The Bomb Maker's Son

by Robert Rotstein

  Lovely and I intend to repair to the attorneys’ lounge, where I can force-feed myself some energy bars and pore over my cross-examination notes for this afternoon’s witnesses. We exit the courtroom, but before we can turn toward the lounge, there are shouts and a shriek. The reporters have encircled someone and are shouting unintelligible questions. When I understand what’s going on, I sprint over and throw a body-block through the crowd that former gridiron star Carlton Gibson would be proud of. Amidst the predatory reporters is a cowering Emily Lansing, her body turned half to the side, her arms pressed together against her chest and shoulders, her fists clenched, her knees bent—a standing fetal position. These pillars of journalism don’t break rhythm:

  “Hey, Stern, did you know that your client’s daughter was expelled for physically attacking another student and vandalizing his car?”

  “Does violence run in the family, Parker?”

  Lovely knows this building. She finds us a conference room two floors up, where the media and public don’t go.

  “Ben Harwood deserved it,” Emily says.

  “What did you do to him?” Lovely asks. I’ll let her handle this. I know nothing about teenagers.

  “I punched him in the face and broke his nose. Then I keyed his new Prius. It was worth it. Harwood is a spoiled rich kid, a fascist asshole.”

  “Why did he deserve a broken nose?” Lovely asks.

  Emily starts twisting her hair.

  “Stop playing with your hair and act like the grown-up you think you are,” Lovely says sharply.

  Emily flinches like a reeling drunk slapped on the cheek for her own good. “It was only six weeks after Dylan died. I was telling some friends how I thought the damn government had wasted his life and the lives of others for no reason. I mean, what’s Afghanistan even for? The oil companies? Harwood started arguing with me, and it got ugly. When he told me that I was being a traitor to Dylan’s memory, I hit him.”

  “And then you keyed his new car?”

  “A few hours later, after school. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. I guess I was still mad.”

  “What did the school do to you?”

  “I got suspended for a week. I still aced my classes. And . . . and the Harwoods threatened to sue my parents and me, but when everyone realized what Ben said about my dead brother, they backed off. And that’s it.”

  “You’re sure?” Lovely asks.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Is there anything else we need to know about you?”

  Emily gives a contrite half shrug. “I have a temper sometimes. I’m not the only person who does. But that was the only time I was suspended.” Then the realization. “Omigod, is this going to hurt my dad’s case?”

  “It’s irrelevant to him or what happened in nineteen seventy-five,” I say.

  “Nothing’s irrelevant,” Lovely says.

  “What do I do?” Emily says. “I could tell the reporters—”

  “No!” Lovely and I shout in unison.

  “Here’s what you’ll do,” Lovely says. “You’ll go back in the courtroom and sit in the first row and support your father and keep your mouth shut. And think about whether there are going to be any more surprises like this.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Emily says.

  “I’m going to walk you back and then Parker and I are going to work on this afternoon’s testimony.”

  “I’ll walk her,” I say.

  “No you won’t,” Lovely says. “You’re liable to punch one of these media people, and as much as I like trying cases, I’m not about to handle this one alone. And I know you don’t want Lou to take over.”

  After lunch, Reddick calls three other survivors of the bombing, who describe the events leading up to the explosion consistently with Giddens’s testimony. I don’t bother cross-examining them, because they shed no light on the identity of the bomber. The testimony of the day’s last witness, the pathologist who performed the autopsies on the Playa Delta dead, is both gruesome and tedious—minute detail about missing extremities, faces shredded beyond recognition, identification only through dental records.

  When the pathologist finishes, the judge adjourns for the evening. As Lovely and I are packing up, Marilee Reddick walks up, hands me the agreed-upon notice of the witnesses she intends to call tomorrow, and says, “We’re going to hang your son-of-bitch client.” She’s either forgotten about the courtroom microphones or no longer cares. Only after she walks away do I look at the paper. It has only one name on it. Ilan Goldsmith. When I show it to Lovely, she sighs. Marilee Reddick intends to call Secretary Cracknamara to the witness stand to testify that Ian Holzner bragged about his plans to bomb the Playa Delta VA.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I don’t want to go back to my condo. Holzner and Emily will distract me. Lovely has gone back to her own law office. Dworsky’s place is too far away in rush-hour traffic. So I decide to work at The Barrista. When sitting at my back table, I feel an odd serenity amidst the café’s tumult. I miss my friend Deanna, and though I’m not spiritual enough to believe that her essence is present in the shop, memories of her abound, and that’s pretty close to immortality.

  I spend hours crafting a cross-examination that will chip away at the credibility of the prosecution’s second star witness, Ilan Goldsmith. You’d think it would be easy. He was a radical, a clown, a terrorist, a snitch. But most informants in criminal cases have a sordid past. If they didn’t, they’d have nothing to tell.

  Just before closing time, as I take a sip of my fourth—or is it fifth?—cup of coffee of the evening, a sallow-faced, gray-haired man approaches my table. Probably in his seventies, he resembles a world-weary Satan—hair shaped like small horns growing out of the top of his earlobes, a straight-angled Vandyke beard, and eyes burdened by heavy, dark half circles. He’s dressed in a herringbone sport coat, white turtleneck sweater, and pleated brown slacks. The flesh hanging over his belt is more flab than fat. He sits down across from me, takes out a deck of playing cards, and begins shuffling expertly, making him look like the devil rehearsing a Vegas lounge act.

  When he notices me staring at his hands, he says, “Faro shuffle. It relaxes me. At the moment, I need to relax.” He talks fast, like someone hawking products on a basic-cable infomercial.

  I look up from my laptop.

  “My name is Ilan Goldsmith,” he says.

  I close the cover of my computer. The key witness for the government, a man we couldn’t locate, has come to me on the eve of his testimony. Why?

  He looks at me with his penetrating eyes, all the while shuffling those cards, the riffling rhythmic, hypnotic. I wait for him to begin. It’s a lawyer’s nature to interrogate, but sometimes questions just get in the way. At last, he cuts the cards three times and puts them in his coat pocket. “Ian Holzner was quite a magician, you know.”

  “Meaning?”

  “First thing: tell him I’m sorry. I didn’t want to rat him out. Never thought I’d have to. By way of explanation, not excuse, the FBI caught me on tape talking to Charlie Sedgwick about selling dynamite to the Holzner-O’Brien Collective. In exchange for immunity, I agreed to testify against those charged with the Playa Delta incident. I thought I’d never have to, but then Holzner turned himself in. Why would he do that?”

  “What do you mean caught you on tape?”

  “Just tell Ian I’m sorry.”

  “Mr. Goldsmith—”

  “Second thing: maybe there’s no apology necessary because I’m not going to testify at trial.”

  “I thought tomorrow you were—”

  “No.”

  “You don’t care about blowing your immunity?”

  “I certainly do, and I don’t want to serve prison time, but I care more about my life. Even at my advanced age, continued existence on this planet is very important to me. I’m in reasonably good health and not a religious man.”

  “Who’s threatening your life, Mr. Goldsmith?”

  He retrieves his car
ds again, fans them out on the table face down, and dominoes them back and forth. He begins another incessant round of shuffling. “The group is known as the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front. They’re responsible for the Playa Delta bombing, the bombing of the federal courthouse, and in all likelihood the murder of Belinda Hayes.”

  I don’t quite believe him. He’s obviously an expert at the sleight of hand. But I’m listening. “Who are they?”

  “Rumor was that Rachel O’Brien and Ian Holzner started the organization.”

  “Sedgwick? Hayes?”

  “Of course not Hayes. She didn’t measure up. I don’t know about Sedgwick. Maybe out of loyalty. The HFLF was formed for efficient acts of terror. Rumor has it.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  He stacks the cards again and looks at me as if I’m a naïve child. “The recent communiqués are signed by JB. The initials of John Brown, the abolitionist who tried to start a slave insurrection at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, just before the Civil War. He was hanged for treason. Forty years ago the group was a dream of a few, a horror to most, a joke to still others. It percolated through the underground back in seventy-six that the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front bombed Playa Delta.”

  “How do you know O’Brien and Holzner—?”

  “Rachel was obsessed with John Brown.”

  “What about Holzner?”

  “He did whatever she wanted.”

  Not according to Moses Dworsky, who characterized Holzner as Svengali gone Maoist, seducing innocent girls and radicalizing them so they’d carry out his violent goals.

  “And what makes you think this is the same group?” I ask.

  “Well, the JB—”

  “Forty years later? Pardon me, but you’re all senior citizens.”

  “Rumor also has it they’ve recruited a younger generation.”

  “Rumor among who? Your movement died just about when Ian Holzner ran away.”

  He laughs—cackles in a high pitch, really, like a fairy-tale crone. “You don’t really think all of us turned coffee-klatsch progressive like Ayers and Dohrn, teaching school and idealizing the bad old days? Just because Islamic militants and right-wing extremists have seized the spotlight doesn’t mean the radical left has died. That’s what deep underground means. Dormant, waiting. Until now, it seems. As for how I know this? There’s still a robust communications system.”

  “Why come to see me with this?” I ask. “Why aren’t you sharing this with the US Attorney.”

  “You were an actor as a child.”

  I nod.

  “I, too, was an actor. I don’t know if anyone told you, Holzner or Dworsky—performance art, caricaturing that evil man Robert McNamara. Before he became secretary of defense, he’d been head of Ford Motor Company, you know. Kennedy appointed a numbers-crunching car salesman as secretary of defense, and Johnson kept him there.”

  “What did you want to say, Mr. Goldsmith?”

  “Six hours ago, I got a phone call from someone warning me that if I testified against Holzner I’d be brought to judgment like the traitor Belinda Hayes. Blocked caller ID, of course. No idea how he got my phone number. I didn’t recognize the voice. He said his name was Owen Brown. If you know your Civil War history—”

  “I don’t.”

  “I didn’t either. I had to check the Internet. Owen Brown was John Brown’s son. He escaped capture at Harpers Ferry and lived a fairly long life. But I got the message.”

  “Which is?”

  He leans in close. There’s an odor on his breath, maybe coming out of his pores, a garlicky-tobacco smell, though for some reason I don’t think he’s a smoker. “You’re making me say it? Certainly. The caller warned that if I testify against Ian Holzner, I’m a dead man.”

  “Are you saying Holzner—?”

  He looks over his shoulder like a stalked animal sensing danger, then pockets his cards, holds up his hands as if I’m pointing a gun at him, and stands up. His thin lips are turned down in a stiff grimace. He looks back at the front door, which Romulo is in the process of locking.

  “Is there a back exit?” he asks.

  “Mr. Goldsmith, if you’ll just—”

  “A back exit, please.”

  I point him toward the back door, which is totally conspicuous. He apparently could only hold his emotions in check for so long, and now he’s about to panic. He hurries away with the rickety gait of an old man whose body will no longer let him run.

  Not thirty seconds later, someone pounds loudly on the front entrance. From the frantic hammering, it’s clear that it’s not just someone in need of a late-night caffeine fix. Romulo goes to the door, says something I can’t hear, and shakes his head. There’s shouting from whoever’s outside and more pounding. Two baristas start forward, but Romulo hollers, “Get back and call the cops!” With quivering hands, he reaches for the keys and unlocks the door, which opens slowly. He backs away with his hands in the air, mimicking Goldsmith’s gesture of just moments ago.

  Mariko Heim slides inside, wearing her sunglasses, though it’s after eleven o’clock. She’s carrying a gun, black. I know it to be a Glock 22 Gen 3 because that’s what killed my boss Harmon Cherry a few years ago. I don’t know why I looked up the gun on the Internet back then, but I had to see what the weapon looked like. I wish I hadn’t. I get up and approach her.

  “What are you doing here?” I say. “The cops are on their way. You’re a Celestial Warrior. They don’t leave messes, and now you have a mess.” My insides have turned gelatinous, but I can’t show weakness in front of her. I can only appeal to the tenets and tactics of her church.

  “Where is he?” she says to me.

  “Who?”

  She shakes her head almost imperceptibly, and while I can’t see her eyes, I’m sure she’s rolling them—either that, or deciding whether to start shooting.

  “Where is he?” she says again, waving the pistol in the air for emphasis. “Is he still here or did he go out the back?”

  “The cops are on their way, lady,” Romulo says.

  Again that tiny shake of the head, now combined with an off-kilter gritting of her teeth. She takes a step forward and I flinch, but she hurries past, stops to look in the storeroom, glances back at me with a threatening shake of the head, and goes out the exit through which Goldsmith fled into the alley.

  Esther, the female barista who’s been cowering in the corner, breaks down in sobs.

  “Jesus, man, what the fuck was that?” Romulo says, breathless.

  “That was the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front,” I murmur.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Ninety minutes before this morning’s trial session is to start, Marilee Reddick and I sit in twin government-issue chairs across from Judge Gibson, glaring at each other. I arrived at the courthouse at 7:00 a.m., immediately went to her office, and told her about last night’s encounter with Goldsmith—including his statement that a group called the Harpers Ferry Liberation Front was responsible for both the Playa Delta VA bombing and the recent federal courthouse bombing. I left out Cracknamara’s implication that Ian Holzner is a founder and current member of the HFLF. I have no obligation to walk into the US Attorney’s office and hand her the rope to hang my client with. I also told her about the sudden appearance of Mariko Heim of the Church of the Sanctified Assembly. Reddick says she’ll ask the FBI or the LAPD to check my story out, but she’s clearly not interested. The Sanctified Assembly’s involvement in this bizarre promenade of horrors doesn’t fit the government’s prepackaged theory of the case.

  Now, as we face a bleary-eyed Judge Gibson, Reddick is blaming me for Goldsmith’s disappearance.

  “Counsel for the defense should be sanctioned,” she says. “Goldsmith is in contempt, and as an officer of the court, Mr. Stern was obligated to do everything in his power to get the witness to honor the subpoena. I believe you should instruct the jury that Mr. Stern encouraged a prosecution witness to flee.”

  “That’s absurd,”
I say. “I specifically told Goldsmith to talk the US Attorney. He wasn’t buying it. He fears for his life, truly believes this Harpers Ferry group wants to kill him. The FBI should be investigating Mariko Heim and the Sanctified Assembly’s role in all this. Did I mention that Heim was one of the people who killed Belinda Hayes and was trying to kill me? Ms. Reddick is so fixated on Ian Holzner that she forecloses every other possibility. It’s unbecoming of someone in her position.”

  “Give me a break, Parker,” Reddick says with a dismissive flap of the hand.

  Gibson—in shirtsleeves and a bow tie and sans robe—says, “I’m a judge, not a law-enforcement officer, Mr. Stern. I care about this trial, not about getting the FBI to play cops and robbers with the Church of the Assembly, or whatever it’s called. As for you, Ms. Reddick, there will be no sanctions and no adverse instruction to the jury. I don’t know what you expected Mr. Stern to do. He couldn’t very well horse-collar tackle the man. Well, he could have, but he had no obligation to do it.”

  Reddick is about to jump out of her chair, but when Gibson crosses his arms in final judgment, she sits back. “Very well, Your Honor. We’ll proceed with other witnesses.”

  I didn’t think she’d be ready with another witness, thought she’d ask for the day off. I’m completely unprepared. “Your Honor, I didn’t get notice of anyone other than Goldsmith,” I say. “I’d request a continuance—”

  “No continuance, counsel,” the judge barks. “You’re not going to take advantage of a witness skipping out on a valid subpoena, especially when he did so right from under your nariz.”

  “I need a name so I can prepare,” I say.

  “Get out of my chambers, Stern. You, too, Reddick. I have court business to attend to. You’re not the only fish in the sea. ¡fuera de aquí!” He picks up a pen and starts scribbling on a legal pad.

  When we’re in the empty courtroom, Reddick heads for the exit ahead of me but turns before she opens the door and silently mouths, “You’re an asshole.” As soon as she leaves, Lovely comes into the courtroom, this time followed by a long-striding Lou Frantz, lean and spry for a man in his early seventies. As always, his tie is loose and his shirttails are half out of his slacks, as if this were the end, not the start, of a long day.