Casey's cheeks burned. She turned to Isodora just in time to see two tears spill from the corners of her eyes.
"My baby, please," she said.
"If we go along, they're going to put you on the next plane out of here," Casey said in a low tone. "Maybe today."
"To Mexico?" she asked.
Casey nodded.
"But Paquita is American, Miss Casey."
"I know," Casey said. "But she can't help you stay here until she's twenty-one. And if we take the hearing and they order your deportation, you can't get back in legally, ever."
"I just want my baby."
"Maybe I can work on some kind of visa," Casey said, trying to overcome the sinking feeling that nothing would bring this woman back. "There are other ways to get you back. Maybe a green card."
Isodora clasped her hands together, looked down, and nodded yes.
"Ms. Jordan," the judge said, "you may be getting paid by the hour, but the court isn't."
"We'll take the voluntary deportation, Your Honor," Casey said.
The ICE lawyer looked up at the judge, beaming.
CHAPTER 17
WHAT HAPPENED?" MARIA ASKED IN THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE the courtroom.
"We did the best we could," Casey said, watching Isodora as she trudged away down the hall behind the fat man while the three other prisoners she'd come in with sauntered alongside them.
"They didn't let her talk," Maria said.
"They didn't stop her," Casey said. "They offered her a deal and she took it. She wants to be with her baby, Maria. You can't blame her for that."
"Everyone I know," Maria said, "they say she will be let go until her hearing. Now she must leave? This is not right."
"Maybe," Casey said.
"I know this."
"I'm going to try and find out if it's not right," Casey said. "Excuse me."
Casey broke off from Maria and strode down a side hall, working her way through a small maze toward the ICE counsel offices. When Casey turned the corner past the judges' offices, she actually caught sight of the back of the ICE lawyer's tight hair bun up ahead.
Casey took off at a jog, catching the young lawyer just as she reached for the handle to the door of the ICE counsel offices.
"I wanted to thank you," Casey said with her broadest smile.
The lawyer gazed without commitment.
"For offering up the voluntary," Casey said.
"It's the best thing for the child," she said.
"Look, we don't want to embarrass the senator, either," Casey said. "I just wanted you to share that with everyone. That's never been my or my client's intent."
The lawyer stammered for a moment before she raised her eyebrows and said, "I'm sorry?"
"Having undocumented workers there, on his ranch," Casey said. "I'm sure he didn't know. Some people don't understand how hard it is to find good help."
The lawyer blinked and bit down on her lower lip.
"I know we can't really talk about it," Casey said, pressing the tips of her fingers into the young woman's shoulder. "But, unofficially, just pass the word, so they don't worry."
"The staff at his liaison office is great," the lawyer said. "I'm sure they'll be glad to hear it."
CHAPTER 18
JOSe DIDN'T ANSWER HIS CELL PHONE. CASEY TRIED PAGING HIM, but that didn't work, either. She went into the reception area and asked Stacy if she'd heard from him.
"Since when does he answer to me?" Stacy asked. "You're the one having dinners with him."
"How'd you know about dinner?" Casey asked, her cheeks warming.
"I got my sources," Stacy said.
Casey glanced at a young woman sitting by the window, waiting for her appointment, and angled her head, signaling Stacy into her office for some privacy.
"Don't worry," Stacy said. "She can't understand you. So how was it?"
"First time I ever had fried oysters," Casey said, glancing at the young woman.
"Not the food," Stacy said, "Jose. How was it?"
"There was no it," Casey said. "Are you kidding? We had dinner, talked shop, and said good night."
"No kiss?"
"You watch too much TV. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"I would've kissed him," Stacy said. "He's gorgeous, and you probably ran for your car, didn't invite him over for a drink, a walk, a talk, nothing. What about Saturday?"
"He had plans with his daughter," Casey said. "I don't know, I think he's just being nice."
"You've got to be more aggressive. He's hot for you. What? You think he's hanging around here, shagging deadbeat dads and disappearing witnesses for the fun of it? Tina? She baited her hook the other day with that dress and the push-up bra and he didn't even look twice. He's gaga for you."
"Okay, seriously, that's enough," Casey said.
Stacy shrugged. "What do you need him for now, then?"
"Forget it," Casey said. "Nothing I can't do myself, anyway."
"Don't be so touchy."
Casey disappeared into her office, gently closing the door. She tried Jose again, then headed out the back and got into the Benz. She didn't want to give the Wilmer police chief time to prepare for her, so instead of making a phone call, she headed to the southeast corner of the county.
The drive to Wilmer south on 45 took less than half an hour. After announcing herself to a young woman behind the desk, Casey waited in a chair by the door. The receptionist glanced up at her often enough that Casey began to brace herself for a Movie of the Week comment. None came.
When Chief Gage emerged from the back, he was so tall the crew cut on his bullet head nearly chafed the doorframe. Casey felt the same one-way familiarity that she presumed the receptionist had with her.
She'd seen Gage's face on TV when Senator Chase's hunting accident filled the first block of almost every newscast for three days. Gage issued the official statement closing the case as an accident. He'd done the press conference in a hat proportional to his own height, and still it was his face that Casey remembered well, the black caterpillar eyebrows, the lantern jaw, and the icy blue eyes of a Siberian husky.
Casey shook his skillet-size hand, and he led her down a short hall to a large windowed office looking out on the full bloom of a pecan tree. A thick sheet of glass raised up by four elephant tusks served as his desk, and the heads of other trophy animals graced the high walls: a panther, a bison, a warthog, and an elk, among others. Framed eight-by-ten pictures of the chief with numerous celebrities made a complete ring around the office, one next to the other breaking only for the window: Clint Eastwood, George W. Bush, Sylvester Stallone, Billy Ray Cyrus. Antique handguns and their corresponding bullets hung in an oak case beneath a Dahl ram's head, and a cabinet of rifles stood in the corner. Beneath Casey's high-heeled shoes, the skin of a zebra covered the wood plank floorboards.
Casey sat down across from the chief in a wooden chair with a cane seat that rasped and creaked under every shift. She surveyed the room one last time, quickly, and noticed an absence of books. When she returned her eyes she found the chief staring intently.
"How can I help you, Ms. Jordan?" the chief said. He picked a bayonet up off a pile of papers on his desk and leaned back, turning it over slowly in his fingers.
"I'm interested in Senator Chase's accident," she said.
"Terrible thing," he said, fingering the tip of the blade as if to test its sharpness.
"I'm wondering how you knew it was an accident," Casey said.
Gage curled his lips, picked at his teeth with the bayonet, and said, "That's old news."
"Unless you represent the victim's widow," Casey said. "That's me. Strangely, the government is in a rush to get her out of Dodge."
"Maybe the government finally got tired of paying for their kids to go to our schools," Gage said. "But that ain't my business. My business is keeping this town quiet, things running smooth. What's your business, miss?"