Little Lamb Lost (27 page)

“You okay?” Grant’s voice interrupted my
musings. “You look puzzled.”

“I am.”

“Listen, I have to go out for a while.
That was one of my clients on the phone and their server just went toes-up.
I’ve got to go fix it. It may take a while. Are you going to be okay by
yourself?”

I didn’t really want to be alone. “I
think I’ll go to my father’s.”

“I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s okay.”

I called Dad on my cell on the way to
his house. He was out, but I let myself in and found a bottle of wine in the
fridge. I was on my third glass when he entered the den dressed in his
gi
and
sweaty from his Tae Kwon Do class. He helped himself to a glass of wine.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Okay.”

He chuckled.

“What?” I asked.

“I suddenly had a flashback of you and
your brother doing math homework at the kitchen table. Whenever you had a
problem you couldn’t solve, you’d get this crease between your eyebrows and
clench your jaw. It was so cute.”

“What on earth made you think of that
now?”

“You’ve got that crease, and you’re
about to break your teeth.”

So I was.

“What’s the problem?” Dad asked.

I outlined the stream of thoughts that
I’d had at Grant’s. Who I suspected and why.

“It wasn’t the Madisons,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“They’re devastated over Michael’s
death. They wanted to be part of his life.”

“You mean, you —”

“And that’s all I’m going to say.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Dad, if you know something about this —”

“Like I said, that’s all I’m going to
say.”

He walked into the kitchen, put his wine
glass in the sink, then came back to the bar in the den and poured himself a
bourbon and water. “You want something stronger?”

“No, the wine’s plenty.” My thinking was
muddled enough without liquor. Dad had just taken away my number one suspects.
I believed what he said about the Madisons. It was the first time he’d ever
hinted at anything in one of his therapy sessions, and he was never going to
reveal any more than what he had just told me. I had to trust him.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I was almost convinced that they were
behind it. I don’t know what to do next.”

“I think you’re right to look at the
timing. Try to piece together what happened that night.”

He was right. I knew where I was headed
tomorrow. Now at least I had a direction.

Wednesday was busy, spent on the road
doing home visits with clients. Between stops, I called
The News
on my cell phone.

“Mahoney,” he answered after the first
ring.

“It’s Claire Conover.”

“Hi. I was just thinking about you.”

“Nice thoughts, I hope.”

“Very.”

I let the flirting slide. “What’d you
find out?”

“Eclipse Entertainment, owned by Donovan
B. Grayson. Business license applied for three years ago, liquor license the
same year for a club called Kaleidoscope. Since then Eclipse has applied for
and received licenses for three other places. Grayson’s opening another place
this fall, and that one’s a restaurant.”

He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t
already know. “Anything weird about him?”

“I called a contact with the police
department. They’ve had a few incidents at some of the bars owned by Grayson,
but nothing really major. A couple of fights at a hip-hop club called Flow, but
only one that got really ugly. Occasionally his bartenders will call the cops
when drunks get out of control. Like I said, nothing they’re likely to lose
their license for or anything.”

“No drug busts?”

“Not that I could find. So what’s the
big story?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“But there is a story?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, until then you owe me one.”

We hung up and I went to my final two
appointments. When the last one was over, I went to East Lake. I parked in
front of Dazzle’s house, feeling more than a pang of guilt that I hadn’t called
before now to see how she was coping. I rang the bell and she answered.

It was bedlam inside. Thomas the Tank
Engine and his friends blasted out of the television. One little boy was
playing with some sort of toy that played tinny music at full volume, and two
girls were shrieking and chasing each other around the room. Another smaller
boy wailed in misery.

“Lord Almighty,” I said.

“Jus’ let me run an’ change Lil’
Jeremy’s diaper. Go on in to the kitchen, and I’ll be righ’ there.”

I sat at the stained table and,
wondering how Dazzle was able to tune it all out, kept an eye on the kids for a
few minutes until she returned. Lil’ Jeremy had stopped crying. Dazzle wiped
his tear-streaked face with a napkin, handed him a section of graham cracker,
and sent him to the living room with a loving swat on his behind.

“Can I get you somthin’? A Co-cola? It’s
hot enough out there to melt steel.”
 

“Some water would be great, thanks.”

I waited until she handed me the tall,
cool glass. She joined me at the table and I asked, “How are you holding up?”

“Aw’right, I sup’ose. I did that thing
you tol’ me about.” She nodded toward the other room. “Me and some o’ their
mammas took ’em all to the park last Friday. We talked a lot ’bout Michael and
then we sent him some balloons up in heaven. Some o’ ’em drew him pictures. We talked
about how he had wings now and was an angel. I do alright mos’ days, until I
see somethin’ that reminds me o’ him. Like his favorite toy or
somethin’. ”

I knew how she felt. I reached over and
squeezed her hand gently.

“You seen Ashley?” she asked.

“Yes, a few times.”

“How’s she?”

“I think she’s doing okay, all things
considered. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to ask you some questions about her.”

“How come?”

“I’m trying to put together exactly what
happened the night Michael died. I know you told me how he was Monday, before
he went home.”

“He wasn’t sick or nothin’. He musta got
into the drugs after he got home.”

“What about Ashley? Did you notice
anything about her that was different? Did she say anything unusual?”

“Lemme think, now. She was jus’ like she
always was, I’m sure. She got here a little after ten. Michael had colored her
a picture outta one o’ the coloring books. Just scribbles, you know, but he was
proud o’ it. He was sleepin’ when she got here, on the couch. He was the last
o’ my babies to get picked up that night.”

“How did Ashley seem? Did she act
different? High? Or drunk?”

“Oh, no. No. I’da never let her leave if
she was.”

“What kind of mood was she in?”

“She seemed a little tired, but the poor
thin’, she worked so hard. Said she’d had a long day. Now that you mention it,
though, Ashley had a real bad day that Friday.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hadn’t thought ’bout it till jus’
now, but when she picked Michael up Friday, it was like she weren’t herself.”

“Go on.”

“She always lit up when she come to get
him, you know. All smilin’. She’d say how’s my big boy and pick him up and give
him big hug.”

“And Friday was different?”

“She looked upset ’bout something. I
asked her how her day went and she said not so good.”

“Upset how? Like she was angry or
scared?”

“Jus’ upset. I thought maybe she’d
gotten into trouble with her boss at work. That kind o’ upset. Troubled. But by
Monday she seemed aw’right.”

I knew Ashley’s bosses at her second
job, and had never seen them upset anybody. So something had happened Friday
night or Friday afternoon. I found myself clenching my teeth again as I
realized that Friday was the day that Karen Madison had found out about
Michael.

“Does tha’ help?”

“Maybe, Dazzle. Thanks. If you think of
something else, please call me. Oh, one more question. Was Ashley wearing her
uniform those days when she picked Michael up?”

“She didn’t wear no uniform for her
night job.”

“Was she dressed different than usual?”

“Naw, jus’ jeans and a blouse, like
always.”

So she wasn’t dressed to go out. Likely
she was telling the truth about having been at work Monday night, instead of
out partying. But I was going to double-check.

Dazzle walked me to the door. I had
another referral for her sitting service and told her about the family briefly.
She had room for the little girl, and I said I’d give them her number.

It was four twenty. I rushed down
Oporto-Madrid Boulevard, cut through Crestwood and Mountain Brook Village to
the suburb of Homewood.

Taylor Maids was sandwiched between a
dry cleaner and a shop that rented party supplies. It wasn’t much more than a
narrow, linoleum-tiled room with asbestos green walls and a couple of desks.
The owners, Liz and Trish Taylor, were sisters-in-law, happily married to two
brothers. Several years ago, when their respective nests grew empty, they
turned their twenty-plus years of homemaking experience into a cleaning
business. But they did it with a twist. They exclusively hired women who were
trying to get back on their feet. They worked closely with Nona at St.
Monica’s, The Harbor downtown, and the local battered women’s shelters. As long
as the women didn’t have a history of stealing, Taylor Maids would do
everything in their power to help them stabilize their lives and become
independent. They’d hired more of my clients than I could count, and I needed
an army of Taylors and people like them.

Liz greeted me when I walked through the
door. She, like the actress whose name she shared, was the more flamboyant of
the two, fond of elaborate hairstyles and lots of makeup. She also
chain-smoked.

“Claire Conover! How you been, girl?”
she asked in her husky voice. An ancient television on Liz’s desk played a
seventies sitcom. She turned down the volume.

“Fine, Liz, thanks. How are y’all?”
Trish, the mousier one, was quietly working at a desk near the back of the
room. She did more of the behind-the-scenes work, like scheduling and
bookkeeping. She waved to me.

“Good, good. Busy. Damn shame about
Ashley and her son. Me and Trish went by the jail last week. We cashed her last
check for her and put it in her commissary account. She looks pitiful.”

“I know.”

“You coulda never have convinced me she
was using again. Never. She showed up to work right on time, always. Never
missed a day. Never called in, like they do when they’re dope-sick or hungover.
I’da never believed it till I saw it on the TV. Right, Trish? We saw it on the
TV.”

“Right.” Trish murmured.

“No complaints from your clients, about
Ashley?” I asked.

“No! Never, I tell ya. She was one of
our best girls, right, Trish? I tell ya, I was shocked beyond belief.”

“Did either of you notice anything
different about Ashley that day? Or that week?”

“No way. You know how I am with my
girls. I love ’em all, but I don’t let ’em get away with nothin’. If there’s a
problem, we take care of it, right, Trish? We take care of it right away.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Trish said, still bent over
her paperwork.

I didn’t doubt it. Taylor Maids had
excellent boundaries. A strict hierarchy and a strong set of rules. They had
to, to stay in business. Otherwise the girls would take advantage.

“Where was Ashley working the night
Michael died? Did she have the same clients every week? How does that work?”

“All of my girls have some clients that
are regular. It depends on what the client wants, see? Most big offices, they
want cleanin’ every night. The full job — empty the trash, dust, vacuum, clean
the bathrooms. Ashley, for example, every night she did a law firm here in
Homewood. Fielding, Kendall, and Morris. She’s been doing them every night since
she started for us a year and a half ago, right, Trish? They never had no
complaints about her. Then, after she did the law office, she might go do for a
smaller client. Some small offices, they only want someone in once a week to do
the vacuuming and such.”

“How do you keep track of where the
girls go?”

“That’s Trish’s department. She keeps
the master schedule. The girls look at the master to see what office or
building to go to. Then they take a work order sheet with ’em, to the job.
That’s like a checklist of what they done, what time they got there, and what
time they left. Then Trish uses that to bill the client for the hours, plus a
fee for supplies and equipment.”