Trader rather condescendingly replied that it was a well-known scientific fact that people do burst into flames and have cremated themselves unannounced since the beginning of time.

"It's called spontenuous combusting," he said. "Look it up."

Andy didn't need to look it up. He was quite familiar with spontaneous human combustion and the stories of people suddenly bursting into flames for no good reason.

"Well," he said to Trader, "we'll see what the medical examiner has to say."

"You don't think that psycho's gonna come here and set all of us on fire, do you?" Constance worried aloud.

"Why would he hate us?" Grace couldn't make sense of it. "What did we ever do to him or any Hispanic? And we're not a minority except for our practically being a royal family, and there certainly aren't many of those."

"We don't even know any Hispanics," Faith reminded her family as she looked around the table, her horse-shaped face wavering in soft candle light. "And Papa hasn't a single Hispanic working in his administration and never has. So what do the Hispanics have to be resentful about?"

"Probably what you just said," Andy replied.

"Which was what?" Regina asked between chews.

"It's been my observation that the governor's administration could use a little more variety." Andy tried to be diplomatic. "When an entire group of people finds itself excluded, hard feelings arise and can turn to violence."

"But Bedford doesn't speak Spanish," Mrs. Crimm explained. "He sees no reason to."

"He really doesn't see reasons for much of anything, First Lady Crimm." Andy was candid, and he almost added with all due respect, but the specter of Hammer had been hovering over him all day. "I'm convinced if he could do something about his vision, his life would dramatically improve."

"His vision is the same as it's always been," the First Lady replied. "He envisions a Commonwealth that is uncommon and committed to the wealth and well-being of one and all, and that from this day forth, there shall be the uncommon goal that the people… Oh dear, I'm

afraid I can't remember the next line. What does he say?" She scanned her daughters' bored faces.

"The same thing he says at every inauguration," Regina replied in disgust. "He's used the same speech every time he's elected and it was stupid the first time and it's still stupid." She looked at Andy. "He thinks Virginia ought to be renamed the Uncommonwealth of Virginia, because he hates North Carolina and is damn tired of all these Fortune 500 companies and banks and movies going there instead of here."

She reached for the butter, and the silver knife leapt from her buttery, thick fingers and fled across the heart-of-pine floor. Pony appeared out of nowhere and picked it up. He replaced it with a clean one from the silver chest.

"Can I get you anything else, Miss Reginia?" he politely inquired.

"That's not a bad name," Andy said in surprise. "Why don't all of us call you Reginia instead of the other?"

"I don't want to be called something else, and I'm sick and tired of everyone worrying about what I'm called! And I'm even more sick and tired of no one ever calling me to begin with." Tears jumped out of her eyes. "Every time the phone rings it's just somebody trying to find the base unit. I don't have any friends. Not even one." Regina cried with her mouth full, chewing and miserable. "I was born in a coal mine…"

"No you weren't," her mother firmly interrupted.

"I was conceived in one." Regina became indiscreet. "I know exactly what happened when you and Papa went down into that deep, dark shaft and you had on that little hard hat with the flashlight. Imagine how I feel knowing his sperm had black dust all over it and swam straight to an egg and decided the result would be me!"

She reached for the bottle of wine, and it slipped out of her grasp and rolled across the table and onto the floor. Pony patiently crawled under the table after the bottle of Virginia Chardonnay.

"I'm so fucking sick of everything!" Regina bellowed.

"You are not to use that word ever again," the First Lady told her severely. "What in the world happened to make your mouth so foul? When you were born, you didn't talk like that. And I think the F-word is filthy and unspeakably degrading and unbecoming to a young lady, especially the daughter of a governor."

"That's the way they talked in the coal mine," Regina smugly said to Andy, and by now no one remembered that Trader was at the table or even in this world.

Then he made the mistake of thinking like a press secretary and speaking like a pirate. "Yay. Better ye use euphetisms like darnt, doggone it, fudge, rats, for Pate's sake, that's the darntest thing I ever hear, shit, oh shit…"

"Enough!" Andy ordered him. "I told you not to say shoot in any tense."

"Why are you talking like that?" Regina was out with it, uncovering her ears and glaring at Trader.

"I was born on the island as was everybody afore me," he said as he dabbed his bleeding face with a linen napkin. "I'm afraid the shock of witnessing the murder has done something to me brain."

"Well, I don't care if you were born on the island. You can just forget the rubbish that what you're speaking is Old English or Elizabethan English or that John Smith said shit instead of shot or shoot. Now he might have said shat, but not shit. Does everybody on the island talk like you, or do you have your own special secret vernacular or something?" Regina was brutal but honestly curious. "After all these centuries, why don't you talk so people can understand what the hell you're saying?

"Mama, I insist Papa fire this man. I can't stand him in the mansion another day. I just know I'll hear him in my head all the time and it will drive me to distraction. And I simply can't afford to be driven to distraction because there are so many distractions already and I'm bored to death of being driven everywhere by EPU. I want a car and a license and to go places without security!"

"Shhh!" the First Lady ordered as Pony detected footsteps out front and hurried toward them.

Momentarily, the door shut loudly in the entrance hallway and the tone of murmuring voices suggested that Bedford Crimm had not enjoyed the day much.

"I smell ham!" he announced in dismay. "I thought we were having seafood tonight. I am most decidedly not in the mood for ham. What happened to the crabs I had flown in?"

"Sir, will that be all?' a trooper asked.

"No!" Maude Crimm called out from the dining room. "Don't let him go, sweetie! We need all of the EPU to stay right here!"

This was very much out of character for the First Lady, who was known for getting annoyed with omnipresent security details. At first, she had felt important and admired when squadrons of powerfully built EPU troopers in immaculate suits surrounded her everywhere she went and made certain her every need was fulfilled. Then she grew weary of it. Maude Crimm longed to sit in the garden or the tub or watch TV or shop on the Internet or get her cosmetic procedures without cameras or others taking all of it in. She was becoming increasingly paranoid about her privacy and nurtured a growing suspicion that the troopers saw everything she did-everything, including her endeavors to hide her collectibles.

"What's this all about?" the governor asked as he walked into the dining room and squinted in the candlelight to make out what was on everyone's plates. "Ham," he muttered disagreeably. "1 can't stand ham. What happened to the crabs?" He fixed his unhappy, dull gaze on Regina.

"We let them go." She was candid with her father.

"I flew them in on the state helicopter and you let them go?"

"And the trout," she replied, reaching for the mint jelly.

"Sir." Andy was determined to get to the heart of the First Family's difficulties. "There's a situation I think you need to know about. A black male was just murdered while he was fishing in the river, and Major Trader has alleged that you and your wife and daughters could be in danger. Apparently, he allegedly witnessed the crime and is alleging the suspect is the same one who assaulted Moses Custer and killed Trish Thrash."