Authors: Margaret Fenton
“That was it.” Flash, real name Gregory
Bowman, was Ashley’s boyfriend at the time I’d first met her. And her pimp. And
her dealer. Although as dealers went, he was pretty small-time. I remembered
him as a skinny, pale guy with platinum-dyed spiky hair. He was big into rap, a
gangster wannabe, usually dressed in baggy basketball jerseys and matching
shorts. With lots of jewelry. I couldn’t stand him. He’d stalked Ashley when
she first came to St. Monica’s to the point where Nona eventually had to get a
restraining order. Now that I thought about it, he was the type of guy who
would drive a lime green Charger with chrome rims. He was also the kind to
slash someone’s tires.
“Now,” Nona said, pushing herself up off the
step and helping me stand, “you go home and get some rest. I got some things I
gotta do. We’re taking up money for Mikey’s funeral, and I got some calls to
make.”
“That’s sweet.” I retrieved my purse
from my car and gave her a twenty, the last of my cash. “Here. For Michael.”
She took it and put her arms around me as I inhaled her sweet, musky scent.
“You take care.”
“You too.”
Thirty minutes later I parked the Honda
in my carport. Before changing clothes, I went into my half-painted home
office. My computer was there, on a cart in the middle of the room, under clear
plastic. It was a twenty-first century contrast to the rolltop desk I’d
inherited from my maternal grandmother that sat next to it, also under plastic.
But what I wanted was in the closet.
As a licensed social worker, I was
required to get thirty hours of continuing education credit every two years.
Last year I’d gone to a workshop put on by a local police officer in the Youth
Services Division in conjunction with a program designed to intervene with kids
at high risk for substance abuse. It was informative, mostly because the
officer had spent nearly all of his time going over what drugs were popular
these days.
Since I was cursed with an obsessive need
for organization, it was easy to find the crate file where I had put the
handout and my notes from the conference. I pulled it from the folder marked
“CEUs,” sat on the floor, and refreshed my memory about gama hydroxybutyrate.
Commonly know as GHB, G, Liquid X, or
the date rape drug, it was popular with high school kids and clubbers. A lot of
kids used it after doing Ecstasy at raves, because GHB brought them down after
the manic effects of Ecstasy. When taken, it gave the user sensations similar
to being drunk, with decreased motor function, slurred speech, numbness,
blackouts, and in the case of overdose, coma and death. It was especially
deadly when paired with alcohol, and it wasn’t uncommon for people on GHB to
smother if they passed out face down, or to drown in their own vomit. Ugh.
Only a small amount of GHB, like a
capful, was enough to get high. GHB and its analogs, or similar drugs, were
made of common chemicals and could be concocted in any kitchen. It exited the
system rapidly and was hard to detect in a drug screen. Maybe that’s why Ashley
had always tested negative.
The worst feature of GHB, according to
the police officer, was that it was colorless. It had become so rampant in some
local high schools that it had prompted administrators to ban students from
bringing bottled drinks to school. That didn’t stop them though. GHB could be
kept in almost any container, like a fingernail polish bottle. It had a salty
taste, and was most often used by placing it into a sweet cocktail, soda, or juice
to disguise it.
My guess was that Michael had woken up
sometime early Tuesday morning, thirsty. He drank his juice, which had enough
GHB in it to put him in a coma before he stopped breathing. He’d just gone to
sleep. A painless death. I wished that was some comfort.
I refiled the packet of information and,
sore from sitting on the floor, stretched and went to change clothes. I pulled
on a pair of pink and white flannel boxer shorts and an old “Race for the Cure”
T-shirt and went back into the office. I uncovered the computer and plugged it
in, intent on further researching GHB and its effects.
When I hit the blue button on the
computer case, the machine made a horrible noise. Sort of a metallic clanking.
Nothing at all came on the screen. I turned it off, quickly, then tried again.
Same awful noise.
“Damn,” I muttered, then let loose a few
more expletives. I couldn’t live without my computer, and now I had to find
time to go get it fixed. And money. Home improvements were sucking every extra
cent out of my meager paycheck. Not to mention the new tires. I couldn’t afford
any more major expenses right now.
Back in the bedroom, I changed again,
this time to a paint-splattered “Ski Copper Mountain” T-shirt and a pair of
cutoffs. As I rolled a small section of sunny yellow paint onto the wall, I
felt my stress level ease. Then my cell phone rang.
“Girl, your agency is in a world of
shit, no?”
Royanne Fayard. We’d been best friends
since the fifth grade. Was it six o’clock already? “You watching the news?” I
ran into the living room and grabbed the remote.
“Yeah, channel twelve.”
I flipped it to the ABC station and both
Royanne and I listened. The male reporter was standing in front of the brown
brick edifice of the Criminal Justice Center, otherwise known as the jail.
“Thanks, Dan. A Birmingham Police
Department spokesperson today confirmed that Ashley Louise Hennessy has been
arrested in conjunction with the death of her two-year-old son, Michael
Alexander Hennessy. The autopsy report showed that the youngster died of an
overdose of the drug GHB. Sources tell us that Ms. Hennessy has a history of
drug addiction for which she was in treatment. As we reported last evening, it
is believed she was under the supervision of the Department of Human Services.
Dr. Teresa Pope, DHS’s county director, stated again today they are unwilling
to comment on an ongoing investigation, but assured me that should any blame
lie with any social worker in her department, harshest disciplinary action
would be taken. Tonight, the question remains why this child was left in such a
dangerous situation. Back to you, Dan.”
I sank down onto the sofa, sick. The
reporter’s voice played again in my head. Such a dangerous situation. Harshest
disciplinary action.
Royanne said, “Wow, I feel sorry for
whoever had that case. You think they’ll get fired?”
“I can’t talk about it.” My voice was
hollow.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I can’t talk about it.”
“It wasn’t your case, was it?”
Royanne knew me well enough to interpret
my silence.
“Oh shit. Oh Claire, I’m so sorry.”
“I really can’t talk about it.”
“I know. Oh, man.”
“I guess we’ll have to see what
happens.”
“Are you okay?”
“I will be.”
“Do you still want to do lunch
tomorrow?”
Royanne and I had a standing lunch date
every Thursday unless some emergency of mine prevented it. I visualized my
schedule in my head. No court appearances, just a couple of meetings. And I had
to get by the jail to see Ashley. “Sure.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow. You sure
you’re okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Through the phone I heard the long wail
of a child’s cry. It had to be Olivia, Royanne’s two-year-old daughter. Only
she could scream like that. Royanne and her husband, Toby, had two other
children, Richard, aged four, and Alicia, aged six. All of them were close to my
heart. “Uh-oh. Trouble brewing. Gotta go.”
“See ya.” I closed my phone. So the
witch hunt had begun. I knew it would, but knowing it was coming wasn’t going
to lessen the impact. I spent the rest of the evening finishing the office,
letting the repetitive motion of the paint roller ease my mind like the
physical version of a soothing mantra. I finally collapsed into bed late,
exhausted.
The next morning I went in early to finish
case notes and write a quick e-mail to Mac about my slashed tires. Russell moped
in at eight, complete with to-go coffee from O’Henry’s Coffee House, his
highlighted blond hair still wet from the shower. “You read this?” he asked,
holding out a copy of the paper.
“No. Bad?”
“Not good.”
I took the folded paper and found the
headline on page one. CHILD WELFARE AGENCY LETS CHILD DOWN.
The article, written by some idiot named
Kirk Mahoney, recounted everything that had happened so far in Ashley’s case,
including the fact that Michael had died from a GHB overdose and cited
“sources” that confirmed Michael and Ashley were working with DHS. My favorite
quote was, “The Department of Human Services has long faced scrutiny for the
way that it handles its cases. Years of mismanagement and incompetence may have
resulted in another tragic, needless death.”
I fumed, cursing, and resisted the urge
to throw the paper against the wall. “Incompetence? Really! What the hell does
that son of a bitch know about anything!”
“I know.” Russell agreed. “And DHS will
insist on your maintaining confidentiality, effectively making it impossible
for you to defend yourself. At least in public.”
“Thanks. You’re really cheering me up.”
“Sorry. Can I have my paper back? I want
to read the rest of the news.” I gave Russell his paper and gathered my stuff.
I went to a meeting with a therapist
about a client, and by ten was parking next to a meter a block away from the
Criminal Justice Center. It was a fifteen-story building with high, horizontal
windows, designed to let in minimal light and deny anyone a view of the outside
world.
Security was tight. My purse and
briefcase were X-rayed, then I had to leave them, along with my phone and keys,
in a locker. The Sheriff’s Department officer who checked me through pointed to
the elevator and directed me to the second floor.
It seemed like everything in the
building was dirty. The elevator walls were marked with smudges and
fingerprints, and the whole place had a smell of unwashed bodies, like a gym.
I stepped off the elevator directly into
the visiting room. A row of scratched, wooden cubicles with tall glass windows
separated visitors from the inmates. The booths had narrow stools barely large
enough to perch on, cemented into the floor. Telephone handsets hung on the
side of each cubicle so the visitors and the inmates could talk. A uniformed
guard stood at the door that led to the rest of the jail.
I expected to have to wait for Ashley,
but as I stepped off the elevator, I saw her. She was sitting in the last
cubicle, wearing a baggy suit of orange stripes, talking on the off-white
handset with a guy. I could see his profile as they spoke. He was fortyish,
with untamed wiry, dark brown hair and an untrimmed beard. He had on dark blue
rugged pants — the ones favored by auto mechanics and other manual laborers —
with a short-sleeved burgundy polo shirt over a potbelly.
I stopped, wondering who he was, not
wanting to interrupt their discussion. As I watched, he placed his free hand on
the glass. Ashley did the same, in a gesture that was as close as they could
get at the moment to an intimate touch. Her expression was one of tenderness
I’d seen before, when she looked at Michael. A look of love.
Her expression changed abruptly when she
noticed me. She said something urgently to her visitor and they hung up. He
rose off the stool. I tried to read the blue logo on his shirt as he jammed his
hands in his pockets and rushed past me to the stairs. I started to say
something, but only got as far as “Hey” before he was gone. The heavy metal
door boomed as it shut.
Ashley looked upset. I took the man’s
place on the stool and picked up the handset that was still warm. “Hi,” I said.
“Hello.”
“How are you holding up? Do you need
anything?”
“A one-way ticket to Mexico.”
“Anything else?”
“No. Wish I could smoke.” I remembered
it’d been about eighteen hours since her last cigarette. Maybe that accounted
for the attitude.
“Who was that? That just left?”
I watched her compose the lie, eyes
darting back and forth as she hesitated. “Nobody. Just some guy from some
church.”
“Try again.”
“Look, he said he wanted to pray with
me, so we prayed. What was I supposed to do, tell him to go to hell?”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“C’mon, Ashley. That wasn’t some
stranger. You know him. Who is he?”
“I’m done here.” She started to hang up
the phone.
“Wait, wait! Okay, it’s none of my
business.”
“You got that right.”
“What about Flash? Somebody slashed my
tires yesterday. That sounds like something he’d do, doesn’t it? Is he back in
the picture?”
She wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
I asked, quietly, “Were you using
again?”
She didn’t say anything. “Ashley, you
were always honest with me. I still believe in you. You were doing so well. But
I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”