Trophies And Dead Things

'Sorry, I don't. My memory isn't what it used to be.' I thanked him and hung up the receiver. The phone booth was quickly claimed by a young woman with reddened eyes and runny mascara. Someone had once commented to me that more tears must be shed in the Hall of Justice than any other building in San Francisco-public or private, and not excepting the funeral homes. I had never doubted the truth of that statement.

By eleven-thirty I was seated at a machine in a quiet corner of the microfilm room at the main branch of the public library. Ghostly images flickered before me as I fast-forwarded through the reels I'd requested, stopping at articles on the Port Chicago bombing attempt and trial. When I'd checked the various periodical indexes, I'd found that coverage had been extensive; one of the national newsmagazines had even run a long piece on the case: 'Revolutionaries' Plot Runs Afoul of Government's Tough New Stance on Violence.'

What I gleaned from the article jolted me. Taylor and Heikkinen had been sole defendants in the trial; the government had asked for stiff sentences in order to make examples of them for other would-be saboteurs, and each had received five years in federal prison-Taylor at McNeil Island in Washington State, and Heikkinen at a facility in Alderson, West Virginia. The crime of conspiracy to bomb a military installation had held more serious undertones than I'd originally assumed: had they been successful in planting and detonating the bombs, their blast would have taken several lives.

But what surprised me the most was the identity of the prosecution's chief witness. Jenny Ruhl had been the one to offer the particularly damning testimony that the collective had 'deemed the sacrifice of life acceptable and even desirable, given the cause for which they were fighting.'

Libby Ross had told me that what the collective mainly did was engage in endless intense talk; now it seemed that the rhetoric had gotten seriously out of hand. Even though-as the accounts of the trial pointed out-there were significant reasons to doubt parts of Ruhl's testimony, it made me look at the affair in a new light. If the members of the collective had been comfortable with the concept of killing innocent strangers, what other crimes might they have contemplated-or committed? If I kept digging, what else might I turn up? And was that really necessary at this late date? There were people who could be badly hurt: Jess Goodhue, D.A. Taylor's wife and young children. Perhaps it would be kinder to let the past die, as most of those involved in the case had.

But even as I thought about it, I knew I wouldn't stop. Tom Grant had been murdered, and my gut-level feelings told me that the forces leading up to his killing had been set in motion by something in that past. True, Grant had been a poor excuse for a human being, but when it comes to murder, an investigator doesn't establish an A List and a B List. I would keep going simply because it was a valid line of inquiry that McFate seemed unwilling to pursue.

My pages of notes quickly piled up: a chronology of events, key phrases from the trial testimony, addresses, names. Hilderly was only mentioned once, in a list of people suspected of being former members of the collective; the names Andy Wrightman and Thomas Y. Grant appeared nowhere at all.

After I finished with the first batch of films, I went out to the reference room and rechecked the indexes for articles in radical and alternative publications. Then I returned to the microfilm room and checked out a few reels containing the coverage in the Berkeley Barb-an acerbic, muckraking paper that had achieved national prominence in the sixties. While the establishment press had not attached any particular significance to the fact that four guns had been seized from three people at Port Chicago-Taylor had been carrying two at the time of his arrest-the Barb viewed this with suspicion. One reporter wrote of rumors (possibly created by himself) that there had been a 'mysterious fourth person' at the weapons station, who had handed Taylor his or her gun and walked away from the scene when the federal agents appeared. 'A Setup!' the Barb's headlines proclaimed. 'An informant in the midst of our courageous brothers and sisters,' an editorial insisted.

'Jenny Ruhl, Traitor' was the title of the profile that appeared immediately after she'd testified at the trial. Ruhl was described as 'the pampered daughter of rich Orange County pigs, who was too soft to stand with her brother and sister during their persecution.' Another reporter, less kind, said she was 'seriously fucked up, had probably fed information to the enemy all along.' By contrast, Ruhl's obituary some weeks after the trial categorized her as 'a martyr to the Movement' and a 'victim of bourgeois values.' It was also posited that she had been 'murdered by the pigs.' At that point I decided that the Barb hadn't been able to make up its mind about Ruhl any more than I could.

My library researches done, I turned in the microfilms and went out to delve further into the past. But first I found a phone and called the hospital for a report on Hank's condition. Again there had been no change. After some calling around I reached the nursing station at intensive care; Anne-Marie was there, and I convinced the woman on the desk to let me talk to her. She sounded tired and distant, and when I offered to come over and keep her company later, she said she'd rather I didn't.

'His lung was collapsed, and there was other internal damage as well. They may have to operate again, and if they do, it'll take every bit of control I have not to fall apart. Seeing a face that's more than professionally sympathetic would about do me in. Besides,' she added, 'his parents are here. And you know how they can be.'

'By that I take it you mean they blame me for him getting shot.'

'Well, it's a long list. I think perhaps God has been absolved, but I wouldn't even count on that.'

It was more or less the reaction I would have predicted. The Zahns had spent too many years insulated by their affluence and social position to know how to cope with real adversity. Since their only son had been shot, it was necessary that blame be affixed; accusations and recriminations were excellent weapons against fear and powerlessness, and they both wielded them like pros. I'd often wondered how two such closed and insecure people could have produced someone as open and confident as Hank.

'Well, hang in there,' I said, talking to myself as much as to Anne-Marie. 'I'll check back with you later on.'

Often when I'm working a case I find myself drawn to the places where its key events have occurred, even if it's a long time after the fact. The urge to view these physical settings is more or less instinctive on my part; half the time I'm not even aware of why I'm going there until I arrive. But unscientific and illogical as such behavior might seem, I've come to trust the impulses that prompt it. And while I rarely stumble upon some overlooked clue or receive a blinding flash of insight, just being there gives me a better sense of the individuals involved and their possible motivations. So, in lieu of any better way to pass the time until I could pick up Wolfs case file at All Souls, I decided to see what remained of the landscape of twenty years ago.

There was no point in driving all the way out to Port Chicago; I wouldn't be permitted inside the weapons station and, besides, the scene of the arrest didn't seem relevant. Nor did I need to return to Berkeley; I knew that territory, and it wasn't where the story really centered. The Federal Building, where the trial had been held, was only two blocks from the library, but I knew what courtrooms looked like and could easily imagine the dry proceedings.

The government's case, according to the newspaper accounts I'd just read, had been impressive: physical evidence, including the guns, pipe bombs, detonating devices, maps of the military installation, and diagrams of where the bombs were to be placed; eyewitness testimony of the arresting agents; and the apparently unshakable testimony of Jenny Ruhl. The chief government witness, according to one reporter, 'never once looked at her former comrades. While on the stand she betrayed neither guilt nor nervousness, speaking in a flat, uninflected voice. When she left the courtroom, she did not look back.' And in the face of her testimony, what little case the defense had built crumbled.

I could understand what had probably driven Ruhl to testify against her former friends. Like many of the would-be revolutionaries of the sixties, her involvement with the collective had been a rebellion against a conservative upbringing, but once arrested, the specter of years in a federal penitentiary had most likely been more than she could bear. In addition, she had a daughter dependent upon her-one whom she might not see for a long time if convicted. The federal prosecutors would have realized Ruhl was the weakest of the three and plied her with offers of a deal.

Yes, I could easily understand why Ruhl had testified for the prosecution. But what puzzled me was her suicide, some weeks after the trial. If Jessica had been one of the reasons for sacrificing her loyalty and twisted code of honor, why had she then left her daughter motherless, with no means of support?

No answer for that-not now, maybe not ever.