was quoting “Washington” a person—a force.
The Walterses knew all about Washington. Marti had been born in Washington’s Sibley Hospital on September 23, 1950, during Van’s first Washington assignment to counterfeit money cases. After that, he worked on the presidential and vice presidential protection details for the next five years, mostly protecting Mrs. Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon. From Washington he went to field offices in Minneapolis and then Charlotte before being sent to Dallas in 1961, a step designed to eventually lead to Van being a special agent in charge.
“He’s gone … to bed,” her mother said to Marti when she emerged from the bathroom. “Hard day.”
All days were hard days for Van.
“Kansas City? Do we
have
to go to Kansas City?” Marti asked her mother. It was one of the most direct and real questions she had asked aloud since the night of the assassination.
Rosemary didn’t answer directly but said in a mumble, “No telling where we’re going next—and next, next, and next. They want to get rid of Van and all the others. Nobody even wants to see them.”
Rosemary had said it more than once, and Marti certainly knew that to lose a president was the cardinal failure for anyone in the Secret Service. But clearly there was much more to it than that. Still, what exactly? She remained haunted by thatfirst overheard conversation between her parents, when Van had described the day in such horrific detail. But there was not even one mention of her dad in the assassination investigation stories she scoured in the Dallas newspapers every day. If he had really been responsible for Kennedy’s death, wouldn’t somebody be saying so in public?
Rosemary Walters left the room mumbling in her distant way, “The sooner we get out of Dallas, the better it will be for us all.”
But Marti loved Dallas even if Lee Harvey Oswald had shot the president there. She loved Dealey High School. She loved the Cowboys. And she loved Eddie LeBaron.
S HE SAID THE house in East Dallas was not sold until nine weeks after they had moved to Kansas City. But the Secret Service granted “assassination-associated” agents financial courtesies that included a “special advance payment” to Van Walters for the Kansas City rent deposit. Back in Dallas, a Realtor had stuck a fifty-one-thousand-dollar asking price on the Crestmont Street house, which was great considering they had bought it on Van’s GI Bill for forty-five thousand barely two years before.
The Walterses, despite the DC-to-Minneapolis-to-Charlotte-to-Dallas kind of moving around that went with working for the Secret Service, had always bought rather than rented their homes. Van told Marti more than once that it was all about equity, equity, equity, and someday that equity would put her through college.
But this time, a small two-bedroom rental apartment on a street south of downtown Kansas City called The Paseo was just fine. In fact, as far as Marti could tell, there wasn’t even any serious talk of buying a house in Kansas City. Her mother did the finding and renting and her dad mostly just shrugged and nodded when told anything about it.
For Marti, the move to Kansas City was just the latest terrible thing to happen in her rapidly deteriorating life. Kansas City had a pro football team called the Chiefs; they’d been the Dallas Texans until they moved to Kansas City last spring. It was something, but they weren’t the Cowboys. Marti told her dad, on one of the few times he was home in Kansas City, there was no way she could ever root for the Chiefs. Van Walters, again, barely tossed a shoulder in reaction. It seemed to Marti all he did now when she or Mother spoke, and sometimes he didn’t even do that.
Not only did she miss Dallas and the Cowboys, but the move also meant going cold into another strange school, now for the fifth time. This one was at least named for a writer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, rather than a newspaper
The Walterses knew all about Washington. Marti had been born in Washington’s Sibley Hospital on September 23, 1950, during Van’s first Washington assignment to counterfeit money cases. After that, he worked on the presidential and vice presidential protection details for the next five years, mostly protecting Mrs. Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon. From Washington he went to field offices in Minneapolis and then Charlotte before being sent to Dallas in 1961, a step designed to eventually lead to Van being a special agent in charge.
“He’s gone … to bed,” her mother said to Marti when she emerged from the bathroom. “Hard day.”
All days were hard days for Van.
“Kansas City? Do we
have
to go to Kansas City?” Marti asked her mother. It was one of the most direct and real questions she had asked aloud since the night of the assassination.
Rosemary didn’t answer directly but said in a mumble, “No telling where we’re going next—and next, next, and next. They want to get rid of Van and all the others. Nobody even wants to see them.”
Rosemary had said it more than once, and Marti certainly knew that to lose a president was the cardinal failure for anyone in the Secret Service. But clearly there was much more to it than that. Still, what exactly? She remained haunted by thatfirst overheard conversation between her parents, when Van had described the day in such horrific detail. But there was not even one mention of her dad in the assassination investigation stories she scoured in the Dallas newspapers every day. If he had really been responsible for Kennedy’s death, wouldn’t somebody be saying so in public?
Rosemary Walters left the room mumbling in her distant way, “The sooner we get out of Dallas, the better it will be for us all.”
But Marti loved Dallas even if Lee Harvey Oswald had shot the president there. She loved Dealey High School. She loved the Cowboys. And she loved Eddie LeBaron.
S HE SAID THE house in East Dallas was not sold until nine weeks after they had moved to Kansas City. But the Secret Service granted “assassination-associated” agents financial courtesies that included a “special advance payment” to Van Walters for the Kansas City rent deposit. Back in Dallas, a Realtor had stuck a fifty-one-thousand-dollar asking price on the Crestmont Street house, which was great considering they had bought it on Van’s GI Bill for forty-five thousand barely two years before.
The Walterses, despite the DC-to-Minneapolis-to-Charlotte-to-Dallas kind of moving around that went with working for the Secret Service, had always bought rather than rented their homes. Van told Marti more than once that it was all about equity, equity, equity, and someday that equity would put her through college.
But this time, a small two-bedroom rental apartment on a street south of downtown Kansas City called The Paseo was just fine. In fact, as far as Marti could tell, there wasn’t even any serious talk of buying a house in Kansas City. Her mother did the finding and renting and her dad mostly just shrugged and nodded when told anything about it.
For Marti, the move to Kansas City was just the latest terrible thing to happen in her rapidly deteriorating life. Kansas City had a pro football team called the Chiefs; they’d been the Dallas Texans until they moved to Kansas City last spring. It was something, but they weren’t the Cowboys. Marti told her dad, on one of the few times he was home in Kansas City, there was no way she could ever root for the Chiefs. Van Walters, again, barely tossed a shoulder in reaction. It seemed to Marti all he did now when she or Mother spoke, and sometimes he didn’t even do that.
Not only did she miss Dallas and the Cowboys, but the move also meant going cold into another strange school, now for the fifth time. This one was at least named for a writer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, rather than a newspaper
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