More than a dozen cars hugged the low wall of the circular fountain in front-Jaguars, Mercedeses, two Rolls-Royce sedans-and Casey grimaced at her watch. Cobblestones rumbled beneath her as she sped up the hill and into the circle, where she screeched to a halt and jumped out. With her car blocking the drive, she threw her keys on the seat before dashing up the steps.
A stiff-faced butler led her through the house and into the garden, where the crowd twittered and buzzed beneath a white tent hemmed in by fragrant yellow roses. Notes from a string quartet floated on a merciful breeze and Casey could see the glaze of sweat on her friend's pink cheeks despite the cool glass of champagne that she sipped disinterestedly.
"I am so sorry," Casey said, bussing her friend's cheek.
"Pish," Paige said, indirectly announcing Casey's arrival in her most Southern and charming way, "a working girl like you? We're all jealous as high school lovers, just wishing we didn't have all that we got going on so we could be in the trenches with you, honey. Come right here, you beautiful thing. Too hot for tea after all, and I decided all on my own to break right into the back of Luddy's cellar. Sissy? Here she is, darling."
Paige floated through them, a butterfly flickering, pollinating, and sipping up their contributions like nectar with Casey in tow. Casey let her speech lilt into the drawl of forgotten balls and fetes from another life. Stacy's skeptical face and her expression, "You make me vomit," came into Casey's mind, but she smiled the smile of a grateful beneficiary, shaking the hand of a woman old enough that she wore white gloves and a hat with both a netted veil and flowers.
From Chase's wife, Mandy, Casey received no more than a vacant stare and a forced half-smile that left Paige's fingers in a vise around her wrist as she dragged Casey on to the next woman, whispering hotly in her ear that Mandy was the most extraordinary bitch she'd ever shared a back lawn with. Casey glanced back at the tall blonde in the bright red dress, standing out like a hooker in a girls' choir, and wondered if the woman had the same surgeon as Paige.
Before they'd finished, Casey realized the glass of champagne Paige had armed her with had been emptied and refilled twice, brightening Casey's appreciation of the sights, sounds, smells, and money that the tea party had provided.
Paige finally sat her down in a white rattan love seat before bringing two fresh glasses and resting her own feet beside her, fanning herself with a sigh.
"Honey, you are just a charm," Paige said.
"I didn't do a thing."
"Oh, pish, all that habeas corpus and right-to-appeal jargon? They loved it. They just loved it. You made my job easy."
"You are so good," Casey said, touching her arm.
"It's the least," Paige said, sipping her champagne and shaking her head, "the very least."
"Oh, God," Casey said, jumping up. "I'll be back. There she goes."
Looking past the table piled high with dainty sandwiches, Casey just caught the flash of red as Mandy Chase slipped into the house, deserting the party with no respect for convention. Casey stumbled on the walk, her heel catching between two flagstones and breaking off. She heard someone behind her offer up a little gasp from beneath the tent, but paid no mind, churning ahead on one shoe and kicking it off somewhere near the fireplace as she shot through the house.
Mandy Chase had just given up trying to get around Casey's beat-up Benz blocking the circle and began to carefully back the white Range Rover out. Casey closed the distance and patted the window. The senator's wife jammed on her brakes and jerked her head around, covering her mouth in astonished fright before glowering at Casey and running the window down.
"I could have killed you," Mandy Chase said.
"I'm sorry," Casey said. "I wanted to talk to you."
Mandy raised her chin. "I'm late for an appointment. You met me. My husband will send whatever kind of funding Colby James asks him to send. You should know how this works. Now, you'll have to excuse me."
Mandy gripped the wheel and swung her head back over her shoulder.
"Wait," Casey said, walking quickly as the SUV began to roll back. "I have to talk to you about Elijandro Torres."
This time, Mandy's shocked look was coupled with a stomp on the gas. She spun the wheel and backed right onto the lawn. Casey kept up, hanging on to the window frame, even as Mandy slammed the Range Rover into drive.
"I know you were sleeping with him," Casey said, raising her voice above the engine.
"Go to hell," Mandy said, her face twisted with rage.
She swatted Casey's hand like a fly, then beat it with her fist, pounding the fingers. Casey cried out, let go, and cursed as the Range Rover shot off down the driveway and disappeared through the gates.
CHAPTER 32
THE NEXT MORNING CASEY RODE BESIDE JOSe IN HIS TRUCK. Jessica, from the medical examiner's office, followed them in a white county van along with a forensic investigator. On their way down to Wilmer, Casey told the story of the senator's wife.
"So much for working the inside," Jose said.
"So much for spontaneous combustion," she said.
"What's that got to do with it?"
"You're mocking my approach to Mandy Chase," she said. "That's my comeback."
"To mock my approach to romance?" he asked.
"I thought it sounded good."
"It doesn't," Jose said. "You make it sound like you don't care. You can't mess with a man's confidence that way."
"Your confidence runneth over."
"Anyway, you didn't expect the wife to just confess that her screwing with Elijandro is what got him killed, did you?" he asked.
"Maybe show some reaction."
"She cursed you and almost ran you over."
"Something a little more emotional. Tears? A gasp?"
"Maybe he didn't mean that much to her," Jose said. "She just moves on to the next one. Some women are like that."
She glanced over at him, but his eyes kept to the road, the long lashes curling skyward.
"Next time, you'll try," she said.
"Neither of us are going to be too welcome anywhere in Wilmer after this," he said. "Did you tell Gage I'm coming to the dig?"
"I thought it best to surprise him."
"I was thinking," Jose said. "If we're right, and they're lying about Elijandro jumping up in front of the senator, then an autopsy might help prove it."
"Prove what?"
"That Elijandro was just sitting there, waiting for a turkey," Jose said. "If he just sat there and took a bullet to the back of the head, forensics is going to be able to show that from the angle of the bullet."
"One more crack in their story," Casey said.
They pulled off the highway and Casey read from her BlackBerry, directing him toward a cemetery on the south end of the small town. Beside the entrance, marked by two yellow brick columns stained with bird droppings, a man in a dark suit stood next to an old station wagon with wood-paneled sides. Dark plastic glasses sat crooked on a mostly bald head vaguely bearing the shape of a lightbulb. In the backseat of the car, two Mexicans sat without sound or movement in jeans and grubby white T-shirts.
Jose's truck rumbled up alongside the undertaker with the ME van behind them. Casey rolled her window down.
"Mr. Morris?"
Morris glared up at her and removed a cupped hand from behind his back. In it he'd concealed a cigarette that he sucked on hard before nodding, tucking it away, and blowing out the smoke.
"When the chief gets here, you can follow me," he said without looking at Casey.
Jessica got out of the van, walked up, and said, "Ready?"
"I just told her," the undertaker said, "when the chief gets here."
"We don't need to wait for the chief," Jessica said. "I'm with the ME's office."
The undertaker studied her for a moment, then said, "You might not need to wait, but I do."