been stocking the shelves disappeared into a back room and brought
me some brown recycled paper towels. I thanked him.
“It won’t boot?”
“Nope.” I tried to dry myself off a bit with the towels. He wrote something on the pad. “Sounds like your hard drive.” “That’s what I was afraid of. Are they expensive?”
“About a hundred bucks for the drive, and another fifty for the
labor. Plus a diagnostic fee.”
Damn. That was almost two hundred bucks I was hoping to put toward new countertops for the kitchen. Not to mention the bill I’d
paid for the tires. Oh, well. “Okay.” I agreed, biting my lip. Seeing the look on my face, he gave me a small smile. “Tell you
what. I’ll waive the diagnostic fee and labor costs, and only charge
you for the hard drive.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I’m a nice guy.” His smile widened, but he looked
away abruptly when I smiled back.
“Thanks.”
He went back to writing on the work order. “I’ll need some info.
Your name and address?”
I gave them to him. He had small, neat handwriting. “Work
number?”
“The Department of Human Services.” I fished out a business
card and handed it over.
His eyebrows went up. “You’ve been in the news a lot lately.” “Tell me about it.”
He wrote my work and cell numbers on the form. Not looking
up from his writing, he asked, “Is there a Mr. Conover?” “No.” I tucked a wet wisp of blonde hair behind my ear. Dragged
a finger underneath my eye, and sure enough, it came away black. My
mascara was running.
He asked, “Did you bring your discs?”
“Discs?”
“Your software, to reload the machine.”
“I didn’t think about it. Do you need them today?” I glanced at my
watch. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“We’re open tomorrow from ten to five. I should have your drive
installed by then, if you want to bring them by.”
“Okay, I’ll do that.”
We shook hands as he thanked me for coming in. Mine was wet
and cold, his was warm and strong. “Let me give you a card.” He took
a business card from a black metal holder near the cash register.
Printed on it was the same logo I’d seen on the van outside, along with the name GRANT SUMMERVILLE and the shop’s numbers and
address.
I put the card in my purse and said, “See you tomorrow, Grant.” “I’ll be here.”
A Starbucks was next door to the shop, and I decided a tall latte
was in order. I bought a paper from a coin-operated box outside the
coffee house, ordered my drink, and settled down at a table for a
minute to wait on it. I scanned the first page, full of stories about the
latest terrorist plot and the president’s recent trip to Asia. The only
local news was about a drug bust on I-459. I read the list of obituaries. Michael’s wasn’t there.
As the college-age girl from behind the counter delivered my latte,
I flipped to the editorial section. Three missives about DHS helped
make up the letters to the editor section. All three railed on my agency,
using words like “shame” and “tragedy” and the ever-present “incompetent.” One ignoramus even called for Dr. Pope’s resignation. Granted, over the years I’d known some incompetent social workers. And it seemed that some mishandled case was always dominating the national news. But some of us were quite able to do our jobs,
thank you very much, and do them well. I was one of them, or so I
thought before Tuesday. The letters stung and reinforced my fear that
I’d missed something.
Then it got worse. I flipped to the next section. As I expected, Kirk
Mahoney was present in full force. The oversized headline asked:
WHAT’S WRONG AT DHS? I took a sip of the hot house blend, feeling the heat slide over my tongue and down to the pit of my stomach.
`
CHAPTER SEVEN
The headline of Kirk’s article filled me with dread. Reluctantly, I read on: For several years, the Department of Human Services has been haunted by deaths of children under its care. Six years ago, infant Annabelle Litton was shaken to death by her father, just days after DHS opened her case. Then LaDarren Baker, a foster child, died from a suspicious skull fracture. Now little Michael Hennessy can be added to this list.
I remembered those cases. The first happened just before I was hired. Our director had been asked to resign, along with the caseworker and her supervisor, since the case wasn’t investigated when — or how — it should have been. In the second one, the foster parent was never prosecuted but the worker in the foster care unit was reprimanded. Unfairly, I thought. She was a friend of mine. I kept reading:
DHS’s new director, Dr. Teresa Pope, vowed when she was appointed to increase the level of supervision over the caseworkers and to reduce caseload sizes. She has stated repeatedly that worker incompetence will not be tolerated. But can Dr. Pope guide this agency into greater accountability and ensure the safety of the county’s smallest citizens?
Mahoney went on to outline Dr. Pope’s background, from her Ph.D. in social work from Columbia University to her previous job as the head of a local mental health center. Most of it I already knew. Mahoney was a genius at leaving just a trace of doubt as to whether or not she was qualified to do the job. Then,
While Dr. Pope states that she cannot comment on Michael Hennessy’s death, she would like to reassure the public that many of the reforms needed have been put into place. “Caseloads have been reduced to a more manageable level, and a new licensing requirement has been added for all employees. We still need more funding to increase salaries and recruit more foster parents.”
Good for you, Dr. Pope. You go, girl. I read Mahoney’s last paragraph. These improvements, however, are too late to help twoyear-old Michael. The question remains why this child was placed in danger, with a parent unable, or perhaps unwilling, to keep him out of harm’s way. Dr. Pope asserts that an investigation is underway at the State level, and should the agency be found culpable, disciplinary action will be swift and exhaustive.
I reread the last paragraph again. I had to hand it to Mahoney. The article was good. It made DHS sound competent, but defensive. And it laid out just enough blame to be good reading. Damn him.
I folded the paper and threw what was left of my latte in the trash. I fumed all the way to the eastern precinct to pick up a copy of my police report. Then to the office, where numerous phone messages waited for me. One was from Nona, confirming Michael’s memorial for Tuesday at eleven a.m. at Harris and Sons. I wrote it on my calendar. I returned a few calls to clients, then worked on my case notes from yesterday, including documenting my meeting with Dee and Al. As I was filing the paperwork in the Hennessy chart, I realized something was missing.
I’d never run a background check on Al.
I combed through the chart again, making sure I hadn’t missed it. Ashley’s was there, so was Dee’s. All clear. Why hadn’t I done one on Al? I tried to remember back to when I got the case. Was Al married to Dee then? I couldn’t remember. If he hadn’t been her husband or boyfriend at the time, I wouldn’t have done one.
After writing down some information and putting the chart away, I took the elevator up to the fourth floor. Along with the director’s office, the Adult Services Department was here, and I walked through their area. Over the last four days I’d noticed more inquisitive looks coming my way. Some people were discreet about it, shooting me furtive glances as they passed my cubicle. Some were more overt, and many had stopped me to express their condolences
. The Adult Services folks were the same. After what happened to the workers in the cases Mahoney mentioned in his article, I couldn’t blame them for their curiosity about what was going to happen to me. I wondered myself.
I came to what was once the customer service desk of the former Barwick’s Department Store. Behind the glass sat Michele, who ran our records department. She was a few years older than me, with short brown hair and an air of organized efficiency. A computer and high-speed printer stood ready on a built-in workstation behind her. Stacks of paper in black plastic trays covered the rest of the surface.
“Hey,” she said to me, sliding open the small window. “I’ve been worried about you. How’re you doing?”
“I’m okay I guess.”
“You heard anything about what the State’s going to do?”
“Nothing yet.”
“By the way, I’ve got some bad news for you.”
Like I needed that. “What?”
“My cousin found a girlfriend.”
So that was it. Michele was another active member of the “Conspiracy to Get Claire Married.” She’d been trying to fix me up with her forty-something-yearold cousin for months. She swore up and down he looked just like Rob Lowe. Inwardly, I was happy to hear someone had snatched him up.
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“She’s real nice, and they seem pretty serious.”
“My tough luck, I guess.”
“Y’all would have made a cute couple. What can I do for you?”
“I need a Registry check.”
She handed me an 8-1941 form. The Registry was the State’s record of who had been accused of child abuse, and whether the case was founded or unfounded. I filled in the little biographical data I had on Al, mostly just his name, address, and age, and handed it back to her. “Give me a sec and I’ll do it now.”
I waited, leaning on the desk and watching her type all the fields into the computer. She hit enter and turned back to me. “So, my cousin has this friend —”
I held up a hand. “Stop. I don’t do blind dates.”
“Why?”
“Because they are always a disaster.” My mind drifted back to the last blind date I’d agreed to, after graduate school. He didn’t want a date, he wanted sex. It had taken me over an hour to extricate myself from his wandering hands and call a cab home.
“Not always.”
“For me, always.”
The printer behind her made a little click and a whirring noise. A second later it spewed out pages.
“Uh-oh,” Michele said, “It looks like your boy’s had a few number ones on the Hit Parade.”
I closed my eyes as my stomach sank. Damn, damn, damn. Michele paper clipped the sheets from the printer and handed them to me. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
I stood at the desk and studied the pages. At the top in all caps was listed the name of the alleged perpetrator. Allen Pierce Mackey. He was forty-one. The last known address listed was different from his current one. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown. Height: 5′ 11″. Weight: 280. That was him all right.
Below that was the alleged victim. Heather Lynn Mackey. Parents: Tina Lynn Mackey and Allen Pierce Mackey. Heather’s date of birth was listed too, and after a quick calculation I worked out that she was now twenty. I checked the date of the first allegation. She’d been three years old.
Listed below were two columns, the codes for what we had investigated in Al’s case and the findings. There were three entries. The first said PHYSABCH UNFSUS. Physical Abuse of Child, and the agency had ruled it unfounded but suspicious. Meaning that a child in Al’s care showed suspicious injuries he denied causing, but the circumstances seemed to be more than a mere accident.
Next was PHYSABCH FOUN. Physical Abuse of Child, Founded. Meaning that the caseworker had solid evidence that Al had abused this girl. That case was when Heather was seven. Another PHYSABCH FOUN was the same year, when she was almost eight. What our system couldn’t tell me was whether or not Al was prosecuted. Those records were kept by the justice system, not DHS. There might be a footnote in the record, or there might not.
So, Al Mackey was a child abuser. And I hadn’t known a thing about it.
Michele interrupted my reading. “Are you going to want to see the chart?”
“Yeah.”
Michele filled out a blue 8-1705 form, Request for Record. I signed it after she handed it to me. “You let me know if you change your mind about my cousin’s friend.”
“Okay. I wouldn’t hold your breath though.”
I took my blue form down to the basement. The cavernous area that once stored additional inventory of clothes, shoes, ties, and handbags in the 1930s was now filled to the ceiling with electric racks of case files. Social workers weren’t allowed in, but instead rang a buzzer at a door once we stepped off the elevator into the small hallway. I hit the button and waited.
Dolly opened the door, as usual. She’d been with DHS since God was a boy. Her hairstyle was a gray sixties bouffant that never moved, and her clothes were from the same decade, dowdy dresses with oversized collars. Her skin was paper thin and just as pale. She was sweet, though, and I was fond of her.
“Hello, Claire,” she said. “What do you need?”
I handed her my blue form and we made small talk. She didn’t mention Michael. I wondered how much she knew about what went on upstairs, since she spent most of her day in this dungeon, purging old charts.
She went to find the chart I wanted and returned with it several minutes later. I thanked her and took it to my office. Behind my desk, I opened the faded brown folder and began to read.
It took me forty-five minutes to go through it all. The investigating social worker on the first case, seventeen years ago, was someone whose name I didn’t recognize. She was long gone. Her case notes revealed she’d been contacted by a babysitter who’d reported that threeyear-old Heather had several bruises on her bottom and the back of her legs. Interviews with both parents were conducted. Tina denied ever spanking Heather. Al admitted to spanking her after she ran into the street, but stated he hadn’t left the bruises. He claimed those were from her falling off the end of the slide in the backyard. Her parents were referred to parenting classes at the agency and the case was closed.
The next social worker was someone whose name I did recognize. Danessa Brown, now a supervisor in the foster care unit, one floor above me. She’d been an investigator thirteen years ago. I read her meticulous notes. When Heather was in second grade, Danessa was called out to the school by the guidance counselor who’d noticed several bruises on Heather’s legs. Heather revealed how she got them from her daddy spanking her, and the case was sent to court on a dependency charge. That was so the court could supervise the family and place Heather out of the home if needed. Al was required to go to parenting classes, ordered not to spank the child under any circumstances, and to attend AA meetings. The case was left open for oversight by DHS.
Danessa made regular contact with Heather, as required, and noted that two months after the court appearance, Al moved out. I got the feeling from reading between the lines that sobriety was too much of a strain on his marriage. He visited regularly with his daughter, though, and just before she turned eight, more bruises appeared. Once again, brave little Heather told exactly where she got them, the case went back to court, and Al was ordered to have no contact with his daughter whatsoever. The case was closed a year and a half later after no further incidents.
I closed the chart and put my face in my hands. All this time, Al Mackey’s record was two floors below me and I didn’t know. How was the state office going to react to that one? Why in the hell hadn’t I run his background check two years ago?
Time to go see Danessa. I took the chart with me up the stairs to the third floor and made my way to the perimeter of the foster care unit’s area. She, too, had a window office with a plate glass front that overlooked cubicles in the middle, just like Mac’s. Hers was more chee
rfully decorated, with plants and jazz concert posters.
Danessa sat behind the large desk. She was in her late forties, and I speculated she was getting close to the magic twenty-years-ofservice mark. A lot of our long-timers left at that point, since they could draw full retirement from the State. She had soft black hair that rested on her shoulders, a few gray threads visible. Crows’ feet and laugh lines stood out like wood grain in mahogany. A pair of halfmoon reading glasses balanced on her nose. She had a boisterous personality and a lot of spirit. I wouldn’t have minded being in her unit, come to think of it.
She was writing something, but stopped when she saw me in the doorway. “Claire! What you up to, girl?”
“Can I interrupt for a sec?”
“Sure, come on in.”
I stepped in and closed the door, then took a seat in the burgundy metal-framed chair in front of her desk.
She asked, “How have you been? I heard about that case of yours.” Funny how no one used the word “death.” Like it was bad luck or something. Like saying Macbeth in a theater.
“Yeah. Michael.”
“You afraid they’re gonna make you a scapegoat?”
She didn’t mince words, so neither did I. “Yep.”
“Fight for it, girl, you hear? If you don’t want to leave, don’t let them make you.”
“I’ll try.”
“Not good enough. You’re too good to go someplace else. If you want this job, make sure you keep it.”
The pep talk cheered me a bit. “Thanks.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to pick your brain about a case from thirteen years ago.”
She hooted.“Girl, you know I can’t remember what happened last week, but I’ll try.”
“The Mackey case. The little girl was seven. You did two abuse investigations in the same year. Bruises. Dad was the perp. He wound up moving out and the court ordered him to have no contact. Ring a bell?”
She thought back, her faraway gaze on a framed Wynton Marsalis poster. “Oh, yeah,” she said slowly. “Al. Little girl was Heather. Smart kid. Pretty, too. Lots of wispy black hair, just like her momma. Only child, thank God. He was a drunk.”
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