The Bomb Maker's Son (27 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Reddick walks to the lectern and says, “The United States calls Craig Adamson.”

Moses Dworsky told us about Adamson the first day Lovely and I went to his office. At a conclave of fools (that’s how Dworsky describes it) somewhere up in Northern California, Adamson called Rachel O’Brien a vile name. Soon after, Holzner and his cohort retaliated with a brutal beating. Adamson was on the prosecution’s witness list, so we’ve had time to prepare in case they actually called him.

Adamson swaggers toward the witness stand. Wearing a charcoal suit and red paisley tie, he’s a pasty, flabby man with short, thinning gray hair. In the pictures of him taken forty years earlier, he was seventy-five pounds heavier, a bellicose Jerry Garcia—huge belly, shoulder-length hair, and a dark, curly beard so thick you couldn’t see his neck. When Adamson passes the defense table, Holzner glances up at him solemnly, but Adamson doesn’t return the look.

After swearing to tell the truth with disingenuous fervor, he proclaims that he’s a writer and a professor of political science at Mather University in Tacoma, Washington. He has the whisky-tinged voice of a honky-tonk singer.

“Were you involved in the antiwar movement of the nineteen sixties and seventies?” Reddick asks.

“I was one of its chief architects. First the civil-rights movement then the peace movement.” His chest involuntarily swells with pride. Good. He’s arrogant, which means he’s vulnerable.

When Reddick asks him to elaborate, he says he was a civil-rights worker and later joined the antiwar group the Students for a Democratic Society in protest of the Vietnam War. By 1968, he’d become a Marxist and formed the New Progressive Left Party, which went underground in 1969. He admits his group committed its share of bombings but claims he always opposed violence against human beings. He faces no risk of prosecution—the statute of limitations on these crimes has run long ago.

“Have your beliefs changed since then?” Reddick asks, widening her eyes as if she hasn’t asked him that twenty times during witness prep.

“I saw the light and found God in the late seventies. Thanks in part to Ian Holzner and what he did to me. I’m a spiritual conservative. I’ve spent my life atoning for the horrible mistakes I made in my youth. My life’s mission is to educate Americans about the evils of godless liberalism and leftist polemics and atheism.”

“So you obviously know the defendant, Ian Holzner.” Marilee Reddick is a good choreographer of the slow dance that is direct examination.

“Sad to say, I do . . . did. I first heard of him in the late sixties. He was a leader of the antiwar movement. Everyone knew of him. He was one of the best orators around, a natural born leader. A waste of talent.”

Lovely stands. “Object and move to strike the last comment. Irrelevant.”

There are murmurs in the gallery, and several jurors smile. Lovely hasn’t handled a witness until now. Adamson belongs to her.

“Sustained,” the judge says, and he’s smiling, too. Lovely has that effect on people.

Marilee Reddick presses her lips together, clearly not pleased that Lovely has for the moment taken the jury’s attention away from her witness. “When was the last time you saw Ian Holzner before today?”

“March fourth, nineteen seventy-five.”

“The same year as the Playa Delta bombing?”

“At a gathering of underground collectives in San Raphael, California. In a warehouse in an industrial area. We weren’t supposed to be there, but we bribed a security guard with marijuana. We wanted to coordinate the activities of the radical underground groups. Everyone was working against each other, fumbling around. I was there to plead with the crazies to back off the violence. The crazies wanted to injure and kill human beings.”

“Did the crazies include Ian Holzner?”

I nudge Lovely to object, but she shakes her head. She’s all-in on her strategy.

“He and his girlfriend, Rachel O’Brien, and their whole loony gang.”

“Tell me what Ian Holzner said at the San Raphael meeting.”

“He and O’Brien were nutcases, ranting about all-out guerilla warfare against the US government. Talking about how Fidel Castro started in Cuba with a small band of insurgents and how we freedom fighters in America could do it, too. Holzner thought
he
was the American Fidel. Everyone was afraid of him. Not only was he incredibly physically strong for a small guy—all that gymnastics, I guess—but he also had some Black Power types supporting him. I wasn’t afraid of him, though. So I got up and told him I thought he was talking murder, not revolution. Then O’Brien got up, called me a traitor, a fascist, when the truth was that that girl hadn’t been through anything. I got my head beaten in fighting for civil rights, and Holzner and O’Brien were preaching to me about revolution? I told her she was full of it, a little girl playing soldier. Then they and their supporters started shouting at me, swearing, making threats. I remember that they both pointed at me. Anyway, the room went crazy, and after a few minutes when things calmed down I went out into the alley to smoke a cigarette.”

“What happened next?”

“I was alone out there in the alley, just puffing away at the cancer stick. Stupid. To smoke, but especially to be out there alone. So then Holzner, O’Brien, and a bunch of their thugs jumped me, one guy started strangling me with this choke hold, and Holzner started hitting me in the ribs with his fists, and I tried to call for help, but I couldn’t breathe with that guy’s arm around my neck, and Holzner backed away and let O’Brien kick me for a while, like kids taking turns playing with their favorite toy, and I . . .” Breathless, he inhales twice. His forehead has a perspiratory sheen.

Lovely still doesn’t object, though the testimony is now improper narrative and doesn’t have anything to do with the Playa Delta bombing.

“What happened next?” Reddick asks.

“That O’Brien woman—she stepped back, looked at Holzner, and said, ‘The face, Ian.’ Just as cold as ice. And I’m struggling, but one guy still has the arm-bar hold around my neck, and two others are holding my arms, and Holzner starts punching my face, and I’m gagging on the taste of my own blood, thought I would drown in it. I lost my front teeth, top and bottom. Finally they let me go and I fell to the ground. Then Rachel—she was wearing these heavy work boots or hiking boots or something—began to kick me some more. She kicked me in the torso. Then she kicked me in the groin.”

“What did Holzner do?”

“He leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘Next time I’ll kill you.’”

“Anything else?” Reddick asks.

He folds his hands in his lap and glances up at the ceiling. “I lost consciousness.”

“Did you suffer any permanent damage from the attack?”

“Yeah, like I said, I lost my front teeth. The damage to my jaw has caused all kinds of problems, because it wasn’t set properly. It’s arthritic. I suffer from TMJ. I have problems chewing. My knee was injured in the attack, and about twelve years ago I needed surgery. I still get excruciating migraine headaches, bouts of vertigo where I want to vomit.”

I don’t have to look at the faces of the judge or the jury or to turn toward the gallery to know that Adamson’s testimony has sickened them. It’s sickened me.

Reddick glares at me in disgust, as if I was the one who attacked Adamson. “No further questions.”

Lovely springs up and hurries to the lectern. Good—it shows that she’s not worried about Adamson’s testimony, that she can’t wait to get at him. She’s had a lot of time to do her research, and more importantly, for once Holzner stepped up to help us with this witness.

“At this San Raphael meeting, you started the shouting match with Rachel O’Brien, didn’t you?” she asks.

“Yeah. She wanted to kill people.”

“You called her—and I apologize to everyone in the courtroom for this—a
dumb cunt
?”

“I don’t recall using that word, but, yes, I was upset at her and Holzner for preaching premeditated murder.”

“After you called her that name, you got out of your chair and walked up to her?”

“If you say so.”

“You got in her face?”

He doesn’t answer.

“She was what, five-feet-one and a hundred pounds?”

“I didn’t have a yard stick or a scale with me, but yeah, she was small.”

“And at the time, you weighed about three hundred pounds, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, luckily I lost the weight. A lot easier than cutting out cigarettes.” He mugs at the jurors and waits for laughter that doesn’t come.

“Were you trying to physically intimidate Rachel O’Brien?”

“Of course not.”

“You wouldn’t try to physically intimidate a woman?”

“Of course not.”

“Do you know the name Ramon Weisser?”

Adamson hesitates, probably calculating the likelihood that he can get away with lying. “I remember him.”

“In Chicago in nineteen sixty-nine at the national convention of the Students for a Democratic Society, you and other supporters of the radical group the Weathermen beat Ramon Weisser senseless because he disagreed with your political position.”

“Objection,” Reddick says. “Irrelevant.” Reddick is correct on the law, but we’re hoping the judge gives us some leeway. It’s a capital murder case, after all.

“It goes to the reasonableness of Mr. Holzner’s actions,” Lovely says. “Whether he was protecting himself.” She places her hands on her hips and cocks a hip coquettishly.
If you’ve got it, use it to win
, she’s told me before.
If sexism works to your client’s advantage, fine.

“Overruled,” Judge Gibson says.

“You beat Ramon Weisser senseless, didn’t you Mr. Adamson?” Lovely asks.

“I don’t recall the extent of Mr. Weisser’s injuries.”

“Broken leg? Fractured ribs? A collapsed lung?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, you beat the crap out of him, didn’t you, sir?”

“Objection,” Reddick says. “And the language is highly inappropriate.”

I want to laugh at toilet-mouth Marilee Reddick’s show of moral indignation.

“Withdrawn,” Lovely says. “You beat up Ramon Weisser for his political views, didn’t you?”

Adamson tries to speak, but nothing comes out.

“Did you or did you not physically attack and severely injure Ramon Weisser in nineteen sixty-nine?”

“I’ve spent my adult life trying to atone for behavior like that.”

“Behavior like that? So it was a pattern?”

He sits straighter in an almost-prissy way. “I didn’t say that, counsel.”

“Do you know the name Louis Rubinstein?”

“I recall that name.”

“You physically attacked him as well? Detroit, nineteen seventy?”

“We had a physical altercation, yes.”

“That physical altercation resulting in Mr. Rubinstein suffering a broken collarbone and a ruptured spleen, correct?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your group—what do you call it?”

“
Did
call it, not
do.
The NPLP.”

“The NPLP publicized these beatings, correct?”

“I wouldn’t say we publicized them.”

“You let it be known that you carried them out.”

“I think we—”

“You wanted your political opponents to know about your willingness to use violence, is that fair to say?”

“At the time. I was in the clutches of the Devil Marxism.”

Lovely walks over and whispers in my ear, as if consulting me. What she says is, “I’ve got this motherfucker.”

I nod slowly, as if affirming some piece of complex trial strategy.

She returns to the podium and says, “Mr. Adamson, do you know the name Beverlyn Wallace?”

The blood drains from his face. “I don’t see the relevance—”

“It’s Ms. Reddick’s job to make objections, and yours to answer questions,” Lovely says. “Answer my question, sir. Did you know a woman named Beverlyn Wallace?”

“Yes.”

“She was your girlfriend in early nineteen seventy?”

“Yes.”

“Your
old lady
, as you referred to her back then.”

He furrows his brow, clearly not sure where Lovely is going or what evidence she has. And that makes him afraid to evade the question. “It was a slang term we all used.”

“Objection,” Reddick says. “This testimony is so far removed from the issues in this case, which is whether the defendant bombed the—”

“They opened this whole propensity to violence issue up on direct,” Lovely says. “We’re just countering it to show the full context.”

“Overruled,” the judge says. “You made your bed, Ms. Reddick. Lie still in it.”

“Ms. Wallace was also an official in the NPLP?” Lovely says.

“Assistant Secretary-General.”

“In the summer of nineteen seventy, Beverlyn Wallace ended her relationship with you, am I right?”

“We mutually agreed to end it.”

“You and she broke up because she got pregnant, and you insisted that she have an abortion, but she wouldn’t do it?”

No response—he knows what’s coming.

“Is there something you don’t understand about the question?” Lovely asks.

“As I said before, I’ve spent my life trying to make amends for who I was back then.”

“Let’s explore who you were back then. When Beverlyn Wallace broke up with you, she dropped out of your organization because she didn’t want to raise a child while advocating violence?”

“Something like that. It was a long time ago.”

“You don’t recall?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“And in response, you and two of your fellow NPLP members broke into Beverlyn Wallace’s apartment and beat her up, correct?”

“Still irrelevant,” Reddick says.

“Still overruled,” the judge says.

“I refuse to answer . . . on . . . on Fifth Amendment grounds.”

“Oh come on, Mr. Adamson,” Lovely says. “The statute of limitations ran long ago.”

“That is objectionable, Ms. Diamond,” the judge says. “And needless. You were doing fine staying on the straight and narrow.”

Eyes don’t really flash their own light, but all the light in the room seems to coalesce in Lovely’s gray irises and laser back at the witness. Her outrage isn’t feigned.

“As a result of the brutal beating you inflicted on her, Beverlyn Wallace had a miscarriage, is that correct?”