I didn’t know what to say.
Finally I managed, “Are you looking for quid pro quo? Am I supposed to empty the bag for you?”
He shook his head. “But if the times come, when you feel the need to unburden yourself, Nate-I’m the priest you should come to.”
“Amen, brother,” I said.
He gave me a friendly nod, rose and opened the door for me.
As I hailed a cab down on the corner, I was still wondering if there’d ever before been an interrogation like this one…
… where the guy in the suspect chair just sat there and the interrogator spilled his guts.
CHAPTER 19
At the funeral, Wednesday at 1:00 P.M. at Westwood Memorial Park Chapel, Hollywood luminaries were conspicuously absent. This reflected the guest list as assembled by Joe DiMaggio, who had sat vigil at his ex-wife’s casket the night before. (You may have figured out I wasn’t invited.)
Among those turned away were Patricia Kennedy Lawford-who’d flown from Hyannis Port especially to attend-and of course her husband, Peter, as well as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and various other luminaries.
While the Hollywood elite were not welcome, a number of Marilyn’s associates and coworkers were among the thirty or so in attendance. These included her shrink Dr. Greenson, publicist Pat Newcomb (no Arthur Jacobs, though), lawyer Mickey Rudin, housekeeper Eunice Murray, half sister Berniece Miracle, acting coaches Lee and Paula Strasberg, executrix Inez Melson (her former business manager), makeup man Whitey Snyder, and hairstylist Sydney Guilaroff.
The handful inside the chapel were surrounded outside by several thousand mourners-men, women, and children of every social class. Fifty LAPD uniformed officers worked crowd control with Twentieth Century-Fox providing forty security guards, but there was no real trouble.
According to the papers, Marilyn’s casket was bronze and lined with champagne-colored satin. The open casket revealed her looking lovely in a green Pucci dress and green chiffon scarf, her platinum hair in a pageboy. Makeup man Whitey Snyder had done well by his star, having promised Marilyn years before that if anything happened to her, nobody would touch her face but him.
Lee Strasberg gave an eloquent eulogy, and the organ music added one Hollywood touch, albeit bittersweet: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Only after the procession to the cemetery’s Corridor of Memories and final rites did the fans give in to frenzy and go trampling graves and stomping on flowers as they sought souvenirs.
The day of Marilyn’s funeral I spent mostly at the A-1 on the phone trying to set up interviews when I wasn’t taking calls from field agents running things down for me. Flo Kilgore was chasing her list of leads, as we’d divvied up the work. At 7:00 P.M., she and I met at my bungalow to compare notes and share information.
Though she lived nearby on Roxbury Drive, Flo had come to me at the Beverly Hills Hotel, parking in the big front lot and walking through the hotel out onto the grounds where the bungalows nestled amid flowering shrubs, colorful gardens, and palm trees. The polite thing would have been to meet her in the lobby, but I let her make the trek alone, out of concern for discretion and security.
I’m not sure, though, that anyone would have recognized her. When I ushered her into the living room, she looked about half her forty-some years, and while subdued lighting was part of it, she was most of it. The brunette bouffant had been replaced by a long swinging ponytail, her makeup low-key with just a touch of very red lipstick, eyes shielded by oversize sunglasses, and her slender, shapely figure decked out in a short-sleeve yellow-and-white top and white capris and yellow low-heeled sandals. Over her shoulder was slung a big purse, also yellow and white.
I welcomed her in, and she tucked the sunglasses into the purse, which she set on a chair, then curled up on the couch, while I called room service for our supper. She wanted the tortilla soup to start, and wondered if I’d share a Caesar salad with her. The last meal I’d shared with a woman in this room had been with Marilyn, and the menu had been similar enough to provide me a pang.
I pulled a chair over so we could talk eye to eye. “Did you cover it?”
“The funeral? No. Too much of a zoo. Did you know that SOB Winchell made the guest list? Only reporter on the inside. Fucking friend of DiMaggio’s!”
“I hear Pat Lawford was turned away.”
“And Sinatra and Dino. Can you believe it? DiMaggio has been saying openly that he holds Hollywood and the Kennedys responsible.” She shrugged. “Can you blame him?”
“I don’t blame him and I don’t disagree with him.”
She arranged her legs under her and sat Indian-style. “Are we sure this bungalow is safe for us to talk?”
“We’re fine. Fred Rubinski brought somebody in to sweep it just this morning. But you’re right to be paranoid. Hamilton has me under surveillance.”
I filled her in on my activities yesterday-police officer Clemmons, publicist Jacobs, and the two high-ranking cops. She said little, only asking the occasional clarifying question. I was wrapping up when the food came, and we elected not to talk business while we ate.
After, when she returned to the couch, she sat with her back to an armrest, her bare feet on the center cushion. I sat at the other end, angled to see her better.
“You should know,” I said, “I‘ve been using some A-1 agents for legwork. They’re trustworthy and don’t know enough context to cause any trouble, in any event.”
She nodded. “That’s fine. Different than me needing to avoid using other reporters. Your worker bees have any luck?”
I told her we’d confirmed Bobby Kennedy’s weekend use of a suite at the St. Francis hotel as an office and retreat, in support of his speech at the American Bar Association convention Monday night. A switchboard operator revealed that Marilyn Monroe had called for Kennedy multiple times, and that messages had been recorded on paper, the slips picked up by aides.
“We asked what those messages were,” I said. “The gist was ‘You better call me and tell me why I shouldn’t blow the lid off. Every reporter in town has been calling me!’ Speaking of Winchell, his name and yours were among those mentioned.”
Flo hugged her arms as if chilled, though the temperature was mildly warm. Air conditioner was off and windows open. “No wonder Bobby made the trip to LA.”
“One of my guys came up with some interesting background research on Eunice Murray,” I said. “Turns out she’s a trained psychiatric nurse.”
She leaned forward. “What? Really? That kook?”
“Kooks often have an interest in psychiatry-haven’t you noticed? Key thing is, Marilyn apparently didn’t know about Murray’s nursing background-she thought Dr. Greenson had recommended the woman to be a housekeeper, interior decorator, and companion.”
Her big blue eyes got bigger. “So the witch was, what? Greenson’s spy?”
“That might be a little harsh. Spy, I mean-witch seems about right.” I shrugged. “There’s not exactly a Hippocratic oath for private detectives, but even I have to question the ethics of secretly placing a nurse at home to monitor a patient’s behavior.”
Now the pretty eyes narrowed. “Do we know the connection between Murray and Greenson? I mean, how did he come to suggest the woman’s services to Marilyn?”
“They’re old, old friends. Murray’s the widow of one of Greenson’s best pals, a military man turned labor organizer. Hell, Greenson lives in a house the Murrays built and formerly lived in. Mrs. Murray sold it to him.”
She shook her head, and laughed without humor. “Don’t you think this is all sounding just a little bit goddamn incestuous? Murray a longtime associate of Dr. Greenson? Who happens to be Mickey Rudin’s brother-in-law, who is
