by Sol Stein
Several of the fire fighters in the first bus quickly debarked. The man in charge went over to Kathy, who, breathless and crying, told them her boyfriend had been shot.
The man in charge followed her into the building, took one look at Stanley, who was now unconscious, and then ran back out to the buses.
“Please,” Kathy screamed after him. “Don’t leave him.”
The man in charge had no intention of doing so. In quick time he cleared all but two of the men out of the first bus, and divided them into the two remaining buses and had them take off. They were on the way to the nearest helipad, with only three minutes lost. With the two remaining men, he got Stanley, somehow, into the first bus. On the way to the hospital, he fixed tourniquets around both of Stanley’s thighs.
Kathy, holding on to a seat back as the bus careered on the curves, said to the man in charge, “His mother’s a doctor.” And as soon as the words were out she realized how irrelevant they were.
Just to make talk, the man said, “Where you kids from?”
She told him from the college at Santa Cruz. And then, as if an excuse for their presence in Big Sur were needed, she added, “He thinks his parents were up in that place where the fire is.”
*
In the emergency room, Kathy, who had had so few choices to make in life so far, was asked if she wanted to wait. They were administering blood and saline solution, then taking X rays preparatory to surgery.
She asked a nurse, “Can I stay with him?”
The nurse shook her head. “After he’s out of the recovery room. That’ll be hours.”
“I have to tell his parents,” Kathy said.
The three men from the bus offered to drop her off somewhere on their way to the helipad.
“I’ve got nowhere to go,” she said. “Can I go with you? His parents are up there and they don’t know.”
The man in charge said, “That blaze is no place for someone who doesn’t have to be there.”
“But I have to be there or they won’t know,” Kathy insisted.
The man, who had teenage children of his own, looked at the two other men, then said to her, “Okay.”
It was only when they were airborne that she said to the nice man, “You know, I don’t know what his parents look like.”
*
When Kathy stepped out of the helicopter, the man in charge said, “Stay away from the fire zone, kid, and good luck!” He and the other two ran off at a trot. The helicopter pilot was waving to her to get out of the way, he needed to be off again. Ducking as the blades whirled faster over her head, Kathy ran, crouching, toward where people seemed to be gathered.
“Does anyone know Mr. and Mrs. Brown?” she asked one group after another. These people seemed strange, as if they’d been beaten by life. Maybe it was the terrific heat, she thought.
“Does anyone know anyone named Brown?” she asked.
Then a woman was coming over, Kathy could see the resemblance to Stanley as she said, “Are you Dr. Brown?” And Margaret, seeing only the blood on Kathy’s clothes, felt suddenly as if a cleaver had cut her in two from sternum to pelvis.
“Where is Stanley?” she said, knowing the answer had to be very bad.
*
Margaret had once had a recurrent fantasy that the main reason she had become a doctor was to develop the skills that would save the life of a child of hers because she was there and knew what to do. Instead, now, as she and Henry and Kathy were sitting in the helicopter, holding hands, Henry to whom she had never felt closer, and the girl, who was a stranger and her living contact to her son, Margaret thought how far she was from Stanley now when he needed her.
Of course, journeys like that seem to take forever. First the helicopter, then the seemingly endless drive to the hospital. They had escaped from Cliffhaven into a nightmare that seemed worse because there was nothing you could do about it until you got there, and even then you might be reduced to a spectator.
*
Margaret explained to the doctor in the emergency room who she was. The fact that she was the boy’s mother drew a practiced reflex of sympathy. Her announcement that she was a doctor, however, elicited a touch of real warmth. He said the operation was still in progress. The X rays had shown multiple fractures of both legs. They wouldn’t know the amount of tissue and nerve damage till later. Did she want a cup of coffee?
No, she told the doctor, she wanted to go into the operating room. She didn’t tell him her experience had taught her not to trust other doctors.
“If you’ll follow me,” the doctor said, “I’ll show you where to scrub up, Dr. Brown.”
“Give me one minute,” Margaret said. She found Henry sitting on a bench in the waiting room.
“Where’s Kathy?” she asked.
Henry wanted to scream at her, Forget Kathy, how is my son?
He swallowed because his vocal cords seemed stuck together. “Kathy went to the ladies’ room.” Finally, he couldn’t control himself and said, “Tell me.
What could she tell him, that Stanley was badly hurt? He knew that. That he was in surgery? He knew that.
“Will he be able to play tennis?”
“I don’t know,” she said, thinking she was justified in this one lie. She rushed off to follow the doctor.
*
Forty minutes later there was still no sign. Henry thought of ways he could die if an exchange could be worked out for Stanley’s life. At this moment he detested the rational part of his mind that told him such exchanges were not possible.
In the operating room Margaret watched the intricate procedure. It seemed to take forever. Stanley’s unconscious face was whiter than she’d ever seen it. He looked dead, perhaps because of the rubber mouthpiece between his lips, keeping the air canal open. The movement of his chest was very slight. Fluids were dripping into his arms.
Finally, the surgeon turned to her. “I think we recovered all of the shot,” he said. “In one respect we’re very lucky. I’ve seen shotgun wounds that made restoration impossible.”
The huskiness in Margaret’s voice betrayed her. “You weren’t contemplating amputation?”
“I was sure we’d have to when I went in. He will need further surgery. In a few weeks’ time, he might be well enough to be flown back East provided he can travel horizontally. It may mean buying a row of seats. And someone will have to accompany him.”
She hadn’t heard a word the surgeon said except by implication, that Stanley would live. Her heart was pounding.
She had to hurry down to tell Henry. Stanley is alive.
*
Margaret saw Kathy and Henry standing next to a California state trooper, holding a pair of handcuffs in his left hand.
“What’s going on?” Margaret said.
“How is he?” Henry asked.
“It’s almost over. He’ll be all right. What’s going on here?”
“You his wife?” the trooper asked.
Margaret nodded.
“He’s under arrest,” the trooper said. “One of the evacuees named Blaustein’s given an affidavit that your husband set the fire up there. Said he saw him do it.” To Henry he said, “You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say may be held against you.”
“But…” Henry said. Then to Margaret, “Can I see him in the recovery room?”
“You’re not going anywhere except with me, mister,” the trooper said, snapping the cuffs on Henry’s wrists.
“Now just a minute!” Margaret said, enraged.
“Better save it for the judge in town,” the trooper said. “I’m just doing my job.”
24
Henry was arraigned before Judge Sylvester Bonington, a disappointed man who had once dreamed of sitting on the Supreme Court. Now sixty-four, he no longer looked at prospective cases as vehicles to call his work to the attention of politicians and the public. Set on retirement, in his last year on the bench he was determined to be judicious.
When Henry Brown was brou
ght before him, charged with deliberately setting fire to a federal forest preserve, Judge Bonington had already heard the early news about Cliffhaven and knew that if Henry Brown were to go to trial, that event, in case he should preside, would make Bonington a household word. The temptation percolated only for a few moments in Judge Bonington’s brain before good sense took command.
Since Mr. Brown was from out of state and wanted to contact his lawyer back home for his recommendation of California counsel, Judge Bonington appointed a local lawyer named Hilkey to advise the accused until his own counsel was arranged. Arson was a serious crime, and the judge wanted Hilkey to address himself to the issue of bail. The accused had no roots in the California community, yet he seemed to be a respectable businessman with no previous convictions.
Hilkey, a decent man, was horrified to hear what Henry and Margaret told him during the hour and a half they were together. He shared their grief, for he had lost a son some years earlier and knew the particular pain of unfairness the Browns must be feeling. He decided to ask the judge for a meeting in chambers with someone from the district attorney’s office present. When they were all assembled around the conference table in what Judge Bonington referred to as his office, the judge asked Hilkey if he was ready to address the issue of bail.
“Your Honor,” Hilkey said, “since the arraignment is incomplete, I should like to ask for your indulgence while I address myself to the circumstances surrounding the underlying charge.”
The assistant district attorney thought it unwise to object. And so Hilkey filled the judge in on what had happened since the Browns had arrived in Cliffhaven. He did not omit Henry’s four-hour experience in the lockers, nor Margaret’s interrogation or the method the newly appointed manager of Cliffhaven had proposed to extract information from her about the whereabouts of her husband, nor her incarceration in the lockers. Hilkey concluded with the shotgunning of the Browns’ only son, who had come searching for his parents and who had alerted the authorities to the fire. While his information on this matter was hearsay at the moment since he had not personally interviewed the young lady who had witnessed the shooting or the mother of the alleged assailant, he thought it necessary to mention the matter to the court.
“Your Honor,” he said in conclusion, “what we have here is a vast array of crimes, including kidnapping, assault, murder, and mass murder, all allegedly occurring in one place in the state of California, and with few of the perpetrators in custody. It seems that all of the agencies of law enforcement, state and federal, have a monumental task before them that should not include the prosecution of the one man who used the only means at his command to expose Cliffhaven and cause the release of the more than one hundred persons still alive on the premises. Your Honor, I do not see how, under the circumstances, a grand jury would indict, nor do I see, in fact”—and here Hilkey looked at the young district attorney—“how the prosecution would want to ask for a true bill. I move that the charges against the accused be dismissed. Mr. Brown has undertaken to make himself available for depositions and affidavits as required in other cases, and has agreed to return to California for such purposes should his presence be required.”
The judge consulted with the assistant district attorney, who then asked to make a telephone call to his office. On his return all he said was, “Okay, we’ll drop the charges.”
Hilkey thanked the district attorney and the judge, and told Henry Brown he was free to go on the stipulated conditions. Mr. Hilkey, who had studiously learned to control the appearance of emotion, was upset to see his temporary client, a grown man, sob. What he couldn’t be aware of was that Henry Brown’s grief was not only over his inability to help his son. His heart was thudding with despair, feeling himself for the first time in his life a refugee in the country of his birth.
25
Three months later in their home in Westchester, north of New York, Henry and Margaret Brown awaited a visit, arranged on short notice by Webster Lynn, then the number two man in the Justice Department and widely believed to be the likely next attorney general of the United States.
It was raining hard as Lynn stepped from the taxi that had taken him from the Eastern Airlines shuttle at LaGuardia. He opened his umbrella and walked unhurriedly up the seven broad flagstone steps leading to the Browns’ front door. The second occupant of the taxi had not been expected.
Once inside, Lynn introduced the second man as Francis X. Stanton. Mr. Stanton had water on his hat and was anxious that none of it held by the brim drip onto the parquet flooring of the Browns’ hallway. Margaret took Stanton’s hat gingerly to the kitchen as Henry hung his and Mr. Lynn’s coats. She brought back a paper towel, which Lynn used to dry his briefcase. Stanton, much taller than Lynn, bent over in a slight bow as he performed the obligatory ritual of opening his wallet and showing his FBI card.
“You’re much better looking than your picture,” Margaret said. “Are you here to protect Mr. Lynn?”
Lynn, anxious to keep everyone in good humor for a few minutes longer, apologized for Stanton’s presence. “I really didn’t realize he was joining me,” Lynn said, “until this morning.”
Stanton, Margaret observed, seemed embarrassed, perhaps by Lynn’s lie. A kindness was in order. “Mr. Stanton,” she said, “your people were very quick to pick up Mr. Clifford at the airport before he could get away.”
Margaret thought Stanton actually showed a slight blush. “It was simple enough to check that his wife had fled to Argentina. We had nearly forty agents at the airport before each of the next several flights to Buenos Aires. His disguise was amateurish. The man who supplied him with the false passport reported in to us immediately, as he always does. It was relatively easy.”
Lynn interjected, “It would have been bungled if it’d been left to the California authorities.”
It was Henry who said, “Perhaps Clifford should have hidden out somewhere in California. Will his wife be extradited?”
“To tell you the truth,” Lynn said, “no. Accessory charges would seem most tenuous to Argentina. And to a prosecutor, I might add.”
Margaret offered them both coffee. She wondered what kind of woman Clifford was married to.
As Lynn and Stanton settled down in front of the welcome fire, Lynn, clearly in charge, decided to pass a few more civil moments with the Browns before getting down to what was troubling the administration.
“How is your son?” he asked.
“His spirits are up since he’s returned home,” Henry said. “I’ll defer to my wife for a medical opinion.”
Lynn had been led to expect that Henry might not be entirely friendly and was glad to turn his attention to Dr. Brown.
Margaret said, “Stanley’s scheduled to go into New York Hospital in less than a week for a second operation on his left leg. Everything has to be done in stages. It’ll be another year before we’ll know if he’ll be able to cope without a wheelchair.”
“I certainly hope so,” Lynn said. “I trust you’ve both gotten over your own bad experience.”
*
By bad experience Lynn was not referring to Cliffhaven but to a letter addressed to Margaret that began, My dear Dr. Brown, lest you derive some satisfaction from the detention of Merlin Clifford, please be advised that those of us who believe in his cause will use all of our many and varied resources to protect his civil rights and to secure his earliest possible release. Moreover, a sister resort to Cliffhaven, already in operation at another location, has taken in several members of the Cliffhaven staff who escaped the dragnet…
When Margaret had gotten to the last paragraph of the letter, she was instantly on the phone to the local police. While we are all very busy right now, Dr. Brown, rest assured that as soon as convenient we shall dispatch two loyal marksmen to eradicate your family for its role…
The policeman who came dismissed it as a crackpot letter. As a precaution, however, he suggested that the Browns contact the postal authorities, who had an investigative di
vision. Henry, who considered the postal service the chief enemy of his order-fulfillment business, elected to turn the matter over to the FBI, which, because the letter threatened bodily harm, accepted jurisdiction.
The FBI, which had missed Cliffhaven, could not afford to ignore the letter, but it didn’t have much to go on. In Washington the lab managed to raise some latent fingerprints, which were quickly identified as those of Margaret and of the local policeman. The unsigned letter was typed on a rather common electric typewriter and mailed from a shopping mall in Ohio that was frequented by tens of thousands of persons each week. There were no misspellings. Bureau offices in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati were asked to check all resorts in isolated areas that could accommodate one hundred or more persons. Nothing was found. The special agent in charge of the case thought the letter was probably mailed to Ohio from another state for remailing. “The man who wrote that letter,” he said, “is not a dummy.”
*
“It is very important,” Lynn continued, “that you both testify at the California trial. As you know, the prosecution is in the very capable hands of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California.”
“Would you like a drink?” Margaret asked.
“No, this coffee’s fine, thank you,” Lynn said, hurrying to his point. “My office is involved solely to convey the President’s view that this case is of grave national concern.”
“I will tell you,” Margaret said, “why I have decided not to be involved any further.”
“I hope you still have an open mind on that subject,” Lynn inserted quickly.
“There have been four phone calls since that letter,” Margaret said.
Stanton leaned forward. “I heard you thought they were all from the same person.”
“It sounded like the same person to me.”
“I meant the same person who wrote the letter,” Stanton said.
“He used one of the same expressions.”
“What was that?”