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deliberations in any way.”
    Melanie hastened to add, “And the state intends to request a jury
instruction to the effect that the news of the shooting should not affect
the jury’s deliberations in any way, in the event that Your Honor
allows the trial to proceed.”
    I saw what she was doing. If we were going to go forward, she was
going to throw it in their faces, insist so stridently that the shooting
mustn’t affect their deliberations that the jurors would begin to wonder
if it should, whether we were hiding something important.
    “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Judge Iris said, saving
me from having to respond.
    We went back into the courtroom. The reporters and a few spectators
had been admitted to the gallery, but the jurors were still
outside. The moment of truth was close, and I could not remember
how I’d meant to begin. I needed to review my notes. The deputy
had brought in Ellis and seated him at the defense table. I gave him
a thumbs-up. He shook his head, looking sick to his stomach. He
had on his gray suit and a purple shirt with a black tie. Teddy had
gone to his house with a sheriff ’s deputy the weekend before trial
to retrieve a selection of clothes. The judge had been keeping them
for us in her chambers.
    “Okay,” I said to Ellis. “The judge is going to ask the jury if they
heard about what happened to Teddy, and whether it’s going to affect
their deliberations in any way. The jurors want to finish this trial as
much as we do. They’ve been sitting here for two weeks the same way
we have. So it’s really just a formality. I doubt any of them is going to
want to get out of it at this stage.”
    “And then you’re on,” Ellis said in a tense voice, one of regret and
fear. He wouldn’t look at me. I knew I ought to ask him whether he
wanted to accept the DA’s offer of a mistrial. I didn’t say anything. If
someone had told me I didn’t have to give that closing argument, I
would have kissed him on the lips.
    “All rise,” the deputy said. “The Superior Court of San Francisco
is now in session, the Honorable Catherine Iris presiding.” She came
in and took her place on the bench. The court clerk called the case. It
was all as ritualized as a church service where the officiants have long
since forgotten the meaning of the prayers. “All right,” the judge said.
    “Anyone have anything to put on the record?”
    “Yes, Your Honor.” Melanie stood, resting her fingertips on the
glass-covered table. “The state moves for a mistrial without prejudice,
based on the fact that defense attorney Theodore Maxwell was critically
wounded in a shooting just a block and a half from this courtroom
yesterday prior to the conclusion of arguments. Reports of the shooting
have saturated local news media, and it is the state’s belief that the
jury has become irrevocably tainted.”
    “Counselor?”
    It took a moment for me to realize that the judge was looking at
me. Thinking that we’d been through this, I feared that they were
playing a trick on me, that what I had thought would happen was not
happening. Perhaps the judge was going to change her mind and rule
in the DA’s favor. My face burned. Judge Iris said, “We’re just making
a record here, Counselor. What we were talking about in chambers.”
    There was subdued laughter from the gallery. Feeling my face grow
hotter, I managed to blurt out something about my client’s constitutional
rights, a garbled version of what I’d said before.
    I was barely finished before Melanie said, “Your Honor, the state
requests that the jury be polled.”
    “Very well,” Judge Iris said. “I will poll the jury. Deputy, please ask
the jurors to come in and take their seats.”
    I felt Ellis stiffen. I didn’t dare look at him now. My eyes were on
the notes I’d made for the closing argument. I was too nervous to read
them, but I stared down at them just the same, willing the words to
resolve into meaning. Then I heard the