"I'm kind of supercharged after that," Jose said.

"I need you," Casey said, "as an investigator. I'd like to think we can put this to the side and keep going on the case, not get distracted."

"An occasional distraction is never a bad thing," he said, hugging his knees. "Right?"

"Maybe," she said, her expression giving nothing away. "Let's just not count on anything. If it happens, hey, okay. No expectations, that's all. You want breakfast?"

"You making it?"

"What did I just say about expectations?" she asked, arching an eyebrow, then cracking a smile. "There's a cafe on the canal."

After breakfast, Jose took his slug downtown to Dante Villa, a guy he knew in the police lab, while Casey visited her friend at the morgue.

Jose stood over Dante's shoulder as he punched up the digital image on his computer.

"You got a winner," Dante said. "Trace amounts of blood and bone."

"Is it old?"

"Not so old. A few weeks, I'm gonna guess."

"Can you do a DNA profile without anyone knowing?" Jose asked.

"You want to match it to something?"

"Eventually. Can you keep it semiofficial?"

"I can slip it in with some files I've got going, sure," Dante said, cleaning his glasses on a corner of his lab coat. "Preserve the chain of evidence, if that's what you mean. You might have to pay for the test. That way no one can bitch at me for doing it later on. Can I ask what you're going to do with all this?"

"This is one where, honestly," Jose said, "you're not going to want to know. If it turns back to bite me in the ass, you're better off sticking to the science."

"Something I'll see in the paper?"

Jose said, "More like CNN."

TEXAS ISN'T LIKE A LOT OF PLACES," JESSICA SAID, PASSING A FILE across her desk to Casey. "We like autonomy, right? So you get some off-the-map town like Wilmer that can have the local funeral director designated as its coroner and even though we're half an hour up the road and technically they're in our jurisdiction, they call the shots."

Casey opened the file and examined the death certificate, her eyes coming to rest on the words "hunting accident."

"Meaning what?" Casey asked.

"Meaning, you see that guy Blake Morris's signature? Morris and Sons funeral directors? He's the ME."

"But he's not an ME, right?"

"In Wilmer he is."

"Without any investigation?" Casey asked.

Jessica shook her head. "I didn't say that. I'm sure they'll say he investigated. He probably looked at the body, heard the senator's story, the cops talked to the wife, who said your guy went out hunting with the senator, and bingo, case closed."

"That's not an investigation," Casey said.

" Texas style," Jessica said. "Hey, at least they did that. I told you, technically, they could have just had some doctor sign the death certificate."

"Instead, they had some funeral director do the same damn thing," Casey said.

Jessica shrugged.

"But you can open it up, right?" Casey asked. "Look more thoroughly?"

"You know any judges?"

"Most of them," Casey said.

"Any of them like you?"

"Why do you say it like that?"

"You know I like you," Jessica said, "but some people think you're a little pushy."

"Okay, I'll just sit on the curb and wait for someone to come by and ask me if I need any help."

"Don't take it that way, I'm just saying."

"Judge Remy," Casey said, "she'll help."

"We need her to order the exhumation," Jessica said, dangling the papers over her desk. "The wife's signature goes a long way, but the court still has to weigh in. She might want the DA to get behind it. Anyway, you get Remy to sign this, and we're in."

EARRINGS THE SIZE OF FISHING LURES WERE A FEMININE COUNTER-balance to the steely gray in Judge Remy's short spiked hair. Her bright green eyes rested in her sagging gray face like two jewels. Around the judge's neck silver reading glasses hung from a pewter chain. When Casey finished the story, the judge used her glasses to examine some of the documents in Casey's file.

"Where is the DA on this?" she asked in a gentle Texas drawl that belied her reputation for harsh sentences.

"I presume he'll be behind it one hundred percent," Casey said.

"Presume?"

"We aren't drinking buddies," Casey said.

"Neither are we," the judge said, removing the glasses from her nose and waving them between Casey and herself before she let them fall into the folds of her robe, "but I get it."

Casey smiled.

"You like skydiving?" the judge asked.

"I haven't," Casey said, "but I would. If I had a parachute."

"You ever packed a chute?" the judge asked.

"No."

"You don't pack the chute just right, you end up mush. You don't just jump out of a plane unless you're really ready."

"I'm not the one who needs to be ready," Casey said, edging forward in her chair. "I think Chase is the one who's going to take a fall here."

"Really?" the judge asked, narrowing her eyes.

Casey nodded.

Judge Remy compressed her lips into a frown, took a pen from her desk, and with a flourish signed the order. She held it out, but when Casey took hold, the judge didn't let go. Casey felt the tension running like a current through the taut sheet of paper. Casey met the judge's eyes, the glint now shadowed by something dire.

"This man knows how to pack a chute," the judge said quietly. "I see the son of a bitch on FOX News about every other week talking about shutting down the borders. He'll play the sympathetic, persecuted public figure, a victim of the rabid liberal media and an ambitious glory hound. That's you. And after his opening move, he'll come after you with everything he has, every mistake you've ever made. They'll dig and they'll pry and they'll worm their way underneath your skin until they find something unpleasant and they'll bring it to the surface and spit it up for everyone to see.

"And they will see, because the whores with the cameras and the microphones will be like locusts on this one. You think Lifetime made you look like an ass? This'll be a Hollywood double feature."

The judge let go of the order and Casey nearly fell back into her chair.

"You'll be tangled in your lines with the earth coming up at you like a hammer," the judge said. "And he'll be floating to the ground."

Casey set her jaw.

"That said? I'm behind you," the judge said, then poked her chin at the order in Casey's hands. "Obviously."

I'VE DONE A LOT OF SHIT," JOSe SAID, "BUT I NEVER DUG UP NO bodies."

"Stick with me," Casey said, trying to concentrate on the last sentence of the answer to Jordan 's slander complaint before she shut down her computer. "It's a bowl of cherries."

"Can I come?"

"What?" Casey said, looking up.

"When you dig him up?"

"I imagine when I get this Morris guy from the funeral home on the line that his first call is going to be to Gage," Casey said, e-mailing the answer to her complaint to Stacy and shutting down the machine, "so I'd like it a lot if you would."

"There goes the beginnings of a beautiful friendship, though," Jose said with a sigh. "Don't be surprised if I'm off his Christmas-card list when I show up with you and that court order.

"You don't look like you're ready for Tales from the Crypt."

"I'm not," Casey said, standing and smoothing the folds of her sundress. "The dig is for tomorrow."

"Picnic you going on?"

"Tea party."

"Oh, well, let me just shuffle on out of here then," Jose said, sidestepping toward her back door. "I was gonna cancel my meeting with the redhead's husband for you."