Free Little Lamb Lost by Margaret Fenton

Over the last four days I’d noticed more inquisitive looks
coming my way. Some people were discreet about it, shooting me furtive glances
as they passed my cubicle. Some were more overt, and many had stopped me to
express their condolences. The Adult Services folks were the same. After what
happened to the workers in the cases Mahoney mentioned in his article, I
couldn’t blame them for their curiosity about what was going to happen to me. I
wondered myself.
    I came to what was once the customer
service desk of the former Barwick’s Department Store. Behind the glass sat Michele,
who ran our records department. She was a few years older than me, with short
brown hair and an air of organized efficiency. A computer and high-speed
printer stood ready on a built-in workstation behind her. Stacks of paper in
black plastic trays covered the rest of the surface.
    “Hey,” she said to me, sliding open the
small window. “I’ve been worried about you. How’re you doing?”
    “I’m okay I guess.”
    “You heard anything about what the
State’s going to do?”
    “Nothing yet.”
    “By the way, I’ve got some bad news for
you.”
    Like I needed that. “What?”
    “My cousin found a girlfriend.”
    So that was it. Michele was another
active member of the   “Conspiracy to Get
Claire Married.” She’d been trying to fix me up with her
forty-something-year-old cousin for months. She swore up and down he looked
just like Rob Lowe. Inwardly, I was happy to hear someone had snatched him up.
    “Oh, that’s too bad.”
    “She’s real nice, and they seem pretty
serious.”
    “My tough luck, I guess.”
    “Y’all would have made a cute couple.
What can I do for you?”
    “I need a Registry check.”
    She handed me an 8-1941 form. The
Registry was the State’s record of who had been accused of child abuse, and
whether the case was founded or unfounded. I filled in the little biographical
data I had on Al, mostly just his name, address, and age, and handed it back to
her. “Give me a sec and I’ll do it now.”
    I waited, leaning on the desk and
watching her type all the fields into the computer. She hit enter and turned
back to me. “So, my cousin has this friend —”
    I held up a hand. “Stop. I don’t do
blind dates.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they are always a disaster.” My
mind drifted back to the last blind date I’d agreed to, after graduate school.
He didn’t want a date, he wanted sex. It had taken me over an hour to extricate
myself from his wandering hands and call a cab home.
    “Not always.”
    “For me, always.”
    The printer behind her made a little
click and a whirring noise. A second later it spewed out pages.
    “Uh-oh,” Michele said, “It looks like
your boy’s had a few number ones on the Hit Parade.”
    I closed my eyes as my stomach sank.
Damn, damn, damn. Michele paper clipped the sheets from the printer and handed
them to me. “Here you go.”
    “Thanks.”
    I stood at the desk and studied the
pages. At the top in all caps was listed the name of the alleged perpetrator.
Allen Pierce Mackey. He was forty-one. The last known address listed was
different from his current one. Hair: brown. Eyes: brown. Height: 5' 11".
Weight: 280. That was him all right.
    Below that was the alleged victim.
Heather Lynn Mackey. Parents: Tina Lynn Mackey and Allen Pierce Mackey.
Heather’s date of birth was listed too, and after a quick calculation I worked
out that she was now twenty. I checked the date of the first allegation. She’d
been three years old.
    Listed below were two columns, the codes
for what we had investigated in Al’s case and the findings. There were three
entries. The first said PHYSABCH UNFSUS. Physical Abuse of Child, and the
agency had ruled it unfounded but suspicious. Meaning that a child in Al’s care
showed suspicious injuries he denied causing, but the circumstances seemed to
be more than a mere accident.
    Next was PHYSABCH FOUN. Physical Abuse
of Child, Founded.