Zodiac Unmasked (9 page)

man was ‘the most dangerous game, not shooting game.’” The precise words Starr had used, verified by another witness than Cheney, were: “I

think of man as game.” The adventure story might have been the flash point, no less a catalyst than the re-forming process Starr performed daily as

an assistant chemist.

The informal cross-examination ended.

Less than an hour had passed since those elevator doors had opened, but it seemed longer. As an interview it had been mild. Though Starr had

been isolated, a true interrogation would have been more focused, the setting bleaker, the intimidation more intense. Pointedly, the trio escorted

Starr back to his lab, then left. Inwardly, the chemist boiled at being taken out, humiliated, and “questioned like a thief.” Toschi admitted that he

found Starr “a dangerous animal,” and though armed, had some fear of him in close quarters. Starr’s ears were crimson; his face flushed. He could

barely control his anger and he had never been a patient man. Men al around him, in their lab coats, paper booties over engineering boots, were

staring and whispering. He sat at his work station. “You don’t know what it’s like,” mumbled Starr to a coworker, his eyes fixed on his desk.

“Everything is fine—going good. Then somebody cal s you to the office. And they suggest terrible things about you. You just can’t know—terrible

things. And al the time I’m racking my brain to figure out who sent them. They make you sweat, then take you through the hal s—in front of everyone

—like a child! I can’t forgive that.” The next time Starr met Toschi and Armstrong, he would claim not to remember them.

Ignoring the buzz of his coworkers, Starr began scanning test results. He might be in a predicament—he was Zodiac’s weight, height, age. He

had the same color and length of hair. He crossed his legs and removed the paper booties over his shoes. Absently, he surveyed the unusual-

looking chucker-type Wing Walker boots he was wearing. Like Zodiac, Starr wore a size 10½ Regular. Two women he knew had seen him in those

shoes and could testify to that. But in the end, perhaps he was only a man who liked people to think he was Zodiac.

Outside, the investigators climbed back into their car. Their unanimous consensus was that the investigation of Starr should continue and in

greater depth. “Absolutely,” said Toschi with feeling. “But what I real y want to know is who the hel questioned him just after the murders?”

Mulanax had absolutely no idea. “God, that was over two years ago,” he said. He made a mental note to fine-comb the Val ejo files regarding any

questioning of Starr as a Zodiac suspect and any previous reports about a bloody knife or knives on a car seat.

3

arthur leigh allen

Wednesday, August 4, 1971

Someone had desperately
wanted us to know such a thing as a Zodiac watch existed. I studied the neatly penciled letter in my hand. At the
San

Francisco Chronicle,
where I worked as an editorial cartoonist, everyone wondered about Zodiac. His terrifying letters had irrevocably linked him to

the newspaper. Gradual y, a determination grew within me to disentangle the kil er’s clues and unmask his true identity. Failing that, I intended to

present every scrap of evidence available to ensure that someone might recognize Zodiac and resolve the missing pieces of the puzzle.

At the window I contemplated the long shadows stretching across wide Mission Street. On Fifth Street, strangers mil ed about the Pickwick Hotel

(Hammett’s “Pickwick Stage terminal” where the Maltese Falcon had been stashed). Transients huddled in front of the Chronicle Hotel, and wel -

dressed men with briefcases stood on the marble steps of the indestructible Old Mint. Zodiac could be any of them. He was a watcher. The first

letter in which he christened himself “Zodiac” carried a different watermark than three earlier letters (Monarch-cut bond, imprinted with an “Eaton”

watermark). The new watermark was “FIFTH AVENUE,” an imprint of Frank Winfield Woolworth’s national chain. A huge Woolworth’s stood just a

block away from the
Chronicle,
at the cable car turntable at Fifth and Market and Powel . In the basement, next to the goldfish, Woolworth’s sold

blue felt-tip pens and paper exactly like Zodiac used. What if he bought his paper and blue felt-tip pens there? What if he spied from the shadows

as his letters were delivered?

Last March Zodiac had been writing industriously, casting his net wide; spreading his word southward. After the oil refinery interview with Starr,

the flow of words halted abruptly. Nonetheless,
Chronicle
reporter Paul Stuart Avery optimistical y left standing orders with the city desk. “We can

probably expect to receive a new Zodiac communication any day now,” he said brightly. “As usual, every effort should be made to prevent any

Chronicle
employee’s fingerprints from getting on the letter.” The letters had been handled by a lot of the staff—Carol Fisher, Brant Parker . . .

Toschi had already fingerprinted al the copy people.

Sometimes Zodiac attempted to sneak letters into print. Since Letters Editor Carol Fisher retained al reader submissions as hedges against

libel, this anonymous letter from November 1970 had been on file.

“Dear Sir,” the note read. “In reading a recent issue of ‘Playboy’ magazine I noticed an advertisement for ‘Zodiac’ watches. The trademark

on the face of the watch is identical to that used by the notorious kil er. Since I’ve always read in the press that the crimes have been interpreted as some sort of astrological thing. The fact that such a singular hyrogrific [sic] effect is in fact a watch brand emblem seems somehow interesting.”

Had a gloating Zodiac slyly cal ed attention to the inspiration for his name and symbol? After “a Val ejo cop” had cleared him, Starr must have felt

secure. He had gone on wearing his Zodiac wristwatch, at least until Toschi, Armstrong, and Mulanax surprised him. I visualized a tantalizing

sequence of events—Starr, obsessed with “The Most Dangerous Game” since high school, received a Zodiac watch from his mother on December

18, 1968, and began wearing a second birthday gift, a ring with a “Z” on it. Thirteen days later, he had a conversation with Cheney, much like earlier

discussions in which he mentioned putting a light on the barrel of his gun and hunting couples. He spoke of cal ing himself “Zodiac” and shooting out

the tires of a school bus. This chronology set down a definite time frame for Zodiac’s choice of name, symbol, and M.O.—sometime between

December 18, 1968, and January 1, 1969, after which Cheney moved to Southern California to work for a new company. Starr had revealed a

monumental secret about himself on New Year’s Day, but then Zodiac always chose holidays for his most important crimes and revelations.

Cheney’s visit, the symbol on the watch, its exotic trademark, the ring, his favorite story from his youth—al must have been bubbling in Starr’s

head. The first two murders occured on December 20, two days after Starr’s birthday. On August 4, 1971, two years after the kil er had first signed

his name “Zodiac,” he told Armstrong he had received the Zodiac watch “exactly two years earlier”—August 4, 1969. Either scenario presented a

fascinating sequence of events and explained the kil er’s choice of name and symbol.

Police, during their manhunt for Zodiac, zealously guarded the prime suspect’s real name. If his name was never publicized, this ensured any

subsequent tip about Starr would be valid. As for myself, I made a practice of never writing, until now, Starr’s true name.

His real name was Arthur Leigh Al en.

Almost a decade after the oil refinery questioning, I final y located the “Val ejo cop” who had questioned Al en so early in the case. Detective

Sergeant John Lynch talked to me at his home on Carolina Street in Val ejo. A slender, solid older man with penetrating eyes, he began speaking

the instant we sat down at his dining room table. The room was almost completely dark. I had just mentioned Al en. “Oh,” he said, “Lay Al en.” He

pronounced “Leigh” as “Lay.” I realized because of the different spel ings Lynch thought that “Leigh” and “Lee” were two different suspects in the

case. “Lee” was not a new name in the case—just before Zodiac shot a couple out at Blue Rock Springs on the Fourth of July, an unknown man

named “Lee” had already been an object of speculation.

“I talked to Leigh at great length several times,” said Lynch. “He was up the coast at Bodega Bay [where he had a trailer] . . . he’s a skin diver; on

that Fourth of July, 1969, he said he was with three or four other guys.”

“When did you speak to him—in 1971?” I asked, at first thinking Lynch had been fol owing up Panzarel a and Cheney’s tip to Manhattan Beach

P.D.

“Long before that,” he answered. “Within one or two months. Leigh was employed as a janitor at that time at one of the schools here. I went up to

the school—I don’t know how I got his name in the first place. You know the way things were going then, there were so damn many people to talk to

and we were getting so many phone cal s and letters and clues. I got so I almost looked at the guy and said, ‘That’s not him,’ to myself. And when I

saw this Leigh Al en. He was bald-headed and he’s a great big guy. Have you seen him?”

“Yes,” I said. Linda Del Buono, Blue Rock Springs victim Darlene Ferrin’s sister, had prepared a composite drawing for the Val ejo P.D. “They

compared Linda’s composite to another Zodiac composite, and told me, ‘Everything but the chin was right.’ This was supposed to be a profile of a

guy named ‘Lee’ who hung out at Darlene’s painting party, the same guy Linda observed harassing her sister while she was wait-ressing at Terry’s

Restaurant. Did you ever speak to this ‘Lee’?”

“Leigh Al en?”

“I don’t know. Al Linda knew was the name ‘Lee.’”

“No,” he said. “Anyway, I was positive it wasn’t Al en. The minute I looked at him, I said mental y, ‘That isn’t Zodiac.’ [Val ejo Lieutenant Jim]

Husted liked Al en best. I liked him least. I only typed in five to six lines on the report—only in order to get Al en’s name in. Checked his car and he

had his scuba gear in the back of the car. Real old dirty car.”

Lynch explained that on Monday, October 6, 1969, he sought out Al en about the stabbings at Berryessa ten days earlier. Al en, then thirty-five

and an occasional student, worked part-time as a custodian at Elmer Cave Elementary School. At 4:05 P.M., Lynch turned south off Tennessee

Street onto Vervais. He reached the school at 770 Tregaskis and immediately saw Leigh across the playground. For his report he scrawled this

description: “241 pounds and almost six-foot-one.” As Lynch observed a few children playing tether bal , an intuitive thought about child molesters

entered his head. Al en had been suspected of such crimes and Lynch, and later Mulanax, would wonder if they had missed any obvious signs.

Lynch turned his attention from the kids back to the suspect—single, unmarried, and living with his parents. He was wel educated and not only a

custodian at Cave School, but a janitor at Benjamin Franklin Jr. High School at 501 Starr Avenue, very near a Zodiac victim’s home.

They chatted. According to Al en, he had gone skin diving on Salt Point Ranch on September 26, 1969, stayed overnight, and returned to Val ejo

on September 27 at approximately 2:00 to 4:30 P.M. “For the remainder of the day,” Al en said, “I stayed at home. I don’t recal whether my parents

were home on that day or not.”

“Someone thought you might be the Zodiac kil er and reported you,” said Lynch matter-of-factly. “Is that a fact,” Al en said with a laugh as if such

an accusation was an everyday occurrence. He placed his broom against the wal . Lynch looked him up and down. “Wel , Zodiac had curly hair,”

Lynch said, thinking of Linda’s description, “and you obviously don’t. So that’s it.”

Had Lynch’s visit been a flash point?

Five
days after Leigh’s reassuring interview with the easygoing Lynch, Zodiac drove to San Francisco, shot Yel ow Cab driver Paul Stine, and

fled into the Presidio, police dogs nearly at his heels. He ran in the direction of the huge Letterman Complex. There, at a new ten-story Army

Medical Center, future Zodiac victim Donna Lass was working that night. She and her roommate, Jo Anne Goettsche, had been in the practice of

going flying with two men from Riverside who lived in the San Francisco area. Leigh, of al the suspects, was a pilot.

Seven
days after Lynch’s questioning, Zodiac dropped the
Chronicle
a line. He enclosed a bloody swatch of the cabbie’s shirt to provide

irrefutable proof he had murdered Stine. Police speculated Zodiac had switched to a bigger city to garner bigger headlines. But wasn’t he simply

distancing himself from Val ejo where things had suddenly gotten too hot? Zodiac’s intimate knowledge of Val ejo’s back roads and lovers’ lanes

branded him as a longtime resident. Thanks to that bloody swatch Zodiac was now forever identified as a San Francisco kil er.

Eighteen
days after Leigh spoke with Lynch, Wil iam Langdon White, Al en’s seventy-three-year-old neighbor, died of heart failure at 9:55 P.M.,

just after seeing his doctor. White, California-born and a twenty-one-year resident of Val ejo, had lived seven houses down from Leigh’s at 45

Fresno. He had been Leigh’s al eged alibi for the Berryessa stabbings. “I recal speaking to a neighbor shortly after I drove into my driveway,” Leigh

had said. “I guess I neglected to tel the Val ejo officer. . . .”

White had also been a possible witness of a bloody knife on Al en’s car seat. As a longtime business representative for Butchers’ Union Local