After that performance, I damn near expected him to take a bow. But he just gave Armstrong a nod, ignoring me, and worked his way out of the nook, like a piece of shrapnel finding its way through flesh.
This gave the lieutenant time to ask, “Mr. Rudin-what are you doing here now?”
“Dr. Greenson called me. I thought I might be needed.”
Then he was gone.
“Fucking lawyers,” Armstrong said.
I couldn’t disagree.
The young cop ushered Pat Newcomb in next. She almost staggered in, still wearing the sunglasses. She took her position across from Armstrong in the nook, freezing when she saw me. I guess she hadn’t really noticed my presence before.
“Nate Heller?” she said, as if not sure I was me. “What are you doing here?”
There was nothing accusatory in it.
“Just trying to help out, Pat. You can talk freely to Lieutenant Armstrong. He’s one of the good guys.”
Armstrong gave her a serious, supportive smile. “How are you feeling, Miss Newcomb?”
“How the hell do you think I feel, losing my best friend?”
And she began to cry.
I told the young plainclothes kid to get her some Kleenex; he gave me a look that said he didn’t like being ordered around by a private detective, even if that private detective was older and wiser. But he did it.
When she’d gathered herself, Pat said, “I… I’m sorry. That was uncalled-for. What can I tell you?”
I didn’t know whether that last was in the vernacular-as in, what can I say? -or a genuine offer to the investigator.
“How did you happen to be here, Miss Newcomb, when we arrived?”
Her reply seemed, at first, a non sequitur: “I was home sick. I was here yesterday-slept over. Marilyn knew I wasn’t feeling well, fighting a bad case of bronchitis, and offered me a sort of sanctuary. Typical of her, that kind of concern for a friend. ‘You can sun in the back,’ she said, ‘and get all the rest you want, and forget about going to the hospital.’”
“What was her state of mind?”
“She was in wonderful spirits. Very good mood-very happy. Friday night we had a nice dinner at a quiet little restaurant near here. Saturday she was puttering around the house, just getting things done-this was the first home she ever owned herself, you know. It was all apartments and rentals before, and… she was excited, a little girl with a new toy.”
“Can you remember what time you left? And what was her mood then?”
“Probably… five forty-five? Six? Her mood hadn’t changed. She smiled at me from the door and said, ‘See you tomorrow. Toodle-oo!’”
“And you went home?”
“Yes. To bed. Took some medicine. Slept till a phone call woke me, from Mickey Rudin, uh, Milton Rudin. He’s Marilyn’s attorney, but then you must know that, and he’s also Dr. Greenson’s brother-in-law.”
That last I hadn’t known, nor had Armstrong, apparently, based on our exchange of glances. Immediately it explained where the chain of phone calls had begun.
“Mickey… Mr. Rudin… said Marilyn had… had accidentally overdosed.”
Again the lieutenant and I traded looks.
“I came over here and met with my boss, Arthur Jacobs. I’m Marilyn’s publicist. Did I say that? Her publicist. Mr. Jacobs is my boss. It’s his agency.”
“Mr. Jacobs was here?”
“Yes.”
Armstrong frowned. “He was gone by the time my sergeant and I arrived.”
“Well, I know Arthur will cooperate in every way…”
We heard a commotion in the dining room and then a big craggy guy came barging into the kitchen, a bull in search of a china shop. He wore a gray suit, somewhat rumpled, though not as rumpled as his face.
Pat Newcomb jumped a little, and I might have smiled if our uninvited guest hadn’t been Captain James Hamilton.
“What the hell is this cocksucker doing here?” he demanded in an unmusical baritone, giving me the Uncle Sam Wants You point.
Then his football-sized head-with its slicked-back black hair, small eyes, long knobby nose, jug ears, and Kirk Douglas dimpled chin-acknowledged Pat Newcomb with an apologetic nod.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “Well? What’s this cocksucker doing here, Lieutenant?”
“Mr. Heller was working security for Miss Monroe,” Armstrong said, looking back at the superior officer and holding in his anger. “I asked him to sit in on the interviews. He knows some of these folks, and is familiar with the circumstances.”
“Well, whoop-de-doodly-doo,” Hamilton said. “On your feet, Heller. Thanks for your help, get the fuck out. Lieutenant, Intelligence Division is taking over this investigation.”
“Sir?” Armstrong said, swinging out of the bench and onto his feet before I could get to mine.
“Have you got statements from all these people?”
“Yes. Preliminary ones. This is the second round. I’m trying to flesh-”
“I said on your feet, Heller!… Lieutenant, release these people, and you and Sergeant Byron turn your notes over to my men. We’ll take over from here.”
“Yes, sir.” Armstrong moved past me, and Pat slipped out of the nook, quickly, exiting like a thief after a smash and grab.
Hamilton turned his dark little eyes on me, and his Sen Sen breath, too. “Are you still here?”
Twenty years ago I’d have made a wisecrack. Thirty years ago I’d have tried to goad him into laying hands on me so I could collect a few teeth.
“Just going,” I said.
Much as I found Hamilton’s presence odious, that he was here spoke volumes-as the commander of intel, he rarely showed at any crime scene, much less a suicide and never a possible accidental death. Yes, it was Marilyn Monroe, but, still-what brought Chief Parker’s top dog to Fifth Helena?
I was afraid I knew, and it was not anything I’d brought up in my otherwise frank discussion with Lieutenant Armstrong, who’d had a short run indeed as the cop in charge of the Monroe investigation.
We were all escorted out the kitchen door by an intel sergeant whose pockmarks and capped teeth identified him as one of the dicks who’d rousted Roger Pryor in his van.
Then, as we came around the house, we got a last look at Marilyn…
It was 6:30 A.M. when she was wheeled over the Cursum Perficio tiles and onto the bumpy brick courtyard. She was shrouded in a blue woolen blanket I remembered from her bed, nothing of her showing, though you could make out the shape of her hands folded across her stomach. She appeared tiny. Leather straps held her down by the feet and waist.
The gates were opened by the cops on guard, just as the gurney was being loaded up and into the nondescript van by the father-and-son mortician team. Photographers and reporters rushed in, like a tide taking the shore, and questions were hurled at all of us, overlapping into chaotic unintelligibility, against the strobing of flashbulbs.
Pat Newcomb, reacting to the flashes about as well as King Kong, shouted, “Keep shooting, vultures! Keep shooting!”
Possibly the first time a publicist had ever told the press what she really thought.
As the barrage of shouted questions continued, Pat was getting in on the passenger side of the two-tone green Dodge that either belonged to Norman, who was helping her, or Mrs. Murray, who Norman next guided into the back. Finally the handyman came around and got behind the wheel.
I beat them out, again tailing the mortuary wagon, nagged by a stray thought: hadn’t Pat Newcomb said she’d driven over here? Then where was her car?
Right before I got through the gate and onto Fifth Helena, I caught Flo Kilgore’s knowing smile and a tiny finger-point shooting gesture, Gotcha, that told me I’d be hearing from her soon. There were worse fates to suffer.
Where the little alley of a street emptied onto Carmelina Avenue, Marilyn went one way, and I went the other.
But all the questions her death raised rode with me.
CHAPTER 15
By mid-morning, Sorrento Beach-the sun high and hot over white sands blemished only by that distinctive seaweed the tide insisted upon delivering-had been invaded by skimpy-suited girls and boys and brightly colored umbrellas and beach chairs and, of course, volleyball nets.