Ditch Rider (6 page)

Before we went to bed I turned on the burglar alarm and checked the back patio. A cat I had never seen before was nibbling on my catnip. It was gray and scrawny and its ribs were visible under the mangy fur. It spotted my shape through the glass door, stared for a minute with fierce eyes and ran away.

6

T
HE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON
Cheyanne and Sonia showed up in my office wearing their respective uniforms, an extra large t-shirt featuring a bull for Cheyanne, a short skirt and green Sandia Indian Bingo t-shirt for Sonia. I happened to be standing at my window looking out through the burglar bars when they arrived. Sonia parked her Toyota beside the curb and slammed the door shut. They came up the walkway showing me the faces they wore when they weren't talking to their lawyer. Cheyanne's expression was surly. Sonia's was pissed. She took one last drag on her cigarette and flipped it under the thistle that bloomed with poisonous purple vigor beside the sidewalk.

Anna asked if they wanted something to drink. Sonia had a coffee with sugar. Cheyanne had a Coke. They came into my office and sat down on the other side of the desk.

Sonia tried to suppress a yawn. “Long night,” she said.

“I saw Deputy DA Anthony Saia yesterday,” I began. “He specializes in gang violence, and Juan Padilla's shooting is his case.”

“Did you tell him I did it?” Cheyanne had that wide-eyed look kids who've been arrested get in front of the camera. They know they've done something bad, but they're excited by all the attention. When the cameras have departed and they're alone in their cells, these same kids are capable of killing themselves.

“No,” I said. The buzz went out of Cheyanne and she slumped in her chair.

“Why not?” Sonia asked.

“Saia's witness ID'd Ron Cade as the shooter and the witness said Cade acted alone. The DA's office is willing to go with that.”

“Did they find the gun?” Sonia asked.

“I don't think so.”

Sonia's fingers did a tap dance along the edge of my desk. “Do you know this guy Ron Cade?” she asked her daughter.

Cheyanne squirmed. “I've talked to him is all. I don't really know him.”

“Was he there that night?”

“No,” Cheyanne mumbled.

“You sure?”

“I told you he wasn't.”

“
Is this guy trying to get you to confess for him?” Sonia asked. She'd arrived at the same thought I had, although with less information.

“It's not like that. I did it,” Cheyanne cried. “What do I have to do to make you believe me?” The anguish in her voice was real. She wasn't emoting for an imaginary camera now.

One reason nobody wanted to believe her was that she had the face of a child and the hair of an angel. She was twisting one of her baby curls around and around on her finger. Her language, however, came up out of the street. “Fucking DA, fucking lawyers, fucking everybody,” she swore.

“Watch your mouth!” Sonia warned.

It was my job to remain cool and collected. “Saia would rather prosecute a seventeen-year-old than a thirteen-year-old,” I said.

“I only get two years, right?” Cheyanne asked.

“Right.”

“I'll do it. Being in the Girls' School is better than being locked up with you and Leo.” She turned toward her mother.

“You're a little monster,” Sonia snapped. “You know that.”

“Look,” I said. “The best thing to do right now is wait and see what the police investigation turns up. I can't make Saia put Cheyanne in detention. But you've got to stay home until this is resolved. No going to school. No hanging out with your friends.”

“That's worse than being in prison,” Cheyanne complained.

“She'll do it,” said Sonia.

******

Sonia had to get to her job at the bingo parlor. I had work to do, so Cheyanne hung out in the reception room waiting for me and talking hair with Anna. When I came out of my office, her bangs were slick and wide and sticking straight up.

“The teachers call this the flyswatter,” Cheyanne said.

“Cool,” said Anna. “How do kids get those really bright colors in their hair?”

“They use Jell-O. It makes your hair sticky so you can twist it around.”

“Jell-O heads,” Anna laughed.

That was one use for it. “You ready to roll?” I asked Cheyanne.

“Okay with me,” she said.

I led her out back to where the Nissan was parked. Cheyanne sniffed when she sat down in the passenger seat. “Smells like my mom's,” she said. “Looks like my mom's, too.”

“How's that?”

“
Like a purse on wheels.”

The Nissan was on the messy side, I'll admit it. “I'm cleaning it this weekend.”

“That's what my mom always says.”

I wasn't in the mood to drive past the D Home on Second, so I took us home by way of Fourth Street. A drive can be a good place to have a heart-to-heart. Sometimes truths will come out in motion that don't when you're sitting still. This wasn't a very long drive, so I started as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot.

“You know, Cheyanne,” I began, “a murderer who gets away with it once is liable to do it again. If Saia should accept your plea and you're not guilty, you could be allowing a killer to go free. Is that what you want?”

“Nobody's going free,” she answered with such conviction that if she'd been older she'd have followed her statement with “trust me.”

“You should tell your mother about you and Ron Cade beside the ditch.”

“I can't,” she said.

We lapsed into silence. Thirteen-year-olds are not the world's best conversationalists and negotiating Fourth Street required a certain amount of finesse, so we continued in silence. Cheyanne stared out the window while we passed Garcia's Family Restaurant, Silverado, the Montano intersection where the traffic was backed up for blocks waiting to turn left and cross the river, Dan's Boots and Saddles and Los Chamisos, where a ten-acre alfalfa field had been turned into a gated luxury home community. In front of Casa Home Repair a kid with dazzling red hair and a ring through his nose waited to cross the street.

“Jell-O head?” I asked my companion.

“Yeah.”

“What flavor?”

“Raspberry,” she replied.

I passed Diamond Shamrock and turned the corner onto Mirador. We saw Danny biking down the road with a pole in one hand.

Cheyanne rolled down her window. “Hey, bro,” she yelled.

I pulled over beside Danny and saw that his pole was dangling a large plastic worm. “Going fishing?” I asked.

He nodded.

“You dork,” Cheyanne said. “There aren't any fish in the ditch.”

“You don't know that,” said Danny.

“Is your dad picking you up?” Cheyanne asked.

“
Yeah.”

“Good,” she said. “Than I can stay home alone.”

Which could mean going out alone. “No way,” I said. “You can stay at my house till your mother gets home from work.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, you have to.”

Danny waved and headed toward the ditch.

“Can we go to the trailer first?” Cheyanne asked. “There's something I want to show you.”

“Okay.”

Leo hadn't arrived yet, and there were no vehicles parked in front of the double-wide. I told Cheyanne to leave a note for her mother telling her she'd be at my place. While Cheyanne went inside, I looked at the bare yard thinking that scraping could be easier than watering, weeding, spraying and cutting.

Cheyanne came back trailing Tabatoe behind her and holding something in her hand. She sat down beside me, pulled the car door shut and handed over a plastic Ziploc bag containing a spent bullet. The bullet was about a half-inch long, flat and narrow at one end and mushroomed at the other. There was some debris on the wide end—blood, dirt or flesh.

Cheyanne flipped her hair over her shoulder and looked me in the eye. “Do you believe me now?” she asked.

“Where'd you get it?”

“It hit the wall after it went through Juan and I picked it up off the ground. If you show that to the DA, will he believe me?”

“He might.”

“Good,” she said.

******

I called the Kid when we got to my house and told him to bring home a few more tacos for dinner. Cheyanne wanted to get on Teen Chat and I said go ahead. It couldn't be any worse than the things she'd already experienced. When I told her to turn the computer off and come to dinner she groaned, “Now?”

“Now,” I said.

Cheyanne complained that the tacos were too hot and drank a lot of water, but she ate every bite. Tabatoe's face appeared at the glass door and Cheyanne asked me if she could come in, but I told her I ran a no-cat household. After dinner we watched TV. Cheyanne fell asleep on the sofa. I took that
opportunity
to show the Kid the bullet. “She says it's the bullet that killed Juan Padilla.”

“Do you believe her?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Talk to Sonia.”

The Kid went to bed, but I sat up, watched TV and waited for Sonia. Around midnight the doorbell rang.

“My daughter's here?” Sonia asked.

“Yeah.”

We went into the kitchen and I turned on the light. “There's something I need to show you,” I said, holding up the plastic bag with the spent bullet inside.

“Where'd that come from?”

“Your daughter.”

Sonia pulled a cigarette out of her purse but stopped herself and put it back. “Can they prove it was the bullet that killed Juan Padilla if they don't find the gun?”

“With DNA testing they probably can.”

“Son of a bitch,” she said. “Are you going to turn it over to that DA? What's his name?”

“Saia. What do you want me to do?”

“What does Cheyanne want to do?”

“Turn it over.”

“Do it,” she said.

******

Cheyanne was sleeping peacefully as a baby, but she swore and kicked when Sonia woke her up. As I walked them back through the living room I noticed that the computer was still on and the screen saver was flitting across the screen. After the Morans left I turned the computer off and walked around the house looking for a good place to stash the bullet. The safest place I could think of was the drawer in the nightstand, beside my thirty-eight, next to my pillow. I got into bed and curled up behind the Kid, who was already asleep. Around four the temperature dropped and I woke up and covered us with a sheet. I'd been dreaming that there was a boardwalk behind my house and an animal lived under it that was a combination rattlesnake and cat. I could see its eyes smiling up at me through the spaces between the boards. The animal had thick orange and white fur and its long tail had rattles at the tip. The fur was so silky I wanted to reach down and pet it, but then it snarled and rattled its tail.

7

W
HEN
I
WOKE
up again the Kid had left for work and the bullet and gun were still in the drawer. On my way downtown I drove past the D Home. A bunch of gangsters in baggy clothes were standing outside waiting for their probation officers. In order to get in and out of this place you had to run a gangbanger gauntlet. I called Saia as soon as I got to my office and made an appointment to see him that afternoon. I was holding up the plastic bag and looking at the bullet when Anna walked into my office.

“Where'd that come from?” she asked.

“Cheyanne. She says she picked it up off the ground after it went through Juan Padilla and ricocheted off a wall.”

“You really think that little girl shot somebody?”

“Maybe it wasn't a cold-blooded, calculated shooting, but frightened, in self-defense? Who wouldn't be capable under those circumstances?”

“If you have a gun in your hand.”

“A lot of things are possible when you have a loaded gun in your hand.”

“She seems so innocent.”

“Sometimes. Sometimes she doesn't seem innocent at all.”

“Where'd she get the gun? Steal it from her mother?”

That was one road I hadn't traveled down yet. “Maybe.”

“Gangs use semiautomatics, don't they?”

“Usually.” One advantage to semiautomatics is that you can get so many rounds off so fast that accuracy hardly matters. You can spray your opponent into oblivion. The disadvantage is that semiautomatics can leave an all-too-easy-to-trace casing on the ground. But when it comes to shootings, gang members don't often worry about evidence and what comes after. Their motto seems to be shoot now, think later.

“What are you going to do?” Anna asked.

“Turn it over to Anthony Saia,” I said.

******

When I got to Saia's office that afternoon every hair was slicked in place. His eyes were bright with a prosecutor's zeal, but that was a fire I was about to put out. “What's up?” he asked.

“
I have the bullet that killed Juan Padilla.” I handed over the plastic bag.

“How'd you get this?”

“From my client, a thirteen-year-old girl named Cheyanne Moran.”

“How'd she get it?”

“She picked it up off the ground after it went through the victim.”

“You're going to tell me she was a witness, right?”

“Wrong. I'm telling you she wants to plead guilty to manslaughter in the case of Juan Padilla.”

That took the light from his eyes and the spray from his hair. His clothes already looked like they'd been through the wringer. “You're giving me a thirteen-year-old shooter?”

“I am.”

“What the hell can I do to a thirteen-year-old girl?” It was a rhetorical question; he knew the answer better than I.