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authorities are interviewing him. However, as an attorney, you understand that what people say they know is often very different from what they do know. That man may have been moved by your testimony so he made something up thinking he could make you feel better.”
    The Senator leaned forward slightly, raising his palm as if to show her there were no tricks up his sleeve.
    “In Washington, as in a courtroom, people can become fixated on their fantasies. They believe they have the singular ability to expose a great and important truth. They show up in any public forum: at schools, at rallies, and especially at political gatherings. They will speak to anyone who will listen. They are adept at choosing just the right words that will make someone as passionate as you clutch at the straw they are holding.
    “They believe in atrocities and conspiracies. They come here to save the world by speaking out and sometimes by threatening those of us who serve the people. Washington is its own unique and not always logical world. It takes an old hand like mine to steer through it.”
    “I am not naïve, Senator, but I am not going to turn a blind eye to a possible informational thread,” Josie argued. “I simply want proof one way or the other that he wasn’t talking about Hannah.”
    Patriota leaned back in his chair, seeming both annoyed and amused by her tenacity.
    “When I was a young Senator I thought as you. I wanted to listen to everyone. But I learned quickly that this job is like triage. I must weed through all the problems, and the broken people, and the desperate tragedies until I find the one thing that is possible to save and nurture.”
    He sighed at exactly the right moment. He gestured just emphatically enough as if this would prove his dismay.
    “It used to be there would be a handful of these poor souls running around, getting it into their heads that they had something to contribute to the process or a solution to a problem. In reality, they are the problem.”
    “It must be difficult to deal with concerned citizens,” Josie noted, her gaze even and her smile small.
    Patriota’s eyes flashed. He was unhappy to be challenged in this way but too practiced to lash out.
    “I am not easily shamed, Ms. Bates, because I am a realist. People like that man are not your concerned and curious American citizen. If he were, he would have gone through channels. He would have engaged the services of someone able to articulate the problem and manipulate the system appropriately. He might have sought out a lawyer, don’t you think?” His eyes crinkled as if he enjoyed calling ever so politely on to his personal carpet. “Although if he had done that there might have even been more drama. Politicians and lawyers, we are cousins, are we not?”
    “I suppose the difference is that a lawyer gives the benefit of the doubt,” Josie pointed out.
    “Often for a price higher than a politician’s.” Patriota threw back his head and laughed, pleased to make a joke at his own expense. “I find a lawyer’s outrage is often equal to either her billing hours or the interest of the press. I am not being disrespectful, but we in Washington can’t be as democratic as a lawyer. I applaud all who step up to the table, but I know not everyone will get to sit down. There simply aren’t enough places.”
    “And you decide who gets a chair?” Josie asked.
    “This is what I am elected to do,” Ambrose said candidly. “Government has limited resources. Most constituents are happy if their lives are not disrupted. However, some human beings are sensitive to outrage. The right voice raised at the right moment is as combustible as an open campfire in a dry wood. That person will get my attention, and I will determine how to best deal with him or her. Your gentleman was only crying wolf. Wolf criers, I dismiss.”
    “If I did that, I would have dismissed half my clients. I would have dismissed Hannah when I first met her and she would