trying to add some that weren't there. She took long, gallant strides, and though I wasn't a short guy I found myself expelling quite a bit of energy just to keep step.
To my surprise, Sheryl did not ask a follow-up question. Not about the circumstances in which I found her mother, if she had any last words, nothing. If she was in mourning, she hid it. If she had any feelings for her mother, they were worn far below the sleeve.
Without Sheryl prompting, I told her about Stephen
Gaines, about my father's arrest for his murder. I also told her how Rose Keller had pointed me in the direc tion of the cabin at Blue Lake Mountain, and how I was working to prove my father's innocence. She listened without saying a word. I couldn't tell if she was merely aloof, distracted with everything that had gone on, or, more distressingly, not surprised at all.
'Were you two close?' I asked. A rhetorical question, but what I hoped would be a baby step in finding out more about Beth-Ann Downing and her re lationship to Helen Gaines.
'I hadn't spoken to my mother in almost ten years,'
Sheryl said, her gaze straight ahead. She spoke as if I was asking her about her previous employment. And I noticed she used the past tense- hadn't. Most people, when discussing a recent death of a friend or family member, would slip up, say haven't as though the person was still alive. Somehow I got the feeling this was a day Sheryl Harrison was prepared for.
'Did she ever try to reach out to you?' I asked. 'Or mention friends, associates, anyone?'
'Mr. Parker,' Sheryl said, a hint of annoyance creeping into her voice. 'I answered your question. My mother and I were not close. Not even before I left the city. Yes, she did try to reach out once or twice. I didn't return her phone calls.'
'Why not?'
'Perhaps you're too young to have experienced this, but when someone hurts you so badly-I'm not talking about a faulty relationship or bad argument-I'm talking about hurts you in such a way that decimates you, your confidence, your life in such a way that the only chance you have to life is by cutting off a diseased limb, you don't care or make an effort to reconnect. If anything, you stay away from it.'
'What did your mother do to you?' I asked. This came out less incredulous than expected. If I didn't grow up with a father whose mission in life seemed to be to alienate his family, this kind of revelation from
Sheryl might have taken me aback. Instead, I under stood, maybe even empathized with her.
'What didn't she do.' Sheryl sighed.
'When you left,' I asked, 'was it one act that drove you away, or did the camel's back suddenly give out?'
'A little of both,' Sheryl said. We turned right on
Madison, began to walk uptown, my legs growing sore with the exertion. I was in good shape, but Sheryl
Harrison looked like she was ready to compete in the
Olympics. 'But if there was one thing that I could point to that destroyed my relationship with my mother,' she continued, 'it was the drugs.'
I stopped for a moment. Sheryl did not stop with me, so I had to jog back to keep pace.
'Drugs?' I said, surprised. 'What do you mean?'
'Well, when I left it was still the crack,' Sheryl said with the blank expression of a clinical diagnosis. 'I'm sure there were a few other things mixed in there- meth, weed-but it was the crack that burned her humanity from the inside out.'
'She did this while she raised you,' I said.
'I don't think she was as heavily into it while I was a child, but by the time I got to high school it was like coming home to a woman who'd turned into a funhouse mirror.'
'Jesus,' I said.
'I don't think Jesus smoked crack,' Sheryl said. For the first time, I heard a lightness in her voice, as though she was amusing herself. 'And all those people who call you late at night to ask if God has a plan? I tell them
God didn't have a damn thing for me. He gave me a treasure map to a pile of dog shit, and I had to clean up after it myself. Finally I got tired and moved on.'
'How long did your mother do drugs?' I asked. 'Was it something she picked up?' I felt slightly off kilter with this line of questioning. Growing up, I'd experi enced many forms of addiction of personal evils, both in my family, my relationships and my friends. I'd lived through Jack O'Donnell's alcoholism. I'd seen first hand what external poisons could do to a person inter nally. One thing I'd never been exposed to on a personal level was a habitual drug user. Yet both of us had left family behind to free ourselves from their trappings.
'Let's see…how long did my mother use? My whole life,' Sheryl said. 'You know you can pretty much make your own crack pipe using household materials. My dad died when I was a baby. One of my first memories was seeing all these pretty flowers my mother, Beth, used to keep around the house. Pretty flowers inside this metal tubing. One day I brought one to school, and I got a belt across the back because of it. Turns out those little roses you buy at any gas station are actually crack pipes in disguise. You just take off the foil and remove the rose, stuff about an inch of Brillo pad into the tubing.
That's your filter. Take a rock and put it on the Brillo pad, then run a lighter over it, constantly rolling the tube between your fingers to make sure the rock burns easily. Some kids learn how to build sand castles, braid hair, make macaroni necklaces. I learned how to build a crack pipe.'
'Do you know if your mother was still smoking it when she died?'
'I'd be shocked as hell if she wasn't,' Sheryl said.
'And I remember there were days when my mother forget to pay her electric bills, and rather than own up, she'd just go with Helen up to that cabin. Don't get me wrong, Henry, in some way I loved my mother. But I saw her death coming from miles away. It was only a matter of time before her life ended, and ended badly.
But one thing I do know, that lovely Ms. Helen Gaines?
She was the biggest enabler my mother ever had.'
The words struck me like a punch. Helen Gaines? I knew Stephen had a habit, but Helen?
'Don't look so surprised,' Sheryl said. 'Based on where they lived during that time, Alphabet City in the
'80s? Would've been a surprise if they didn't end up addicts. I mean, I remember this WASPY-looking young punk always coming by the house to drop off whatever my mom had ordered. Remember his name too, Vinnie.'
'Vinnie?' I said, the surprise in my voice evident.
Rose Keller had said that whenever she needed a new supply she would call some delivery system where they'd send over a guy named Vinnie. I had no idea how many Vinnies there were, but it was clear this system had been in place over a decade and was likely still in business today. This wasn't just some petty drug deal, but something much larger.
'Take that British singer, Amy Winehouse,' Sheryl said, 'then multiply it by ten and that's how bad my mother was. So my guess is this. If my mother was killed while hiding out with Helen Gaines, I'd bet my husband's Infiniti it's got something to do with drugs.
And Stephen Gaines must have crossed some damn un pleasant people.'
17
Rose Keller was home. This didn't quite surprise me- most graphic designers worked freelance. So I figured she wasn't the kind of person who woke up to an alarm clock at six forty-five, got dressed and grabbed a tall latte on the way to the office. When I called at eight in the morning, it was no great shock that Rose Keller sounded like a bear awoken from hibernation.
Actually, she kind of reminded me of what Amanda sounded like before her first cup of coffee.
One thing I learned early on when talking to sources: get them early, or get them late. During the day, everyone was at work. There was always an excuse not to talk. I hate to say this, but often a source would agree to talk to you if only to prevent you from ever interrupting their private time again. Probably the only time I would
