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much time in the building. Still, he knew that preliminary arraignments were held in a high-tech courtroom somewhere downstairs.
    He skipped the view tonight and crossed the lobby, stepping over to a window on the other side of the front desk. An old man dressed in a uniform sat on a stool exchanging tickets for cell phones as if checking hats or coats at a nightclub. Behind him were hundreds of numbered slots where each phone was kept. The man smiled with reassurance, taking Teddy’s cell phone and handing him a ticket marked 407. Teddy glanced at the number, then slipped it into his pocket on his way around the corner to the metal detectors and X-ray machines. Once he was through security, he gathered his things and followed the signs down the wide staircase, surprised they hadn’t noticed his coffee and more than grateful.
    Preliminary arraignments were held twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and only stopped when the judges were due to make a shift change or in need of a break. The court worked like a deli. You took a number and waited your turn. Teddy guessed it would be some time before Holmes’s number came up, but didn’t mind. He wanted to watch the cases that preceded theirs while he figured out what he was supposed to do. Not in the legal sense. He knew a preliminary arraignment wasn’t much more than a formality, particularly in a murder case because there could be no discussion of bail. Teddy’s concerns were technological. Besides, he was still rattled, still shaky at the core, and he needed time to chill.
    The courtroom was just down the hall. Teddy entered and sat on a bench in the back row. But he wasn’t exactly seated in the courtroom. It was more like an observation room completely enclosed by glass. Speakers were built into the walls so that the public could hear the proceedings. Teddy had read about this courtroom in the newspaper when the building first opened. The court consisted of two tables for the attorneys and the judge’s bench, each furnished with speakerphones. Beside the judge, a platform took the place of the witness chair and a thirty-six-inch Sony television monitor replaced the defendant. The entire proceedings occurred via TV and over a telephone conference call. The defendants spoke to the court from a holding cell in the basement of the roundhouse five safe blocks away—the cell rigged with a camera and telephone as well. Economic and safety concerns that went with the transportation of prisoners were no longer relevant issues for the taxpayers.
    Teddy glanced about, realizing he was the only one in the observation room. He looked through the glass, watching the judge talk to a defendant and listening to their conversation over the speakers. While the judge relied on the speakerphone, he noticed the attorneys held the handsets to their ears. The process seemed straightforward enough. When the prosecutor began speaking to the judge, Teddy opened his coffee, leaned below the view of the bench and sipped through the steam. He was trying to suppress the memory of seeing Darlene Lewis’s mangled body bound to the dining room table, but he couldn’t make it. The look on her face as she was murdered remained crystal clear. And the shock was beginning to give way to fear. At some point tonight, he would have to face Oscar Holmes without the benefit or distance of television. He’d have to talk to him in person. Maybe even shake the madman’s hand.
    Someone entered the room behind his back and he turned. It was ADA Carolyn Powell.
    “They’ve bumped us up,” she said, taking a seat beside him. “Unless the judge takes a break, we’re next. Andrews wants to fast-track Holmes out of the roundhouse and get him into a cell, for his safety as well as everyone else.”
    “Where are they taking him?”
    “Curran-Fromhold,” she said. “They know you’re coming. Everything’s set.”
    Teddy nodded. “Has the house been cleared?”
    “The body’s out, but Vega thinks we