Jack's Widow (6 page)

“At eleven-forty-nine this morning Miss Monroe’s resident house keeper, a Miss Consuelo James, went to her bungalow to rouse Miss Monroe,” continued the attorney general.

“She was due at Paramount for an important lunch meeting with senior executives and her agent, Folksie Campbell.

“On that agent’s advice, Miss James was told to wake Miss Monroe up.

“She knocked at the door and when no one answered she looked through the window. Although she could see a body in the bed, she could not see who it was.

“She shouted but this garnered no response.

“On the further orders of Mr. Campbell she was asked to get the gardener to break the door down. Whereupon she found Miss Monroe dead.”

He looked up. Slowly he added, “There were pills on the bed. They think they were barbiturates but they are checking all this now. Foul play is not suspected.”

Since no one said anything he felt it right to fill the silence.

“Famous. Beautiful. Only thirty-six years old. Why would she want to kill herself? Today of all days.”

“Damn shame,” he said to no one in particular.

They all looked at Jackie.

“Yes, very damned,” was all she could think of saying.

In his quiet drawl, the president interjected. “The story will hit the news wires very soon.”

She knew they, too, had all been remembering the pictures and the gossip. They were not close friends but she had known them all for years.

“I’m sorry to have been the bearer of bad tidings,” added the attorney general.

He gave her a small bow as he left the room.

“Is there more?” she asked her husband’s successor in a very quiet voice.

He raised his eyebrows as if to balance his thoughts.

“Apparently there was a letter. Miss James has it. Don’t worry, we are doing everything in our power to get hold of it. And as soon as we do I’ll make sure it’s checked—and destroyed if there is anything in it, anything at all, that
any
of us wouldn’t like.”

He put his hands on her shoulders.

His wife sat watching warily in the corner.

“This may be nothing to worry about,” he continued.

She refused to let him see that she was in the slightest way bothered.

“Of course not.” She smiled and stood.

“Don’t you think we should join them all downstairs?” And with that she picked up the tiny black jacket, fastened the six pearl buttons, and followed President and Mrs. Johnson, suddenly feeling like an interloper in her old home, a stranger in her own country.

N
ot one of the four hundred guests assembled in the East Room, not even the one who had given birth to her, could tell that the former First Lady was more upset than the already somber occasion called for. For the first time as a widow, she descended the red-carpeted stairs flanked by the military color guard.

The sympathy factor toward the late president’s widow was so intense that few dared even approach her. Guests assumed that just returning to this house, this place that had meant so much to her, would be enough to drive a sane person to the edge.

Sensing this, she took advantage, knowing that she had less than an hour before the news of M.M.’s suicide emerged. With a do-not-disturb expression firmly fixed on her face she began her silent safari, searching for her prey among the best and the brightest of America.

The new president had obviously decided to use the occasion not just to commemorate the anniversary but to luxuriate in the halo effect of surrounding himself with as many of his successful countrymen and -women as possible. Business scions and political lead
ers, sports stars and actors, mixed with the cultural icons who had made up JFK’s old gang.

The decibel level of the hubbub convinced her that many had brought hip flasks full of whatever they needed to deal with today’s graveside service at Arlington National Cemetery.

In her low-heeled, rubber-soled shoes she made good speed through the State Dining Room, the Green, Blue, and Red Rooms, desperately trying to remember exactly who had traveled with Jack to Los Angeles that weekend.

None of her in-laws could be found. Because of the time she had spent upstairs she didn’t know if their absence was to avoid shaking hands with Jack’s successor, or whether, through the many tentacles that the family possessed, they already knew about the star’s death.

Within minutes she realized that it was not only his family who were missing.

Others too were absent.

She could find none of their inner circle, the men and the women who had spent both the high days and the low ones with them in the collaborative girdle that surrounds every leader before and during success. These were the group that had shared their most intimate moments. They had often been too clingy for her liking but they were part of the essential background noise of his presidency. Even as Jack’s girlfriend, she knew that she had to accept their devotion. They had been with Jack for years, on all the campaigns, through many of his illnesses, in the small hours when nuclear bombs threatened. They had waited outside the operating rooms when their babies died; they had downed yards of Black Velvet as they brushed the snow from their shoes on the first day that she had been hostess in this room. They were the cheerleaders, the sympathizers, the empathizers, the jousting knights, the jokers, and most importantly, the fixers.

Finally, she found one.

One who had gone west with her husband.

The tall, boyish figure of Declan O’Donnell was emerging from the men’s room. Was it her imagination or had he made a perfect
pirouette and gone into reverse the minute he saw her? One second he was there, the next he had returned to whence he had come from, the one place she couldn’t follow.

She decided to wait.

Declan, a bachelor so beloved by the ladies that he was known as “All hands on,” had been best friends with Jack since they were in college together. While the Kennedys were of relatively recent Irish immigrant stock—all of Jack’s great-grandparents had traveled steerage to the United States—Deck was at the core of the Shamrock establishment related to various wealthy landowners. Declan had seen something exciting—call it ambition—in the young student that he knew was missing in himself. The two had studied and gone into the navy together but mostly they had had fun together. Deck, an early orphan with a large inheritance, seemed to have been bred to understand to perfection the innards of a martini, a Hispano Suiza, what makes a woman good in bed, and the name of every maître d’ in New York.

So trusted was he that he knew all about Jack’s many illnesses. The first one being Addison’s disease, the failure of the adrenal glands, which led to exhaustion and pain and had to be constantly monitored and treated with cortisone. Second were Jack’s severe back problems, which not only meant that he could often only move on crutches or while wearing a corset, he also had to undergo several highly dangerous operations that could have left him crippled. Of course, this was all kept out of the public eye, behind the scenes.

Declan also knew about Jack’s chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease. Publicly, his doctors described it as “nongonococcal urethritis.” Yet even though it was treated with antibiotics and other drugs, it was recurrent and was the one known thing to stop him from “anticipating marriage” with whomever he could find, and later, when he was a married man, curtailed what Jack referred to as his “girling.”

Ever since their teens they had often bedded the same women. Jack would seduce them and then they would fall into Deck’s arms when “Potatoes” (as the older man always called his friend) had dis
carded them. Of course, the girls rarely realized exactly what was happening. The dashing pair would roll up in Deck’s latest sports car to collect them, then, occasionally after just one date, Jack would ask the girl out again and during dinner, if he had his eye on someone new, would do his disappearing act, leaving Deck to pick up the pieces. Slowly they would fall for the gentler, sweeter man.

From day one Jackie had learned to accept Deck as part of the Kennedy equation.

More poignantly, in the early years of her marriage, Deck would be the one to drive her home when Jack vanished. Carefully ignoring her anger and pain, he would brilliantly pretend that Jack probably had a very good reason for having to dash back to the office. He never admitted that his pal was the “low, contemptible bastard” that Jackie called him but would always attempt to dredge up some excuse for his friend’s behavior. More feeble than feasible, nonetheless these well-bred, considerate lies had been part of the putty that kept the marriage together until Caroline was born.

Deck’s wealth meant that he had no need of a job. He occasionally wrote pieces for small literary magazines. Often engaged but never married, he was always able to drop everything to drive down to Hyannisport, fly off to the Riviera, or sit at the back of the train on campaign trails.

He was very well read and took great plea sure when a word or phrase that he suggested crept into his friend’s speeches. He didn’t care if the speech was delivered at the local Boy Scout meeting or on Capitol Hill. He was just happy to be of service.

When Jack Kennedy’s heart stopped in Dallas, Jackie knew that it might as well have been Deck’s. His life, his extravagant hobby, the worship of his president, his friend, was at an end.

In the first few days he was the only visitor allowed to pass through the curtain of bitterness and tears that surrounded the president’s parents. When he returned to Washington there was a deep emptiness in his life. He was lost. The first Christmas, just four weeks after Dallas, without his friend, he found that he had nowhere to go. Jackie’s mother was watching over her daughter and
invited no one except close family. An old fiancée suggested that Nevada was the place to escape. He was encouraged to lose himself in a land where there were no clocks, no snow, no sentimentality. Once there he didn’t look back.

Jackie had seen him only once or twice in the last year when they had both turned up at her brother-in-law’s Sunday lunches. He was godfather to her daughter and to one or two of the cousins. He charmed the children, all of whom called him “Uncle Deck.”

Before he heard the news about Monroe, she had to talk to him.

She puffed away at a cigarette while she waited for him to emerge. Having nowhere else to stub the butt out, she deposited it down by the side of a tub of white hydrangea encased in a majolica jardinière, one she well remembered acquiring, though not for this purpose. She marveled at what her life had come to, skulking around her old home trying to find out the truth about her late husband’s sexual affairs.

In her mind she went over and over what Jack had sworn to. The hurt it summoned made it all seem like yesterday. She was sure he had mentioned Deck. His great buddy had been there.

Not that long ago, and yet it seemed like another century.

She noted that as he opened the door he checked both ways to see if the coast was clear.

When she stepped out in front of him, he jumped.

As she drew close to him she could tell from the shaking hand holding his cigar that Deck, Mr. Cool, was nervous.

“Hello, Deck,” she said quietly.

Before he gave her a kiss or had a chance to mention his pain, her pain, today’s ceremony or anything else, she murmured to him.

“Do you want to do your last kind act for your pal Jack?” She pulled him to her and kissed his cheek while tugging him gently toward a roped-off area, back into the quiet end of the corridor.

“You know…you know I’d do anything,” he stuttered, realizing where they were going and slowing down.

She was forced to stop well before the door of the private quarters. She could see he was worried about them being alone.

“But shouldn’t you be mingling with everyone, shouldn’t we be back in there?” He nodded toward the wall of talk.

“Unless you’re running for office.” She raised an exaggerated, amused eyebrow. “I don’t feel that I
have
to do anything,” she said and smiled, trying to put her old friend at ease.

He was reassured by her calm voice but still remained immovable.

She tried another way.

“I’d like to know why half of these people are here and what they had to do with Jack. I’d like to tell that damn Texan just how grateful he should be to be following in the footsteps…”

She could see this was getting through, but as she continued to try and steer him into the quiet corner he was still hesitant.

He obviously knew. She felt stupid. Of
course
he would know. His new West Coast contacts were bound to include the police. They would have tipped him off.

She would have to appeal to every shred of love he had for her dead husband. She suspected that he had no special feelings for her; she just happened to be the one that Jack had chosen. Deck would have been just as lovely to anyone else.

Even after death he would be on her husband’s side.

She realized that it was vital he had absolutely no idea that she knew about the frenzy about to engulf her.

“The current administration,” she muttered sarcastically, “lured me here by saying that now that the people have got over the shock of last year and the scars have begun to heal, the country could mourn Jack with dignity.

“I obliged,” she continued with a flash of bitterness.

“All three TV networks are showing it this evening. So the whole country can watch.

“But we who really loved him, my dear Deck, we have done enough. And what we are going to do now, just like the old days, is walk through the party, say our goodbyes, drive off together, meet up with the others, and really remember the good times.

“Haven’t you noticed”—she forced herself to smile—“everyone
in the family has already gone? I wouldn’t join them until I had found you.”

She was mentally crossing her fingers, hoping that just because she hadn’t found them that this was true.

Apart from being seen to mourn their brother, he knew that Joe and Rose Kennedy had other sons wishing to become the elected leader of the free world. As a piece of public relations it was essential they had to be seen attending the presidential reception after the service by their brother’s grave. To night’s moving TV images and tomorrow’s newspaper photographs of their return to the White House would not only remind the nation of the private loss of a family, but would also reinforce the Kennedy dream, that the tragic events of last year were just an interruption before they reclaimed the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

As to the flattery, Deck didn’t stand a chance. Black Jack had made her an expert many years ago.

So despite the president’s wish that she remain, and the First Lady’s suggestion that Jackie take a little nap upstairs, it took only a few minutes for them to say their farewells and slip away in Deck’s black sports car.

They had no idea that just five minutes later the president received the call.

In her last note, Monroe had left nothing but bequests to various friends’ children and an apology to those friends for seeking “the easy way out.”

Also included in the envelope was a color photograph. Just the telephone description made the most powerful man on earth’s throat dry.

It was of Marilyn barely fitting into a teeny baby-doll-style negligee of peau de soie, in palest pink.

In one hand she held a copy of the
Washington Post,
open to an inside page, the headline referring to the nationwide success of the film set in Washington.

Behind her was the clear outline of the headboard in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House. In front of her, lying on the pleated
cotton bedspread, were various private presidential folders both open and closed with their highly recognizable letterhead.

On her knees, kneeling forward, the star is smiling, looking up. Her outstretched hand is being held by the photographer.

The interlocked fingers are a little out of focus but there was little doubt who they belonged to.

Consuelo James contended that the note and the photograph had been addressed to her and were therefore her private property.

The president thought of the widow who had left so early and the nightmare of the days ahead.