by Tim Green
"Flamboyant," Jose said, "but solid."
"Yes."
"Your husband have you followed regularly?"
"From time to time," Mandy said, blowing steam across the rim of her mug before sipping.
"You acted pretty indignant when I hinted about you and Ellie."
"Ellie was a good husband, Mr. O'Brien," she said. "A good man."
"What are you?" he asked.
She leaned forward, looking hard at him with those big eyes.
"People disappear," she said in a low whisper. "Mexican people."
"The Triangle?" Jose said, clenching his coffee mug and narrowing his eyes.
"You know?"
"I've heard things about folks down in that corner of the county for a couple of years now. We're a superstitious people, though, us Latinos."
"People always come and go at the ranch," she said, "fundraisers, advisers, lobbyists. There's one I see more than others, Monte Street, pinstriped suits with pink shirts and red ties, that type. My husband calls him 'Money,' Money Street. I heard them one night out in the gazebo, smoking cigars and talking about people the way you talk about livestock. Dollars per head."
She looked up to see that Jose understood.
"There's an abandoned quarry, up Blindsay Road not far from the ranch," she said. "I heard them talking about it and the next night I went out there to see. There was a tractor trailer full of people and a handful of men with guns."
"Your husband, importing illegals?" Jose said.
Mandy shook her head. "I don't know. I couldn't believe that was it, the way he goes on about immigration. I got close enough to hear, but they spoke Spanish, and I don't.
"I knew Ellie from the dove shoots. The one hunt wives do. I liked Ellie. There was something about him. He gave you a good feeling. Honest. Strong. I asked him to help and he did. We went out there a couple times and didn't see anything and I think he started to think I was crazy, so I went myself for a while. I think they only use the quarry once every few weeks. Anyway, I went and got Ellie and we got close and he heard some things that scared the hell out of him. He wouldn't talk about it, just kept shaking his head. So I wasn't paying attention when I pulled out of the side entrance to the quarry, and I almost ran Chief Gage off the road. I pulled out on the road right in front of him. He must have seen me with Ellie."
"Something any good Texan will kill for," Jose said. He studied Mandy's face, the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth tugging her into middle age.
"My husband and I have done our own things for a long time," she said. "Everyone knows about his strippers and little coke whores. I stayed for my kids, but it wasn't a nunnery."
"He didn't care?"
She shook her head. "He doesn't give a damn about me. It's for whatever they do at that quarry. That's why he killed Ellie, and to let me know I better stay out of it."
"Ellie didn't tell you anything?"
"The only thing he said was that those trucks weren't bringing people into the country."
"What were they doing?"
"Taking them back. To Mexico."
"Your husband is shipping illegals out of the country?" Jose said, wrinkling his brow. "Like some vigilante deporting them?"
Mandy swigged her coffee and swallowed. "No. They take them back there for something else."
"Ellie didn't say what?"
Mandy shook her head. "He said people had been going missing for some time. Some people thought it was just a superstition. Whatever he heard, he didn't want to talk about it. I don't think he heard enough to know anything for certain and he wasn't the type to speculate. All I know is that from the look on his face, it wasn't anything good."
CHAPTER 47
CASEY WAS LOOKING AT SPACE IN AN ABANDONED ADULT BOOKstore not far from her condemned office when her cell phone rang. She began to gush about her plan to nail Chase when she heard Judge Remy's voice, but the judge cut her off and suggested Casey save what she had to say for her chambers in fifteen minutes. Casey nudged a dusty package of French ticklers with the toe of her shoe and said she'd be there in ten.
"Not for me," she said to the Realtor, offering a weak smile, snapping her phone shut, and heading for the door.
Her Mercedes coughed alive and the crunch of broken glass barely registered as she pulled away from the garbage-strewn curb. When she got to the judge's chambers, Casey extended a hand.
"Please sit," the judge said, "I've got a settlement conference in five minutes. I'm glad you could see me in person. Here's your complaint; the clerk hand-delivered it after he spoke with the admin judge, who called me to see if I was okay to handle this."
"I'm glad you agreed."
"I'm not in a position to say no," she said, "not after signing that exhumation. I stuck my neck out, so the admin figured he'd give me the short straw on this. No one wants a trial with a senator. It would have been nice if you could have warned me."
Casey sat, stiff-backed, and said, "There are fourteen judges. Cases are supposed to be random."
Remy scrunched her face and tilted her head. "Do you think this is some old lady slipping on a bunch of grapes at the Kroger? You're suing a United States senator. You think they just spin the wheel?"
"How did they even know about the exhumation?" Casey asked.
"That's my point," Remy said. "People seem to know a lot, even though nothing's been reported in the papers."
"Well, it will," Casey said. "I've got a press conference tomorrow morning. He already shut down my office. The EPA showed up with guns, in case you think I don't know I'm suing a US senator."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," she said. "They'll come sniffing up my skirt, too. Don't think I got this case as a favor, it's not. I don't need the face time and I don't want it. I wanted to tell you, straight out, before this stink bomb explodes. Everything goes by the book. I will have my chute open."
Casey fished some papers from her briefcase on the floor and held them up one at a time. "I have orders of deposition for the senator and his wife. The undertaker. His two assistants. The police chief. The ranch foreman. Subpoenas for the Wilmer police investigation papers and the phone records of the senator's home, office, and cell phone."
The corner of the judge's lip twitched. "We typically wait for the answer to come back, then send a bill of particulars for what you want."
Casey nodded her head and removed another document. "Except when the plaintiff has a reasonable suspicion of spoliation of the evidence or a conspiracy between domestic partners to use the marital privilege as a shield, Cleveland v. Norris and Kronkite v. The State of Texas. I have the briefs."
The judge plucked up her reading glasses and took the briefs, examining one, then the other before pointing them at Casey.
"I can trust you on this?"
"It's not a gray area," Casey said. "One of my associates wrote her UT bar review article on Kronkite."
The judge inhaled deeply and exhaled through her nose, shaking her head, but signed the orders, one after another, with a flourish.
"Here we go," she said, rising up.
CHAPTER 48
TEUCH STRUGGLED UPRIGHT IN THE NARROW BED, CLAWING FREE from the tangled sheets but unable to shake the fog of pain. Sunlight poured in through the cracked and dusty window, exposing the dried blood on his pillow. Teuch groaned and went to take hold of his head, but he no sooner touched the stiff and pungent dressings than a searing jolt of pain shot through his skull. The springs in the cot beside his squeaked and a fat man with a dirty but ample mustache produced a bottle of peppermint schnapps and wagged it Teuch's way.
"You need one?" the man asked, then took a swig himself that peppered the dank air with a hint of candy freshness.
Sweat beaded on Teuch's upper lip and he made a grab for the bottle.
"Easy," the man said in a whine, "I was givin' it to you."
Teuch slugged down what remained in the bottle, then returned the empty to the bum along with a look evil enough to
cut off any complaint. Teuch staggered to his feet and tugged at the drawstrings to keep the worn and baggy sweatpants from slipping off his naked hips. Barefoot, he made his way through the rows of cots, most of them sagging beneath sleeping men. Teuch steadied himself on the human lumps without regard for the indignant cries and moans.
After a good pee, Teuch made his way into the front room, where a wizened man in a security cap slept behind the desk. Teuch remembered the old-timer from his arrival the previous night. After the drunk with the peppermint schnapps found Teuch collapsed under a bridge, delirious from exhaustion and pain, he and a friend had carried Teuch to the shelter. The old guard had brought out a cardboard box full of old clothes. With the help of the drunk, the guard had changed Teuch before dropping him into bed. Now, with his mind at least partially cleared, Teuch needed to find a phone.
He slapped the old man's face, sending a stream of drool down his cheek as he blustered to life.
"A phone," Teuch said. "I need it."
The guard's eyes widened behind his thick glasses, and he swiped away the drool and collected his senses.
"When the nuns get here," he said, angling his head at the door halfway down the wall behind him. "Out that door. They got one. I ain't."
Teuch winced at a fresh wave of pain.
"When?" he said through gritted teeth.
The guard peered at him. "You oughta sit down."
"When?" Teuch said, growling from his throat.
"A couple minutes," the guard said, examining his watch. "No more."
Teuch staggered over to the door and began to hammer on it with the meat of his fist.
"No need for that," he heard the guard call from his desk.
The door flung inward and the powdery face of a bespectacled nun appeared with an angry scowl and her pale lips shaped into a perfect O.
"I need a phone."
"Your head is bloody," she said, stepping back, her face softening.
"I slept here," he said. "I need a phone."
The nun hustled him down a long hallway and into a barren office, where a phone rested silently on a scarred wooden desk. Teuch dialed, unconcerned with whether the nun heard him or not. He got his man and in Spanish directed him to drop everything and get to the shelter, to bring him a gun, clothes, money, and enough junk and needles to keep him high for a month.
"We don't allow trouble here," the nun said, her back rigid as he slouched past.
"Sometimes it just comes," he said, and he ambled back to the cot where he'd spent the night and lay down to wait.
CHAPTER 49
SHOULD I BE JEALOUS OF MANDY CHASE?" CASEY ASKED JOSe. She pulled her Mercedes up the driveway, following a long midnight-blue Bentley with glittering rims to the red carpet that welcomed patrons to Nick and Sam's.
"It wasn't like that," Jose said, climbing out and giving her a dirty look over the roof of the car.
"She didn't just charm you with her silicone?" Casey said, handing off her keys to a red-jacketed valet.
"Are you serious?" he said under his breath, taking her arm and walking her through the double doors of wood and beveled glass.
"An EPA agent pulled a gun on me today," Casey said, putting on a smile and waving to Paige.
Paige stood in a small group of others back by a dark wood bar lined with fat white candles in silver holders.
"That tells me anything's possible," Casey said.
They passed the hostess's stand and noise from the restaurant washed over them. Although it was early in the evening, the dining room didn't appear to have any empty tables and the dark, spacious bar area overflowed with men in tailored suits and women wearing high heels. On the back wall, facing the bar, a seventy-inch plasma screen flickered and glowed, its sound all but drowned in chatty laughter.
"Come on. This is what we wanted," Jose said, wearing a forced smile of his own, taking her arm, and marching toward Paige's group. "He'll crumble."
"I'm teasing you," she said, tugging him close, squeezing his hand, and brushing her lips against his ear. "We've got him. Tomorrow I unleash my depositions, my subpoenas, and I plaster him in the press. It's all so good, and I'm so happy you're with me for this."
Casey turned and embraced Paige, bussing her cheek, then Luddy's, before stepping back to receive introductions to two other couples, similarly wealthy. A small gathering, Paige had told her. The Golds and the Treemores, two very eligible philanthropists for her clinic.
"And this is Jose O'Brien," Casey said, turning to Jose. While his blue blazer and jeans appeared wilted next to the crisp suits and white shirts of the other men, he more than made up for it with his height, his posture, and his dangerous good looks.
Jose shook hands and looked hard into their eyes before he asked if anyone needed a drink. The rich men all rattled their ice and ordered Chivas Regals, thanking the ex-cop for his generosity. The ladies allowed their champagne glasses to be refilled from the bucket of Dom Perignon behind the bar. What Jose ordered, no one knew.
"That tequila?" Treemore asked, blinking behind his small, round glasses.
"Only when I want to go todo loco," Jose said sternly. Then his face softened. "No, it's vodka. Absolut. Straight up."
Treemore's pale cheeks went pink and he nodded.
"Well," Casey said, raising the champagne glass Jose offered her. "To friends, old and new."
As they raised their glasses, Paige's eyes passed over Casey's shoulder and the light in her face went out.
"Christ," she said, flicking her eyes at Casey before returning to the back wall, "you're on TV."
Paige pushed through their small group and the bigger crowd in the middle of the floor, making way for Casey and the rest to follow. As they did, the people craned their necks at Casey and the festive din subsided. Beside the newscaster's face was a blown-up publicity photo Lifetime had used of her when the movie was released.
"… Jordan has called a press conference of her own for tomorrow," the newscaster said, looking solemnly into the camera until the picture cut to Senator Chase at a podium in front of a dark blue curtain bearing the senate seal and flanked by flags of the United States and Texas.
"The accusations fabricated by Casey Jordan are outrageous and pathetic, but those who know this woman lawyer will not be surprised," Chase said, looking up from the podium to make his point. "The same Casey Jordan, a self-made character in the recent Lifetime movie, is being sued by her own husband for defamation, has recently threatened the Dallas district attorney with a gender-biased smear campaign evolving out of her role defending a murderer who signed a confession, and, incredibly, has been shut down by the EPA for operating a workplace where she knowingly exposed employees to toxic substances. This from a woman who claims to run a charity, but uses the money to pay herself a six-figure salary, drive a Mercedes-Benz, and do work for criminals connected to organized crime. Additionally, we have learned that ten thousand dollars was recently wired from her account to an unknown location in Mexico."
Chase looked up again. "If this woman's present grab for money and notoriety weren't so hurtful and destructive, I might have to laugh at its audacity."
Chase returned to his notes. "To attempt to capitalize on the tragedy that my family and the family of Elijandro Torres have had to recently endure is sick, and it won't surprise anyone to know that Casey Jordan has in fact undergone serious psychological treatment.
"Finally," Chase said, looking up one more time and sighing dramatically, "it is important to know that Casey Jordan has aligned herself with a disgraced police officer from the Dallas PD. Jose O'Brien, her investigator and boyfriend, is a dirty cop. O'Brien was linked to Mexican gang activity including the smuggling of narcotics, and human trafficking for a prostitution ring. Three years ago, O'Brien was discharged from duty as an officer without pay and without his pension."
Casey felt her mouth drop open. She turned to Jose and saw the ripple of muscles in his jaw. He wouldn't face her, and she dropped his hand from her own.
On the screen, Chase looked up and addressed the cameras with a practiced stare. "These are the people working against me. Before it became public, I wanted the people of this great state to know exactly what is afoot and to personally deny any wrongdoing on my part."
The newscaster's face appeared on the screen and said, "Joining Senator Chase at that impromptu news conference was Casey Jordan's former husband of ten years, Taylor Jordan, the notable Austin philanthropist."
"Christ," Casey said, her eyes glued to the enormous screen, but still conscious of the glances flashing at her from all quarters.
Taylor, handsome, conservatively dressed, and gray around the edges of his wavy hair, sniffed and looked up with red eyes. "My ex-wife, Casey Jordan, has slandered me publicly and privately. I am pursuing her in court for the shame she's brought on my good family's name, and I'm here to tell the truth about her, so that this good man, a hero to many of us for his stand on American values, will not have to suffer the humiliation that I have. It's wrong. It was wrong when she did it to me with that… that movie. And it's wrong now."
The newscaster appeared, silent and shaking his head in disgust before getting back to business. "In Iraq today, twenty-seven-"
Casey looked at Jose, aware of the uncomfortable quiet that had settled on the room.
"Jose," she said, speaking low, "I am so sorry I dragged you into this."
Jose clenched his hands and looked up, his nostrils flaring, but with eyes that glistened. He turned and headed for the door.
Casey went after him, catching him outside and grabbing hold of his arm to stop him from getting into a cab.
"What?" she asked. "I said I was sorry. Jose?"
Jose shook his head, unable to meet her eyes.
"Come on," she said. "What's wrong?"
Jose shook his head again, looking down.
"Jose? It's not true, is it?"
"Not all of it," he said, clenching his teeth and looking up at her. "But some, I guess."
"What part?" she said, her words sounding desperate, her mind racing back over the allegations: gangs, drugs, prostitution.