“So, no indication on your part that Sharon went back to Sebring at any time after you two were together?”
“No, not a chance. Sometimes I was thinking about it, suspicious, but I’m the bad one. I always screw around. That was Sharon’s big hang-up, we had endless discussions about it. And I said, you told me you don’t want to change me. But Sharon was absolutely not interested. . . . There was not a chance of any other man getting close to her.”
“Why don’t you take a look at these pictures.”
Roman leafed through recent photos of Jay and Sharon arm and arm. “These were probably taken by Woytek while I was in London. Sharon’s very pregnant here.”
“Well, what I was getting at was that he [Jay] spent an awful lot of time up there—”
“Hanging around,” Roman finished the sentence. “I was on the phone with her like every two days. The only thing she talked about was, ‘When are you coming?’ ” [ . . . ]
“Okay, Roman, let’s get started. Keep still, with your feet flat on the floor. Take a deep breath. Good. Now let it out.”
Roman interrupted. “You know, those pictures really shook me up, because I didn’t see any pictures of my wife that pregnant before—not since the murders.”
“Uh-huh, well, I’m going to show you some other pictures; just say yes or no if you’ve seen the people before.”
“What if I’m not sure? I meet so many people, and I reject the faces that don’t interest me. . . . I may have seen them at a party or something, but don’t remember them.”
“Okay, let’s look through them once, then we’ll go through them again with the polygraph running.”
Roman only recognized one person. “That’s Billy Doyle . . . I remember him because he crashed a party that we gave. He came in, and he was trouble and I said, ‘Gibbie, who is that little jerk?’ And she said, ‘Billy.’ And I said, ‘Get him out of the house.’ And they got him out of the house, and he came back again because apparently his car broke and I said ‘I want him out,’ and he was drunk, and they said, ‘He’s crazy, he’s an idiot something’s wrong with his brain,’ so I remember him.”
“All right, I’m going to turn this on. Stay relaxed,” Deemer said, followed by a crashing sound. “Got some knives here that I’ll show to you one at a time—don’t hold your breath—I need you to breathe normally.”
“Breathe normal,” Roman mocked. “Not so easy when somebody tells you to do that.”
“Just give it a try. Now, did you ever see anyone at the Cielo address with a knife such as this?”
“No,” Roman commented to all ten knives, and then added, “Can I say something? I keep thinking about my breaths now.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“Only two knives looked more familiar than the others. This one. This looks a little familiar and maybe I saw someone working with a knife like this one.”
“See, your breathing went all to hell here. See the difference here and then how you’re breathing here? I’m going to ask you some regular questions, Roman, just answer yes or no. Do you have a valid California license?”
“Yes.”
“Have you eaten lunch today?”
“No.”
“Do you know who took the life of Woytek and the others?”
“No.”
“Do you smoke cigarettes?”
“Yes.” Roman burst out laughing.
“You know with that screwing around, I’m going to have to start over. Look at the increase in your blood pressure when you start to lie about your cigarettes. I’ll tell you, if you ever do something wrong, don’t take this. You’re a good reactor.”
“I just wanted to know if this really works. I’m sorry; I promise I won’t lie anymore.”
“Okay, do you drink milk?”
“No.”
“Did you have anything to do with taking the life of Woytek and the others?”
“No.”
“Do you feel any responsibility for the death of Woytek and the others?”
“Yes . . . that I wasn’t there.”
“Have you dated any airline stewardesses since Sharon’s death?”
“Yes. Well, I haven’t dated; I’ve seen a couple of them.”
“Took them out to lunch or something?”
“I fucked them,” Roman proudly announced.
“Okay. . . . Did Sharon fuss with narcotics, other than pot?”
“No. She did take LSD about sixteen times. At first, she liked it because it helped her to get over her inhibitions. But she’d arrived at a stage where she knew, one more trip, and her mind would be gone. So she gave it up. One of our first meetings. . . . I had a tiny amount. We split it, and then spent all night talking. . . . In the morning, she started flipping out and screaming. I was scared to death. I couldn’t do anything for her. Later, she said, ‘See, I told you I can’t take it anymore. This is the end of it.’ And it was the end of it, for her and for me. Anyway, I can assure you that she didn’t use any drugs for four years, except pot, and not too much and certainly not during her pregnancy. There was not a question of it, not even a drink of wine.”
“Doyle’s supposedly a pretty big drug dealer. To your knowledge did he turn Jay on with cocaine?”
“Not to my knowledge. Billy Doyle’s a character that Sharon wouldn’t even talk to.”
“Did you ever come into the bedroom and find Billy Doyle with Sharon—not in bed.”
“I only saw Doyle a couple of times in my life . . . once at our party, and I saw him around Mama Cass. But with Sharon, I don’t think she even knew who Doyle was.”
“What’s your impression of Mama Cass?” Deemer asked.
“Bad news, from beginning to the end. I hardly know her. . . . Bad news, I mean just stay away from her. . . . I didn’t like her from the first time that I met her.”
Roman was an experimenter on unsuspecting minds. He set Deemer up as his next conquest by pulling a cigarette from the pack on the table, lighting up, and leisurely inhaling.
“I thought you said you didn’t smoke cigarettes?”
Roman didn’t respond because it was a con; he wasn’t a smoker.
The tape spun with a hiss of vacancy. Guy and Frankie glanced at each other, waiting for me to go ballistic over Sharon’s drug use. Guy spoke first. “P.J., did you know Sharon was using?”
“No. I guess it’s not so shocking. These days it seems to be the ordinary instead of the extraordinary.”
Frankie slapped me on the back. “At least it’s all out in the open. Now we know what we’re dealing with.”
“You know, he comes off just arrogant enough to be the kind of guy to knock off someone he didn’t want around, ‘I reject faces that displease me,’ ” Guy parroted Roman’s accent. “What a shod.”
“I don’t know,” I added. “Roman’s tweaked, no doubt, but I don’t think he’s our killer.”
“I’m not so confident,” Guy said. “He played Deemer—gives him the lie just after the key question of the murders, plus factor in the sedatives. He might have jumped the system. Let’s stay on him at least until Interpol comes through.”
Ten o’clock the next morning, I urged the coffee to wake me up while I shaved. The front door slammed, then Guy’s voice. “P.J.? Got the workup on Roman.”
I found him in the kitchen. “Well?”
“He’s a damned Communist, but that doesn’t make him a killer.” Guy dropped a thick file on the counter. “Nothing out of the ordinary. That includes Frankie’s paper drive.”
Jake and Frankie were laughing on their way up the driveway. I met them at the front door. “What’s so funny?”
“I was telling him about Polanski’s escapade last night,” Jake said. “Hey, got any more of that joe? I’m desperate like a junkie.”
I poured a round for everyone while Jake told his story.
“So there he is, middle of the night, looking like a Christmas elf, climbing over the gates of this Tudor estate—right across from the Beverl
y-Fucking-Hillbillies house! Only in L.A. Anyway, all he does is riffle through a Rolls-Royce near the garage. Just as he’s making his escape, LAPD rolls up. They check his ID, and ten minutes later, he’s on his way. So I corner the patrolie writing up the report, who tells me it’s John Phillips’s house. Polanski told him he left something in Phillips’s car and didn’t want to disturb him—thing is, he left empty-handed.”
“What’s John Phillips got that he wants?” I asked.
Guy sipped his coffee. “Who knows, but let’s check into Phillips and the whole group. Roman has a strong distaste for the fabulous Miss Cass Elliot.”
Jake daintily held out a file. “Before my soirée in Bel Air last night, I smuggled out a copy of the detective’s progress report.” He shook his head in disbelief. “These guys are chasing their asses. Listen to this—and I quote: ‘If we assume that the killers went there merely to conduct some type of business, such as a narcotics sale, or to enjoy a narcotics party and the killing occurred, then investigators are of the opinion that the suspects cut the telephone wires in an effort to gain as much time as possible before the crimes were discovered.’ ”
Jake removed his glasses. “Who the fuck did they think was gonna call out after they butchered everyone? Jesus, Joseph, and Mary?” Jake stopped short. “Sorry, P.J., but that’s Homicide 101. Those lines were cut before they went in—premeditation.”
I rubbed my tired eyes. “It’s okay, you’re right. I checked those wires myself. Out of all the ones connected to that pole, they only cut the phone and the communication wires between the house and the gate— the gate is the important one. When the button is pushed, a buzzer goes off in the house. Whoever cut them knew the lay of the land.”
I opened a box of cigars and passed them around. “We need to look at those closest to Sharon. Let’s check my daughter and her friends inside and out. No pussy-footing around me, I want to know everything that was happening in their lives.”
AS AN INVESTIGATOR, I counted on the element of surprise to eliminate rehearsed stories. Though Jim and Wende Mitchum were good friends of Sharon’s, I’d never been to their house. When Jim opened the door, I spied the nervous expression I’d expected and wanted. “Colonel? How are you? Come in. I wish we’d known you were coming, Wende’s out shopping.”
There’s his first lie. I had spotted Wende through the window when I pulled onto the driveway.
“Can I get you a drink?” Jim offered from a stocked bar.
“No, I can’t stay long. I came to see if you had any suspicions about what happened at Sharon’s.”
“Umm, not really, I haven’t been up there in a while.”
“What about the drugs?” I tested.
“None that I know of—”
“Cut the crap, Jimmy. I don’t need sunshine blown up my ass. Level with me. And while you’re at it, get Wende.”
She shyly came around the corner. “I’m right here.” She hugged me. “I’m sorry, P.J. I’m just scared.”
“I know, Sugar, that’s why you have to be straight with me.”
“The truth.” Jim sighed. “Things were pretty out of hand up there while Sharon and Roman were in Europe. Jay and Woytek had become close, and they were both doing a lot of drugs.”
“What kind of drugs?”
“Jay was a coke freak. He’d been doing it casually for a couple of years, but lately it was out of control,” Jim said, while he eyed Wende for support.
“I think Sharon’s pregnancy put Jay over the edge,” she added. “He never expected that marriage to last—hell, no one did—but I think he was waiting for them to split. With the baby, he lost hope, and buried his feelings in the cocaine.”
“What about Woytek?”
“Woytek was one of those guys that had to try everything once,” Jim said. “He lived every day like it was his last. I don’t think there’s a drug out there that he hadn’t tried.”
“Where were they getting the stuff?” I asked.
“I’m not sure about Jay’s connection. Talk to Steve McQueen; he cleaned out Jay’s house before the police got there. Woytek mixed with these nuts from Canada, Billy Doyle, Pic Dawson, and some others.”
“Dawson and Doyle have been coming up a lot.”
“Cass Elliot brought them into the circle. Poor Cass.” Jim shook his head. “She’s so easygoing, and guys like Doyle and Dawson zeroed in on that. They lived with her, spent her money, and supplied her with the hard stuff, like heroin.”
“Do you suspect either of them for the murders?”
“They’re both crazy,” Jim said. “Rumor has it that one day Doyle freaked out on some mescaline, and then he pulled a gun on Woytek. Jay was there, too. They wrestled the gun from him, and then tied him to a tree until he came to his senses.”
“What about Dawson?”
“He’s an idiot,” Jim laughed. “He couldn’t organize a trip to the bathroom, let alone kill five people. One thing about him though, his father was a diplomat. He’d light a joint and toast, ‘diplomatic immunity,’ because he’d smuggled the stuff in sealed diplomatic packages.”
“Was Woytek dealing?” I asked.
“Nah, man, he was the Robin Hood of dope,” Jim said. “He’d get the money from Gibbie, buy the drugs, and then give them away. He only wanted to have fun. Damn shame if that’s what got them all killed.”
“You said things were getting out of hand. In what way?”
“Just that whole Doyle, Cass Elliot, John Phillips crowd hanging around there, and then they brought friends. It snowballed into a bad scene. A killer could be hidden in any one of those fringes.”
“What about after Sharon came home?”
“She felt uneasy,” Wende cut in. “Right after she returned, she had complete strangers walk into the house without knocking. She took about two days of that, and then closed up the gate; even locked the box. But Woytek still had a lot of people over that she didn’t trust.”
I raked my fingers through my hair as if they could untangle my guilt. “Yeah, she told me a bit about that, but I didn’t realize. . . .”
“Listen, don’t blame yourself.” Jim squeezed my shoulder. “There’s nothing you could have done. Roman wanted Woytek to stay there and Sharon never crossed his wishes.” He knocked back the rest of his drink. “Man, she didn’t deserve that schmuck. He treated her like a dog.”
Wende blotted her eyes. “Do you know the worst of it, P.J.? I keep thinking if she’d married Jay, she’d still be alive.”
“I guess that depends on whether you believe in fate or not,” I replied.
I’D MET STEVE McQueen a handful of times. He was an intense character whom I kept a close eye on while he dated Sharon. He’d always been reclusive; following the murders, he went into complete seclusion at his estate, christened the Castle. Massive walls created a fortress around the two-story villa set an acre back from Oakmont Drive. McQueen wouldn’t see me if I called or rang the gate. There was only one chance of getting through.
Two blocks from his house, I waited for McQueen’s maid to arrive for work. At the base of Oakmont, a pickup truck dropped off three women. The smallest of the group walked to McQueen’s driveway and used her key to activate the gate.
I edged the car forward until the thick, horseshoed gates accommodated my entrance. Just beyond, I passed beneath a broad, Moorish portal that housed security cameras. McQueen was out of the house before my car made it to the motor court. Shirtless and barefoot, the actor leaned onto the car door, trapping me inside. “Colonel, what brings you to this neck of the woods?” he stonily asked.
Clearly unwelcome, I got to the point. “I need to know where Jay scored his drugs.”
His jaw clenched. “I don’t have a clue.”
“Come on, Steve, it’s no secret. Give me a name.”
“I never asked him.”
“What did you find when you cleaned out Jay’s house?”
“I didn’t,” he said tightly.
“Bullshit.”
McQueen’s eyes turned to steel. “I only made the suggestion.” Then he indicated that other people did the job. As I attempted another question he leaned closer and said, “Colonel, you’re a smart man, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. You ought to look closer to home and check the dirt on Polanski’s hands, because I’m not the one secretly checking my friend’s cars for bloodstains. I know I don’t have friends that could murder a pregnant woman. Apparently, your son-in-law isn’t as confident.”
He started away, terminating the conversation. “Damn shame you didn’t make it to Sharon’s funeral,” I verbally chased him. “She obviously thought a lot more of you than you think of her.”
He paused as if to turn, but then continued on his path.
I FOLLOWED UP with each of Sharon’s friends. Over the phone, the innocence of Warren Beatty’s voice countered his reputation in every way.
“Colonel Tate, Warren Beatty here. They said you called?”
“I did. How are you, son?”
“Not so good. I miss them.”
There was a brief silence followed by a soliloquy in which his thoughts continuously flowed without pause. It was tough to keep up with what he said. But what did stick with me and always would was his last thought. “Hey, do you remember that year you had us all over for Thanksgiving? That night, I think you and Doris went to bed early or something. Anyway, we’re in the backyard watching for shooting stars. It was a crystal-clear night. Nobody said much; we were just . . . together. Someone may have lit a joint, I don’t remember. But I do remember we passed that night like so many others— blamelessly. Not like what they’re writing in the papers. Jay was a good man; the best friend a person could have.”
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