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said.”
    â€œWhich was what?”
    â€œMr. Woolford said again that the court would be furious, but she said, ‘You just worry about what I tell you to do. Leave the other six to me.”
    â€œThe ‘other six’? That’s what she said?”
    â€œI’m positive. Then Mr. Woolford said something I couldn’t hear, and she said, ‘I can make you a judge, and I can handle my colleagues.’ And then they went out the door.”
    â€œYou heard her say ‘colleagues’?”
    â€œYes. And I was afraid I knew what that meant. I waited a while. Then I went home and called you.”
    â€œBut why? I mean, why call me? ”
    â€œI was panicked,” she said. “I thought if I didn’t tell someone right away, I might get so scared I’d never tell anyone. I don’t know, as I sit here today, whether you were the right one to call.”
    â€œThat makes two of us.”
    â€œThe thing is, she wasn’t kidding when she said that if I were to find out about her, and what she was saying, I’d be in danger. So who could I go to who wouldn’t just … tell me to go to the police or something?” She leaned toward me across the table. “But I can’t do that. I’m frightened,” she said, “really frightened.”
    â€œWho wouldn’t be?”
    â€œNot just for myself. I mean, if something happened to me, who’d watch out for my little girl?” She shook her head. “I called you because I believe what she said about you being in danger, too, and that you weren’t a part of whatever’s going on. And I’d just read your file, and saw that you’re not easily pushed around and … and can keep a secret.”
    â€œThere’s no attorney-client privilege here.”
    â€œI know.”
    I stood up and went to the windows. They faced south, toward the Art Institute, and there were lots of people in the park again. I looked for the little yogi, but if he was down there I couldn’t pick him out from that distance. I turned back to Stefanie. “So now what?”
    â€œSo,” she said, “now I need you to tell me what to do.”

CHAPTER
    6
    I LLINOIS S UPREME C OURT justices are elected by the people, and serve ten-year terms. They have to be licensed attorneys: three from Cook County—metropolitan Chicago—and one from each of four other districts.
    So there were seven justices, and a few were even said to be quite bright, although legal scholarship has never been the primary qualification. What counts is the ability to get elected, which means outspending and outmaneuvering the other candidates, and getting the backing of the majority party in your district.
    Assuming the woman talking to Clark Woolford was actually a supreme court justice—and Stefanie sure hadn’t made the whole thing up—it had to be one of only two women on the court, both from Cook County. One was Dolores Aguilar. She had a distinctive Hispanic accent and Stefanie was certain it wasn’t Aguilar she’d heard.
    So it had to be Maura Flanagan, who, at maybe forty-five years old, was the youngest member on the court. Flanagan came from a long-time political family, and after law school worked for various county and city agencies. Her last lawyer job was with the Chicago Park District, where she handled labor issues and was said to have an abrasive, often belligerent, style. It was there that she first captured the public eye when the Sun-Times, in a story about unions and public employees, quoted an exhausted, frustrated union lawyer who, after a long and unsuccessful negotiating session, unwisely opined in the presence of a reporter that Flanagan was “one tough broad,” and he hoped she wouldn’t “fall off her broomstick on the way home.”
    Left alone, the flap over those remarks would have died quickly. Maura Flanagan, though, knew a good thing when she