Ditch Rider

by Judith Van GIeson

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  Cheyanne nodded.

  “Your face looks bad right now, but that swelling will go away and soon you’ll be yourself again.”

  “Really?”

  “Trust me. You’re a pretty girl and you have beautiful hair.” Flattery was one approach I’d never considered.

  “Thanks.” Cheyanne tried to smile, but it hurt too much.

  “Why would somebody do something like this to you?” Jessup asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who did it?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” Fear or loyalty or plain old stubbornness were stronger than flattery.

  “If you witnessed Juan Padilla’s murder and somebody is trying to keep you from testifying, that’s a felony,” Jessup said. It was one of the possibilities I’d considered. Another was Four O payback time. “We’ll arrest whoever it is, and that person won’t bother you anymore.”

  Cheyanne wasn’t buying it. Her response was, “I can’t tell you.”

  “Where did the assault take place?” Jessup asked.

  “I don’t remember exactly. Somewhere on the ditch.”

  Jessup probed gently, Cheyanne answered reluctantly, revealing little more than she had to me. The detective asked if Cheyanne would help them find the person who had injured her, but Cheyanne said she couldn’t do that. When Jessup had finished, she asked if Cheyanne had anything she wanted to say.

  “Yes,” Cheyanne replied. “I want to plead guilty to the murder of Juan Padilla.”

  Jessup looked to me for confirmation, since a statement blurted out by a thirteen-year-old girl would not be admissible in court. The time had come to make it official. “My client wishes to plead guilty to Section Thirty-Two-Three, manslaughter,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Jessup asked.

  “I’m sure,” Cheyanne answered.

  “I’m going to put you in the D Home, then, and present your plea to the DA’s office.”

  “Go ahead,” Cheyanne said. She slumped down in her chair. Her hair fell over her face, and I couldn’t see if her expression was one of despair or relief.

  ******

  When I got to my office I did some slumping of my own, so much so that in the middle of the afternoon Anna knocked on the door and asked if she could get me a coffee or something.

  “Thanks anyway,” I said, my theory being that when shit happens you get over it faster if you get into it deeper. If you have to feel rotten, you might as well feel good and rotten.

  “If Saia does accept her plea it’ll only be two years in the Girls’ School, right?” Anna said.

  “Probably.” It wasn’t the length of the sentence that bothered me, it was enormity of the crime—that plus the ages of the victim and my client. Psychologically Cheyanne could be dragging a rotting corpse around her neck for the rest of her life. And there was the other thing. “If she didn’t do it and Saia accepts her plea, that’ll mean the real killer goes free.”

  “If it wasn’t her, then it was a gang member. They’ll duke it out.” She paused. “You sure you don’t want something to drink?”

  “How ’bout a Coke?”

  “You got it,” Anna said.

  ******

  When Saia called me an hour later, I’d gotten enough of a buzz on to start drawing diamonds down the side of my legal pad.

  “I have a report on my desk that says your client was assaulted,” he began.

  “My client was assaulted.”

  “The kind of wounds she had could have been self-inflicted.”

  “You didn’t see how terrified she was when she showed up at my door.”

  “Terrified of her own self. There’s a police report on file saying your client tried to commit suicide three years ago by cutting her wrists with a broken soda bottle. Did you know that?”

  “Sure.” I was lying, but what the hell, it wasn’t the first time Saia had ever been lied to. I had stopped drawing diamonds and started drawing loops.

  “She could have cut her face in the same way. The cuts were shallow and the marks weren’t inconsistent with those left by a sharp piece of glass.”

  “You think a pretty thirteen-year-old girl is going to cut her own face?”

  “Why not?”

  “She had no motive to inflict wounds on herself, Anthony.”

  “How about this one? She’s trying to get out of a bad family situation and into three square meals a day, Nintendo and phone privileges in the D Home.”

  “She is under suicide watch, I hope.”

  “She is.”

  “Maybe it was payback time, Anthony. Did you consider that?”

  “Naah, if gangbangers were after a payback they wouldn’t have given her those rinky-dinky wounds. They’d have killed her. I’d suspect Ron Cade, except that his alibi for the night of Padilla’s murder has turned out to be solid.”

  “The one that came from the tennis player?”

  “Right. He lost in the tournament, by the way.”

  “Too bad. So what’s the alibi?”

  “That Cade was watching a video at the tennis player’s home in the Country Club area the night of the murder. He’s a clean-cut kid, an athlete, a student at the Academy and he’s standing by Cade’s story. The father is a lawyer who swears his kid is telling the truth.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Probably. The guy’s a pompous asshole, if you ask me.”

  That didn’t narrow the field much. “Are you going to tell me who?”

  “No.”

  “How does your tennis player compare to your witness?”

  “He’d hold up better in court. The witness is a punk.”

  “You going to tell me who he is now?”

  “No.”

  “You do have somebody out looking for the crime scene and witnesses to my client’s assault?” I asked.

  “Of course. Your client claims she’s in too much pain to go with them.”

  “Those are nasty wounds she has.” One possibility Saia hadn’t mentioned was that if the wounds were self-inflicted, the motive had been remorse. “Why don’t you call me back when you’ve completed your investigation?” I asked him.

  “Will do,” he replied. “We’ll hold her in protective custody for a few days until the investigation’s complete.”

  “Good,” I said.

  ******

  After work I went home, picked up the Ziploc bag of grass and went out looking for the crime scene myself. I started at Mirador and walked south along the Chapuzar Lateral, entering a maze of water, weeds and deception. There are places along the ditch banks where you can see the Wind Woman’s Mountain, Sandia Peak. And there are places where if you stopped and listened long enough you might hear or see La Llorona and her lost children. There are other places where you see nothing but cottonwoods and five-foot-tall weeds. I didn’t have to go far to find the circle of yellow police tape that was getting to be a familiar sight in the hood. At the crime scene weeds had been flattened, crushed and shaped by bodies, but that was the only sign of struggle. Whatever blood had been spilled here had gone on to the crime lab. The site backed up against the ditch embankment and was shaded by a cottonwood. When I stood still I could hear the water lapping gently at the banks. It was a peaceful spot, sung to by water, shaded by the cottonwood. Today it resembled a nest more than the scene of an assault. There were enough crushed weeds to make it appear to me that more than one person had been here, but I wasn’t an expert. I took out my bag and compared my grass to the bent and broken blades on the ground. They were identical in shape, texture and their straw color.

  I turned around and looked at the back of the houses facing Mirador. There were several long narrow fields between the crime scene and the dwellings—fingers reaching for the water in the ditch. It was only a short walk down the Chapuzar Lateral to my place or to Cheyanne’s if you cut diagonally across the fields. I wondered what had enticed or forced her to crawl out her bedroom wind
ow and come here in the dark. I also wondered how much investigation I ought to be doing of a crime my client didn’t want investigated.

  On the west side of the Chapuzar Lateral was a row of two-story town houses trying hard to ignore the fact that they’d been built in New Mexico. A second story in this state is an invitation to sun and wind. No matter how tight the windows, the heat and dust seep in. The height did give the inhabitants a good view of the crime scene, however, and the adjacent fields. I looked up at the second stories, but the blinds were all shut.

  ******

  Saia called to tell me that Jessup and Donaldson had found the crime scene.

  “I know,” I said.

  “You saw it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you know it was on the Chapuzar Lateral between Mirador and Sunset. There were signs of a struggle. A neighbor heard a dog barking, but nobody saw anybody. The police talked to your client’s family, but they weren’t any help. Unless she gives us a name, that investigation’s going nowhere. The blood sample we got did match your client’s type.”

  “Was any weapon found?”

  “No. We got the DNA results back on the bullet you gave me, and you were right—it’s the one that killed Juan Padilla.”

  That didn’t surprise me. “Anything new on the gun?”

  “No. But there’s one more development. A clerk at the Diamond Shamrock on Fourth saw your client running down Ladera alone around midnight the night Juan Padilla was killed.”

  I’d reached the place I’d been heading, but now that I’d gotten there it felt like a drained dry ditch, a rut with all the life sucked out. “Are you willing to accept my client’s plea now?”

  “I am under a lot of pressure to indict somebody. I’m willing to run it by a Juvenile Court judge.”

  “And if the judge accepts it? She pled guilty, Anthony. She says it was an accident. She’s cooperating. She’s showing remorse. Will you agree to no attempt to get consecutive terms?”

  “Assuming she behaves herself in the D Home.”

  “Assuming.”

  Something—me or Detective Jessup or the plight of my client—had touched Saia’s stony heart and made him say, “Yes.”

  ******

  On my way home from work I stopped at the Diamond Shamrock to buy a quart of milk and fill up on gas. It was late enough that whoever had this shift might still be working at midnight. I waited while the guy at the counter paid for his lottery tickets and the guy behind him paid for his gas. The clerk looked like she could handle herself on an oil rig or in a convenience store. She wore jeans and a plaid shirt. Her face was rough, her shoulders broad, her hair a gray and blonde mix. The store had cleared out, and I hoped it would stay that way long enough for me to find out what I wanted to know. I put my milk on the counter.

  “How you doin’ this evening?” she asked in a pleasant enough voice.

  “Pretty good, and you?”

  “Not too bad.” She rang up the price of the milk.

  I searched in my purse for the money and handed over a five-dollar bill. “Do you work this shift on weekends?”

  “I do.”

  “Were you here the night Juan Padilla was killed?”

  “Yup.” Her voice was still friendly, but her eyes turned wary. Her fingers remained on the register.

  “Would you be willing to tell me what you saw and heard?”

  “You mind telling me why you want to know?”

  “I’m a lawyer and I’m representing one of the suspects.”

  That seemed to satisfy her. She handed me my change and told me what she had observed. “I didn’t hear the gunshot. I saw that little blonde girl who lives on Mirador. I don’t know her name, but she comes in here sometimes. She ran by here all alone around midnight.”

  “Did she have anything in her hand?”

  “Not that I saw. She’s your client?” I heard someone coming into the store behind me and could see the clerk shift her attention over my shoulder to the new customer. Awareness is critical when you’re working in a convenience store.

  “Yeah.”

  “You have my sympathy,” she said.

  11

  IN THE MORNING I went to see Cheyanne at the D Home, a cement compound on Second Street whose grounds are guarded by floodlights and a ten-foot-tall chain-link fence topped by razor wire. I had to go through the electronic gate and three doors before I was able see my client. Some juvenile offenders consider this place a dungeon, others a sanctuary; it depends on where and what they’re coming from. The Four O’s were bound to have members inside, and I was worried about what they might do to my client. I was relieved to see that she had no new wounds and the old ones were starting to heal. Her bruises had turned into a rainbow of muted colors. The swelling had gone down and I could see her eyes again. She had clean bandages on her cuts. Her hair had been washed and brushed. I’d been expecting to find her anxious and scared, but she was calmer than I’d seen her. Home might not be such a bad word for this place. It was a structure that could protect her from herself and others.

  “It looks like you’re doing all right,” I said.

  “It’s not so bad in here. I have phone privileges, at least, and I don’t have to be around my mother and Leo.”

  “Leo doesn’t have anything to do with your being in here, does he?” I could think of a number of ways in which Leo might have influenced this outcome.

  “Naah.”

  “Has anybody been harassing you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you seen your mother?”

  “Yeah.” She stared at her clenched hands. I was hoping she’d make a gesture that would open them up. “I wanted my mother to bring Miranda, but they won’t let her in here. She has to go back to the school anyway. They found out I’m the one that took her.”

  “Did you and your mother talk?”

  “I guess.” Cheyanne shrugged and threw up her hands. “She didn’t yell at me, anyway.”

  It was a step in the right direction. Cheyanne put her hands in her lap palms-up, enabling me to see what I’d been looking for. Slender scars floated on her wrist like silvery fish. The scars were almost buried in the creases where her hand met her wrist—one reason I hadn’t noticed them earlier. “The Deputy District Attorney told me you tried to commit suicide three years ago.” I said.

  She nodded and hid her hands under the table.

  “Why?”

  “I was mad.”

  “At what?”

  “My mother and Leo.”

  “You’re not thinking about doing it again, are you?”

  “No. It was dumb. I was just a kid then.”

  “I went to the place where you were assaulted,” I told her. “The police had cleaned it up and taken away the bloody grass. The only blood they found was your type, and they didn’t find a weapon. Saia suggested you might have injured yourself.”

  Cheyanne brought her hands up and touched the bandage on her forehead. “You think I’d cut my own face? No way!”

  “You weren’t feeling guilty about Juan, were you?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I feel guilty all the time, but I wouldn’t cut my own face because of it. What is it going to take to make that guy believe me?”

  “I think you’ve succeeded. Ron Cade came up with an alibi. The DNA came back on the bullet, and it is the one that killed Juan Padilla. The clerk at Diamond Shamrock saw you run by there around midnight on the night Juan was killed. You will be arraigned before Juvenile Court Judge John Joseph tomorrow. He will decide whether or not to accept your plea.”

  “What do I wear?” She was dressed in her baggy blue D Home shirt and pants.

  “What you’re wearing now.”

  “Will I get two years?”

  “That won’t be decided at the arraignment. All you do now is answer the charges. Either the judge believes you or he doesn’t. If he does believe you, you’ll be sentenced later. How well you behave while you’re in here is important. If you�
�re a model detainee, Saia has agreed not to ask for consecutive sentences.” Two years was long enough for people to get out of town, get killed or forget. In two years Cheyanne would be only fifteen years old. Young enough to start a new life. Young enough to get into a lot more trouble. Far too young to have a murder hanging around her neck.

  “I’ll be good,” she promised.

  “The judge will be impressed if you show remorse in the courtroom.”

  “No problem. Every time I think about Juan it makes me want to cry.” Her hands were in her lap again and she squeezed them tight.

  “It would help if you showed the judge some respect. When you speak to him, call him Your Honor.”

  “Okay.”

  “You can still recant if you want to,” I said. “It’s not too late.” But we seemed to be on an express train headed for one destination.

  “What does recant mean?”

  “Change your story.”

  She shook her head and her hair fell across her face. “I don’t want to change my story.”

  “You shouldn’t keep all your feelings to yourself, Cheyanne.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Everybody needs someone to talk to.”

  “I know.”

  “What was it that got you out of the trailer? You had to know it was a dangerous move.”

  “That was it.”

  “What?”

  She flipped her hair back and looked me in the eye. “I needed to talk to somebody,” she said.

  ******

  When I left the D Home I waited for the light at Griegos to change and for the northbound traffic to clear before I pulled into the turn lane, the island in the middle of Second Street with curved arrows pointing east toward the D Home and west toward the river. The traffic lights had the effect of gates in a waterway controlling the rate of flow. There were two lanes heading north and two south, both full of potential weapons and victims. From my island in the middle of the street I glanced at the Sandias while waiting for the southbound traffic to clear. The last vehicle before my opening was a pickup truck with two girls inside whose teased hairdos filled the cab. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and prepared to turn. The truck was no surprise to me; I’d known it was coming. But my reaction startled the women. Thinking I was going to cut in front of them, they began screaming and swearing, two big-haired women on a bad hair day. Road rage in Albucrazy can get you killed in a minute. I know better than to respond, but my middle finger was itchy and before I could stop myself I’d flipped them the bird.