Caroline Owens wove her way through the corridors of the West Wing, handling her visitors' card with obvious nerves. She knocked on C.J's door but didn't wait before she entered.

C.J stood and offered the woman her hand and then a seat on the couch.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs Owens."

"Call me Caroline, please," she said. "And I imagine you aren't sorry about the mess I've landed on your laps."

"You didn't land it, Caroline," C.J responded. "We we're grateful that we knew so soon, before we could be hit with it by the media."

"Yes, I suppose." Caroline paused for moment, "you'll have to bare with me. I haven't really got used to the idea that he won't be coming back"

"I can understand that," C.J offered.

"I just don't want anyone to make a big thing of it. He was my husband. I loved him, and he did love me. He never said, which is kind of how I know."

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"I just came home and found him there." Caroline didn't look at C.J as she spoke.

"He was on the couch, sitting there. I called the police. The detective said it wasn't suicide and as far as they could make out, natural causes wasn't likely. He didn't have anything and the coroner said it wasn't a heart attack. Like in the new Harry Potter book, 'he was perfectly healthy except that he was dead.'

"The detective's an old friend of mine, although he didn't know Charles that well. He won't take it anywhere but we still have to wait on the autopsy. Of course, the police wanted me to list anyone I knew might have had a grudge against him. That's when I went through his files and found the stuff about Gary. He had a key. I knew Gary was out at a lunch so I went round there and went through his files. I found his evidence of Chris's stealing."

C.J let her talk, storing up the information she needed for Leo, the President, Toby and the Press. She looked politely concerned and disinterested. Leo had told Caroline that the absolute best person to tell things to was C.J and they, the White House, had no interest in putting her on camera or even talking about what had happened.

"I don't want it to go any where, C.J," she said. "I told Chris I wouldn't press charges if he gave the money back and didn't press charges against Gary. And I told Gary to pay Chris back and let it be.

"He's dead, why can't it just be that?"

C.J stopped a moment. "I don't know," she said. "But he was a senator, and the media will discuss what happened if they know there's something to discuss. I'll do my best to keep them away from you, but there will be questions. Just answer them as simply as you like, but answer truthfully, always truthfully. If you don't want to answer a questions, just say so."

Caroline nodded wearily. The shock was beginning to sink in and hard reality of she had found would be waiting for her.

"I'll need to find his brother, and call him," she murmured.

C.J took the other woman's hand and held it gently between her own.

"When he came home last week he was laughing because of some grammatical error in the paper he'd read on the way home."

Carol knocked gently on the door.

Caroline didn't look up but C.J took her briefing book and left the room. She gestured Carol stay with Mrs Owens for the time being.