by Mike Nappa
He was of medium build, dark skinned, maybe late twenties, wearing a black T-shirt covered by a light gray hoodie. She caught his eye and returned his gaze with deliberate care, daring him to do . . . well, whatever it was he was thinking of doing. He saw the challenge, and she could see him considering it behind his sunglasses, but in the end he turned away. He wrapped up the rest of his lunch and walked south toward the Clothing Warehouse, a big, red building with giant praying hands painted on the side, just above a caption that read, Pray for ATL. She lost sight of him when he turned the corner, heading away from the Clothing Warehouse, and disappeared.
A moment later Samuel Hill returned with a folding chair.
Mama Bliss favored him with a grim smile. “It’s nice of you to come out today,” she said. “Respectful. I appreciate that. Davis would have appreciated it. But I’m guessing that’s not the only reason you’re here.”
Samuel looked at the ground for a moment, then said, “Well, I am sorry about Davis. What is this, eight years since your grandson was . . . well, since he passed?”
“Since he was taken from me,” Bliss said. “You can say it, Samuel. You know what happened good as I do.”
“I am sorry, Bliss.”
“I know, Samuel. We all are. And yes, eight years today.” She patted the picture in her breast pocket again.
“Is there anything I can do for you today?”
She leaned back and shot him a contemptuous look. “What you gonna do that Mama can’t do for herself?” she said.
Samuel tried to stop his gaze from reaching her wheelchair, but failed.
“This chair of mine is a convenience, not a habit,” she snapped. “Diabetes hasn’t taken my feet yet, and maybe it never will. You best watch yourself before Mama Bliss hops outta this wheelchair and wraps these flowers around your pretty little neck.”
Samuel laughed out loud. “You’re right, Mama. Even though I have never—not ever, not in all the years I’ve known you—seen you get out of that chair, I believe you can just because you say you can. Now don’t hurt me. I’m just trying to be helpful, just trying to be your friend today.”
Bliss couldn’t help but smile back in his direction. “That’s better. But I know you, Samuel Hill. Now that you’re officially a hotshot detective in the Atlanta PD, you want Mama Bliss to fill you in on some secrets again, like she used to do when you were CIA, isn’t that right?”
“Mama, shh,” Samuel said, grinning and immediately scanning the area for eavesdroppers.
“Shoot, Samuel, anybody can take one look at you and know you’re police. Why you think that girl ran into the store as soon as she saw you walk up? Maybe you knew how to fit in overseas where people slip in and out all the time, but here in Little Five Points we know our own. And we can smell a cop all the way from Inman Park.”
“All right, Mama, all right. I’ll give you that most people here know I’m a police officer. But nobody’s supposed to know I used to work with the CIA. Most of the people down at the Zone 6 precinct headquarters don’t even know that. They think I’m just another army veteran working in law enforcement after serving in the military.”
“Ah, so now I got another secret about you!” Bliss crowed. “That might come in helpful someday.” She slapped his shoulder and leaned back in victory.
They shared a quick moment of silence, then Samuel said, “Okay, yes, I could use a little help from you. You know, just to keep me in the loop. Everybody knows that Mama Bliss knows everything about Little Five Points. I’d be pretty foolish not to check in with you from time to time, right?”
She patted his hand. “That’s right, honey. Mama knows everything. You just remember that and we’ll be all right, like always.”
“Like always.” He looked sober again. “Mama, do you know the name Nevermore?”
She turned her head sideways in his direction. “You mean like in that poem? ‘Quoth The Raven, “Nevermore”’? Seems like your wife would know more about that than me. Ain’t Trudi the one with a college degree in fine literature and such?”
Samuel’s lips pressed tightly together for just an instant, then he said, “Well, ex-wife you mean. But no, not the poem. I keep hearing whispers that something big is about to break in Atlanta, something people are calling ‘Nevermore.’ But no one I’ve talked to seems to know exactly what it refers to, only that it’s going to be bad, and that it might be some kind of homegrown terrorist plot like the bombing in Centennial Olympic Park back in 1996.”
“And what’s that got to do with me?”
“Well, Mama, the only solid info I can get is that Nevermore is coming out of Little Five Points. So, of course, I came to you.”
Bliss nodded thoughtfully.
Out on the street, a car screeched—a near miss on a fender bender. She listened to someone shout and also thought she heard music coming from somewhere in the parking lot nearby. She heard signs of life all around her—a bird chirping overhead, a conversation going on between two friends just down the sidewalk, Samuel Hill breathing lightly, waiting for her to say something.
A flicker of movement drew her eyes back to her painting, and she silently cursed herself for not stopping a tear from leaking.
“He was a good boy, my grandson,” she said quietly. “A good boy.”
“I know, Mama,” Samuel said. “Davis had the whole world before him. I only wish I’d been able to help him before the Kipo got their hooks in him. Before it was too late.”
“Wasn’t nothing you could do, honey.” She squeezed his hand. “He was flirting with them gang boys before you ever made Georgia your home. Ol’ Truck, your CIA boss, he should of done something. Davis was supposed to grow up to be one of his boys. But Truck was off playing house in ’Bama or some other awful place.”
“Truck was kind of busy with his own problems. It was complicated.”
Bliss felt the anger rising again, had to remind herself that Samuel meant well, that he didn’t know everything. That he’d come out today to sit with her, not to argue with her. She let go of his hand and looked into his face. “How’s it going with your Miss Trudi?” she said. “You patch things up with that girl yet?”
Samuel’s head dipped for a quick second. “That’s really complicated,” he said. He looked up at the sky. “No, we haven’t really ‘patched things up.’ But we’re talking now at least. Almost friends again, sort of. And sometimes working together on cases, though I can’t say she was happy when I took the job with the Atlanta police department last Christmas.”
“Well, why should she be? You left her alone back at the detective agency. Again.”
“Yeah, but it’s more than just that. It’s . . . well, it’s complicated.”
“You keep saying that,” Mama said. She turned and picked up her paintbrush. “But all right, honey, I believe you. Tell you what. You go inside and pick out something nice for Miss Trudi. Tell Darrent it’s on me today—”
“Oh no, Mama, I can pay for—”
“Hush now, Samuel. You pick out something for Trudi. Tell her it’s from me, and that I want to see her come ’round sometime. As for your Nevermore problem, I’ll start sending out feelers, see what I can find out. Mama Bliss’ll do what she can for you. She always does, right? I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
“Thank you.”
“Now get out of my way, honey, because I’m feeling the urge to desecrate a canvas again.”
“All right, Mama.” Samuel stood. “You take care, okay? You need anything, you call me. You got the number for my cell, right?”
She nodded, but he was already a distant memory to her. She barely heard him mumble his goodbyes and disappear into the store.
Bliss looked back at her painting. It was about two-thirds done, an image of Davis Walker Monroe, her grandson, created from memory, without even having to look at the picture in her shirt pocket. Davis was floating in the sky, arms outstretched, wearing angel wings, with light from above filling the air behind him. She had
wanted to paint him smiling, but it hadn’t come out that way. Instead, he was just looking at her, a question in his eyes. Asking her what happened. Asking her what came next.
Samuel stopped on his way out to deliver a hug, but Bliss didn’t notice, not really. She played along until he and his fancy little sports car were long gone. Then she dipped her paintbrush in the red oils.
She dabbed a bullet hole into Davis’s head.
She let the paint drip down from there, just for a moment.
She scratched her red brush, hard, across his angel wings, down into his chest, down to the ground below his feet. Still his eyes asked their questions.
And today, like every March 17 since the shooting, Bliss June Monroe just didn’t have a good answer.
4
Trudi
Atlanta, GA
Old Fourth Ward
Friday, March 17, 11:24 a.m.
28 days to Nevermore
Trudi Sara Coffey walked toward the east entrance of the Boulevard Home Apartments and found herself wishing, just for a moment, that Samuel was with her.
It wasn’t that she needed a bodyguard, or even that she was worried about the possible confrontation she was walking into—more than a decade of studying martial arts and self-defense had pretty much eliminated that kind of insecurity. Besides, she’d seen pictures of her target; she didn’t see him as the violent type. She expected a conversation that would, hopefully, end in her favor.
It was just that, well, she kind of wished she had a friend going along for the ride on this one. An errand buddy. Someone who knew what she was about to do and understood what it took to do it. Somebody who’d laugh when she quoted an obscure line from a forgotten sitcom, just because he knew the line and knew the way she was misusing it to suit her own situational sense of humor.
Someone who shares my history.
Someone like that, she’d learned, was hard to come by.
After the divorce, after losing what she’d thought was impossible to lose, she’d hated Samuel for a while. Then she’d mourned him until finally coming to the point where she was over him, she thought, but still missed him sometimes. It wasn’t great, but it was livable, and she’d gotten on with her life, burying herself in her detective agency, finding purpose in her faith and a few friends at her church, filling her days with work until she felt almost normal again.
Almost.
Then the whole Annabel Lee situation had exploded, bringing Samuel back into her life and forcing them to solve that case together. When it was over, she’d expected him to return to his globe-trotting work as a CIA field operative, but he’d surprised her once more.
“So,” Samuel had said, “they’re telling me to take a sabbatical.”
“What?”
It had been October, about a year and a half ago. Trudi had been standing behind her desk at the Coffey & Hill Investigations office in Atlanta, and she couldn’t follow what Samuel was saying. Wasn’t this supposed to be another awkward goodbye? One of the many they’d grown accustomed to sharing?
“The CIA. They want me out of the field for a bit. They say that the whole Annabel Lee situation makes me ‘hot’ overseas right now, and they want me to cool off stateside for a while.”
“Wow, I’m sorry, Samuel. I know how that must be hard for you.”
Her ex-husband had shrugged. “At first I was a little upset about it. But now I’m thinking maybe it’s for the best.”
“Good for you.”
Samuel had taken a long look across the hall toward the cluttered storage room.
“I notice you still have an empty office here at Coffey & Hill Investigations.” He placed an unnecessary emphasis on the Hill part of Coffey & Hill. “And, you know, I’ve got some free time ahead of me.”
“What are you suggesting?” Trudi had said. She bit her lip.
“I’m suggesting that maybe I could come back.”
“Samuel.” Trudi sat down heavily. “You know we can’t do that. Not after, well, everything.”
“No, no,” he said, “I understand that part. I understand we can’t get back together that way, not as husband and wife. But, you know, we’re a good P.I. team, Tru-Bear. We were a great team working on the Annabel Lee case. We can’t be lovers, I get that, but why can’t we be partners? It is called Coffey & Hill Investigations, after all. That’s both our names on the sign out there.”
Trudi hadn’t known what to say. She’d let the idea roll around in her head. It would be nice to have Samuel Hill around again, she’d told herself. He was a superb asset to any private investigation. Smart. Resourceful. Connected out the wazoo. And a girl always appreciates looking at pretty things, right? But still . . .
“I don’t know, Samuel,” she’d said at last. “It seems like it could be a big mistake.”
“I know,” he said, “it could be. Or it could be just the thing we’ve both been looking for since . . . since a few years ago.”
“I don’t know . . .”
Trudi interrupted her train of thought and frowned at the street-side entrance on this section of the Boulevard Home Apartments. She’d been careful to park her teal Ford Focus as near to the easternmost entrance as she could, the nose of her car pointing toward a quick exit up Glen Iris Drive. That was just common sense as far as she was concerned. Always check exit paths before entering unfamiliar territory, she’d told herself a thousand times. Now her private detective training took over for the moment, and she let her eyes sweep over the grounds outside the doorway.
Here in the Old Fourth Ward, mature trees lined the streets, and graffiti decorated the dumpsters. The 1920s architecture stayed sturdily in place but hinted that this area had seen better times. Across the street from her was an empty lot, grassy and green, with tall trees shading it in beauty. She wasn’t surprised to see a mother with two preschool-aged children enjoying an early-spring picnic over there. She kind of wished she could join them.
Instead, Trudi tilted her head back and looked up at the second floor of the red-brick apartment building. Every unit had a small covered patio or balcony. The balcony for the left, upstairs apartment had a lightweight, city-friendly bicycle stored on one side. Useful, she decided, if you don’t have to go very far from home to work.
From what she could tell, the main entrance to each section of the building gave access to four apartments at a time. Enter through the main door and there would be two more doors on the first floor, with stairs up to two doors on the second floor. The traditional way out of Apartment 249, then, would be through the front door, down the indoor stairs, out the main door, and into the street. The nontraditional way out would be through the balcony door, over the side, and a ten-foot drop to the ground. Not pleasant, but certainly doable if it was required and if she was paying attention to her fall.
She glanced west, down the street, and frowned.
Like hers, most of the cars parallel-parked up and down this road fit right in—working-class vehicles, a few small trucks, almost all a few years old. But parked about five spaces behind her Focus was what appeared to be a current-year-model, black Cadillac Escalade ESV. That kind of luxury utility vehicle was a favorite of the suits over at CNN and City Hall—but it stuck out like an ugly Christmas sweater in this part of the Old Fourth Ward.
“Now why are you here?” she murmured to the car. “Seems like you belong in a Sesame Street song.” The forgotten five-year-old inside her mind involuntarily sang out the tune, One of these things is not like the others . . .
She scanned down the street, looking past the Escalade, past the row of apartments on her left, toward the single-family homes that filled the rest of the block up to Boulevard Northeast, but the only people she could see outside at this moment were that single mom and her two happy kids on a picnic. Finally, she shrugged. She had an errand to do, and it was probably best to get it over with quickly. No sense obsessing about misplaced motor vehicles. Maybe a rich uncle was visiting, or somebody here had won the lottery.
/> At the top of the stairwell inside the building, Trudi checked her watch. It was 11:31 a.m. when she knocked on Apartment 249. She heard mumbling voices on the other side of the door and thought maybe a chair scraped the floor, as well. But no one answered.
Had the guy seen her come in? Maybe gone out over the balcony? She waited until 11:32 had come and lingered a bit before knocking again, a little louder this time.
She heard a grunt on the other side, and then a voice called out, “Who is it?”
Trudi weighed her options. If she said, “Trudi Coffey, private detective,” the chances of the door to Apartment 249 opening were slim to none. If she said nothing, and just knocked again, that might be annoying enough to get a physical response. But somebody on the other side was obviously trying to hide something, and that made her more than a little curious.
She took a chance.
Trudi reached down to the doorknob and gave it a twist, surprised and pleased when it turned easily in her grasp. She pushed on the door but stayed in the hallway while it opened before her. She’d learned from experience that it was dangerous to walk into a room without clearing sightlines first. A terrorist with a gun might be hiding just inside the door, just out of view.
Apartment 249 was a basic Atlanta rat-hole, built decades ago, maybe refurbished once or twice over the years but mostly just a place to eat, sleep, and kill your dreams. Someone with a little incentive might’ve made it a nice, comfy, even stylish rat-hole, but the guy who lived here obviously wasn’t that kind of renter.
The front door of the apartment opened into a drab, tiny living area that featured a beat-up green couch and a lawn chair placed together, both facing a wooden coffee table and a small, wall-mounted TV set. Trudi peeked toward her right and saw a narrow hallway that she figured must lead to the kitchen and bedroom. She also saw a heavyset Russian man with a startled look on his face standing by the window on the opposite wall.
“Hey, what you think you doing? You can’t be in here.”
