Young Congressman John F. Kennedy and private detective Jack Griffin form a tenuous friendship and rivalry at an Army-Navy Club dinner, hours before the eye-catching Betty Dyson is murdered.
A probable suspect, Kennedy hires Griffin to investigate, fearing the police will quickly arrest the "playboy congressman." Griffin, a wartime paratrooper and ex-FBI agent learns from detective Vince O'Heaney that the Dyson was raped, slashed, and stabbed.
The police see no need for an autopsy, and her fighter ace husband has her cremated. The pilot has an alibi. Kennedy's wealthy father, Joseph P. Kennedy, arrives in Washington to take charge, fearing any public connection of the congressman with the murder will doom his career.
With the police building the case against their only suspect, a crooked detective orders Griffin off the Dyson case and offers to cleanse Kennedy's file for $500,000. Meanwhile, two hoodlums ransack Griffin's apartment, rough him up, and warn him off the case. A sometime Kennedy girlfriend is murdered, and police superintendent Blaine wants Congressman Kennedy to help block efforts to investigate corruption involving unsolved murders in Washington. Kennedy makes no commitment.
