The Most Dangerous Animal of All (14 page)

Judy was on her way out of New Orleans that afternoon when her former landlady telephoned the police. She said that Van had called. “He told me he was at St. Louis Cathedral,” the landlady said.

Jonau and Fournier headed to Pirate’s Alley, an appropriate area in which to find their subject. Legend says that the one-block-long alley, which runs from Chartres Street to Royal Street, was once a safe haven for pirates, although its very location, with the historic St. Louis Cathedral to the right and the Cabildo, the site of the Louisiana Purchase transfer, in 1803, to the left, contradicted the tale. The Faulkner House, where William Faulkner wrote his first novel, is located near Royal Street in Pirate’s Alley and attracts thousands of tourists each year. During the day, the alley is welcoming, filled with artists and street performers, but in the wee hours of the morning, when sin runs rampant in the Quarter, Pirate’s Alley takes on an eerie cast. Its salvation, perhaps, is the huge cathedral that overlooks the alley, reminding the sinful below that God is in this place.

Van might have been looking for a safe haven when he chose to visit the cathedral, some absolution for his sins before he was forced to pay his penance. Or perhaps he wanted to view the cathedral’s organ and the artwork of Italian painter Francisco Zapari, who mimicked Michelangelo by painting the arched ceilings of the church in the bright colors of the Renaissance before adding his own Baroque signature.

Van walked to the front of the church and exited through a side door into an alley. The rectory was directly in front of him, and he went inside.

When Fournier and Jonau arrived at the rectory, they learned from the receptionist that Van was still there. He did not resist when they took him into custody.

Van admitted to being cruel to me, locking me in his footlocker, and abandoning me because he and Judy had decided they didn’t want me. “We didn’t have the money to feed it,” he told the officers, who noted that this father had referred to his son as “it.” They took him to the First District station and booked him as a fugitive.

The next day, April 20, the headline in the
San Francisco Chronicle
read, “Love on the Run: Ice Cream Romance’s Bitter End,” and Paul Avery detailed the capture of the runaway couple. Another headline announced, “Ice Cream Romance Ends on Bourbon St.” All across the country, newspapers repeated the tale of the lovebirds who had become fugitives to be together, only to be torn apart by the product of their love.

In Baton Rouge, Judy sat alone in a small, cold room near a window that faced the Mississippi River. Her heart was racing, her nerves twitching. She folded her hands together, trying to focus on the handcuffs that now bound her wrists, but she could not see clearly because of the tears that blurred her vision.

After hours of interrogation, Judy had finally given the police her mother’s telephone number. The director of social services had called Verda and informed her that Judy had given birth to a son and that the child had later been abandoned.

“Your daughter has been arrested,” the director informed Verda.

Calling on her own experience with her rapist’s child, Verda decided that Judy could be returned to her custody only after she agreed to voluntarily relinquish custody of me to the state of Louisiana. Verda knew that was the right thing to do. Judy was too young to be burdened with a permanent reminder of the man who had kidnapped and raped her. My mother signed the papers giving me up for adoption. She had no other choice. She would be allowed to see me for a few minutes before she was transported back to San Francisco.

Judy could not control the stream of tears that ran down her face as she waited for someone to bring me to her. Just when she thought she could no longer bear the silence in the room, Margie Stewart, an attractive young social worker, opened the door. Awakened by the movement, I let out a startling squeal. Margie, who would soon become my adoptive aunt, placed me in my mother’s arms.

Another social worker and a uniformed officer had followed Margie into the room. “Ma’am, we’ll give you ten minutes,” the social worker told her in a solemn voice. Judy barely registered the words as she lifted me up and kissed my forehead. Searching my face, she noticed for the first time that I had huge dimples. She kissed me on my nose, my cheeks, my hands. I grabbed a handful of her hair but didn’t pull it. I just held it in my tiny grip.

“Mommy loves you,” Judy repeated over and over. “Mommy loves you so much.”

The steel door opened, signaling that Judy’s time with me had come to an end. My mother let out a scream, which made me scream. She pulled me tightly to her chest, as if to protect me from what was about to happen.

“Ma’am, we have to be going now,” Margie said.

“No,” Judy moaned.

Margie reached out to take me, but Judy held me tightly.

“No! You can’t take my baby! I’m not leaving him. I’ll be a good mother. He needs me. See, he’s crying. He needs his mommy.”

The officer held her by her shoulders while Margie pried me from her arms.

“Mommy loves you,” Judy cried. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll come back for you.”

With one final tug, Margie managed to wrench me away. In my hand, I held a few strands of my mother’s hair.

Judy stopped fighting and listened intently to my cries as they took me away, until she could hear me no more.

She laid her head on the table, sobbing.

19

Judy and Van were extradited to California. Judy was sentenced to six months to two years in the youth correctional facility in Camarillo, and Van was sent back to a cell in the Hall of Justice.

Earl received the news from Gertrude.

“They caught Van in New Orleans,” she told Earl over the phone. “They sent him back here. He’s in jail. I don’t think you can get him out of this one.”

“I’m on my way,” Earl said.

He booked the next flight to San Francisco and made the familiar trek to the police station on Bryant Street.

“I’m here to see my son, Earl Van Best Jr.,” he announced to an officer sitting behind a glass partition.

“Sign in,” the officer instructed.

The officer looked at his identification and told Earl to wait.

“You can go through there,” he said a few minutes later, directing the chaplain into a small room.

“Is my son all right?” Earl asked, taking a seat.

“Sir, your son is pure evil,” the officer said.

Earl didn’t reply. He couldn’t. But he would share the frightening comment with his family later.

While he waited, Earl prayed for God’s guidance.

The door finally opened, and Van was ushered in by another officer.

Earl tried to get Van to explain why he had abandoned me, but Van was uncooperative. He didn’t want to listen to his father preaching about the consequences of sin. Earl assured Van that he would try to get the baby back, but Van was not interested.

Disgusted, Earl walked out of the room.

The following day, Earl flew home, collected Ellie, and boarded another flight, this one bound for New Orleans International Airport.

“I can’t let the baby be raised in an orphanage,” he explained to his wife en route. “I hope you understand. He’s my grandson and probably scared to death. You know they don’t take proper care of babies in those places.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I do understand. It’ll be okay. We’ll find him, honey,” Ellie said. “We’ll bring him home with us.” She understood more than Earl thought. She knew that I would be Earl’s atonement for his sin, for his failure with my father.

After they landed, my grandfather hired a car to take them to Baton Rouge. They went first to the police station and then to the state child welfare agency.

“I’m trying to find a baby,” he told the receptionist. “The newspapers called him Baby John Doe. His mother is Judy Chandler, and his father is Earl Van Best Jr. I am his grandfather. I would like to adopt the child.”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” the receptionist said. “Baby John Doe has already been adopted.”

“Who adopted him?” Earl asked.

“That’s confidential. I cannot reveal that information,” the receptionist said.

My grandfather was too late.

A few days later, Earl traveled to Battery Park, in New York City, an invited guest of the president of the United States, to honor him for the work he had done as a commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve and as national chaplain of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He led the invocation before John F. Kennedy dedicated the East Coast Memorial to the Missing at Sea. In his opening remarks, Kennedy referred directly to my grandfather, addressing him as “Reverend.”

What should have been the proudest moment of Earl’s life was tainted by the stain Van had placed on his name.

20

On May 17, 1963, Leona Stewart received a call from the state child welfare agency.

“We have a three-month-old boy for you,” the social worker announced. “Can you meet me in the parking lot at Piccadilly Cafeteria, on Government Street?”

Leona hobbled outside to tell Loyd the good news. Her husband looked up from the lawn mower, noting that Leona was moving faster than usual.

“We have a son!” she exclaimed. “They have a baby for us. We have to go. They’re waiting.”

Loyd left the mower where it was and helped Leona walk back into the house. He did not say a word. He couldn’t. His heart was in his throat. All of the doubt, the heartache he had experienced, came welling up in this one moment.

All of the anger toward himself.

And God.

Leona Ortis and Loyd Stewart had both been born in the small Louisiana town of Krotz Springs just after the Great Depression. Although Loyd grew up in nearby Baton Rouge, much of his family still lived in the fishing village and farming community, and he visited them often. Krotz Springs had a very small population, and Loyd and Leona were from opposite sides of the tracks.

Leona’s father owned a fish market and a country general store, and she worked behind the counter after school and on weekends. The beautiful brunette soon captured the eye of the dapper Loyd, who would trot up to the store on his old horse to call on her, or, as Loyd used to say, “to spark her.” Although Loyd’s family didn’t have money, Leona didn’t care. Every afternoon, she waited impatiently for the young Cajun gentleman to arrive, riding proudly on horseback to woo her. The couple began dating in high school and married when they were twenty years old. Loyd soon got a job in the mailroom at Ethyl Corporation, in Baton Rouge, while Leona worked at Webre Steel as a secretary and bookkeeper.

They settled into their new lives easily, their love for each other strong, and soon they began thinking about starting a family. What seemed like a good idea turned into steely determination as month after month, and then year after year, Leona waited to become pregnant.

“I don’t understand,” Leona said to Loyd as another year went by without her becoming pregnant. “Dr. Miller says I can have a child, but he won’t tell me when.”

Loyd began to worry that it was his fault, and the frustration they both felt began to take its toll. Even Leona, who believed God would answer her prayers, became less optimistic as the years wore on.

She finally approached Loyd with the idea of adoption, but to him that represented failure, and he resisted the idea.

“Let’s just keep trying,” he insisted.

Nine years into their marriage, they gave up and made the decision to adopt.

Loyd held Leona’s hand as they entered the child welfare agency for their first interview with a social worker. “Don’t say nothing. The room’s bugged,” he joked, trying to settle Leona’s nerves. Loyd always joked. It was his way of dealing with any stressful situation.

It wasn’t long before the state of Louisiana awarded them custody of a beautiful newborn baby girl. Leona named her Sheryl Lynn, after her boss, Lynn Webre.

“Look at her, Loyd. Isn’t she beautiful?” Leona whispered, holding her new baby in her arms.

“She is,” Loyd agreed, in love already.

Ten months later, the unthinkable happened.

On January 7, 1961, Loyd and Leona drove down Highway 190 toward Opelousas, Louisiana, for the wedding of L. J. Ortis, Leona’s younger brother, to Mary Ann Fontenot. Leona’s sisters Evelyna Ortis Parker and Loretta Ortis Courville sat in the backseat, talking about the wedding. Loretta loved weddings. She had been the last of the Ortis girls to wed, and her marriage to Lawrence Courville was still in the honeymoon stage. Leona gleaned only bits and pieces of their conversation as she played with her adopted daughter, who was sitting on the seat next to her.

Theirs was the second-to-last car in a procession of family members driving to the wedding.

Loyd drove quietly, listening to the chatter of the ladies, careful not to follow too closely behind his brother-in-law, in the car ahead of him. Loyd had always been a cautious man. His father, Boone, had raised him that way.

“Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man,” Leona sang to Sheryl, watching as the baby’s smile revealed two tiny teeth that had just broken through her gumline. “Roll ’em and a roll ’em and a throw ’em in the pan,” she continued, enjoying Sheryl’s squeals of delight. Dressed in a light green dress with a white collar, the baby wore a gold bracelet around her small wrist, a present from Uncle Snook and Aunt Dorothy ten months earlier. Before leaving Baton Rouge that day, Uncle Snook had been sneaking Sheryl small pieces of chocolate until Leona caught him.

“Stop that,” she’d admonished him. “My baby is not going to this wedding with chocolate all over her dress.”

Loyd was smiling to himself, remembering his wife’s reaction to that incident, when out of nowhere, a white 1960 Chrysler thundered into his lane, striking his 1959 Chevrolet head-on. The force of the impact propelled Leona into and then under the dashboard.

Loyd tried to protect his daughter from being thrown forward with his right arm, but his own body was already slamming into the steering wheel. His face hit the windshield, breaking his nose.

The baby did not stand a chance. Her forward motion had been stopped too abruptly by the dashboard, and her neck was broken from the impact. Little Sheryl died instantly.