coincidentally also Sinatra’s lawyer? This kind of stretches the ‘small world’ concept to the limit, huh?”
“Come on, Flo. Do I have to remind you that Hollywood is a one-industry town? It is small, in its way.”
“Allowing that,” she said, raising a traffic-cop palm, “keep in mind Greenson came on board as Marilyn’s shrink in the last year or two. Before that, she was with a woman named Kris in New York. Okay. Stay with me now. Is it reasonable to assume Frank Sinatra knew about Marilyn and Jack Kennedy?”
“Yes.”
“Is it reasonable to assume Mickey Rudin, her attorney and Sinatra’s attorney, also knew?”
“Yes.”
“So there’s a good possibility Marilyn took Greenson on at Rudin’s and/or Sinatra’s suggestion.”
“I could buy that.”
She pointed a gunlike finger. “Then is it too great a leap to suggest Greenson was handpicked by Kennedy insiders to handle Marilyn?”
That hadn’t occurred to me.
“I can maybe buy that, too,” I said, tentatively. Then it was my turn: “Shall I throw you a curve?”
“Fling away.”
“I don’t mean to sound like a right-wing loon, but an agent of mine has linked Greenson, Murray, Murray’s late husband, and even Dr. Engelberg to various left-wing groups. The same groups.”
Flo cocked her head. “Marilyn leaned left herself. Why is that significant?”
“Probably isn’t. But keep in mind Marilyn has been a bedmate to both the president and the attorney general of these United States. Both of whom appear to have been casual about their pillow talk.”
Flo laughed a little. “And, what? Greenson’s a Soviet agent?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s nonsense. That’s the problem with a case like this-once you’re down the rabbit hole, every absurdity seems real, and every real thing seems absurd.”
She shifted on the couch. “Food for thought, anyway… Did you or your little elves come up with anything else today?”
After a sigh, I admitted, “Struck out a lot, frankly. I tried Rudin late afternoon at his office, figuring after the funeral he’d go back in… but the receptionist said he was out for the day. His home phone is unlisted, but of course I got it anyway, only he has one of those fancy tape-recorder answering machines. No way to know if he’s really out or just screening which calls he takes. Goddamn annoying gizmo. Have to get one of those.”
“I have one,” she said, dimpling her cheeks.
“Yeah, well, you’re rich. I’m just a blue-collar working stiff…”
“With a Jaguar.”
“That’s the A-1’s. I’m so poor I don’t even own a car. As for my skills as an investigator, I can tell you I was also unable to get Pat Newcomb on the phone. Or Eunice Murray. The funeral put a crimp in that effort, meaning I had to call in the morning or later this afternoon. Somebody answered for Newcomb, and said she was out, but Murray’s phone just rang and rang. Any way you slice it, nobody wants to talk to me.”
“Well, they certainly won’t talk to me.” Her head went back and her little chin stuck out. “Nonetheless… I do have several interesting things to report.”
“Maybe I should give you a retainer.”
She raised a finger skyward, or anyway ceiling-ward. “Actually, it’s not a new source, just fresh information. Remember I mentioned the tissue samples that this young deputy coroner, Noguchi, sent out to try to help determine cause of death?”
“Sure. Are they back from the lab?”
“No. In fact, they’re lost.”
“Lost? The hell- That can’t be common.”
“It isn’t. Guess how many times it’s happened before in the history of the LA coroner’s office?”
“Half a dozen?”
“Never.”
Looked like the long arm of the law could reach way down deep into the coroner’s department. That arm belonging to Chief Parker or at least Captain Hamilton.
“There were lab reports on the blood and liver,” she was saying, “that indicated death by barbiturate poisoning. But the kidney, stomach, urine, and intestines samples were lost at the lab. That lab, incidentally, is attached to UCLA.”
Where Dr. Greenson was an eminent faculty member, and out of which the Suicide Squad was doing their purported investigation into why Marilyn killed herself.
“Those missing tissues, Nate, would have determined without doubt whether this was an oral overdose or an injection. By the way, the death certificate was signed by a coroner’s aide, not the coroner.”
I frowned. “ That can’t be standard…”
“Of course it isn’t. And my contact there says that the Marilyn Monroe death file is shockingly incomplete. Normally it would contain reports, charts, police paperwork, and it had none of the above.” Her eyes narrowed again; her head bobbed forward. “Nate, you saw Marilyn’s body-did it have a bluish cast?”
“Yes. I noted it-and that was apart from the lividity, too. I remember having a fleeting absurd thought-that maybe she’d frozen to death.”
“How about her fingernails?”
“They looked dirty. I figured she’d been working in the garden. And we know the water was off in the bathroom, so maybe she didn’t have a shower before bedtime.”
Flo shook her head, the ponytail coming to rest over her right shoulder. “The blue cast of her skin, my coroner’s office contact says, is something called ‘cyanosis’-a prime indication of rapid death.”
“Rapid death-such as death by injection.”
“Exactly.” She changed her position, sitting straighter, hugging her knees to her. “But I’ve saved the best for last. You’ll recall I was to get in touch with Sydney Guilaroff, because he’s an old friend.”
That had been on her “to do” list.
“Seems Sydney was supposed to fix Marilyn’s hair for the funeral, but he passed out at the mortuary. They wound up using a wig from The Misfits.”
“That’s a fascinating footnote, but-”
“Just be quiet for a second, and listen to what a skilled interviewer can get out of a subject. Sydney at first didn’t want to say anything. He didn’t want to ‘sully’ Marilyn’s memory. Preferred to let her rest in peace. They went far, far back, you know-he did her hair at her first screen test.”
“What did your pal Sydney say?”
“Marilyn called him Saturday afternoon or early evening-in ‘an absolute state, ’ he said. In tears, upset to where he could hardly understand her. Finally she calmed down and told him that Bobby Kennedy had just been there, with Peter Lawford tagging along. And Bobby threatened her, and screamed at her, and pushed her around.”
“There were some bruises on her body,” I said, “that might not have been lividity.”
“Sydney knew nothing about Marilyn and Bobby-he’d known about her and Jack for years, he said, but Bobby was a new one on him… and he asked her why on earth Bobby Kennedy would be coming around. She said she’d had an affair with Bobby and everything had gone wrong. Now she was afraid, and felt in terrible danger.”
This of course jibed with what Roger Pryor told me he’d heard sitting surveillance Saturday afternoon. Which was information I had not shared with my client Flo Kilgore, hoping to keep it to myself as long as possible.
“Marilyn called him again,” Flo was saying, “around eight or eight thirty. She seemed calmed down. More composed, he said, though there was still some fear in her voice. She said one very disturbing thing, however-‘You know, Sydney, I know a lot of secrets about the Kennedys.’ He asked her what kind of secrets, and she said, ‘Dangerous ones.’”
“What then?”
“Then Sydney told her he’d speak to her in the morning, and she should just try to get a good night’s rest. Never imagining he’d never speak with her again… You don’t seem very surprised, Nate. This is one hell of a revelation.”
“Well, we knew Bobby was probably there, from the digging you did.”
“We didn’t know about an argument…” A thin eyebrow rose in accusation. “… Or did we?”
