“So the standard of proof is lower. I don’t have to prove Marston’s guilt to twelve people beyond a reasonable doubt. I have to convince nine jurors that it was more likely than not that Marston was involved in the Payton murder. That means a fifty-one percent certainty. And the jury won’t have to agonize over their decision the way a criminal jury would. Because their verdict won’t send Marston to jail or to a gurney for lethal injection. Another jury will get that job.”

Caitlin moves toward the door. “I think you’re going to have a hell of a job convincing those nine people unless you figure out why Marston would want Payton dead. And prove it.”

When she opens the door, the goateed anarchists pop through it with their sleeves rolled up and smirks on their faces.

“Mulder and Scully reporting for duty,” says one.

Caitlin shakes her head and walks out, leaving me to deal with my new assistants.

In the forty hours between the end of my lecture on Friday and dawn on Sunday, we built a circumstantial case against Leo Marston. The only sleep I got was brief naps on the couch in Caitlin’s office, taken while reporters, photographers, and interns worked in shifts over the boxes of Marston papers that arrived in desultory waves from storage rooms unknown. Only my anarchists—who did have actual names, Peter and Ed, prosaically enough—kept pace with me during this marathon. They seemed to see it as a holy mission, one in which iconoclasts could cheerfully take part.

Daniel Kelly moved through the building like the ghost at the feast, making wry observations, delivering coffee, and disappearing for brief reconnaissance patrols, which he called “checking the perimeter.” Whenever Caitlin left the building to cover a story, Kelly went with her. The police scanner in her office enabled her to reach the scene of several racial altercations before the cops did. Most of these involved two or three individuals, and broke out in stores or restaurants, where inflammatory language was easily overheard. On two occasions these fights escalated into brawls, and Kelly proved his value both times by protecting Caitlin with his rather alarming skills.

Saturday morning, Ed the anarchist decided we needed fresh inspiration, so he sat down with a computer and inkjet printer and went to work. An hour later, he walked into the conference room wearing a T-shirt with NAIL BOSS HOG emblazoned across the chest in red. I found it hard to believe that Ed had ever watched an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard, but he assured me he’d followed it religiously as a child growing up in Michigan, and that most of his ideas about the South had been formed by this grotesque television show. By that afternoon, half the Examiner staff was wearing NAIL BOSS HOG shirts, and their galvanizing effect was undeniable. Even Caitlin popped into the conference room wearing one.