After a bit of driving around, I found the house where I’d first laid eyes on Ashley and Michael. It looked much the same, a shabby yellow twobedroom bungalow with a weedy yard. The street bordered a factory that made some kind of asphalt product, and a chemical smell permanently hung in the air.
I was taking a risk coming here. It was the first of the month, time for the disbursement of paychecks and government benefits, and that meant a lot of drug dealing going on. Several teens in red clothing stood on a corner close to the house, watching me drive slowly down thestreet. Two young men on pimped-out bicycles rode in small circles in front of them. Neighbors sat in old metal chairs on their front porches, staring intently at my car with no sign of welcome.
I’d put my purse in the trunk before I left the computer store. Now I locked my car and, trying not to look conspicuous or afraid, walked to the door. I knocked softly, surreptitiously glancing over my shoulder now and then. I wished I had the police with me like the last time I was here. One of the bicycle riding guys looked over my Honda, inside and out.
No answer. I knocked again, harder.
The door was opened by a skeletal black man in his early twenties, in torn red sweatpants and no shirt. I could see his ribs. I could also see I’d woken him up and hoped it wouldn’t get me shot. He rubbed his eyes and didn’t say anything, just waited for me to state my business. I did, quickly.
“Flash here?” His wiry Afro stuck up in different directions. “Nah, man, he don’ stay here no more.” His voice was husky from sleep.
“You know where I can find him?”
“He moved back in his mamma’s.”
“You know where she stays?”
“Someplace in Fultondale.”
“Thanks.” He shut the door, hard. I scampered back to my car, nodding to the boys on the bikes and getting surly looks in return. I got out of there, fast, and didn’t breathe normally again until I was back on the interstate, heading east. I looped through the junction onto I-65 North, and after a few exits pulled off the highway into a gas station in Fultondale. This particular suburb was more racially diverse, but solidly blue-collar. Home to truck drivers and steel workers.
I filled up and asked the old man behind the counter if I could look at his phone book. I scanned the list of Bowmans in the area. A Gina Bowman was listed in Fultondale, her house on a street near the high school. Deciding it couldn’t hurt to try, I went to the address.
Gina Bowman’s house was on a hill. A square box, sided in white aluminum, with green awnings over almost every window. It looked remarkably like all the other houses on the street. No lime green car visible from the front, but a narrow drive led to the back of the house. I parked at the curb, climbed the steps that led to the door, and rang the small round bell.
The woman who answered was in her late forties, her dirty blonde hair fixed in a mullet that had gone out of style twenty years ago. She had a face that was all fine cracks and creases, radiating outward from a puckered mouth. The eyes were bloodshot to a bright red, and at first I thought I’d woken her too, until the pot smell wafted out of the door.
“Hi,” I began. “I’m Claire Conover, and I’m from DHS. Are you Gregory’s mom by any chance?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he here?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I talk to him for a sec?”
“He in trouble?”
“No, not at all. I just want to ask him about a woman he used to know.”
“Come in.”
I followed her into the house. The marijuana smell was overwhelming. The living room was dim and tiny, stuffed with mismatched 1950’s furniture and a ridiculously huge big-screen TV. It was blaring QVC, which competed with the staccato beat of rap music from another room. A plastic ashtray on the coffee table held a tiny scrap of joint and a roach clip. The shag-carpeted floor flexed when I walked.
“Sit down.” Gina gestured toward a chair by the window.
“Thanks.” She went down a short hallway and I could hear her banging on a door, shouting over the music, telling Flash he had company. I recognized the rap song as one by Ludacris.
Gina returned, reached for a pack of Basic cigarettes lying on the coffee table, and lit up. “What’s this about?”
“Gregory used to hang out with a woman named Ashley Hennessy. Her child died this week. You might have heard about it.”
She nodded, taking a drag. “Yeah. The kid that overdosed.”
“That’s him. Michael.”
She studied me long and hard for a minute, and in her stoned brown eyes I could see the question she was afraid to ask. I waited.
She asked, “Was — was Gregory his father?”
“I don’t think so. Ashley told me she was already pregnant when she met Gregory.”
“Oh.” A bit of disappointment, and relief, in her voice. “I wondered, ’cause that’s Gregory’s middle name.”
“What is?”
“Michael. Gregory Michael Bowman.”
“Ah, I see.” Well, well. Had Ashley named Michael after Flash because she loved him? The thought made me sick. Or maybe because he was his dad? I guess she could have lied to me about when they met. Very interesting. It made me wonder if there was anything else Ashley had lied about.
“Does Gregory have a green Charger, by any chance?”
“Nuh-uh. It ain’t his.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s his friend’s. Ray-Ray’s. He borrows it some.”
Flash walked in, wearing a red Chicago Bulls jersey and saggy long red shorts. He looked paler and skinnier than he had two years ago. His hair was still platinum blond, but styled differently than I remembered. Now it was short on the sides and stuck up in a ridge straight down the middle of his scalp. He was smothered in the silver jewelry that had given him his nickname. He sure wasn’t called Flash because he was quick.
“Hey, Flash.”
“Christ. What the fuck you want?”
I tried, in an instant, to match his voice to the phone message. I couldn’t be sure.
I glanced at his mother, who was staring blankly through the filmy curtains to the world outside. A lifetime of regret in her expression.
“How about two hundred dollars for new tires?”
He scoffed. “I don’t know what the hell you talkin’ about.”
“You heard about Ashley? And Michael?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“You seen her lately?”
“What’s it to you, bitch?”
“Was she using again?”
“Fuck if I know. We’d still be together if you hadn’t put her in that place, and that bitch hadn’t gotten the fuckin’ restrainin’ order.”
He picked up the pack of cigarettes and lit up, just as his mother had.
“You give her any drugs lately?”
“Why?” He exhaled a cloud of brown smoke.
“I want to help her.”
“By lockin’ her up? You were a great fuckin’ help before. Why don’t you just get the fuck outta here and leave me alone? Or you’ll be real fuckin’ sorry.”
Stupid little creep. I checked my anger and tried a different tactic.
“C’mon, Flash. Was she using again? Maybe we can help her. Get her out of jail.”
“I didn’t give her shit.”
“Michael died of a GHB overdose. You ever do G?”
He laughed, short and loud. “Ha! G? I ain’t no fuckin’ kaleidoscope kid. Neither was Ashley.”
“Kaleidoscope kid?”
“Kaleidoscope. That bar down near Lakeview. That’s where all them ravin’ X-heads hang.”
I had one last question. “Were you Michael’s father?”
“Shit, man, I better not be. I told that bitch if she got knocked up it was her problem. I ain’t fixin’ to pay no fuckin’ child support.”
Nice. Gina had been listening to all this in silence. I realized where her earlier reaction had come from. On the one hand, may
be she thought a grandchild would have given her the opportunity to do things right. A do-over, so to speak. Then again, what if he had turned out like Flash?
After Flash stormed back to his room with one final curse, I said good-bye to Gina and drove carefully home. If I’d gotten pulled over, there was no way any police officer would have believed that I hadn’t been smoking weed. I reeked.
Dad had cut the grass while I was gone. I took another shower as soon as I got in, trading my stinky outfit for a pair of comfortable shorts and a different T-shirt. I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon running errands, to the grocery store and the bakery. I gave up on the idea of making anything for Royanne’s barbeque, instead going to Edgar’s Bakery and getting an apple pie. Heck, they made a better one than I could any day.
Then, on Sunday, all hell broke loose.
`
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sunday morning I awoke in a good mood and made my way down the driveway as usual in my robe. I lugged the two-pound paper into the dining area and made myself comfortable with a cup of Sumatran coffee. The front-page news was about a pharmaceutical firm. They’d gotten permission to start drug trials in conjunction with the university on a new medicine for a sleep disorder. Another article discussed the search for Birmingham Southern College’s new basketball coach. The sports section was already predicting how the University of Alabama’s football team was going to perform, even though the start of the season was well over a month away. I always loved fall, when Birmingham went Crimson Tide crazy. Except for the Auburn fans, of course. There was no in-between, either.
It wasn’t until I’d looked through the stack of ads and had gone on to the Comments and Editorials section that I choked on my coffee. On the front page was the headline MOTHERS AND ADDICTS. By Kirk Mahoney.
Last week brought the overdose death of little Michael Hennessy, twoyear-old son of Ashley Hennessy, now serving up to five years in jail for negligent homicide. Ms. Hennessy is only one of hundreds of drug and alcohol users whose addiction impacts the lives of children. Claire Conover, a caseworker at the Department of Human Services familiar with the Hennessy case, points to the cycle of domestic violence, emotional abuse, and drugs as the real culprit that destroys the lives of our city’s youth.
Oh, shit. Birmingham’s shelters are full of women whose own biographies mirror that of Ashley Hennessy’s. April Schulz, a resident of The Harbor, a homeless shelter for women and children, is one of those victims. “I started drinking when I was thirteen,” she states. “My father used to beat me and my sister. I drank to escape.” Ms. Schultz’s children have been in and out of foster care for the past eight years. “It’s tough on them. They want to come home.”
April Schultz wasn’t my client. But the next one was. Cheyenne Phillips, another resident of The Harbor, has lost custody of her children for the last time. “They’re going up for adoption. I’m not getting another chance.”
So that was where Cheyenne had landed after St. Monica’s. I’d wondered. Kirk went on to interview a sociologist from the university in Montevallo, who correlated the histories of drug use and foster care in the United States. The last section of the article discussed new and novel approaches to dealing with the problem, including inhome parenting services and one local OB/GYN who offered addiction counseling and recovery along with prenatal care. The article concluded with:
Programs like these, not government agencies, may be the best hope for children of addicts. I was in so much trouble. God only knew what Mac and Dr. Pope were going to say. I was considering placing a preemptive call to Mac when my cell phone rang in the bedroom. I unplugged it from its charge cord and checked the caller ID. The office. Not good.
“Hello?”
“I need you to come down here.” Mac.
“Sure.”
I didn’t need a college degree to tell how pissed he was. I threw on
jeans, a polo, and my Birkenstocks. Hell, if I was going to be fired, at least I was going to wear comfortable shoes. I flew downtown at a speed that would have made a Talladega NASCAR driver proud, jogged through the empty lot behind the building, and went to the front door. Mac was there, dressed for church and waiting with a key. He let me in and locked the door again.
He didn’t say anything other than to nod a greeting. When Mac goes quiet, it’s very bad. We entered the elevator together, and the higher it rose the more nauseous with dread I got. The silver doors slid open and we marched our way to Dr. Pope’s office.
She was dressed out of the L.L. Bean catalog. Chic and sporty, in a golf shirt and long walking shorts. She pointed to the conference table and I sat down. She and Mac sat across from me, stern looks on their faces. I stiffened and readied myself for the words they were about to say: You’re fired. I was financially, emotionally, and professionally screwed.
Today’s paper was sitting on the table. Dr. Pope began with, “You’ve seen this?”
“Yes.”
“You were specifically instructed not to talk to the press.”
“I know. I didn’t.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
“I ran into Kirk Mahoney a couple of times. Once here, the day he interviewed you. In the lobby.”
“I remember.”
“Then, after the article about you came out, I ran into him at a restaurant. He asked me to comment on the case, and I didn’t. But I was mad about the article he’d written about you. So I said something to the effect of why didn’t he write about all the good stuff we do here. About all the kids we rescue out of bad situations instead of making DHS sound bad. He’s taken what I said and turned it around to something I didn’t say.” My words were coming out haphazardly.
Mac said, his tone sarcastic, “You just ran into him at a restaurant, and somehow he figured out that you were the worker on the case? You didn’t say anything at all to him about it?”
I squirmed. “Um, the restaurant was the Top of the Hill Grill.”
Mac, now even madder, said, “I see.”
I said, by way of explanation to Dr. Pope, “The Top of the Hill Grill is where Ashley Hennessy worked.”
Mac asked, “What were you doing there?”
“I went by to check on Brandi. She’s Ashley’s best friend. And to tell her about the memorial on Tuesday.”
Dr. Pope said, “And that’s the last time you saw Kirk?”
“I saw him again at Ashley’s sentencing. But I didn’t say anything to him, I swear. Well, not much, anyway.”
Dr. Pope sighed, fingering the corner of the newspaper on the table. “See, Claire, the problem is now the agency looks bad. Because of Mr. Mahoney’s article, it appears as if we are trying to shift the blame away from us. I’ve been doing damage control all morning with the press and the state office. I think I have it under control. I appreciate your trying to defend me and your client and the agency, but you really shouldn’t have said anything at all.”
Mac barked, “When we said don’t say anything to anyone, we meant it. This also violated the confidentiality of our clients.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t mention Cheyenne at all?”
“No! I would never do that. I think he just went down to The Harbor and met her. It’s just a coincidence that she’s also mine.”
Dr. Pope strode once across the room. “Here’s where we are, Claire. Your involvement with this case is over. Period. We have no reason to keep the case open, and you have no reason to have anything to do with anyone involved in it. The state office hasn’t said anything about letting you go, but if your name comes up again they may not give me a choice. Understood?”
“What about the memorial on Tuesday? I’m going.” That last statement came out a little more forcefully than I had intended. Now was not the time to argue.
“I know you want to pay your respects.” Dr. Pope said. “You may even feel there was something you could have done to prevent Michael’s death. Even if there was, it’s over. Whatever prompted Ashley
to use drugs again, we may never know. She’s pled guilty, and DHS is out of it. Understood? I strongly suggest you stay away from the memorial.” “What does that mean? I want to go.”
She glanced at Mac. “I can’t forbid you to go, but I really don’t think you should.”
Mac stood and placed his hands flat on the table and leaned toward me. “You are on thin ice. Get it?”
I got it.
I apologized repeatedly for everything, including bringing them down to the office on a Sunday. Mac warned me once more to keep my nose clean, and I left, able to breathe again and with the relieved sensation that I’d dodged the bullet. For now.
At home, I read the article again and fumed. I changed to old clothes and went out to weed the pitiful-looking beds near the house. With every stem I plucked, I pretended it was Kirk Mahoney’s neck I was snapping. Very therapeutic. I watered the plants, cleaned up the small concrete patio in the backyard, and washed the outdoor furniture. After that I cleaned out the storeroom in the carport and washed my car. By the time I finished I was sore, and it felt like I’d been beaten.
I turned my attention to my answering machine. Its message light was blinking like a red-alert button. The first one was from my father, who saw the article in the paper this morning and wanted to know if he needed to change the sign at his office. Changing the sign from Conover & Associates to Conover, Conover, & Associates was something he’d wanted to do forever, to the point where it was now a joke between us. I called him back and told him about my morning.
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