Free The Bomb Maker's Son by Robert Rotstein Page A

dogs not sure whether they want a hunting prize or a handout. When I finish the paperwork, I take refuge in Judge Gibson’s courtroom, one of the few places where I can more or less avoid the media. The courtroom deputy is kind enough shoo them out so they don’t harass me for too long. A couple of reporters grumble about the First Amendment, but I’m clearly not going to answer their questions, and they know better than to piss off a court clerk who can make their lives difficult by subtly delaying their access to court rulings. To a reporter, time is worth more than factual accuracy.
    At about three in the afternoon, the door opens, and in walks a portly older man with a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard covering multiple chins. Despite the summer heat, he’s wearing a black windbreaker bearing the San Francisco Giants logo and a red-and-black flannel work shirt. His old-man baggy jeans are too short, revealing scuffed tan moccasins and white crew socks. He carries a Giants cap in his left hand. His twiny, gray hair barely covers a high forehead. He looks around the courtroom like a lost child. When his eyes alight on me, he limps forward, favoring his right leg. I doubt he’s media, but he might be a regular courtroom watcher. As he approaches, the clerk, who’s sitting at his desk pushing paper, glances up without concern.
    “Mr. Stern?” the man says in a timorous voice. He takes a deep, resolute breath. “I looked for you after the hearing, but you rushed out and looked so busy, so I asked a nice guy from the Times , and he said I could find you here. Anyway, my name’s Jerry Holzner, Mr. Stern. I’m Ian’s brother.” He has a speech impediment that affects his pronunciation of the letter R , so that “Holzner” comes out “Holznew,” “Stern” is “Stewn,” and “brother” is “bwothew.” Perhaps he’s hearing impaired. He looks nothing like Ian. But he wouldn’t, because, according to the Wikipedia article I read, Ian was adopted. Then the next epiphany—this man is my uncle.
    “Nice thing you did for Ian,” he says. “I would of, but I could never afford it. I’m just a school custodian, you know. Was. Retired, living on the disability and the pension. I live in Foster City. Not far from San Francisco.” He raises his cap and points to the Giants logo. “Anyway, Ian was a good brother. A good boy. He wanted to stop the war.” He looks at his feet like a sad child trying to justify his best friend’s bad behavior. “Hope I’m not bothering you, sir.”
    Despite what I revealed during the hearing, he doesn’t acknowledge that he and I are related. Is he just overly deferent or a bit slow? As Ian’s attorney, there’s so much I should ask him. What does he know about the Playa Delta bombing? Can he help me locate any of Ian’s former fellow travelers? Did the FBI really hang him by his heels off a balcony to make him rat out his brother? But I ask the only thing a long-lost child could. “Jerry, I’m your nephew. Ian’s son. Did you ever see me when I was a baby?” My adult ears detect a plaintive, childlike cast to my voice, a simple yearning that was absent when I asked Ian and Harriet about my childhood. How could it have been otherwise? The interrogation of my parents was imbued with resentment.
    Jerry smiles. His teeth are surprisingly straight and white. It seems important. Maybe it proves that not everything about this man is broken, that he has residual strength to help me fight this formless battle on behalf of Ian.
    “Oh yeah, yeah,” he says, patting my shoulder. “You’re the baby. I only heard about you from my mother. She didn’t like the girl. Hated her, I think so.”
    “The girl?”
    “The baby’s mother.”
    “Harriet?”
    “After the cops rousted me I freaked out, you know? I was afraid of everything, shell-shocked the shrinks said. I had horrible nightmares. I was in the loony bin for a while. All I know is after the thing that happened at the VA,