CASEY AND JOSe CLIMBED BACK INTO HIS TRUCK AND HEADED for the coffee shop where their day had begun so she could get her car. The sun beat down on the metal snake of traffic, glinting off windshields, pulverizing the blacktop so that it quavered in the heat.
Traffic on the highway suddenly slowed to a crawl. Up ahead, Casey could see the flashing lights from the accident that had slowed things down. As they closed in, she saw the belly of a tractor trailer turned on its side. Pallets of disposable diapers had spilled from the truck onto the road and median, like snow from a land of giants.
A burst of white foam and smoke drew her eyes back to the wreck. A fireman sprayed down the naked engine of the big truck. The cab of the rig had plowed a compact car into the guardrail. Emergency workers scrambled to extract what looked like a body from the accordion of steel.
Casey noticed a new Audi sedan pull out of the line of traffic and off to the side. A man in a tailored brown suit hurried out of the car and rushed toward the open bay of an ambulance. A woman strapped into a stretcher, bleeding all over the sheets but fully conscious, strained to see the crumpled car. The man in the suit, whom Casey knew instinctively to be a lawyer, bent over the woman and handed her a card. Casey's stomach turned.
"And they bitch when lawyers get a bad rap," she said under her breath.
"What a mess," Jose said, easing the truck into the only lane moving through.
"The person in the car or the diapers?" Casey asked.
"The senator and the dead ranch hand," Jose said, stepping on the accelerator as the traffic opened up.
"That, too," she said, nodding.
"If I'm working this case," he said, glancing her way, "and I presume that's what I'm still doing-"
"Yes, please. I'm not giving up."
"The wife is the key," he said.
"The problem we'll have with the wife is spousal privilege," Casey said, using her thumb and forefinger to take hold of her lower lip. "She can't testify against him."
"At all?"
"Not unless someone else was present," Casey said. "Anything said in front of a third party loses the privilege. You said they have a hundred or more people working out there. Servants all around?"
"More like slaves," Jose said. "Doesn't it make you sick, a guy like Chase who's always bitching about a secure border, talking about these people like they're criminals? Where would he get his staff with a secure border? He wouldn't be out there hiring Caucasians. He might have to pay them minimum wage, more even."
"In my old life," Casey said, "in my ex-husband's world, everyone knew that if you wanted the inside scoop, you asked the servants."
"I doubt we'll get invited for dinner," Jose said, "but I can poke around the immigrant community out there and see if there's a way in. I wish I still had my badge, something that would make people more apt to talk."
Casey sat silently for a few minutes, thinking, the tension building up in her like steam in a kettle.
When they got off the exit for her car, the words burst from a seam in her mouth in a hot jet. "We can make them talk."
"Someone deputize you without telling me?" he asked.
"We can bring them in on our own," she said, forcing the words to slow. "Or threaten to."
"Oh. Kidnap them?" Jose said with a shitty grin.
"No. I'm serious. Subpoena them."
"How?"
"We agree Chase murdered Isodora's husband, right?"
"My gut says it was no accident," Jose said. "But you just heard the DA; he's not going to even look into it, let alone investigate. Where are you going to get a subpoena?"
"I'll prosecute him myself," Casey said, breathing short, shallow breaths of excitement.
"You're a defense lawyer."
"I used to be a prosecutor," she snapped.
"Now all you have to do is get elected."
"No, listen. I'm talking about a civil court," she said. "Remember that accident back there? Did you see the lawyer giving that lady his card?"
"I saw the body and the blood," he said.
"The woman they loaded into the ambulance had a lawyer working her before she even knew her husband was dead," she said. "I saw him get out of his car and swoop down on her like a vulture. He'll be looking to file a wrongful death suit."
"I thought 'ambulance chaser' was a joke," Jose said.
"It's big money," she said, ticking off the reasons. "Loss of a lifetime of earnings for the family, pain and suffering for the survivor. That's where you get your multimillion-dollar damages."
"What's that got to do with this?"
"We sue Chase for wrongful death," she said.
"With no proof at all?"
"That's the beauty. All you need is a reasonable belief," Casey said. "Civil court is a whole different ball game."
"You can subpoena people?" Jose asked.
"Same as a criminal case. I can get even a halfway-decent judge to order the cooperation of anyone we say we need to prove our case."
"And if they just won't talk?" Jose asked.
"They can go to jail for contempt," Casey said.
"Didn't OJ get sued by the family?" Jose asked, pulling into the parking lot of the coffee shop. "But wasn't it after he got off?"
Casey's stomach went tight.
"Can you do it before?" Jose asked, shutting off the engine.
Casey sat silent for a moment, tugging on her lip, nodding.
"Why not?" she said.
"So this isn't exactly textbook," Jose said slowly, a touch of irony creeping into his voice.
Casey sat, thinking. She'd been here before, out on a limb, doing things others hadn't and making waves. Her stomach soured. It hadn't always turned out well.
Still, she said, "But there's no reason we couldn't do it."
"If you're going to invent some new legal strategy," Jose said, "maybe you should save it for some Latin King drug dealer. We're talking about a US senator. This isn't going to be done quietly. They'll bring everything at you."
"But if I do it," Casey said, tightening her face and turning to him, "if I try Chase for Elijandro's death in civil court and I can get all the evidence out, then Cruz will be wishing he took the case."
Jose nodded. He reached out and covered her clenched hand. Softly, he said, "I don't want them making a fool out of you."
"So I let him go?" Casey said, raising her voice, stiffening her back with indignation. "Is that it? He's a US senator, so he's above the law? Bullshit. Not if I can help it. It's unconventional, but there isn't a goddamn reason why I can't do it. Trust me. This I know."
Jose patted her hand, studying her, then gripped it tight and offered a small smile of collaboration.
"Okay, I'd ask you to dinner tonight," he said, "but I think I'm going to head out to Chase's ranch to speak some Spanish, talk to the help."
"And I've got to get Isodora," Casey said, grinning at him, relieved and bubbling again, ready to act. "Jessica said if we get DNA from her and the baby, your lab guy can use it to show that the blood on the bullet is Elijandro's. And she'll need to sign an application to the surrogate court so we can get this suit started."
"What does she need to apply for?"
"When you have a wrongful death," Casey said, talking fast, slipping comfortably into the familiar territory of the law, "the court has to assign an administrator to sue on behalf of whoever died. It's a formality, but it's got to be done so I can get things going. Besides, I've got an idea on how I can use this to get her back into the country."
"But she's where? Sharon said Higueras? Higueras, where?"
"Outside Monterrey. A ways outside in the middle of nowhere."
"With no phone number," Jose said.
"At a church," Casey said. "In a town where the only information Sharon came up with on the Internet was a blurb on the name of the newest mayor, Ignacio de Jesus Gonzalez Gonzalez. That's it."
"Can't be too many churches in a town where the mayor has the same last name twice."
"I'm going to check the flights into Monterrey."
"Whoa. You're not going down there?" Jose said. "It's not like just dropping into the barrio, five blocks over and you're sitting at a Starbucks. You're talking rural Mexico. Federales, road bandits, gangs, maybe even soldiers out there with all those rebel problems. You don't just tour the countryside."
"I'm sure I'll be fine," she said.
"You know the only thing they found from the last woman I knew who drove around the countryside in Mexico?" Jose asked. "Her shoe."
"Maybe she liked it so much she decided to stay," Casey said.
"With her blood in it."
"Is this your way of offering to go?" she asked.
"I'm telling you not to."
"Well, I am," Casey said, swinging open the door and climbing out of his truck, breathless with excitement. "That's the next step. I've got the right lawsuit, now I need the client."
"Send someone," Jose said. "I don't want to, but I'll do it."
"I'm going," she said. "I sent her there, and now I'm going to find her and bring her back. You're welcome to join me."
She shut the door and started for her car.
Jose rolled his window down and said, "Okay, book me a ticket, will you?"
Casey tossed her briefcase into the front seat, smiled, and said, "Yes. I'll see you tomorrow. Good luck at the ranch. And Jose?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you."