I stood there, fairly stupefied. “Jane said I wouldn’t be on-air right away.”

“I like it about as much as you do, but I just found out that the jury reached a verdict in the Tony Pitello trial, and they’re reading it this morning.” He looked at the clock on the wall, then looked back at me and scowled more. “You know who Tony Pitello is, right?”

“Sure.” I was relieved that Tony Pitello had been all over the news. “Mob lawyer charged with murder-for-hire. He allegedly got someone to knock off a witness who he had been paying to stay out of a case.”

Tommy Daley gave me a grudging nod. “I like that you said ‘allegedly.’ No one in this business seems to remember that word anymore.” He clapped his hands together. “All right, so get your shooter.”

“Shooter?”

He grimaced. “Your cameraman.” He pointed across the room to a black guy with a thick mustache. “Now, get the hell out of here.”

19

T he criminal courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue, the place lawyers in Chicago refer to simply as “26th and Cal,” is not in the nicest location. It isn’t too far from some now-gentrified areas on the west side of the city, but such neighborhoods might as well be whole countries apart. A weird airspace seems to exist around 26th and Cal, an air of having seen way, way too much, combined with a bristling, fearful tone as if everyone on the block is looking over their shoulder, certain that something terrible is about to happen again.

The cameraman Tommy assigned to me was a big teddy bear of a guy, and fittingly, his name was Ted. Ted Wheeler was a cheerful man who showed me how to put in my earpiece, called an ISB, and how to work the mike while we were driven in a Trial TV van to the courthouse.

“Cameras aren’t allowed in the courthouses in Illinois,” Ted said, “so you go inside, watch the verdict and get back outside as fast as you can. We’ll pick a spot before you head in, so when you get outside you’ll know where we’ll be, and you’ll need to hit the ground running. We want to broadcast the verdict before any other station or network.”

I nodded fast, taking this all down in my head. “Okay, but shouldn’t I write what I’m going to say first?”

He nodded.

“When will I do that?”

“While you’re running.”

I looked at him to see if he would laugh. Nothing. He stroked his mustache in a thoughtful way. Usually I can’t stand mustaches, but Ted’s suited him.

“We’ll be ready to go live whenever you are,” Ted said.

“Live?” I squeaked.

“We didn’t know until last night that they had a verdict in this case. We need it live. The jury has been sequestered for the weekend. You ever seen a sequestered jury?”

“No, I only did civil cases, and we rarely sequester them for that stuff.”

Ted made a whistling sound and chuckled. “They’re usually ornery. They don’t know when they start deliberating that the judge might sequester them. They don’t get to bring a change of clothes or their Ambien or anything. And then the judge sticks them in a crappy hotel and most of them get drunk from the minibar. By the time they get to court, they smell from wearing the same clothes, and they’re tired and cranky.”

He stopped and peered at my face. “You might want to put on more makeup.”

“More?” I’d slathered it on this morning to the point that I felt like a drag queen about to take the stage at the Baton Club.

“The lights and camera suck it out of you.” He pointed at my cheeks. “More powder. Blush.” Then my eyes. “Lots more mascara.”

Thankfully, I’d brought my makeup with me. I grabbed my bag from the floor of the van and began plastering more paint onto my face.

“Anyway,” Ted continued, “make sure you memorize what the jurors look like, and we’ll try to grab them for interviews when they come out.”

I exhaled, mentally scribbling down everything he was telling me. I nodded toward the electronic equipment that filled most of the van. “Do I need to learn any of that stuff?”

“Some of the good reporters learn it eventually, but no.” He pointed to the driver, a young guy wearing plaid pants and a bulky black leather jacket. “Ricky will handle it, right, Ricky?”

Ricky raised his chin in the air and kept driving and talking on his cell phone.

Just then we pulled up in front of the courthouse. It was a hodgepodge of a place. The original building was elegant, stately and made of limestone, while the newer section was a utilitarian addition that looked like any other municipal building and had no continuity to the original. A wide swath of concrete stairs ran from the street to the front door and the section where the two sides met.

Trailing up those steps was a huge line of people.

We got out of the van. The day was overcast, wind whipping down the street.

“Aw, crap,” Ted said, looking at the line. “It’s like this sometimes on Monday morning.”

“Is that the security line?” I held my hair back from my face. The wind was blowing it everywhere. I had only been to 26th and Cal once, and that was for a ticket I’d gotten on the Vespa for not signaling a turn. The cop pulled me over, asked me on a date, and when I said, no, thanks, I’m engaged, he gave me a sour look and a citation.

“Yeah,” Ted said. “And it’s bad. I mean, that kind of line can take an hour.” He looked at his watch. “And we don’t have an hour.”

“There’s an attorney line, though, right?” I stood on my toes and craned my neck around the column of disgruntled people.

Ted shrugged. “I’ve never been here with an attorney before.”

I let go of my hair and dug through my bag for the ID I’d previously used to get through security at the Daley Center, the civil courthouse. I flipped it over and read the back. “Yep. It’s for the whole county. I can skip this line.” I looked back at Ted. “It’s legal nirvana.”

He beamed. “What else do I need to know?” “Room number five hundred. Break a leg.”

20

I nside the courthouse, I ran up to a bored-looking sheriff. “Morning. Where’s Room five hundred?”

Like an automaton, he pointed to his left, no other movement of his body, no change in his expression.

“Thanks.” I sprinted that way, dodging around families, rapper types in baggy jeans, cops. This was definitely not like the civil courthouse, where nearly everyone was a lawyer, and people moved fast and with a purpose.

My heels click-clacked on the floor, but I stopped momentarily when I got to what was obviously the original foyer of the old building. The marble floors, carved stone walls and stained-glass windows were beautiful, but you’d have to look beyond the film of grime that coated them in order to truly appreciate them. No time.

I hurried to the elevator bank and snuck in a packed one as the doors were closing. At the fifth floor, no signs explained where the courtrooms were. I made a few starts and stops in different directions until I found 500.

The courtroom was huge and majestic. At the far end, a judge’s bench made of oak sat high above the rest of the room. Next to the bench was an inlaid wood bookshelf full of ancient law texts that looked as if they hadn’t been touched in years. A jury box sat on one side of the bench, counsel’s tables on the other. Behind the counsel’s tables, high oak-trimmed windows lined the wall.

If the courtroom was open and spacious at one end, the gallery was packed. Rows of wooden pews provided seating for probably two hundred people, but the spectators were crammed together, shoulder to shoulder, causing the overflow to stand around the perimeter. I scanned the room and saw a few newscasters I recognized, and others who were obviously news types. Some of them chose to stand near the front, probably to get the best view. I decided to take a different tactic. I muscled my way between a few men at the back, ready to run for the door when the verdict was read.