Authors: Margaret Fenton
I checked in two people waiting as, over
my shoulder, I heard Kelsey’s “Good morning” echo over the sound system. We
welcomed a few stragglers as Kelsey gave a short speech about the history of
Our Mothers Have Wings. Lunch would be served first, with the doctor’s speech
over dessert.
When they started serving the food,
Marlie and I left the three remaining name tags on the table and joined the
others. Marlie headed for the head table to sit near Kelsey, while I went to
the place I had reserved earlier. The five ladies at my table were already
eating a first course of a mixed greens salad. Introductions went around the
table as I poured vinaigrette and helped myself to one of The Club’s famous
orange rolls. I nodded a greeting to Karen when it was her turn to say her
name. No one asked each other what they did for a living. It was assumed this
kind of thing was it.
Small talk broke the ice as the women
conversed with those next to them. Karen and the lady on her other side were
discussing favorite vacation destinations as I munched my salad, sipped my iced
tea, and used my best table manners. I waited until they had revisited St.
Croix and Naples and there was a break in the conversation. Then, as etiquette
dictated, Karen turned to me with a smile.
“Claire, isn’t it?” She double-checked
my name tag.
“Yes, that’s right.” I pretended to
study hers. “Karen. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too. Have you been
volunteering with OMHW long?”
“About five years. I lost my mother to
breast cancer when I was thirteen.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. What about you? Did your mother
—”
“Yes, four years ago.”
“Then I’m sorry too. I used to lead a
group for grieving daughters.”
“I’ve heard of it. Kelsey told me how
great it was. Maybe I should have come.”
“We’re hoping to get it going again
soon.” I shot another obvious glance at the tag on her chest. “Madison. As in
the Madison Foundation?”
“Yes, that’s us.”
She had Zander’s eyes, I noticed.
Michael’s eyes. Green-blue, intently focused on mine. “That’s a wonderful
organization. You do so much for the community.” Two of the other women at the
table were listening to our conversation and concurred.
“Thank you. We try. There’s a lot to
do.”
“Well, I know OMHW appreciates any help
they can get.” I cast my first line. “It’s just so important to educate women
about their risks, especially if they’ve lost a relative to breast cancer. I
mean, it could save lives. The lives of your children. Or, grandchildren.”
I studied her carefully, and it was
there. The slight jerk in the eyebrows, the just-a-little-too-quickly way she
tore her gaze from mine, the intense, sudden interest in her empty salad plate.
I pressed it. “Do you have kids?”
Then relief. Convincing herself I’d just
made an innocent remark. “Oh, yes. Two.”
“Grandchildren?”
A nervous laugh. “No, no. Mine are still
a bit young for that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. How old are they?”
“My youngest, Kaylin, she’s seventeen.
In high school. My son’s in college.”
“That’s wonderful. What’s he studying?”
She was growing more and more
uncomfortable by the second, the carefully coiffed image starting to get
tenuous. “Finance, like his father.”
“That’s great. Where?”
“Auburn.”
“So he’s home for the summer?”
“He’s doing summer term.”
“Oh, so he’ll be graduating early.”
“We hope so.” She was desperate to
change the subject now, as the white-jacketed waiter removed our salad plates
and refilled our teas. “Lunch smells delicious,” she said. But she wasn’t going
to get off that easily. Another woman at the table picked up the kid thread and
shared that she had two daughters, both in college. That sparked more stories
about offspring as the waiter brought our chicken, until it eventually came
around to me again when one of the ladies asked if I had any children.
“No, not yet. Maybe someday. I’m not
married.” I flashed my bare left hand. “Of course, nowadays, a lot of people
have them without getting married.”
Karen Madison dropped her knife. It fell
off the edge of the plate and left a sauce stain on the tablecloth. She picked
it up and placed it back on her dish. The other women went on about
out-of-wedlock births and teen pregnancy and how times had changed. I jumped
back into the conversation with my second hook. “Speaking of kids, did you see
the story last week about the toddler who died? Overdosed on drugs.”
That did it. Karen Madison started to
shake. A small tremor in her hands and only noticeable if you were looking for
it. She picked up her napkin from her lap and wiped her mouth indelicately,
smearing her lipstick. “Excuse me,” she murmured, and walked quickly toward the
bathroom.
Leaving the ladies discussing the shame
and tragedy of Michael’s death, I followed Karen.
Chapter Seventeen
Karen Madison had locked herself in one
of the stalls. I leaned on the marble vanity and waited, noting that the
elegance of The Club permeated even to the ladies’ room. I studied the
intricately patterned wallpaper until the toilet flushed.
She saw me resting against one of the
sinks, my arms folded. Whatever composure she’d managed to regain dissipated
like a spray of perfume.
Voice shaking, she said, “I thought I
recognized your name from OMHW, but that wasn’t it. Your name was in the paper.
You were the social worker on the case.”
“What case?”
“You know damn well what case. Michael’s
case.”
I paused. Then, “You have his eyes.”
All the strength left her like the air
out of an untied balloon. Her knees buckled, and I moved forward to catch her
if she collapsed, but she held out a hand, stopping me. I retreated. She bent
over, gulping breaths through her mouth for a minute, then stood up straight.
The first signs of tears glistened in her eyes and she fanned them away.
Outside, Kelsey was introducing the speaker.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I want to know what happened to
Michael.”
“His mother killed him.”
“I don’t think so.”
“How did you find out he was my
grandson?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
Another gulp. “My son, Zander, he has .
. . a problem. With drugs.”
I nodded. “Go on.”
“His father and I are desperate. We’ve
tried — we’ve done all we know how to do. We’ve sent him away.
We’ve tried locking him in the house. I thought, one day, if I could just find
out where he went. Where he got the drugs. Two weeks ago, Friday morning, I
followed him. He went to Ashley’s apartment. He took Michael to the park. I
confronted him. Oh, God.”
She was shaking again, on the verge of
collapse. In the dining room, the doctor was talking about research results.
Karen covered her eyes.
“Do you want to sit down?” I gestured to
an upholstered bench near the door.
“You don’t understand.”
“Tell me.”
“No one can know about this. Please.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone. Does
Alexander Senior know?”
She nodded, once. “You must think I’m a
terrible person, but if this got out —”
“I understand. I swear, I won’t tell
anybody.”
“Alexander could lose everything. I
don’t know what his board of directors would do if they found out about Zander.
About his problems. They might lose confidence. Do you know what I mean?”
“I do.” I stepped forward and gently
touched her arm. “I promise. I didn’t find out who Michael’s father was until
recently. There’s no need to put it in the DHS record or to make it public. I
just want to know what happened to Michael.”
“Ashley killed him.”
“Ashley’s —” Another woman from the
luncheon entered the rest room, smiling and nodding to us. Karen, more together
now, greeted her back. We waited until the other woman finished, washed her
hands, and left.
I picked up where I’d left off.
“Ashley’s screens were all clean. She was doing well.”
“So she relapsed.”
“Maybe not.”
“What, you think it was Zander? That it
was Zander’s drugs?”
“What do you think?”
I could tell the thought wasn’t a new
one to cross her mind. She mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“If it was, then Ashley’s protecting
him.”
Another luncheon guest entered the
bathroom. Karen said, “We’d better get back.”
We returned to the table. My chicken was
gone, replaced by a slice of cheesecake topped with a mound of strawberries. I
picked at it as I tried to look like I was paying attention to the doctor, who
was reciting statistics about success rates of various cancer therapies. But my
mind was on Karen. And her husband. Both of them had quite a motive for murder.
The doctor wound up his talk and Kelsey
thanked us all for coming. Karen gave me a long, pleading look. I nodded and
mouthed, “Don’t worry,” as the women at the table said good-bye and gathered
purses. I stayed behind to help Kelsey and Marlie pack up, watching as Karen
put on a confident smile and said a few friendly words to Kelsey before
leaving, head held high, out the double doors to the valets’ area.
I was home by two, glad to strip out of
the confines of the skirt and into shorts and a tee. I meandered into the
kitchen, opening the refrigerator for lack of anything else to do. Three
ice-cold Michelobs sat on the top shelf and on impulse I grabbed one. Careful,
I told myself, you’ll wind up like Al Mackey. Big potbelly and a dirty recliner,
drunk at four in the afternoon.
I didn’t have to worry. I fell asleep on
the couch before I hit the bottom of the bottle. I woke with a start from a
strange, colorful dream, hearing the familiar sound of the mail carrier’s Jeep
as it started, stopped, and started again. I heaved my lazy ass off the couch
to go get the bills.
Mail. Damn. I was supposed to go by
Ashley’s and make sure Zander had paid the bills. I’d forgotten. I was tempted
to blow it off until Monday, but then I remembered she’d said some of the bills
were late. Two more days could matter. After a quick visit to the bathroom, I
pointed my car to Ashley’s.
The interstate was jammed with cars. It
was just after four o’clock and the beginning of rush hour. I turned onto back
roads and wound my way to Southside, through UAB’s campus and eastward. The
route was taking me straight past Lakeview. On a whim, I hung a left, then left
again until I was in the parking lot next to Kaleidoscope, the dance place.
There were three other cars in the lot.
What had appeared a cool, contemporary
structure last Monday now merely looked like the
former-medical-office-turned-bar that it was. The neon-painted windows didn’t
look nearly as hip in the glaring sunlight. No bouncers stationed outside to
monitor access. No faint reverberations of music.
Why was I here? I studied the
glass-and-steel building, chin on the steering wheel. Whatever way this
investigation turned, this place always seemed to come up. Now I knew Ashley
had been here too. And Brandi. What were the odds Zander was a patron? Pretty
good, I’d say. He loved to party, and this was a good place to do it.
Staring at the building was getting me
nowhere. I thought for a few minutes, devising a plan to find out what I needed
to know. When had Ashley been here, and with whom?
Snapping my fingers, I reached for my
purse. Dug around in its belly until I found what I was looking for. Shut the
purse in the trunk, and went to see if Kaleidoscope was open.
It was. Three men were inside. One was
in the deejay’s little room, behind the Plexiglas window among all the TV
screens. The sets were off, their square faces dull black. Another man stood in
the middle of the dance floor, watching the third who was working on an
enormous speaker pulled out from the wall next to the bar.
The space was vastly different in the
daytime. It looked stripped, all its magic gone, like being in the Tunnel of
Love when the lights go up. A sour smell of old beer mingled with stale
cigarette smoke and a spirituous hint of booze.
The man in the deejay booth manipulated
some controls. He spoke into a microphone as he looked at the man on the dance
floor, and his voice filled the room. “Okay, try it now.”
I flinched as the rapid beat of a
Narcotic Thrust song shook the air. The music halted and the deejay announced,
“Donovan, you have a visitor.”
Donovan was evidently the guy on the
dance floor, in the black suit. He turned around, saw me, and held up one
finger. I nodded. He said something to the man working on the speaker and then
walked over to me.
“Sorry, we’re having some trouble with
the sound system. Can I help you?”