And there is Thomas Polhaus¬ entering this well-appointed home. Under the eyes of the press.
Also visibly under strain. Though not as much not as much, of course, as the heartbroken parents of the young heiress, who now calls them pigs.
Just gotten engaged to be married when tragedy struck.
Full-faced¬ beautiful girl. Calls herself Tania and is photographed carrying a gun¬ a machine gun¬ wearing the baggy combat clothing of the left-wing revolutionary.
Could this mean a breakthrough?
The press has been waiting patiently.
Keeping a vigil. Doing their best not to disturb the family.
Eating doughnuts¬ over nine thousand doughnuts. About two dozen a day¬ I’d say. From the look from the looks of things. And drinking coffee. The Galtons have been kind enough to set up an urn the urn you see before me here. This silver urn has been kept filled with coffee. Day in and day out. Rain or shine. Inge and Maria have kept that urn filled with hot¬ fresh coffee for the members of the press keeping their grim vigil the grim yet hopeful vigil outside stately Galton Manor.
They are members of the staff here. Inge and Maria.
Both as hardworking and friendly a pair of of servants as you’d ever hope to meet.
Impossible to estimate how much coffee just how much coffee has been consumed by the press. Tens of thousands of cups. Or more. Also¬ neighbors concerned and sympathetic neighbors have donated food. Not so much lately but at first there was quite an outpouring of support from neighbors¬ all understandably sympathetic. And it came in the form of food. They supplied fried chicken and macaroni salads, all of which were devoured all of which were much appreciated by the members of the press. Though lately the press has sent out for sandwiches¬ now that the outpouring has subsided. Though you may be assured that the sympathy has not.
Letters and cards arrive daily sacks of correspondence expressing condolences wishing the family well.
The girl who one year ago on February 4 was taken violently from her home the home she shared with her fiancé.
Now she stands accused she has been accused of participating in numerous unlawful activities with these same captors the same people who violently wrenched her from her home she shared with her fiancè. Who would have predicted these this turn of events a year a long year ago.
She was to have been married in June.
And we can only speculate as to the reason why Mr. Thomas Polhaus has arrived here in the beautiful town of Hillsborough¬ at Galton Manor¬ as he has countless times before¬ since this tragedy began to unfold, a little under a year ago¬ special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation¬ which has devoted countless man-hours to investigating this one single case. Special Agent Polhaus heading up this case, the investigation of this case, he himself has put in countless hours sifting through leads and whatever this breaking news is that he may be bringing he is keeping to himself, now entering the elegant home that few of few members of the press have seen the inside of¬ despite our grim vigil here on the lawn the green lawn¬ so well groomed it would seem nigh impossible that such a lawn¬ not to mention the elegant manor house it surrounds, could be touched by terrible tragedy¬ tragedy that goes to the heart of the fears of the parents of every youngster in these confusing times, keeping the news to himself at this time, until he shares it with the anxious parents¬ Mr. and Mrs. Galton Lydia Galton quite a beauty in her day¬ but now under visible visibly under strain.
Gracious folks¬ very gracious¬ tolerating the presence of the members of the press here on the great lawn before Galton Castle, as they keep we keep our vigil a job to do and we do it as Mr. and Mrs. Galton well understand what with given their historic connection to the newspaper business among other among vast among many other holdings, including television and radio stations¬ magazines¬ mines, real estate including working farms and ranches, and stock in many of our nation’s largest corporations. One of the wealthiest families among the wealthiest one of the first families of the United States. And Mr. and Mrs. Galton will as they always have share whatever news Mr. Thomas Polhaus brings in their own at whatever time they deem appropriate which is the least which is the most which is all we can ask of them at this difficult and tragic time.
PART FOUR — Phantoms of the Coming Emptiness
Somewhere between the Yolo causeway and Vallejo it occurred to me that during the course of any given week I met too many people who spoke favorably about bombing power stations.
~ ~ ~
A CHILLY GRAY MORNING, not much sunlight at all, and the young woman fumbles as she affixes a flashbar to the bulky Polaroid camera she holds in her left hand. She is here, alone, outside a coffee shop at the Arden Plaza shopping center, in an unincorporated area of North Sacramento, preparing to photograph the Guild Savings and Loan Association, which sits bland and blameless across a painted grid of empty parking spaces. A sheriff’s department cruiser glides slowly through the lot. A good time to put the camera away and study the newspaper headlines framed in the vending machines lined up outside the coffee shop.
Lies come to her, arrive smoothly and without delay, and she selects one about waiting to meet a girlfriend here, about not wanting to go inside and start eating without her. It strikes her as the most unverifiably credible. But the cruiser, one of a total of five on patrol at any given time, exits the shopping center without stopping and drives away. She pulls a memo pad and pen out of her shoulder bag and notes the time.
Several newspapers mention her name in their headlines. It seems it’s been a year to the day since she was kidnapped. She gazes at a picture of herself in blank astonishment. Like, she can’t relate. In it, she is captured midstride as she approaches the photographer, feathered hair bouncing and haloed bright in the sun. She wears a clingy knit wraparound dress — the sort of thing her mother would have bought her — that hangs funny on her and makes her look fat, she thinks. Her full face is creased in a phony smile that makes her cringe now. The picture has been cropped so that her left arm extends, unseen, beyond its right margin, and she remembers that in the vanished portion of the photograph Eric Stump had walked at her side, gripping her hand, looking goofy and uncomfortable in blazer and loud patterned tie. The newspaper has apparently decided that he is of no importance; on that point she and it are in agreement.
That was the day they’d had their engagement photos taken, suffering through eight or ten rolls of film as the photographer, a fussy little man who’d driven up the hill from Burlingame, bitchily exhorted her to stop slumping and hunching. Their dead eyes above those castor-oil smiles. Eric laid his hands on her tentatively, and even now she could feel herself pulling away, caving into herself at his unsure touch. In the library she posed sitting on a straight chair while he stood behind her, his crotch, unfamiliarly sleek in pressed gray flannels, pushing hotly into her upper arm. But his hand gripped her shoulder as if it were a dirty diaper. And his face, don’t even ask. Sit up straight, honey. And smile.
Her dad holding the toothbrush to his upper lip. Her mother peering up from the books of silverware patterns she studied at the dining table. “Knock it off, Hank. You’re not a bit funny.” As far as her mother was concerned, she literally could not be bothered. If this unfortunate union had any chance of being transformed into something plausible, it would require her fullest attention to these crucial details.