Nobody offered me a ride, and I wasn’t about to ask for one. I figured a cab would do nicely. At the elevator, I was reaching to punch DOWN when a beefy hand slipped in and pressed UP.
Chief of Detectives Thad Brown-a big, balding, bespectacled guy in his early sixties with paunch enough to require his brown suit coat to hang open-gestured for me to get on as the door dinged open. The pleasant face that resided on his egg-shaped head wore an oddly furtive expression.
We got on and he pressed 5.
“Am I invited somewhere, Thad?”
We knew each other a little.
“Don’t be alarmed, Nate. I’d like a private chat. If you don’t mind…?”
This was one of the three or four most powerful, honored police officers on the force, deferring to my wishes. Raymond Burr had played him on Dragnet.
“Glad to, Thad. But I just had a lovely visit with Jim Hamilton. I doubt you’ll top it.”
The elevator rose.
“Hamilton talked to you, huh? You’re lucky.”
“How so?”
“Usually he only talks to God and Chief Parker.”
The elevator dinged, doors opened, and I followed the bear-like chief of detectives down another narrow green hallway. We paused outside his office, and he waited as several plainclothes officers and secretaries went their various ways.
When traffic had lulled, and it was just the two of us, he walked me down to an interview room, placed the black, white-lettered INTERVIEW IN PROGRESS placard in its slot, and ushered me in.
This was a typical Glass House interrogation room-white soundproof-tiled walls, a blonde-wood desk with a phone and an ashtray, metal chairs on either side, and a big window with its vertical blinds shut, behind the witness chair, which was where Brown gestured me to sit.
I said, “Uh, Thad-or should I say ‘Chief’? This isn’t official, is it?”
“Anything but.”
“This room is wired for sound…”
“So are a lot of rooms in this town, I understand.”
He had a point.
The big man sat down and I went around to the other side but didn’t sit yet. His smile was as reassuring as his mellow voice. “Nate, this isn’t being recorded. This is as off-the-record as it gets.”
“Nothing’s off the record in these cubicles.”
“This is.” He shrugged his slightly hunched shoulders. “Look, you don’t trust me? Door’s unlocked.”
I sat. “I see in the papers you’re not going to be chief for a while yet.”
Years ago, Thad Brown had gone up against Parker for the big job-they’d both been qualified, but Parker had political pull. Everybody figured, though, that when Parker eventually left, the top chair would finally go to Brown.
Who said, “How do you figure that?”
“Front page Monday said Bobby Kennedy has endorsed J. Edgar Hoover. Says as long as his brother is president, Hoover will head up the FBI, meaning Parker has to wait a while, and so will you.”
“Interesting,” Brown said, with a sideways smile. “Day after Marilyn Monroe dies, Bobby Kennedy suddenly loves J. Edgar Hoover.”
“Almost like Hoover has something on him, isn’t it?”
Brown adjusted his glasses, sat back in the hard chair. “Everybody knows you and Bobby are pals, Nate. Going back to the attorney general’s first stab at racket busting.”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t put me on his payroll.”
“Didn’t figure it would. But you were on Marilyn Monroe’s payroll, weren’t you? Some kind of security work?”
“You keep your ear to the ground, don’t you, Thad?”
“Sure do. Was thinking maybe I wanna be a cop when I grow up. Another thing I hear is you’re looking into Marilyn’s death. Obligation to a dead client. Which I would imagine is why you were honored with that nice chat in Hamilton’s office.”
“Yeah, he treats me right. Doesn’t shove me in some interrogation booth like a miscreant.”
“Don’t misunderstand, Nate,” Brown said, smiling genially, folding his arms. “I’m not against you looking into what happened to that poor woman.”
I admit it-I blinked. “You aren’t?”
“No. Because somebody should. You see, I was taking an interest in the case myself… but I had a talk with Chief Parker this morning, and he has another idea.”
I let out a laugh. “Such as, Hamilton can handle it himself, thank you, and doesn’t need your help?”
“Something like that. You don’t mind if I think out loud, do you?”
“Not at all.”
He smiled and nodded his thanks. “See, there’s this guy named Bates who’s telling the press that Bobby Kennedy visited his ranch near San Francisco. That Bobby never set foot off that ranch except to go to mass Sunday morning.”
“Mass,” I said. “That’s a nice touch.”
“Problem is-as I told Chief Parker this morning-I have contacts who saw the attorney general and his brother-in-law Lawford at the Beverly Hilton Hotel Saturday afternoon.”
“What kind of contacts?”
“Solid ones. This came straight from my brother. I know you two are like oil and water, but Finis always knows what’s going in this town.”
Thad Brown was one of the most respected cops on the LAPD, whereas his brother Finis had been for years the department’s in-house bookie. Not quite as respected, then, as his celebrated brother, who was nonetheless right about the ability of Detective Fat Ass Brown to be in the know.
“And,” the chief of detectives was saying, “I have a report from a Beverly Hills officer who stopped actor Peter Lawford for speeding Saturday evening. The attorney general was in the car. Lawford apologized, but said Mr. Kennedy was on his way to the Beverly Hills Hotel on an urgent matter. The officer let Lawford go with a warning.”
“And how did Chief Parker react to this information?”
“He said I was off the case and that it was being handled exclusively by Captain Hamilton. By the way, I happened to see the impounded Monroe phone records on Parker’s desk.”
I sat forward. “I don’t suppose you got a look at them…”
The big bear might have been licking honey out of a comb, he was smiling so big. Bears can get stung that way.
“I was ushered into the chief’s office,” he said, “when Parker was talking to his secretary about something. I’m afraid, like most cops, I’m a natural snoop. I had a look. All the Monroe July and August phone tabs. Including a number of calls to Bobby Kennedy at the Justice Department.”
“Did you ask Parker about them?”
“I did. I pointed and said, ‘How did we get these?’ He said, ‘ We didn’t get them-Captain Hamilton did. And you never saw them.’ They’re under lock and key by now.”
“Why tell me this, Thad?”
“I just want you to know, that as a taxpayer in good standing, you have a friend in local law enforcement.”
“That’s good information to have.”
“One more item-in that limbo between the regular police and intel taking over the Monroe case, one of my men processed her bedsheets. There was a crumpled piece of notepaper among them, which is gone now.”
I edged forward again. “Not a suicide note?”
“No. It had a phone number on it.”
“You gonna make me ask, Thad?”
“… Robert Kennedy’s private line at the Justice Department. Same number as on the phone tabs.”
