Zodiac Unmasked (32 page)

Leigh had fol owed him home after their session. For some reason the ex-convict was trying to intimidate him or taunt him by his close proximity to

a child. Why? Pel e made some cal s, learned the girl was Leigh’s cousin, and ultimately let the matter pass. Shortly afterward, he learned that Al en

was a serious Zodiac suspect.

“In fact the day I found out,” he told me, “I was home looking at copies of the Zodiac letters. Al evening I kept getting these cal s where someone

would just breathe. I kept tel ing my girlfriend, ‘I think that Al en knows that I know and that he knows that I know he knows.’ I told him:

“‘Arthur, you’re suspected of being the Zodiac.’

“‘I know,’ he said.

“‘What do you think about that?’

“‘I think that was a real misnomer to do that to me. I think it was unfair.’

“‘It was?’

“‘Yeah.’

“‘Have you read the reports?’

“‘Yeah, I know what they’re talking about and that’s al a pack of lies.’

“‘Wouldn’t the person who was the Zodiac feel that it was a pack of lies?’

“‘Probably. Who in hel is going to admit to being the damn Zodiac.’”

He told Pel e that on the day of the Hartnel and Shepard stabbings, he was supposed to be at Lake Berryessa catching ground squirrels to

dissect. “Amazing coincidence,” Pel e remarked. He was also disturbed by Leigh’s mental evaluation. “Basical y, Arthur is an extremely dangerous

person,” he told me later. “He is sociopathic and possesses an incredibly high I.Q. Al en is repressing very deep hatred and is incapable of

functioning with women in a normal way.” Apparently, after his 1971 oil refinery questioning, Leigh, at the urging of his family, had been evaluated by

psychiatrists at U.C. Berkeley and Langley Porter. They had worked up mental reports on the prime suspect from May 1973 until September 26,

1974, when he had been first considered “capable of murder, dangerous.” Doctors had looked for indications of self-mutilation drives and a

disregard for the sanctity of human life. They noted his impulsiveness.

I asked Pel e if he had seen a light table or enlarger at Leigh’s house on any of his visits. I suspected Zodiac had projected grids through an

enlarger onto his blocks of cipher to align them so perfectly. “Yes,” Pel e said. “I recal seeing an enlarger in his home.” But of course there had to

be one. Whoever Zodiac was, he had to have access to a light table, grids to position his symbols, a T-square and triangle and other drafting tools.

Ethan W. Al en had been a draftsman for the city of Val ejo. Such items were the tools of his trade. As a professional artist, I knew that the Zodiac

letters, the 340-symbol code in particular, would tax the most experienced craftsman.

“Leigh’s got a new motorcycle now,” Pel e told me, “apple-green [a color close to Cheri Jo Bates’s lime-green VW ]. It’s not registered in his

name, but a friend’s. And he’s got a new job too. Leigh told me how much he hates working for a living. Told me forceful y. But when he chooses he

can project a calm and reasonable front. He’s working part-time at the California Human Development Corporation [1004 Marin Street] as a senior-

citizen aide. ‘For $4.00 per hour,’ Leigh explained, ‘I take seniors to and from hospitals, inspect and instal security devices in their homes.’

Security devices—that’s mighty interesting. As for Leigh’s brother, Ron, he’s now a city planner. He’s stil worried about his brother, but rarely has

any more contact with the police.”

One evening sometime later, I drove out to the first Val ejo crime scene—Lake Herman Road. Other visits had been at midnight, the time of the

murders. Tonight the wind trembled the trees along the road. The landscape, lost and found in every curve, was final y swal owed up in white fog.

After Al en’s release from prison, gossip again mentioned a big man roving near the water pumps and lake. He scouted, practiced his shooting,

and climbed through quarries where he could dive. Al of Zodiac’s murders had been water-oriented—Blue Rock
Springs
(eerily reminiscent of

Al en’s old school, Val ey Springs),
Riverside, Lake
Berryessa,
Lake
Street (his requested first destination in Paul Stine’s cab), and
Lake
Herman Road. Though I found the Lake Herman double murder site virtual y unchanged, one alteration had been made. The little gravel lane just past the

chain-link fence leading to Pump House #10 now had a name. A brisk wind rose, ruffling the standing water as I made my way to the gate to read

“Water Lane.” That told me that a decade ago Zodiac had been extraordinarily familiar with Val ejo. He had selected an unmarked path that fit his

mania for water-named sites. He knew al the secrets of Water Town.

Tuesday, June 27, 1978

And still we
received tips portraying “what sort of guy Zodiac might be . . .” “I feel that he might have a bike or motorcycle,” a San Francisco art

director suggested. “. . . is bordering on genius . . . untapped and untrained perhaps, but mental y superior to the ways in which he has been able to

make a living . . . that he is hardly an accepted individual at al , but considered curious, temperamental, and a social y limited personality. His split

personality is fed daily by insults and fringe knowledge . . . of which he is a miserable spectator, not participant. He is, in my imagination, 35 to 40

years old. He is deathly afraid of women or impotent. He is, if the man is guilty of the wasteful, senseless crimes you’ve had to report, in dire need

of love. He also needs help. Unfortunately, he also needs to be caught.”

Assistant FBI director Thomas Kel eher, Jr., advised Chief Gain on Tuesday that they had been analyzing the unsolved Zodiac ciphers since their

acquisition, particularly the 340-symbol cipher. “The Laboratory wil continue analysis of these ciphers as time permits. You wil be notified

immediately of any positive results.” Cryptographers searched for hidden ciphers and messages. “Initial letters of words, first, second, third last

letters of words; line beginnings, line endings,” they reported, “did not spel anything.” There were no extraneous markings, no indentations, no

invisible writing. As for Zodiac, he was invisible too.

Monday, July 17, 1978

After controversy over
the April Zodiac letter, Inspector Toschi was reassigned to Robbery Detail. An unfounded al egation that he had written

the letter caused his transfer. “Police officials emphatical y denied reports that Inspector Dave Toschi, who has investigated the Zodiac case for

nine years, ever was suspected of forging the latest letter attributed to the murderer,” reported the Associated Press.

“Now Mr. Toschi wil know what it feels like!” Al en told Pel e through clenched teeth after he read of the transfer. Leigh stil remembered his

dismissal from the refinery bitterly. As for Toschi, a great weight was lifted from his shoulders.

Wednesday, July 19, 1978

Avery was among
the missing too. “Paul Avery and Kate Coleman who wrote the sizzling expose of Black Panther violence in the July 10
New

Times
, have gone ‘out of the area’ after receiving the predictable threats,” wrote Herb Caen. The bogus letter reopened old wounds, driving the

populace to seek closure on the long-unsolved case. Zodiac tips quadrupled. “The Zodiac was shot to death by San Francisco police in March of

1976,” a reader informed Caen, “about four months after he set the Gartland Hotel fire that kil ed thirteen people.” Next day, an anonymous

typewritten letter from Los Angeles also arrived at the
Chronicle
:

“I am the ZODIAC and I am in control of al things,” it read. “I am going to tel you a secret. I like friction tape. I like to have it around in case I

need to truss someone up in a hurry. . . . I have my real name on a smal metal ic tape. You see, while you have it in your possession, I want you

to know it belongs to me and you think I may have left it accidently. I am athletic. It could be swim fins, or a piece of scuba gear. But maybe you

play chess with me. I have several cheap sets in closets al over. I have my name on the bottom of the lid with the scotch tape. . . . My tape is

waiting for me al over California. Do you know me? I am the ZODIAC and I am in control.”

Monday, July 30, 1978

Allen, while driving
with a suspended license on July 30, was involved in an accident in Mendocino involving a car licensed ZEB 577. The State

Farm insurance underwriter who insured Al en’s car knew him personal y. Several days later, a woman approached the agent’s desk at the Rohnert

Park regional office, stood silently for a moment, then asked about obtaining accident file #91505505086. That was Leigh Al en’s file. “Why?” the

agent asked. “Because they’re watching any activity going on about this man,” she said. “Be careful not to get yourself involved with information

about him. They’l want to know what you’re up to. Two fourteen-year-old girls have disappeared in the Val ejo area, but I seriously doubt Leigh’s up

to anything since he’s being watched so closely.”

Wednesday August 23, 1978

A few days
earlier, Toschi had slipped and fractured his ankle on an oily spot in the police garage. He chafed at anything that took him from work.

Anxiously, he consulted a bone specialist. “Toschi,” the doctor joked, “every cop I know wants to extend his disability time a bit more and here you

want to get right back to work.” Toschi only smiled and returned to the job with his special jel y-shoe soft walking cast on. By week’s end, he was

limping along on his bandaged foot as briskly as he normal y walked.

Utilizing the content of authentic Zodiac letters, the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU), headquartered at Quantico, Virginia, within the FBI National

Academy, attempted to develop a better psychological profile of the kil er. “Results wil be forwarded to your division for transmittal to requesting

agency when completed,” BSU notified the San Francisco FBI Headquarters. This Training Division of the Justice Department had been

established in the early 1970s. “But how many serial kil er cases has the FBI solved—if any?” said one agent publicly.

Just as Avery and Toschi were putting Zodiac behind them, Captain Ken Narlow of the Napa Sheriff’s Office was becoming increasingly

obsessed. “Many of the leads we were original y blessed with,” he told me in our interviews of August 25, 1978 and August 12, 1980, “have

become old and deteriorated to the point where they don’t have much value anymore. I stil think Zodiac is out there someplace. I sometimes look

out the window and wonder how close we’ve come to him at times. We rattled so many cages and kicked so many bushes along the way, we must

have been near him at least once.”

These days Narlow thought about one particular man. “I’ve always been high on him,” he told me. “We never had enough evidence to bring him in

and rol his prints. The more we started leaning on him, the more natural y defensive he got. The first couple of times we talked to him he was very

open; then it got to the point where it was ‘Either do something or leave me alone!’ He came down to complain and saw Avery at the
Chronicle
.

The first time we went over to his place by the water, we were there several hours. Very intel igent person, very interesting person. He didn’t mind

talking about his past.” The cops sat down and passed him copies of photos of Zodiac’s victims. The suspect realized they were not only gauging

his reactions, but trying to get his prints. So he picked up the pictures, looked them over, began to hand them back, then said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I got

fingerprints al over them. Let me wipe that off for you.” And he wiped them off.

From beneath a light brown, reddish-tinted Buster Brown haircut, the animated face of Oliver Hardy peered out at the cops. The eyes darting

behind dark-rimmed glasses were pop-eyed as a neon sign, but highly astute. During the prolonged questioning the suspect, though occasional y

fal ing silent on sensitive subjects, dominated the conversation. “He just talked a mile a minute,” Narlow told me. “He had me so confused I couldn’t

even write a report when it was over. This guy takes over when you’re around him and talks.” The suspect spoke of his two loves—engineering and

show business. He had done bit parts in movies in Southern California and, like Zodiac, could quote Gilbert and Sul ivan by rote: “I spent two

seasons singing grand opera and I’m a voracious reader. I am one of those singular people blessed with almost total recal . I can remember the

exact address and telephone number of the house I lived in in Texas in 1939. I can remember al the old
King Kong
and
Dracula
pictures and

where I saw them.”

“He has a [Model 15 Teleprinter] Teletype machine in his little basement theater,” Narlow told me. “That’s a sample of printing from his [Royal

portable] typewriter. . . . He did have three months of code school and has got an alias that I think is actual y his real name. I don’t think we were

able to establish this through a State Division of Public Safety check. A friend of mine I went to the FBI Academy with did some background

investigation. He was supposedly born in Lubbock County, Texas. . . .”

“Where the term ‘fiddle and fart around’ is used,” I said. “And he can sew. He has designed and sewn costumes in Hol ywood.” The subject had

lost his mother at age five and from then on “was on the outs” with his father, “a wealthy oil man.”

“There is also a certificate on file for his alias,” said Narlow. “Back in Texas a doctor just filed a birth certificate and that was it, not like today’s

date and age. So as we speak, there’s stil some question as to whether or not these two are one and the same individual. A delayed certificate