The Most Dangerous Animal of All (26 page)

On Valentine’s Day 1974, twelve years to the day since Van’s marriage to Judy had been annulled by her family, the
Chronicle
received another letter:

Dear Mr. Editor,

Did you know that the initials SLAY (Symbionese Liberation Army) spell “sla,” an old Norse word meaning “
kill
.”

a friend

The Zebra killings resumed on April 1, when Thomas Rainwater and Linda Story were shot by a man who had followed them from the Salvation Army, where they served as cadets. Linda survived her wounds, but Thomas died.

Terry White and Ward Anderson were attacked April 14 at Fillmore and Hayes Streets while awaiting a bus. They both survived.

Nelson T. Shields would be the last victim of the Zebra murders. Shields, heir to a DuPont executive, was shot and killed on April 16 as he put a rug in the back of his station wagon.

As each murder occurred, pressure to catch the killers became more intense. Mayor Joseph Alioto and Chief of Police Donald Scott initiated an unprecedented move to catch the killers, announcing that any member of the black race would be stopped and questioned if they looked like the sketch of the killer or if they had a narrow chin or a short-cropped Afro. If they were cleared, they would receive a special Zebra card that let other officers know they had already been checked out.

Rotea was appalled. As badly as he wanted to catch the killers, he could not believe that his department would stoop to such blatant racial profiling. He observed in horror that weekend as his fellow officers stopped more than five hundred black men for no reason other than that they fit the description. The Officers for Justice stepped up to voice their opposition loudly, as did other prominent members of the black community. After the NAACP and the ACLU filed a lawsuit, the SFPD’s actions were ruled unconstitutional, and the department was forced to stop racially profiling blacks.

On April 23, a man named Anthony Harris, who belonged to a militant group associated with the Nation of Islam, turned himself in to police. He said he knew who was committing the random killings, and he could not let the slaughter of innocent white people continue. His testimony would help put away four other men: Larry Green, Manuel Moore, Jesse Lee Cooks, and J. C. Simon. Four more men were arrested but not indicted. After the longest trial in San Francisco history, each of the defendants was given a life sentence.

Rotea, relieved that the killers had been brought to justice, resumed his fight for racial equality within the department.

And his courtship of the beautiful blonde who took away his loneliness.

Judy had spent many evenings over the past months listening as Rotea and Sanders discussed the case. She had heard the 187 calls come in over the radio and had watched fearfully as they hurried out to investigate each new murder.

Her fear of losing him during that ordeal made her realize how much she loved the handsome detective.

On June 19, 1974, the Reverend Cecil Williams joined Rotea Gilford and Judy Chandler in holy matrimony.

And on July 8, Van wrote his final letter to the
San Francisco Chronicle
. It was directed toward
Chronicle
columnist Marc Spinelli.

Editor—

Put Marco back in the, hell-hole from whence it came—he has a serious psychological disorder—always needs to feel superior. I suggest you refer him to a shrink. Meanwhile, cancel the Count Marco column. Since the Count can write anonymously, so can I—

the Red Phantom

(red with rage)

Zodiac was indeed red with rage, but it wasn’t because of Marc Spinelli.

Judy had married the homicide detective.

Things had just hit way too close to home.

Zodiac would never be heard from again.

39

After he sent his final letter as the Zodiac, Van left the country, worried that Rotea would somehow put the pieces together if Judy started discussing him. He traveled to Austria, feeling safe in this country that had declared permanent neutrality—there would be no extradition if Rotea discovered the truth. He spent the next few weeks searching bookstores for ancient documents that traced the history of Austria back to 996. He was unsuccessful in finding anything of real value and once again resorted to forging documents to get by.

He did not bother to get in touch with his children or Edith, to whom he was still married. As time passed, Van realized that Judy must have kept her mouth shut, because the authorities did not contact him. His paranoia about Rotea dissipated, and his confidence grew.

A few months later, Van returned to San Francisco and moved into an apartment in the William Penn Hotel, in the Upper Tenderloin. Built circa 1907, the William Penn, located at 160 Eddy Street, was one of many hotels featuring single-occupancy dwellings that sprang up after most of the buildings in the district had been swallowed by the 1906 earthquake and the fires that erupted afterwards. The neighborhood, historically famous for its accommodating attitude toward alternate lifestyles, welcomed homosexuals, drug users, and the down-and-out. Musicians were drawn there by the gigs available in the plethora of nightclubs that were nestled between restaurants, theaters, and hotels. In the fifties, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk had graced those nightclubs, along with local musicians who blatantly copied their styles.

The neighborhood, bordered by Lower Nob Hill, had been Van’s old stomping grounds, and he felt safe here, in the midst of other misfits. His apartment, number 215, was small—one bedroom with a single closet and a bathroom with a short, claw-foot tub—and cheap, but it suited his needs.

Van spent his nights in the bars, drinking and watching drag queens scurry in and out, their short skirts and open blouses proudly proclaiming their true gender. Long before the Castro District welcomed them, the Tenderloin had housed and protected them.

During the day, Van roamed the streets, blurry-eyed and hungover, often walking the three blocks from the hotel to Geary Street, where he had once lived with Judy.

Reminiscing.

Mourning his loss.

Damning his luck.

Sometimes he tried to contact his old friend William, but William wouldn’t take his calls. He had long since ended his association with Van, although he could not forget him. The courts wouldn’t let him. William had earned his master’s degree in criminology and had become a forensic criminologist. But every time he entered a courtroom to testify as an expert witness in a case, a defense attorney brought up his arrest for helping Van kidnap Judy. William had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and been sentenced to probation, but the arrest had stayed on his record, haunting him throughout his career. If Van had testified to the fact that William did not know Judy was underage, the charges might have been dismissed. William felt betrayed by his friend and wanted nothing to do with him.

Van felt betrayed, too—by every woman he had ever known. And now Judy’s marriage to a homicide detective had taken away the only things that gave him relief.

Murder—that gave him power.

Taunting police—that made him feel superior.

Helped him cope.

Judy had robbed him of that.

Van soon headed for the reassuring familiarity of the cobblestone streets of Mexico City. He felt comfortable in the bar at the Hotel Corinto, surrounded by Mexicans who called him Señor Best and looked at his books. They accepted him, even admired the American who had become such a fixture in their lives. When he walked down the narrow streets, shop owners waved. When he went into a bar, a Tom Collins was waiting. Antiquities dealers smiled when they saw him, recognizing there was money to be made.

But Van was no longer interested in striking it rich with antiques. He bought and sold only what he needed to survive. And he drank, but there was no escape. Judy was there, lingering in the cathedrals they had visited, in the restaurants where they had eaten, in the Hotel Corinto, where they had made love.

Over the next year, Van spent most of his time in Mexico, nursing his wounds. I don’t know if my father thought about the lives he had destroyed, about the dreams he had stolen, about the children who would grow up without parents or the parents whose children had died, so unnaturally, before them. I don’t know if he thought about his own children. I only know that he drank.

In 1976, my father returned to San Francisco. On the night of March 17, around 8:30, he stumbled across Reardon’s Restaurant to a pay phone in the lobby.

Although he struggled to control his urges, on this night he couldn’t resist. He had been out of the limelight for too long and needed the thrill of taunting the authorities.

Van inserted a few dimes and dialed the number to the San Francisco office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“I have information regarding a possible plot to assassinate President Gerald R. Ford,” he said to the agent who answered the phone.

“What is your name, sir?” the agent asked.

“Earl Van Best.”

“What is your date of birth?”

“July 14, 1934.”

“What is this information you have?” the agent inquired, trying to discern whether this was a credible threat. There had been two attempts on the president’s life six months earlier—one by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a Manson Family member, who had pointed a gun at the president on the grounds of the capitol building in Sacramento, California, and one by Sara Jane Moore, a member of a leftist radical group, who had fired a shot at President Ford as he exited the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.

“I am an importer,” Van said. “I have many intimate contacts among diplomatic circles in the San Francisco area. Two days ago, a Yugoslav national informed me of a plot to kill the president.”

“What is his name?”

“I can’t give you that information,” Van said.

“How do you know this person?” the agent asked.

“He first contacted me in 1974 in Austria. He wanted to obtain false identity documents.”

“And what is the plot you mentioned?”

“He said he was going to assassinate the president of the United States during a public appearance on March 18.”

“Do you have a description of this man?” the agent said.

“He’s five feet nine inches tall, brown hair and brown eyes. He has a husky build,” Van replied. “I am aware of several radical plots against the president. They have been set up by a group of radical fanatics. This Yugoslav national is the leader.”

At approximately 8:45 p.m., the FBI alerted the SFPD that Van’s location was 100 Embarcadero Street. The Secret Service was also notified.

The agent kept Van talking while police were en route.

At 9:15 p.m., an SFPD officer took the phone from Van as another officer handcuffed him. “The suspect is in custody,” the agent on the line was informed. “It looks like he’s intoxicated. We are taking him to the city jail, and we’ll hold him on a drunk charge.”

The FBI agent informed the Secret Service that Van was in jail, but the special agent with whom he’d spoken did not show up to interrogate my father.

The SFPD released Van the following morning without consulting the FBI.

The FBI immediately began searching for him.

There was no attempt made on the president’s life on March 18.

On March 19, an FBI agent went to the William Penn Hotel and spoke to Van’s former landlord.

“He moved out in February of last year,” the landlord said. “He lived here for about six months. I still get some of his mail, though.”

The FBI agent returned on March 27 and again on April 2. “Has he been back?” he asked Van’s former landlord.

“I think he might have picked up some of his mail,” the landlord said.

“Please tell him to contact the FBI if he shows up.”

Van never did.

Because no further attempts against the president’s life had been made, the FBI eventually closed the case.

40

The Hall of Justice, which housed the SFPD, the San Francisco County Superior Court, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, and the county jail, was erected in 1958 and designed to impress, with its marbled walls and huge, domed chandeliers. The building featured a shoeshine stand at its entrance, where lawyers, detectives, and laypeople would often gather to chat. The fourth floor, where major crimes were investigated, consisted of long corridors with doors kept tightly closed and walls of photographs depicting heroes who had left their mark on the SFPD. A metal sign, carved with the word homicide, protruded out over the wooden doorway that led to the major crimes unit. Taped to the window nearby, posters of victims and rewards offered let everyone know which cases had not yet been solved.

By the mid-seventies, the sketch of the Zodiac had been replaced with photographs of suspects who were wanted for more recent murders. But detectives like Toschi kept the Zodiac sketch handy, just in case.

So did Rotea, who often sported a furry black-and-white-striped hat. He had bought it to commemorate his participation in the investigation of the Zebra murders, and he wore it proudly. Others in the department thought it was a strange memento, but few turned down the opportunity to try it on. In Room 450, Detective Dave Toschi could occasionally be found at his desk wearing the hat, with Rotea standing nearby, ready to snatch it back.

Late in 1975, Toschi’s partner, Bill Armstrong, weary of all of the death that plagued his dreams at night, left the homicide department with the biggest case of his career unsolved. Toschi wasn’t about to part ways with the Zodiac; he had too much invested. While the flamboyant detective still lorded over the case in the media, Armstrong had been the backbone of the duo, and in his absence, new leads were eventually distributed among all of the detectives. There was always another killer to catch, and the focus on apprehending the Zodiac was not as all-consuming as it had been six years earlier.