Induma said, "I have here as well the paternity test revealing that Grade's father was then-Vice President Caruthers, and a recording implicating him in the murders. "

Caruthers wilted back into his chair. The lights shone through his green eyes, his unruly hair.

"You have consistently implored us to question our leaders. To hold them accountable. You said that no man is above the law. You said that every American, no matter his post, no matter his privilege, can be faced down, called to answer. My question for you, from Gracie, is, will you answer?"

The agents' hands stayed dug into my arms, my neck, but none of us moved. We stood together, frozen, heads tilted back, taking in the spectacle playing out inside and overhead.

Caruthers rose with great dignity, set his microphone on the stool, and walked from the stage.

Chapter 49

I was held for nearly two weeks on the Mack Jackman murder while the storm brewed, Induma disseminating information from outside, agents and representatives of all stripes poking and prodding at me until it was obvious there was nothing more to get. We turned over the one hundred eighty grand, the ultrasound, the paternity report, Charlie's bone-chip analysis, and the recording of Wydell on the pitcher's mound. I'd done nothing wrong, or at least nothing that the circumstances didn't necessitate. They even opened up Frank's murder file and found nothing to raise an eyebrow at. Having a new ally in the incumbent president probably didn't hurt matters. Charges were dropped, and I was released a few weeks before the election.

Returning home, I saw that my place had been ripped apart. Carpets torn up, plumbing extracted, holes punched in the drywall. It would have been easier just to move, but I decided to stay. Rebuild. It's been a few months, and the place is now functional, but it needs some more cosmetic work. I've been told that these things take time. And, finally, I feel like I have time.

The world, needless to say, is no better for what I have done. Caruthers lost. I can't say we made him lose, but we sure made him not win. I was his October surprise. Or, more accurately, Gracie

Everett was. She lived only thirteen days, but she mattered.

I didn't vote.

The night of his acceptance speech, my old friend Andrew Bilton called to express his gratitude and tell me I was a patriot. But he's still a mediocre human and a worse president. Who would you rather have? A leader who is unthinkingly loyal to opinions you disagree with? Or one who is insincere about opinions you share? A fool or a hypocrite? Too often, it seems, these are our only options. I don't know the answer. Looking at the state of the Union, I don't even know that I'd do the same thing over again. All I know is what I did. And I've been told that what you do is the measure of a person.

A few weeks after the election, Caruthers was indicted. The connective tissue between him and the murders is thin, but his link can be lab-tested and DNA-analyzed. People were crushed. There were mournful columnists and genuinely dazed talking heads and vehement staffers, holding their devastation beneath an angry veneer of denial. There were even some tears when the news cameras found the right Man or Woman on the Street. I won't say it was like when Bobby Kennedy was shot-neither is it that time, nor is Caruthers such a man-but it was a reminder to everyone that we might be too far gone to have heroes anymore. Maybe that's a good thing.

They made a big show of getting him right when the Senate adjourned. Steps of the Capitol Building and all that. The footage has become another tabloid favorite, as overplayed as O.J.'s Bronco hightailing it down the 405 or those Boeing 767s disintegrating into dust and flame. Caruthers being led, handcuffs glinting at the sleeves of his five-thousand-dollar suit. "This is an outrage," he says, "and I look forward to defending myself against all charges. I'm not concerned in the least." But in a clip they showed later of him outside the courthouse, he was raising both cuffed wrists to get a trembling cigarette to his lips. Those charges keep proliferating, from murder to destruction of evidence to conspiracy to obstruction of justice to that new blue-chip favorite: perjury. James Brown took a sweetheart deal to roll, and then two more guys went snitch, and the word is the DOJ's putting that mosaic together, piece by piece.

June has stopped showing up for court dates, and there are rumors she will file for divorce.

Wydell turned up dead last week in Altamira. In the black-and-white morgue photos, he looked like a homeless person. That neat fifties hairdo grown out into a tangle. Curls of facial hair. Dirt-blackened cheeks. He'd been stabbed in the kidney with a screwdriver for sleeping in a bum's nook on the port, and he'd dragged himself behind a tire-repair shack and bled out.