Free Jack's Widow by Eve Pollard Page A

murmured to him.
    “Do you want to do your last kind act for your pal Jack?” She pulled him to her and kissed his cheek while tugging him gently toward a roped-off area, back into the quiet end of the corridor.
    “You know…you know I’d do anything,” he stuttered, realizing where they were going and slowing down.
    She was forced to stop well before the door of the private quarters. She could see he was worried about them being alone.
    “But shouldn’t you be mingling with everyone, shouldn’t we be back in there?” He nodded toward the wall of talk.
    “Unless you’re running for office.” She raised an exaggerated, amused eyebrow. “I don’t feel that I have to do anything,” she said and smiled, trying to put her old friend at ease.
    He was reassured by her calm voice but still remained immovable.
    She tried another way.
    “I’d like to know why half of these people are here and what they had to do with Jack. I’d like to tell that damn Texan just how grateful he should be to be following in the footsteps…”
    She could see this was getting through, but as she continued to try and steer him into the quiet corner he was still hesitant.
    He obviously knew. She felt stupid. Of course he would know. His new West Coast contacts were bound to include the police. They would have tipped him off.
    She would have to appeal to every shred of love he had for her dead husband. She suspected that he had no special feelings for her; she just happened to be the one that Jack had chosen. Deck would have been just as lovely to anyone else.
    Even after death he would be on her husband’s side.
    She realized that it was vital he had absolutely no idea that she knew about the frenzy about to engulf her.
    “The current administration,” she muttered sarcastically, “lured me here by saying that now that the people have got over the shock of last year and the scars have begun to heal, the country could mourn Jack with dignity.
    “I obliged,” she continued with a flash of bitterness.
    “All three TV networks are showing it this evening. So the whole country can watch.
    “But we who really loved him, my dear Deck, we have done enough. And what we are going to do now, just like the old days, is walk through the party, say our goodbyes, drive off together, meet up with the others, and really remember the good times.
    “Haven’t you noticed”—she forced herself to smile—“everyonein the family has already gone? I wouldn’t join them until I had found you.”
    She was mentally crossing her fingers, hoping that just because she hadn’t found them that this was true.
    Apart from being seen to mourn their brother, he knew that Joe and Rose Kennedy had other sons wishing to become the elected leader of the free world. As a piece of public relations it was essential they had to be seen attending the presidential reception after the service by their brother’s grave. To night’s moving TV images and tomorrow’s newspaper photographs of their return to the White House would not only remind the nation of the private loss of a family, but would also reinforce the Kennedy dream, that the tragic events of last year were just an interruption before they reclaimed the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
    As to the flattery, Deck didn’t stand a chance. Black Jack had made her an expert many years ago.
    So despite the president’s wish that she remain, and the First Lady’s suggestion that Jackie take a little nap upstairs, it took only a few minutes for them to say their farewells and slip away in Deck’s black sports car.
    They had no idea that just five minutes later the president received the call.
    In her last note, Monroe had left nothing but bequests to various friends’ children and an apology to those friends for seeking “the easy way out.”
    Also included in the envelope was a color photograph. Just the telephone description made the most powerful man on earth’s throat dry.
    It was of Marilyn barely