Little Lamb Lost (11 page)

“First, Ashley’s not the GHB type.
Second, if she was using again and partying the night before, she would have
known the juice had drugs in it. She wouldn’t have given it to Michael. Third,
if she didn’t do it, why take the fall?”

“Was she partying the night before?”

“She says not. She says she was
working.”

“Did they do a drug screen when she went
to jail? That would give you some idea if she was lying.”

I made a mental note to call Brighton on
Tuesday. “I’ll check on that. Although I don’t know if it would show GHB. That
stuff gets out of your system pretty quickly.”

I wondered for the hundredth time who
had sold Ashley the drugs, if they were hers. Flash? More and more questions
about his role in Michael’s death were nagging me. Was he the man in the green
car? Did he slash my tires? Why would he blame me for Ashley’s arrest? And was
he hanging out with Ashley again? Maybe it was time to find out what he knew. I
might be teasing a tiger, but I decided to track him down.

Dad reached over and sliced off a hunk
of my meatloaf.

“I thought you were a vegetarian,” I
said.

“This doesn’t count.”

I wasn’t about to argue with that.

Chapter Ten

Dad stayed to watch a documentary on PBS
with me. He left around eleven, and before dragging myself off to bed I hunted
down the software discs that the guy at the computer store needed. After retrieving
them from some storage boxes in the office closet, I slept a heavy sleep,
thanks to the wine.

By Saturday morning the air had cooled
to a more comfortable eighty-something degrees and the day promised to be
beautiful. I scurried down the driveway in my bathrobe to get the paper, the
plastic bag warm from the sun. I unrolled it like a bomb technician handling
explosives: very carefully and with a serious feeling of dread.

First I checked the obituaries.
Michael’s was there, short and sweet:

HENNESSY,
MICHAEL ALEXANDER
. Beloved son, aged two, passed away Tuesday, June
28. Services to be held Tuesday, July 5, at Harris and Sons on University
Boulevard at eleven a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to
St. Monica’s Home for Recovery.

St. Monica’s address was listed, but no
mention of surviving family. I skimmed the front page. The main stories were
about the heavy rain yesterday, which had caused some flooding, and the
governor’s trip to Washington D.C. Nothing about the case. I turned to the
local section. There was a short piece by Kirk, just a couple of paragraphs
about the sentencing and Ashley’s reaction. A small picture of her leaving the
courthouse, handcuffed. Nothing else. Then I flipped to the letters to the
editor. Nothing about DHS. Hopefully the public had vented all they were going
to. It appeared the media storm was abating, at least. I exhaled a sigh of
relief worthy of a bomb technician, cut the short article and obit out, and put
them in my purse to file in the Hennessys’ chart at the office. Then I read the
rest of the paper and took a shower.

I put on my scruffiest jeans and a faded
vintage T-shirt, wore my hair in a ponytail and no makeup. After dropping off
the discs, I was going to try to track down Flash and didn’t need to stick out
like a social worker in the process.

High Tech had an electronic door chime
that sounded as I entered. Grant came out of the back room, a travel cup of
coffee in hand. He greeted me with a small grin as I handed him the discs.
Looking them over, he said, “This should do it. The problem was your hard
drive, just like I thought. I should have these loaded by the end of the day.
We’re closed tomorrow and Monday.”

“Thanks. I can swing by Tuesday and get
it.”

“Uh, actually I was going to ask you — I
don’t know what your situation is —” He stopped and started over. “I was
wondering if you were doing anything for the Fourth.”

Oh Christ. He was asking me out. The
last thing in the world I wanted to do was to go out with anyone, much less
some geek. But he was looking at me with such a pained expression. Poor guy. He
was so shy. Not bad looking, either. Maybe his luck with women had been as bad
as mine with men. What the hell, I thought. “Not in the evening.”

“Then do you want to go see the fireworks
with me?” His face was turning bright red.

“I’d love to,” I lied.

The grin returned. “Great. Tell you
what, if you want me to pick you up at your house, I can deliver the computer
and hook it up for you. Is that okay?”

“Perfect.” I gave my address to him
again along with directions.

“About eight?”

“Sounds good.”

It was nearly noon when I hit Malfunction
Junction, the tricky intersection of three interstates in the heart of
downtown, then exited off I-20/59 into Ensley. I wound my way through one
economically deprived area and into another called Wylam. It was one of many
poor, predominantly black areas on the west side of town. Martin Luther King
Jr. once called Birmingham “the most thoroughly segregated city in the United
States,” and sadly not much has changed. Few businesses were still open in the
heart of this neighborhood, and many of the buildings were boarded up and
covered in gang graffiti. I thought about all the wealthier — and whiter —
areas south of town and felt sad. Our fine city, considering its history of
church bombings and poignant letters from jail, should set a better example.

After a bit of driving around, I found
the house where I’d first laid eyes on Ashley and Michael. It looked much the
same, a shabby yellow two-bedroom bungalow with a weedy yard. The street
bordered a factory that made some kind of asphalt product, and a chemical smell
permanently hung in the air.

I was taking a risk coming here. It was
the first of the month, time for the disbursement of paychecks and government
benefits, and that meant a lot of drug dealing going on. Several teens in red
clothing stood on a corner close to the house, watching me drive slowly down
the street. Two young men on pimped-out bicycles rode in small circles in front
of them. Neighbors sat in old metal chairs on their front porches, staring
intently at my car with no sign of welcome.

I’d put my purse in the trunk before I
left the computer store. Now I locked my car and, trying not to look
conspicuous or afraid, walked to the door. I knocked softly, surreptitiously
glancing over my shoulder now and then. I wished I had the police with me like
the last time I was here. One of the bicycle riding guys looked over my Honda,
inside and out.

No answer. I knocked again, harder.

The door was opened by a skeletal black
man in his early twenties, in torn red sweatpants and no shirt. I could see his
ribs. I could also see I’d woken him up and hoped it wouldn’t get me shot. He
rubbed his eyes and didn’t say anything, just waited for me to state my business.
I did, quickly.

“Flash here?”

His wiry Afro stuck up in different
directions. “Nah, man, he don’ stay here no more.” His voice was husky from
sleep.

“You know where I can find him?”

“He moved back in his mamma’s.”

“You know where she stays?”

“Someplace in Fultondale.”

“Thanks.” He shut the door, hard. I
scampered back to my car, nodding to the boys on the bikes and getting surly
looks in return. I got out of there, fast, and didn’t breathe normally again
until I was back on the interstate, heading east. I looped through the junction
onto I-65 North, and after a few exits pulled off the highway into a gas
station in Fultondale. This particular suburb was more racially diverse, but
solidly blue-collar. Home to truck drivers and steel workers.

I filled up and asked the old man behind
the counter if I could look at his phone book. I scanned the list of Bowmans in
the area. A Gina Bowman was listed in Fultondale, her house on a street near
the high school. Deciding it couldn’t hurt to try, I went to the address.

Gina Bowman’s house was on a hill. A
square box, sided in white aluminum, with green awnings over almost every
window. It looked remarkably like all the other houses on the street. No lime
green car visible from the front, but a narrow drive led to the back of the
house. I parked at the curb, climbed the steps that led to the door, and rang
the small round bell.

The woman who answered was in her late
forties, her dirty blonde hair fixed in a mullet that had gone out of style
twenty years ago. She had a face that was all fine cracks and creases,
radiating outward from a puckered mouth. The eyes were bloodshot to a bright
red, and at first I thought I’d woken her too, until the pot smell wafted out
of the door.

“Hi,” I began. “I’m Claire Conover, and
I’m from DHS. Are you Gregory’s mom by any chance?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he here?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I talk to him for a sec?”

“He in trouble?”

“No, not at all. I just want to ask him
about a woman he used to know.”

“Come in.”

I followed her into the house. The
marijuana smell was overwhelming. The living room was dim and tiny, stuffed
with mismatched 1950’s furniture and a ridiculously huge big-screen TV. It was
blaring QVC, which competed with the staccato beat of rap music from another
room. A plastic ashtray on the coffee table held a tiny scrap of joint and a
roach clip. The shag-carpeted floor flexed when I walked.

“Sit down.” Gina gestured toward a chair
by the window.

“Thanks.” She went down a short hallway
and I could hear her banging on a door, shouting over the music, telling Flash
he had company. I recognized the rap song as one by Ludacris.

Gina returned, reached for a pack of
Basic cigarettes lying on the coffee table, and lit up. “What’s this about?”

“Gregory used to hang out with a woman
named Ashley Hennessy. Her child died this week. You might have heard about
it.”

She nodded, taking a drag. “Yeah. The
kid that overdosed.”

“That’s him. Michael.”

She studied me long and hard for a
minute, and in her stoned brown eyes I could see the question she was afraid to
ask. I waited.

She asked, “Was — was Gregory his
father?”

“I don’t think so. Ashley told me she
was already pregnant when she met Gregory.”

“Oh.” A bit of disappointment, and
relief, in her voice. “I wondered, ’cause that’s Gregory’s middle name.”

“What is?”

“Michael. Gregory Michael Bowman.”

“Ah, I see.” Well, well. Had Ashley
named Michael after Flash because she loved him? The thought made me sick. Or
maybe because he was his dad? I guess she could have lied to me about when they
met. Very interesting. It made me wonder if there was anything else Ashley had
lied about.

“Does Gregory have a green Charger, by
any chance?”

“Nuh-uh. It ain’t his.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s his friend’s. Ray-Ray’s. He
borrows it some.”

Flash walked in, wearing a red Chicago
Bulls jersey and saggy long red shorts. He looked paler and skinnier than he
had two years ago. His hair was still platinum blond, but styled differently
than I remembered. Now it was short on the sides and stuck up in a ridge
straight down the middle of his scalp. He was smothered in the silver jewelry
that had given him his nickname. He sure wasn’t called Flash because he was
quick.

“Hey, Flash.”

“Christ. What the fuck you want?”

I tried, in an instant, to match his
voice to the phone message. I couldn’t be sure.

I glanced at his mother, who was staring
blankly through the filmy curtains to the world outside. A lifetime of regret
in her expression.

“How about two hundred dollars for new
tires?”

He scoffed. “I don’t know what the hell
you talkin’ about.”

“You heard about Ashley? And Michael?”

“Yeah. What about it?”

“You seen her lately?”

“What’s it to you, bitch?”

“Was she using again?”

“Fuck if I know. We’d still be together
if you hadn’t put her in that place, and that bitch hadn’t gotten the fuckin’
restrainin’ order.”

He picked up the pack of cigarettes and
lit up, just as his mother had.

“You give her any drugs lately?”

“Why?” He exhaled a cloud of brown
smoke.

“I want to help her.”

“By lockin’ her up? You were a great
fuckin’ help before. Why don’t you just get the fuck outta here and leave me
alone? Or you’ll be real fuckin’ sorry.”

Stupid little creep. I checked my anger
and tried a different tactic.

“C’mon, Flash. Was she using again?
Maybe we can help her. Get her out of jail.”

“I didn’t give her shit.”

“Michael died of a GHB overdose. You
ever do G?”