Manny Hermano came out from around his big metal desk with a hooked-up phone and a few files fanned out like a poker hand. That suit wasn’t cheap — Hart Schaffner & Marx maybe, a plaid olive number with a vest and darker green tie with red stripes.
He offered up a big white trying-too-hard smile under a nicely trimmed handlebar mustache, his dark thinning hair swept back over a rounded square face, his nearly black eyes bright behind glasses with heavy black frames, over which black thick eyebrows hovered.
We shook hands; he tried too hard there, too. But at least he was friendly.
“Have a seat, Mr. Heller,” he said. He gestured to one of the chairs by the now nearly blank corkboard evidence display.
I sat and he came over and pulled a chair around to face me, not too close, leaning forward a bit, his hands folded and dangling between his knees.
“So,” he said, his voice mid-range and husky, “Drew Pearson wants to tell the story of SUS.”
That was what I’d indicated in the phone conversation we’d had this morning when I set up our meeting.
I said, “To a degree. If I may be frank?”
“Please.”
“Basically, Drew wants to jump on the bandwagon, venerating Bobby Kennedy. He wrote some, well, unflattering things about Bob in the weeks before the shooting.”
Hermano nodded, smiled a little. “What seemed like fair game politically became embarrassing in an instant.”
“Shoot ’em Up” Manny was no chump. Grapp had filled me in: Hermano had a degree from UCLA, spoke French and Spanish fluently, and had authored a textbook on criminal investigation, teaching law enforcement classes one night a week at Los Angeles State College. And of course the CIA had used him as a teacher, too, in Latin America. Never mind what subjects.
“Mr. Heller,” he began, and I stopped him.
“Nate,” I said with a nod.
“Manny,” he said with a gesture to the green-and-red tie. “In a way, it seems strange you’d come to me to learn anything about this crime. You were in that Pantry, when it all went down — a trained observer.”
Was there something slightly arch in the way he said that?
“Being a trained observer only takes you so far,” I said. “I think you know, Manny, just what a madhouse that Pantry became.”
He shook his head sympathetically. “Never experienced anything like it myself, and I’ve been in more than a few tense situations in my twenty-two years on the job. All those shots fired, the chaos, so many people crammed in that small space. Unimaginable.”
I opened a hand to him. “So you understand why the point of view of an investigator of your stature is of interest.”
Yes, I was kissing ass.
He smiled again, a bandito in a sharp suit; leaned back and folded his arms. “And my conclusion, formed from a distance, and yours at the scene, are surely the same. You saw that little bastard blasting away, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Testified to that effect.”
“I did. I believe I talked on the phone, from my Chicago office, to one of your people, by way of pre-trial preparation.”
He nodded. “That’s right. We were selective about who we advised the District Attorney to call among the eyewitnesses. There were so many of them, and a witness of your stature was high on our list.”
My ass’s turn to be kissed.
I said, “That was the primary role of SUS — case preparation.”
“Correct. That and researching the suspect and his background. Which we did thoroughly — to the tune of over three thousand interviews, and the longest, largest and most expensive criminal investigation in LAPD history.”
I tried to look impressed. “And what did you learn?”
He flipped a hand. “Sirhan was clearly a self-appointed assassin. He decided that Bobby Kennedy was no good, because he was pro-Israel and powerful. And Sirhan was going to kill him, at whatever the cost.”
“Premeditation, then.”
“No question. And he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time, nor was he legally insane. And we found absolutely no evidence of a conspiracy in this crime. Believe me, we tried.”
I cocked my head. “Yet some say a conspiracy was indicated. Eyewitnesses—”
“The unreliable ones,” he cut in, some edge now, “we worked on till we proved them false, or they modified their statements when we accused them of publicity seeking. That Serrano girl was a flake. There was a waiter, this kid DiPiero, who claimed seeing Sirhan with a good-looking girl in the Pantry. But we wound up identifying the woman who we determined was where this polka-dot-dress nonsense started.”
This was news to me. “Oh, then you found her, the girl in the polka-dot dress?”
He bolted to his feet and went to the evidence board where he snatched off an 8x10 from the surviving scraps. Proudly, he walked over and handed it to me.
“That’s her. Schulte. Valerie Schulte. She was in the Pantry that night, all right, just not with Sirhan. Maybe you saw her.”
I hadn’t, but that didn’t mean anything. But what did strike me as meaningful was the absurdity of this attractive young woman — a blonde who resembled Sandra Dee — being identified by anybody as a dark-haired girl in a white dress with black polka dots. In addition to her hair color, the Schulte girl was wearing a green dress with yellow polka dots.
Oh, and she was on crutches, her right leg in a cast.
He folded his arms and smirked, pleased with himself. “Took forever to get that kid DiPiero to come around and make the right I.D.”
I decided then and there not to take Manny’s night course in criminology.
I said, “Anything you care to share on the ballistics side?”
He batted at the air. “Oh, Wayne Wolf is a real pro. He can make forensics evidence get on its hind legs and bark. He worked all night, making a match from a bullet at the scene to Sirhan’s gun! He’s not the top man over at the lab, you know, but I knew to request him.”
I bet he did.
I said, “You confirmed that Sirhan was seen using a gun of the correct make at various shooting ranges?”
A decisive nod. “That’s right. We gathered 40,000 cartridge casings and Wolf examined every one of them, looking for a match.”
“How many did he come up with?”
“Well, uh... none. But that was a long shot, wasn’t it?”
Forty-thousand long shots, apparently.
I glanced around — only three desks were inhabited. All the cardboard boxes suggested moving day or a mass firing.
“Looks pretty slow around here now,” I said. “But I’m surprised with the trial over, and the death sentence delivered, you haven’t shut down already.”
He shrugged. “Oh, by last September we cut back from forty men to twenty, and we’re phasing out now. Should be out of here by end of July, with everybody back to their regular assignments. We’re waiting to see if Mr. Cooper files an appeal, but confidentially we’re told that’s unlikely.”
What struck me as unlikely was having an assurance like that from the defense attorney after a murder conviction.
“Well,” I said, getting to my feet, “I think that’s all I need. Thanks, Manny. It’s been enlightening.”
He walked me down that central aisle in the movie sound stage that had housed this farce.
A firm hand settled on my shoulder as we walked. “Listen, Nate. There’s a favor you could do me.”