Relocating to Los Angeles was always a foundational element of Miryam’s compositional plan; but what she found upon her arrival was chaos on the streets of LA, conflict and violence, distractions. To escape the chaos. the violence, she transplanted her compositional headquarters to Palm Springs, one-hundred and fifteen miles to the east of Los Angeles, approximately a two hour commute by car. Being in Palm Springs would suffice, Miryam believed, since Marilyn had lived there as well. An acceptable substitute, perhaps; but the actress never owned property or actually lived in Palm Springs. Nevertheless, Miryam found Palm Springs unacceptable, also. The home town for forty-four thousand residents was too calm, too quiet, presented the illusion of an order that does not invite challenge, the illusion of an order that Miryam obviously needed to reject. Miryam needed a residence in proximity to where Marilyn had lived, a residence that would allow the former to walk the same streets and observe the same light as the latter. Miryam understood the circumstances and the context under which Marilyn’s story had unfolded; but Miryam was not just a spectator; she was a forensic expert who reconstructed crime scenes and thereby solved crimes that appeared to be unsolvable. Besides, for Miryam, Marilyn had stopped being just an icon: Hollywood’s most famous decedent had become a flesh and blood woman (Moya 5). So, the forensic expert collected all her gear and important documents and returned to a chaotic, strife filled Los Angeles, where she occupied a residence just a few streets from where Marilyn took her last breath. Where the silence still belongs to someone (Moya 16). I am not sure how to quantify just a few streets removed from Fifth Helena Drive or how to identify the owner of that silence; but at any rate, Miryam lived near Marilyn’s small hacienda.

On my walks through Brentwood, I found an old laundromat that still keeps part of the original furniture from the ‘60s. I asked the owner if she knew of nearby houses that had sent laundry that dawn (Moya 179).

The old laundromat mentioned in the preceding quotation was not identified by name or location within the neighborhood of Brentwood; but the implication contained therein is clear: the establishment had existed in 1962 on August the 5th and had survived for sixty-four years, remarkably, still operating in the twenty-first century with some of the original furniture still intact. I suppose such an occurrence is possible, with alterations due to building code revisions, along with the installation of new washers and dryers over the six decades of operation; but I must admit to a certain incredulity.

Suffer a brief digression.

The zoning ordinances enforced in 2026 Los Angeles are rather complicated, as they usually are in large and dense metropolitan areas. According to a website maintained by Los Angeles City Planning, the city’s zoning is regulated by a general developmental plan composed of thirty-four Community Plans. One of those thirty-four community plans regulate Brentwood and Pacific Palisades, which are primarily residential districts. No doubt, special use developments, like self-service laundries, would be allowed among the residences, with specific provisions. I do not know what the zoning ordinances were in 1962, over six decades ago; and I have not endeavored to determine what the zoning ordinances might have been at that time. Even so, those details are unimportant since Miryam lived and strolled in Los Angeles concurrently with present day.1For those who want to know, laundromats are defined, within the zoning ordinances, as a General Commercial Use, Personal Services, Division 5D.6 and Section 5D.6.10.

The commercial building that houses a laundromat in the vicinity of Fifth Helena Drive is presently located at the corner of Chelsea Avenue and Santa Monica Blvd. This freestanding building contains a Pacific Coast Tire Service, a Valet Detail and Collision Center, a Big Waves Cleaners and a Big Waves Laundromat. According to Google Maps, the best walking route to the Big Waves Laundromat is up Fifth Helena to South Carmelina to San Vicente Blvd to South Burlington Ave past Brentwood Country Club to Montana St to 26th St to Arizona St to Chelsea Ave to where it intersects with Santa Monica Blvd (US Route 66). Also according to Google Maps, that route, round trip, would require a stroll of five miles, which would consume the better part of two hours. There are other laundry services in the general vicinity: The Laundry Room of Palms, Bubble Beach Laundry, 320 Laundromat, The Laundry Room plus a second Big Waves Laundromat located in Mar Vista; however, all of those laundries are considerably further away from Fifth Helena Drive.

After Miryam entered the old 60s vintage laundromat, as noted in the quotation above, she located and began a conversation with the owner and posed a question about that dawn, August the 5th in 1962: had a nearby house sent laundry? According to Miryam, the woman looked at her strangely; and then, After a silence heavy with someone else’s guilt, she said:

“My mother worked here then. She never forgot that morning. She said a man came in, not a woman, with a closed bag, and asked for urgent cleaning. Sheets, pillowcases, a towel. All white. All stained. But not as if it were blood …”
“Then what like?” I asked.
“Like vomit. Or something mixed with chemicals.”
Where are those sheets? They disappeared. Just as the truth disappeared for 30 years (Moya 180).

Earlier in this review, I dedicated more than a few words to the fabricated and belated testimony of Sgt Jack Clemmons, the LAPD officer who began the Eunice-Was-Washing-Sheets-Yarn in 1985, two decades after Marilyn’s death: While Marilyn lay dead in the bedroom, Miryam wrote, Clemmons found Eunice folding laundry, with the washing machine and dryer running (Moya 21). Obviously, Miryam completely accepted the sergeant’s testimony; but with her laundromat anecdote, she offered a new and slightly contradictory scenario involving how Marilyn’s sheets had been cleaned, how the evidence that Marilyn had, in fact, vomited was washed away.

I admit to being a cynic, but I have grave doubts regarding all of the preceding. To begin with, the testimony of the laundromat owner could not be corroborated and was clearly hearsay: she reported what her mother had told her. Secondly, since Mrs. Murray had been observed washing Marilyn’s sheets that August morning, why visit a laundromat to wash some sheets? And finally, why were Marilyn’s murderers compelled to wash her sheets? Marilyn was not going to need them: she was dead. Unless Marilyn did not possess additional bed linens or towels.

Was Marilyn murdered or did she commit suicide? That has always been the fundamental issue regarding Marilyn’s death. The proponents of murder have always maintained that her murderers arranged her bedroom and her to strongly suggest suicide. That being the case, I must repeat a point I raised in part one of this article. If vomit or gastric foam or stomach reflux would have clearly pointed to the mode of death the conspirators needed to suggest or desired to confirm, why would they wash Marilyn’s sheets, and in so doing, remove that confirming evidence, remove the vomit? Doing that was and is illogical and nonsensical. Additionally, Miryam wrote: […] if Marilyn committed suicide, why […] didn’t she vomit […]? (Moya 36). Well, according to the laundromat anecdote, she did vomit. Allow me to express some consternation and confusion because it seems as if Miryam wants her cake but she also wants to eat it: Marilyn did not vomit; Marilyn did vomit; Eunice washed Marilyn’s sheets; her murderers delivered her vomit soiled sheets to a laundromat at dawn on August the 5th. Which was it? Was Miryam simply throwing darts at a literarily reconstructed and contextualized dart board.

Finally, why did the in-home conspirators or Marilyn’s powerful murderers behave the way they apparently did? Why even concern themselves with washing Marilyn’s soiled linens? It would have been much simpler, it seems to me, to replace the soiled linens with fresh ones, bundle the soiled linens in a bag or pillow case and dump them in a trash receptacle miles removed from Fifth Helena Drive. Better still, transport the bag or pillow case to a remote location in the nearby wooded hills or mountains and once there, torch the damning evidence. But in the end, considering the declared circumstances, all the subterfuge seem to be, at least to me, rather contrived and ridiculous.