Little Lamb Lost (4 page)

I muted the sound as Kathleen went to a
story about the City Council. My jaw relaxed. Okay, so far so good. My name
wasn’t mentioned, and they weren’t verbally crucifying Ashley. Yet.

Dad interrupted my thoughts. “Did I ever
tell you about the time one of my clients committed suicide?”

I looked at him, surprised. Dad was a
psychologist, semiretired. His practice, founded when I was about Michael’s
age, had thrived for years, but now he kept only a few clients in his caseload.
“When?”

“Oh, about twenty years ago. You were
about ten or so. Your mother was still living. The thing was, I knew this guy
was going to do it. I got him committed to a psychiatric hospital and he stayed
three days. The day after he left, he wrote a note to say good-bye to his
family and shot himself in the head.”

“God.”

“I was terrified I could’ve done more to
prevent it. Terrified his family was going to sue me. They never did, but I
stayed up nights going over everything, making sure I’d done everything I was
supposed to.”

“Yeah, but my kid didn’t kill himself.
He was only two.”

“I know, but my point is that sometimes
you do everything right and things still go horribly wrong. Things you don’t
have control over.”

“Tell me about it.”

Dad got up and lifted me with two hands
out of the chair. He wrapped his arms around me in a reassuring hug. “So don’t
beat yourself up about this too bad, okay?”

“I’ll try. I’m going home. I’m sensing a
bubble bath in my near future.”

“You don’t want something to eat? I’ve
got some veggie burgers in the freezer or some tofu.” Dad was a part-time
vegetarian. Vegetarian until someone mentioned the words “bacon cheeseburger.”
Either way, his cooking was atrocious.

“No, thanks, I’ve got stuff at home.” I
did feel better. Dad’s talk helped. That and the Tylenol.

At home I sank into a peony-scented tub
for an hour. I tried to read, to distract myself from thoughts of Michael and
Ashley and what could have caused this tragedy. It didn’t work. Visions of
Michael’s body, lying on the cold linoleum, crept into my mind between every
paragraph. I gave it up and went to bed, tossing and turning myself into a
nightmare world where I was in a sailboat with drowning children all around me.
And I didn’t have a single life preserver.

I snapped awake at five thirty, and
despite the sleep my eyes felt gritty and tired, like I hadn’t rested at all.

I went to work and as my fellow
caseworkers trickled in, managed to focus on my court reports and filing. As
soon as it was nine o’clock I called Nona. She said Ashley had a rough night,
but she was trying to find things to keep her busy. Then I left and went to
Dazzle’s.

Dazzle Martin’s house was within walking
distance of East Lake Park, named after the large body of water in the center,
and I remembered as I drove past how Michael had loved to feed the ducks. I
could feel my eyes start to sting. Falling apart now would do no good. I buried
my feelings about his death as I turned onto Dazzle’s street and shut the car
off in front of her house.

Technically, I suppose Dazzle’s little
enterprise could have qualified as a day care. During the morning she watched
four preschool-aged children, and a couple of older kids joined them in the
afternoon. Getting her day care license, however, would have meant renovating
her nearly one-hundred-year-old house to meet the building and fire codes, not
to mention all the inspections to keep her license. It would have been too
expensive. Since most of my clients couldn’t afford commercial day care
centers, without sitters like Dazzle — who got her toys donated and charged
just above what was necessary to feed the children — they certainly wouldn’t be
able to get jobs and do all the things DHS asked. So we turned a blind eye. I
was more than a little worried that if whatever killed Michael had come from
her home, they were going to shut her down.

Dazzle was a slightly stooped woman in
her mid-sixties. Her skin was a smooth, dark black and she had the most
perfect, polished white teeth I’d ever seen. When she smiled, those teeth were
framed by deep dimples and it was easy to see how she’d gotten her nickname as
a teenager.

Today, however, there was no smile, just
Dazzle standing at the door, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a paper
napkin. “Come in,” she said. “I just got done sittin’ down with the chil’ren,
tellin’ ’em about Michael. I tol’ them that he died and wen’ to heaven, and now
he’s an angel. We prayed for him. Do you think I did right?”

“Exactly right.”

“Some o’ their mammas was asking about
the funeral. Asking if they should take ’em. What do you think?”

I followed her into the family room. “I
wouldn’t. Kids that age don’t understand the service, and the burial, if there
is one, would just terrify them. I’d have a separate ceremony for them and
their parents. Maybe at the park. I’ve heard of one ritual where the kids
release balloons with good-bye messages tied to them. That I think they’d
understand.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Three children entertained themselves in
the colorful family room, which looked as though someone had dumped a giant toy
box into the middle of it. Clustered on the walls were a half century of
photographs of Dazzle’s family, including her deceased husband, her three kids,
and seven grandkids. One of her grandchildren sat on the couch, mesmerized by
Big Bird on the television. Another girl about the same age was deeply
engrossed in the play kitchen set. A younger, Hispanic-looking toddler made
quite a racket with a singing keyboard. “Let’s go in the kitchen,” Dazzle said.

An enormous wooden table dominated the
kitchen that served as both dining area and craft headquarters. A naked Barbie
lay face down on the paint-stained surface. Dazzle positioned herself where she
could see the kids through the door.

“Did the police say anything yesterday?”

“Nothin’, just took a lot of pictures
and asked me what he done yesterday. And what he ate.”

“What did he eat?”

“Bless his heart, he was goin’ through a
peanut butter phase. Wanted it on everythin’. So for lunch he had peanut butter
crackers an’ an apple, and for dinner a peanut butter sandwich with jelly and
some string cheese.”

“I was thinking he might have had an
allergy. How was he after he ate? Any complaints about not feeling well or
anything?”

“No, not at all. He was jus’ normal.”

“Was he more tired than usual?”

“No. He went down on the couch about
nine, and his mamma picked him up a little after ten, like always.”

“He didn’t hit his head yesterday, that
you know of?”

“No, he never said nothin’ about that. I
watch ’em close, and I didn’t see no accident or fall or nothin’. ”

This wasn’t allaying my fears. Michael’s
death seemed less and less like an accident. The small girl who had been play
cooking wandered over and patted me on the leg. She couldn’t have been older
than four. She was a beautiful girl of mixed race, with soft, curly black hair
and caramel-colored skin.

“Michael died. He’s in heaven.”

“I know.”

“He’s an angel. He has wings. I want my
Barbie.” I handed her the doll, and she skipped away.

I said good-bye to Dazzle and left for
my ten o’clock home visit. As I descended the concrete steps in front of the
house, I noticed something was wrong with my Civic.

She was sitting lower than she should
have been. I crept forward, scanning the street left and right. No one around.
A dog barked in the distance, but that was the only sound from the wide,
tree-lined street.

I crouched to look at each of the tires.
All four of them bore a two-inch wide slit, near the rim.

“Damn it,” I swore out loud. “Son of a
—”

“You awright?” Dazzle called from the
stoop.

“Somebody slashed my tires.”

“Oh Lawd, Lawd. What next?”

No kidding. What had I done to deserve
this? I had trouble believing it was a random thing. In my experience, these
types of attacks were deliberate. I’d been the victim of vandalism before,
three years ago, when one of my clients spray painted “bitch” in orange on the
side of my car. At the time, I’d had a pretty good idea who’d sent the message.
Not this time. The thought scared me.

 
“You want to call the police?”

I debated. Whoever had done this was
long gone, and it was doubtful that anyone would be caught. Dazzle’s neighbors
were mostly widows and retirees, and it was unlikely any of them saw anything.
Still, I’d probably need the police report to file the insurance.

 
I
pulled out my cell. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

Dazzle went in to watch the kids, and I
waited until an officerarrived. I gave a quick statement to a young policeman
who said I could pick up a copy tomorrow at his precinct. I called my client to
cancel our meeting. Then I called a tow truck, and a chatty old guy transported
me and my vehicle to the Tire Warehouse. An hour, and two hundred and twelve
painful dollars later, I was on my way.

I picked up a late lunch on the go, went
to Family Court for a hearing that was continued, then on two more home visits.
By four o’ clock the stress and the lack of sleep were catching up to me.

I was back at my desk, yawning and
writing case notes, when my cell phone sang its little tune. Nona, from St.
Monica’s. She spoke low. “That detective just called looking for Ashley. I
think he’s on his way over. I got a bad feeling about this.”

“I’m on my way.” I slapped the phone
shut, snatched my stuff, and bolted for the car. Traffic creeped and the
stoplights seemed in some giant electronic conspiracy against me. By the time I
got to St. Monica’s, a white Ford Taurus and a Birmingham police car were in
the alley beside the house. The lime green Charger was parked across the
street.

I left the Civic behind the patrol car
and was halfway up the steps to the porch when Detective Brighton came through
the door, followed by a uniformed officer and Ashley, in handcuffs. Nona was
behind Ashley, wringing her hands.

“Miss Conover.” Detective Brighton
nodded once to me and shot Nona a look. “Imagine finding you here.”

Ashley’s head was down, her long,
straight hair hiding her face like a curtain.

“What’s she under arrest for?”

“Right now she’s charged with negligent
homicide, child endangerment, and possession of a controlled substance. That’s
to start with.”

Then he said the words I’d been dreading
for almost two days. “Michael died of a drug overdose.” He paused to consult
the small spiral notebook in his pocket. “Gama hydroxybutyrate.”

Chapter Four

As we stood on the steps of St. Monica’s,
Brighton continued reading from his notebook. “GHB was found in significant
quantities in the victim, in a sippy cup, and in a pitcher of frozen
concentrate orange juice taken from the refrigerator at the residence of Ashley
Hennessy.” He closed the notebook with a triumphant look. It pissed me off.

 
“Ashley?” I said. Her head bent lower and she
wouldn’t look at me. “Ashley?” I turned to Brighton. “I can visit her in jail,
right?”

“Tomorrow. Now, you gonna move that car
or am I gonna radio to have it towed?”

I moved my car into the street and
watched as the police officer led Ashley by the arm and placed her in the
backseat behind the cage-like divider. Brighton’s Taurus sped off after them.
The green Dodge was gone.

I pulled back into the alley and joined
Nona on the porch, sinking slowly onto one of the blue-painted steps. I could
hear the women inside the house gossiping like crazy about Ashley’s arrest.
Nona lowered her large frame beside me and patted my back as I pressed my fists
to my eyes. Ashley had killed her son. She was on drugs again, and had fooled
me totally. How could I have misjudged her so completely?

“Damn,” I said.

“I know.”

“I really thought she was clean.”

“Me too.”

“GHB. Damn. How could I have missed it?”

“We both did.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“How?”

“Ashley did crack mostly, right? Some
pot. And booze. She never told me she did GHB.”

Nona’s comforting strokes continued.
“Girl, you know what addicts will do to get high if they really want to. If
they’re desperate enough, they’ll snort, shoot, or smoke just about anything.
What they did before don’t much matter.”

“But GHB? Why now?”

“I don’t know. She certainly didn’t tell
me she was using again. Maybe we’ll never know what triggered this.”

“Do you suppose she’s back with Smash or
Trash or whatever his stupid street name was? The guy she was living with when
we took Michael away?”

“Flash. I don’t know.”