Reef Dance Read online

  Actually, the allegations against Darla Madden in the county’s court petition weren’t much: filthy living conditions and the cryptic reference to freshly deposited excrement for added emphasis, but no charges of physical or sexual abuse, the two top drawing cards in dependency court. And yet, the emergency social worker had still seen fit to pull Eric, who was twelve, and his sister Stacy, five, out of the home and give temporary custody to their paternal uncle, Pete. The case was a bit of a rarity: a “dirty house” detention.

  “I’m J. Shepard.” I handed her a card, which she held away from her body and inspected.

  “Dependency Court Legal Project . . . what’s that?”

  “A law firm. The county pays me to represent people who can’t afford a lawyer, which is just about everybody in the place.”

  She raised her right hand as if to solemnly swear. “You got that right, Mister Shepard. I’m as poor as a church mouse.”

  “Well, don’t worry, I won’t be sending you a bill. That’s one thing about this wonderful experience you can actually bank on. They can charge you for removing your trash, but not your kids.”

  I regretted my words as quickly as I’d spoken them. Darla’s eyes swam in a glaze of tears, her chest heaving in a hiccup as she fought to compose herself. But it was too late. I handed her a tissue and closed my eyes as she began to weep in earnest.

  A dirty house detention. In the grand scheme of government-regulated child welfare, Darla Madden’s shortcomings as a homemaker were of almost laughable concern to the county. But there was nothing funny about her current state of abject humiliation.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Madden,” I said. “I know it’s hard having your kids taken away from you. Trust me, I do.”

  She straightened. “That man!” she said. “Bastard!”

  “What man?”

  “That . . . stupid social worker, the one who took my Eric and Stacy. They’re my pride and joy. He hates me, I know it!”

  I flipped through the social worker’s incident report attached to the petition. “Ms. Madden, if you don’t mind, I think I should tell you a few things about this court and these proceedings. When I’m done, you can tell me about your case.”

  She smiled, wiping the tears with the back of her thick hand. “You’re all right. I can tell you care about me.”

  “It’s my job,” I said.

  I suspected that Darla didn’t quite believe me. “Well thanks for the hanky, anyway.”

  We weren’t getting anywhere. “Okay,” I said, “California’s got laws about how a kid can be treated. County social workers go out to do an investigation when the Department of Child Welfare gets a report that a child has been abused or neglected, or abandoned, and—”

  “How about sold?”

  “Sold? What are you talking about?”

  “You heard me. What if somebody tries to sell their kid?”

  “Ms. Madden,” I said, “if you’d just let me get through the basics with you without interruption.”

  She bowed her head. “Sorry. But, can I ask ya just one little babysellin’ question?”

  “No, you can’t. Look, Ms. Madden, a minute ago you were crying about your kids being removed, remember?” She nodded. “Well what do you say we stick to your case and how we’re going to get those kids home today, all right?”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “I get it. So you’re the only one in here doesn’t care, huh?”

  “I thought you just told me I did care.”

  “I don’t mean about me. Nah, I mean about the baby-seller case.”

  She ignored my impatient sigh. “All right,” I said, “let’s hear it.”

  “Well,” she said, her voice dipping, “word is, this young girl had a get-rich-quick scheme that backfired. She gets herself pregnant ’n’ finds about five different rich couples to adopt her baby. Guess when a girl’s both white ’n’ pretty good lookin’ everyone wants the fruit of her loins, if you get my meaning.”

  “Don’t worry, I get you,” I said. “What else?”

  “Well, so they’re all givin’ her money and clothes and expensive things, jewelry, sky’s the limit! But here’s the catch: they all think they’re the only ones gonna get the baby, ’cause none of ’em know about the other couples! But wait! That ain’t even the worst of it!”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said wearily, “she wants to keep the kid.”

  It stood to reason. Why else would the case land in here if custody of the baby wasn’t the key issue? In dependency, custody is that which defines winning and losing, the ultimate prize.

  Darla looked deflated. “How’d ya know?”

  How could I not have known?

  “Now, if the county thinks a kid’s been abused or neglected—”

  “We talkin’ about my case again?”

  My face went stony. “They can remove the kids temporarily,” I continued, “but they’ve got to get a judge to agree with them that the abuse or neglect happened. If the judge agrees, he can decide where the kids will live and who can visit them, what schools they go to, medical procedures—a whole host of things.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “It don’t seem fair.”

  “Today, the judge will decide whether your kids come home right away or not.”

  Darla suddenly looked scared. “You will get ’em home to me today, won’t you?”

  At last I had her full attention. “That’s why I’m trying to stick to your case here, Ms. Madden. We have to figure out what to do to get them back.”

  She smiled. “You look like a lifeguard. How’d you get such a good tan?”

  The tiny room felt like a jail cell. “Okay, Ms. Madden, what do you say we not waste each other’s time? You want these kids back today or not?”

  The coy pucker vanished from her plump cheeks. “That man from the Child Services hates me, I’m telling you.” Her eyes narrowed. “He just plain hates me!”

  “Don’t take it personally,” I said.

  “You know, I’ll bet you think I’m a real dumbfuck.” She eyed me head-on. “Bet you wish you could tell me to shut up, but you can’t, can you? Judge would have your little fanny in the fryin’ pan, wouldn’t he?”

  “Don’t push it,” I said. “I don’t want to make you cry again.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  My client and I were at rock bottom, precisely the level on which I like to operate. “This is really just a dirty house case,” I said, perusing the file. “What a dump. You’re just going to have to commit to giving it a major going over.”

  “It’s an apartment, not a house, and it ain’t no dump. Read me what the bastard wrote.”

  I went through the report, paraphrasing as I turned the pages, pausing briefly at the motorcycle rebuild currently being conducted in the rear bathroom’s tub, a curious detail I’d missed before.

  “That’s a ’fifty-eight Harley, flat-pan, suicide shift,” she said.

  “Right.” I paused on the report’s final page. “Moist feces on entryway floor. Nice.”

  “My mistake on that. The rest is done—all done!” she shouted. “I had the damn place cleaned up before he even started writing that pack o’ lies! I told you, he hates me, he hates my kids, and he hates Max! Now how about gettin’ me my kids back? Eric’s got a leaky faucet, at times. If he wets his bed in a foster home, the other kids’ll laugh at him, maybe even beat him up. And Uncle Pete’s a long-haul driver, and he’s leavin’ for the East Coast in the morning. He can’t take care of ’em past today.” She rolled her head balefully, her fists knotted in her lap.

  I scanned the names listed on the petition. Only one word had been committed to the task of summarizing the story of the childrens’ father, Lyle Madden: “deceased.” No mention of anyone named Max.

  “I don’t know about the social worker not liking you, but this case should be simple. Do a major cleanup. Kick start the Harley.” Darla’s face was a blank. “I mean, get it out of the tub.”

  “The Harley? What fo
r?”

  “Look, if you don’t know enough, I mean, if you aren’t even willing . . .” I shut the file, my energy gone. “Just do what I tell you. I know. You’ll get your kids back.”

  She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. He’s got it in for me.”

  What about this Max? Couldn’t Darla have a boyfriend, a lover? Perhaps Max was the road rebel rebuilding the Harley in the tub. Weren’t bikers known to have eccentric tastes in women? If Max was any match for Darla Madden, perhaps the two of them combined were more than any social worker could handle in one brief visit. It took no great stretch of the imagination to picture the scene in Darla’s grubby pad last night—the dishes, the shit on the floor, the bathroom porcelain black with cup grease, an ugly standoff. The whole little sweaty tableau. The social worker shifting stiffly in the living room, reciting the usual chapter and verse from the Welfare and Institutions Code for her, baffling her but good with his substantial-risk-of-harm shuck. Maybe even making her cry, which she seemed to do pretty easily. Big Max, coming down the hall with a socket wrench in hand, looking to even the playing field a bit.

  “You mentioned the social worker hated Max,” I said. She nodded. “Did Max try to intervene with him?”

  “Oh yeah, he intervened all right. Max goes nuts if anyone touches those kids.”

  “He lives with you?”

  “Been with us since I got the place. Let me tell you, Max let that man know his kind wasn’t welcome.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Damn near tore his head off, lemme tell ya. If I didn’t tell him to back off, he would’ve killed the guy. That’s my Maxie.”

  “The department wants the judge to order the kids to keep staying with Pete after today, or go to a foster home if Pete can’t handle them.” My eyes met hers. “Are you sure your apartment’s clean?”

  She swore to me that it was spic ’n’ span. “Ya know,” she said, “I like that you’re taking me so serious, I like that. I thought for sure you were gonna make some smart-ass remark about Max having to get his shit together, or you’re in deep shit, lady, hardy-har-har. But you didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She blushed. “The shit in the report, there. It was Max’s shit. You gotta understand, when Max went after him, the guy slipped on it trying to make for the door.” She snorted. “Took half of it down the hallway with him on the bottom of his shoe.”

  Darla Madden must have seen the confusion streaking across my face. “Well duh! You didn’t know Max was our dog?”

  I backtracked through the pages, still puzzling. “No, just, the report . . . didn’t say.”

  “He’s not just any dog, Mister. Champion breed Rottweiler, FY-I. Biggest pup we could find, and we checked a lotta different litters. Best dog in his class when he graduated last month.”

  “Graduated?”

  “Fulton Attack-Dog School. Right over there on Atlantic, off the freeway near the soap factory? They got classes there every—”

  “Okay, that’s it!” I held up my hand to halt her next words. This damned interview was sliding through my fingers like—oh, hell, like so much moist feces. “Let me make this really easy for you,” I said. “It’s either Max or the kids, but you can’t have both.” Her eyes welled with tears again. “So Max is gone. Find a relative who will take him, or give him away, I don’t care, but he’s gone. It’s that simple.”

  Darla’s lower lip protruded into a major pout. “Couldn’t I keep him on the balcony? What if I lock him out there when the social worker comes over?”

  “A dog that big? It’s inhumane. You’re in a two-bedroom apartment. Might as well give him the kids’ room if you keep him, because no social worker is going to write a positive report after being chased to the door by Max the killer Rottweiler. Besides, it sounds like a two-bedroom litter box. Don’t you think the kids deserve a little better?”

  “All right, all right, I hear ya,” she said. “Say amen, already. Jeeze lu-weeze, Mr. Shepard, ya don’t have to get so worked up about it.”

  “Seems like the best way to get your attention.”

  The surf beckoned. I flipped to a clean sheet of legal pad and started to write. “All right then, let’s talk about what we’re going to tell the judge.”

  With a brief rattle, the doorknob turned and the door cracked open. A woman popped her head in and peeked at us. “Excuse me,” she said, “I’m Sue Ellen Randall. I’m looking for an attorney named J. Shepard.”

  She was tall and slender, almost gaunt, and her hazel eyes jumped about as she fought to regain her breath. She couldn’t have been much older than nineteen or twenty. Her skin was a soft, polished white, but as she inhaled deeply her cheeks filled with heat. She had a small mouth and nose, a delicate face. I had detected a southern twang in her reticent self-introduction. Another dependency bottom-feeder? I couldn’t tell yet. As I stood to intercept her, she slid inside the door and dug the heels of her white sandals into the carpet in an attempt to barricade herself.

  “Miss, I’m sorry, but I’m with a client,” I said.

  “That’s right, honey, he’s all mine,” said Darla. She cocked her head slightly and eyeballed the woman’s outfit—tight-fitting jeans and a matching denim vest over a long-sleeved white blouse—with amusement. Darla nodded approvingly at me before facing the girl. “You’ll get your chance with him, honey,” she told her, “but not just yet.”

  “We’re having a private conversation,” I said, words that sounded a mite ridiculous as they left my mouth. “Would you please wait outside?”

  The woman named Sue Ellen Randall lowered her eyes to the floor, her chestnut hair falling over her slight shoulders. “I can’t. Those TV people won’t leave me alone,” she moaned, her voice quavering. The doorknob rattled and she dug in deeper, spreading her arms across the door.

  “I need you to help me get my baby boy back, Mr. Shepard. The lady inside said you’re going to be my lawyer.”

  So that was it: They’d assigned me another case when I wasn’t looking. “They made a mistake,” I said. “I have other obligations this afternoon.” I didn’t want another case, didn’t want this woman’s particular custody headache.

  “Miss Randall?” a perky female voice called over the rap of knuckles on the door. “I’d just like to talk with you, that’s all, maybe have a cup of coffee downstairs. What do you say?”

  I motioned for Sue Ellen Randall to step aside and whisked open the door. Holly Dupree nearly fell into my arms, but she caught her balance and instantly recovered with a cheery, prime-time smile. Behind her, the door to the waiting area cracked open and a crewman slipped in wielding a silver boom mic extension like he was about to gaff a large sporting fish. “Zeke’s ready, Hol,” he said as the cameraman popped his head in and focused his lens on Holly and me.

  “Who’s representing the mother, sir?” Holly asked.

  I moved in close on them. “Here’s a news flash. You’ve got no place in here. These cases are confidential.”

  “So you’re taking the case?” she said without flinching.

  “No, Ms. Dupree, you’re taking a stroll out that door right now or I’ll have the bailiff come and throw you out.” The microphone hovered beneath my chin, and I caught hold of it just as Holly’s crewman read my intentions and tried to jerk it back. I held the mic firmly, studying the black cone as if I might decide to dine on it.

  “Give . . . ahh . . . give it back,” the crewman complained, but I held on. The veins bulged in his skinny neck and arms as he squirmed at the other end of the chrome extension.

  “Give it up, killer,” I said. Finally he let go. I turned to Holly. “Are you leaving now?”

  “We’ll try again,” Zeke appealed to Holly, his camera off his shoulder. She dragged her fingers through her hair, regarded the standoff this had come to, and reluctantly signaled her agreement. Her sound man did his best to act deeply injured as I handed him the mic.

  “Gee thanks, counselor,” he said without loo
king at me.

  “Tell your buddy Zeke he’d better keep that lens out of my face,” I said. “I hate people who point.”

  When I went back inside, Darla was standing behind the door as if she’d been trying to eavesdrop on my exchange with Holly. “It’s her!” Pointing a finger at Sue Ellen Randall. “You’re the one who sold your baby!”

  Sue Ellen shook her head and sighed. I could tell she’d been on the receiving end of this kind of finger-pointing too many times to count already. She seemed very much alone as she stood up to go. Giving in to some mysterious impulse, I privately said oh, what the hell, she needs help.

  “No, wait. Please, stay,” I told her. “We were pretty much finished here, anyway.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir,” Sue Ellen said. “Thank you so very much.”

  Damn. Recognizing that my gesture had probably cost me the afternoon, I sat back and closed my eyes for a brief respite. I don’t want your problems, dear, I thought, or your thanks for that matter. I was tired. I didn’t want to be needed any more today.

  Darla sat back as if ready for a new diversion. My selfish desires for a midday surf were obviously headed out with the afternoon tide. But if I had to be stuck here anyway, the travails of Sue Ellen Randall might be more intriguing than Darla’s dirty dishes and dog shit.

  The young mother sniffled into her sleeve like a scared child, and I wondered whether Darla Madden had heard the truth about the charges down the hall. Young, alone, out of sorts, Sue Ellen Randall didn’t look like much of a con to me. But then, I’d been scammed by clients too many times to count. Father swearing he never diddled the kid, persuading you until you notice the woody he’s nursing just from sitting amongst children in the waiting area. Mother swearing she’s clean, her hand shaking perceptibly, then uncontrollably as she takes the business card you hand her. People always swearing this and that on a stack of Bibles as they lie to your face. I learned a long time ago it’s better not to probe too deeply for the truth. You might not like what you find.

  Looking at this jumpy, nerve-wracked hayseed named Sue Ellen Randall, I decided I didn’t really care to know whether she’d sold her baby as Darla had claimed. Even assuming the worst, matters were probably not so bleak for the infant child born to Sue Ellen. The adoptive parents obviously wanted him. And now—God knows why now—so did Sue Ellen. Two sets of parents looking to love the boy as their own. In this place, those were heady numbers.