antique, RobertUnmasked 5 страница

[California] service station attendant, Tucker’s name on it. Tucker’s name is on al of them. I found it in the margins of one application. Very reliable, Tucker.”confirmed to Toschi that Leigh was equal y proficient with both hands and ambidextrous as an adult. This skil with both hands mightwhy Leigh’s handprinting did not match Zodiac’s. Zodiac, a born leftie, was writing with his right hand. “His handwriting is not real good,”Tucker, “and so he prints most things.”

“So, Leigh could write and shoot with both hands?” said Toschi.

“Yes,” Tucker admitted, then added, “For the last two years, Al en has brought up the Zodiac case in conversation. I feel he has an interest in the.” He sat back and thought. “I remember on one occasion he had told me that police considered him a suspect.”

“To your knowledge, did Al en have an interest in guns?” Toschi asked Tucker.

“He said he did have. He owned two handguns. One was a revolver, the other some type of automatic. I don’t know the calibers because I don’tmuch of a knowledge of guns myself. I think the guns in his home might be.22-caliber revolvers, and I saw at least one automatic. I recal thatdiscussed having a special light attached to a gun barrel so that a person could shoot accurately at night. On more than one occasion heto shooting with special sights for firing in the dark.”rubbed the back of his neck. Another portion of Cheney’s story had been corroborated. It was even hotter.

“Another time, about eighteen months ago,” continued Tucker, “my wife and I visited Leigh in his home. He made a remark that he had somethingwould like to show us. ‘I only show this particular thing to very certain people,’ he said. Or something to that effect. He then took a paper from ametal box he had gotten from his bedroom. This paper was handprinted and contained several pages of legal terminology and several pagesletters which had symbols or codes or cryptograms on them. He said they pertained to a person who had been committed to Atascadero fora child. This paper rambled on and on in language of a legal nature, that sort of terminology, this and that. It was about this person havingbetrayed by his attorney. I noticed in this script there were various symbols used by Zodiac in his coded messages.”nodded. He didn’t find it unusual that Tucker could recognize the symbols as Zodiac-like. The kil er’s three-part cipher had been widely. On June 29, 1970, the approximate time of Tucker’s visit, the Chronicle had published a new Zodiac two-line cipher. “I only expressedinterest in the paper,” said Tucker, “but my wife showed genuine interest. She found the symbols or codes or cryptograms unusual. Shehim if she might borrow the paper to study it, but he refused to al ow her to take the paper. He did promise to have a copy made to give her.”

“And did he?” asked Toschi.

“No, he never did.”

“Do you know if Al en has ever owned a 1965-’66 brown Corvair?”

“Not to my knowledge,” he replied.

“I see,” said Toschi.

“But I did,” said Tucker.

“You did?” said Toschi, wheeling. “You owned a 1965 brown Corvair?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever loan this car to Al en?”

“No, I haven’t. At the time I had two cars, the Corvair and the Pontiac. I let him use my Pontiac on occasion. I was living in Berkeley at that time. Insummer of 1969 I left the Corvair parked at the Richfield Service Station at Nebraska and Broadway [in Val ejo] for about two weeks. I wasto sel it. I left the keys at the station and at this particular time Al en was employed as an attendant at that station.”

“Exactly when in the summer did you leave your car?”

“I can’t recal the exact time, but it was mid-summer of 1969.”recol ected that three weeks prior, Karen, Leigh Al en’s sister-in-law, had visited and wanted him to speak to Al en on her behalf. “Thehad gotten another complaint about his recent involvement with a child,” Tucker said. “I went to Al en’s home and spoke to him aboutpsychiatric treatment. However, I was unsuccessful and so I washed my hands of him. I told him, ‘I don’t want you to come around myin the future. Our association is at an end.’”studied his Timex, anxious to compare notes with Armstrong. He visualized his partner equal y anxious to get on his motorbike and takethe suburban dirt trails, the warm sun in his face. The rugged trail would rattle the cobwebs from his head. On weekends, as a diversion from, Armstrong focused on salvaging his perpetual y wilting backyard garden. As for Mulanax, he was as fired up as he had been days ago. Nowwas interested in contacting Mrs. Tucker as soon as possible. He wanted to see what she recal ed about the printing inside the gray box. Heher from Kidder’s office, and learned she was working the graveyard shift at an Oakland hospital. That meeting would have to be postponed., Mulanax decided to speak with Al en’s sister-in-law, Karen Al en, a twenty-six-year-old former schoolteacher. Mulanax phoned Karen at herand arranged to have her come into the Val ejo P.D. She arrived promptly at 2:00 P.M. and took a seat.

“Let me tel you why I asked you in,” Mulanax said. On the surface, Karen seemed surprised that her brother-in-law was suspected of being thesought Zodiac kil er, but offered to give whatever help she could. Mulanax wondered if she could be the original tipster. He confirmed thatknew of Al en’s preoccupation with children. She stated another thing positively—her brother-in-law hated women. “He has never had arelationship with a female of his own age,” she said. Sandy Panzarel a had voiced similar remarks. “Leigh just pretended to be interested in,” he said. “Eventual y he gave up even that slender pretext.” Various women Leigh had dated afterward voiced the same opinion—theirwith him had only been platonic. In most cases sexual psychopaths have few social or sexual affiliations, and might never havenormal sexual intercourse. In these uncommon individuals, for reasons unknown, aggressive and sexual impulses intertwine early in. Ultimately, these confused feelings find expression in vicious sexual assaults and sadistic murders. Lacking a conscience, Zodiac hadremorse for the pain he inflicted on others. Their pain brings him pleasure.disclosed that, after her marriage to Ron, it became apparent that Leigh viewed her as an intruder. He believed she had come to separatefrom his brother, and actual y made threats against her. “He was spoiled and pampered by his mother,” she said with a trace of bitterness.

“She does his cooking, washes his clothes, cleans up after him, and gives him money. She even paid for his two cars and two boats.” It was oddAl en intensely disliked his mother no matter what she did for him, and even stranger that he had expressed such feelings to Karen, whom heas an interloper.for Bernice Al en, she had never forgotten her son’s squandered Olympic potential. Leigh had been a talented diver. “She’s always raggingabout my weight,” he had snarled to Cheney and Panazarel a. A competition photo of him in a Val ejo paper depicted a slender, almostyoung man with blondish hair. Other pictures from the 1960s showed how much he resembled the younger, unamended San Franciscocomposite drawing. If Leigh had not been steadily gaining weight, he would have been a dead ringer for the sketch. Al en’s alteredreminded Mulanax of a line Zodiac had written:

“I look like the description passed out only when I do my thing, the rest of the time I look entirle different. I shal not tel you what my discise

[disguise] consists of when I kil.”passed copies of Zodiac’s bizarre notes to Karen. She studied them and said she had noticed a paper with similar printing in herin-law’s hand in November 1969. “What is that?” she had asked. “This is the work of an insane person,” Leigh replied. “I’l show you later.”with the Tuckers, he never did. However, while the printing on the Zodiac letters was not familiar to her as being that of her brother-in-law, somewere. Leigh had used the expression “trigger mach” instead of trigger mechanism. Final y, she thumbed to a copy of an authenticatedcard Zodiac had mailed to attorney Melvin Bel i during a period when the master criminal wanted to give himself up.FBI report, December 31, 1969, noted the note had “not been written as freely as the other threatening letters in this matter.” However, anblood-blackened portion of a victim’s shirt validated it. Zodiac’s handwriting was subject to change and in the space of months. At 1:59.M. the fol owing day, a man identifying himself as Zodiac cal ed the switchboard operator at FBI headquarters in Sacramento, then hung up afterto name someone he had just kil ed. “‘Happy Christmass,’” Karen read aloud from the photostat. “I definitely recal having received a cardChristmas from my brother-in-law,” she said. “‘Happy Christmass’ was spel ed exactly the same way.”, like Tucker, confirmed Al en was left-handed. “His elementary school teachers attempted to make him right-handed,” she said. “Heto write that way, but soon reverted to writing with his left hand.” While Morril believed the letters were written right-handed, he suspectedZodiac was natural y left-handed. The obscuring effect of a felt-tip pen and a left-handed man printing firmly and unnatural y with his right handexplain the difficulty in matching handprinting to any suspect. Sergeant Mulanax was hungry to learn more.

“Could I drop by tonight when your husband wil be home?” he said. “We want to ask him some questions too.” Ronald Gene Al en, a thirty-two-old landscape engineer, was currently attending Berkeley Col ege. He had attended Cal Poly from fal 1960 until fal 1968, when he attained aof science degree. “He’l be late,” she said, but agreed that 8:00 P.M. would be convenient. After she left, Mulanax contacted ArmstrongToschi and asked them to rendezvous with him at 216 Aragon Street in Val ejo that night. An already long day was growing longer.reached the home first. It was just off Columbus Parkway, which led directly into Blue Rock Springs to the north. He suspected Zodiacused the parkway as an escape route after the July Fourth shootings. Mulanax stood in the deep shadows of the pleasant tree-lined cul-de-sac.in his cozy little town, the most cunning criminal he had ever come across was waiting. A cool wind blew in from San Pablo Bay. Hethe hedges and fences, unable to shake thoughts of a watcher. Fifteen minutes later, Toschi and Armstrong reached Ron and Karen’sand found Mulanax already inside and glad to be in the light.Karen had done, Ron offered to help in the investigation if he could. Mulanax believed his offer to be sincere. “But I can’t believe my brother isserious suspect in the case,” he said. At first, he offered little on either side of the scale as to his brother’s guilt or innocence. “I am welwith your source of information.” So, thought Toschi, the informants, Cheney and Panzarel a, had spoken with Ron before the ManhattanP.D. He did not know that Cheney and Ron had been roommates in col ege. “They are responsible people,” the brother admitted. “They’t have made such statements if they were not true.” He also explained that he had received a complaint from one of the informants that Al enmade improper advances toward one of his children. “He has a definite problem as far as children are concerned and he does drink to.” Though Ron didn’t say so outright, Mulanax reserved the possibility that a personal motive might be behind some of the accusationsAl en. That would explain many things and it would mean they were on the wrong track. Few serial kil ers drank to excess. It had somethingdo with the lack of control.confirmed that Al en’s two revolvers were.22-caliber. Zodiac had used a.22-caliber automatic pistol during the Lake Herman Road, but from then on had used various 9-mm automatics, a.45-caliber weapon, and even a knife. Though Ron had never seen any of theTucker had mentioned, he had observed the gray box. At one point it, he recal ed, had been kept in his old room.

“Ron and his wife were very cooperative,” Toschi said later. “What I heard is that he [Al en] was not close to his mother, that he just lived in the, that’s the only place he had. Al en, we learned afterward, had many weapons and, like the brother said, was very familiar with the roads androads al around the area. Later, Karen just felt that her brother-in-law was the one we were looking for and that Val ejo P.D. kind of just kissedoff, and that disturbed me. We had to work with these other detectives, and it bothered me that they felt we were the big-city detectives when inwe never came across that way at al.”three policemen left. Ron fol owed them out and promised again to do anything he could to assist. He was as helpful as his big brother hadat the refinery that morning. Toschi looked back. Ron appeared a lonely and worried figure under the porch light. It was now 10:00 P.M.reached his Sunset District home soon after, kissed Carol good night, looked in on his three daughters, Linda, Karen, and Susan, andinto bed. Every bone in his body ached and cried for sleep, but he tossed and turned al night. He could not get that watch out of his mind.a neighbor had seen a bloody knife, dying only days after glimpsing the blade., August 11, 197111:00 A.M., Mulanax got hold of Bob Luce, owner-operator of the Arco station at 640 Broadway in Val ejo. Mulanax told Luce, “I’m conducting anon a former employee.” He did not tel him why right off.

“Leigh worked for me on a part-time schedule for about half a year,” Luce explained, “but tended to be undependable. And there were thoseabout him and children... he seemed too interested in smal girls. In April [1969] he came to work drunk again—once too often for me. Ihim.” Mulanax wondered if the job loss had precipitated the July 4, 1969, Blue Rock Springs shootings by Zodiac. Mulanax laid his cards ontable. This was unusual. “I knew Mulanax pretty wel,” Bawart told me. “Mulanax was a kind of a close-to-the-vest guy.”brought up the possibility that Al en might have used Phil Tucker’s car to commit a Zodiac murder. “Tucker had his car here al right, butwasn’t for as long as two weeks,” Luce said. “No, that’s not right.” Tucker himself hadn’t kept a record of the dates, and Mulanax badly needed’s repair invoice. In spite of a diligent search, they could not uncover the exact days the Corvair had been left overnight at the station. On the4, 1969, date of the Blue Rock Springs shootings, Al en was no longer working at the Arco station, and so the repair record didn’t matter—Leigh had kept a set of keys to the station or made his own.5:00 that evening, Mulanax contacted Tucker’s wife, Joan, at her home. Joan substantiated her husband’s story about the gray box and thetucked inside. “I had been very interested in the content of the papers,” she said, “since I was preparing for a col ege psychology exam.explained he had received these papers from a patient at Atascadero, and I said my interest was directed toward the working of this’s mind. I was impressed by the neatness and exactness of the printing and of the arcane symbols.”detective showed her Zodiac ciphers clipped from three Bay Area papers. Joan identified numerous symbols as being the same as thosepapers Al en had showed her. Her recol ection was that these were drawn with a felt-tip pen. At 5:30 Tucker returned from work and Mulanaxhim the same cryptograms. He too thought certain symbols looked the same as those Al en had shown him.

“And we stil haven’t been able to track down the exact date you left your Corvair at the Arco station,” said Mulanax.

“I didn’t have any luck either,” Tucker said, “but I do remember that when my car was not sold, I left it parked in front of my father-in-law’s house forconsiderable period of time. It’s possible that Al en could have driven the car during this period, but I don’t know if he did. My in-laws are innow, and when they get back I’l ask them if they know.” The in-laws knew Leigh Al en as a friend of their son-in-law, and would not haveit strange to see him around the Corvair. Tucker began to speak more freely of his former employee.

“Leigh is a schizophrenic personality,” Tucker said. During Leigh’s therapy five different personalities had been found. “At times he actual yto live the part of whatever literature he’s reading. He can tel a lie and actual y believe what he is tel ing is the truth.” Mulanax’s eyebrowsup. This was a very interesting talent—one that might stand a lie detector on its head. Once more Mulanax heard that Al en truly hated womenhad said so on many occasions. No one hated women as much as Zodiac. The only victims that had managed to survive had been men., August 12, 1971the morning Mulanax typed up his reports and studied the various stories related to him about the best Zodiac suspect yet. Physical y, LeighZodiac—from hair coloring to weight to height to wearing the exact size of the kil er’s unique flight-line Wing Walker boots. Circumstantialwas compel ing: Leigh had predicted he would cal himself “Zodiac” and shoot couples in lovers’ lanes long before there was a Zodiac.had spoken of an “electric gun sight” and “picking off kiddies,” used phrases like “Happy Christmass,” and “trigger mach” before Zodiac had.en wore a Zodiac wristwatch and kept Zodiac-like symbols in a gray box. Like Zodiac, he was enamored of “The Most Dangerous Game.” Hebeen headed for Lake Berryessa the day of the stabbings and been seen with a bloody knife. Mulanax did not know that Al en and his former, Don Cheney, had often fly-fished at Clear Lake and Grass Val ey, and once at Berryessa. “We fished in a stream below the lake and fiftyfrom where we parked,” he later told me. “It was crowded the one time we went.” Not only did Leigh have friends in those areas, a man and aat Clear Lake, for instance, but there had been a recent murder at al three., at the refinery, Al en was in a rage—because of the questioning, he was certain he would be fired from his job at Union Oil. Whenhad cal ed him into his office, Leigh had known his days there were numbered., August 13, 1971the two authenticated letters in March, al correspondence from Zodiac had ceased. Police in four counties speculated Zodiac might havearrested for another crime, institutionalized, or died. Nonetheless, Mulanax continued to plow through the files. For just over a week he hadseeking a record of any officer questioning Leigh Al en back in 1969. Sergeant Lynch had not yet recal ed questioning Leigh. His meeting atSchool with the skin-diving chemist consumed only two paragraphs in the center of a single page. As the towering sheaves of paper becameavalanche, that page was buried in an ever-increasing snowbank. Manpower stretched to the breaking point, and everyone feared Zodiac mightagain., September 1, 1971SFPD fared scarcely better than Val ejo. Armstrong and Toschi, routinely working six murders simultaneously, felt at times that the Bay Areaa franchise on homicidal maniacs. Toschi, in spite of once being a fitness instructor, was subject to bouts of il ness from stress. He was a—he was modest, but enjoyed the limelight. Some nights he slipped on his al -weather raincoat and Hush Puppies, then strol ed, head, through his Sunset neighborhood. Other nights he took long drives down the coast highway, or slumped in his easy chair listening to Big78s in stereo. As he desperately tried to sort it al out, he recal ed that exactly eleven years ago today Chief Tom Cahil had signed histo the Bureau of Inspectors. It had been the second happiest day of his life., September 17, 1971and Toschi later ascertained from Ron Al en that his brother spent at least two days a week at their mother’s home. Al en’s mother,, traveled abroad frequently, her trips spanning many weeks. These excursions, arranged through the Val ejo Travel Club, were financed bymoney from Leigh’s recently deceased father. During his mother’s absence, Al en would reside alone at the family residence. Though thewas free to him, he stil clung, leechlike, to that dank, unkempt basement bedroom where the secret box had been stored. It was as if heguarding a fortress., Bernice had been il and remained home. Out of respect for her, the police held back from searching her home. Al en was, after al, onlyof nearly three thousand Zodiac suspects. “We were always concerned about his elderly mother who was not wel,” Toschi told me. “The familymentioned it several times and asked us not to go in. The brother is tel ing us, ‘I can search the basement myself. I know where he keeps thingsy when he’s away.’ Jack Mulanax never wanted to talk seriously about a search warrant. He had been turned down on handprinting and on. He just said, ‘He sure looks good, but I don’t even know if I could get a search warrant.’”

“We did not search the residence at his mother of 32 Fresno Street in Val ejo,” wrote Armstrong later. “We relied on his brother, Ron, who waswith the investigation, to look through Al en’s room in the basement of this residence.... Ron had informed us that he had observedcryptogram-type materials, but was unsure if they were related to Zodiac. No further action was taken regarding a search of 32 Fresno andbasement there.”Zodiac was, he had a cel ar where he did his secret and devilish work. “What you do not know,” he said in an November 9, 1969, letterthe Chronicle, “is whether the death machine is at the sight or whether it is being stored in my basement for further use.” Police, dumbfounded bybizarre threats of the “death machine” letter, said at the time, “We have reason to believe he’s a maniac. It appears to us that he’s kil ing just forthril of kil ing.” On April 20, 1970, Zodiac complained he had been “swamped out by the rain we had a while back.” Rain might flood aroom. A burst pipe or water heater would cause a similar inundation. No one checked to see if the house on Fresno Street had been. But what if Zodiac had not meant a proper basement? Mobile-home dwel ers cal the area beneath the trailer a “basement.” While it isegal to store things there, it is done al the time. Sometimes a rain puddle on the road becomes a swamp under a trailer. Leigh had a trailer off-in an another county, and for over a year had been squirreling away things under it. The problem was that Toschi and Armstrong were notunaware of the trailer’s location, but its existence.

“Al en’s got to have someplace where he can stash and hide things and be certain no cop wil ever know where he has everything,” Mulanax told.

“What he’s going to show us is just things on the surface,” replied Toschi. “And we know that he’s laughing at us on the inside.”nodded., November 22, 1971was approved for his Red Cross Certificate for Standard First Aid. Since he was constantly boating in a sailing club, and consideringup air jumping over water, it was a useful skil. Meanwhile in San Francisco, Toschi and Armstrong had made scant progress in the three andhalf months since the questioning at the oil refinery. “Apparently,” Toschi told me, “Al en’s family stil harbored grave misgivings about him. Theand sister-in-law were very concerned because they see that Al en is stil walking around and don’t know how thoroughly the Val ejo Policewent into the investigation. What we didn’t know was that they were building up courage to speak to us.

“I could always tel Ken Narlow was a little disturbed because San Francisco was getting al the big play in the media. We were getting more work. Which we didn’t need. But it was because Armstrong and I were getting so much media attention that Ron and Karen later felt right in cal ing. And it put me in a very precarious position. I didn’t want anyone thinking we were trying to monopolize the case. My God, we had enough workdo on our own without making more work out of another jurisdiction. We were getting so many tips and phone cal s just from San Francisco.cal ing him ‘the San Francisco Zodiac kil er,’ when there’re multi-counties involved. Zodiac came to us for more attention. He wanted to seename there.” More than once Toschi wondered, “Why?”situation was worse than on the surface. Every three weeks Toschi and Armstrong also had a load of brand-new homicides to crack.to them, at that time, Al en was no longer in Val ejo. The morning of November 22, he had traveled south to Torrance, where Don Cheney, perhaps for a confrontation. Long after, I asked Cheney, “Do you have any idea why Leigh visited Torrance on November 22, 1971?” Therea gasp of surprise. “If I had known about it at the time, it would have worried me,” Cheney said. “And yet, though I was always listed down inCalifornia, I never got one crank phone cal or threat after police interviewed Leigh.”, November 23, 1971never realized Al en was in Torrance. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Panzarel a was a cool customer. He hadn’t beenwhen Zodiac wrote the L.A. Times, even though he suspected Al en was the author. While he was in town, Leigh got into enough mischiefHawthorne Boulevard to be arrested for disturbing the peace. Cheney stil considered Zodiac’s connections to unknown murders in Southernas possible and Zodiac’s connection to Al en as “very probable.” Though Al en had ties to the area, most of his movements down southa mystery, at least to the police., November 24, 1971times the Val ejo P.D. had a sense that the SFPD was trying to freeze them out and col ar Zodiac al by themselves. “Val ejo is smal potatoesto San Francisco,” Detective Bawart told me, “but when you take and look at the homicide division in San Francisco, they’re likeelse in police work. They divide up al the murder cases. One homicide detective there is working about the same amount of cases as onedetective in Val ejo. It’s grueling.”in San Francisco, Toschi was equal y unsure he was getting everything Val ejo knew. “My thoughts were,” he explained, “when they would, ‘Wel, we talked to this person and that person,’ my mind was always like a minute ahead. I was saying to myself, ‘Did you real y?’ BecauseI said I talked to somebody, you can bet al your good money on it I did. I would never lie about that.” He began to fear the Zodiac informationmight be a one-way street. And that was just the way Zodiac liked it. The kil er preferred to strike in zones of confused jurisdiction—counties, on borderlines, and in unincorporated wilderness areas. He counted on adjoining departments working against each other, notinformation—the more the merrier. It was a big case, a competitive investigation. Everyone wanted a piece of it and whoever solved itbe the Ace of Detectives. Zodiac, with his huge ego, counted on the egos of policemen to al ow him to continue his deadly work.and Toschi could not get Leigh Al en off their minds, and sought to jump-start their investigation. They needed another tip. After such abeginning, Toschi studied the growing face of the moon. He could almost hear Zodiac’s laughter—the laughter of Satan. And the rustle ofterrible black costume.

leigh allenLeigh Allen, born in Honolulu, Hawaii, December 18, 1933, was a Sagittarius (November 22-December 21). His zodiac sign was The, and he became an expert with a bow and arrow. While Zodiac wore glasses, possibly as a disguise, Leigh rarely did (though the DMVhe wear lenses to drive). In 1964 Leigh weighed 185 pounds, but within three years his weight had bal ooned drastical y. The photo on his’s license [#3B672352], taken on October 13, 1967, depicted a moonfaced thirty-three-year-old whose weight now yo-yoed between 230 and

pounds. Al en, in 1967, listed his address simply as a post office box in Burson.for Leigh’s checkered educational record, he truly was a “professional student.” He attended Val ejo Senior High School, which shared thebuilding on Amador Street as the junior col ege. Across the street at 801 Nebraska Street stood The Plunge, a Val ejo community swimmingalso shared by high school and junior col ege students. There, a slender, good-looking Al en, a member of the wrestling team, toiled at theas a popular lifeguard from 1950 through his graduation in 1951 and a short time after. “Leigh was a hel of a diver,” one student recal ed, “anda Cadil ac.” Al en, during this period, became intensely jealous of his friend, Robert Emmett, who was not only captain of the Val ejo Highswimming team, but Leigh’s diving coach.

“I knew Leigh my last two years of high school and part of my junior col ege year,” his close friend, Kay, told me.“I lived in Carquinez and my folks,that time, bought a house in town and I became a ‘townie.’ My dad worked as a fireman, then at Mare Island. Leigh started offering me a lift tofrom school and soon was taking any number of our friends in his Cadil ac. In fact, I learned to change my first tire on that car. Leigh came outthe house one time from visiting. He says, ‘Kay, have you ever changed a flat before?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Wel, there’s no time like the present,’ he, then sat and supervised.

“Other times we’d go to the pool. Leigh going up the ladder for a high dive would cause laughter because he was built sort of pear-shaped andwould go up the ladder like a woman would. There would be a lot of snickering in the crowd. And so he would walk to the end of the board like hegoing to make his dive. He cal ed it a ‘Change Your Mind Dive.’ He would go up, hit the board, turn and do a back flip, landing back on theas if he had had second thoughts. Then he would suddenly shoot up in a two and a half forward somersault, cutting the water below without a. That gymnastic dive got the crowd’s attention fast. They didn’t laugh anymore! He could also start a front dive, do it backing up from theand end up doing a back dive, but that was real y hard and he missed that quite often.

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