Pilate's Cross (excerpt from the novel)

Downstairs, Dean Gareth Kennedy had been spending the last few moments reminiscing with his secretary, Grace Hamilton, about the time he’d met JFK himself on a train right after the war. He regaled her with the tale of borrowing a newspaper from the rail-thin, nearly-crippled Navy hero. “He said ‘showr’ in that Boston accent of his and handed it to me,” Kennedy said. “I introduced myself, and that was when he told me he was Jack Kennedy. That’s why I remember meeting him. We had a laugh about being related or something like that.” He paused a moment, tapping his finger on the Kansas City newspaper that lay open on his desk, plastered with photos of the slain president’s memorial service. “I, uh…” His voice trailed off.

Grace looked at the steno pad in her hands.

Kennedy shook his head, wiped his glasses, and told Grace to tell the two typewriter salesmen in his outer office that he would be with them in a few minutes.

She closed his door quietly and returned to her desk.

***

Walter Mackey, of the Westside Typewriter and Office Company, waited patiently in Dr. Kennedy’s outer office, seated in a worn wooden chair. Next to him sat Thomas Guthrie, his new trainee. Mackey was entering his twentieth year in the sales game, and this week he was tasked with showing the freshly-discharged-from-the-Army kid, Guthrie, the ropes. On the way over from the city, he’d filled Guthrie in on the sad story of Cross Township, telling the wide-eye rookie how Cross had once rested close to the banks of the Missouri River—until the Great Flood of 1943 rerouted the mighty Missouri and quashed Cross’s ambitions of economic glory. Now it was a small, anemic college town a mile from the river and two miles off the beaten track of State Highway 9. “But they’ve still got a college there, and colleges need office equipment, one way or another,” he’d explained to Guthrie.

“Dr. Kennedy will see you in a few minutes, gentlemen.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Mackey said.

Guthrie smiled back at her as well. A little too big, Mackey thought.

“If you’re in a hurry, you might want to go upstairs to the commerce office to handle the past billing,” Grace said. “Then you could come back about the new typewriter order.”

“Aw, that’s okay. We can wait,” Mackey said.

Guthrie nodded assent, sliding his beaten-up leather satchel on the floor beside his chair.

Grace sat down. “He has an appointment with one of our professors at 8:15, but it shouldn’t take long,” she said.

The men nodded; they knew the drill.

A few awkward minutes passed after the campus bell rang 8:15 a.m.

Mackey looked at his watch, then at Grace. “Terrible what happened in Dallas,” the salesman said, trying to make conversation.

Guthrie nodded in silent agreement, his face grim.

“Yes,” Grace said. She was the picture of efficiency, and any grief she had for President Kennedy—or nearly any emotion at all—was reserved for her husband and dog to see.

Mackey was not one to be ignored, however, which served him well in the sales business. “Just awful. I’m glad they got that bastard Oswald,” Mackey said.

Grace jumped a bit at “bastard.”

“Oh sorry, ma’am. Pardon my French, but this whole thing’s just so upsettin’.”

Grace stood and offered a simple, “Yes.” She looked back at her boss’s door. “Perhaps Dr. Kennedy can see you since Dr. Bernard seems to be running late today,” she offered, wanting to get them out of her lobby so they’d stop distracting her from her work. She knocked quietly at his door and slipped in.