Id be unprejudiced no matter what I suspected. You have to be when you do my kind of work. But I cant believe you want me to help you dig up Kennedy.

No manual labor is required. I just need you to verify

And get shot in the process. For Gods sake, Kennedy is buried at Arlington Cemetery.

Is he?

She went still. What the devil are you saying?

Sit down.

I dont want to sit down. I want you to talk to me.

Okay. He paused. What if it isnt Kennedy buried at Arlington?

Heaven help me, not another conspiracy theory?

Conspiracy? Yes, I guess that about covers it. But with a slight twist. What if it were one of Kennedys doubles who was shot in Dallas? What if Kennedy died before the Dallas trip?

She stared at him in disbelief. Kennedys doubles?

Most public figures have doubles to protect both their lives and their privacy. Its estimated Saddam Hussein has at least six.

Hes a dictator of a third-world country. No one could get away with that here.

Not without help.

Whose help? she asked sarcastically. Little John-John? Maybe brother Bobby? Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Youre nuts. Its the most outrageous thing Ive ever heard. Who the hell are you accusing?

Im not accusing anyone. Im just looking at possibilities. Ive no idea how the man died. He had all kinds of health problems that werent public knowledge. His death could have been by natural causes.

Could? My God, are you suggesting the cause might not have been natural?

Youre not listening. Dammit, I dont know. The only thing I do know is that a deception that exten-sive would have involved more than one person.

A White House conspiracy. A cover-up. She smiled mockingly. And isnt it convenient for you that Kennedy was a Democrat? You can paint the op-position as a bunch of unscrupulous connivers not worthy of winning the election this year. What a co-incidence that a massive smear like this might trans-late to a victory for your party.

It might.

You bastard. I dont like smear campaigns. And I dont like being used, Logan.

Understandable. Now, if youre through venting your displeasure, will you listen to me for a moment? He leaned forward in his chair. Eight months ago I got a call from a man named Bernard Donnelli, a mortician who owns a small funeral home outside Baltimore. He asked me to meet him. He told me just enough to intrigue me, so I flew to Baltimore the next day. He was scared and met me in a parking garage at five in the morning. He shrugged. No imagination. He must have thought he was Deep Throat or something. Anyway, he was more greedy than he was scared and offered to sell me information. He paused. And an object that he thought I might find valuable. A skull.

Only a skull?

The rest of the body was cremated by Donnellis father. It seems that the Donnelli Funeral Home has been used for decades by the Mafia and Cosa Nostra to dispose of bodies. The Donnellis be-came known to the mob as being very discreet and reliable. However, one particular disposal made Donnelli Senior very uneasy. Two men appeared one night at Donnellis home with a mans body and, though the money they paid him was extraor-dinary, he was uneasy. They werent his regular cus-tomers and couldnt be counted on to play by the rules. They tried to keep him from seeing the corpses face, but he caught one glimpse and it was enough to scare him shitless. He was afraid theyd come back and cut his throat to eliminate him as a witness. So he rescued the skull and hid it away to use as a weapon and an insurance policy.

Rescued it?

Not many people know that it takes a tempera-ture of twenty-five hundred degrees and a burning time of at least eighteen hours to completely destroy a skeleton. Donnelli managed to position the body so that the skull would partially avoid the flames. When the two men left after forty-five minutes, Donnelli retrieved the skull and burned the rest. Donnelli used the skull as a tool for blackmail, and before he died he told his son, Bernard, where hed buried the skull. A rather macabre legacy but profitable, very profitable.

Donnelli died?

Oh, he wasnt murdered. He was an old man and had a bad heart.

And who was he blackmailing?

Logan shrugged. I dont know. Donnelli Junior wouldnt tell me. The deal was for the skull.

And youre saying you didnt press him?

Why would I tell you that? Of course, I tried to get it out of him. All hed tell me was what Ive told you. He wasnt as gutsy as his father and he didnt like living on the edge. He offered me the location of the skull and the story in exchange for enough money to set him up in Italy with a new face and identity papers.

And you took the deal?

I took it. Ive paid more for prospects with less potential.

And now you want me to bring that potential to fruition.

If what Donnelli told me was the truth.

It isnt. The entire story is crazy.

Then why not go along with me? Whats the harm? If its not true, then youll come out with your pocket full of my money and Ill come out with egg on my face. He smiled. Both prospects should bring you extreme pleasure.

Its a waste of my time.