Little Lamb Lost (24 page)

Next,
jimmy shelton
. A big
unknown. How much influence did he have over Ashley? Did he want her, but not
her son? He was dangerous. Dangerous enough to follow me into the woods with a
knife. The thought made me want to check the doors again.

Then there was
zander
madison
. Michael’s dad. Not exactly a responsible guy, but not really a
deadbeat either. Seemed to love Michael. Even provided for his son in his own
way. I’d seen a lot worse. But Zander was dependent on his family’s wealth to
support his drug habit. What would he do for drugs? Anything, probably.
Including kill his own son, if his parents told him to?

alexander
and karen madison
. Powerful. A family used to getting their way and with
a whole lot to lose. Including control of a huge corporation. But also
desperate to get help for Zander. I thought about the love I’d seen in them for
their son. Would two parents with so much concern for their child be capable of
murdering a toddler? Their own grandson? My instincts said no. Careful, though,
I told myself. You might be wrong. That made me uneasy. Self-doubt wasn’t
something I was used to. Not until this case.

I studied the list so far.
al mackey
,
I wrote next. Had a history of hurting his own daughter. In debt up to his
eyeballs and had gone so far as to directly ask about life insurance for
Michael and Ashley. A scumbag. But a murderer for money?

gregory
bowman, aka flash
. He was in love with Ashley, and he’d stalked her
before. Unstable was an understatement, especially when he was high. I was
fairly sure he’d been the voice of the threatening message at work. Reacted
rather violently to the idea that he could be Michael’s father. But Ashley had
never asked him for child support because she knew all along who Michael’s dad
was. What motive could he have for killing Michael? None. But Ashley?
Possession. He could have tried to kill Ashley for dumping him. If I can’t have
her, no one can. That sort of twisted, abusive logic. I’d bet he knew how to
get his hands on some GHB if he wanted to.

Then I wrote
others
. A question mark
after that one. Ashley had lied to me about knowing the identity of Michael’s
father. What else was she lying about? Who she was hanging out with? Was she
staying clean? If she wasn’t sober, she sure knew how to fake a drug screen.
Who knows what kind of partying she’d been doing behind my back?

kaliedescope
.
Another question mark. A hangout for Ashley and her friends. A club whose name
always seemed to come up when GHB was the subject. And Ashley knew the
bartender.

So, what now? My brain was being sucked
into an undertow of exhaustion. I studied the list. I’d just have to do what I
did with every other list. Tackle each item one by one until I was done. Until
I was satisfied that I had answers.

It was after one. I yawned an enormous
yawn and closed the notepad, then curled up under a chenille blanket on the
couch.
The
Empire Strikes Back
was on one of the cable channels. I knew it by
heart, watched it anyway. I fell asleep while Luke Skywalker was on Dagobah and
dreamed of a man with Darth Vader’s voice, except he had long, bushy hair and a
beard.

I woke with a start to the sound of
someone opening my carport door.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The carport door had a distinctive squeak,
and my eyes flew open when I heard it. Sunlight filtered through the closed
blinds and made a pattern on the hardwood floors. I jumped up like someone had
poked me with a pin.

My father was closing the door behind
him. He looked to the couch where I sat, hair tangled and eyes puffy. I started
breathing again and tried to get my heart rate down. The grit in my eyes had
grown overnight to the size of pebbles. I rubbed them. My legs ached.

“Good morning. You’re sleeping late.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine thirty.”

“Oh.”

My father suddenly noticed something and
started. I followed his surprised gaze to see Grant, standing in the hallway
outside the bathroom door, wet. His glasses were steamed over. All of his
important parts were wrapped in a pink towel.

“Hello,” my father said.

“Hi,” Grant said, with a nod. He turned
quickly and ducked into the guest bedroom.

“New friend?” Dad asked me.

“He’s the guy I met at the computer
store.”

“I see.” There was an edge to my
father’s voice. His liberalism didn’t extend to wanting to know any details
about his daughter’s sex life. Or that I even had one. “Something wrong with
his place?”

“I asked him to stay. It’s a long story.
And if you are going to let yourself in to
my
house, you have no right
to make snide comments. Next time, knock.”

“Sorry.”

I shouldn’t have been short with him.
“Me too. He slept in the guest bedroom, by the way.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“It’s okay.”

Grant, dressed, walked into the room. I
introduced him to Dad and they shook hands. Awkward. Probably would have gone
better if my father hadn’t seen him in a towel.

“I came over to do some edging,” Dad
said. “I guess I’ll get started.”

“Thanks.”

I ran a hand through my hair and walked,
sore and stiff, to the kitchen to make coffee.

Grant said, “What are you going to do
today?”

First item on my agenda for tomorrow,
Monday, was to get to the jail to see Ashley, but in order to do that I need to
get some things done at work. I had several home visits to schedule and court
Monday afternoon. Not to mention the ever-present pile of pending paperwork. “I’m
probably going into work.”

“You going to be okay? I told my parents
I’d come down today, but if you need me —”

“I’ll be okay.”

“What about tonight?”

“If I get nervous, I’ll call you. Or go
to my father’s.”

Grant and I had coffee, then we decided
on breakfast before going to get my car. We waved to Dad as we pulled out of
the drive. After satiating ourselves on biscuits and gravy and grits at a
nearby restaurant, we made our way to Royanne’s. I knocked on the door and let
her know I was taking my car, said good-bye to Grant with promises to call him,
and drove downtown to work.

There were enough cars in the parking
lot to make me feel somewhat safe, but nonetheless I compulsively checked
behind my back as I entered the building and signed in with the weekend
security guard. I spent an uneventful afternoon doing paperwork, and at four
thirty left for home. At my request, the guard walked me to my car.

I picked up the ingredients for
vegetarian spinach lasagna at the Piggly Wiggly and called Grant on my way to
my father’s. He was still at his parents’ house and declined my invitation to
join us for dinner. I parked behind Dad’s hybrid, as usual, and lugged the
groceries into the kitchen.

“What’s all this?” he asked, poking
through the bags.

“Dinner.” I started unloading the
groceries. “Unless you had plans?”

“No plans. I was just going to heat up
some soup and watch
60
Minutes
.”

“Can I stay the night here?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to stay at my place.”

“Why? Stop fussing with the damn
groceries and tell me what’s going on.”

I stopped and faced him. “I may be in a
bit of trouble.” Leaning against the harvest gold countertop, I told him about
the stalking at Oak Mountain yesterday.

When I was finished, he stormed, “You
know, I’ve never liked your job. I keep saying that I want you to come into
practice with me, and I mean it.”

“I know, but I’m not giving up. Not on
my job, unless the A.G.’s office presses charges and I get fired. I’m not
giving up on this case. I owe it to Ashley. And myself. But most of all to Michael.”

He studied me a moment, then his pastel
blue eyes took on a distant expression. He said, “I remember when the other
Freedom Riders and I left that May. We knew there’d be trouble, maybe even some
of us would be killed. Then, when we got to the bus station and saw that huge
mob and no cops in sight, I was sure of it. But we went ahead, anyway. Because
we believed what we were doing was right. Your grandfather thought I’d gone
crazy. He didn’t believe in desegregation, or understand why it was so important.
Maybe worth dying for.”

“Then you get where I’m coming from.”

“I get it. But I’m still worried.”

I kissed the scar on his cheek. “Don’t
be. I’ll be careful.”

We spent a companionable evening eating
and watching TV. Dad drove me over to my house so I could get something to
sleep in and something to wear to work in the morning. I went to bed early,
snuggling into the concave twin mattress, wrapped in the tattered pink and
green floral comforter that I’d dreamt under for so many years as a teenager.
Someday, my dad might get remarried and his new wife would turn this space into
a fashionable guest room or office. For now, I’d relish the sensation of safety
infused from the familiar stuffed animals around me and the cotton
candy-colored paint on the walls.

I slept deeply and the alarm clock
buzzed way too soon. After leaving Dad a thank-you note, I went to my eight
thirty staff meeting, then to the court to file my addendum for the one thirty
dependency review. By eleven, I was circling the jailhouse, looking for a place
to park. No luck. After deciding to spend the three dollars it would cost to
put the car in a garage, I made my way into the building and through security.
The guard recognized me now, but still made me do the whole routine, walking me
through the metal detector and making me leave my things. I went to the second
floor as before, perched and waited until Ashley was escorted in.

When she saw me, she rolled her eyes.
Whatever sympathy I’d been nurturing toward her transformed instantly into anger.
She picked up the handset and said, “What now?”

“How do I get in touch with Jimmy?”

“I told you, you don’t.”

I was pissed as hell, and I didn’t care
if she knew it. “Damn it, Ashley. That son of a bitch followed me around Oak
Mountain State Park Saturday with a knife. He might have killed me. I want to
talk to him. Because now he has a problem.”

“Claire, it ain’t what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

“Just leave it alone. Please. I’m
beggin’ you. You’re just gonna get hurt.”

“By Jimmy? I want to talk to him.”

“No.”

“Give me a number. Or an address. I’m
going to find him.”

“Don’t. He’s not dangerous.”

“Then why was he tracking me on a hiking
trail with a knife? Listen to me. You tell him if I even see him near me again,
I’m going straight to the police.”

“But it ain’t what you think.”

I’d had enough of her lies. I slammed
the headset down in the cradle a little too forcefully and stood. Through the
glass I heard her yell, “Wait, don’t be mad! Please!” The guard, not liking the
shouting, came over and gripped Ashley by the elbow. “Please!”

I caught a glimpse of her over my
shoulder as I marched for the door. I didn’t stay to watch the guard take her
back. I took the stairs to the security station, my heels clicking loudly on
the concrete steps. I retrieved my car from the garage. The money I’d wasted to
park just so I could get nothing from Ashley was another needle of anger that
stuck in me.

I drove north and found a spot at a meter
two blocks away from the Top of the Hill Grill. It was busy, full of lunch patrons,
and I had to wait until I could get a seat at the counter. Brandi flew from the
window to the counter to the tables and back. Another waitress, a new girl, was
doing the same thing. So the manager had replaced Ashley. Life was going on
without her.

An elderly couple paid their tab and
left, and I slid onto one of the vinyl-covered stools they’d vacated. Brandi
saw me, nodded, and a few minutes later took my order. “I need to talk to you,”
I said.

“Way busy. Can you wait?”

I checked my watch. It was five to
twelve. I had court at one thirty. “For a while.”

I ate, then bought a newspaper from a
box outside the restaurant and read it while the surge of diners receded. Kirk
didn’t have an article in the paper today. I skimmed the editorial page, which
was full of comments about rising water prices and, mercifully, not entirely
full of criticism of DHS.

Brandi finally had a few minutes of down
time at one. I had to leave for court within fifteen minutes, so I made it
quick. “I need to talk to Jimmy. Do you know where I can find him?”

“He hasn’t been in here since Ashley
went to jail. Didn’t you ask her for his number?”

“I just came from the jail. She won’t
tell me how to reach him.”