The Bomb Maker's Son

by Robert Rotstein

  Lovely is already in the courtroom, setting up our computers and exhibits. I don’t ask where Frantz is, because I don’t want to know. This is my show. I sit down at the defense table and remind myself of the basic rules of oral advocacy: speak slowly; tell a story; ignore distractions from the prosecution or the gallery; don’t use notes; make eye contact with each juror; and most importantly, believe what you’re saying. I let a wave of fear pass over me, don’t try to outswim or dive under it. I was no more than ten years old when I came to believe I’d never learn my father’s identity, fifteen when I decided I didn’t want to know a man who’d abandoned me. The belief had become so engrained that I stopped thinking of the elusive “him.” Then he appeared, and now I understand that my resentment and anger were so strong because I’d never truly given up. So as any son should, I’m giving my father the benefit of the doubt. I just hope the jury does, too.

  Judge Gibson takes the bench. It’s one of those rare occasions when he proves he can master the art of judicial solemnity. “Members of the jury, we are ready to proceed with the last two stages of trial, which are the closing arguments of counsel, after which I’ll instruct you in detail with respect to the law that governs in this case. Because the government has the burden of proof, you will hear first from counsel for the government, then from counsel for the defense. After that, counsel for the government has an opportunity for a rebuttal argument. Following all of the arguments, I will instruct you on the law. Please remember that it is important that we give full consideration to the arguments that are made by counsel in the case. And we’ll proceed, then, and hear from counsel for the government. Ms. Reddick.”

  Reddick stands, pulls down the hem of her short blue jacket, and adjusts the lectern so she can speak directly to the jury. “May it please the court, counsel, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Good morning. On December seventeenth, nineteen seventy-five, people in Playa Delta, California, were working, or watching their children, or doing their Christmas shopping, or celebrating birthdays. But for Ian Holzner, December seventeenth, nineteen seventy-five, was the day when his hatred for the United States of America turned him into a mass murderer. On that day, Ian Holzner carried out his plan to wreak death, destruction, and chaos in Playa Delta, the very city in which he was born and raised. That afternoon, a bomb he built exploded just as he planned, killing four innocent men and women and injuring scores of others. As I discuss the evidence with you, bear three things in mind: Holzner’s words; Holzner’s deeds; Holzner’s unique abilities. By his words, I mean his repeated calls for escalating violence against our government. By his deeds, I mean the pattern of increasingly violent assaults against his perceived enemies. By his abilities, I mean his talent for assembling and planting bombs designed to keep him safe and to kill others.” If Reddick was shaken by Diaz’s testimony yesterday, she doesn’t show it. Her delivery is somehow coldly logical and impassioned at the same time.

  I look only at the judge, and Lovely looks only at the jury to gauge reactions. We don’t take notes, because nothing that Reddick says is important. We don’t look at Reddick, because she’s not worthy of our attention. At least, that’s the game we play, a game that will last for hours.

  Reddick’s underlings put up on the courtroom monitors a slideshow setting forth every violent, anti-American statement Holzner made in speeches and underground communiqués—a call for the public execution of the president of the United States; boasts about blowing up public property; ever more vicious pleas for blood in the streets and vengeance against the Establishment for its oppression of the poor and minorities. She recounts Holzner’s frequent quotation of Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” She reminds the jury that, nearly twenty years after Holzner spouted these words, Timothy McVeigh had them embossed on the shirt he was wearing when he was arrested for bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City. It’s an improper, inflammatory statement, but I’m not about to validate it by standing up and objecting. Reddick has us immobilized in a rhetorical chokehold. Just wait, I repeat like a mantra. But wait to say what? Although I should remain impassive, I can’t help glancing over at Emily Lansing. Her hands are clasped so tightly that the tips of her fingers have turned an ugly purple. I’m pretty sure she’s trying hard not to twist her hair.

  In a jackhammer cadence, Reddick next reminds the jury of Holzner’s evil deeds—the many bombs he built and detonated; the brutal beating of Craig Adamson; his delight in provoking violent confrontation with the police; and his successful flight to avoid prosecution.

  “Ian Holzner hid for almost forty years because he didn’t want to be punished for the evil he’d done,” she says. “His running away was the cowardly act of a guilty man.”

  She breaks from her theme and goes into a two-hour discussion of the evidence against Holzner. In meticulous detail, she summarizes the testimony of Agent Roudebusch and the forensics experts and Gladdie Giddens and even Craig Adamson. She projects on the courtroom monitors the map of the Playa Delta VA found in the gang’s apartment and leaves it there for the jury to see. She characterizes Carol Diaz as a liar who wants to save an old childhood friend and argues that even if Diaz is telling the truth, Holzner was pretending to be hysterical to give himself an alibi and find a patsy to help him escape.

  To conclude, she turns to what she calls Holzner’s abilities. “He was a practitioner of the black arts,” she says. “He could use his charisma, his good looks, his fame as a star athlete to corrupt the minds of the weak and the vulnerable. He could seduce people and convince them to commit violent acts. Most importantly, he could make sophisticated, destructive bombs. If Ian Holzner didn’t make the bomb that exploded in the Playa Delta VA, then who did? There’s no answer because no one else could’ve done it. No one else had the know-how. Of course Ian Holzner is the Playa Delta Bomber.” With that, she sits down. But she isn’t finished. She’ll have a rebuttal, and for an attorney the last word is more valuable than platinum.

  “Thank you, Ms. Reddick,” the judge says. “We’ll hear from the defense. Mr. Stern.”

  Lovely glances up and gives a nod of encouragement. She can’t hide her concern that I’ll suffer a bout of glossophobia. When I stand, I do feel the overwhelming lightheadedness, the wobbly limbs, the nausea. But all that miraculously goes away when I walk over and lay my hand on Holzner’s shoulder.

  “May it please the Court, Ms. Reddick, members of the jury,” I say. “Mine is the last voice you’ll hear from the defense. The government has the last word because it has the burden of proof. You’ve heard the evidence. You are the final arbiters of Ian Holzner’s fate. You’ve taken an oath of office that you’ll decide this case only on the facts and not based on bias or prejudice or likes or dislikes or speculation. That’s a hard thing to do, but it’s also essential to justice.”

  I move away from the podium and look each juror in the eyes. All are stone-faced except for Joey, who’s wearing that permanent sneer. Why did I leave him on the panel? But he’s there, so I speak directly to him first. “The renowned attorney Clarence Darrow once said that great ideas and new truths come from the men and women who have dared to be rebels. Very often such people are despised. Ian Holzner was a rebel, an outlaw, and because of that you might find his words and actions despicable. I, myself, find what he did back then despicable. But if you follow your oath of office, if you resolve to reach a just verdict, you simply cannot convict him for those actions or based on your feelings about what he did or said. You can only convict if the government has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the Playa Delta bombing. And members of the jury, the government hasn’t come close to meeting its burden.” Inadvertently channeling the bombastic Moses Dworsky in his prime, I point my index finger skyward and bellow, “There’s almost nothing that you heard in the courtroom that’s free from doubt.”

  I give them my own view of the evidence. Gladdie Giddens didn’t know whi
ch Holzner brother was which and was led by an overzealous FBI agent to identify Ian Holzner as being present at the crime scene. Craig Adamson was out for revenge. FBI agent Roudebusch admitted that his partner, Hilton, disagreed about who was on the missing tape recording. The government didn’t call Charles Sedgwick or Rachel O’Brien. Risking criminal prosecution, Carol Diaz testified that the bombing so shocked Holzner that he became hysterical.

  I describe Martin Lansing’s exemplary life and remind the jurors that he turned himself in—not the actions of a guilty man, especially one with a young daughter. I argue that none of the government’s experts could say with certainty that Holzner had made the bomb, which was of the type constructed by a number of other radical cells, including the Baader-Meinhof Group in Germany, and that the prosecution had presented no fingerprint or DNA evidence. I remind the jury that a woman’s earring was found at the scene.

  “Let’s talk about why Ian Holzner fled,” I say. “Let’s look at what was happening in our country at the time. There were the conspiracy trials of the Chicago Eight and the Seattle Seven, both travesties of justice where the defendants were wrongfully convicted, and both reversed on appeal. There were COINTELPRO’s investigations of the Weather Underground, so fraught with illegality that people like Mark Rudd and Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers basically served no time in prison. Ian Holzner fled not because he was guilty, but because he was innocent and couldn’t have gotten a fair trial back then. But now, members of the jury, you can give him the fair trial and the just result he deserves.”

  I move behind Holzner and place my hands on his shoulders again. I want the jury to see that I care about him, to feel my concern. “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard hours of testimony from government witnesses and argument from Ms. Reddick about how Ian Holzner was a radical, how he flouted our country’s laws and wanted to overthrow our democracy. An urban guerrilla. A middle-class revolutionary. A spoiled, ungrateful brat. It’s all true. In nineteen seventy-five, he had no respect for the law of this land. But now, members of the jury, it’s your turn to decide whether you respect the law of the land. If you do, then you’ll acquit Ian Holzner, because the prosecution has failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But if, instead, you vote to convict, you’ll have flouted our laws and committed an act of radicalism. So, I urge you to follow the law, to do justice, to respect our system of government. It’s not an easy thing to do. But if you truly believe in the rule of law, then you can bring back only one verdict—not guilty. Members of the jury, Ian Holzner’s life is in your hands.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Marilee Reddick is at the lectern before I can sit down. She spends a few minutes scoffing at my argument and the rest of her time talking about Russell Breen and Floyd Corwin and Lucille Gomez and Elaine Smith, the four people who died in the Playa Delta bombing. She reminds the jury of the how precious mundane life is.

  “Russell and Floyd and Lucille and Elaine died that day, and there’s nothing you can do as a jury to bring them back,” she says. “But what you can do is make sure that justice is done in their names. And justice requires that you find Ian Holzner guilty of murder in the first degree.” She bows. “It has been an honor, ladies and gentlemen, to represent the United States government and the victims and families of victims of the Playa Delta bombing.”

  Judge Gibson immediately starts instructing the jury on the law—base your verdict solely on the evidence; don’t rely on anything that happened outside the courtroom; a defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; for a defendant to be convicted of first-degree murder, he must have acted with premeditation and malice aforethought. Then: “The defendant is not on trial for any of his thoughts, beliefs, or statements, which are protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The First Amendment, however, does not prevent the prosecution from offering evidence of a defendant’s beliefs in an attempt to prove that he had some motive, knowledge, or intent for committing the crimes alleged in the indictment. Whether you agree or disagree with the defendant’s expressed opinions or beliefs is irrelevant. You may no more convict the defendant because you may disagree with his opinions and beliefs than you may acquit him because you may agree with his opinions and beliefs.”

  I glance at the jury. They’re looking in the judge’s direction, but I truly don’t know if any of them understand the instructions or even care about them.

  Gibson takes off his reading glasses and gives the last instruction by memory: “Finally, members of the jury, remember that the question before you can never be, ‘Will the government win or lose this case?’ Regardless of whether the verdict is guilty or not guilty, the government always wins when justice is done.” It’s a nice sentiment, but against human nature—Marilee Reddick wants a conviction just as much I want an acquittal, justice be damned.

  While Lovely checks in with her office, I go with Holzner when the marshals take him back to his holding cell. Before the marshals take him away, he comes over and embraces me. Now that the audience has left the building, he’s allowed his guards to remove the shackles. I hug back, a reaction that feels so natural it’s jarring.

  “Thank you, Parker,” he says. “I’m glad I got to meet you, to know who you really are. You might not want to hear it, but we’re very much alike.”

  I take a step back. “I don’t think so, Ian. I don’t like evangelical causes that make living human beings their deities. Those are the groups that become deadly. You were a demigod. I’m just a gun for hire working within the system.”

  “You have the same passion I had. I heard it in your voice.”

  “It’s called advocacy. A form of acting. I do it well.”

  “No, it’s passion, fervor for the ideal. For equality, in my case, for justice in yours. For Harriet, it’s spiritual redemption, misguided or not.”

  “You and Harriet craved power. I’m trying to serve justice. The proverbial cog.”

  “Then why didn’t you suffer a moment’s stage fright when you truly started to believe in my innocence? You do believe, you know.”

  Before I can respond, he nods to the marshals, who take him back to the courthouse holding cell.

  As I turn the corner and walk toward the attorneys lounge, I see Lovely sprinting toward me, her pumps clacking on the linoleum floor. When she reaches me, she holds out the phone and says, “It’s for you, through my office. He’ll only talk to you. Maybe a crank, but I think you should . . .”

  I take the phone. “This is Parker Stern.”

  “Parker, it’s Jerry Holzner.” Pahkoo, it’s Jehwy Hoznuh. There’s tension in his voice. No, it’s more than that—he’s just on the controlled side of panic.

  How do I play it? Friendly? Detached? I’ve hinted in open court that the man might be the Playa Delta Bomber. I’ve wondered whether he really exists. Businesslike and detached is always safest. “What can I do for you, Jerry?”

  “I saw . . . I read about what Carol did.” I wed about what Cawol did. “It’s not fair. Not fair for anyone, not for Ian, not for Carol, it’s not fair.” He pauses for so long I fear I’ve lost him. “I have to tell you, Parker. It’s not fair.”

  “Tell me what, Jerry?”

  “I have to tell you, but I can’t tell you on the phone. Ian always says no phones. The FBI is listening. They’re always listening. That’s what Ian always says.” There’s deep, labored breathing. “I hate the FBI.”

  “When did Ian say this, Jerry?”

  “He . . . Not on the phone. Not on the phone. Where are you, Parker? Why aren’t you here?”

  “Jerry, I’m at the courthouse. The trial just ended. Where are you?”

  “At your office, of course. I called for you, but you’re not here. I didn’t know when the trial was over.”

  “What do you mean my office?”

  “Your office in the Valley. Dworsky’s office.”

  I’ve never truly thought of the place as my office, and haven’t set fo
ot in the place since the weekend after Dworsky murdered Sedgwick.

  “It’s your office, too, right?” Jerry says. “Why did Moses stab Charlie? It stinks of rotten fish here.”

  “Is anyone else there?”

  “No. The door was open, it’s an office, I thought you would be here, I called for you. No one answered. Please, Parker, what should I do? I have to tell you. I don’t care if Ian will be mad. I read in the papers about what Carol did.”

  “Stay where you are, Jerry. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

  A raspy sigh of relief. “’Kay. ’Kay. Good.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Lovely and I sprint out of the courthouse and toward the lot where the rented Lexus is parked. She’s put her shoes in her briefcase and is running in stocking feet. We have to get there before Jerry decides to disappear again. Or the jury could come back with a guilty verdict immediately. If that happens, the US Attorney will characterize anything Jerry has to say as an after-the-fact, self-serving attempt to save his brother.

  A few of the media catch sight of us and follow. We must be hurrying after something, right? Fortunately, I’m parked close to the escalator and know an alternate exit that passes under City Hall. When we drive out onto First Street, it looks like we’ve lost them. In my zeal to get to the Valley, I carelessly swerve into the left lane, almost hitting a Metro bus.

  “Jesus,” Lovely says. “Let’s get there in one piece.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Should we be going alone? There’s something wrong with that guy.”

  “He’s a little slow. The trauma from what the cops—”

  “I don’t care what the reason is. He sounds like a nutcase. We should call the cops.”

  “Which will scare him away permanently. And he’s my uncle. Ian’s brother.”