The Raven

by Mike Nappa

  “Thanks for coming,” I say into the silence. “Who knows, you might have saved my life.” I laugh at the joke, but I can see she doesn’t think it’s funny.

  “Those guys”—she nods toward the door—“might come back. Are you prepared for that?”

  “What’s to prepare?” I say.

  She nods and then reaches into her coat and produces a small pocketbook. She pulls out a card. “Pen?” she says.

  “Same drawer as the scissors.”

  She scribbles something on the back of the card and drops it on the table.

  “That’s my card,” she says. “On the back are the email address and phone number for my ex-husband, Samuel Hill. He’s with the Atlanta PD. Tell him I sent you and that you’d like to anonymously turn over some stolen goods. He’ll make sure everything gets sorted out.”

  Ex-husband is all I hear from that speech. My Future Wife is single!

  “. . . stop stealing from random people in parks,” she’s saying. “And if those thugs come back, remember your best exit is out that balcony door. It’s about a ten-foot drop, so hang by your hands first. Don’t just jump off the top. Then run away and find Samuel. He’ll help you. He’s good at helping.”

  “I’ll be fine, really. No worries. But thanks.”

  “Go see Samuel Hill. I’m giving you a chance here, Raven. Maybe you should take it. Your life can be better than this.”

  I nod. And smile. I can’t stop smiling.

  She turns to go, and I realize I still haven’t asked my second question. “Wait, uh, wait please,” I say. “One more thing.”

  She stops in the hallway and looks back at me in the kitchen. I figure I should do this right, so I stand up, lifting the chair with my hands that are cuffed behind my back. Then I creak my way down onto one knee and give her what I think is a dreamy-eyed look.

  “Trudi Coffey, will you marry me?”

  My Future Wife walks out the door without giving me an answer.

  “It’s okay,” I tell myself, sitting back on the chair again. “She just needs a little time to think about it.”

  6

  Bliss

  Atlanta, GA

  Little Five Points

  Friday, March 17, 12:15 p.m.

  28 days to Nevermore

  Bliss tried not to slam the door to her spacious office at the back of the Secret Stash. It rattled with a small thud anyway.

  Oh well, she thought. Nobody’s paying any mind today.

  She rolled her wheelchair toward the desk on the far side of the room but didn’t complete that journey. She didn’t know what she wanted to do in here right now, she just knew she didn’t want to have to talk to people anymore for a while. She scanned the room and nodded to herself.

  It was a nice office. Though sparsely decorated, there was plenty of room for her to inhabit. It had once been a conference room, before the last remodel. Now it had been converted for her into a handicapped-accessible haven, a combination business office and studio apartment of sorts. The big desk took up the back corner, to the left, sitting underneath a large bay window in case she wanted a little sun on her back while she was going over inventory or tallying up receipts. There were also two file cabinets, a printer, scanner, copier, and other requisite office equipment. There was even a spot where she could set up her painting supplies and lose herself in oils and canvas if the fever hit her just right.

  On the right side of the room, against the wall, was a small bed with a pillow and a plain comforter on top. Nearby was a mini-refrigerator, a microwave, a row of cupboards, and an undersized table for eating, or reading, or just doing a crossword puzzle in the morning time. Bliss had a traditional home not far from here, a nice four-bedroom house filled with all the comforts. But most days it just felt better to sleep here, in the simplicity of her office near the back of the store.

  “What I got to go home to anyway?” she muttered to herself. “William long dead and gone. Lenore out to who-knows-where in the world. And Davis . . . Davis no more.” She sighed. “At least here I don’t have to fill up a whole house all by myself.”

  The clock on the microwave told her it was time to eat lunch, but she wasn’t hungry and didn’t feel like fiddling with her insulin pump just yet anyway. She dipped into her shirt pocket and pulled out the picture she carried wherever she went. It hurt to look at it sometimes, but today it made her smile. Davis, age eighteen, standing in front of a new car—well, new for him—with arms raised and keys flashing in the sunlight. He was grinning, and she liked that. She loved that boy’s smile. It cheered her on many weary days after his mother left them both. And then the thought of Lenore made her own fledgling smile hide itself back inside her face.

  “I got to do this, Mama,” Lenore Monroe had told her. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime.”

  “But what about your boy?” Bliss had said. “You can’t just pull Davis outta his life and take him globe-trotting through South America on some rock-and-roll concert tour. He’s only four years old. He’s already registered for kindergarten next year.”

  “You don’t understand how hard and how long I’ve been working for this, Mama—”

  “Pshaw. ’Course I do. I was there for all of it, remember?”

  “Daddy was there,” Lenore said, and there was ice in her tone. “Daddy knew. He understood how music burns inside you, how it gets hold of you like a drug and never lets go.”

  Bliss had said nothing to that. She was right—William Monroe knew the addiction of sound, knew the comfort of fingers blistered by guitar strings and the lullabies of melodies no one else could hear. Her husband had passed that passion on to his daughter, and they’d been thick as thieves in their time, listening to old vinyl records of Billie Holiday or Sarah Vaughan, crowing over some long-lost power ballad by Aerosmith or Journey. He’d taught her well, insisted she discover all styles of music, not just the ones that catered to the current tastes. They were kindred spirits, and for some reason she never quite understood, Bliss was always on the outside of that circle, invited to listen but never allowed to join their private little club.

  “I got to do it, Mama,” Lenore said again. “They want me to be the number-one backup singer, and the tour is already booked. I’ll be traveling the world, singing in front of thousands of people at every venue. It’s my chance. I make good on this, and I just might have a career, a life outside of Atlanta for once.”

  “It’s eight months gone! Eight months flitting about like you got no responsibilities, nobody else to think about. What about Davis, honey? Life on the road, new hotel room every night, drugs and alcohol and who knows what else spread all around all the time? That’s no life for a baby boy. No life for my baby grandson.”

  Lenore nodded, and a serious layer added itself to her face. “I know. You’re right. You’re one hundred percent right. And that’s why I’m here.”

  Mama Bliss had felt suddenly stupid. Of course that was why Lenore was here. She should have seen it coming.

  “Eight months,” Mama said.

  “Eight months,” Lenore said. “I’ll only be gone eight months. And I’ll be getting paid. I can send money back to you every two weeks to help with his care and expenses.”

  “You already owe me more money than you can ever pay back.”

  “See, so you should be glad I’ll be working! It’s only eight months, Mama. You can take him for eight months, cantcha? This is my chance, my big break.” She breathed hard before saying, “Daddy would want me to go.”

  And so Davis had moved in with Gran-Mama.

  And eight months had gotten extended to thirteen, with one quick visit from Lenore in between—lunch at a fast-food place—and that was it. Then another tour called, and Davis’s time with Gran-Mama became two years. And by the time year three rolled around, Lenore finally gave up all pretense of wanting to be a mother, and they all just accepted the fact that she wasn’t coming back for her son. She was caught up in world tours, mesmerized by her place standing ten feet from
stardom on every stage, always working toward that next “big break” that never seemed to come.

  They heard from her at Christmas, and sometimes on Davis’s birthday, but after he turned twelve, Lenore seemed to lose touch with anybody from her old life back in Atlanta—including Mama and Davis. She quit trying, and Mama decided that was fine with her. Her grandson had become more than just a grandson. With her husband long passed away and her daughter as good as dead, Davis Jensen Monroe had become an old woman’s sole reason for living, the light that shone in the morning and the comfort that hugged her good night. As far as Davis was concerned, he’d never had a mother—barely remembered her, really. He just had a grandmother who promised him that someday, just you wait, he was going to be greater than anything and anyone his family had ever seen.

  “I broke that promise,” Bliss muttered to the photo in her hand. “We both broke it, I guess.”

  Bliss heard a knock and shoved the picture back into her pocket.

  “In!” she hollered.

  A moment later, Darrent poked his head through the doorway. “Just wanted to check in before I go home for the afternoon,” he said. “I’m working a split shift today, since we got that shipment rolling in tonight.”

  Mama looked at Darrent’s graying beard and wondered where the time had gone and why it had been in such a hurry to pass by.

  William had hired Darrent Hayes right out of college, fresh from his MBA program at Georgia State University. Back then, he was a bright-eyed, handsome young man in his mid-twenties, driven to be the best, ready to make his mark on the world. He started out helping Mama as assistant manager on the sales floor, but he was too smart for that. It wasn’t long before William stole him away to work on the back side of the business, in inventory management with him.

  “I hired him.” William had laughed when Bliss objected. “I just loaned him to you for a bit.” Then he kissed his wife hard on the lips and promised to find her another assistant manager “just as good, or almost at least.”

  Darrent was a quick learner, and before five years were up, he’d become the right-hand man to both William and Bliss. They trusted him more than they trusted each other sometimes.

  After William passed away, Darrent didn’t allow the store to miss a beat. “You do what you need to do, Mama,” he’d said as she’d grieved her new widowhood. “The Secret Stash and your husband’s hard work will be waiting whenever you’re ready to come back.” Of course she did come back—how could she stay away from something she and William had built together?—but she left more and more of the day-to-day responsibilities to Darrent until he was doing even more than William used to do.

  Now, truth was, he ran Sister Bliss’s Secret Stash, and it had prospered under his care. Mama was still the boss, of course—ownership did have its privileges. But she mostly just looked over his shoulder to make sure everything was going smoothly and made sure Darrent had the resources he needed to keep doing his job. It was a system that worked, but sometimes she wished she still had the energy to do all the things Darrent did for her now. Still, other concerns took her attention, and she knew it was best to leave things as they were.

  Mama Bliss looked at Darrent, saw hair and beard speckled with gray but eyes that were still as bright as she remembered on that handsome young kid who’d first walked in her door and said, “What can I do to help you today?” She smiled inside. Sometimes she missed that innocent young man, but the grown-up version before her interrupted the reverie.

  “You need anything before I go?” he said.

  “What time you coming back, honey?” Bliss asked.

  “Shipment hits around ten tonight,” he said, “so I figure I’ll show up around eight, help close down the sales day, and then get everybody ready to take in the new product when it arrives.”

  Mama nodded. “Okay,” she said. “You go on, then. I’ll check in on you after ten o’clock.”

  He started to close the door, but Bliss stopped him. “Darrent,” she said suddenly, “how long you been with the Stash?”

  He paused and looked toward the window. “Let’s see,” he said, “I was twenty-five when William hired me, and I’m forty-nine now, so I guess about twenty-four years, Mama. Give or take. You know how time blends together.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  “Anything else?”

  “Samuel Hill came by to see me this morning.”

  Darrent stepped inside the room now. “Yeah, Detective Hill stopped to see me too. Said you told him to pick out something for his ex-wife, but he insisted on paying for it anyway.”

  “Mm.”

  “Everything okay, Mama?”

  “He says there’s something going on in Little Five Points.”

  “Always something going in Little Five Points.”

  “He heard people talking about something called Nevermore.”

  Darrent took another step into Mama’s office and sat down in one of the guest chairs at her table. He waited.

  “Darrent, who you think is talking about that in this neighborhood?” Mama Bliss fixed her manager with a steady gaze. “I promised Samuel I’d see what I could find for him.”

  “I don’t know, Mama.” Darrent shifted his weight in the chair and spoke slowly, like he was composing the words that came out next, aware of them and the power they might hold. “You want me to start asking around?”

  She nodded. “Thank you, Darrent. That’s all. You go get some rest so you’re ready for tonight.”

  “All right, Mama. I’ll see you later.”

  After her number-one manager left, Bliss felt uneasiness slither through her midsection. “I’ve known Darrent Hayes near a quarter-century,” she said to the empty office. “So what got me thinking he just lied in my face?”

  She stared at the closed door to her office for a long time, thinking.

  7

  Trudi

  Atlanta, GA

  West Midtown Neighborhood

  Friday, March 17, 2:22 p.m.

  28 days to Nevermore

  Trudi found the place empty when she arrived at Coffey & Hill Investigations on Howell Mill Road. She was glad to see that her assistant, Eulalie, had remembered to lock the plate-glass door out front before she’d left. Eulalie was good about doing the things that Trudi often forgot, simple things like locking a front door or making sure the electric bill got paid each month. Trudi’s assistant was smart too. Insightful. She noticed things that other people sometimes missed, a trait that Trudi was learning to rely on these days.

  Eulalie Marie Jefferson had come to work as the receptionist at Coffey & Hill Investigations a little more than a year ago, just before Samuel had come back from the Middle East—just before the Annabel Lee affair had blown up in their faces. To her credit, she stuck around—even after Trudi had been forced to fire her during the confusion of the Annabel Lee case. After that was over, Trudi had made Samuel rehire her, and she came back without complaint or questions. Loyal, that one. A trait Trudi liked to reward. Plus, Eulalie had taken to a detective’s life like a natural, never complaining about the tedious grunt work, always thorough, always willing to learn and ready to contribute in whatever way was needed. Trudi liked that.

  “Teachability,” she said to herself, thinking out loud as she unlocked the front door to her office. “Someone who’s teachable can succeed at anything.”

  An image of The Raven flashed in her mind. For some reason, it made her smile, just a little. She wondered if she’d wasted her time trying to help him, trying to get him to connect with Samuel. She wondered if he was the teachable type who could learn from mistakes and ultimately become a better person for it . . . or if he was just another stubborn kid destined to keep repeating himself until he ended up in jail, or worse.

  She decided to think about other things.

  Trudi checked her watch: 2:25 p.m. That meant Eulalie was at her tae kwon do lesson and Trudi would have the office to herself for the next forty-five minutes or so. Enough time to
catch up on the tasks she’d put off this morning. She headed back to her office and was pleased to see that Eula had left the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, opened and waiting, on her desk.

  It had become Trudi’s daily custom to skim this newspaper at least once, no matter how busy she was or how many items were on her to-do list. If she ever had to miss a day, she felt almost neurotic until she could find a copy to look at again. And no matter what, even if she was gone for a week, she always went back and checked the classified ads from any day that she missed. She had to do that, she told herself. But she knew the truth was that she wanted to do that, even though she knew others were doing the same thing. She thought of Annabel and knew she always would check the Constitution, even when it didn’t matter anymore.

  Trudi flipped the paper to the classifieds section before sitting down at her desk. She scanned the personals until the familiar advertisement came into view. It was only one line, one word actually, easy to miss, but it was there nonetheless. She let out a sigh when she read its message today.

  Safe.

  She pulled her gun out of the hybrid hip holster nestled in the back waistband of her jeans and dropped it into a drawer on the right side of her desk. She saw a set of skeleton keys and a shim sliding around inside the drawer and wondered if The Raven had been able to get out of his handcuffs. She almost grabbed the tools and headed back out, thinking she’d go ahead and help him one last time, but then she stopped herself.

  “That’s his problem,” she mumbled to the drawer and to the keys now in her hand.

  Eulalie came in around 3:15, just as expected. Trudi heard the front door open and then watched on the security monitor as her assistant came into the little reception area just down the short hall from her office. Eula was dressed in a white dobok—her tae kwon do uniform—decorated by a thick blue belt tied into a knot in the front. She carried a red chest protector and her purse in one hand.