Little Lamb Lost Read Free

yesterday.
It was negative.”
    “She gets them regularly?”
    “She’s on the color system.” He nodded,
signaling that he knew what it was. All my clients with drug issues got tested
randomly. Ashley phoned a number every day and a recording announced the day’s
color. Hers was aqua. If her color was named, she had to leave a urine sample
at the lab. No exceptions, no excuses. In any given week, one person’s color
might not come up at all, or it could be called up to seven times. DHS liked to
think it kept them honest.
    “She hasn’t had a dirty screen in a year
and a half, and I haven’t seen any evidence of backsliding,” I said. “No
suspicious behaviors, no running around with her old crowd. She hasn’t been
avoiding me. No new neglect or abuse reports from anyone. She never missed work
and —”
    Brighton held up a hand. “Okay, okay. We
don’t know if she’s done anything wrong, so you don’t have to defend her. There
was no immediate evidence of physical abuse on the body, and no obvious head
injury, so we’ll just have to wait and see what’s going on.”
    “What could’ve killed him? Did he choke
on something?”
    “The paramedics that responded to the
nine-one-one call said he was deceased when they arrived. They didn’t see
anything in his mouth or throat. My guess is that he ate something that caused
his death. We’ll see what the coroner has to say after the autopsy.”
    “When will that be?”
    “Probably tomorrow.”
    Mac and I both gave Brighton business
cards, and he promised to keep in touch. We went back into the apartment where
a devastated Ashley was still sitting on the sofa. I sat beside her and rubbed
the back of her worn green robe. Mac perched in one of the dining chairs placed
across from us.
    I asked, “Ashley, can you tell me what
happened? I know you just told the police, but I need to know.”
    There was a faraway look in her eyes. I
dreaded bringing her back and making her go through it again.
    “I worked last night.” Her janitorial
job was from five to ten. “I went to Dazzle’s to pick Mikey up.” Dazzle was
Michael’s babysitter. “I got there about ten fifteen or so. He was asleep, like
he usually is, on the couch. Dazzle was in her nightgown, ready for bed, just
like every night. She gave me a picture he colored for me, and we woke him so I
could take him home. He slept all the way here in his car seat. I woke him up
again so I could put on his pj’s and help him brush his teeth. I poured him
some orange juice in a sippy cup, but he was too tired to drink it. He left it
on the coffee table. Then he fell asleep right here next to me,” she touched a
place on the couch, “with his blanky.” I knew she meant the fleece blanket
printed with lambs that Michael dragged everywhere. “I watched some TV. Then I
carried him to bed about eleven thirty.”
    Her eyes filled with tears again. “And
that’s it. I swear. It was just like every single other night.”
    Now the hard part. “Then what?”
    “I woke up at six, like always. Some
mornings I get me and Mikey dressed and go to the nine o’clock AA meetin’ at
St. Monica’s. Sometimes I just stay here. But by ten thirty he has to be at
Dazzle’s so I can get to work.” Ashley’s day job was as a waitress, from eleven
to four. “I didn’t go to a meetin’ yesterday ’cause I needed to go do laundry.
I went into Mikey’s room to get him up and sort his dirty clothes, and he
wasn’t in bed.”
    She inhaled through her rising emotion.
“So I came out here, and he wasn’t on the couch, so I looked in the kitchen.”
She glanced toward the galley-style room behind us. “He was on the floor. He
was blue. Oh, Claire, he was so blue. I tried shaking him, but he wouldn’t wake
up.”
    I could feel my own heart racing and my
throat was tightening again. I swallowed back tears and glanced at Mac, whose
face was unnaturally still.
    “I called nine-one-one. There wasn’t
nothin’ they could do. The