It was the state coroner’s official ruling that Governor Richard King had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A colossus of state politics priming for a run at the White House come the end of his term, his suicide naturally came as a shock to the larger state population who had worshiped him as much for his larger-than-life personality as for his over-arching social reform.
Of course, when shocking things happen, rumors always tend to spiral around like vultures to a fresh corpse. There were whispers that Richard King, Sr. was the victim of a finely executed conspiracy chiefly orchestrated by his three sons. The whispers even went so far as to claim that it was Richard King, Jr. who pulled the trigger. Of course, no one would ever be able to prove the speculation even if they dared to. The King family had an untouchable air about them; a fine balance of outward charisma and ambiguity that everyone just knew meant danger beneath the surface.
In Quotation Marks 