Little Lamb Lost (7 page)

After Mac left, I went back to the rest
of my messages. Three of them were from Michael’s former foster parents,
devastated about what happened and wanting to know if there was anything they
could do. I told them to contact Nona, then picked up the phone to call her
myself.
  

The secretary connected me immediately.
“Nona Richardson.”

“It’s Claire. How’re you holding up?”

“That’s the question I was going to ask
you.”

“I’m okay.”

“I was gonna call you this afternoon.
Cheyenne left this morning.”

Not that I was surprised, but I was
still disappointed. “When?”

“She took off right before lunch.”

“Okay, thanks.” Her kids, who had been
in foster care for years, would have to go up for adoption. I scribbled a note
on my to-do list to call Legal and start the termination of her parental
rights.

Nona went on. “Nice article in the paper
this morning, huh?”

“Tell me about it. Have you seen
Ashley?”

“I went by there about an hour ago.
She’s so sad.”

“I know. I made sure she’s on suicide
watch. What’s got me puzzled is that, according to Detective Brighton, she’s
going to plead guilty. Has she said anything to you about that? Or anything
about what happened?”

“She wouldn’t talk to me at all, which
is unusual. She always confided in me, even during the worst part of her
recovery. I was there for her detox. I’ve seen her at rock bottom. She’s never
clammed up like this. I’m worried.”

“Same here. Listen, Michael’s former
foster parents want to donate money for his funeral. I told them to call you.”

“Thanks. We’re trying to set the service
for next Tuesday. I’ll be in touch.”

I was grateful to Nona for planning
Michael’s service. But what could you say about an existence that was so short
and filled with so much trauma? There wasn’t an apology big enough to cover
what the grown-ups in his life had put him through. As I gathered my things to
go see Dee, Michael’s grandmother, I wondered if she would want to eulogize him
in any way. Or, considering her rocky history with her daughter, if she would
even show up at his memorial.

Chapter Six

It was just past three thirty when I left
DHS for Ashley’s mom’s place. She lived in the northwest corner of the county
in a tiny coal mining community called Adger. To get there I navigated to
Allison-Bonnet Memorial Drive, named for Neil Bonnet and Davey Allison, two
deceased NASCAR drivers. With the Talladega track only about an hour away, this
town was crazy about racing.

As I drove northwest, suburbs turned
into towns and soon became hamlets. When the street names changed to county
road numbers, I knew I was getting close and had to consult the directions I’d
copied from the case file.

I hoped Dee was home. She worked at an auto
plant in the next county, on the assembly line. Truth be told, she probably
made really good money. Maybe even more than I did. But a string of bad
marriages had left her living paycheck to paycheck. From what Ashley told me,
her previous husbands stuck her with mounds of debt she was still trying to pay
off. She managed every month to scrape together enough for the bills. Her third
husband, Al, drank or gambled away what was left.

I made a final turn onto the gravel
driveway in front of the Mackey’s house, a double-wide prefab on a wooded acre.
Some of the cream vinyl siding was mildew stained, and parts of the bottom
skirting were missing, showing the pipes underneath. A fire pit in the side
yard was used to burn trash since no pick up was available out here. Around the
blackened area lay a few plastic cups and cardboard beer boxes that hadn’t made
it into the inferno. I walked up a narrow dirt footpath, past an algae-covered
birdbath, and up four steps to the front door. An air conditioner jutted out of
the window next to the door, so I knocked loudly to be heard over its whirring.

Dee opened the door. Some of her
features were similar to her daughter’s, especially the long, straight brown
hair. She was shorter and heavier than Ashley, but the resemblance was there. I
guessed she was about to leave for work, since she wore a navy jumpsuit with
the car company’s logo on the left side of her chest. She greeted me and
invited me in.

Al was there too. No surprise, since he
didn’t have a job. He had thin brown hair and two days of stubble on his face.
He wore shorts, and over his large belly a T-shirt sported the slogan of a New
Orleans oyster house. “Eat Me Raw” was emblazoned on the front. He was focused
on a baseball game on TV, the Braves versus someone I couldn’t make out. The
Blue Jays, maybe. He lounged in an enormous green recliner and didn’t bother to
get up when I entered. The ends of the armrests of his chair were black with
dirt. One had a built-in cup holder that cradled a condensation-covered can of
Bud Light. It was twenty past four. Oh, well. It’s always five o’clock
somewhere, right?

Dee offered me a seat on the couch. Al
swiveled around to face me but didn’t mute the television.

I cleared my throat. “Have you heard
about Michael? And Ashley?”

Dee answered, after a glance at Al.
“Ashley called us Tuesday mornin’, when the police was still there.”

“Oh. I just wanted to come out and say
how sorry I am about what’s happened. Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m gonna try to go see her tomorrow.
Me and her need to talk about what to do about the funeral.”

“One of Ashley’s friends has gotten
together a fund for the burial and is planning a memorial. She’s trying to set
it for next Tuesday. Did you have something particular in mind that you wanted
to do?”

Dee looked relieved, and at the word
“fund,” Al’s gaze snapped to attention. “No, I don’t think so. Whatever her
friend wants to do is okay with me.”

“How are you holding up?”

Al decided to stick in his two valuable
cents. “We’re all right. Cain’t say I’m surprised at what happened. That’s what
you get when you mess with drugs. That kid’s prob’ly better off dead than
havin’ some crack whore for a momma.”

There was no use in defending Ashley; it
would be pointless. But I felt sorry for Dee, stone-faced, next to me. I
continued as if Al hadn’t opened his fat mouth. “I’ll have her friend Nona call
you when the arrangements are finalized. I’m sure if you wanted to say a few
words, she could arrange it.”

The thought of speaking to a crowd of
people clearly made Dee nervous. “Nah, that’s okay. I wouldn’t know what to
say, no how. I got to be at work at five, so I gotta go.” I rose along with her
as Al’s concentration returned to the game. I wondered which team he had bet
on.

Dee picked up her purse and keys from
the messy counter separating the kitchen from the long, narrow living room.
“Bye, baby,” she said to Al.

“Bye.” He took a swig of the beer.

Dee walked me to my car. I said once
again how sorry I was about Michael’s death.

“Thanks. I’m gonna miss that kid. I
don’t know if Ashley told you, but she’d been bringing him up here on the
weekends some. They was up here just last weekend. I got me one of them
inflatable pools and we put it out here in the yard with the sprinkler an’ all.
He had so much fun splashing around.” For the first time since I’d arrived, I
saw her eyes darken with grief. “And Ashley, she was doing so good. She was
thinking about going back to school. Getting her GED, and maybe taking some
classes someplace. She always did do good in school, before she ran off.”

I nodded. “I bet she’d do well.”

Tears began, leaking slowly out of the
hazel eyes that were so like Ashley’s. She wiped them away with her fingers. “I
gave her some money. It wasn’t a lot, jus’ two hundred dollars. Something she
could use to help pay for school someday. Al found out and got so pissed. He
said she’s an adult now and needs to stand on her own two feet.”

The thought of Al Mackey as anyone’s
life coach almost made me laugh out loud. I held my face somber as Dee
continued. “I guess I can see his point, but I just wanted to do something to
help her.”

“If she were my daughter, I’d have done
the same thing.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“Now I gotta get me some money together
for the lawyer.”

“Do you know who Ashley’s lawyer is?”

“I found her one Tuesday. His name’s
Samuel Hamilton. He’s supposed to be real good.”
      

I knew “Sam the Ham” by reputation. He
was fond of high-profile defense cases and courtroom theatrics. And she was
right, he was good. I had one more question to ask her. “Dee, do you think that
Ashley could’ve spent the two hundred dollars you gave her on drugs? Do you
think she was using again?”

“I guess she coulda. I ain’t seen her
high lately, and believe me, I know when she is. I was kinda shocked when I
heard how Michael died, ’cause it didn’t seem like she was into drugs again. I
know the signs.” Dee sniffled and wiped her face one last time. “I gotta go,
I’m gonna be late.”

“I’ll call you soon.”

I backed my car out of the driveway.
Following her fifteen-year-old Chevy Cavalier all the way to the interstate, I
reflected that Ashley’s mother knew her pretty well. And that made two of us
who didn’t think she was on the junk again.

GHB was done in capfuls, a fact I bet
Ashley knew. She was no rookie when it came to drug use. If she put the GHB in
the orange juice, she must have known that the amount could have killed her.
And Michael. Why would she put a ton of it in a pitcher? Then pour Michael a
sippy cup full of what was essentially poison? She’d worked so hard in rehab and
afterward to build a life for them both. By my reckoning, someone else had put
the GHB there and Ashley didn’t know about it.

If she’d been partying the night before
and one of her buddies made the juice, why not say so? Why not point the finger
at the person who did it? Ashley’s silence was troubling. Was she protecting a
friend? Someone who had been there that night? Maybe. The only alternative was
that she didn’t know who put the G in the pitcher, either. Which meant it was
an attempt on their lives.

I didn’t think anyone would knowingly
murder a small child. Who would want to OD a toddler on purpose? Was the
overdose meant for Ashley? Probably. So who would want to kill her? That seemed
to be the question. Flash? He fit the profile of an abuser to a T. He had a
history of being violent and dangerous.

Or Ashley’s stepfather, maybe? To keep
his wife from sneaking her money? Would he go that far? The thought stayed in
the back of my mind throughout the evening.

Friday morning storms were imminent. After
calling our secretary to tell her I’d be in a little late, I searched through
the phone book and found a place that fixed computers. The shop was in Hoover,
not far from my house. I unplugged the computer and lugged it out to the car,
tossed in an umbrella, and headed down the mountain.

The sky opened up while I was driving,
thick raindrops slamming into the windshield. The repair place was in a small
shopping center near the Galleria, the large mall that was the hub of this
upper-middle class, soccer-mom city. I parked my car next to a minivan. On its
door was a graphic of a computer with an arrow on the monitor pointing upward
and the words HIGH TECH underneath the picture. Fearing water would further
damage the machine, I struggled to carry it under one arm while attempting to
keep it — and me — under the shelter of the umbrella. By the time I shoved my
way through the glass door, I was soaked from head to toe.

Two men were in the shop. A
Middle-eastern guy who looked to be in his early twenties was restocking boxes
of software onto metal racks that filled most of the space. The other, a man
about my age, was working behind a counter. He was hunched over a tableful of
electronic thingamajigs, an open computer case in front of him, a small
screwdriver in his hand. A bank of computers purred on more tables behind him.
He heard me banging through the door and jumped up so fast he whacked his knee
painfully on the table. “Let me help you with that.”

He reminded me of a tree. He was easily
over six three, dressed in dark khaki pants and a loose, green polo shirt
tucked in over a flat stomach. He rushed over and relieved me of the computer,
placing it on the long red counter where the cash register sat.

“Thanks,” I said, shaking the water off
my hands and wiping it off my face. My hair was drenched, and my short-sleeved
sweater was sticking to me like cling wrap. He was looking at me expectantly, a
few chestnut-colored curls of hair loosely draped across his forehead. Bright
green eyes stood out behind a pair of geeky tortoise-shell glasses.

“How can we help you?”

“Um, my computer’s broken.” Well said,
Claire.

“What’s the problem?” He went behind the
counter and retrieved a pad of work-order forms and a pen.

“When I turn it on it makes a clanking
noise, and nothing comes on the screen.” I was dripping all over the floor. The
young man who’d been stocking the shelves disappeared into a back room and
brought me some brown recycled paper towels. I thanked him.