antique, RobertUnmasked 13 страница

“After five years of being the subject of investigation, interrogation, search and other forms of harassment,” he explained, “I was final y subjectedten hours of polygraph examination, administered by the Justice Department, here at the hospital. I signed away my rights and cooperated ful y,order to final y resolve the issue, and have subsequently been removed from the Department’s suspect list for the crimes specified in theletter.

“Since... I doubt the Department wil take the trouble to distribute their findings to other concerned agencies, and since I do contemplateto the Santa Rosa area to live, I am taking it upon myself to impart this information to you, in the hope that it wil find its way to its restingin the proper file. I am hoping that, in the future, I wil be able to go in peace, and not get sweaty palms at the mention of another unsolved.

“The above has been quite a weight on my shoulders for the last five years. Now that I am cleared, I do heartily wish to forget the whole miserable.... Thank you for your time and consideration, and have a pleasant Holiday vacation. Sincerely, Arthur Leigh Al en, Case #74-0109-68.”Al en claimed to have been the subject of five years of investigation, he had not become a real suspect until 1971. In his mind he mustdated the beginning of his troubles from Sgt. Lynch’s brief questioning at Cave School. As for the ten-hour lie test—“Al en’s lying about that,”said. through the rest of 1975, Leigh’s mother faithful y wrote to him in prison, one of the few stil corresponding with him. But in counseling, Leighhow cold he felt her letters were and how much he hated her. Leigh felt an even stronger hatred for Atascadero. He feared staying therethan he dreaded the police. At night he could hear strange cries echoing down the highly polished floors. A big man could be afraid too.Al en was locked away, brooding and planning, the Val ejo Sheriff’s Department doggedly pursued their Zodiac investigation. “Zodiac wascertain man,” Les Lundblad told his son, Les, Jr., who had just returned from a golf match. “The only time I played golf,” Les, Jr., recal ed, “I playeda foursome with this man. I produced a Polaroid of the foursome to my dad and he pointed the ‘beady-eyed’ man out.” Detective Sergeantthought this beady-eyed suspect was protected by a powerful official. Later an ex-Highway patrolman interviewed Les, Jr., and told himthis official had ordered Sergeant Lundblad to back off. The son didn’t think his father would have obeyed that order, but was at a loss towhy more wasn’t done with the ‘beady-eyed’ man. However, the late Sergeant Lundblad’s interest in this early suspect predated the policewith Leigh Al en in 1971 and his subsequent visit to Atascadero to see Al en who had by then become the chief suspect.Ralph Wilson told me that when Lundblad returned from Atascadero, he said, “That’s him!” His remark carried conviction. Three years, I was in the main sheriff’s office just above the jail—Fairfield, California, Criminal Division. Captain Vince Murphy had arranged for me to looksome evidence. The switchboard operator, a slim, dynamic woman, paused between cal s and recal ed the late Les Lundblad with admiration. “Ithere when he came back from Atascadero,” she said. “He was furious. ‘That’s him!’ he said, ‘That’s Zodiac. That’s the son of a bitch and we’t do anything about it!’ and he believed this right to the day of his death.”operator was troubled, concerned that she once had spoken to Zodiac when he cal ed the sheriff’s office. Zodiac had told her his real name,she couldn’t remember it. She’d lost the name in al the excitement. “I worked closer with Lundblad than with Lynch,” Narlow told me. “I alwaysthe feeling that Lundblad knew who Zodiac was. That story [about Cheney and Al en talking about hunting humans] is so bizarre you don’t knowto believe it or not. Sometimes people concoct things like this for whatever reason. But that story about him talking about those things is so, that if in fact he did say it, then he has to be the Zodiac.” And so Toschi, Armstrong, and Mulanax probably had the right man, but somehowbeing outfoxed. No one could get around the handprinting, the partial print on the cab, and now the lie test. Those obstacles were the big. The Sacramento Bee and Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s secret witness programs established a $20,000 reward for Zodiac’s capture,to Yel ow Cab’s existing reward. So many Zodiac tips trickled into Val ejo P.D. that Detective Bawart was assigned to help track new leads.

, January 5, 1976County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant “Butch” Carlstedt blinked, then looked again. He perceived links between twelve Jack the Ripper-murders and the long-sought Zodiac. Zodiac might be arranging his crimes in a broad “Z” extending over the Bay Area. He might be tracingan even larger “Z,” encompassing the entire West. Sonoma County Sheriff Don Striepeke agreed, pointing to Rodeo; Vancouver, Washington;; Salt Lake City; Santa Fe; and Aspen-Vail as locations where girls were slain. He surmised this psychopathic kil er might practice, kil ing slaves for his afterlife just as Zodiac had boasted. Ultimately, though, the assailant turned out to be Ted Bundy, not Zodiac.Striepeke was not deterred. From the beginning, Zodiac’s occult bent had fascinated him. The sheriff examined diagrams—a series ofsticks discovered at a murder site along semi-remote Franz Val ey Road. Was this a witchcraft symbol? The sticks formed a square andrectangle joined together to indicate a human figure. Inside the rectangle were two stones, and outside, two more pebbles. Four sticks ran aroundouter edges. Striepeke thought the design might represent the black magic “Seal of Vassago.” Vassago is a mighty prince who declares things, present, and future and discovers what has been hidden. A local teenager claimed it was a design he made to show his girlfriend the shapehis new trailer, but it stil might be a witch sign. Zodiac also used other esoteric symbols in his codes—dots such as those used in astrological. The nearly invisible Zodiac scarcely needed witchcraft—the Santa Rosa murderer was powerful enough to heft bodies over a ditchhurl them considerable distances down a hil side. Witches mail bloody swatches of cloth to their enemies. So did Zodiac.Chief of Police Wes Pomeroy was interested in the occult angle too. He had written to the Department of Justice, OCCIB, on February

: “Enclosed are five photographs of various signs photographed in a rural (Val ejo) area. Please determine if the enclosed photographssigns in witchcraft. If so, please determine what each individual sign’s significance is in mutual cases of interest.”

“It’s highly doubtful that witchcraft might be involved with Zodiac,” David Rice assured me, “as the Wiccan Rede prohibits harm to anyone,animals.”drove to Val ejo to ask Sergeant Lynch about Zodiac again, hoping he might recal something new. I recal ed how, after the Lake Berryessa, Lynch had issued a public appeal to Zodiac to surrender. “We wil see that he gets help and that al his rights are protected,” promised. “[Zodiac] is obviously an intel igent individual. He knows that eventual y he wil be taken into custody. So it would be best that he give himselfbefore tragedy is written in blood.” I sat down in his darkened dining room. “I think there were five of us in the investigation bureau,” he began. “I think what real y happened was we were spending so much time and going so many places that I guess they got dissatisfied with the way itbeing handled... when we first started on this case there was this guy George—he used to go down to the coffee shop [where Darlene Ferrin]. He was trying to date her, but for some reason Dee [Darlene’s nickname] didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Constantlyher and fol owing her. Dee was deathly afraid of him. The whole investigation original y seemed to focus on this guy.” George hadn’this familiar watering hole, Jack’s Hangout, since the July Fourth shootings. Next their search led Lynch and his partner to the Kat Pad onStreet, Kaiser Steel in Napa, then to the Pastime bar in Benicia. “Me and Ed Rust,” said Lynch, “we found out he quit the Pastime, andup to Yountvil e. I got a description of him from his landlady, Mrs. Violet Peeler. He was five foot seven, with a stocky build and a dark. Kind of plump with dark straight hair. Unfortunately, while George had a water-related last name, he had an airtight alibi too.” A3, 1964, Solano County Fairfield police report, 242, PC Battery, gave George’s weight then as a mere 127 pounds.

“In Val ejo, we checked everybody out,” Lynch concluded. “Once I got a cal from someone who said Zodiac lived on Arkansas Street. I drove overand found a man whose only connection was that he’d painted stars on his ceiling, including the Little Dipper. Everyone was a suspect and nowas safe.” Even in the dimness, I saw the tol the case had taken on Lynch., July 24, 1976

“I watched Herman die in my sleep for eight weeks,” Inspector Armstrong told the press, recal ing Police Officer Herman George. George hadgunned down in the street in November of 1969. “He died a very slow and painful death.... When I leave the office at night I forget the job. I never discuss my work at home... wel, I can’t real y. I find other ways to unwind.” Armstrong became a man who could never sit stil, aconstantly in motion. Final y, he burned out on Homicide. The next day, Armstrong transferred to the Bunco Division, leaving Toschi as the lastSan Francisco policeman working the Zodiac case.

“At least a year before he left Homicide, Bil just didn’t want to do it anymore,” Toschi said. “Now that I’m the only one working on it, I never let ago by without remembering Zodiac. It’s gotten to be more personal. Every day I wonder what became of him.”cab drivers had been murdered since Stine’s kil ing in 1969 and six suspects had been arrested and tried. Five were convicted of firstmurder, one of second degree. Just ten days after Stine’s senseless murder, Toschi and Armstrong had investigated another Yel ow Cabslaying only blocks away... “driver shot in the head... wal et stolen, cab lights left blazing... engine running. A row of brightly colored shirts littering the sidewalk.” Toschi and Armstrong quickly nabbed a Tenderloin busboy in bed with his girlfriend. She had nagged him about money, soflagged down a cabbie, held him up, and shot him during a struggle. “I took twenty-seven dol ars off him,” the chain-smoking youth said, “thenmy.22 revolver down a storm drain. I knew I’d get caught. I left my fingerprints al over the cab. I’ve got a record so I knew it was only a mattertime before you picked me up. Sure, I feel bad about it... especial y for his wife and little girl. Whatever I get, I got coming. You don’t kiland not pay for it. You see, I never wanted to see the inside of a jail again.” Only Stine’s kil er stil remained at large. It began to look as ifmight win his lethal chess match with the police simply through attrition.

“My mom and I,” a Southern California resident later told me, “visited Mr. Al en in Atascadero State Hospital almost every Saturday, and when hereleased he even stayed at our house just north of Atascadero and west of San Luis Obispo.... I remember when he stayed at our house, hein my mom’s room with her. She always said that nothing happened, and I tend to believe her, since I remember him as not a very sexual. Mr. Al en was very good to al of us kids. He spent a lot of time with my brothers and us girls. He taught us basic values, he was an avid non-and non-smoker. He had a lot of smal pets. He especial y liked kangaroo rats, and had a permit to keep them and do research. He taughtbrother how to drive, shoot, fix cars, and do al of those other guy things. He used to go to his various trailers, and they used to go targetin the mountains and river bottoms of Northern California. Mr. Al en was an expert marksman.”Al en was incarcerated, Zodiac refused to die, living on in speculation, in every dark shadow along a lake and in al our hearts. If Zodiacsimply faded away, good men like Toschi, Armstrong, Mulanax, Lynch, Narlow, and Avery had been beaten., August 24, 19761965 blue Volkswagen van bus had been in and out of the garage on A Street several times. On June 23, 1976, its owner had the motorfor $520.74. In July, Wilfred Roenik, manager of the German Car Center east of Merced, noticed the van back again. A fix-it ticket saidrear lights weren’t working. “The vehicle has ground problems,” Roenik explained, but its owner did not ask to check the headlamps. The owneron August 2, saying he needed a voltage regulator and battery. Those were instal ed for $39.05. On Tuesday, August 24, he returnedbattery. “It cost too much,” he complained, and that afternoon instal ed his own new battery.8:00 P.M. the van’s owner, a forty-one-year-old Santa Rosa Junior Col ege teacher, climbed behind the wheel. He was tal, six feet three, 190 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. An ex-soldier, he had served at Fort Hamilton, New York. In 1959, he’d received an earlyfrom the Army as an overseas returnee. Six years later, he became an English teacher and part-time art instructor.was a clear night, the road ahead was dry. He was not under the influence of barbiturates or alcohol. He had just eaten. Going only fifty, fiveunder the speed limit, he took his van eastbound onto an expressway with no streetlights. Highway 12 began as two lanes separated by afoot-wide divider strip, real y only dirt with grass and weeds, then abruptly became a four-lane divided expressway. At 8:30 P.M., just where thecurved west of Wright Road, the van’s headlights blinked out. At the start of the divided section, the VW eased onto the center divider andalong there for a distance. The van ignored the curve, kept going straight, and flew across the dirt divider into the westbound lane.man en route to a friend’s home in Sebastopol entered the point where the two westbound lanes merged to one. He could clearly see theof other vehicles in the eastbound lanes. “Oh, my God!” he cried when he saw the van cross straight into oncoming traffic. There was noaction, only light skid marks about two feet long just before impact. The van col ided head-on into a 1972 Toyota traveling west in the #1. Both vehicles bounced nine feet into the #2 lane and came to rest on the north asphalt shoulder less than three thousand feet east of Merced. Both drivers were pinned in their cars. At 8:50, the fire department extricated them. The woman driver in the Toyota would be OK.9:00 P.M. they wheeled the teacher into the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Emergency Room and doctors began working on him. Deputyspoke with Dr. Larson. The wounds were severe: a tear of the pericardial sac of the heart and left pulmonary vein... abrasion of thearch, multiple fractures of the right lower extremity, a fracture of the left hip and right arm, multiple fractures of the ankle, laceration leftleg, radial and ulna on right. They couldn’t keep his blood pressure above 60. At 1:25 A.M. the teacher died on the operating table. SheriffCoroner Don Striepeke ruled the cause of death to be: “Shock due to multiple traumatic lesions.”retained the teacher’s wal et and personal property. The only address they had on him was a P.O. box in Santa Rosa. The deputy ran a

registration check, and learned that the victim lived in a trailer home in Sebastopol. At 9:30 A.M., Durham spoke with the teacher’s ex-wifediscovered he had been having some epileptic seizures control ed by medication. At 3:00 P.M. Investigator Siebe, interested in items insidetrailer, sealed it. It wasn’t until November 8 that police returned the property, noting for their records: “Landlord and Ex-wife are going to itemizein his room and store them at landlord’s place to free the room.” Why did police keep the teacher’s possessions so long? Were theywith the Santa Rosa murders? A decade would pass before I found out., August 27, 1976midnight, San Francisco Supervisor Dianne Feinstein, working late at City Hal, opened the last of her mail. “Did you miss me?” a note read.

“Was busy doing some nefarious dastardly work, for which I am very wel suited.” She rang the police, they cal ed Toschi, and at 5:00 A.M.,and bleary-eyed, he hustled upstairs to study the letter. “This isn’t from Zodiac,” he explained. “It’s ‘Old Tom’ playing games again. I’ve gotentire file on Old Tom’s bogus letters. Oddly enough, he isn’t drunk when he writes his Zodiac letters. The typing is far too elaborate for a guyis sauced. And a guy who keeps doing a thing like that when he’s sober has gotta have something wrong with his head. He’s kil ing himselfalcohol.” The detective arranged for the McCauley Clinic to treat Tom for malnutrition; tried to get him into Napa under a section of the WelfareInstitution Code about being a danger to himself. However, Tom, an old pro, got himself a writ, and eight days later a judge dropped him backthe Tenderloin. I visited Old Tom in his flea-bitten hotel room, found him curled up on a urine-stained mattress. He was total y obsessed with the. If that made him crazy, then we al were.stil had seven years left until his minimum retirement date. “I’m watching the mailbox,” he said, “to see if I get a seventh-anniversary cardZodiac.” An ad had run in that morning’s Chronicle: “ZODIAC Your partner is in DEEP REAL ESTATE. You’re next. The Imperial Wizard canyou. Surrender to him or I’l terminate your case. R.A.”

voice of zodiac, November 5, 1976bumped into Karl Malden (“Lieutenant Mike Stone” on The Streets of San Francisco). The actor was on location at the policebureau, shooting a scene with costar Michael Douglas. Malden recal ed Toschi from a meeting the previous year and hailed him. “Youthat unusual upside-down holster and gun,” he said. “I had never seen anything like it.” They spoke of the job like two cops. “I’l get Zodiac,” Toschi vowed to Malden. “And I’l bring him to justice. That’s my motivation—justice. I’m not a vengeful type, but when a life is taken,must be justice. He has taken six lives; who knows how many more? I work with death, sorrow, and tragedy. Yet I like my job because it’s aone. I bring in kil ers for society’s judgment. Ringing bel s and knocking on doors, good old-fashioned police work. That’s what does it. I’vegotten religious-type letters where they tel me to pray, to talk to God, and then I’l catch Zodiac, they say. These people don’t know they’reto the biggest believer around.” It was a speech he not only gave often, but believed in his heart.

“The Zodiac case is like the unsolved Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles,” Toschi told me later. “The chief detective in that case always said heknow the kil er if he questioned him by means of one secret question he never revealed—I’ve held a couple of things back from the press too.

... I remember meeting Clint Eastwood while he was making Dirty Harry, an almost shy person... faded jeans, a T-shirt, white tennis shoes, andwas a star. And Stu Rosenberg, the director of The Laughing Policeman. Walter Mathau was wonderful, Bruce Dern terrific in that film. Stu tookcab and met us at a murder scene. ‘I don’t know how you do this,’ he said. ‘My God!’”months later, the House Select Committee sought out the nation’s top investigators and invited Toschi to participate in a second look intoassassinations of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. He declined. The assignment would have taken him away from Zodiac for two. As Christmas approached, Toschi’s mood lightened. One of the crime lab people snapped a candid shot of him grinning on the phone andfel ow Inspector Rotea Gilford’s Zebra-patterned hat.years, amateur sleuths had groped for any clue that might unmask Zodiac. His use of English was a valuable lead. A U.C. Berkeley linguistics, examining Zodiac’s use of vernacular, concluded he was of English or Welsh extraction. English cartoonist Jim Unger, who drew thestrip Herman, was once a British policeman. “The letters from Zodiac show he is a man from the north of Great Britain,” Unger said. “Of, we know he speaks with no accent, but he may have lived there.” A British police car currently in service was cal ed the “Zodiac,” its hooda crossed circle. Author Nancy Ashbaugh told me: “‘Tit Wil ow’ is a song sung by English mothers instead of ‘Rock-a-bye-Baby.’ Zodiacpeppermint and ‘phompfit. ’ Zodiac means pomfits, a term for candies. ‘Give the child a pomfit [violet squares and lavender squares].’are pomfits in Alice in Wonderland.” A mind reader stated, “Zodiac is definitely of German-Irish ancestry.”in future tense—“I wil... I shal,” Zodiac also used purposeful misspel ings. Was there a man in the case who, in his daily life, habitual yed words in a mocking, taunting, or jocular manner? Spel ing mistakes in the three-part cryptogram might not be encrypting mistakes, but amessage. Zodiac had used extra letters such as the r in “forrest” and e in “expeerence” and omitted letters such as the s in “dangerous.”these divergences, Zodiac buff J. B. Dahlgren was able to spel “Science is mysterious Isis,” but admitted that skil ed anagramists might findcombinations.with oddly spel ed words, X’s ran through Zodiac’s letters: “X’mas” and “Super X.” The circled 8 in the letter might be a Taurus or Cancer. Toschi, himself a Cancer, had gotten in the habit of regularly picking up astrology magazines hoping one might provide an overlooked clue.astrologer, using the dates when Zodiac had struck or mailed letters, tried unsuccessful y casting his horoscope backwards. “That way I canhis birth date.” Another was sure Zodiac was a Capricorn. “Saturn is the ruling planet of Capricorn and Zodiac’s activities are tied toevents in Saturn,” he said.

“Look in the Chronicle,” John H. Grove advised, “and see what the horoscope recommended on days he kil ed. After al, Hitler wouldn’t movehis astrologer’s okay.... Cappies are usual y good spel ers, and his errors could be a ruse to throw everyone off the track. Zodiacto be strongly affected by the dice naturals 7 and 11, the latter especial y. Apart from gambling and the occult his assumed name mayinterrelated with his love of eleven. The word Zodiac is derived from the ancient Greek Zodiakos. The Hel enes had no separate numbering, each alphabetical letter having a numerical value. I was amazed when I computed the numerical value for Zodiakos and found it to be

. Is Zodiac aware of this? He probably is. He may be crazy or a doper or both, but he is neither stupid nor il iterate.”the number eleven was important to the kil er, what did twelve mean to him? There were twelve signs to the Zodiac. Zodiac’s nature (and that ofserial kil ers) was to clip and col ect stories about himself. Since buying three papers a day might attract undue attention, he might have hometo them al. The Examiner had not only buried Zodiac on page 4, but begged him to surrender to them (an unwise suggestion to awho enjoyed being in control). Zodiac never wrote them again. Police might look for a man who had many subscriptions, but canceled the., March 30, 1977had now served thirty months—two years and fifteen days at Atascadero. He was returned to the Sonoma County Jail to prepare for a May

, 1977 probation hearing. He waived that right., August 30, 1977had spent a total of 150 days in the Sonoma County Jail. Between there and Atascadero he had been behind bars for two years, four, and twenty-five days. During al that time not one offense attributable to Zodiac had been committed. The attacks in Santa Rosa had; no new bodies were discarded below Franz Val ey Road; no genuine letters from Zodiac had been received. Even as late as this nineday of Leigh’s captivity, a note—a sentence—a single word postmarked from outside Atascadero would have removed Al en from thelist. But Zodiac’s last letter had been received three ful years before—July 8, 1974.the afternoon, a Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department deputy ushered Leigh downstairs. Their heels echoed in the long impersonal hal ways.deputy arranged white plastic numerals, #4-7-9-3-2, below Leigh’s face for an I.D. mug shot. He was garbed in prison clothes, his mustachegoatee now showing gray. His expression was scowling, though the next day he was to be a free man. A friend of mine saw a differentin the same photo. “I think he looks sad,” she said.law enforcement authorities, under Section 290 of the State Penal Code, relied on convicted sex offenders to keep tabs onby notifying police when they moved. Since the state had no enforcement program, it was no surprise that only a handful of the multitudedischarged offenders were currently registered. Atascadero officials notified the prison registry and the registry notified Val ejo authorities thaten was on the streets again. The next step was up to him. He returned to his cubicle, his steps echoing down the hal s, his image reflected fulin the highly polished floor bigger than ever., August 31, 1977from Atascadero, Leigh Al en went to stay with friends in Paso Robles. The fol owing day Toschi received a typed letter from him, themention of Zodiac within recent memory. “Kil ers invariably try to inject themselves into the investigation,” I said to Toschi. “Have any of theever offered to help you catch Zodiac? With his disdain of the police, Zodiac would be irresistibly drawn to offer to catch himself.”

“Only one,” he said.

“And I bet it was typed.”

“Yes, it was. It just arrived.” He searched his desk. A bright shaft of light cut through the grimy window. Traffic crawled sluggishly along Bryant. The old sign flashed its red neon in bright sunlight, “OK BAIL BONDS—OPEN 24 HOURS—WE SPECIALIZE IN TRAFFIC.” Toschi foundletter and read aloud: “If I can ever be of any help to you just let me know. I’m sorry I wasn’t your man, but I’m out now and I’ve paid my debt to. [signed] Leigh Al en.”

“Sorry I wasn’t your man!’” said Toschi in wonderment. A note like this, with its mocking tone, was exactly the kind of letter Zodiac would write.

“He’s the one,” I said.at the Chronicle, a sick, unpostmarked letter signed with a Zodiac symbol arrived that afternoon. Even crank letters like Old Tom’s wereseriously. Actual y, any Zodiac letter, no matter how obvious a hoax, always created a stir. No possibility could be dismissed. Policeattention on each because Zodiac’s handprinting may have changed over the years.

“ILL DO IT BECAUSE I DONE IT 21 TIMES I CANT STOP BECAUSE EACH THAT I KILL MAKES IT WORSE AND I MUST KILL MOREIS THE MOST PRIZED GAME ILL NERVER GIVE MY NAME....”perversity drove anyone to copy Zodiac? Future copycats had darker motives and bloodier hands. They went further than imitating writing—acted on the Zodiac crimes themselves., January 3, 1978returned to Val ejo. Water Town had changed little—lying clean, sprawling, and mysterious as always. Robert Louis Stevenson once said,

“Val ejo typical of many smal California towns—a blunder.” First thing, Leigh applied as a fleet mechanic to Benicia Import Auto Service. He wasabout his past. “I served two years and a half at Atascadero,” he admitted. After they hired him at $6.15 an hour, he roved the hil s trying outwings. He was seemingly unaware the search for Zodiac had not abated in his absence. The same hounds were stil howling and leaping alhim and across the waters in San Francisco. But on a national level, the FBI focused on new Zodiac suspects:

“At Buffalo, New York. Wil question an informant regarding his knowledge of and basis of his al egation of Zodiac’s activities, and why hehim a suspect in the ZODIAC case,” read a bul etin. “At Jacksonvil e, at Tavares, Florida. Wil advise Lake County as a possiblesuspect. Wil obtain photos of subject and furnish to Sacramento, and also to Buffalo. ARMED AND DANGEROUS.”gray straits appeared icy in the morning. Leigh parked where a causeway across the Napa River and the straits joined Val ejo at the west toisland. He gazed toward Mare Island. In Water Town’s early days, a barge transporting a herd of livestock had overturned. General MarianoVal ejo, an early California land baron, had rescued a white mare swimming for the island and christened the cay Isla de la Yegua

—“Island of the Mare.”the water, battleships moored alongside three-tiered warehouses with brick smokestacks. The Naval Shipyard was Val ejo’s principal, served by third-, even fourth-generation workers. During World War I it returned a thousand repaired ships to duty and manufactured threesubmarines, destroyer escorts, sub tenders, and landing craft. The West’s oldest Naval instal ation assembled battleships like the, cruisers like the Chicago. It was the first Pacific yard to build atomic-powered subs. The shipyard, completely self-contained,everything it needed from bricks to rivets. Al en was equal y self-sufficient. He gazed longingly toward the sea, drove into work, andbad news. Import Auto Service was laying him off. “So soon?” said Leigh. “Business has just been too slow,” said the manager. Al en clenchedunclenched his fists at the hopelessness of it al., April 28, 1978Monday, someone had dropped a letter with too much postage and signed “Zodiac” into a mailbox. Its postmark designated a Santa Clara orMateo County origin. On Friday, April 28, the Chronicle received its first Zodiac letter since 1974. If it was not a hoax, the kil er had beenfor almost four years. The letter met al the usual requirements of a genuine Zodiac communication. But it had a forced look about it, andquickly cries of “Hoax!” went up. Sherwood Morril in Sacramento ruled it authentic. For a while so did John Shimoda, Director of the PostalLaboratory, Western Regional Office, San Bruno. Eventual y Shimoda reversed his position and sided with expert Terry Pascoe, claiming itbe a clever hoax. I wanted it to be authentic, but as time went by, my doubts about the letter increased. The cunning forgery would cause agonyeveryone.

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