Aubrey still had a difficult time seeing her parents as revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the government.
She read on. Stormdrain had conducted a campaign of bombings from December 1969 through April 1970, targeting patriotic statues, like one of George Washington in Union Square Park, as well as banks and government and corporate buildings. Stormdrain had taken credit for explosions in the lobbies of the Manhattan headquarters of Mobil Oil, IBM, General Telephone and Electronics, and Baer Business Machines.
Another connection to BBM and Prudence.
She continued reading about the bombings. Although there was destruction of property, no one was ever injured or killed. Stormdrain always took precautions that people would not be around when they detonated their bombs.
The article went on to talk about the founding members of the group, all Columbia University and Barnard College students, though neither of her parents was mentioned.
She read the names of the founding members: Steve Robinson, Jeffrey Schwartz, Albert Jacobs, Linda Wilsen, and Gertrude Morgenstern, noting that Schwartz and Wilsen were two people Smolleck had said the FBI was looking for. Twenty years ago, a psychotic man had claimed to be Jeffrey Schwartz, a publicized event that coincided with her parents’ big fight.
She clicked on the link to an article about Schwartz. The photo was a blurry black-and-white of a skinny, scowling man with longish dark hair and mutton-chop sideburns. She skimmed the article. Attended Columbia Law School. One of the leaders of Stormdrain Underground, a militant faction of Stormdrain that was associated with a number of bombings that occurred after April Fool, between late 1970 and 1981. Was involved in a foiled bank robbery in 1981, which resulted in the death of a teller, a security guard, and a police officer. Still at-large and on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.
She read the paragraph entitled “Jeffrey Schwartz Sham,” which essentially said what Smolleck had told her. A man claiming to be Jeffrey Schwartz had insisted he knew who was responsible for the 1970 brownstone bombing but had turned out to be lying.
Although this seemed to be an inconsequential footnote, she wondered whether someone had set up the fake “Jeffrey Schwartz” for the purpose of frightening her parents. There was no way of knowing without speaking to the man who had posed as Schwartz, something Aubrey couldn’t do but planned to ask Smolleck to follow up on.
She pulled up the article on Linda Wilsen, the other person the FBI was looking for, hoping for a photo she could match to the one in her mother’s box. There were none, just a brief write-up on how Linda had survived the April Fool explosion but had suffered severe and disfiguring burns over most of her body. She had never been charged with any crimes but had dropped out of Barnard and returned home to Arkansas. There was nothing about her life since. She googled “Linda Wilsen Arkansas” but came up with no matches that could be a sixty-something-year-old woman. Of course, if it had been so easy, the FBI would know where she was.
She returned to the main article on Stormdrain and clicked on the link to the explosion at the brownstone. Her mother had said she’d been injured when she was walking by, but hadn’t provided any details.
Aubrey read on. Also known as April Fool, the explosion had taken place on April 1, 1970 in Morningside Heights, a neighborhood not far from Columbia University.
The explosion resulted from the premature detonation of a bomb being assembled by members of Stormdrain, which set off other explosives and reduced the brownstone to burning rubble. The bombs, according to Stormdrain member Steve Robinson, had been intended to be used to blow up the Lexington Avenue Armory.
Three Columbia University students had been killed on impact—Michael Shernovsky, Gary Cohen, and Gertrude Morgenstern. A fourth, Linda Wilsen, had escaped from the wreckage with third-degree burns and was hospitalized. A five-year-old child, Martin Smith, playing in front of the brownstone at the time of the explosion, was rescued from the scene, but died before he reached the hospital.
Damn. A child had died. This was something she hadn’t known before. The little boy’s parents might have held her parents accountable for his death if they believed Mama or Dad had had some connection to the explosion.
She returned to the article.
Over several days, a search of the rubble uncovered a “bomb factory” with several unexploded eight-stick packages of dynamite with fuses attached, six pipe bombs, remnants of Molotov cocktails, and timing devices.
All that, in addition to the makeshift bombs that had detonated in the explosion. The crime scene was gory, and it took a week to identify the three students. Gertrude Morgenstern was believed to have been holding the bomb when it exploded and suffered the greatest impact.
She was identified by her remains found at the site, including the tip of a finger, a scorched braid of hair, crushed wire-rim glasses, and shreds of clothing including a wooden clog shoe.
Aubrey sat back in her desk chair. Her father had said the people who died in the explosion had been their friends. She thought of her mother sitting in front of the fireplace this morning going through a box with photos in it. Just some old friends.