Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [86]
Back at the Compound, Frank barely said a word for two days. He sat on a couch in a corner by the bar and stared into space. It was really eerie. He didn’t want to talk to anybody, not even me. I’d walk past every hour or so, catch his eye, and give him a smile, but his eyes wouldn’t even flicker. Whenever he was quiet, I knew we were in trouble, but I’d never seen him that quiet before. People—family members, those with news of the ongoing search—would come in and talk to him, but he barely responded. I’d let them say their piece, and then I’d shoo them away. Nobody was going to break that ice, not even Dolly’s favorite priest, Father Geimer, who came to perform a Mass. I’d never seen Frank grieving before, but I knew from Jilly that this was exactly how he’d behaved when his father, Marty, died, and after he lost Marilyn Monroe and Jack Kennedy was killed. I also knew that, once he’d spent enough time alone to figure it all out in his head, he’d get up and get on. I was right.
After two days of grieving, I walked past him once more, gave him my smile, and made a stupid face, expecting the same response as before. This time was different. “Are you crazy?” he asked, grimacing. Then he suddenly stood up and asked me to get hold of his chief pilot, Johnny Spots, who’d flown us to Vegas on the night Dolly disappeared. “Bring a helicopter,” he told Johnny. “We’re going to search for Grandma.” In one of the Civil Air Patrol helicopters that had already been searching for Dolly for days, Frank, Johnny, and a pilot named Don Landells flew up over the San Bernardino Mountains, scouring a huge area. There was deep snow on the highest peaks, confirming that the weather had closed in that night. They flew back and forth over the bleak, wintry terrain, but all they spotted was the branch of a tree that had been broken halfway up the 11,500-feet-high Mount San Gorgonio. That’s where Johnny Spots showed tremendous wisdom. He had the pilot fly Frank home, and then they went back to where he’d seen the broken branch. Instead of going down the mountain, they flew higher up, because Johnny knew that any pilot would try to get over the peak. That’s when they found the wreckage, slammed into the side of the mountain at 9,500 feet. I will always be grateful to Johnny for going back alone. I couldn’t imagine how it would have affected Frank if he’d found his mother’s body.
The news came in late that night. The plane had broken up on impact and everybody was dead. One of the rescue teams in the area was diverted to retrieve the remains of Dolly, Mrs. Carbone, the pilot, and the copilot. They brought the bodies back down to a morgue in Palm Springs. The authorities called the house to ask someone to come and identify them. Mickey Rudin said he would go, but then he said he couldn’t. Frank didn’t want to go, and neither did any of his kids. Jilly couldn’t face it either—he’d known Dolly for most of his life; she was like a mother to him. When I realized that nobody else was prepared to go, I volunteered. That was not an easy task. It was horrible for me, but even more horrible for poor Frank.
At the Rosary recited for Dolly at the St. Louis Catholic Church in Cathedral City on January 12, attended by more than five hundred mourners, the Church of the Desert Choir sang her favorite song, “Hello, Dolly!” as well as “Ave Maria.” Dolly was buried a week later in the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City next to Marty, whose coffin Frank had moved from New Jersey when his mother came to Palm Springs. Frank clung to my hand and