"Well, I'll pass on that," Henderson said. Then, after a moment of silence, the governor said, "I'll have to mediate this. I'll have to confer with other Important People. Porter, of course, is going to lay an ostrich-sized egg. I don't see how Grant can stay on as a senator, and frankly, that's about the best possible outcome I could have imagined."

"How's that?" Lucas asked.

"Guess who would appoint her replacement?" Henderson said. "I'd have Porter Smalls out of my hair and a new senator who would be wildly happy about supporting me for a better job ... if somebody goes looking for, say, a vice president."

"That hadn't occurred to me," Lucas said.

"Because you're not a natural politician," the governor said. He laughed again. "This is the kind of thing that makes life interesting."

"Unless you're Dannon. Or Carver."

"Well, yeah, I suppose," the governor said. "I'll assign somebody to say a prayer for them."

AFTER THAT, IT WAS a lot of crime-scene stuff, lawyers and political wrangling. Tubbs was dug up and after a nasty autopsy, he was reburied. He'd been hit on the head with a heavy, rounded object like a baseball bat. Death had not been quick.

They found the smear of blood that Tubbs had left in Dannon's car. Unfortunately, the crime-scene tech who found it, and sampled it, unknowingly destroyed the scrawled TG-for Taryn Grant-that Tubbs had hoped they'd see. DNA proved that Tubbs had been in Dannon's car, but they already knew that Dannon or Carver had killed him. So Tubbs's last, fading, flickering effort came to nothing.

LUCAS GOT STATEMENTS from everybody and Alice Green had been telling the truth: at the time Grant went to the bedroom with Dannon, Green had been assigned to the door, and could be seen doing that on the security tapes. Connie Schiffer, in particular, had been curious about Grant and Dannon leaving the party, heading back to the bedroom, and had exchanged looks with Green.

One other politician, arriving late to congratulate the new senator, spoke to Green at the door, and remembered that Grant had not been in the room when he got there. He asked for her, and a moment later she reappeared from the direction of the bedroom, to give him a hug.

The tapes of the bedroom showed nothing, because the room started out dark. Then there was a flicker of light, apparently when Grant walked into the room, and she'd reached out (automatically, she said) and hit the privacy switch, which turned the cameras off. A minute later, she hit the privacy switch again (again, she said, an automatic reflex) and turned the cameras back on as she left. She left the door open, so there was a bit of light, and then a short time later, the door mysteriously closed again, killing the light. There was nothing more on the tape for several hours, when Grant got back from the hotel and hit the privacy switch on the way to the bathroom.

The next people on the tape were Grant, Lucas, Del, and the others, going down to investigate the bedroom.

All of that supported what both Grant and Green had said, except on one point: Grant hadn't been in the bedroom long enough to get to the bathroom and pee, not unless she'd set the women's North American land-speed record for micturition. Nor had she reported the cut-out windows, which seemed impossible to miss. The toilet was in a separate booth, and the window was right overhead. But she was sticking to her story, saying that she hadn't bothered to turn the light on in the bathroom and was in a hurry and simply hadn't noticed the windows. In reality, Lucas suspected she'd gone back to talk with Dannon, but didn't want to admit it, because the next thing Dannon did was kill Carver.

He also suspected the robbery had taken place when the door mysteriously closed, because that must have been when the phone was stolen; and after the party had gone to the hotel for the victory celebration, the house had been closed and the dogs turned loose.

He further suspected that Green, or possibly Carver, could have had something to do with the robbery: probably through an accomplice. He thought that because they monitored the security cameras, and if Grant had ever forgotten to turn the cameras off, could have seen her opening the safe; they probably knew something about the contents of the safe, and that it would be well worth hitting; and they knew about the security measures outside. Also, both Green and Carver had his phone number.

He still didn't understand why either one would call him with the message from "Taryn."

That made no sense at all.

ONE OF THE CRIME-SCENE crew had found what appeared to be two small imprints under the arborvitae bush below the bathroom window. One looked like an impression from the outer edge of a hand; the other just a little curve in the dirt, possibly the impression of a heel. He'd taken photos of both.

When he showed the photos to Lucas, he said, "We're not sure that they are what I think they are. I couldn't testify to it ... I mean, I could say what I think, but any good defense attorney would tear my ass off."

"Cut the crap: What do you think?"

"The curves are small ... like a small hand and a small heel. Like they were made by a woman."

Somebody with large balls, like an exSecret Service woman, Lucas thought. Could Green have cut the windows out earlier in the day, to make way for an accomplice? But that seemed unlikely. Why would she think that Grant wouldn't be going back to pee, and wouldn't notice the cut-out windows?

THE POLITICAL WRANGLING WAS more amusing than anything. The governor called, laughing again, a week after the murders hit the newspapers, and said, "Well, I called and told our senator-elect what all the Important People said, and she said I should write it all down on a piece of paper, roll it into a sharp little cone, and shove it where the sun don't shine. She's not quitting."

"Jesus, I thought she had to, from what I've been reading," Lucas said.

"With a billion dollars, you don't have to do much of anything you don't want to, and she doesn't want to quit," the governor said. "If she does a few million in political advertising over the next six years, nobody'll even remember this little dustup. So, we're moving right along to the important stuff, like revising the estate tax."

"That's the end of it?"

"Not quite. I've invited Grant to a little confab in my office tomorrow, with Porter Smalls. Mitford will be there, and her campaign manager, and I'd like you to sit in. And I'll get Rose Marie to come along."

"Why is that?"

"Because I want everybody clear on what happened here, and why everybody did what they did-including you and me," the governor said.

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, they all got together at the Capitol, in the governor's conference room: Henderson, Grant, Smalls, Mitford, Rose Marie, Lucas, Connie Schiffer, and Alice Green, still working as Taryn's security.

For a political gathering, there was a remarkable lack of even symbolic amity. The governor shook hands with everybody, but nobody shook hands with anybody else.

The governor sat at the head of the conference table, cleared his throat, and said, "I don't expect all of us to be pals after this, but I'd at least like to get things clear for everybody. Senator-elect Grant has, of course, made it clear that she didn't have anything to do with the rogue security people on her campaign staff, and in fact feels that she was being set up for long-term blackmail by those same people. In any case, she will not resign and will take her seat in the Senate in January."

Smalls said, "I think that-"

The governor: "Shut up for a minute, will you, Porter? Let me finish."

"I just-"

"You'll have your chance," Henderson said. He looked at Taryn Grant and asked, "Setting aside all the BS aimed at the media, am I correct that this is your position?"

Grant nodded: "Yes."

Connie Schiffer started to say, "I think we all know that Senator Smalls-"

The governor interrupted: "No. Be quiet. We don't want any of that. So we know that Senator-elect Grant will take her seat in the Senate. I'll now turn to Lucas Davenport, the lead investigator in this case. Lucas, do you have any issues that you will continue to pursue?"

Lucas said, "There are several small mysteries about the whole case that I'd like to resolve, and some minor entanglements-for example, Minneapolis still has to decide what to do about the files that were used to frame Senator Smalls. But at this moment, I see no further possibility for arrests or prosecutions involving anyone in this room. I will tell you that I suspect that Senator-elect Grant is not telling us all that we need to know to effectively close out this case. I have no proof of that, and I see no way to get any proof, unless it turns out that either Douglas Dannon or Ronald Carver has somewhere left behind some evidence of her involvement. We have been through both of their town houses, and through Dannon's safe-deposit box at Wells Fargo. We found considerable cash, but we found nothing that would implicate Senator-elect Grant in any wrongdoing."

"So you're at the end of that road," Henderson said.

"Yes, unless something extraordinary turns up, but I don't think that will happen."

Henderson said, "Okay. I want to tell everybody that I asked that Lucas be assigned to this case, because I trust him absolutely. And now I am ordering him not to speak to any media or to anyone else regarding his suspicions about anybody in this case, unless or until he has absolute proof of wrongdoing. Is that clear to everybody? Lucas?"

"That's clear," Lucas said.