"Oh, God," Casey said, jumping up. "I'll be back. There she goes."

Looking past the table piled high with dainty sandwiches, Casey just caught the flash of red as Mandy Chase slipped into the house, deserting the party with no respect for convention. Casey stumbled on the walk, her heel catching between two flagstones and breaking off. She heard someone behind her offer up a little gasp from beneath the tent, but paid no mind, churning ahead on one shoe and kicking it off somewhere near the fireplace as she shot through the house.

Mandy Chase had just given up trying to get around Casey's beat-up Benz blocking the circle and began to carefully back the white Range Rover out. Casey closed the distance and patted the window. The senator's wife jammed on her brakes and jerked her head around, covering her mouth in astonished fright before glowering at Casey and running the window down.

"I could have killed you," Mandy Chase said.

"I'm sorry," Casey said. "I wanted to talk to you."

Mandy raised her chin. "I'm late for an appointment. You met me. My husband will send whatever kind of funding Colby James asks him to send. You should know how this works. Now, you'll have to excuse me."

Mandy gripped the wheel and swung her head back over her shoulder.

"Wait," Casey said, walking quickly as the SUV began to roll back. "I have to talk to you about Elijandro Torres."

This time, Mandy's shocked look was coupled with a stomp on the gas. She spun the wheel and backed right onto the lawn. Casey kept up, hanging on to the window frame, even as Mandy slammed the Range Rover into drive.

"I know you were sleeping with him," Casey said, raising her voice above the engine.

"Go to hell," Mandy said, her face twisted with rage.

She swatted Casey's hand like a fly, then beat it with her fist, pounding the fingers. Casey cried out, let go, and cursed as the Range Rover shot off down the driveway and disappeared through the gates.

CHAPTER 32

THE NEXT MORNING CASEY RODE BESIDE JOSe IN HIS TRUCK. Jessica, from the medical examiner's office, followed them in a white county van along with a forensic investigator. On their way down to Wilmer, Casey told the story of the senator's wife.

"So much for working the inside," Jose said.

"So much for spontaneous combustion," she said.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"You're mocking my approach to Mandy Chase," she said. "That's my comeback."

"To mock my approach to romance?" he asked.

"I thought it sounded good."

"It doesn't," Jose said. "You make it sound like you don't care. You can't mess with a man's confidence that way."

"Your confidence runneth over."

"Anyway, you didn't expect the wife to just confess that her screwing with Elijandro is what got him killed, did you?" he asked.

"Maybe show some reaction."

"She cursed you and almost ran you over."

"Something a little more emotional. Tears? A gasp?"

"Maybe he didn't mean that much to her," Jose said. "She just moves on to the next one. Some women are like that."

She glanced over at him, but his eyes kept to the road, the long lashes curling skyward.

"Next time, you'll try," she said.

"Neither of us are going to be too welcome anywhere in Wilmer after this," he said. "Did you tell Gage I'm coming to the dig?"

"I thought it best to surprise him."

"I was thinking," Jose said. "If we're right, and they're lying about Elijandro jumping up in front of the senator, then an autopsy might help prove it."

"Prove what?"

"That Elijandro was just sitting there, waiting for a turkey," Jose said. "If he just sat there and took a bullet to the back of the head, forensics is going to be able to show that from the angle of the bullet."

"One more crack in their story," Casey said.

They pulled off the highway and Casey read from her BlackBerry, directing him toward a cemetery on the south end of the small town. Beside the entrance, marked by two yellow brick columns stained with bird droppings, a man in a dark suit stood next to an old station wagon with wood-paneled sides. Dark plastic glasses sat crooked on a mostly bald head vaguely bearing the shape of a lightbulb. In the backseat of the car, two Mexicans sat without sound or movement in jeans and grubby white T-shirts.

Jose's truck rumbled up alongside the undertaker with the ME van behind them. Casey rolled her window down.

"Mr. Morris?"

Morris glared up at her and removed a cupped hand from behind his back. In it he'd concealed a cigarette that he sucked on hard before nodding, tucking it away, and blowing out the smoke.

"When the chief gets here, you can follow me," he said without looking at Casey.

Jessica got out of the van, walked up, and said, "Ready?"

"I just told her," the undertaker said, "when the chief gets here."

"We don't need to wait for the chief," Jessica said. "I'm with the ME's office."

The undertaker studied her for a moment, then said, "You might not need to wait, but I do."

Casey shook her head at Jessica to go along with this and they both returned to their vehicles.

Casey sat looking out over the low stone markers lined in rows beneath a smattering of red cedars that lent the feel of a golf course to the place. When Gage's cruiser arrived five minutes later, the big chief got out wearing his mirrored sunglasses, spoke to Morris, and got back into his car without looking their way. Casey studied the big man's mouth, certain his lower lip protruded in a pout. Morris cranked up the old wagon and rolled in through the gates. Gage followed him, then came Jose and the county van. The little caravan wound its way through the stones and the trees until they reached a slope many acres into the cemetery.

Here the path turned to dirt. The grass and trees ended, as did the shiny granite headstones. They traveled only a short way over the rough ground before the wagon stopped and Morris got out, followed now by the two Mexicans, who bore spades they removed from the back of the wagon. The investigator with Jessica, a heavyset man with dark wavy hair, also removed some tools from the van to assist.

Insects buzzed and a hot breeze wafted the high, parched grass. A band of cicadas added to the sound of heat, singing from a twisted mesquite tree on the edge of the cut grass where the paying customers rested. Morris pointed out a spot of freshly turned dirt marked by one of the hundreds of gravestones that looked like small loaves of bread laid down in the weeds. The group stood around the grave and when Gage saw Jose, he surprised Casey by offering him a small smile.

"I've got this," Jessica said, offering up a copy of the court order to Gage.

The chief held up his hand. "All set. I got mine faxed to me yesterday."

Casey waited for the big man to explode. She searched his face, unable to fathom how he could go along without making any protestation or at least showing discomfort or disdain.

To the Mexicans, Gage said, "Get digging. I got work needs getting to."

Jessica's ME investigator spoke up and said, "When they get close, I'd like to do the last part of it."

The undertaker spoke to the men in Spanish and they nodded their heads without stopping their work.

"They'll need to dig a bigger hole than that," Casey said under her breath, not wanting to betray her ignorance. She'd never seen an exhumation before.

The Mexicans stopped suddenly and spoke to the undertaker, who waved Jessica's investigator forward as though offering him a seat in a fine restaurant.

"How about a little more than that," the investigator said, pointing with the small trowel he held, the jowls of his heavy face trembling at the sight of the small hole.

The undertaker shrugged and sent the Mexicans back at it. Three more strokes and one of the shovels struck metal with a clang. The Mexicans stepped back and looked at the investigator, who stood.