THe Twelve-Story Courthouse Buildings Stood Like Twin rectangular guardians between downtown Dallas and the scrubby greenbelt feeding off the murk of the Trinity River. By now, the sun's work assured heat from below as well as above, leaving the blacktop pliant and pulsing with thermal waves. Casey parked in the deck out back, took a side entrance, passed through the screeners, and rode the elevator up to the top where Dustin Cruz could survey his kingdom from a corner office full of leather and mahogany.
Casey drank in the vista through the floor-to-ceiling smoked glass and felt a pang of envy. Dustin Cruz swiveled around in his high-backed chair with the phone to his ear, the salt-and-pepper hair on his head so thick it looked like a rug. His bristly mustache, shoe-polish black, seemed to jump off his face and tended to distract people from the red blotches that worried his olive skin. The big DA nodded at Casey and signaled for her to hold on while he finished his business. She shifted from foot to foot until he hung up.
"Would you like to sit?" he asked, his low voice rumbling.
Casey did. She took out the file Jose had given her, slid it across the desktop, and said, "Dustin, I want to ask you a favor."
"Do I owe you a favor?" the DA asked, snorting and pointing to himself. "I must have missed that."
"I'll owe you one," Casey said. "And it won't cost you anything, no political capital. You won't take a shot in the papers. In fact, I'm betting that they'll love it."
"Love what?" Cruz asked.
"Your compassion."
"I don't have compassion," he said, the bags under his eyes giving him a weary cast. "I'm the DA. The judges-some of them-have compassion. Not my job."
"But you could have."
"Ms. Jordan," Cruz said, "I don't know you. I didn't see the movie, though I heard about it from my wife, and I read about you in the papers at the time, so I admire you. Also, I'm glad you've kept yourself busy with green cards and restraining orders, and left the real dirtbags in this city to me. That's why I'm sitting here talking to you when I've got five murder trials on the docket in the next three weeks. But right now, you're close to abusing the courtesy I've given you as a kind of celebrity."
Cruz forced a smile and looked at his watch.
"I'd like you to drop the charges against Rosalita Suarez."
Cruz narrowed his eyes. "The girl who killed the coyote?"
"Before you say anything," Casey said, "look at this."
She removed the file from her briefcase and slid the photos across the desk.
"This man smuggled illegals across the border from the bus stop in Nuevo Laredo for five years and these are some of his other victims," she said. "Women he peeled away from his group, the same way he tried with Rosalita, women he raped and then killed. The only difference is that when he got Rosalita off by herself, she had a.357 in her skirt, thanks to a cautious older brother. I've got the DNA reports on the other victims in here."
She flopped the rest of the file down on the edge of the desk.
"How did you get this?" Cruz asked.
"And a statement in here from the guy who picked up his route. This woman is completely innocent."
Cruz stared a moment, then flipped through some of what she had before he looked up.
He cleared his throat and said, "Maybe a reduction, but don't talk to me about dropping this."
"This isn't justifiable?" Casey said, pitching voice and eyebrows higher.
"No, not entirely. I'm sorry."
"I'll take it to trial if I have to," Casey said, clenching her hands to stop their trembling.
"You can afford that?" he asked. "You know I'll throw three ADAs at it and burn you to the ground with paperwork. No offense, but I play to win."
"Fine," she said, folding her arms. "Think of the patrons I'll get. Think of the press. Then think of the women voters."
"You don't shoot a man's balls off, I'm sorry."
"In self-defense?"
"Not in Texas," Cruz said. "A jury won't let that go, not a Texas jury."
"But rape and murder is okay as long as it's a Mexican girl?"
"My parents were Mexican," he said, the big mustache covering his mouth in its frown. "So that's that. And she was neither raped nor murdered by the victim."
"Those girls were," Casey said, jabbing her finger toward the photos.
"You say."
"You son of a bitch."
Cruz's face softened. "Look, we're the sixth most dangerous city in America. I win every election by double digits because we've got the fourth-highest conviction rate for murders. I've got her prints. I've got the gun. I've got her confession. She's either pleading guilty and doing time for something, or she's going down like a sack of concrete."
Casey didn't say anything. She pressed her lips tight, snatched up the photos and the DNA reports, and crammed the file back into her briefcase.
"Hey," Cruz said when she reached for the door, "try to get Tom Selleck."
"What?" she said, glaring at him.
Cruz stroked his mustache. "You know, the mustache, the green eyes. If they get Susan Lucci for the sequel, then I think I gotta be Selleck."