The spectacle ended in a hung jury. News analysts predicted the Southern District of New York would reload and try, try again, this time armed with new information and more pressure on potential witnesses. Redlick was the big fish they wanted; this was known. It beggared credulity to assume anything had transpired at the corporation without his say-so. Problem for the DOJ was, the senator had cunningly insulated himself as a matter of course; he’d placed the majority of his holdings in a blind trust upon assuming office. Critics alleged that he’d orchestrated certain aspects of his business with a wink and a nod, as a mafia don might. Redlick’s former CFO declined to flip on the senator, immunity deal notwithstanding. Apparently, the exec was more terrified of vengeful Russian oligarchs (and likely Redlick himself) than doing five to ten in a federal prison.

Adeyemi was likely to be the player without a chair when the organ stopped playing. His prize? An unlucky recipient of the government’s full attention. The Feds reasoned that a longtime bodyguard, driver, and confidant would possess mucho dirt on Redlick. Surely said bodyguard, driver, and confidant had been corrupted by proximity. Surely he possessed a weak spot that the Southern District of New York could exploit to force his testimony.

Redlick, a rumored deviant and scofflaw long before this current scandal, had cause to be mightily worried. He was the first New York Republican elected to the U.S. Senate since the 1990s and the odds were stacked against another term. Whatever his legal and political jeopardy might entail, and amid a chorus of fellow GOP senators calling for him to quit his office, Redlick exuded his trademark smugness at every press conference. He was either a man with nothing to fear, or a man who feared nothing.

I got on the road.

Late November had stolen upon us, robbed the trees of their autumn splendor, and bruised the fields with brown and gray. The long, brooding nights of winter were certain to prick a guilty man’s conscience with dread, if not introspection.

■■■

I arrived at the cabin and parked next to an SUV with dried mud on its New Jersey plates. The spot overlooked a beach and a chilly stretch of lake. An early snow had dusted the upper Hudson, with another storm predicted to slam us before the weekend. Fallen leaves had crumbled to dust, opening big spaces between the white poplars and paper birches. Adeyemi stood at the far end of a dock, hands stuck into the pockets of a windbreaker. He wore a .38 police special in a shoulder holster. Invisible under the windbreaker, but I’d gone over the news footage and knew it was there all right.

He watched me exit my old pickup and then slouched in my direction.

Once upon a time, Adeyemi had been as photogenic as a menswear model with those broad shoulders and Dunhill suits. Sixty-eight and sliding fast, his trademark brush cut had thinned to wisps. Lines etched his gaunt face. Lively and mean, those eyes of his. Some might have mistaken his posture for geniality. Not I. Cruelty and evil age like wine.