"Don't worry though," he said with a grin.
"Why not?"
"'Cause I'm not superstitious."
CHAPTER 16
ON MONDAY MORNING, CASEY WAITED FOR ISODORA ON THE fourth floor, in the central hallway by the immigration courtrooms. The court schedule was posted on a thick column in the middle of the hall, and a small crowd, composed mostly of family members, clustered around it. The din of Spanish-speaking voices echoed up and down the sterile hallway with a rhythm and life that reminded Casey of something caged. She detected only two other attorneys, both men, who stood out in their suits and ties. She pressed through the crowd and rolled her eyes when she saw that Isodora was the second-from-the-last case in courtroom number three.
A few minutes later, Maria appeared, out of breath and explaining that an accident had made her bus late.
"You'll get her out, Ms. Jordan?" she asked.
"It depends on what the judge had for breakfast," Casey said.
"Breakfast?"
"It's just a saying," Casey said, eyeing a commotion by the elevators. "It means these judges can pretty much do what they want. Sometimes it depends on their mood. You brought the money?"
"Everything I could get," she said, pulling an envelope fat with faded small bills from her purse. "Almost eleven hundred."
The elevators at the far end of the hall disgorged the prisoners, who marched forward in orange jumpsuits, handcuffed and chained together like a troop from death row. Casey twisted her lips in disgust, walking to meet the advancing prisoners. She scanned the bunch for Isodora and finally found her, the last of the female prisoners before the men came led by a four-hundred-pound Latino with tattoos and a greasy ponytail. The pretty young Isodora hung her head, and when she did look up, her big brown eyes sagged with despair.
"Will I get my baby, Miss Casey?" she asked.
"I'm going to try, Isodora," Casey said, falling in alongside her client on their way to the courtroom. "What can you tell me about your husband's brother?"
"Teuch?"
"You know him, then."
Isodora shrugged. "He's nothing like my husband."
"He's a gang member?"
"He's a King. The Latin Kings," Isodora said, shuffling along under the clinking of chains.
"And you and your husband aren't in business with him in any way?" Casey asked as they stopped just outside the courtroom.
Isodora's eyebrows shot up. "Never. They didn't speak."
Casey raised a finger into the air and said, "You say it to the judge, just like that."
The court had no wood paneling or carved balustrades. It was a big empty room filled up with rows of simple metal benches facing a dais with a desk flanked by the American and Texas flags. Behind the desk, a plastic ICE seal had been screwed into the wall. On the floor, to either side of the dais, rested a table for the government and another for the defense, each with three metal chairs. The ICE agent sat down at the government table. On the defense side, a young Hispanic interpreter already waited.
The prisoners were shuttled into the front row and the agents escorting them clanked and rattled the chains as they separated them one from another, the women on one side and the men on the other. Casey found a seat in the back with Maria among the family members and the two other lawyers.
The judge came in through a side door, followed by a sharply dressed young woman wearing her hair in a tight dark bun. Casey knew that she would be the ICE assistant chief counsel.
The judge, a thin, elderly man in a robe that had faded from black to dark green, peered down his nose, adjusting his glasses as he studied his morning slate of cases. With very little interest, the judge clicked on a small tape recorder, set it on his desk, and began calling the prisoners to the defense table to give an accounting of themselves. None of them spoke English and the judge directed his attention to the young man sitting beside them, the interpreter, glancing only occasionally at the prisoners and the family members appearing on their behalf.
During this process, the young woman with the tight hair would chirp respectfully at the judge from the other side of the room about the government's position. The two of them, despite their differences in age and appearance, worked together like cogs in a machine, grinding slowly through the roomful of prisoners. While the judge showed no emotion, Casey took it as a good sign that many of the prisoners were released to their friends and relatives, even though some-like the enormous man wearing the ponytail-were left to sit and scowl in their handcuffs.
When the judge called Isodora's name, Casey stood and approached the front of the room to address the court beside her client.
"May it please the court, Your Honor," Casey said, using her best courtroom etiquette, "I'd like to ask for a hearing to seek adjustment of status for my client. In the meantime, I'd like to respectfully ask the court to release my client to her own recognizance."
"Without bail?" the judge asked, leafing through the file without looking up at her.
"My client has undergone extreme hardship, Your Honor," Casey said. "Her husband was just killed in a hunting accident. You may have heard of the-"
"You don't think that has anything to do with this?" the judge asked, glaring down at her with a furrowed brow, his mouth a paper cut.
"No, Your Honor," Casey said. "I just wanted you to know the circumstances. My client has a child, who is a United States citizen who is currently in foster care."
"Ms. Jordan," the judge said. "Do you need me to extend to you the courtesy of explaining the law that you're supposed to already know? You've been in this court before. You know how I feel about this whole anchor baby nonsense. I won't have it."
"The little girl is only two, Your Honor," Casey said in a pleading tone. "She needs her mother and I think I could show the court extreme hardship that would convince it to adjust her undocumented status."
The ICE lawyer leaned toward the judge from the corner of her table and said something in a low tone, pointing to the file in front of him. The judge put his head down and began to read, moving his lips as he did.
"Well, it's your lucky day," he said, looking up. "Even under the circumstances."
The judge looked back down and selected a paper from the file, which he studied as he spoke. "The government is willing to offer Ms. Torres a voluntary departure."
"Circumstances?" Casey said.
The judge scowled at her. "Your client has links to organized crime, Ms. Jordan. She's a Homeland Security person of interest and the state is giving her a generous offer."
"She has nothing to do with her brother-in-law, Your Honor. I'd like you to hear her on that subject."
"At a minimum, they have the same last name," he said. "As you can see, we have a lot on the docket, Ms. Jordan."
"What's our alternative, Your Honor? Can I get a hearing?"
The judge raised his eyebrows and glanced over at the young woman lawyer from ICE before holding the paper up at Casey. "Of course you can have your hearing. That's your right, isn't it? Probably by the end of the week. That will end with an order of deportation, unless I'm a fool, and I'm not. After that, you can appeal to the Immigration Board in writing. And, right now, those rulings are running about eighteen months. In the meantime, under the circumstances, I can't see your client being reunited with her child."
"She met the brother-in-law only twice in her life," Casey said.
"You can argue that at your hearing," the judge said, looking at the next file, "not here."
"Your Honor," Casey said, raising her voice, "the court can't keep a mother and her child apart for that amount of time without doing irreparable harm."
"The court isn't keeping them apart, Ms. Jordan," said the judge, scrunching up his wizened face. "The offer of a voluntary deportation is extremely generous. Maybe you don't know that."