Ditch Rider

by Judith Van GIeson

  “This state has a lingering admiration for Billy the Kid.”

  “Hero worship is more like it. If you ask me, he was New Mexico’s original gangbanger. This is a great country, isn’t it? We give children TV and teenagers automatic weapons. Prison is our only deterrent, but that’s no threat—their friends and family are already there. Civilization is a thin veneer. All it takes is one tear in the social fabric and we revert to tribal warfare. Look at Bosnia, look at Africa, look at L.A. We’re a backwater compared to them. At least our gang members are still loyal to each other. In L.A. the gangs have gotten so big they’re fighting for power on the inside and shooting their own homeboys. The killing goes on and on, but the police have to step in somewhere or the citizens think the streets aren’t safe for them. Too many ricocheting bullets.”

  “I hear the murder weapon was a thirty-eight.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where’d you hear that?” He’d picked up a rubber band and begun fiddling with it.

  I ignored his question and continued with one of mine. “Don’t you think it unusual for a gang slaying to involve a revolver?”

  He shrugged. “Gang members have access to all kinds of guns.”

  “I also heard that Juan was killed with one round.”

  “So?” He stretched the rubber band taut between his fingers.

  “I guess that means the perp was a good shot.”

  “Or got lucky.”

  “Did Juan fire, too?”

  “No. He didn’t even get a round off. I hope you’re not considering representing Ron Cade, Neil. His parents have the bucks to pay you well, but he’s a monster, a superpredator. I almost got him last year on breaking and entering, but he slipped away. If you are going to represent him and you’re thinking self-defense, you can forget it.”

  “If prison is no threat, why do you care about locking up Ron Cade?”

  “It would keep him off the streets, and I wouldn’t have to look at his face again for a while. Stay away from that guy, Neil. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to end up on his bad side.”

  “You get on a lot of people’s bad sides, don’t you?” Only last week a gang member attacked a prosecutor in court after receiving a murder conviction. It didn’t help the guy’s case any when sentencing rolled around.

  “I look at those punks day after day in the courtroom, but they don’t scare me,” Saia said. “I go home and I sleep very well, thank you. So are you planning on representing Ron Cade?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” He snapped his fingers and the rubber band sprung loose across his desk. “We came that close to nabbing him yesterday,” he told me. “That close.” He placed his thumb and index finger a hair’s width apart. “He passed a unmarked highway patrolman on I-40 doing ninety miles an hour. The patrolman lost him at Tijeras.”

  It’s pretty hard to lose anybody in Tijeras, which is just a dot on the Interstate map. “How did that happen?”

  “The patrolman spun out on the exit ramp.”

  “Didn’t he call for backup?”

  “Yeah, but by the time the backup got there Cade had disappeared into the East Mountains.” The East Mountains, a forested area on the backside of the Sandias, is a place where bodies—alive or dead—often disappear.

  “He keeps showing his face in public taunting us,” Saia continued. “Or the Four O’s. This could be one area where our interests coincide. Here’s a picture taken on his last trip to court.” He dove into the pile on his desk and pulled out a photo. “Nice guy, huh?”

  The suspect, who was being led from the courtroom with his hands in cuffs and his legs in restraints, was snarling like he was getting ready to spit at the camera, his mouth being the only weapon he could still use. “What do you want to do? Wipe the sneer off his face?”

  “Something like that,” Saia said. “I got a witness, I got an impulsive and remorseless suspect, I got a motive. You’re not going to complicate a simple gangbang homicide for me, are you?”

  “I hope not.”

  He looked at his watch. “Anything else, Neil? I’ve got a meeting coming up.”

  “A meeting or a cigarette?”

  “Both.” He laughed. “Smoke now, meet later.”

  “I’m done.”

  He looked in the mirror, touched his hair to make sure every strand was slicked in place, stood up and shook my hand. “Whatever you’re considering, it’s always a pleasure for me to work with you.”

  “Thanks, Anthony,” I said. But this was one time when the pleasure would likely be all his.

  ******

  After I left his office I went to Walgreen’s and bought a pack of Nicorette gum. Next I stopped at Java Joe’s and got a coffee to go—black and shiny as an oil slick, no milk, no sugar, no Coffee-mate powder floating on top. I took the coffee and gum to my office, waved to Anna who was talking on the phone, picked up the mail, went into my office and closed the door. There was nothing in the mail that couldn’t wait, so I sipped at my coffee, unwrapped the stick of gum, popped it in my mouth, picked up a pen and began drawing diamonds down the side of a yellow legal pad.

  What I’d deduced from my meeting with Anthony Saia was that the weapon could have been a thirty-eight and that only one bullet had been fired. Saia had neither admitted nor denied those facts, but I knew his reactions well enough to know when I’d stumbled on the truth.

  Most gangbangers got off a few rounds, if only for the pleasure of doing it. Maybe there had been only one shot because a small hand had been holding the gun. I didn’t know whether Cheyanne was guilty, but she knew too much to be completely innocent. Saia had made it clear that the person he wanted to prosecute was Ron Cade, but as far as I knew all he had working for him was a witness. Ron Cade might have had a motive for the shooting, but there was no weapon yet. As for the witness, who knew what his motives were?

  I filled in the blanks in the first diamond and moved on down the page. I had agreed to represent a thirteen-year-old girl who might or might not be guilty of murder, who might or might not know something that would put Ron Cade away. The one question I had to keep asking myself was, What was in her best interest?

  ******

  After work I stopped at the double-wide to make sure my client was staying home. A truck with ladders attached to the roof was parked in front of the trailer on the spot where some people might have planted a lawn. I knocked at the screen door, which had a metal frame and a dead-bolt lock. That was good. A guy with a chain tattooed on his forearm answered my knock—that wasn’t so good. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt. His name, Leo, was embroidered on the pocket on one side of his chest and the name of the company he worked for, Coss Plumbing, was embroidered on the other. That and the ladder made him an air-conditioning repairman, one of those jobs that takes men in and out of women’s houses. His tight shirt showed the beginnings of a belly, but his arms were muscular and hard. He had short dark hair and a cautious smile. I could hear a TV playing somewhere inside the trailer and a baby crying.

  “I’m Neil Hamel,” I said. “I live down the street.”

  “Leo Ortega. Danny’s father.”

  “Is Sonia here?”

  “She went to work.”

  “How about Cheyanne?”

  “She’s here. Come on in.”

  “I’d rather talk to her outside, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sonia doesn’t want her to leave the house.”

  “It’s okay. I’m her lawyer.”

  “Cheyanne!” he yelled.

  She came to the door with Miranda wailing in her arms. “Could you turn the crying off, please?” I asked.

  “Okay.” She turned the key.

  I walked her away from the trailer to the far side of Leo Ortega’s truck. “Have you been staying home?” I asked her.

  “Are you kidding me?” She poked the ground with the toe of her running shoe. “My mom don’t let me go nowhere. After she went to work today, Leo showed up, and he’s even worse than she is. He won’t give me no a
ir.”

  “It’s for your own good,” I said. And where had I heard that before? From an adult who had pissed me off when I was her age. Nothing like hanging around a teenager to make you realize that what goes around comes around—and sooner than you think.

  “He’s not my father,” Cheyanne said.

  “I know. Does he come here often?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “To see Danny?”

  “That’s what he says. But then he gets on la teta…”

  The tit, aka the bottle.

  “…and he and my mom … you know.”

  I knew, but I didn’t recommend it. There’s a reason why people who split up stay that way. Drifting in and out of a relationship is too much time, trouble and pain. “Could your mother bring you to my office before she goes to work tomorrow, say around three-thirty? I’ll bring you home.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  ******

  For dinner the Kid got a bag of stuffed sopaipillas with green chile from Casa de Benavidez. You can count on Casa de Benavidez chile to make you weep.

  “Did you know that they have sopaipillas in Argentina?” he asked me.

  “Every country has something with dough that gets stuffed, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, but they call them different things in different places. Bariloche in Argentina and here are the only places I know where they call them sopaipillas. I didn’t think I would see that word when I came here.”

  Like fog, colloquial Spanish has a way of settling into mountain villages. There are places in northern New Mexico where they still speak a form of Castilian.

  Before opening the bag, getting the plates and starting dinner, I told him I’d been to see Anthony Saia.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The deputy DA. Remember? I’ve worked with him before.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Then I told him I was representing Cheyanne and that she wanted to plead guilty to the murder of Juan Padilla.

  The Kid didn’t buy it. “You believe that little girl killed somebody?”

  I had to admit that I didn’t know. “Saia is willing to accept the witness’s version of events that Ron Cade killed Juan Padilla and that he acted alone.”

  “That’s good for the girl, no?”

  “Yes and no. If she were an adult it would be one thing, but I have a hard time telling a thirteen-year-old who confesses to murder to forget about it and walk away.”

  “Maybe the witness is telling the truth.”

  “It’s not the whole truth. Cheyanne knows too much about the crime.”

  “Do you know who the witness is?”

  “No. Saia wouldn’t tell me.”

  The Kid took a sip of his Tecate. “You want me to see what I can find out?”

  “How?”

  “Talk to the boys who come into the shop.”

  “Okay.” Be discreet, I might have added, but asking the Kid to be careful with words was like asking anybody else to be careful with hundred-dollar bills. “Cheyanne knows more about the crime than Saia would reveal,” I said. “Either she was there or she’s talked to someone who was.”

  “Ron Cade?”

  “If that’s who she was with at the ditch, the opportunity existed to exchange information.”

  “What happens if she confesses?”

  “If Saia believes her, she’ll be sent to the Detention Home until sentencing and then to the Girls’ School for two years.”

  “It could be better for her than being on the street, no?”

  “In some ways the D Home and the Girls’ School are just an extension of the street. Gangs can operate inside almost as well as they do outside.”

  “What happens to this Ron Cade if Cheyanne says she did it?”

  “Hard to say. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence. There’s Cheyanne’s story and the witness’s story and Ron Cade’s story—whatever that is. Cade could be charged with being an accessory or he could walk.”

  That was all there was to say at the moment, so we opened the bag. The chile was as hot as I’d hoped. Green chile can be like going to see Bambi or Gone With the Wind. It’ll bring on the tears you can’t always summon yourself.

  ******

  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

  THE 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.