Prologue

Seattle, Washington

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Thanksgiving Day 2018 dawned dark, cold, rainy, and windy as hell in Seattle, Washington. That’s hardly surprising. November

in the Pacific Northwest is always dark and rainy. But on this day in particular, the steady downpour was accompanied by a

raw wind blowing down from the north. A seemingly endless line of people stood outside a dilapidated brick warehouse on Seattle’s

somewhat seedy waterfront where there was zero shelter from the weather. They hunkered down there, hoping that once they stepped

into the warehouse turned food bank they’d find a little warmth from the bone-chilling cold as well as a free Turkey Day dinner.

Inside an army of volunteers from various churches all over the city scurried around arranging tables and chairs, setting up serving lines, and putting out the food. By the time the doors opened promptly at ten a.m. , the people waiting outside had been there for so long that a few of them were becoming belligerent.

That was not unexpected, and several of the heftier members of the volunteer crew had been drafted to provide security and

maintain order. One of those was Darius Jackson, a member of the crew from the Mount Zion Baptist Church. He was six four

and two hundred and eighty pounds. One look from him was generally enough to settle whatever trouble might be brewing among

those waiting for their share of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

Not long ago, Darius would likely have been on the receiving end of one of those free dinners. Now thanks to his grandmother

Matilda Jackson, he was out of jail, back on the straight and narrow, and working as a bouncer for a popular but sketchy bar

on Rainier Avenue South. The place was owned by someone who was a friend of one of his grandmother’s many friends and acquaintances.

When Darius had agreed to accept the job offer, Granny had taken him to the woodshed and given him the lay of the land.

“It’s a job,” she told him, “and you need a job right now. I don’t approve of drinking, but there aren’t that many places

that will give someone like you so much as a second chance to say nothing of a job. But just because you work in a place like

that doesn’t mean you’ve got a license to be drinking. You’re living with me now instead of out on the streets or in some

homeless camp. You come home with booze on your breath, you’re out. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Got it.”

“And on Sunday mornings you’d best be dressed in your good clothes and have your butt on the pew right next to me when services

start at Mount Zion.”

“Got that, too,” he replied.

That conversation had occurred months earlier, but Darius was still taking it to heart. He was working the same job and was still living in his grandmother’s place just off Martin Luther King Way in the Rainier Valley. As a seventh grader, abandoned by his drug-addicted mother, living with Grandma Jackson had been mandatory rather than optional. The judge had given him a choice—go to juvie until he turned twenty-one or take probation and go live with his grandmother. He had chosen door number two. No matter how late he got off shift on Sunday mornings, she made sure he was present and accounted for at Mount Zion’s morning services, but back when he was a kid and there under duress, he’d slept through a lot of it and paid scant attention to the rest. At the time all that crap about loving your neighbor as yourself just didn’t grab him.

Unsurprisingly, once in high school, Darius had taken up with the wrong crowd, which had led him straight into the arms of

the wrong kind of girl. Gypsy Tomkins had been bad news from the get-go. She was a wild child who was beautiful but tough

as nails. Once she had Darius in her clutches, everything his grandmother had ever tried to teach him went out the window.

Compared to him, Gypsy had been tiny—five two and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet—but from the time Darius was fifteen,

he had been putty in her vividly manicured hands.

Eventually, since Gypsy’s family was involved in the drug trade, Darius was, too. As for their personal relationship? It lasted for years but had become more and more volatile over time until recurring bouts of domestic violence between them became the order of the day. Gypsy always knew exactly which buttons to push to drive Darius over the edge. As soon as she succeeded, she’d call the cops on him—screaming into the phone that he was beating her or threatening to kill her. Once officers showed up, she would somehow manage to convince them that he was the one at fault. As a consequence, he was the one who usually got hauled off to jail. The next day, of course, when they’d let him out because Gypsy hadn’t gone through with pressing charges, she’d laugh it off and act like it was all some kind of joke.

Darius knew this was messed up and wrong, but he loved her and could never quite bring himself to walk away. During their

last screaming match, she had pulled a knife on him. He’d managed to get it away from her, but in the course of the struggle,

she’d sliced open her hand and was still bleeding when she called 911. This time, though, when he went to jail, Gypsy did

press charges. He ended up doing six months in the King County Jail for assault. When he got out, he learned that she had

sworn out a protection order on him. He wasn’t allowed inside the house even long enough to collect his stuff. Left with nothing

but the clothes on his back and nowhere to live, he’d gone crawling back to Granny.

Once on the outside he’d soon learned that Gypsy had taken up with someone else during his absence. Two months later, Gypsy

and her new boyfriend had been found shot to death in an alleyway in the Denny Regrade. Darius was her ex, so naturally the

cops came around asking questions. His job as a bouncer—the one Granny had found for him—had saved his bacon, though, because

at the time of Gypsy’s death he’d been at work at a place with all kinds of surveillance cameras, and those had given Darius

an airtight alibi. That didn’t mean the cops didn’t question him about it or check his hands for gunshot residue, but eventually

there was nothing to link him to the double homicide, and he was cleared.

Darius knew it was only by the grace of God and Granny’s job that he’d dodged being charged and possibly even convicted of the two murders. That was one of the reasons, maybe even the main one, that this time when he accompanied Granny to services at Mount Zion, he did pay attention. He found himself listening intently to what the reverend had to say. He let himself get caught up in both the Word and the music. Finally, one Sunday when people were invited to come forward to be saved, he got up and went, finding himself a whole new lease on life in the process. Which was why this year, when the call went out for Mount Zion’s crew of volunteers for serving Thanksgiving Day dinner at the food bank, Darius had signed up.

It was well after dark when, while patrolling the line, Darius caught sight of an older woman leaning heavily on the end of

her overloaded shopping cart. A few sprigs of white hair stuck out from under her hoodie. Swaying unsteadily on her feet,

she looked as though she was about to keel over.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked. “You don’t have to wait in line. If you’re not feeling well, I’ll be glad to escort

you inside.”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “I’m too tired to eat anything. If you’d just walk me back to my van, I’ll be fine.”

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Over there a block or two,” she said, nodding toward the south.

“Are you sure? Do you think you can make it that far?”

“I believe so,” she said, “but would you mind helping with the cart? I have some money. I can pay you.”

“Paying me won’t be necessary,” he assured her. “I’m glad to help.”

Darius went back to the head of the line and told one of the other volunteers that he was escorting someone back to her van.

That was the last time anyone reported speaking to him. The next morning his lifeless body was found two blocks away lying

next to an alleyway dumpster.

During the brief investigation that followed, footage from one of the warehouse’s security cameras showed two people threading their way through the parking lot—a hulking Black male accompanied by a much shorter female. The woman, who appeared to be Caucasian and somewhat overweight, was leaning on a grocery cart so full of goods that it was almost as tall as she was. However, the grainy quality of the video made it impossible to make out any facial features. Law enforcement was never able to locate or identify the apparently homeless woman, and no sign of her shopping cart was ever found, either.

An autopsy performed by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Darius had died of a fatal dose of fentanyl.

His death was ruled to be accidental, and the case was closed. No further investigation was deemed necessary.