His eyes narrowed at me as he grinned. “You know, you’re kinda cute when you rant.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“All rise.” The bailiff ’s sonorous voice echoed throughout the room. We dutifully stood as Judge Rollingwood took his place behind the bench. He had an air of being in a hurry. The whole court staff, come to think of it, looked a little rushed. All of them were trying to finish work and start their long holiday weekend.
“Be seated,” the judge said. After everyone complied, he studied a sheaf of papers for several minutes. “Mr. Hamilton.”
Ashley’s attorney stood behind his table. He had full, salt-andpepper movie-star hair, and a beautifully tailored suit. All ready for the cameras.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“I understand you have a plea agreement for me.”
“We do, Your Honor.”
I held my breath, unable to do a damn thing as Ashley’s fate unfolded.
`
CHAPTER NINE
The courtroom was dead quiet as everyone waited for the judge to speak. “Very well,” he said. He flipped back through the papers again until he came to the first page. “Ashley Louise Hennessy, you are charged with one count of negligent homicide and one count of possession of a controlled substance. How do you plead?” The D.A. had dropped the other charge of child endangerment, I noted.
Ashley stood, ramrod straight, and in a clear, high voice announced, “Guilty.” She said it like she owned it.
I was the only one not surprised. Kirk’s eyebrows lifted as he scribbled furiously in a pocket-sized notebook. Dee sucked in a sudden short breath and covered her mouth with her hand. Nona’s head bent quickly as if to pray.
On second thought, maybe I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t shocked. I caught a glimpse of Jimmy in the back row, head nodding in support. What did he know about it?
The judge answered Ashley. “You have entered a plea of guilty and are hereby sentenced to a term of five years, serving not less than one year in custody, with the remaining four years to be served on probation. Do you understand the terms of this sentence?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have anything to say?”
“No.” Her tone was confident.
Judge addressed the D.A. “Anything to add?”
“No, sir.”
“Mr. Hamilton? Anything else?”
“Yes, sir. We would like to request that Miss Hennessy be allowed to attend the memorial service for her son. It’s Tuesday at eleven at Harris and Sons in Southside.”
Judge nodded. “I’ll send the order to the jail.”
“Thank you.”
His Honor wished Ashley good luck before rising. We all stood again as he ducked into chambers. Ashley nodded to all of us before the bailiff led her out through a door at the back of the courtroom. Dee was crying, Nona was comforting her. The attorneys and the D.A. milled around together, talking. I turned to the back pew quickly, intent on asking Jimmy to wait a minute, but he’d vanished.
With a touch on my arm and a flirtatious smile, Kirk said, “See you around,” before he left. Nona got Dee calmed down and we walked outside together. I told them I’d see them Tuesday, then went back to the office.
The place was starting to empty out early just like the court. I waved good-bye to Russell, who was driving out of the parking lot as I pulled in. I scanned the parking lot for a lime green Charger. Nothing. I took the stairs to the second floor and anxiously checked my voice mail.
Nothing from the tire slasher. The first message was from Mac asking me to come to his office when I got in. The next two were from clients needing various items and information. I wrote them down on my list of things to do, which was growing longer by the second. Thefourth message was from Royanne, and in typical Royanne fashion was one rambling sentence: “Hi Toby and I wanted to know if you want to come over Monday for a cookout and we are going to grill some hot dogs and ribs and Mamma and Daddy are coming and she’s making cole slaw and you can just bring whatever so call me.”
Really wanting to avoid Mac altogether, I picked up the phone and dialed Royanne’s cell. I confirmed I’d be at her house Monday at noon, and said I’d bring dessert.
It was time to bite the bullet so I walked around to Mac’s office. He was taking advantage of the fact that most of his unit had departed early and was hard at work signing off on charts. I knocked softly on the glass and he motioned me in.
“Sit down.” His office was so much more utilitarian than Danessa’s. Just two single brown chairs and a row of filing cabinets along one wall. A place to work, not relax. “How are you holding up?”
I shrugged. “Okay, I guess. Ashley pled guilty and got a one-four split.”
“How do you know?”
“I went to her hearing.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see what was going to happen.”
“But it’s not your case anymore. Michael’s dead.”
“I know. But I still care what happens to Ashley. If she is responsible for Michael’s death, then she needs all the support she can get.”
“What do you mean, if? She just pled guilty.”
“I know, but it seems weird to me that she would have been so careless. Stupid enough to have so much GHB in the apartment, and then give it to her son.”
“That doesn’t change things.”
“I know.”
“We’ll be closing the case as soon as the State is finished with it, and Ashley isn’t your problem now.”
His get-over-it attitude was ticking me off. I was getting the feeling Michael was just another number to him. A name to be crossed off so a slot on my roster could be filled. “I’m going to Michael’s memorial on Tuesday. It’s at eleven.”
“Remember not to talk to anyone from the press.”
Christ, what was this? Did the man think I was in the third grade? I fleetingly wondered if he’d lost confidence in me. It hurt.
“I know,” I snapped. “I won’t.” No way was I going to tell him about my run-ins with Kirk the Jerk.
He sensed I’d had enough and dropped the subject.“What’s going on with your other clients?”
We spent the next hour and a half talking about the rest of my caseload. Mac appeared satisfied I hadn’t been neglecting my job in the midst of the Michael tragedy and seemed reassured. Until I said, “Um …”
“Oh, no. I hate that. I hate it when you lead with ‘um.’ It’s always bad news.”
“Yeah, well, sort of.”
“What?”
I came clean. “I realized as I was doing some filing in the Hennessy chart that I never ran a background check on Michael’s stepgrandfather.”
“And?”
“So I did one this morning, and he had three hits.”
Mac gave a long, frustrated, count-to-ten sigh. “Why wasn’t it done before?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember when Al and Dee got married. Maybe they weren’t together yet. Most likely, when we had the first intervention meeting and it became clear that Dee wasn’t a good placement for Michael, I just stopped the process and never went back and finished it after Michael was returned to Ashley. I don’t know.”
“But Al had contact with Michael?”
“Recently Ashley had been bringing Michael out to the Mackey’s to visit. I didn’t know anything about it. I knew she got along okay — barely okay — with her mom, and she didn’t like Al, so she hadn’t seen them in a while. I didn’t know she was working on repairing the relationship with her mom.”
“What was the allegation against Al?”
“Physical abuse of his daughter. When she was three and seven. One unfounded and two founded. He was ordered no contact.”
“You have the Registry report?”
“It’s in the chart.”
“Make me a copy and put it in my box. I’ll have to forward it to the State with a letter of explanation.”
“Sorry.” I really was.
“Michael didn’t have any bruises on him, did he?”
“No, not according to the detective. And I never saw anything on him.”
“It may be nothing. I don’t know what the State’s going to say about this, though. Does Al have a drug problem?”
“Just booze. Beer, mostly. And gambling. Dee gave some money to Ashley recently and he got mad about it.”
“Mad enough to kill her kid? That’s a stretch, don’t you think?” I started to answer, but he opened a file on his desk, my cue to leave. “We’ll see what the State says.”
I went back to my cubicle and photocopied the Registry report as Mac had asked, slipping it into the plastic box mounted outside his door with a sticky note of explanation. Doing so reminded me of something else I had to do.
I went to the fourth floor. The Adult Services section was as empty as my own. I wound my way through the maze of cubicles to Michele’s desk at Records.
She was putting things away when she saw me coming. “Oh, no. I was just leaving.”
“Come on, one quick check. Please?”
She tapped her watch. “Time to go. Long weekend. The kids are waiting on me.” Michele had two sweet, smart teenagers, a boy and a girl. “We’re going to the beach.”
“Please?”
“Oh, all right.” She rebooted the computer and we talked about her weekend plans while it warmed up. She handed me the Request for Registry Check form and I wrote Jimmy Shelton’s name down, aka James and Jim Shelton.
She took it from me. “That’s all you got, just a name?”
“That’s it.”
She quickly entered the fields and we waited while the computer searched the files. Michele’s feet tapped on the linoleum tiles. The machine beeped and a blue message box flashed on the screen, “No Record Found.”
“Nothing.” Michele said. She printed it for me and powered down the computer.
We walked to the elevators together as she told me more about the condo her family had rented for the holiday. At the second floor we said good-bye and wished each other a good weekend.
I spent an hour clearing my desk and attacking my to-do list, and by the time I packed up my briefcase and shut down my computer, I felt like I’d gotten enough done to be able to relax some over the Fourth. Traffic was horrid going home, the interstate crammed with families going three hundred miles south to sun worship at Gulf Shores or Orange Beach. It was almost six thirty when I pulled into my driveway.
My little house was a welcome sight, its white paint and black shutters giving it a neat appearance. The black iron scrollwork columns that supported the carport and portico were my favorite features. I gathered the mail and inspected the small, sloped yard as I walked the concrete path that led from the driveway to the front steps. The grass needed cutting, which my father usually did for me, and the boxwood shrubs against the house were a bit brown. The purple and gold impatiens I’d planted by the stoop this spring were on their last legs. The plants looked tired, worn down from the summer heat.
I unlocked the front door and dumped the mail on the table in the small dining area. The house was cold, chilled by the air conditioner. I shivered and turned the temperature up. After changing into shorts and a T-shirt, I poured myself a glass of Riesling, then another, as I channel surfed in the living room. Nothing good on. My mind wandered to the barbeque at Royanne’s this weekend, and I took a few cookbooks down from the cabinet in the kitchen and resettled on the couch. I’m not much of a chef, lacking both interest and skill. I was browsing through a Southern Living cookbook and was about to break into my leftover cheeseburger when the door to the carport opened and Dad entered, calling hello. He was in shorts and a Cozumel T-shirt, his ponytail wet from a trip to the pool.
I called hi and put the book on the coffee table. He spotted it and asked, “Are you cooking? ’Cause I brought stuff from the diner.” He held up a white plastic bag with two Styrofoam boxes in it.
“No, no. Royanne’s having a cookout Monday. I’m supposed to bring a dessert. I can’t decide between apple or cherry pie.”
He walked back to my small kitchen and put the bag down. “Both are good. And patriotic.”
I set the table with paper napkins and plastic knives and forks and poured a glass of the Riesling for Dad as he unloaded the boxes. The Bluff Park Diner was our local meat-and-three, just minutes down the road from Dad’s house. He’d brought me the meatloaf, which I loved. It was thickly sliced, heavy on the garlic and onions, and covered with ketchup. Dad had the vegetable plate. Once we’d tucked in, he asked, “How’re you holding up?”
“Okay I guess,” I answered, talking around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. I swallowed. I told him about my tires.
“Who do you think did it?”
“It wasn’t random. Whoever did it left me a message about it at work. I think it was someone involved with this case, probably Mom’s ex-boyfriend.”
“You be careful.”
“I will. I haven’t heard anything from him lately. I think he’s the type who’ll blow off steam and let it go. All mouth, no muscle. Oh, and Michael’s mother pled guilty and got one to five years.”
“Yeah, I saw that on the news.”
“Was it bad?”
“They didn’t mention you or DHS. Just that she’d been sentenced.”
“Michael’s memorial is Tuesday. That’s going to be tough.” I stabbed a few bacon-laced green beans with my fork. “It still doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why?”
“First, Ashley’s not the GHB type. Second, if she was using again and partying the night before, she would have known the juice had drugs in it. She wouldn’t have given it to Michael. Third, if she didn’t do it, why take the fall?”
“Was she partying the night before?”
“She says not. She says she was working.”
“Did they do a drug screen when she went to jail? That would give you some idea if she was lying.”
I made a mental note to call Brighton on Tuesday. “I’ll check on that. Although I don’t know if it would show GHB. That stuff gets out of your system pretty quickly.”
I wondered for the hundredth time who had sold Ashley the drugs, if they were hers. Flash? More and more questions about his role in Michael’s death were nagging me. Was he the man in the green car? Did he slash my tires? Why would he blame me for Ashley’s arrest? And was he hanging out with Ashley again? Maybe it was time to find out what he knew. I might be teasing a tiger, but I decided to track him down.
Dad reached over and sliced off a hunk of my meatloaf.
“I thought you were a vegetarian,” I said.
“This doesn’t count.”
I wasn’t about to argue with that.
`
CHAPTER TEN
Dad stayed to watch a documentary on PBS with me. He left around eleven, and before dragging myself off to bed I hunted down the software discs that the guy at the computer store needed. After retrieving them from some storage boxes in the office closet, I slept a heavy sleep, thanks to the wine.
By Saturday morning the air had cooled to a more comfortable eighty-something degrees and the day promised to be beautiful. I scurried down the driveway in my bathrobe to get the paper, the plastic bag warm from the sun. I unrolled it like a bomb technician handling explosives: very carefully and with a serious feeling of dread.
First I checked the obituaries. Michael’s was there, short and sweet: HENNESSY, MICHAEL ALEXANDER . Beloved son, aged two, passed away Tuesday, June 28. Services to be held Tuesday, July 5, at Harris and Sons on University Boulevard ateleven a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to St. Monica’s Home for Recovery.
St. Monica’s address was listed, but no mention of surviving family. I skimmed the front page. The main stories were about the heavy rain yesterday, which had caused some flooding, and the governor’s trip to Washington D.C. Nothing about the case. I turned to the local section. There was a short piece by Kirk, just a couple
of paragraphs about the sentencing and Ashley’s reaction. A small picture of her leaving the courthouse, handcuffed. Nothing else. Then I flipped to the letters to the editor. Nothing about DHS. Hopefully the public had vented all they were going to. It appeared the media storm was abating, at least. I exhaled a sigh of relief worthy of a bomb technician, cut the short article and obit out, and put them in my purse to file in the Hennessys’ chart at the office. Then I read the rest of the paper and took a shower.
I put on my scruffiest jeans and a faded vintage T-shirt, wore my hair in a ponytail and no makeup. After dropping off the discs, I was going to try to track down Flash and didn’t need to stick out like a social worker in the process.
High Tech had an electronic door chime that sounded as I entered. Grant came out of the back room, a travel cup of coffee in hand. He greeted me with a small grin as I handed him the discs. Looking them over, he said, “This should do it. The problem was your hard drive, just like I thought. I should have these loaded by the end of the day. We’re closed tomorrow and Monday.”
“Thanks. I can swing by Tuesday and get it.”
“Uh, actually I was going to ask you — I don’t know what your situation is —” He stopped and started over. “I was wondering if you were doing anything for the Fourth.”
Oh Christ. He was asking me out. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to go out with anyone, much less some geek. But he waslooking at me with such a pained expression. Poor guy. He was so shy. Not bad looking, either. Maybe his luck with women had been as bad as mine with men. What the hell, I thought. “Not in the evening.”
“Then do you want to go see the fireworks with me?” His face was turning bright red.
“I’d love to,” I lied.
The grin returned. “Great. Tell you what, if you want me to pick you up at your house, I can deliver the computer and hook it up for you. Is that okay?”
“Perfect.” I gave my address to him again along with directions. “About eight?” “Sounds good.”
It was nearly noon when I hit Malfunction Junction, the tricky intersection of three interstates in the heart of downtown, then exited off I-20/59 into Ensley. I wound my way through one economically deprived area and into another called Wylam. It was one of many poor, predominantly black areas on the west side of town. Martin Luther King Jr. once called Birmingham “the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States,” and sadly not much has changed. Few businesses were still open in the heart of this neighborhood, and many of the buildings were boarded up and covered in gang graffiti. I thought about all the wealthier — and whiter — areas south of town and felt sad. Our fine city, considering its history of church bombings and poignant letters from jail, should set a better example.
Little Lamb Lost Page 8
