The Raven

by Mike Nappa

  “Eulalie,” Trudi said to her receptionist, “when’s my next appointment?”

  “Nine-thirty,” the assistant’s voice chirped into the speaker. “New client. His name is Marvin L. Deasy.”

  Samuel tilted his head, and Trudi shrugged. “What do we know about Mr. Deasy?” Samuel asked. He always was the curious type.

  “Initial consultation only,” Eulalie responded. “He made the appointment by phone, said it was a private matter.”

  “Referral?” Trudi asked.

  There was a small silence on the other end. “Well,” she said at last, “when I asked for a referral name, he mentioned Mr. Hill. I assumed he meant Detective Hill. Should I have asked for more information?”

  Now it was Trudi’s turn to tilt her jaw at Samuel. “No, it’s fine, Eula. We’re in the detective business, and walk-ins are welcome. But I’ll check with Samuel anyway.” She raised an eyebrow. “Might be one of his old war buddies or something.”

  Samuel put his palms out and up and shrugged at Trudi before she could even finish turning off the intercom. “Don’t know him,” he said as if that settled it. “Guess you’ll have to be surprised.”

  Trudi shrugged in return. She’d find out who he was and what he wanted in the next twenty minutes or so. For now, she needed to concentrate on Samuel’s problem.

  “Ask him if he’s a comic book fan, though,” Samuel said suddenly.

  “What?”

  He just grinned like he knew a secret but wasn’t telling what it was.

  “Fine, I’ll ask him.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Now tell me a story, Mr. Storyman, and maybe I can help you solve a terrible mystery.”

  From across the desk, she heard Samuel resettling into the ornate metal chair that served as client furniture and listened to the comfortable rhythms of his baritone voice.

  “All right, so a few weeks ago I’m working a stakeout down in Inman Park.”

  “How many weeks ago?”

  “I don’t know. Three? Four? Four weeks ago, how’s that?”

  Lie, she thought. I know where you were four weeks ago, and it wasn’t at a stakeout.

  One of the perks of owning your own detective agency was that sometimes, on a Friday night when you were feeling lonely, you could hack your ex-husband’s Find My iPhone app to keep tabs on your dashing ex-lover. You know, just to see if he’d met anybody new, or if he might be at home, feeling lonely too. You could also discover that he’d downloaded the pricey Urban Enhancement—Atlanta Edition app extension that pinpointed his iPhone’s location on blueprint maps of any building in Atlanta’s public records. Four weeks ago, she silently accused, you were on the seventy-first floor of the Westin Peachtree Plaza building. Dining at the Sun Dial Restaurant. Probably with some airheaded, Barbie-shaped weathergirl who works at CNN.

  Out loud she said only, “Continue.”

  “We got word that a Kipo gang was going to hit a jewelry store on Euclid, so I was waiting to see if the tipster was reliable.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Backup was just a call away. But I didn’t need it because the tip turned out to be a diversion. They hit a different place over in Adair Park. Anyway, around two a.m. I’m getting ready to call it a night when one of my locals comes knocking on the door of my car.”

  “Gang informant, or general informant?”

  “Probably shouldn’t tell you that. Just understand that he’s an informant for the Atlanta PD.”

  “So it’s a man, huh?”

  “Unless I deliberately lied about that to misdirect you. Then it would be a woman, wouldn’t it?”

  Trudi smiled behind her eyes. This felt good, like old times.

  “Anyway, my informant says that someone is trying to recruit Kipo—”

  “Gang informant. You’re too easy.”

  “Huh. Whatever. Anyway, he tells me someone’s trying to poach a few ‘Knights in pimp orange’ for a big show. Something on a terrorist level, but homegrown, like the Oklahoma City Bombing back in 1995. Something that’s on the calendar, but that he can’t get people to talk about, like they’re more afraid of the ghost who’s recruiting than they are of the police. Or maybe they don’t really know who the ghost is. So now my captain has me working on this full-time, says it’s up to me to prevent tomorrow’s bad news.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, I worked my network a bit, but all I can get is that somebody thinks Nevermore is coming out of Little Five Points, and that it has a connection to Edgar Allan Poe.”

  Trudi’s eyes popped open. “How is that possible? Poe’s been dead for more than a century.”

  “No, no, not Mr. Poe himself. Something about his writings. That’s why it’s called Nevermore, I guess, because it somehow relates to that poem about the creepy bird.”

  “You mean, ‘The Raven.’”

  “I just said that.”

  “No, you said, oh, never mind.” She lifted her feet off the desk and slid them to the floor. “Little Five Points,” she said. “You talk to Mama Bliss?”

  “Yep. She didn’t know anything. Said she’d send out a few feelers for me, though, see what she could find out.”

  Trudi nodded. It was unusual for Mama Bliss to be caught unaware about anything happening in Little Five Points. Did that mean Samuel’s source was wrong on that? Or just that Mama was getting older and maybe was no longer as thorough as she’d once been?

  “That all?”

  “Oh, one more thing.” Samuel reached into the inside pocket of his sports jacket. “Mama said to give you this.”

  Trudi let a tiny smile peek through the edges of her lips. Mama might have sent this gift, but she knew Samuel must have picked it out. He held out a delicate gold chain with a gold ring on it, about the size of a wedding band. The ring was etched with what appeared to be an otherworldly script all the way around it.

  “Actual movie prop?” she said. Mama Bliss was good at finding things other people couldn’t get ahold of.

  “Replica,” he said, “but eighteen-carat gold anyway.”

  She reached out and accepted the gift. “You know, The Lord of the Rings has all kinds of Christian allegory in it. You sure you want to support that?”

  “Literature and faith all mixed into a little piece of sparkly jewelry. What else was there to get for you?” Samuel shrugged and grinned. “Besides, being agnostic doesn’t mean I’m antagonistic. Just means I don’t share your certainty of belief.”

  “And Mama sent this anyway, right?”

  He shifted in his seat. “Of course. I said that already.”

  “Well, next time you see her, you tell Mama Bliss that I loved it. That it’s lovely.” She opened a drawer on the left side of her desk and nestled the necklace and ring safely inside. “Or maybe I’ll drop by and tell her myself sometime soon.”

  “I’m sure she’d like that.” There was an awkward silence for a moment, and then Samuel was ready to get back to business. “So,” he said, “what do you think?”

  Trudi leaned back and let her legs cause the chair to swivel back and forth just a bit. She tented her fingers in front of her, elbows resting on her lap, and started thinking out loud.

  “Okay, first of all,” she said in Samuel’s direction, “there was no stakeout. That’s a load of hooey you made up just because you didn’t want to give away the identity of your informant.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Hush. Don’t argue with me when you know I’m right.” She waited for him to keep protesting, but he kept his mouth shut. Choosing his battles, she thought. Then she said, “Second, your informant can’t be local if he’s working on a terrorist plot. That screams federal agency, but the CIA has you in a holding pattern, so it must be someone from one of the other domestic alphabets. NSA maybe? Or Homeland Security?”

  “Trudi, is this—”

  “Shh. I’m thinking. You know I hate to be interrupted while I’m thinking.” She swiveled a full circle in her chair
and ended up facing the laptop situated on her desk. She pulled up a web browser on her computer, typed a few keywords, then looked pleased.

  “Okay, so about four weeks ago, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms staged a joint raid with Atlanta PD, trying to bust up some kind of gun-smuggling ring. According to the newspapers, your ATF boys collared a half dozen Kipo gang members, some unnamed others, and about one hundred Russian-made AK-47 automatic rifles.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “That means your ‘informant’ is probably ATF, right? And that he found out about the whole Nevermore thing while he was interrogating some of those Kipo boys back at the station. Or maybe he was working undercover in the gang sets and he’s the tipster that led everybody to the big gun bust?” She tapped a finger absently on her desk. “That’d mean the whole Nevermore thing was probably something he stumbled across while gathering intel on the gun smugglers, but didn’t have time to pursue. So he bounced it down to your captain who, in turn, dropped it onto your desk because you have federal agency connections from your CIA past. Am I right?”

  Samuel sighed.

  “Look, Trudi,” he said, “that’s all just conjecture and, besides, what does it matter if my informant is street level or agency level?”

  “It matters to me, cowboy, because it mattered enough for you to try and hide it from me. And because it’s the only way I can track what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”

  He waved a hand in dismissal. “And yet Nevermore still exists, and I’m still hitting a brick wall trying to figure out what it is, who’s behind it, how it connects to Poe’s poem, and when this impending disaster is going down. If this is a real threat, it could be awful. You know it must be serious if I’m here begging you for help, right?”

  She nodded slowly. It was hard, sometimes, not to make everything a competition when it came to her ex-husband. Compulsive need to show him I can live just fine without him, she thought. Maybe I should try to grow up a little bit in that area.

  “All right,” she said, “you’re right.”

  She stood up and faced the bookshelves built into the wall behind her. There were several volumes of world mythology, a few books of fairy tales and folk stories. And the pride of her shelves, the best of her collection, was a fine gathering of detective fiction, all in one place and, when possible, first editions of the books. The complete Edgar Allan Poe. Same with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Memoirs of Eugène François Vidocq. A number of Miss Marple tales, Lord Wimsey, Ellery Queen, and the rest. Sometimes people commented on the collection, wondering why there was so much in the way of pleasure reading and so little in the way of practical manuals, but most often her clients barely noticed the books. It was her own little literary sanctuary, and she loved it. It inspired her. On at least one occasion, it had put her life in danger—which, in a strange way, made her love it more.

  She stretched her fingers and removed the collector’s edition of The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe from the shelf. She flipped it open to “The Raven” on page 943, then set it on the desk where both she and Samuel could look at it.

  “Okay, if this maybe-plot is using Nevermore as a code name, then there’s probably something in this poem that can give us a clue as to what’s going on. Do you want to start there?” She sat down and craned her neck to read the first few lines.

  Samuel glanced at the page on the desk and nodded. “I’m going to be honest with you, Tru-Bear,” he said, “I’ve already read this a dozen times. It just seems like nonsense to me, so I’m hoping your English Lit degree might see something I can’t.”

  Inside, Trudi cringed. She hated it when he called her by that little nickname. It had been sweet, even welcome, back when they were married, back when it was okay to be in love with him. But after his betrayal, after the affair, after the divorce, after everything, it just brought back unwelcome memories. She tried to ignore it. “English Literature with a minor in World Mythology and Religions,” she said. “I worked hard for that, so get it right, mister.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  They looked at the poem in silence for a moment. Once upon a midnight dreary, Trudi read to herself, while I pondered weak and weary . . .

  “What we need to ask,” she said aloud, “is whether ‘The Raven’ is a symbol of the planner’s motivation or his intended outcome.”

  “Explain,” Samuel said.

  “Well, obviously the poem is some sort of totem for your planner. A symbol of some sort. Is that because he relates to the poem as a reminder of his motivation for planning the attack? Or is it because he sees in the poem the desired outcome of his attack, something that he wants to make ‘nevermore’?”

  “Mm,” Samuel said. “What if it’s both? Or what if it’s historical in nature?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if there’s some kind of history about the publishing of this poem that makes it a relatable totem for the justification of terrorism?”

  “Well—” Trudi started, but she was interrupted by the sound of her intercom switching on.

  “Ms. Coffey,” Eulalie’s voice said, “your nine-thirty appointment is here.”

  Already? Time does fly when Samuel Hill’s in the room.

  “Want me to sit in?” Samuel asked. She could see he wasn’t ready to leave her yet. Maybe he was a little bit lonely nowadays too?

  “No. Thanks.” Trudi added a head shake for emphasis.

  She took a second to peek at the live-feed video monitor situated under her desk, tucked away on the left side. Thanks to the security camera hidden in the lighting sconce, she had a full view of the small reception area just down the hall. Eulalie was at her desk, waiting patiently for a reply. Standing in front of Eula’s desk was—

  She stood up out of reflex. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Trudi said aloud.

  “What?” Samuel said, twisting in his seat to try and peek down the hallway into the reception area. “Is it a celebrity?”

  Trudi pursed her lips and shook her head again. “Get out, Samuel,” she said, though not unkindly. “I’ve got to take care of this one on my own.” Then she spoke into the intercom. “Thank you, Eulalie. Please send Mr. Deasy in.”

  11

  Raven

  Atlanta, GA

  West Midtown

  Friday, March 24, 9:31 a.m.

  21 days to Nevermore

  I actually feel nervous.

  I haven’t had stage fright since I was eleven years old, performing my very first magic tricks at a church potluck. As soon as the applause started, I never looked back, never lost my nerve again. And yet here I am today, standing in the reception area of Coffey & Hill Investigations, and I can feel a frog croaking inside my lungs. I think my hands may even be sweating, just a little, which is crazy. My hands are my greatest asset as a deception specialist—they never let me down.

  Of course, I’ve never met a woman like Trudi Coffey before, either. She makes me feel like a junior high kid, like I’m trying to get up the nerve to call her, but I always chicken out and hang up before the phone rings.

  Well, if that’s the way it is, then I’m going to enjoy it.

  The receptionist returns my smile, which makes me feel a little embarrassed because I didn’t realize I was grinning. But she’s being nice, and I appreciate it. She’s younger than Trudi. I’m guessing she’s closer to my age, maybe a year or two older.

  “Ms. Coffey,” she says, “your nine-thirty appointment is here.”

  “You can call me Marv,” I say. There’s a brief silence while we both wait for Trudi to answer. I decide to practice the Age, Weight, Relationship Status game with the receptionist.

  Sixty seconds or until Trudi responds on the intercom, I tell myself. Go.

  This trick is all about comparison. I’ve got to take in all the clues the mark has on display and then compare them to what I know about me. First, weight. This is easiest when working with women, because they’re already s
elf-conscious about that kind of thing. A woman who’s feeling heavy wears looser, billowy tops to disguise the true circumference of her midsection. This receptionist doesn’t have that insecurity. She wears a smart, sleeveless, button-up shirt and business slacks. She’s young, trim, and reasonably fit, not afraid to be seen for who she is. Probably still eats cheeseburgers from time to time—but that won’t last once she hits twenty-eight or so. She’s sitting, but I’m guessing her height at about five foot five, which means . . .

  All right. I picture the balancing scales in my head. I weigh 170. How many of her would it take to match my weight on the scale? Got it.

  Now, quickly, I check the age indicators. Her dark skin is smooth and creamy, like chocolate frosting poured out as body paint and then spread with a spatula to eliminate all creases. The corners of her eyes and lips are unlined, fresh, young. No loose skin or wear and tear on the knuckles or backs of the hands. Root color in the hair is consistent with the tips, which isn’t too difficult to tell with this one because the receptionist has a head full of thick, bouncy ringlets, about shoulder-length. Her hair is black-widow-spider black, with deep red highlights tinted throughout. Very pretty. Okay, move to skin on the neck, and . . . Got it.

  Relationship status. Hurry, boy, you’re going to lose this one! No wedding ring, but she wears several fashion rings on both hands. And—

  “Thank you, Eulalie.” Trudi’s voice pops through the intercom without warning. “Please send Mr. Deasy in.”

  “Single,” I say, “but dating.” Oops. Didn’t mean to say that out loud. “Sorry. Just a little game I was playing inside my head.”

  She cocks her head in curiosity. “Was I playing it too?” Thankfully, she’s not offended.

  “I, ah, well . . . Hmm.”

  I ask for a pen and Post-it Note from the reception desk, which she hands over without comment. “It’s a game where I try to guess your age, weight, and relationship status.” I scribble on the Post-it Note. I make a point to underestimate her weight. Don’t want to insult Trudi Coffey’s receptionist the first time I meet her. “This is what I would’ve guessed for you.”