So many lives, so many secrets. He wondered who would mourn for him. First, unfinished business.

Each wall of the monument held row upon row of tombs, stacked six high and numbered at the bottom for easy identification. Dim sunlight swelled through the skylights providing just enough illumination for him to find his way. He stopped at row 61D-66D.

Charlie put the duffle bag and blanket wrapped rifle on the floor next to crypt 61D, pulled a pair of pliers and a screwdriver from his urine stained overcoat, and loosened four screws that held the tomb’s marble panel in place. A decorative brass ball no bigger than a marble covered each bolt. Careful not to damage them, he removed each one and pulled a long steel rod from each corner of the slab.

The marble square came easily loose and he gently lowered it to the floor, exposing a dark wooden casket with tarnished gold fittings. He pulled it out halfway and leaned it down to the floor.

An uncontrollable ache hit his lungs. Charlie coughed violently, covering his mouth with a blood-soaked handkerchief. He clutched his chest and hacked, careful not to stain the floor. A rancid odor filled the air. His chest rattled, his eyes watered. He leaned on one of the tombs for balance. It took a few moments for him to regain his strength. Death whispered. Come. “Not today,” Charlie answered, and quickly went back to work.

Charlie opened the casket, put the duffle bag and rifle inside, locked it, then quickly slid it back into place. The last bolt fastened the slab tight. The door cracked open. Tim.

A thousand needles pierced Charlie’s lungs and he struggled to suppress the bloody burst. Tim turned down his row, Charlie dipped down the next, and headed for the back door.

“Hey you! Stop!”

Charlie hit the door holding his chest, blood running from his nose.

He disappeared into the brush on the south side of the cemetery, just behind the mausoleum.

He struggled over a short metal fence and vanished down a path he’d traveled for four decades. Charlie looked back. Nothing. He fell to his knees and coughed so hard he almost passed out in the grass. Tears filled his eyes. He shut them tight, and saw President Kennedy’s head explode, over and over.

The attack passed. He went on his way. The evidence safe once again.