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stories house various City and County departments, including police, coroner, the office of the District Attorney, and courtrooms and jury-selection waiting rooms.  The jail on the sixth and seventh floors is administered by the San Francisco County Sheriff, as opposed to the City's police department.  Behind the building, a new jail is slowly rising in what used to be a parking lot.
    Hardy entered through the back entrance, was cleared through the metal detector and, deciding to bypass the slowest elevator in America, ascended to the third floor by the stairway and into the familiar bedlam that reigned in the wide hallway.
    Aside from the usual circus, this morning's sideshow featured a convention of perhaps twenty gypsies.  Uniformed policemen were remonstrating with several women about their use of a Butagas container to heat their coffee in the hallway.  Hardy first wondered how they had managed to het a portable gas container through the metal detectors, then watched for a while, fascinated as he often was by the raffish mélange one encountered almost daily between these institutional green walls.
    It seemed to be a reasonable discussion — no one, yet, was raising any voices.  But neither had the flame gone out under the coffeepot.  While one woman tended to the argument, another was pouring liquid into small porcelain cups and passing it to some men, who put lumps of sugar into their mouths before they began sipping.
    "They should set up a TV camera and run this hall live."  It was David Freeman, rumpled as usual in a cheap rack suit, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.  "Probably pull a thirty share."
    Hardy gestured around them.  "You'd need a commentator to explain what's happening.  Like here" — he pointed — "it's a little ambiguous."
    Freeman considered it.  "The host is a good idea.  Maybe we could have the judges rotate, like they do the calendar.  'This week on calendar we've go Marian Braun, and here in the hallway, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LIVE, IT'S JUDGE OSCAR THOMASINO!'"
    They started toward Department 22, the courtroom where Jennifer Witt was to be arraigned in an hour, which was all the time Freeman was going to take getting filled in on the case.  No sense wasting it.  "How's it look?" he asked.
    "They're talking capital."
    "Capital.  Powell ought to go and stand in the witness row outside the gas chamber a few times, mellow him out a little."
    "I think Powell might like it."
    Freeman thought that was debatable.  He had witnessed six executions in several states — no sane person could like it and he did not think Powell was insane.  Not even close.
    "Well, they've got special circumstances two ways — multiple murders and killing for profit.  You know they're alleging three counts?"
    "Three?"
    Like Hardy, Freeman was surprised to learn of the last count against Jennifer, murdering her first husband Ned Hollis nine years earlier.  "That's digging pretty deep, wouldn't you say?"
    "You better read the file."
    They got to the twelve-foot solid wood double doors that led into Judge Oscar Thomasino's courtroom, Department 22.
    "That bad?"
    "At least they've got a case.  It's not frivolous.  But she says she didn't do it."
    Freeman pushed his way through the doors.  "Well, there's a first."

    *     *     *     *     *

    "Maybe she didn't."
    "Maybe," Freeman agreed.  "On the other hand, maybe not."  In the high-ceilinged empty courtroom, even whispers echoed.  Dismas Hardy and David Freeman sat in the last pew, a long, hard, cold bench of light-colored wood.  Freeman, legs crossed, unlit cigar in his mouth, was starting to peruse the file, pulling papers and folders from Hardy's extra-wide briefcase.
    "You're heartening to talk to.  Anybody ever told you that?"
    Freeman shrugged, scanning pages.  "My clients love me.  Why?  I get them off.  Do I think they're guilty?  Do I care?  Probably — to both questions.  Most of the time."
    "Most of the time