by Tina Whittle
“You said she was fifteen?”
“Fifteen to seventeen. Young, yes, but biologically capable of carrying and delivering a child.”
“Could she have died in childbirth?”
He looked doubtful. “My money’s on the bullet.”
“What bullet?”
“Minié ball. Found it tucked in with the spinal column, which had suspicious nicks on the C4 and C5 vertebrae. You can read it all in the final report. I should have that Monday.”
“And I can read it?”
“Sure. It’s public information.”
“What about the locket?”
He shrugged. “None of my business, not what I was called in to investigate. It may not even belong with this body; you’d have to have the in situ archaeological report for that.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “But this girl’s not a member of the Amberdecker family, I’ll tell you that much. Based on the extent of ramus inversion in the mandible, I’d say she was of African ancestry.”
“Wait, wait. She was black?”
The doctor looked at me like I was an idiot. “That’s what I said, didn’t I?”
***
When Detective Perez finally cleared my shop for the second time, she left one officer behind. I could see him parked on the other side of the square in his cruiser, watching. I waved. He waved back.
“So not a covert operation,” I said.
Trey agreed. “No. You’re supposed to know he’s there.”
“So I won’t do anything dastardly.”
“True. But I suspect she left him there for your protection as well. She’d prefer to avoid another shooting, I’m sure.”
He’d brewed a fresh pot of tea. I caught the smoky scent of Lapsang souchong. Decaffeinated, yes, but packing enough lysine and amino acids to slap even the sleepiest brain to attention. And while he had the bleary, rumpled look one might expect from a man who’d been sleeping on the floor, something else about him crackled. Even with no five-mile run and no real breakfast and no thirty-fifth floor apartment to hole up in, even though he’d been trapped in the sensory overload of my gun shop for eighteen hours, his brain remained on point.
I came behind the counter and poured a half-cup of tea for myself. I’d combed the spiderwebs out of my hair, but I still smelled like the floor of a closet. “So now what?”
“That depends. What is your next goal?”
A good question. I thought I’d exonerated Dexter, but now that I’d dragged skeletons out of his closet—literally—his reputation was back in the hot seat. I’d also managed to either piss off or frighten every source I’d located, ruining any chances for follow-up. And I had an official Cobb County police officer surveilling me.
I spooned sugar into my mug. “The cops are covering the shooting and the robbery and the first skeleton and the second skeleton and the still-missing skeleton. And even though I’m probably on the suspect list—”
“Definitely on the suspect list.”
“Whatever. My point is that I’ve exhausted the shop investigation-wise. And I’ve exhausted my own suspect list interview-wise. And I’ve exhausted my goodwill with Perez everything-wise. So I’m not sure where that leaves me goal-wise.”
Trey regarded me over his mug. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“Have you considered researching the person memorialized by the locket, Sophia Luckie? As the ME pointed out, since there is no in situ record for the bones themselves, you cannot be certain that they’re connected to the locket. But you can—”
“Find Sophia Luckie first, and then use her information to find out who the bones might belong to!”
Trey nodded. His expression was cool, but his mouth held a tiny curve of satisfaction. “Yes. That will in no way interfere with the official investigation, but it might give you some contextual insight.”
“Okay, so how in the world do I start?”
“I don’t know.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “But I know someone who will.”
Chapter Forty-two
Two hours—and two hot showers—later, Trey and I pulled up at the central branch of the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library. It had impressive Bauhaus credentials, but to me its stone and concrete facade resembled an Anglo-Saxon castle mated with an Easter Island monolith. Trey dropped me at the front entrance while he parked, leaving me with a scrap of paper as my only guide to the hamster-cage maze of staircases and hallways inside.
Ophelia Price, it read. Fifth floor. Special Collections and Genealogy.
I made my way through the beige and taupe corridors. Here the lighting was dimmed, the glossy hardwood floor as dark as tree roots. Plainly lettered signs announced the specificities—the Rare Book Room, the city directories, the microfilm and vertical files—and I clutched my paper as if it were a compass.
I found my quarry in the stacks, near the glassed-in display of Margaret Mitchell’s typewriter. I cleared my throat. “Mrs. Price?”
She turned in my direction. “Yes?”
She was an African American in her late fifties, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and a forest-green shirtdress that had been ironed into wrinkle-free submission. Her voice held the deep timbre of a classically trained singer—or a prison guard—and I reflexively straightened my posture.
“I was told you could help me.” I shoved a photograph of the locket her way. “I need to find this person, Sophia Luckie. And all I have is the information you see there.”
She accepted the photograph, gave it a brisk inspection. “You can probably find her. It won’t be quick, however.”
“I know, needle in a haystack.”
“No, a needle in a giant stack of other needles.”
“But this needle is very specific.”
“So is every needle.” She checked her watch. “And the library closes early today because of the snow.”
“I know, but Trey said—”
“Trey? Trey Seaver?”
I nodded. She looked at me with sharper examination this time. Suddenly, she was reclassifying me, moving me to a completely different shelf in her mental library.
“He said he worked with your daughter, Keesha. With SWAT.”
“He did.”
She volunteered nothing else. Neither had Trey. Damn, but I wished he’d found a space at the main entrance so that he could have been standing next to me, bearing the brunt of that onyx gaze.
“Come with me,” she said finally. “We’ll talk in my office.”
***
In a sea of books, her desk was a tiny island of pristine order. I explained the backstory of the locket—what we knew anyway—and she listened.
“Luckie was a common name in Atlanta,” she said, “for both whites and blacks. Oakland Cemetery is full of Luckies, going back to pre-Civil War times.”
“The ME said the bones are of African descent. If they belong to a descendant of Sophia Luckie, perhaps she is also?”
Ophelia regarded the locket with intense scrutiny, turning the photograph this way and that. There was a soft knock at the door as Trey eased into the room. She stared at him for two seconds, then waved him in, dropping her eyes back to the photograph. He stood behind me, not saying a word.
“And you think,” she said, “based on the coloring of the bones, that they were buried somewhere close to here? In red clay soil?”
“Yes, specifically near Kennesaw Mountain. I also think—based on the intense staining—that she was buried at least a hundred years ago. Later than 1860, though, based on the locket.”
“So assuming she is of African ancestry, you have your first question—was she a slave or a free person of color? That determines how you begin the search for her ancestors.”
“She was carrying a very expensive locket. Wouldn’t that tip the scales to the side of free
?”
“She could have been a runaway slave, taking what she could from her captors to barter or sell on the Underground Railroad. Did the ME have an opinion? If she’d been a slave, her bones would have shown it. Hard labor always does.”
“He didn’t say. I suppose we’ll have to wait for the official report for that.”
She nodded, and her eyes flashed now with an enthusiasm I hadn’t seen before. “There were about forty free blacks living in Atlanta during the Civil War, including the Luckie family. Solomon Luckie, a barber, died when a piece of shrapnel hit the lamppost he was standing under during the shelling.”
“Is he the person Luckie Street is named after?”
“No, that was some rich white man. And the lamppost was reconstructed and relit in celebration of the premiere of Gone with the Wind. Such is Atlanta.”
She scrutinized the photograph again, and her face softened. I knew she was imagining a young black woman, a mother, this locket either clutched in her hand or fastened around her neck. It was a fine piece, well-wrought and lovely, easy to sell for a good sum. Why had she been buried with it? Had it been as a measure of respect? Or had there been a darker motive, like the concealing of evidence?
She shared the same look of concentration that Trey did—eyes narrowed, head tilted to one side. “It’s an interesting mystery, these bones, but it’s best to start with what you know—the information on the locket. Because if you can find Sophia Luckie, you can find her family tree, perhaps even living descendants. And that is where the real work starts.” She looked up at Trey, and I saw the first hint of a smile on her patrician features. “Good to see you again, Trey.”
He inclined his head. “You too, Mrs. Price.”
“Thank you.” She nodded crisply. “Now fetch a chair. This is going to take a while.”
***
Five minutes later, I was digitally overwhelmed. There were websites for finding a particular grave, searchable by name or date or claim to fame. Sites that indexed birth and death certificates, obituaries, veterans’ records. Census and voter lists, land deeds and criminal records. Trey hung out at my shoulder. Even he seemed info-avalanched.
I shook my head. “You’re weren’t kidding about the stack of needles, were you?”
Olivia Price kept typing. “African American genealogy work is difficult. Prior to 1870, slaves weren’t listed on the census population schedules, nor were their names typically recorded in birth, marriage, and death records, the usual ways that genealogists track family lines. Tracing a slave’s family tree means refocusing the search on the slaveholder instead. There are several ways to do that—ship manifests, property records, wills, emancipation papers.”
Trey moved closer to the computer. “But what if she were free?”
“The Freedman’s Bureau records will help, but that wasn’t founded until 1865. Luckily for you, amateur genealogists have done a lot of the back work. They know where the blanks are. They’re looking for ways to fill in those blanks.”
She showed us. As it turned out, there were thousands of people whose main goal in life was putting together their family tree. Some did it for their own familial connection. Others did it for religious reasons, like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But whatever brought people together to comb through the past, two traits united the successful ones—they were meticulous and patient.
Exactly what I wasn’t.
“So if I can find people who already have this particular Sophia Luckie in their family tree, they can help me figure out who our nameless young woman might be?”
“They can. But as I told you, this is not an overnight process, it’s…well, well, well.”
“What?”
“You’re in luck.” She pointed to the screen. “I found what might be Sophia Luckie’s grave.”
I rolled closer to the screen. Sure enough, there was a burial plot listing for one Sophia Luckie in a cemetery in Wilmington, North Carolina—same name, same dates. I couldn’t help myself—I reached out a finger and touched the screen, as if the past really were that close.
Trey got right to the heart of the matter. “What can you do with that information?”
Mrs. Price pulled out a pen and notepad. “Now that I have a geographical base—a city and state—I can go to the genealogy sites and find any family trees associated with this Sophia Luckie. Some of those are public access, some not. Regardless, there’s usually contact information for whoever maintains the records.”
Trey seemed satisfied. “Excellent.”
Of course he was pleased—things were proceeding methodically, procedurally, according to plan. I, however, was feeling less and less trusting of any system. I hadn’t wanted to give the bones over to crime scene techs. I knew why the forensics team needed to have her in their cold sterile clutches. Why she needed her measurements calibrated, her bones splayed and photographed under too-bright lights. First came justice, then rest. But it still felt like a betrayal.
Ophelia Price tapped my business card. “Is this contact information okay to share?”
“Share away.”
“I can’t promise anything.”
“I know. But thanks for trying. I can’t stand the thought of her being alone, you know?”
For a second, I saw a flash of tenderness again, like when she’d glimpsed Trey coming into her office. She hid a lot of heart beneath her brusque exterior, I decided, even if she was skilled at covering it.
She checked her watch and stood. So did I, and Trey, the three of us standing together in her small, windowless office. Outside the first of the snow was coming, but inside, the world was as tidy and contained as a shadow box.
Trey spoke first. “I need to get the car. Very good to see you again, Mrs. Price. Send Kee my regards.”
She flashed a smile his way, lovely and abrupt. “You too, Trey. I’ll tell her.”
He started to leave, turned back. “Five minutes,” he said to me, tapping his watch, then disappearing into the stacks. I started to follow, but the librarian interrupted me.
“Miss Randolph?”
I turned back. “Yes?”
She clasped her hands in front of her, precise and efficient, yet there was something vulnerable in the gesture, almost prayerful. “How is he doing, if I may ask?”
“Good. It’s challenging sometimes, but he’s up to it.”
“Of course. I know tomorrow’s the ninth, and he doesn’t like being disturbed then, but I always think of him. So does Kee.” Her face softened. “Special Ops isn’t easy for a woman, especially not a woman of color. But Trey was good to her. She doesn’t talk about the job much, but she talks about him. She says he was the finest partner she could have asked for.”
I smiled. “He still is.”
Chapter Forty-three
Trey drove us out of Downtown, taking the Connector up through the heart of the city. The first snow sifted down, as graceful as a ballet, as sweet as marshmallows. Only flurries for the next twenty-four hours, said the forecasters, the soft edge of the advancing high-pressure front.
Trey didn’t trust the weather report, however. He kept a baleful eye on the clouds like a particularly grumpy Chicken Little, waiting for the whole sky to fall in pieces. But for now, the city was calm, the traffic extraordinarily light, even for a Sunday afternoon. He could have let the Ferrari slip the traces a bit, if he’d wanted. But he never wanted. Only in matters of life or death did he open the engine full throttle.
“Did you find what you needed?” he said.
“I did. Mrs. Price was very helpful.”
He flipped the heater up a notch and didn’t reply. He was back to that robotic passivity again—eyes distant, mouth set in a straight line. My brother described it as “flat affect,” a psychological term, but I knew it could change in a split second.
“You were partners with her
daughter? In SWAT?”
“I was.”
“Keesha?”
He nodded again. I’d learned enough about the structure of police departments to know that only one specialized unit in that already specialized unit required partnering with another operator.
“She was a sniper too,” I said.
“Kee preferred the term ‘sharpshooter.’”
“And you?”
“I had no preference.”
He’d been perfect for the job—smart enough to work the algorithms, steady enough to hit the bull’s-eye at a thousand yards—but he’d also felt the dangerous lure of being judge, jury, and executioner with a single pull of the trigger. So he’d turned in his resignation. And then the accident happened, and he lost the rest of his life in one wrenching, bloody night.
He adjusted the wipers. “The traffic report says 400 is clear, so we should get home with no problems.”
Changing the subject. I let him. It was the day before February ninth. Not a time to be pulling scabs off still-healing emotional wounds.
“Trey?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t have any proof, and I won’t until we hear from Sophia Luckie’s family, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her bones were in Dexter’s shop. I think Lucius hid them there. After he found them on Amberdecker property.”
Trey kept his eyes on the instrument panel. “Because of the staining.”
“Yes. And I know—Georgia’s full of red clay—but that particular mottled pattern matches Braxton Amberdecker’s bones perfectly. Lucius had access to both Amberdecker land and Dexter’s shop.”
“Your uncle had access to both as well. But for that matter, Lucius could have found them on park lands. There are striated red clay deposits there as well. It’s a circumstantial case.”
He had a point. A logical rational point. Which didn’t matter one iota. I had a hunch, as if a ghost were whispering in my ear.