She smiled; it was a nice, thin-lipped, pixieish smile. “Would you care to tell me what you were doing there?”
She meant at Marilyn’s house Sunday morning.
“Would I? Hasn’t every reporter in town written ‘thirty’ on this one? I mean, it’s all human interest now. Now that there’s a verdict.”
Her smile was impish and the big blue eyes flashed. “You’re being clever again, aren’t you?”
“It’s a bad habit. Do you think anybody but the two of us noticed what really was put over?”
She sipped her martini.
Then she said, “You mean, that there isn’t going to be an inquest? That the coroner said Marilyn ‘may’ have taken an accidental overdose, then turned the inquiry over to a civilian group? No more police, no one interviewed under oath, nothing that can become part of the public record?”
Flo was right.
Right that I already had noticed all this, and right that the coroner-faced with doubt about cause of death- was abandoning his public duty to impose an inquest with subpoenaed witnesses, and launch a full-scale investigation.
“I thought the cutest part,” I said, “was handing this over to that ‘Suicide Squad.’ That tells the public it’s suicide, without having to go to the bother of actually finding out. The very name pre-supposes she killed herself- they don’t determine if there’s been a suicide, but try to determine why there’s been a suicide.”
Her smile had some sneer in it now. “I’ve done a little digging on the three members of the so-called squad- all of them are associates of Dr. Ralph Greenson.”
“I don’t know if that’s significant.” Jesse dropped off my gimlet, I thanked him, and he bestowed a nod. “Doctors out here are bound to know each other, have professional associations.”
Flo didn’t argue the point. “ Do you think it was suicide?”
“No. That’s not impossible, but I was with her a little over a week ago, and she had some personal problems, sure, but also a lot going for her.”
Her smile turned up at one corner. “I know all about the ‘personal problems.’” Then her expression sobered. “But I’m afraid I may have provided the… the spark that ignited this tragedy.”
“How so?”
Her thin eyebrows arched quizzically. “You don’t know? You didn’t read my Friday column?”
“If I say I didn’t, does that mean I have to pick up the check?”
She laughed a little. I didn’t have much trouble making her laugh, even in serious circumstances.
“No, Nate, I’m on expense account.” Flo leaned forward, spoke softly, though still no one was in the adjacent booth and I was pretty sure none of the waiters here really understood English. “I’ve been chasing this story for weeks, talking to everybody from chauffeurs to society reporters, even Fox publicists.”
“What story?”
“Please. The two Kennedy brothers, sharing Marilyn’s charms? Jack passing her to Bobby like a basket of these French rolls?”
So she knew that much. Not surprising. She’d started out as a crime reporter in New York for Hearst in the late thirties, and was much more than just frothy columns and game show appearances.
She cocked her head. “What I said, more or less, was this: ‘The appeal of the sex goddess of the 1950s remains undiminished in the sixties. Marilyn Monroe has proven vastly alluring to a handsome gentleman with a bigger name than Joe DiMaggio in his heyday.’”
“And you think that sparked Marilyn’s… what? Suicide?”
“We won’t use the right word just yet. But understand that that little squib was only the tip, with an iceberg to come.” She leaned forward, eyes on fire. “I was working on the story of my career, trying to get some kind of response from the Kennedy camp. I decided to nudge them with that little blind item… which is, in my opinion, what caused Bobby to visit Marilyn on the day she died. To tell her it was over and to lay off and… you can guess how she must have taken it.”
Of course, I didn’t have to guess. How did she know this?
“Your little Flo,” she said, dealing with my unasked question, “was pretty fast out of the gate on this one. I even did my own legwork, too.”
“Well, they’re nice legs.”
“Don’t change the subject. What would you say if I told you Peter Lawford’s neighbors are upset about a helicopter touching down on the beach, in back of the villa, early Sunday morning? Made a heck of a racket and blew sand into all the neighbors’ little swimming pools. Making them walk clear across their backyards to the ocean for a swim. What would you say, Nathan?”
But I didn’t say anything.
“And how would you react if I told you Peter and Pat Lawford’s next-door neighbor says he saw a Mercedes pull up, late Saturday afternoon, and Bobby Kennedy and Peter Lawford step out, and go on into the house.”
“A Mercedes and a helicopter? These Kennedys do have dough.”
“The helicopter is Fox’s.” Her smile grew dimples; she was proud of herself. “I’ve confirmed that via Fox studio logs.”
“You need a job? We’re hiring at the A-1.”
With a shake of her head that damn near moved the bouffant, she said, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.”
“I hope you’re not going to sing ‘Mammy.’”
She giggled. “Stop.”
I have to say I liked that about her. We’re talking about life and death and still she has the time to laugh at my dumb jokes. Maybe I could be her fifth husband. Now that Marilyn was gone, I was available. And a guy can always use a rich wife.
“Let me back up,” she said. “I’ve jumped ahead a little. The first interviews I did were in Marilyn’s neighborhood, there in Brentwood. How about this? One neighbor says she saw Robert Kennedy walk up to Marilyn’s gates and go in. Some time mid-to-late afternoon-the neighbor lady was playing bridge, and glanced out the window, and just saw that famous face walking by.”
“Interesting, I guess. Is that it for neighbor witnesses?”
“No! Several complained of hearing a woman screaming and, later, a hysterical woman-maybe the same one, maybe not-yelling, ‘Murderers! You’re murderers! Are you satisfied? Now that she’s dead?’”
I wasn’t sure that rang true. Sounded a little melodramatic. But I asked, “Have they told the police?”
“Have they? You know who took over the investigation, don’t you?”
James Hamilton.
“But now,” she said, “even he’s off the case. The ‘Suicide Squad’ is in charge! But he did his share, on the few days he worked-did he ever. Did you know that Richard Boone played him in the Dragnet movie?”
“What, Paladin?”
“Yes. Mr. Have Gun-Will Travel. But in my opinion the real Hamilton is even uglier, and lacks Boone’s charisma.”
Flo just couldn’t stop writing her column, could she?
“Anyway,” she was saying, “he’s certainly no modern-day knight. After canvassing the neighborhood, the next thing I did was go to the phone company. I have a… contact there. I asked him to make me a copy of all the numbers on Marilyn’s billing tape.”
She finished her martini and waved at Jesse and he scurried over to get her a refill. I’d barely touched my gimlet.
“You know what my phone company contact said? He said, ‘All hell’s broken loose down here. Apparently, you’re not the only one interested in Marilyn’s calls.’”
“That is something.”
“Isn’t it? He said, ‘The tapes and toll tabs have all disappeared. Men in dark suits and shiny shoes impounded them.’ Word was, he said, somebody ‘high up’ ordered it.”
“With all the formalities these days,” I said quietly, “should take something like two weeks for an ordinary cop to get that stuff.”
“An ordinary cop. Is James Hamilton an ordinary cop, Nate?”
Our food arrived. Despite the early hour and the grim subject matter, I was hungry and dug in. When you’re
