Tim Green: Above The Law

Tina served as the clinic's interpreter.

"We can start," Sharon said.

"Right," Casey said. " I can start when Tina gets here."

"You gotta learn the language."

All three of them turned. In the doorway stood Jose O'Brien in faded jeans, wearing a denim shirt over his white tank top to cover the Glock he carried under his arm and the little nickel-plated snub-nosed.38 he kept tucked into the back of his pants.

"When I went to school," Casey said, pushing a wayward lock of long red hair behind her ear, "everyone took French."

"Je suis desole," he said, telling her he was sorry.

"How do you know French?" she asked.

"School," he said. "No need to relearn Spanish. My mother said English didn't make any sense. I got all the Spanish I needed from the cradle on."

"Yeah, but think about the number of people I could help in the time it would take me to learn," Casey said.

Jose smiled at her in his easy way, white teeth flashing like small blades, and shrugged. His long dark eyelashes fluttered with their bashful tic. It was hard for Casey to imagine how he'd gotten the reputation he had when she saw that handsome, winning face with big liquid brown eyes that misted over at times when other men might stare blankly or look away. An ex-cop who'd become the youngest homicide detective in Dallas PD history, Jose had given up the force after just eight years to become a private investigator and satisfy his young wife's demands for more time and money.

With the same determined zeal, he built a ten-person investigation firm that catered to wealthy divorce candidates looking for angles. Three years into it, his own wife played an angle, taking him for nearly a million dollars and half his income until their daughter reached eighteen. Jose sold the business and became a one-man show, working for just enough money to pay the rent and his greedy ex-wife, and, recently, giving the rest of his services away to Casey's legal clinic, which desperately needed an investigator.

Jose was just over six feet with arms that tested the limits of his shirtsleeves and the wide V-shaped torso of a linebacker. The cops Casey knew still talked about his time as a patrolman on the street and the way the sight of Jose in blues would send gangbangers scrambling for cover. One story had him snatching a chrome-plated.45 right out of the hand of a drug dealer and beating him senseless after he'd threatened to kill Jose and his partner.

"And," Jose said, "this place wouldn't be the same without Tina."

On cue, Tina, a small dark girl with waves of kinky black hair, appeared blushing beside Jose and apologized for being late.

"No worry," Casey said. "We're going to skip the meeting and open the floodgates. Is Stacy here yet?"

"Waiting for all of you!" Stacy Berg shouted from the other side of the wall. "And the line's not getting any shorter."

"So, here we go," Casey said.

Jose gave Casey an unusual look and angled his head toward her office, disappearing that way himself. Casey got up from the plastic table and walked past Stacy, who sat behind the filling station counter, ready to direct the human traffic that came in the door.

"Before you send me anyone," Casey said, "I need five minutes with Jose."

"You and every red-blooded woman on the planet," Stacy said, eyeing the investigator as he disappeared into Casey's office.

Casey followed him in and closed the door.

ISODORA HEARD THE CAR. SHE'D OPENED THE WINDOWS after the short storm gave way to glaring sun in hopes of capturing the small breeze. She wondered why Elijandro hadn't returned in the Range Rover. The hands of the clock showed ten before noon and she smacked her dish towel against the metal sink, twisting her frown into a snarl. She hated when he did this, leave her a note that said he'd be back at one time and then arrive four hours later. She took the carton of juice from the refrigerator for the second time and set it down amid the stagnant breakfast things, then went to the door.

Shading her eyes, she studied the car as it materialized from its cloud of dust. When she saw the rack of lights and the police emblem, her stomach turned. Behind her the baby stirred in the crib, giving off a little groan and a small sigh that faded into sleep.

Isodora knew the tall police chief from before the baby was born, when she worked in the big house. Whether it was the ambassador from Brazil or the singer Toby Keith, whenever Elijandro's boss had important guests, Chief Gage would be there with his bolo tie and icy blue eyes, drinking whiskey with just a single cube of ice. Isodora remembered the senator's wife, too, a skinny blonde who laughed like a hyena. The police chief fixed the hat on his head and knit his thick brows so they showed over the rims of his mirrored sunglasses. He scuffed the heels of his cowboy boots in the grit, leaving a small trail that Elijandro would call a man track.

"I got some bad news for you, missy," the police chief said.

Isodora tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She shook her head and turned her face as if bracing for a slap.

"There's been an accident," he said. "I'm sorry, but Ellie's dead."

"No," she heard herself say, "I have breakfast for him. I know he's late."

The porch creaked under her feet and somewhere out back a calf bawled for its mother. A hiccup escaped her and she pressed her fingertips to her lips, her face flushing with embarrassment, and still she shook her head.

"I'm sorry," the police chief said.

"I'll put the eggs on," she said, opening the screen door and slipping away from him.

She moved through the tiny space, removing the box of eggs from the fridge and cracking them into the pan and lighting the stove, still hiccupping.

"Missy," the police chief said, his voice following her through the screen door, "I need you to come with me. There's some papers you need to sign."

Isodora kept right on cooking. She ignored the police chief, and after a time she stopped hearing his words over the crackling eggs. She didn't hear him enter, and when he touched her shoulder, she shrieked and cringed.

"You got to at least sign this," he said, looking at his watch. "Sign it, and I'll leave you be for now, but when I come back later, you and the baby will have to come."

She put the spatula in her left hand and signed the paper with her trembling right hand, anything to have him go. He looked at the paper and nodded and she turned back to her work.

When the sound of his car disappeared over the hill, she put out her breakfast the way she knew Elijandro liked it and sat down to wait, staring blankly out the window, hiccupping all the while and listening for the sound of his voice, which she knew she'd hear at any moment.

Isodora had no idea how much time passed before the next knock came at the door. The room had grown hot, not summertime hot, but warm enough for the sweat to bead on her upper lip. The baby had been up crying in her crib, then playing quietly before crying again and falling back to sleep. Isodora knew this because the knock at the door woke up the baby and set her to crying again.

From where she sat at the table, Isodora could see that it wasn't Elijandro and it wasn't Gage, either. The man and woman wearing green jackets in the heat didn't knock twice. They came in, the woman bending over the baby's crib and the man approaching her and talking gently.

Like the boogeyman from an adult fairy tale, he wore a jacket bearing the letters ICE. The Icemen, that's who they were, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who came in the middle of the night and stole husbands from their wives, tore babies from the arms of their mothers. A scream bubbled up out of her throat, breaking her trance. She jumped up and pounced at the woman who had her baby. The man grabbed her arms, restraining her and deftly snapping metal cuffs on her wrists.