The Way You Look Tonight Read online

  ‘Honey,’ she said, ‘you look more of a Yankee than the rest of us put together. Very glamorous, too. I’ll bet Bobby tries to draft you onto his brother’s campaign team for the ’64 election!’

  Stella smiled back at her. ‘Who knows, maybe I’ll say yes . . . Jeb, how long will it take us to get there?’

  ‘Coupla hours to Woods Hole where we pick up the ferry to Vineyard Haven. Then we’ll drive over to Oak Bluffs where the party is.’

  ‘Do the Kennedys use the ferry too?’

  The others laughed.

  ‘Sorry, Stella,’ Jeb said apologetically. ‘No reason why you should know any different . . . see, the Kennedys have their family compound at Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, just across Nantucket Sound from the Vineyard. They have their own, er, water transport. Likely as not they’ll sail across to Oak Bluffs in the family yacht, Victura. She’s quite a sight, that li’l boat, believe me. Nothing but the 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 in the morning paper might have on them?’

  ‘Screw the family. This is news.’

  ‘Wow. I’m impressed. You really are a hard-ass, aren’t you? Well, you can take it up with my chief. This photo comes back to Miami with me.’

  Not in the least perturbed by the stand-off, the detective glanced around the office. Its walls were covered with framed front pages and awards citations. Pride of place above the door was taken by the screaming headline: ‘CASTRO FIASCO!’ – a reference to America’s disastrous rag-tag army invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs the year before.

  He nodded towards an impressively large but empty desk opposite a picture window which offered sweeping views over Key Largo’s Buttonwood Bay and its myriad uninhabited – and uninhabitable – mangrove islands. ‘So where’s your boss today?’

  ‘The editor’s on a fishing trip down in Key West,’ Henry replied sourly. ‘He’s sure as heckfire on his way back now, though. When I tell him about the little stunt you’ve just pulled he’ll probably go straight from the airport to police headquarters. He’ll have your badge for this.’

  The policeman yawned. ‘Well, I’ve been on the force for twenty years so frankly he’ll be welcome to it. Mind if we sit down?’

  The news editor glared at him for a few moments longer before reluctantly indicating the small conference table at one end of the editor’s office. ‘Over there.’

  ‘Thanks.’ The detective stretched unselfconsciously. It had been an exhausting few weeks since the first murder and he was damn tired. He felt more like seventy than forty.

  ‘So . . .’ He slid off his suit jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, removing a notebook and pen from his hip pocket before repeating: ‘So . . . like I said, I’m Lieutenant Frank Coulter. And you are? Full names, please.’

  ‘Henry Stewart – I’m news editor here.’

  ‘Glen Morton. Picture editor.’

  ‘Thanks. OK, gentlemen, I’m going to ask you some questions. But anything I say in here is strictly off the record. That understood?’

  The news editor frowned. ‘No, it isn’t. We have some questions for you too – on the record.’ He pointed to the bagged photo that was protruding from Coulter’s jacket pocket.

  ‘Obviously that’s Lucy Twain, the Keys victim from a couple of days back. In spite of that God-awful thing sticking out of her head she’s pretty recognisable from the family photos we ran yesterday.’ Stewart leaned forward. ‘But you guys never mentioned that little detail. Which leads me to ask – did he do the same thing with the other two? And if so, does he do it before or after he kills them? Why have you been holding out on us?’

  Coulter gave the journalist a cold stare before saying quietly: ‘Back up, friend. I’ll go first with the questions. And I decide how much I tell you about this case. Let’s not let the tail go wagging the dog here, OK?’

  The news editor’s gaze was just as icy. ‘Fine. Ask your questions, detective. Then it’s my turn.’

  Coulter decided to park the point for now.

  ‘Hmm . . . well now, let’s see . . . you say the photo was delivered by hand. Was it in an envelope?’
>
  Morton nodded. ‘Yup. A regular white one. It had “For Picture Desk” printed in biro on the front. It’s still on my desk across the passage there.’

  ‘Anyone touch it apart from you?’

  ‘The girl on the front desk when it was given to her, I imagine, and the in-house courier who brought it up to me.’

  Coulter sat up a little straighter. ‘Hold on. You mean it was handed in in person to the front desk? Not dropped into the Courier’s mailbox by the lobby entrance?’

  ‘You got it, detective. We have the girl standing by for you to talk to.’

  But the girl was of little use. Yes, the envelope had definitely been brought in by a man, she said, but she had barely glanced at him. She’d been on the phone to the circulation department. She’d had the vague impression of jeans and a T-shirt, but she couldn’t be sure. No, she hadn’t really looked at his face, but he might have been wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. In fact, thinking about it now, she thought he probably was. No, she hadn’t noticed anything about his hands, rings or anything like that. His age? It could have been anywhere between twenty and fifty. No, he didn’t speak. He just passed her the envelope and left. She was pretty sure he was white, but then again he could have been Hispanic. She was real sorry not to be more helpful. What was this all about, please?

  When she had gone, Coulter asked to be taken to the picture desk. He carefully bagged the envelope that was still lying where Morton had tossed it.

  Back in the editor’s office he said, ‘I’ll need the girl’s prints and the courier’s, as well as yours, Mr Morton. Was the envelope gummed down, by the way?’

  Morton shook his head. ‘No. The flap was just tucked in.’

  ‘Damn. We might have got some saliva and a blood type from that.’

  Coulter sat forward a moment, tapping his teeth with his pen. Then he relaxed. ‘All right, Mr Stewart. Ask your questions, but I’m not guaranteeing to answer them.’

  The news editor pulled out his own notepad.

  ‘At yesterday’s press conference, your spokesman said the police believe the three victims – the last girl, Lucy Twain, and Jennifer Alston and Hester Wainwright – were killed by the same person, due to the specific nature of their injuries. All you’ve told us about those injuries is that they involve extensive and distinctive knife wounds. Does that include the calling card he left in the Twain girl’s eye?’

  Coulter smiled and scratched his chin. Then he stood up. ‘I can see the way this is going. I’m sorry, Mr Stewart, but questions like that are above my pay grade. You’re going to have to put them to my boss. In fact, I suggest your editor does that when he drops by headquarters to collect my badge.’ He turned to leave.

  ‘Hey! Now wait just one second! We’ve been co-operative! At least give me a guarantee we’ll be the first to run the picture when you end up having to admit it doesn’t compromise the investigation!’

  ‘Again, above my pay grade. There’ll be someone over later to take those prints, by the way.’

  ‘Jesus! Answer just one thing then, will you? Do you have prints from any of the murder scenes? On that knife left in Lucy Twain’s eye, for example?’

  Coulter considered the question from the doorway.

  ‘Possibly,’ he said at length. Then he was gone.

  The news editor turned to his colleague. He was almost purple with rage.

  ‘Can you believe that guy? What a jerk.’ He paused for a moment, drumming his fingers angrily on the table. Suddenly he glared at the picture editor. ‘And why, by the way, didn’t you take a cover shot of the damn Polaroid before Coulter got here? Too busy throwing up? Jesus Christ, Glen!’

  Morton sighed as he removed a miniature Leica camera from an inside pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Have a little faith, Henry. Actually, I took three.’

  8

  ‘Jack? Can you come in here a minute?’

  Bobby Kennedy ducked back out of the glare of the strengthening early autumn Massachusetts sun, running his fingers through his hair as he re-read the docket that had just chattered off the teleprinter in the study.

  Jesus. This was a royal pain in the ass.

  A few moments later, the tall French windows facing onto a wide lawn were pushed open and his older brother came into the room, swinging a white towel. Jack was wearing shorts and a sweatshirt and he was covered in a light sheen of perspiration.

  ‘Your wife and I were about to completely take Teddy’s team at touch-ball, Bobby! Ethel’s furious with you, so this had better be important.’

  ‘C’mon, Jack, TAKE them? With your back? You’re coach these days at best. Anyway, it is. Important, I mean.’

  ‘Family important, or Attorney General important?’

  ‘The latter. You should read this.’ Bobby held out the docket.

  Jack slumped on to a cream leather sofa and pushed damp hair back from his eyes with one hand as he reached out with the other. ‘Thank you, Mr Attorney General. Where’s this from?’

  ‘Florida. The FBI station in Miami. There’s a problem in the Keys. Just read the damn thing, won’t you?’

  Thirty seconds later Jack Kennedy looked at his brother and gave a low whistle.

  ‘Yeah . . . well . . . what d’you feel we should do about this?’

  Bobby flopped down on the sofa beside him.

  ‘There aren’t any obvious political complications that I can see – unless this fruitloop is from one of the Cuban exile groups, in which case we may have a problem. It’s more a straightforward case of law and order . . . and the effect on tourism. You’ve seen what the Mayor of Miami has to say about that, in the fourth paragraph there. He thinks that if we don’t nail whoever’s responsible we’ll lose a lot of the snowbirds. People won’t want to fly down to the Keys this winter, especially with teenage daughters in tow, with a madman on the loose. Jesus, Jack – three dead in three weeks! At this rate we’ll be into double figures by Thanksgiving.’

  ‘Why didn’t we, ah, know about this before?’

  His brother sighed. ‘Probably because the cops down there were trying to keep a lid on it, hoping to catch the guy before things got any more out of hand. But it seems he outsmarted them – sent a photo of his handiwork to the local scandal sheet, killed another one, and then the Courier ran the damn thing in this morning’s edition. It’ll be coast to coast by tomorrow.’

  ‘So . . . who do we call in? Department of Justice?’

  ‘Absolutely, the FBI, yeah. I’ll tell Hoover to get someone, someone very good, down to the Keys on the next plane.’

  ‘No, Bobby, you won’t tell him. I’ll ask him.’

  ‘Jesus, Jack. Not this again. Who’s Chief Executive, you or Hoover? Fine, he’s FBI Director but you’re the President, for God’s sake!’

  His brother reached for the telephone on the coffee table in front of him.

  ‘I told you before, Bobby, just like I told the Vice-President. I’d rather have that bastard inside the tent pissing out, than outside it pissing in.’ He dialled, and paused a moment.

  ‘I’ve got this, Bobby.’

  ‘You’d better have.’

  9

  He hadn’t really expected the Courier to run the photo in its original, explicit form but he was pleased at how little they had messed with it. The blade and most of the handle of the knife had been obscured by a black rectangle, and the eye-socket itself was blanked by a larger circle of white, but you definitely got the general idea, especially when you read the caption underneath.

  This is the horrific calling-card left by the person responsible for all three of this month’s so-called Keys Killings: a knife, believed to be the murder weapon, plunged into the victim’s left eye-socket. ‘The slayer is clearly a maniac,’ Detective Lieutenant Frank Coulter told the Courier last night. ‘But he’s careless, leaving fingerprints and other evidence at the crime scenes. It’s only a matter of time before we identify and apprehend him. There is no reason for alarm or panic here in the Florida K
eys.’

  Full story, pages 3, 4 & 5.

  He had to laugh. Hadn’t they realised yet why he didn’t give a red cent about fingerprints? Or the knives? As for panicking . . . there was plenty of time for that. He’d barely gotten started.

  He had no interest in looking at the inside pages. This was his story, not theirs, and anyhow they couldn’t even tell it right. ‘Keys Killings’ – it sucked. What a crappy headline. ‘EYE-SOCKET SLAYINGS’ – couldn’t they SEE it? Maybe he’d write them a letter. But that was the Courier for you. One of the big boys, like the LA Times or New York Times, would be more likely to call it right. He must remember to buy copies from Kmart tomorrow, once the story had been syndicated.

  He slid his half-finished breakfast away from him across the diner’s Formica table and yawned. It had been a long night and judging by the lack of any significant police activity along the early-morning-sunlit Overseas Highway, which ran right across from the customer parking lot, they hadn’t found number four yet.

  It couldn’t be much longer, though. He peered out of the restaurant window in the direction of the backwater where he’d left her, half a mile south down the highway just before the Islamorada Bridge.

  Yup. There they were. At least half-a-dozen buzzards, wheeling in the cloudless sky, right above the exact spot. As he watched, he saw one drop out of formation and swoop low down into the mangroves. Almost immediately, two more followed.

  Someone had better find her soon or there wouldn’t be a whole lot left to find.

  10

  The screams were bloodcurdling and came from down by the water. They cut like jagged knives through the laughter and chatter further up the beach, and sunglasses glinted and flashed as people turned their heads towards the sudden disturbance. There were more screams, even louder now, and a long, wailing: ‘Noooooooo . . .’

  Dorothy turned to Stella, grinning. ‘And that is why JFK and Jackie won’t let Caroline and John-John play with Ethel and Bobby’s kids,’ she said. ‘One, they’re hopelessly outnumbered and, two, Jackie says her children would be safer fooling around in the tiger enclosure at Washington Zoo. Look out, here come Kathleen and Joe. They’re the eldest and the most dangerous.’