Ditch Rider (5 page)

If he was thinking the same thing I was—that the witness's description might be too accurate—he gave no indication. “The sketch was very close to Ron Cade's photo,” I said.

“There was a strong resemblance. It was either Cade or his evil twin,” Saia agreed. “The police artist does good work.”

“What's your witness's name?”

“I'd rather not give it out until I have to. He's a juvenile. There's always the danger of gang retaliation.”

“Is he a gang member?” That would make any witness less credible in my book.

“No.”

“The witness didn't see anybody but Cade?”

“No.”

“And you believe Ron Cade acted alone?” In my experience teenagers joined gangs because they didn't like to act alone.

“
That's what the witness said.”

“That'll make it easier for you guys. Only one perp to track down.”

“Unless Padilla's gang gets to him first. Their system of justice is swift and effective. Ours?” He threw up his hands.

“Are you ever tempted just to stay out of the way and let them duke it out?”

“It would save the taxpayers some money,” Saia said. “A Four O shoots Ron Cade in retaliation for Juan Padilla's death, which was probably in retaliation for some other gang member's death. Then a Heights Highlifer has to kill a Four O in retaliation for Ron Cade. Once the killers are dead we turn them into heroes. That's the American way. Trouble is, a gang-banger's idea of justice can be to drive down the street shooting at anyone wearing the wrong color. We're not always right either, but we do put more effort into our justice than they put into theirs.”

“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 air.”

“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.

******