Little Lamb Lost

`

Little
Lamb Lost

`

Little
Lamb Lost

a novel

Margaret Fenton

Oceanview
publishing

Longboat
Key, Florida

Copyright © 2009 by Margaret Fenton

first edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who may quote brief passages in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-933515-51-9

Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing,

Ipswich, Massachusetts

www.oceanviewpub.com

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

printed in the United States of
America

For my father

Peter C. Herring, LCSW

with love from your lamb chop

`

Acknowledgments

So many people have helped make this book possible. Thanks
to Pat, Maryglenn, Susan, and the many talented folks at Oceanview Publishing
for giving me such a warm welcome. Without a doubt, this project never would
have happened without input from the members of my writers group throughout the
years: Joan, Heidi, Sonny, Coco, Linda, Cindy, Pam, Karen, Jack, and Fred. To
the members of the Birmingham Chapter of Sisters in Crime, thanks for the eight
years of mystery-related fun so far. To the Top of the Hill Social Club, thanks
for giving me your invaluable feedback and friendship. Very special thanks to
Brian R. Overstreet, lifelong friend and attorney at law, for answering some
vital legal questions, and to Christina L. Brown, CRNA for her help. Thanks to
Jan and Tim and the Children’s Services division of JBS Mental Health Authority
for a great first career. To child welfare social workers in Jefferson County,
Alabama, and elsewhere, thank you for all the very important and difficult work
that you do. As always, thanks and love to my family for their encouragement.
Last but not least, my love and thanks to my wonderful husband, Bill, for
supporting my pursuit of this crazy dream.

`

Little
Lamb Lost

Chapter One

I believed I could make a difference in
the world until the day Michael Hennessy died. Maybe I inherited this crazy
conviction from my father. Decades ago, he defied my grandfather, a White
Citizens Council member, and became a Freedom Rider. Or maybe it came from my
mother, who, before I was even the proverbial twinkle in her eye, marched with
Dr. King from Selma to Montgomery. Their passion for social justice guided me,
inevitably, to my career in social work.
Make the earth a better place,
Claire
, they’d said. That was their legacy.

It wasn’t an easy legacy. It took
fifty-hour work weeks, endless paperwork, and a lot of difficult choices. I’d
worried myself out of many a good night’s sleep, questioning whether I’d made
the right decision to leave young victims in a certain home, with certain
people. Wondering whether or not mommy and daddy had squandered the food money
on booze, cigarettes, and drugs. Hoping the kids would go to bed without fear,
hunger, or bruises.

Over the years I’d developed a sense for
recognizing the families that weren’t going to make it, the parents who
couldn’t hold it together. Usually I was able to get the kids out before the
situation totally derailed and anyone got hurt. I was good at reading people.
And I’d never lost one. No child under my care had ever died.

Until that Tuesday in June.

My cubicle mate, Russell, and I were
taking calls while the secretary for our unit went to an early dentist
appointment. The phone, as usual, was ringing nonstop.

 
“When did Jessica say she was going to be in?”
I asked over my shoulder. Russell and I worked a foot apart, back-to-back, every
day. We were close — not only in proximity.

“I think she said nine thirty.”

“One more hour. What a morning.”

The phone rang again, and Russell let
out a noise of frustration. “Damn, I’m never going to get this form done.”

“I’ll get it.” I punched the appropriate
button on my phone and answered, “Jefferson County Department of Human
Services, Child Welfare Division.”

All I heard was breathing. Hard, deep
breaths that turned into wracking sobs. Then,
“Cl . . . Claire . . . He . . . he . . . I
don’t . . . I didn’t . . .”

“Hello?” I didn’t recognize the woman’s
voice. “Hello? Who is this?”

The sobs grew fainter as a man came on
the line. An authoritative voice. “Claire Conover?”

“Yes?”

“This is Detective Ed Brighton.
Birmingham Police Department. You’re the caseworker for Ashley Hennessy and her
son, Michael?”

“Yes.” A tingle of fear radiated through
me, starting in my stomach.

“I’m sorry. Michael’s dead.”

“Dead?” The tingle exploded into
full-blown panic.

Behind me, I heard Russell stop writing
and turn in his chair.

“How?”

“We don’t know yet. I’ll need to speak
with you as soon as you are available. If —”

“You’re at her apartment?”

“Yes, but —”

“I’m on my way.” I hung up, numb.

Russell asked, “What is it?”

“Michael Hennessy’s dead. That was the
police. I have to go.”

I tried to think about what I needed to
take with me.

I grabbed my satchel full of forms, my
purse and keys, and for no apparent reason, three pens. Michael. Michael was
dead. I couldn’t think for all the curly blond, blue-eyed images rushing
together in my mind.

“Sit down a sec. You look like you’re
about to pass out.” Russell placed a delicate hand on my shoulder and gently
pushed me into my chair.

“No,” I said, rising again. “I’m going.
I have to go see Mac.” Mac McAlister was the supervisor of the unit. “And Dr.
Pope.” Teresa Pope was the county director.

“I’ll get Mac. You sit.”

Moments later he was back, our heavyset
boss frowning behind him. Bushy white hair ringed Mac’s head like a crown. At
times he was my mentor, at times my worst enemy. I had a feeling this was going
to be one of those worst-enemy days.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“The police just called. Michael
Hennessy is dead. That’s all I know. I have to go. I told the detective I’d be
there.”

“Okay, okay. Just calm down for a
second. Then we’ll go. Remind me about this case.”

With twelve social workers in his unit,
all of us with twenty-five cases or more, there was no way he could remember
them all. Not without my chart. I pulled the thick, russet case file out of the
cabinet and handed it over. He flipped through it while I propped myself up on
the edge of my well-worn desk.

“I got the case a little over two years
ago. The first part of April. We got a report from Michael’s pediatrician. He
suspected the mother, Ashley, was using drugs. I went to the house where she
was staying. It was a filthy crack den, really.” I took a deep breath,
remembering the stench of urine and the people passed out on tattered couches
in the living room. “She was living with some guy. She was high as hell when I
arrived, no food or milk or anything in the house. I came back to the office,
filed a request for a pick-up order, went out there with the police, and got
Michael that same day.”

I took another deep breath, recalling
Ashley’s hysterics as I drove away with her baby. “We had the IM two days
later.” The IM was the intervention meeting, the plan for the family and the
agency to work together toward reunification. “Ashley was supposed to do all
the standard stuff: go into treatment, get a job, pass her drug tests, and take
parenting classes. I got her into St. Monica’s Home the day after the IM for
drug and alcohol treatment. According to the staff there, she really worked the
program. Was going to her aftercare meetings and everything. She was clean.”

“And Michael?”

“He went to foster care. Ashley took
about a year and a half to complete everything, and Judge Myer gave her custody
again about two months ago. I really thought . . .” My throat
closed a little and I cleared it. “I really thought she was going to make it.”

One of the few who would make it. Most
of the families I worked with were angry, resentful, and unremorseful. They
hated DHS and that rancor spread to me, the representative of the State, the
member of the evil government that refused to stay out of their lives and let
them raise their children the way they saw fit. Never mind the abuse, neglect,
alcohol, or drugs.

But Ashley was different. She’d accepted
my interference as the opportunity it was, hung onto the programs I’d offered
like a life buoy. She’d embraced the Twelve Steps like it was her personal
contract with God, sobered up, and made things right. She was one of the few
clients that made me feel like I could really change things for the better,
like my parents said.

“She ever beat Michael?” Russell asked.

“No! Well, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t
say she was the greatest parent in the world, she lost her temper sometimes,
but it was more yelling than anything else. She was really trying to practice
the stuff she learned from the parenting classes. Time out and all that. I
never saw any marks on him. She knew she wasn’t supposed to spank him. I made
that very, very clear. She was scared to death I’d take him away again.”

Mac asked, “What about Michael’s
father?”

“Never been in the picture. She told me
she wasn’t even sure who he was.”

“Other relatives? What about her
parents?”

“Ashley ran away when she was fifteen.
She said her stepfather physically abused her. He’s dead now, but I tracked her
mother down when I first got the case. From what I could gather, she was
definitely not a good placement for Michael. She’s on abusive husband number
three. There’s no other family that I know of.”

Mac thumbed through the chart for a few
more moments. “Let’s go talk to the police. Let me do the talking. We’ll have
to bring Legal in eventually, but I want to get a good handle on what happened
first.”

That struck a nerve. A little boy was
dead, and Mac was already talking about lawyers. He was worried about what this
was going to do to the department and its reputation. I hadn’t even had time to
absorb what happened, for God’s sake. I slung my purse over my shoulder and
again picked up my briefcase.

Mac said, “And I’m driving. You’re in no
shape.”

I protested while following him to his office
so he could get his keys. The glass-fronted supervisors’ offices surrounded the
maze of cubicles where the caseworkers sat. The cubicles had started to buzz
with activity. Word of Michael’s death would spread like wildfire, and I could
feel the stares of my colleagues beginning already.

Ten minutes later, I watched the
warehouses and small businesses of the east side of Birmingham fly by. Sweat
trickled down my temples as the air conditioning in Mac’s car struggled to
overcome the suffocating heat. More images of Michael Alexander Hennessy, aged
two years and ten months, played through my mind. He was dead. And it didn’t
really matter how. Fingers of blame would be pointing my way. Because I was the
one who was supposed to have kept him safe.

Chapter Two

Most of Birmingham’s neighborhoods were
once mining or mill towns, little communities where everything was owned by a
company. Avondale was no exception, the neighborhood’s name the only remnant of
the long-gone Avondale Mills. Many of the houses built by the textile mill in
the early part of the twentieth century still stood, although many sagged
underneath rotting wood and peeling paint. Interspersed among them were newer
apartment complexes that had popped up in the sixties and seventies. Ashley and
Michael lived in one of these. Cheaply constructed, with vertical siding on the
outside painted a deep forest green.

Ashley’s apartment was on the first
floor of building one. A narrow passageway led to the front door and smelled
like rotting garbage. Someone had painted a gang sign in white spray paint next
to her neighbor’s window. Ashley’s doorknob hung loosely. It had been like that
ever since I could remember. Her worthless landlord was supposed to have
replaced it. It locked, but she pushed a chair in front of the doorknob at
night just in case.

Still, it was a home. Maybe not in the
safest neighborhood, but a roof over their heads. I’d brought Ashley here the
day she’d signed the lease. She’d been so proud to get a place of her own.
Today it was unusually quiet. I wondered if the neighbors knew what had
happened or if the presence of the cops had everyone hiding inside.