FBI Tales

The Body

Her inexpressibly perfect face rested against my shoulder. My arms protectively enclosed her fragile delicacy. She was the loveliest creature imaginable, exquisite features, porcelain skin, luminescent eyes, crowning a world famous figure. She was a MOVIE STAR. Gorgeous, glamorous and glimmering. She was in terrible trouble and looking to me for help. Headlines around the world shrieked of her disappearance and here she was, supposedly safe in my arms. All Hell was about to bust loose. Sure wish I’d had a camera.

Marie MacDonald was a second tier sex kitten known as "The Body", a faux Monroe. She had vanished mysteriously and there was enormous media interest. Now here she was folded in my arms in a tiny, tinny hospital in Indio, California. It was well after midnight. A truck driver, proverbial knight of the plight, found her on a bridge in the bleak desert highlands and brought her to Indio. I was summoned because it was presumed to be a kidnapping and I was the federal law. Twenty-five years old and the only FBI for 100 miles.

Indio wasn’t the fundament of the world. That was in Thermal, a hair to the south and closer to Hell. Indio was where good Zonies hope their cars don’t break down on their way to the beach. "Zonie" is what Californians call people from Arizona, with the same ambivalent affection Mexicans give to "Gringo". We were Zonies. What were we doing in this even drearier desert.

Marie was pretty darn cuddly but not particularly coherent, possibly her usual state. A cursory exam by the kindly croaker at the claptrap clinic found nothing seriously amiss and she had been given a sedative. She rambled on about having been abducted and held in the desert by a dark man. She was affirmative but uncommunicative on the sexual assault issue, also perhaps the usual. She was packed off to bed but there was mighty little rest for many in the Coachella Valley the next few days.

I called my chief in Los Angeles, who had also been my jefe in Chicago. Cementhead Muldoon. Muldoon was a famous Bureau character who combined Murphy’s law with the Peter Principle. He loved to roar around town in his custom Ford Interceptor with sirens blaring to interfere with otherwise sedate apprehensions. And he loved to mix with the movie mob.

There was no indication of interstate transportation and therefore no apparent federal jurisdiction. In fact the matter of jurisdiction was never resolved. For that matter it was never resolved whether there had actually been a crime.

The whole scenario was all too reminiscent of the tale of the evangelist Aimee Semple MacPherson, who had disappeared into the desert decades earlier with a tambourine man.

There was only one phone in this small sanatorium and it started bouncing around the desk demanding attention. The caller identified himself haughtily as Reuters. From London. England. Ronald Effing Coleman. This was within two hours of her rescue. It was just the beginning.

By dawn the next day media from around the world began converging on the little Sheriff’s Substation. The Sheriff has assumed jurisdiction in the absence of any positive position by your humble servant. A TV crew came galloping up demanding to know the location where she had been found. "The bridge over Weaver Wash". "Where’s that?" "About 27 miles East." "Too far, where’s the nearest bridge?" they demanded, tearing off to fulfill the heavy obligation of informing the public.

A specialist OB-GYN was called in from the big city, Riverside, for a more detailed examination. It appeared that confirmation of sexual assault was not conclusive in this experienced woman. However by golly he did find a huge, hitherto unmentioned, diamond ring in the far reaches of her undoubtedly decorative declivity. He apparently had a longer reach than the local talent.

This was considered highly significant, to be treated with the utmost confidentiality. As far as I knew only the Obie, the Sheriff and I were privy to this information, which was duly relayed to Cementhead.

When I finally got home after working around the clock for a couple of days, I popped a beer and turned on the TV. At that time there was a very popular, funny, lippy TV personality in LA named Tom Duggan. Come to think of it he was also a Celt from Chicago.

Duggin was reporting in his characteristic caustic way about the Marie MacDonald caper. He said there were reports that a diamond ring had been found on her person. "That’s hitting below the belt" was how he phrased it.

Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, megastars at that time, lived nearby in Palm Springs and were friends of Marie, good friends indeed. They were extremely supportive and checked on her constantly. They would contact me for updates, giving me mini-celebrity status. On checking for messages at the station the staff would whoop "Oh Deek, chew suppose to call Desi" and fall on the floor.

The matter was never satisfactorily resolved. Desi stopped calling. A grand jury considered whether to charge her with filing a false crime report but no true bill was returned, perhaps because the fine Renfrew-of-the-Mounties Sergeant assigned to the case tended to believe her.

I had my doubts. She certainly didn’t look like she had been kidnapped and assaulted and left in the desert. She looked like she was auditioning for "Girl of the Golden West." I sure wish I had a foto. And maybe an autograph. Maybe on a signed statement.