Divine Fury (44 page)

 
Harper closed his eyes and dropped his head.
 
Lee saw the rest of the audience copy Harper.
 
Then he saw a man toward the front of the congregation stand up shakily, steady himself by grabbing the pew in front of him, and start walking down the carpeted center aisle.
 
He looked disheveled.
 
His hair was uncombed and he wore a tracksuit.
 
He had a tired, plodding gait.

Lee started walking down the aisle and watched Daggart ahead of him as he reached into the pocket of his tracksuit and pulled out a gun.
 
He pointed it at Harper as he reached the end of the aisle.
 
Harper opened his eyes, saw Daggart and closed them again, tilting his head up toward the vaulted ceiling.
 
He raised his hands to his waist, palms up.
 

Daggart stopped in front of Harper.
 
He looked uncertain.
 
His arm wavered.
  

Lee was half of the way down the aisle.

“Open your eyes,” commanded Daggart.

“Forgive him, Lord,” said Harper, barely audible to the congregation, his closed eyes still pointing skyward.
 

Lee picked up speed but tried to move quietly.
 
He sensed Daggart’s uncertainty and didn’t want to panic him into squeezing the trigger.

“Open your eyes,” said Daggart again.

“Forgive him, Lord,” said Harper, a little louder this time.

“Open your eyes.
 
I don’t need
your
forgiveness!”

Harper opened his eyes and stared straight at Daggart.
 
Lee saw a uniformed policeman off to his right.
 
He had his weapon out and was running from the side in front of the congregation.
 
But he was too far away.

Lee was almost on him.
 
He aimed for the middle of his back.
 
He took his final two steps at a run and lowered his shoulder.
 
At the last moment, he saw someone fly into Harper and knock him out of the way.
 
Lee heard the gun go off as he hit Daggart and then they were on the floor.
 
Daggart was splayed out flat and Lee was lying on top.
 
Lee found his gun arm and held it down.
 
He felt another body fall hard on him and more hands on top of his.
 
Then, more bodies and weight.
 
Lee lost his grip and he was just trying to keep from getting crushed by the scrum.
 

He heard screaming, shouting, cursing.
 

After a while, Lee felt the press of the bodies on top of him lessen.
 
They were being peeled off, like a pile of players in a football game being separated one by one.
 

“All right, sir,” someone said to him and he felt his arm being grabbed to help him stand.
 
“We’ve got the weapon.
 
It’s okay now.”

Lee rolled off Daggart and saw Bobbie Connors down on the floor next to him.
 
Four uniformed officers held Daggart down as they searched him for more weapons.
 
Lee saw a cluster of people on the raised platform at the front of the church where Harper had been standing.
 
He stood up and offered his hand to Connors who took it and got up on her knees.

“What took you?” said Lee.
 

“That was an impressive move, Mister Lee,” said Connors.
 
“The 49ers could use you.”
  

 
“Oh no!” she said. Connors was looking up now at the raised platform.

Through a gap in the people on the edge of the platform, Lee saw Harper sitting with his back toward him.
 
Harper rocked back and forth.
 
He hugged Harry Blount whose head hung back, his mouth open.
 
His lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling of the cathedral.

“Harry…Harry…Harry…” Andrew Harper whispered.
 
“Harry…Harry…Harry.”
 
He repeated it over and over like a solemn chant.
   

Chapter 54

Friday, June 25, 2004
CHAPMAN LINKED TO BLOUNT SHOOTER

By Enzo Lee
News Staff Writer

An aide to Republican gubernatorial candidate George Chapman had extensive contacts with Brent Daggart, the accused killer of San Francisco gay activist and political consultant Harry Blount and the alleged mastermind behind a political spying plot that led to the shooting death of another man in April.

In a series of email messages between Daggart and William S. Nash, a top aide in Chapman’s Congressional office, the pair extensively discussed strategy for Chapman’s run for governor and Daggart shared information apparently obtained from the spying operation into Democrat Andrew Harper’s gubernatorial campaign.

Chapman denied any personal involvement with Daggart and his activities.
 
He said yesterday that Nash had been fired for “pursuing wholly inappropriate activities without my knowledge or authorization.” Nash was unavailable for comment.

The News obtained copies of the emails from an anonymous source.
 
Law enforcement officials investigating the murders of Blount and Scott Truman confirmed the authenticity of the messages under the condition that they not be identified.
 
Truman, a San Francisco public health analyst, is believed to have been killed when he interrupted a clandestine computer spying operation.

In the email messages, Daggart mentions a “campaign of disruption” targeting Harper’s bid for governor.
 
He also claims responsibility for getting two initiatives on the November ballot concerning the rights of gays and lesbians to form civil unions and adopt children which he describes as having “little importance other than to remind voters that Harper is, above all, an affront to God and a threat to their families…”
       

* * *

In the aftermath of the attacks at the Pride Parade and Trinity Cathedral, both the Harper and Chapman campaigns had declared a 30-day moratorium on politicking.
 
Chapman and his campaign adamantly denied any connection to or knowledge of either the Pride Parade or the Trinity Cathedral attacks.
 
But the media search began immediately for ties between the Republican Congressman and Soldiers of Christ Ministry.
 

The trove of email that had arrived in Lee’s in-box anonymously was traced back to an unemployed 25-year-old woman named Karen Volpe who lived in a luxury condo in Alexandria, Virginia.
 
She refused to say where she had obtained them.
 
The manager of her condo complex said he believed Ms. Volpe had recently returned from a vacation in Costa Rica.

Lee promised Connors that he wouldn’t publicly identify her if she would match the emails to the stored backups from Soldiers of Christ Ministry as a way to prove they were genuine.
 
In the end, she told him to go ahead and use her name if it was necessary to get the story into the newspaper.
 
She was beyond caring about the possible job repercussions.
  

Hours after Lee’s story ran, political commentators were questioning whether Chapman would withdraw from the race.
 
Politicians from Washington D.C. to Calexico called for an investigation into possible crimes ranging from aiding and abetting murder to violation of campaign finance laws.
  

Connors told Lee that prosecutors had agreed to accept a 25-year prison term for Oscar Wilkins, the computer programmer, in exchange for his cooperation in the investigations of Scott Truman’s murder and the computer spying operation.
 
He probably would serve at least 14 years before being released.
 
The Chicago triggerman was trying to negotiate a life sentence to avoid facing the death penalty.

Rev. Jimmy Burgess and the Soldiers of Christ Ministry probably would plead guilty to multiple counts of violating California campaign finance laws, said Connors.
 
Prosecutors were dubious that Burgess or the church could be prosecuted for the many criminal violations committed by Brent Daggart, including the sabotage of Harper’s campaign, because there was no evidence anyone other than Daggart knew about them.
 
The IRS was investigating whether the church’s political activities were sufficient to strip it of its tax-free status, a potentially devastating blow to the ministry.

As to Daggart, Connors said he was under a suicide watch and had refused to talk to anyone, including his court-appointed lawyers.
 
In addition to Blount’s murder, the police were connecting him to the Pride Parade attacks.
 
Bomb and gun parts found in the hotel room he and Walberg had shared were covered with Daggart’s fingerprints.

They weren’t having any luck yet tracking down the Terminator.
 
But Connors was tenacious and had the memory of an elephant.
 
Plus, there was no statute of limitation on Scott Truman’s murder.
 
She knew sooner or later she would find him.

Lee received an email from Sonia Moretti in Australia.
 
It was just a ‘hello,’ plus she was letting him know she had been offered a permanent job in Australia and had accepted it.
 
She didn’t say anything about Scott Truman but Lee took it as a good sign that she was moving ahead with her life.
 
Maybe avoiding San Francisco for a while was good for her.

* * *

Security was tight at the late evening memorial service for Harry Blount.
 
Metal detectors had been employed, slowing the flow of people into Trinity Cathedral.
 
Even so, the church was filled to capacity 30 minutes before the scheduled start of the service.
 
The overflow was directed to Huntington Park across the street where 8-foot tall speakers had been set up to carry the audio portion of the event.
 
Many in the growing crowd there had candles.
 
As night fell and the air cooled, the crowd became many clusters of solemn faces illuminated by the tiny flames.

The program began with a pianist playing Beethoven’s
Midnight Sonata
.
 
It wasn’t a typical choice for a funeral, but the program distributed said it had been one of Blount’s favorites, even though it invariably brought him to tears halfway through it.

Lee sat with Lorraine in one of the middle pews.

The venerable Albert Sloan once again opened, saying simply:
 
“One of our brothers has fallen.”

Sloan’s prayer and scripture reading were followed by the Trinity choir.
 
The final selection was “
The Rose
,”
 
a song popularized by Bette Midler.
 
Its final lines were a reminder of the renewing nature of life and beauty:

Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows,
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose