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best for old Joe K’s family.’
    Stella was thoughtful. ‘If JFK
does
come, what do I call him if I end up speaking to him?’
    ‘Mr President,’ they chorused.
    ‘But don’t worry,’ Dorothy added. ‘He doesn’t stand on ceremony. After a minute or so, you’ll forget you’re talking to the most powerful man in the
world, I promise you.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ Stella said. ‘But how do you know that? Have
you
met him?’
    ‘Sure, lots of times,’ Dorothy replied, surprised. ‘Why, hasn’t Sylvia told you?’
    ‘I didn’t like to brag, Mom,’ her daughter said uncomfortably. ‘Sorry, Stella – I didn’t quite know how to bring it up without sounding swollen-headed.
Anyway, there’s a sort of convention that you just don’t talk about stuff like this. It’s really excruciating when you hear people do that, just to show off.’
    Stella nodded quickly. ‘Oh, I understand,’ she said. ‘But go on, you might as well tell me now. How
do
you know the Kennedys?’
    Jeb slowed down for the toll station and reached for his newly filled ashtray of coins, with a pointed glance at his wife.
    ‘It’s no big deal,’ he shrugged. ‘Bobby asked me if I’d do some historical research for his brother’s speeches in the 1960 campaign. I went to Hyannis Port a
few times to help out with the early drafts and Jack was usually around. We kinda got along, and when he won the election . . . well, the Kennedys don’t forget their friends. Anyway,
I’m already signed up for the ’64 campaign so we keep in touch.’ He handed quarters to the toll attendant and turned around to grin at her.
    ‘Just don’t go falling for JFK’s deadly charms, Stella. Jackie’s the jealous type.’

7
    ‘Holy fuck.’
    The picture editor pushed the Polaroid away from him, his face rigid with disgust. He sat in his swivel chair for a few moments, breathing heavily, before lifting the desk phone from its
cradle.
    ‘Get me News, please, honey.’ He could hear the girl switching jackplugs on the switchboard in front of her and a moment later a man’s voice crackled down the line.
    ‘News editor.’
    ‘Henry, it’s Glen. You need to get over here. Right now.’
    Using steel tweezers, the Miami police detective carefully slid the Polaroid into a clear plastic evidence bag. He turned calmly to the two newspapermen with him in the
editor’s office at the
Courier
. It amused him somehow that both wore a kind of near-identical journalist’s uniform – baggy grey suit trousers with braces and turn-ups,
white button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and cheap ballpoint pens jammed behind their ears. Both men had hair slicked back with oil. They could have been brothers.
    ‘Who’s touched this, please?’
    The picture editor gave a quick nod. ‘Only me, before I knew what . . . what it was.’ He swallowed. ‘Henry here didn’t handle it at all – he figured the fingerprint
angle from the get-go. But I—’
    His colleague interrupted him.
    ‘Now just hold on a second here, officer! That photo was handed in to the
Courier
. Technically, it’s this newspaper’s property. Obviously I understand you need to take
it with you but I have to make copies first. We’re splashing this story big-time tomorrow and we’ll syndicate it the day after. Hand it back for now, if you please.’
    The policeman shook his head. ‘No way. Print this? Are you kidding? You’ll have half your readers throwing up over their breakfast waffles. Anyway, you splashing this image across
fifty states could compromise the investigation.’
    ‘Bullshit! Compromise it in what way, exactly? It’s us who decide what our readers can stomach, not the police. And obviously we’d mask the details – put a black block
over the knife and her eye at the very least. But that’s our business. I want that photo back for copying and I want it now.’
    ‘What about the poor kid’s family? Have you thought about the effect seeing this