Above The Law

CHAPTER 12

WHEN SHE GOT TO HER OFFICE, THE FIRST CALL CASEY MADE was to Norman Case, the district counsel at the Department of Homeland Security. Casey knew of him from his days as an assistant in the attorney general's office. He had the reputation of being a fair and decent lawyer and had won several high-profile drug trials for the federal government.

Casey called the office, gave her name to the secretary, and spilled out Isodora's story as quickly as she could, hoping to elicit some sympathy.

The secretary answered her with disinterest, suggesting she send a letter to the office.

Casey cleared her throat and said, "I don't know if you caught my name, Casey Jordan? I run a women's law clinic downtown, the Marcia Sales Clinic? We've been in the news."

Silence greeted her. Humiliation swelled up inside Casey's stomach.

"My client," Casey said, "if you could see her, they took her little girl and it's all a mistake and I'm trying to help her."

After a moment of silence, the secretary sighed and said, "Hang on."

Casey opened her clenched fist and beat the side of her leg with an open palm.

"Ms. Jordan?" said a man. "Norman Case. How can I help you?"

Casey explained Isodora's situation and said, "I think someone in your office must have mistaken her for someone else. She's undocumented, but she has no record. Her husband was killed in a hunting accident. The thing at Senator Chase's ranch."

"Rough," Case said. "I don't really know Chase, but you had to feel bad for him."

Casey recalled the pathetic image of the wildly popular senator talking at a press conference about the tragedy, tears streaming down his face, his broken voice almost impossible to understand.

"Me, too," she said. "But I feel even worse for the dead man's wife. She's the one I'm talking about. They took her right off the senator's ranch. You'd think after all that-"

"I doubt the senator even knows," Case said. "Some of the ICE people run things without a lot of cross talk. We just process what they bring us. I'll look into it for you. You know how it goes with these illegals. There's what? Twelve million of them? You can't blame the left hand for not knowing what the right is doing these days."

"I'm hoping you can release her," Casey said.

"The hearing is Monday," Case said.

"If she goes into the hearing and they think she's someone else," Casey said, "the judge isn't going to do anything outside the lines. Even if we can't get her set free, at least let's get her identity right and we get her to Hutto so she can be with her little girl. I'm hoping we can get it done before the weekend. She's just a baby."

"Give me her name and I'll see what I can do," Case said.

She thanked him and gave him her cell phone number, asking for whoever worked on it to call her the minute they worked through the mistake.

It was four when she realized she hadn't heard from Norman Case or anyone in his office. She ushered a pregnant young woman out of her office and scooped up the phone. This time Case's secretary was short with her. She sounded offended and said that the DHS lawyer was unavailable and that all she could do was take a message.

"He's there?"

"Yes, but he's in a meeting," the secretary said.

"Will he call me when he's done?"

"Ms. Jordan, he told me to take a message. After that, you're on your own."

"Look, just help me here. Can you just ask him if he was able to straighten out Isodora's identity? Can you please do that?"

"Do you use that trick all the time?" the secretary asked.

"What trick?"

"About the poor mother and her kid and your do-good clinic."

"What trick?"

"You play me and I make a fool out of myself to my boss, telling him you're all this and all that. Fool me once, shame on you. You won't fool me twice."

"I didn't say anything that wasn't true."

"They pay in cash, right?" the secretary said. "These drug dealers?"

Casey snorted and half-laughed. "What are you talking about?"

"You'll have to talk to Mr. Case."

"Please," Casey said. "I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Your client?" the secretary said. "They got the right person. She and her husband? Organized crime. A big gang, one of the biggest. Murder. Extortion. Drugs."

"It's a mistake," Casey said.

"You're the mistake," the secretary said.