Authors: Margaret Fenton
“Weird.”
“What’s weirder is that he followed me
out to Oak Mountain Saturday, and he had a knife on him.”
Her eyes widened under the royal
purple-streaked hair. “No shit? Why?”
“I don’t know. I need to know what he’s
up to. You said before that he worked in one of the buildings around here. Did
he or Ashley ever say which one?”
She fiddled with one of the earrings in
her right ear as she thought. “I don’t think so. If they did, I can’t remember.
I know it’s close to here, ’cause he walked over for lunch. He used to come in
his uniform. A burgundy shirt, something blue on the pocket.”
I nodded. It was the same shirt he was
wearing when I first saw him at the jail. However, it didn’t help me much. I
prompted Brandi again. “Anything else you remember? Anything at all?”
She thought some more. “Sorry. Ashley
was like, real private about him. She never really talked about him, you know?”
“Okay. Thanks anyway.” I paid my check and
once again left her a big tip. She promised to call if she remembered anything.
Out on the sidewalk, I looked around. The Top of the Hill was on a busy street.
Within blocks of here were a hundred huge buildings, including the art museum,
the Alabama School of Fine Arts, Boutwell Auditorium, the courthouses, BFB
Bank, the jail — the list went on and on. As much as I’d love to canvass all of
them in search of Jimmy, it was impractical.
I hoofed it back to the Honda, and
arrived at Family Court in West End three minutes late. I wasn’t worried since
most of the judges didn’t start the afternoon docket on time anyway. I hung my
badge around my neck, cleared security, and climbed the large marble staircase
to the courtrooms on the second floor. Judge Myer was hearing my case today.
The family I was working with sat in the waiting area. The ten- and eight-year
old siblings who were in my custody were ecstatic about seeing their mom. The
foster parent kept a watchful eye from a distance.
I pulled the family into one of the
glass-fronted conference rooms to talk to them confidentially. For the
biological mother, I outlined the contents of the report I’d submitted to the judge,
reminding her that although I was proud of her progress, the kids would likely
be staying in foster care for another few months. It was a little too early for
them to go home, and I didn’t want her to be blindsided when Judge Myer ruled.
Mom took it well, said she understood, and the family went back to the waiting
area while I sat in the courtroom, whispering with my colleagues who were there
on other cases. Finally, at ten after three, the clerk called my case. Judge
agreed with my recommendation to leave the kids in their current placement, and
as he ruled, the kids’ mother started to bawl. Then the kids started, too.
Judge Myer signed his order, and I
shooed the family into the hallway where I attempted to calm everyone down. I
praised Mom again for her progress, telling her it wouldn’t be long until the
kids came home. She needed to stay sober and away from the man who had sexually
abused her daughter. The kids needed to mind their foster parents and do well
in school. I’d just about gotten the situation stabilized when one of the D.A.s
stuck her head out of the courtroom door.
“Claire? Judge wants you in chambers.”
Judge Myer’s office was behind his
courtroom. He was seated behind a traditional wooden desk. He had a head full
of blond hair and a round face, which often fooled people into thinking he was
younger than he was. I knew he was pushing fifty. He had slipped off his black
robe, and was now in shirtsleeves with his tie loose. The robe hung on a hanger
on the back of the door to the courtroom. A crimson-matted degree dominated the
wall space behind his desk, and Tide memorabilia decorated the room here and
there.
“How are you?”
“Fine, Your Honor, thanks.”
“You sure? Teresa called me last week
about the A.G.’s office requesting the Hennessy records.” Judge Myer was one of
the few people who’d earned the right to call Dr. Pope by her first name. “She
also mentioned you were a little worried about your job.”
“Well, yeah, a bit.”
“Don’t be. It seems like there isn’t a
day that goes by that someone doesn’t question my rulings. If it isn’t the
attorney general, then it’s the appellate court. They usually hold up. I
reviewed the Hennessy record before we sent it to Montgomery. We did a good job
on that case. You do a good job on all your cases. I heard you outside a minute
ago, talking to that family. You know how to relate to people, and you treat
them with respect. We need more social workers like you.”
For some inexplicable reason I was
almost moved to tears. “Thanks,” I said, hoarsely. Judge Myer was a good judge.
He didn’t let emotion cloud his rulings. He was fair. He listened to those
around him and took everything into consideration, even if he disagreed. What
he’d said meant a lot.
He came around the desk to give me a
reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about the A.G.’s office. It’ll
blow over.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I sat in my Honda in the parking lot for
a few minutes, enjoying a warm sense of pleasure at the judge’s words. He
didn’t think I was a failure. Now I just had to prove it to myself.
I checked my office voice mail remotely,
to make sure there wasn’t anything urgent that needed to be taken care of
before I left for the day. Twenty minutes later I parked my car in front of
Ashley’s apartment.
Connections, Mac said many years ago
while he was training me. Look at who the family knows. Most child abuse is
committed by someone familiar. A stepparent, an uncle, a coach, a family
friend. Talk to everyone who spends time with that child, and get a feel for
them. In other words, do what I do best.
Michael’s death was no different. Ashley
knew who did this. I thought about my list, sitting by the phone at home. Who
on that list had done this to him, and what was I missing? It was time for a
more thorough look around the crime scene.
Mail overflowed out of the box next to
Ashley’s door. I collected it and brought it inside. The apartment was still
clean, as it had been when Al and I were here, which meant Zander hadn’t been
back.
The only sounds were the faint hum of
the refrigerator and the click and whir of the AC cutting on. I surveyed my
surroundings, deciding what to do. I started in the kitchen, looking through
the drawers for an address book. Nothing. I wandered to the hallway, searched a
small closet that produced nothing but sheets and mismatched towels. In
Ashley’s bedroom, I went first to her closet. Clothes, shoes, a shoe box of
junk that revealed souvenir Mardi Gras beads, a get-well-soon card, a pen, some
old photos of herself, and a broken watch. I put it all back and rummaged
through the nightstand.
In the nightstand’s drawer were
vitamins, a bottle of lotion, some ibuprofen, and some expired children’s cough
syrup. No address book. Damn. Talk to me, Michael, I prayed. Help me out here,
angel.
I went back to the living room, my gaze
settling on the framed collage of pictures I’d seen the day Michael died. I
studied them closely. Especially the second set. There was the picture of Dee,
as before, and of Brandi. But now I could look at the photo of the three guys
on the couch and put names to faces. Zander was the one at the end, laughing, a
plastic cup raised in a toast to no one in particular. Next to him was —
Whoa. Lucas Grayson. I almost didn’t
recognize him with hair. It was dark and straight, like his brother’s, but not
as receded. It’d been shoulder length before he shaved it all off. If it wasn’t
for the Icarus tattoo, I wouldn’t have recognized him at all.
Next to Lucas was another young man I’d
seen before. But where?
With Lucas. Sitting at the bar at
Kaleidoscope. The blond guy with shaggy hair, dressed in business attire the
day I met Lucas and Donovan. Drinking a cocktail while Lucas stocked the bar. I
wondered who he was.
I took the picture frame down, placed it
on the worn table, then pried up the little metal tabs holding the mat in
place. I untaped, carefully, the picture of the three guys. I went back to the
shoe box and retrieved one of the old pictures of Ashley. I used the tape to
fix Ashley’s picture to the mat and replaced the mat in the frame, then hung it
back up.
I had just slipped the photo into my
purse and was heading for the door when it opened and in walked Zander.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zander saw me, purse on my shoulder, and
his expression went cold. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Checking on things for Ashley. What
about you?”
“That’s none of your damn business.” He
noticed the mail on the table, walked past me, and began to sort through it.
“What’s with you?” I asked.
“You sold me out, bitch. Told my parents
where I was.”
“They’re worried sick about you.”
“So? What do you care?”
“They care. That’s what matters.”
He was flipping through a sales circular
but listening to me nonetheless.
“C’mon, Zander. You know you can’t go on
like this forever. Sooner or later, you’re going to kill yourself, or, God
forbid, someone else. Your parents want the best for you, to get you help.”
“They’re dragging me to some shrink.”
“So take advantage of that. Use the help
to try and figure out where your life is going.”
“I know where my life is going.”
“It’s up to you.”
“Fuck you.”
I couldn’t think of a thing to say to
that, so I left.
On the way home, my mind was occupied with
Zander. I felt for his parents. The struggle ahead of them was going to be a
long one, trying to get him straight. In order to focus my thoughts elsewhere,
I called Grant on my cell.
“Hey,” he answered. “How are you? Any
sign of that guy?”
“I’m okay, and no, no sign.”
“You want me to come over tonight?”
I really didn’t. I was tired after the
long day, and I wanted some peace and quiet. A long bubble bath and a good
book. “I’m pretty tired.”
“Oh, all right then.” A note of hurt
colored his voice. I felt a twinge of guilt.
“I tell you what,” I said, “How about a
date Friday? Maybe we can go for that dinner and a movie we missed Saturday.”
“That sounds good.” We small talked
until I pulled into my driveway, and he stayed on the line as I went inside,
just to be safe. The house was undisturbed, but I checked it carefully, as
before. I spent the night soaking my still-sore body in the tub and slept
lightly with a butcher knife within arm’s reach.
On Tuesday morning Mac plopped a new case
on my desk that had come in overnight. Interviews with the parents and three
children ate up the morning. I decided to leave them with their family with some
intense counseling services in place. I made the therapy referral, and, stomach
growling loudly, went to find some lunch.
It was quarter to two when I got to the
Top of the Hill Grill. Brandi and her new coworker were chatting companionably,
wiping tables. I knew the grill stopped service at two, and the girls washed
dishes until four.
“Hey,” Brandi greeted me.
“Hey. Is it too late to eat?”
“Nah, you’re fine. What can I get you?”
The special was a patty melt, which
sounded delicious. But my clothes were getting tighter so I decided to be good
and ordered the grilled chicken salad with light dressing.
Brandi stuck my order in the window and
rang the little bell. I pulled the picture of the three guys on Ashley’s sofa
out of my purse and laid it on the sticky countertop. Pointing to the blond
mystery man, I asked, “Do you know who that is?”
She glanced at the photo. “Oh, sure,
that’s Trey.”
“Trey who?”
“Dunno. All I know is his name’s Trey.
He’s a friend of . . . of, of Ashley’s.”
“And he’s also a friend of Zander’s.”
Her gaze went everywhere but to my face.
“I’m not sure who you mean.”
“Yes, you do. I know about Zander. I met
him at Ashley’s apartment.” I lowered my voice to barely above a whisper and
added, “He was Michael’s dad.”
Brandi, knowing the game was up, nodded
slowly. “I always told Ashley she should tell you. She felt real bad, not
telling you. She hated lying to you. But Zander, and Zander’s daddy, they
didn’t want no one to know. They didn’t want a DHS record. They were so afraid
you were gonna find out.”
“Was it Zander’s drugs that killed
Michael?”
“I don’t know. Ashley won’t say. But
that’s what I think. Zander’s fun to hang out with, don’t get me wrong, but
he’s a fucked-up mess. I’m surprised, what with all the shit he does, that he’s
not dead yet. Ashley’s been tryin’ for months to get him to go someplace for
help. She loves Zander, really. He was good to her, you know? At a time when
she needed it.”
“You think she loves him enough to cover
up for him?”
Brandi nodded again. Another late customer
entered the diner. The other waitress, getting a signal from Brandi, seated him
and took his order. I thought about what Brandi had said, then asked, “But what
about Jimmy? I thought she and Jimmy —”
“She loves Jimmy. She’s in love with
Jimmy. But she and Zander have, had, a baby together. She’ll always have
feelings for him, you know what I mean? Maybe I’m not making any sense.”
She was making sense. I thought about
the guy I’d been with throughout grad school. We’d even lived together for a
while before our jobs took us in different directions. He was married now, with
a kid, but we still exchanged rare e-mails and Christmas cards. I would always
care for him. But go to prison for him?
And it still didn’t explain why Ashley’s
current boyfriend was trailing me around with a knife. He certainly didn’t owe
anything to Zander. Was Jimmy so much in love with Ashley that he’d actually
help her cover up for her ex-lover?
The little bell rang and Brandi
delivered my salad. It didn’t smell as good as the French fries now cooking in
the kitchen, but I dug in anyway. Brandi wiped the counter. Between bites I
asked, “So who’s this Trey guy?”
She shrugged. “Some friend of Zander’s.
I’ve met him twice. His real name is Something-Something-Something the Third,
but they call him Trey.”
Something-Something-Something the Third.
Well, that was helpful. But I bet I knew who could tell me Trey’s identity. I
put the picture back in my purse and finished the salad. Brandi refilled my
drink, and at my request poured it into a to-go cup.
Outside the grill, I surveyed the area as
I had last time. I needed to go back to work. I had to start a chart on my
investigation from this morning, and follow up on that referral. Instead, I
took a walk. To clear my head. I walked south for a few blocks, taking note of
the larger buildings in the area. Took a right just before the historic
Tutweiler Hotel, between it and the old library building, and then into Linn
Park. The park was the headquarters for many events in the city, including City
Stages, the big music festival held in June, and the local Race for the Cure in
October. On race day, the trees in the park were tied with huge pink ribbons in
memory of breast cancer victims. My brother Chris and I bought one every year
for Mom.
I passed the fountain and reached the
north side of the park, facing the Birmingham Museum of Art. A bench sat near
the towering glass front doors to the museum, and I was ready for a rest. The
temperature was typical for July, in the mid-nineties. I wiped perspiration
from my forehead and sipped the rest of my watery drink. The temptation to go
into the air-conditioned museum and browse around the collections was almost
too strong to ignore. I finished my drink and tossed it into a nearby can. A
gaggle of students from ASFA made their way down the sidewalk, on the way to
their campus in the next block. They reminded me of Zander’s younger sister,
Kaylin. I wondered if she would head down the same dangerous path as her
brother.
Okay, enough time wasted. The chart from
this morning wasn’t going away, and the sooner I got it done, the sooner I
could go home. I strolled up the sidewalk on the east side of the park, in no
hurry. I was going over everything about Michael’s case in my mind again when I
saw him.
A man, walking toward me, in a burgundy
shirt with a blue logo on the pocket. It wasn’t Jimmy, but I was fairly sure it
was the same shirt that he wore that day at the jail. The guy in the shirt was
younger and trimmer than Jimmy, in his mid-twenties. As we closed in on each
other, I saw he was a handsome guy, with thick blond hair and blue eyes that
stood out against his tan skin. In his right hand was a bag from Sneaky Pete’s
hot dog shop.
I still couldn’t make out the logo. As
he passed me on the sidewalk, I said, “Excuse me, sir?”
He stopped, gave me a half-smile that
revealed stained teeth. “Yeah?”
“Could I ask where you work?”
He nodded straight ahead of him, behind
me. “The convention center.”
I turned around. Beyond the interstate
overpass, the sprawling, brown-brick complex took up a solid city block, more
if you counted the parking decks that surrounded it and the mammoth hotel next
door. A fight had been raging year after year among city leaders about whether
to replace it with a domed stadium. I fell in step with Sneaky Pete and asked,
“Do you know a guy named Jimmy Shelton?”
“Oh sure, I know Jimmy.” Sneaky Pete had
a country accent that I placed from the plains, in the southern part of the
state.
“Is he working today, do you know? I’d
love to say hi to him.” And stick a knife up his —
“He’s there. C’mon and I’ll find him for
you.”
We approached the elevated section of
I-59/20, and as we walked underneath it, I had to shout to be heard.
“What do you do?”
“Our department sets up all the stuff
for the meetin’s. All the A/V and the chairs and such. We got the full crew on
today. Got a huge meetin’ of foot doctors comin’ in. I guess they got a lotta
pi’tures of feet to look at.”
I stifled a giggle and asked, “So that’s
what Jimmy does, too?”
“Yup.”
I followed him to the main entrance of
the center, over the intricate pavers in front, and through a large door. We
climbed a flight of stairs. Miles of teal-patterned carpet stretched
everywhere. Sneaky Pete led me to the guts of the building, to a small office whose
occupant was out. A collection of brown clipboards hung on the wall. He pulled
one down and checked the schedule. “Jimmy’s in the East Hall, upstairs.”
“I can find him.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, thanks for your help.”
I went back to the main entrance hall.
An upward-bound escalator to the East Hall was on the right, shut off. The
downward one, also off, was on the left. If I had any sense at all, I’d turn
around and leave. Go back to DHS and do the paperwork that was waiting on my
desk.
I started to do just that, but at the
last minute turned around and climbed the metal stairs of the escalator.
Halfway up, my legs started to shake, and I didn’t think it was because of the
lingering soreness from the hike. What could he do to me at his work? Surely he
didn’t have another knife on him. And I didn’t think someone would fail to
notice if he made some attempt to harm me here. Still, I felt like I was poised
to poke a big dog with a stick.
The East Exhibition rooms were at the
top of the escalator. Several, identified by letters. I started at
D
,
poking my head through double doors that revealed rows of teal-cushioned chairs
and screens for slide projectors. When I got to
K
, I found him.
He was lining up chairs, taking them
four at a time from a large stack. He turned around when the door opened, and
what I could see of his face under all that hair registered surprise.
I stepped inside, letting the heavy wood
door swing shut behind me with a booming thud. I stood in front of the door, my
butt leaning against the metal push-bar that opened it. Jimmy was fifteen feet
away, a chair in his hands. I stood ready to run if he came at me.
“What are you doing here?” His deep
voice shattered the quiet room.
“I want to know why you followed me
around Oak Mountain with a knife.”
“I told you to stay out of it.”
“Why?”
“You can’t do anything to help Ashley.
She wants you to leave it alone.”
“I want to know who killed Michael. I
want to know who Ashley is protecting. Is it you? Or Zander?”
“It doesn’t matter. Leave it alone. I
mean it. I’d hate to see you get hurt. So would Ashley.”
“By you?”
He sneered. “If that’s what it takes. A
little visit to that cute little black and white house of yours up in Bluff
Park.”
My body went icy, like I’d taken a polar
swim. I fought to steady my still-shaking legs and said, “If I see you anywhere
near me, I’ll call the cops.” I hoped my voice was more forceful than it
sounded to me.
He laughed, a short jeer that echoed in
the room. “You do that.”
The door behind me suddenly swung out,
throwing me off balance. I stumbled sideways and caught myself before I fell as
a woman in a black suit and scarf entered. She carried one of the brown
clipboards. “Oh, sorry,” she said, watching me right myself. “Didn’t see you
there. Jimmy, I need a word.”