Ask Not

Chapter 16

The brown-brick facade of the five-story town house on East Sixty-eighth Street, squeezed between similar nondescript buildings, concealed a glittering twenty-two-room world as imagined and executed by Flo Kilgore.

I had never set foot in the place before. Despite her fame and fashion, Flo had always struck me as a scrappy small-town kid who made it big. But this decadently elegant display — French doors, chandeliers, gilt-framed landscapes, rosewood furnishings — made sense only if Flo had seen Gone With the Wind at an impressionable age and grew up determined to replicate Tara in Manhattan. Hell, she even had black servants, although I didn’t see any that looked like Aunt Jemima or Uncle Ben.

Of course, the blackest thing in this otherwise opulent town house was the unique room on the third floor, its four walls and ceiling black, as if painted overnight to mourn the town house’s late hostess. It was filled with bizarre bric-a-brac — shelves of sculpted and wooden hands, toy banks, music boxes, and numerous variations on the American eagle. A big antique Revolutionary War — style snare drum had been converted to a coffee table with two red child-sized chairs. A gigantic oil painting of General Custer and his men chasing Indians (wishful thinking?) dominated the room, hanging over a low-slung sofa with black cushions and an intricately carved wooden frame painted an iridescent blue. Cigar-store Indians, positioned here and there, seemed to be viewing Custer with understandable skepticism.

Still, it was a lived-in space. Black throw pillows were on the dark-green carpet near a 21-inch TV (its cabinet painted black, of course) in one corner. Those kid-sized chairs by the drum table indicated this wasn’t a living room so much as a family room, a rec room.

I’d worn a black Botany 500 suit with a black tie, out of respect, but I felt like I was disappearing into the stygian surroundings as I sat beside Frank Felton on the sofa. He was in a black suit, as well, with a black necktie, and we might have been two undertakers waiting to talk to the family, when of course he was the family.

“I’m afraid this room represents something of a practical joke,” he said with forced cheer.

“Joke?” I said. I felt like I’d walked into a Charles Addams cartoon, in search of the punch line.

Felton was in his mid-fifties but looked ten years older. You could just barely see, in that reddish, puffy, vein-shot face, the handsome young comic actor he’d once been. His dark eyes had the seldom-blinking, slightly widened look of a man on a bridge admiring a sunrise as he contemplated jumping off. Only his voice retained its radio youth — Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar...

“Well, Florrie Mae was so determined to make a gleaming showplace out of these digs,” he said, “I suggested we have one fun room.”

“Ah,” I said, noticing on a nearby shelf a rustic wooden hand with candle-speared spikes rising out of the fingertips.

“Just a space where we could let our notions of the bizarre run wild.” He grinned, displaying yellowed, questionable teeth. “A lot of times, we’d play ‘Count the Eagles.’”

“Oh?”

He nodded. His eyes were staring past me into a memory. “We’d ask guests to close their eyes and test their powers of observation — how many eagles had they noticed in the Black Room? That’s what we call it, the Black Room.”

“Catchy,” I said.

“You wouldn’t believe the parties this space has seen,” Felton said. “I loved to plan the things, stage them like a film or Broadway production.”

“Ah,” I said.

“On one anniversary bash, we turned the Black Room into an inferno — simulated, of course — for a ‘Saints and Sinners’ costume party. So many beautiful people, frolicking among the faux fire and brimstone. We had gambling in another room, a small orchestra for dancing downstairs, an arcade with pinball machines, Moviolas playing silent movies. That ebony baby grand over there, top recording talent performed just for the privilege of being part of it all.”

Probably not Sinatra — he and Flo had carried on a famous feud, her calling him a gangster, him calling her “the chinless wonder.” I’d seen her cry over that.

Felton was saying, “Guests were challenged to come as their favorite sinners from mythology, literature, history. I left it up to Florrie Mae what sinners to choose for us. You will never guess what she picked.”

“Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler,” I said.

He smiled in surprise and really looked at me for the first time. “Flo told you?”

“No,” I said.

That stopped his incessant chatter, which was what I’d hoped it would do, whether I’d guessed right or wrong.

“Frank,” I said, “I know this is difficult. But I want you to tell me what happened, in as much detail as you can manage. As much you can stand.”

We sat in silence for perhaps thirty seconds.

“I didn’t really see her the night before,” he said finally, with a frustrated shrug. The dark unblinking eyes took on a desperate cast. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No thanks.”

Felton got up and, moving more side to side than straight ahead, went over to a liquor cabinet converted from an old wooden highboy icebox, painted black, of course. He was perhaps five nine, and looked more bloated than overweight. He poured himself several fingers of Johnnie Walker and returned, not sitting, though, standing before me, feet planted but weaving just slightly.

“You’ll have to forgive me, Nate,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve stopped drinking since this happened.”

I didn’t think he’d stopped drinking since 1948, but at least right now he had a damn good excuse to drown himself in booze and sorrow.

“You were friends with Florrie Mae. You know about... us. Right? Right. You know how we didn’t, well, stand in the way of each other’s extracurricular activities. We just didn’t... flaunt it at each other. Tried not to embarrass each other.”

“They’re calling it ‘open marriage,’ these days. You were one of the first couples I ever knew who so indulged.”

His shrug was as overly elaborate as the house. “Well, we were grown-ups, Nate. We still loved each other, we were pals, and we... had our romantic moments, even after things cooled. I mean, we must have loved each other, right? We married each other often enough!”

“The night before she died, Frank. Tell me about that.”

“The last time I saw her was with Julian Rusk, her hairdresser — he always comes here Sunday afternoon, to do her hair at home, before the show. Late afternoon. I said... break a leg, and she just... smiled and nodded. I rarely went to the broadcast with her and this was no exception. She and one of her producers went to P.J. Clarke’s for a quick drink, after.”

“Was that out of the ordinary?”

“No, no quite the opposite. From there she took her limousine — CBS provided that — to the piano bar at the Regency. Going there for cocktails was also customary — in fact, the show’s staff always invited the contestants to join them and usually some of the stars, depending on who was available or anyway in the mood.”

“What time did she get home?”

“I don’t really know, Nate. I was in bed already. No one else was in the house — the servants don’t sleep in, and our kids are in boarding school. Well, they’re home now, but... anyway, she was here at 2:20, that much I can tell you.”

“Did you check with the limo driver about what time he brought her back?”

“I did. She sent him home when he dropped her at the Regency.”

Maybe she had a date.

“If you didn’t see her, Frank, why are you so sure she was home at 2:20?”

“She called Western Union at that time and had a messenger come pick up her column. She probably had most of it written already, and made a few finishing touches, after getting back from the Regency bar. Her last column.”

He sat back down next to me, leaned an elbow on a knee, and covered his face with a hand.

I gave him a few moments, then asked, “You said you’d already gone to bed. Did she join you, and in the morning, you...?”

He shook his head. “No. At times we didn’t sleep together. I’m afraid I snore, and Florrie Mae worked all hours. I have a bedroom on the fourth floor, Florrie Mae has a little bed in her office on the fifth. But she was found in the bedroom we share, the master bedroom. That’s why I brought you to the Black Room, Nate — not out of any gallows sense of humor... though this is certainly a room where we had wonderful times.” He pointed off to the right. “She was found in the bedroom just off of here...”

From the Black Room we entered a blizzard of white — white walls, white furnishings with gold accents and antique brass hardware, though red relieved the white by way of a Florentine design on the spread of the king-sized bed, and a red tufted velvet headboard with matching slipper chair.

I stepped into the room, but Felton stayed in the doorway, as if the parquet floor was one big trapdoor waiting to be sprung on him.

He said quietly, “That’s where she was found. Not by me. By Rusk, the hairdresser. He had an appointment to do her hair at nine A.M. She had a TV show to tape at eleven, guesting on To Tell the Truth. She was sitting up, a book in her lap — Seven Days in May — must have fallen asleep reading.”

“And died in her sleep.”

“Yes. There was no sign of any kind of disturbance, not even rumpled covers. So it must have been peaceful. She just slipped... slipped away...”

“Do we know the cause of death?”

“It was the booze and pills, Nate. You know that.”

“Too early for an opinion from the coroner?”

“Not officially, but Dr. Luke tells me it’s ‘the effects of a combination of alcohol and barbiturates.’”

Booze and pills.

I walked to the white nightstand. “Any pill bottles? Any kind of bottles?”

“Seconal, about half of her prescription still there. A glass of gin and tonic, about... a third of it left. She’d have to get up and go out into the other room for a refill.”

“Will there be an inquest?”

“No, thank God. The doctor said Flo’s death will be labeled ‘circumstances undetermined.’”

“That’s a common enough designation, but it leaves the door open for speculation.”

“But she wasn’t depressed, Nate!” He was assuming I meant suicide, and indeed there were rumors of that reported in the press.

“This talk of suicide,” he said in a rush of words, “it pisses me off, really pisses me off royal. She was energized about her book for Bennett, that Kennedy thing, she was happy with her life, she...”

She had a new man in her life. He had to know that. But couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“Show me her office, would you, Frank?”

On the way up the front stairs, I said, “How much do you know about the Kennedy book?”

“Just that she felt confident her reporting would make a real difference. She bragged, she was cocky — said she was going to ‘blow the case wide open.’”

“You didn’t talk specifics?”

“No. She talked with that young man from Indiana who’s been assisting her. But otherwise she was protective, even... secretive. She said the more I knew, the more dangerous it was for me.”

“She wasn’t kidding. You did know what we were investigating in Dallas, Frank? The suspicious deaths of assassination witnesses?”

“That I did gather.”

Her office on the fifth floor, with its single bed and desk in a corner with a typewriter, looked like the room of a teenaged girl, albeit a wealthy one — floral-brocade wallpaper, chartreuse carpet, embroidered organdy curtains tied back with taffeta bows. The only thing missing was the stuffed animals.

Frank stood beside me in the surprisingly small space. “This was her sanctuary,” he said. “She called it the Ebb. As in ebb and flow? It’s rare for me to set foot in here.”

“Oh?”

“Rare for anyone but her to be in here.”

The reddish face swung suddenly to me and he was close enough for it to be uncomfortable, his dark glazed eyes locking on me, like tics on a greyhound.

“Nate, on the phone, you asked about foul play. There were no signs of that downstairs, and nothing disturbed in here or anywhere in the house. But when you start talking about this Kennedy thing, you... well, you’re scaring me, man.”

I kept my voice calm, but did not duck the subject. “She’s been publishing pieces on the assassination for over six months. Were there any repercussions? Any trouble of any kind?”

He frowned but the wide eyes didn’t narrow. “Well, after she started publishing that Warren Commission material, about that Ruby character? We had FBI agents crawling all over the place.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “They had a search warrant, but didn’t find anything. They interrogated her down in the Black Room, like a suspect in a crime. They badgered her about the identity of her source and she told them...” His complexion paled to pink. “... told them she would rather ‘die than betray a source.’”

I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He swallowed. Closed his eyes.

I removed the hand and said, “Tell me about this young man assisting her. Would he have ever worked with her here in the Ebb?”

“Oh, yes. When I said no one was ever in here but Florrie Mae, I don’t mean people assisting her. She had a number of protégés over the years. This one’s name is Mark Revell. He’s an entertainment writer for a paper in Indianapolis, Indiana, of all places. She met him on a movie junket of some kind and took him under her wing.”

“Was it serious?”

“No.” His smile was melancholy. “She was a romantic, Nate. Do I have to tell you that? That’s the bad side of having an open relationship with a woman. A man can go from this one to that one, and it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just physical. She had to be in love... at least at the moment.”

“Is Revell in Indianapolis now?”

“No, I believe he’s staying over for the funeral. He’s at the Regency.”

So was I — the hotel was at Park Avenue and Sixty-first and an easy walk to Flo’s town house off Park and Sixty-eighth.

“What about the hairdresser?”

“Julian Rusk? He lives in the Village. I’ll get you his phone number.”

“Thanks.”

Now, finally, his frown was deep enough to make the eyes narrow. “Nate, you can’t think Flo was a murder victim...”

“Circumstances undetermined, remember? The CIA has its own in-house Dr. Feelbad who can use drugs to simulate heart attacks or accidental deaths or you name it.”

“You’re saying someone came in, with me in the house, and did that, without my knowing?”

“It’s five floors and a lot of rooms, Frank. You have that back entrance for the servants, with a stairwell giving access to everything. These spooks have pulled off much more complicated stuff.”

“I can’t believe it. No. That’s far too Ian Fleming. That’s as crazy as suicide!”

“You’re not against me looking into it a little, are you, Frank?”

He flinched, as if I’d raised a hand to strike him. “No. Not in the least. Oh, those tapes and notes you mentioned?”

“Yes?”

“No sign of anything.”

He showed me the top right-hand desk drawer that she kept locked — using a key from her center drawer to open it (not the greatest security) — and revealed it as empty. Had the Ruby tape been in there? If so, someone knew about the handy key, because the drawer showed no jimmy marks.

“Now,” he said, “she might have hidden them away in one of her filing cabinets — there’s a separate room for those, ten four-drawer files. It would take hours to go through them.”

“Would you mind if I did that?”

“Could it wait till after the services?”

“No,” I said. “I need this done as soon as possible. I’ll make a call and have a man or two join me, from our Manhattan branch. In the meantime, if you’ll show me to the file cabinets, I’d like to get started.”

“Well, then, uh... I guess it’ll be all right. There’s family coming in, as you might imagine, and... but all right. Those tapes are Flo’s legacy of sorts, and if you find them, that will be a good thing.”

“If they are here,” I said, “everyone in the house will be better off having them removed.”

The puffy reddish face went blank with thought. Then he said, “Look — if you do find the tapes and notes, promise you won’t give them to that kid Revell. He’d write his own book. When the time comes, maybe you can give that material to Flo’s friend Bennett Cerf, and he can assign some real writer to it.”

“That’s fine,” I said.

But the two A-1 agents and I did not find the Dallas tapes or notes. The cabinets were brimming with publicity releases and 8-by-10’s, as well as clippings of Flo’s columns carefully arranged by month and year, and coverage by other journalists of her own celebrity. It was not dull — “Hey, Mr. Heller... take a look at this Marilyn shot! Miss Cheesecake 1951!” — but it was also not fruitful.

One small piece of luck came my way when I got back to the Regency around eight P.M. The red-vested bartender in the hotel’s chichi red-and-brown basement piano bar had been on duty Sunday night when Flo stopped in for that after-TV-show drink. She’d seemed cheery and “maybe a little high,” he said, and had joined a nice-looking younger man in a dark-corner banquette (her regular spot), drinking gin and tonic, staying around till almost two A.M.

“Did you recognize this younger man?”

Bald, bulky, the bartender in his forty or so years had seen it all. “The gentleman had been in here before with Miss Kilgore, yes.”

“Was he a hotel guest? Did he sign the tab to his room?”

“Miss Kilgore was paying, sir.”

I made my way through the layers of subdued lighting and drifting cigarette smoke to a Negro piano player in a tux, noodling Cole Porter with a nice jazzy edge. He’d also been there Sunday night. Had Flo met a date at the club? Of course, man! Real lady like Miss Kilgore wouldn’t come listen to me play by herself. Was Miss Kilgore’s date a regular? Couldn’t say, man, couldn’t say.

Apparently all ofays looked alike.

Soon I was sitting in Flo’s favorite booth with a nice-looking younger man of my own. He wore a collarless black suit with a gray button-down shirt, no tie — apparently he was in mourning, too — and his black hair was Afro-style, though this was apparently a perm, since he was white. Hell, he was pale. A slender five ten, he had the finely carved features of a male fashion model.

“I appreciate you coming up here to talk to me, Mr. Rusk,” I said.

“Julian, please,” the hairdresser said, with an English accent that might have been real. “And do you prefer Nate or Nathan?”

“Either is fine,” I said. “Something to drink?”

He liked that idea, and I waved a waitress over. He ordered a gin and tonic (“In honor of my late and very much lamented client”), and I had a vodka gimlet. On the phone, he’d known immediately who I was — familiar with my minor celebrity courtesy of magazines and tabloids, and aware that I was a good friend of Flo’s.

Despite the possibly faked English accent, there was nothing effeminate about him — he was as masculine as Rock Hudson. But it was clear he was gay — something undeniably flirtatious flickered in his manner.

His eyes, which were a dark green, flashed and he smiled just a little. “Are you looking into her murder? I hope.”

“Murder? My understanding is the coroner leans more toward accidental death.”

“He didn’t find the body, did he?” Rusk sipped his drink. “I could have told you my story on the phone, couldn’t I? But you wanted to talk to me in person. Why? So you could look at me when I answered your questions. To what end? So you can size me up as a witness, or possibly a suspect.”

I laughed just a little. “So far you’re just answering your own questions.”

“Touché. All right — do you want to grill me, or should I just tell my tale?”

“Go ahead and start. I’ll jump in as need be.”

He sighed grandly. “Well, I let myself in around eight forty-five that morning. Came up the same back staircase used by the servants.”

“You had a key?”

“Yes. Not many did, but I fixed Flo’s hair on a more-or-less daily basis. Not always so early, mind you — she had a television taping at eleven. Her dressing room is on the third floor, near that hideous Black Room, off the master bedroom — that’s where she always had her hair done. I turned on my curling irons, and just idly walked into the bedroom, never thinking for a moment she would be there.”

“Why? She shared it with her husband, didn’t she?”

“Oh, she hadn’t slept there for years, Nathan. They slept apart, Frank and Flo — don’t let their breakfast broadcasts fool you.” He shook his head. “I knew she was dead, right away.”

“Just with a glance?”

“That’s all it took. She was sitting up in bed, propped up with a pillow against the red headboard. The bed was spotless, as if she’d slipped under the covers and never moved an inch. She was dressed... very peculiarly.”

“Be specific, Julian, please.”

“All right. Well, normally she’d sleep in pajamas and old socks and her makeup would be off and her hair would be washed and just a mess, waiting for my rescue.”

“I see.”

“But she was dressed almost as if she were going out — hair in place, makeup on right down to her false eyelashes. She was in a blue matching peignoir and robe — nothing she would ever wear to bed.”

“She was reading.”

“Was she? That book, Seven Days in May? She read that months ago. She discussed it with me! And it was laid on her lap so perfectly, so you could read the title... only that was upside down — not in the right position for her to be reading it.”

“Julian, that’s a nice piece of deduction.”

“Thank you, Nathan. You know, it was cold out that morning — we had a real cold snap. But the air-conditioning in the bedroom was on. Why?”

“If it was murder, perhaps to delay decomposition. Make the time of death harder to determine.”

“Well, I guess you put my little deduction to shame, didn’t you, Nathan? Let’s see... is there anything else? The light was on, the overhead light, that is, not the nightstand. There was a water glass at her bedside, and a pill bottle, and her latest drink... but she was positioned in the very middle of that big bed and couldn’t have reached either of them.”

“Keep going. You’re doing fine.”

“I think that’s about all. Oh, I would say rigor mortis had set in. Anyway, her hands were stiff. And there was lipstick on her sleeve. Why would that be there?”

“If she still had her makeup on, and someone changed her clothes after her death, her lipstick might have accidently made that transfer.”

“My, you are a detective.”

“Julian, you called it murder, right out of the gate. Do you have a suspect?”

“Just between us, Nathan?”

“Just between us, Julian.”

“The best possibility would be the husband — isn’t that always the case? Frank Felton’s been unemployed for some time — his various ventures, from Broadway productions to that failed art gallery, exhausted all of his personal funds. And he was facing the possibility of yet another divorce from Flo — and this time there was a prenuptial agreement.”

“But if she were to die before divorcing him, Frank would inherit the town house, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes. And it’s worth three hundred grand easily. Plus, there’s bound to be a big life-insurance policy on a star like Flo — what, another hundred thou or two?”

“Probably. And retirement funds from the TV show.” I mulled that, then said, “But why the charade, putting her in the master bedroom? Can you see Felton dressing her in her bedclothes and carting her from one floor to another?”

“You’ve met the man, haven’t you, Nathan? He was a producer. Those parties he mounted were like little Broadway shows, and were far more successful than those he actually tried to mount. Oh, he’s perfectly capable of that kind of drawing-room farce by way of Hitchcock. And the master bedroom, why that’s perfect — he would want the world to think he and Flo were still a couple, still enjoying connubial relations. The only problem is...”

“Yes?”

“It’s a big one.”

“Okay.”

The hairdresser shrugged. “He lacks the balls.”

“What about this Mark Revell?”

“He’s a very pretty boy, Nathan. And he certainly has balls.”

“Are you... implying something?”

“I am trying to avoid a vulgar term.”

“What term would that be?”

“Fag hag. Vulgar and ugly, but I’m afraid it applies to my late client.”

“How so?”

“Revell’s in his twenties, he’s very handsome, while Flo, lovely lady though she was, was what... fifty? He’s an entertainment editor at a newspaper in Indianapolis, Indiana — do I have to draw you a picture? And somehow he manages to globe-trot with all kinds of famous larger-than-life females. Maureen O’Sullivan, Myrna Loy, Phyllis Diller, none spring chickens. Then there’s Anna Maria Alberghetti, and Mia Farrow, and—”

“They’re young.”

“Yes, but certain women, for various reasons, like to be squired around by handsome, young, non-threatening males.”

“Not Flo.”

“No. Not Flo. You’re correct, Nathan. She was a pistol. She liked her men and she liked them between the sheets and lively. She and Revell went on movie junkets together to Rome, Florence, London, and shared lodgings. They met many times right here in this hotel — a suite on the nineteenth floor.”

Revell was registered at the Regency right now.

Rusk was saying, “I’m sure she and Revell had a gay old time... in the old-fashioned sense, that is. My sense... if I may be frank? Is that Revell may be a switch-hitter.”

“Do you have any reason to think he’s bisexual?”

“Other than instinct? No. But strong show-business women like Flo are often attracted to the type. She dated Johnnie Ray, you know. You were good friends with her, I understand, Nathan...”

“Yeah, and I’ve squired around some famous women, too.”

“Marilyn Monroe, according to what I’ve read. Jayne Mansfield. And who’s that old-time bubble dancer?”

“Sally Rand.” I put my hand on his. “But, Julian? This time? You’ve made the wrong deduction.”

And I patted him gently on the cheek.

He smiled and shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” he said.

Was it my imagination, or was the English accent gone?

Half an hour later, Mark Revell was sitting across from me in the same booth. I’d called his room from the bar, and he’d immediately recognized my name. Like Rusk, Flo’s protégé knew of both my reputation in the press and my friendship with Flo Kilgore. He was, as advertised, a handsome young man, under thirty, a sturdy six feet, in a muted glen-plaid suit with three-button jacket and matching vest — Cricketeer, I’d guess — with a gold tie with a single thin black stripe. His hair was brown, his look Ivy League, and he might have been a lost Kennedy brother.

“Yes, I’m an entertainment writer, Mr. Heller, for the Indianapolis News. On extended leave to work with Miss Kilgore... although I guess that’s at an end now, isn’t it?”

Revell sat with his hands folded and wearing an easy, friendly, rather wide smile. He had ordered a Coke and I’d followed his lead.

His eyes tightened as he thought back. “I met Flo earlier this year, in June I believe, on a press junket for reporters covering the film industry.”

“Where was that exactly?”

His smile broadened and his eyes looked up into the pleasant memory. “We were in Salzburg on the set of The Sound of Music. I caught her arm when she stumbled, getting onto the press bus, and I said, ‘Well, hello!’ You know, in a way that said I recognized her as a celebrity. ‘You know who I am,’ she said. ‘Who are you? Besides my savior.’ We just hit it off like that, joking, giggling. We had drinks that night and the rest is history.”

“History of what? A love affair?”

He frowned, shifted in the booth, almost but not quite offended by my bluntness. “Oh, you don’t understand, Mr. Heller. It was definitely not a love affair, or anyway not a physical one. She was just this sweet funny lady, my bestest friend in the world. We talked on the phone every day.”

Not in Dallas they hadn’t. That was how I’d wound up in bed with her, one last time.

He was shaking his head slightly. “She was so soft, so romantic. Did you ever see her angry? I never did. I think the only conversations we had that were serious at all were about the Kennedy project.”

“You knew about the Ruby trip?”

“Oh, yes. I didn’t know she was planning to meet up with you, though.”

I didn’t bother explaining the accidental nature of that.

He was saying, “I know Mr. Felton thinks Flo and I were an item, but really we just liked each other, liked to be together, to ditch the pressures of this crazy old world and just go.”

“Like to Rome and London.”

He shifted in his seat, his smile one-sided now. “Mr. Heller, it was strictly platonic. There was a flirty aspect to it, sure, but there was no good-night kiss when I dropped her off. It just wasn’t that kind of relationship. Not even close. I had other girls. She knew that.”

Did he? I wondered.

I gestured skyward, to the heaven that was the Regency. “I understood that you and Flo sometimes met in your hotel suite.”

“No. Maybe briefly for business, but not in the way you mean. After all, we were co-workers, Mr. Heller. I was involved in the Kennedy project, too.”

“Did you see her the Sunday she died? Did she share any materials with you from the Dallas trip?”

“I called her in the afternoon. She never said much about the Kennedy investigation on the phone, for obvious reasons. No, I don’t have any idea what happened in Dallas.”

That last statement tried a little too hard for my taste.

“I only know bits and pieces,” he said. “I was a sounding board for the Kennedy stories in her column, and also for what she was planning. I don’t know if you know this, Mr. Heller, but she was going to write a book. If she did the story for her paper, she might win acclaim, but she was after more — a big score, big money.”

“What do you think happened to Flo, Mr. Revell?”

He shrugged sadly. “It’s likely she accidentally OD’d. Took a little too many pills with just a little too much gin. She wasn’t a big person, you know. Wouldn’t take much to be too much. But... with this Kennedy stuff going on? I’m not an idiot. Of course she could have been murdered.”

“In that case, would you suspect someone involved in the assassination? Spooks or gangsters or Cubans?”

Oh my.

“I couldn’t say, Mr. Heller. It’s too terrible to think that that sweet woman, with so much talent and energy in her, could be gone. But I suppose...”

“You suppose?”

“Mr. Felton does have a lot to gain.”

Could it be that simple? A jealous husband killing a rich wife to trade her faithlessness in on a pile of money? Did Florence Kilgore’s passing have nothing to do with either Jack — Kennedy or Ruby?

Or had I run into that most unlikely of circumstances in this lunatic case — a genuinely accidental death?