The Most Dangerous Animal of All (34 page)

Hattie became silent for a moment, realizing that maybe she had let something slip. Then she changed the subject, inviting me to the upcoming Best family reunion.

“I think it’s wonderful that you’ve come out of the woodwork. It’ll be fun to have you there,” she said, informing me that she was the reunion planner. She said she had finally located the grave of her great-grandfather, Captain John James Best, and planned to announce it at the reunion, but this would be even better. “He was a sniper in the Civil War, one of the Pee Dee Rifles,” Hattie said proudly.

I promised her I would be there, and Hattie said she would send me some information about my family.

That evening, I posted a message on the Horry County Historical Society Web page:

“My name is Gary Loyd Stewart. I was born Earl Van Dorne Best in 1963 to Earl Van Best Jr., son of Earl Van Best Sr., grandson of Earl Van Dorn Best. I was relinquished for adoption by my father and recently reunited with my birth mother. I am looking for any family members that may have known my father or are distant relatives to my Best family.”

I hoped my post would yield some results.

The next day, I called my second cousin, Bits Best Rosser, and introduced myself. Hattie had already informed her that I would be calling. When I told her my story, Bits said there had been rumors floating around the family about a baby, but it had been long ago and no one seemed to remember.

“Your grandfather, Uncle Earl, he was the chosen one. He was the baby of the household, and he became the prize of the Best family,” Bits explained. “And he was a wonderful minister. Your daddy, well, he was, I guess I should say, ‘different.’ When all of us kids were at the beach house in the summer, we all wanted to go swimming and play on the beach. Van, he didn’t like all that. He was interested in different things. He loved old things. I remember that old trunk that had the original land grant from the king of England and old christening gowns in it. That just fascinated your daddy. In fact, they were so old, and he opened that trunk so many times, that the air got to what was inside and it eventually disintegrated.”

Bits was just warming up. “You know how kids do, and we shouldn’t have, but we picked on him. Then, when he got older and we found out he was in trouble and on the run, we asked ourselves if maybe we had something to do with him turning out the way he did. Your grandmother, Gertrude, was a beautiful lady and had a beautiful voice and could play a piano like an angel. I don’t know what went wrong with her, either, but she started running around on Uncle Earl, even on Sundays, when he was preaching. It just broke our heart. I know it broke your daddy’s heart, too. So many times he would tell us that he would hear the bed rails squeaking and the revolving door of men in and out of his mother’s bedroom. I think that may have affected him deeply. I know it broke Uncle Earl’s heart.”

I listened as the details of my family’s past came pouring out.

“They were in Japan as missionaries when World War II broke out,” Bits continued. “Uncle Earl used to write us letters and send us programs from plays and musicals and operas that he used to take Aunt Gertrude and Van to. They all loved music, and your daddy loved plays. We all thought Japan would be good for Uncle Earl and Aunt Gertrude, but we started hearing about her having affairs over there, too. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Uncle Earl put Aunt Gertrude and Van on the first boat home, and he got on the last one out. He came home and joined the Navy and went to chaplain school, and they shipped him back to the Pacific. This time he went alone. This is where I think your daddy really took a turn for the worse. I know it broke his heart having his daddy gone off to war and living in San Francisco with Aunt Gertrude. The things he must have seen! It was about then that Uncle Earl came home to Galivants Ferry to tell the family he had asked Gertrude for a divorce. He knew that he would be excommunicated from the Methodist Conference if he divorced, but he couldn’t live with an unfaithful wife. It broke his heart. It broke all our hearts to see our golden child going through the first divorce in the family, him being a respected minister and all. This is what must have really hurt your daddy.”

Bits went on to explain how Earl Sr. had met his new wife, Eleanor Auble, and how they eventually married. “We were so happy for Uncle Earl. We just fell in love with Ellie the first time we laid eyes on her.”

We talked for more than two hours. Well, Bits talked and I listened, soaking up every detail. Later that night, I received an e-mail from Joyce Long Smith, who lived in Palatka, Florida. She was the daughter of Bits’s sister Mildred. I couldn’t help but smile as I read the e-mail. The Best family was coming out of the woodwork to meet Van’s long-lost son. Like kids at a carnival sideshow, they all wanted to talk to the baby they had quietly discussed so many years before.

“When your grandfather found out that your father had left you in Baton Rouge, he flew back home to Indianapolis and told his wife, Ellie, that he wanted to go to Baton Rouge and adopt you and raise you as his own. Your grandfather was heartbroken when they flew to Baton Rouge only to find out that you had been placed in another home for adoption. Your grandfather never got over that,” Joyce wrote.

Soon after, I received an official invitation to the Best family reunion, where Zach and I were welcomed into the family with open arms.

51

One Sunday afternoon after I got back from attending church services with Loyd and Leona, I sat down at my computer to do what had by now become second nature to me: search for more clues about my father. I remembered I had put a post on the Horry County Historical Society website and decided to check to see whether anyone had responded.

I saw a post underneath mine from someone called Anonymous William. He wrote:

“I believe that your father was arrested in San Francisco for abducting your mother. She was 14 at the time. You were born in New Orleans. I am glad you found your birth mother! There is an Earl Best living in San Francisco at this time on 46th or 47th Avenue. He is listed. This may be you or a relative. Good luck—William.”

This person had apparently known Judy and Van. I hurriedly clicked on the e-mail address and responded, asking William how he knew my father. “You are the only person that I have had any contact with that was not part of the distant relatives. Are you a Best descendant?” I wrote.

While I waited for his response, I searched the Internet for an Earl Best in San Francisco and found the listing. I nervously dialed the number, and a woman answered. After I explained that I was looking for my father, who had abandoned me, she said, “You have the wrong person,” and hung up the phone.

The next day, the mysterious stranger wrote back.

William informed me that he and my father had been best friends in high school and into their adult lives. As I read his note, my heart was pounding. He said he had driven Van and Judy to the airport when they eloped.

“Should you care to hear more about his HS days and our adventures, please ask.—William.”

Anonymous William turned out to be William Vsevolod Lohmus von Bellingshausen. We began to correspond weekly, if not daily, for several months. I probed him for every detail he could remember. Fortunately for me, William had a great memory, although he bluntly informed me that he had some very bad memories of my father.

“I was summoned to testify at the Grand Jury,” he wrote. “I did not know what Van or your mother told the US marshals when they were apprehended. But unbeknownst to me, the Grand Jury indicted me as an accessory to child stealing. It took over one year to get me out of this mess, not to mention thousands of dollars in legal fees.”

Soon we were talking on the phone regularly. At one point, the dredging up of old memories became too much for him and he told me, “You should find a good psychiatrist, stretch out on his couch, and try and straighten out that screwed up head of yours that your father left you. Have a nice life.”

I apologized immediately. I had been so eager to learn everything I could that I had not thought about how all of this might be affecting him. He had really cared about my father and had been hurt by him, too.

“I’m truly sorry for what my father did to you,” I said. “Please don’t hold what he did against me.”

William soon began sharing more stories than I ever could have imagined. Before long, he invited me to visit the next time I was in California.

On January 25, 2005, I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and drove into Marin County, looking for the small town of Novato, excited by the prospect of meeting my father’s best friend, although I was a little uncertain whether it was a good idea, knowing what I now knew about Van.

When I pulled into William’s driveway, I was struck by the beauty of the area. In the distance, tall redwoods dotted the landscape. A wooden fence enclosed the thick shrubbery, trees, and flowers that surrounded the property, almost obscuring the four-story, multitiered home from view. A gigantic hydrangea bush loaded with violet and blue flowers stood alone near the front entrance.

I walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell.

William, wearing an olive green sweater, a purple striped shirt, and blue slacks, opened the door. A beautiful silver-haired lady with a sweet smile stood next to him. William leaned his cane against the wall and reached out his left hand to shake mine. He kept his other hand carefully tucked into his pocket. I would later learn that he had suffered a stroke and a heart attack that had paralyzed his right arm.

He introduced me to his wife, Tania. “Follow me,” she said as she led the way through the foyer and up a few steps. “Vsevé will be along shortly,” she informed me, using her husband’s nickname.

I followed her down another short corridor and turned left into the living room. “Sit down,” she said, pointing to an L-shaped couch. “It takes him a little longer to get around now.”

When William hobbled into the room, I realized what an effort he had made to greet me at the door. Tania visited with us for a few minutes and then told William that she would be in her studio. “She paints,” William said, pointing to an impressionistic oil painting hanging on the wall, above several giant bookcases. Books about every historical artist imaginable were packed onto the shelves.

“You have your father’s eyes,” he said. “It’s uncanny.”

William seemed a little reserved at first, perhaps unsure whether he could trust the son of the man who had once caused him to be arrested, but as the day progressed and he got to know me, he relaxed.

Just being in the same room with this man who had been a friend to my father was somewhat disconcerting for me as well, but as William talked about his life as a criminologist, I could tell he was nothing like Van. And when he started sharing his stories, he seemed to enjoy bringing his memories to life.

“We weren’t like the other boys in school,” he said. “While they were out playing sports, we were in Van’s bedroom reciting
The Mikado
. We knew every word of that opera. He also enjoyed
Tosca
.”

I had read on the Internet that Zodiac quoted
The Mikado
. “Van knew
The Mikado
?” I asked William.

“Knew it?” he said, and laughed. “Your father was obsessed with it. Said your grandfather met him. I never believed him, though. Van was always full of tall tales. He once told me that he met the queen of England, too. Said he attended her coronation. That was when he went to Hinchingbrooke. He came back all messed up for a while.”

William went on to relate the story about the bloody mace and Van’s obsession with weaponry.

“Van had very superstitious ideas,” William remembered. “His dad had bought him a car after graduation, and we were driving around, I don’t remember where, but we decided to spend the night on the road. After a while, we saw a construction site with what looked to be unfinished white buildings. I should mention that we were both nearsighted and had left our glasses at home. We parked and went to sleep in the car. The next morning, we awoke to a bright, sunny day. After clearing our vision and focusing on our surroundings, we discovered that we had spent the night in a cemetery. The white buildings we saw the night before were white mausoleums and gravestones. I thought it was funny, but Van considered it an ill omen.”

When I asked about my father’s business ventures, William said that in the beginning, sometimes Van’s trips to Mexico had been very lucrative. “Whatever Van brought back from Mexico did not last very long. In weeks, everything would be sold. I used to watch him sorting his documents, and I remember one particular paper signed by King Philip II. I know that document went for a considerable profit.”

He also told me about LaVey. He said they hung out at the Lost Weekend cocktail lounge, in the Sunset District, with Van and LaVey occasionally taking turns on the pipe organ there. “LaVey and Van had much in common—music and a love of philosophy and books. Van was always fascinated with anything that had to do with ‘other’ ways of thinking, and he could not get enough of LaVey’s unusual thought processes,” William explained.

“We were at San Francisco City College studying forensics when your father met Mary Player,” William remembered.

“Who is she?” I interrupted.

“His first wife. She looked like Audrey Hepburn, but that marriage only lasted a matter of months, I believe.”

“What happened?” I asked, surprised. Judy had not mentioned another wife.

William didn’t want to elaborate on it, but he said that Van could be “whacked out” at times.

“I knew your father, too,” Tania said, walking into the room with a plate of pastries she had made for us. “We all went to Lowell High School together. I have to be honest: I didn’t like him at all. He was a braggadocio, always talking about his accomplishments, but he never had anything to show for it.”

William smiled at her, stroking his full gray beard. “Tania is very direct,” he said.

Listening to William, I noticed that he used a very formal way of speaking. He had told me that Van had impeccable grammar, and I could see why they would have enjoyed talking with each other. William was a great conversationalist. One would never know he was foreign by listening to him speak, in his crackly, soft voice.