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the official pressroom. Reporters were just setting up in front of the podium with the dark green curtain
     draped behind it. Some cameramen perked up at their entrance, but deflated as Brice just shook his head.
    “Ryan and Smith, sit over there,” Brice said. “Leal and Hart, on the other side of the podium.”
    Leal and Hart glanced at each other. He noticed her eyes widen slightly and a quick smile flicked at the corners of her mouth.
    She looks pretty nervous, Leal thought. I hope she knows her stuff.
    The muffled conversations ended abruptly as Sheriff O’Hara strode in from an adjacent doorway with an un-dersheriff trailing
     behind him. As the harsh lights washed over O’Hara’s square features and dark, slicked-back hair, he flashed a practiced smile
     at the reporters and stepped up on the podium, taking his place behind the lectern, which had been specially modified to offset
     O’Hara’s rather short stature. The American flag and the Cook County flag stood at either side of the speaker’s position.
     A dozen flashes popped silently, and the camcorders were shouldered as the cameramen began their simultaneous taping. O’Hara
     continued smiling as the undersheriff announced that a special task force had been assembled to take over the investigation
     of the Miriam Walker homicide, and a limited number of questions would be answered after a short statement by the sheriff.
    Leal watched as O’Hara fumbled with his notes, then looked over at them and nodded. Donald O’Hara had always portrayed himself
     as a no-nonsense cop. “I’m just Get-the-Job-Done O’Hara,” he was fond of saying at press conferences. And this might once
     have been true, Leal thought, but like most politicians who succeed themselves in elective office term after term, the street
     savvy and investigative acumen that had once made O’Hara a good cop had long since been glitzed over by high-priced PR firms
     selected to ensure the sheriff’s continued election. But several recent high-profile setbacks in the sheriff’s department
     had made some cracks appear in the highly protected image. And O’Hara’s slick, media-conscious opponent, Michael Shay, had
     capitalized on these cracks to mount a skillful campaign depicting O’Hara as a faltering, out-of-touch official. Michael Shay, a new leader for the new millennium , the voice-over on his TV ads said, emphasizing Shay’s rugged, blond handsomeness as his image was superimposed on the screen.
     This in contrast to O’Hara’s middle-aged baldness and jowly appearance had the incumbent lagging behind in the polls.
    So he gets on the five, six, and ten o’clock news being videotaped introducing his new, politically correct investigative
     team, thought Leal. A black guy, a woman, and two white guys. Then he thought for a moment. No, wait a minute, I must be the
     Hispanic entry. Yeah, he’s got all the bases covered, he thought, wondering if Sean really had to pull those strings that
     he mentioned. And how long would they be here? That was the question.
    O’Hara cleared his throat.
    “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Thank you for your attendance here this afternoon. I take great pride in introducing to
     you the newest special investigative team in the department.” He went on for a few minutes detailing how a search of the “best
     and brightest” young stars had been assembled to follow up every possible lead on “the heinous crime” with hopes of “bringing
     the perpetrators to justice soon.”
    Perpetrators, Leal thought. If he loses the election he can get a job reading stilted dialogue for David Letterman.
    “Sheriff O’Hara,” one reporter asked, standing. The technician focused the minicam on the speaker’s podium. “Are we to take
     that to mean you feel the Walker case is solvable?”
    “Any case is potentially solvable if you do enough legwork,” O’Hara said. “It’s just a question of tracing down every lead,
     leaving no stone