Ditch Rider by Judith Van Gieson

to the trailer first?” Cheyanne asked. “There’s something I want to show you.”
    â€œOkay.”
    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.
    â€œWhere’d you get it?”
    â€œIt 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?”
    â€œHe might.”
    â€œGood,” 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?”
    â€œNow,” 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.”
    â€œDo you believe her?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do with it?”
    â€œTalk to Sonia.”
    The Kid went to bed, but I sat up, watched TV and waited for Sonia. Around midnight the doorbell rang.
    â€œMy daughter’s here?” Sonia asked.
    â€œYeah.”
    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.
    â€œWhere’d that come from?”
    â€œYour 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?”
    â€œWith DNA testing they probably can.”
    â€œSon of a bitch,” she said. “Are you going to turn it over to that DA? What’s his name?”
    â€œSaia. What do you want me to do?”
    â€œWhat does Cheyanne want to do?”
    â€œTurn it over.”
    â€œDo 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