Page 142 of The First Gentleman

CHAPTER

128

Ihang up with Caleb Stringer and immediately check the alumni directory. I find an Eva Clarke and then search for her on LinkedIn. I’m surprised to see she’s a Black woman and even more surprised to learn that she lives nearby. Clarke runs a dance studio in Manchester, New Hampshire, only about a thirty-minute drive west on Route 101.

My GPS leads me to a small two-story retail strip just outside of town. The first level is occupied by a Taco Bell, a bike shop, and a dry cleaner. A metal staircase leads to the second level. That’s where I see the sign.

DANCE SISTERS

It’s just past seven p.m., and through the glass I can see students packing up and exiting the studio.

I ring the bell in the now empty reception area. Through an arch, I can see a hardwood dance floor, a mirrored wall, and a ballet barre. A giant speaker sits in one corner.

“Be right there!” a woman calls. When Eva Clarke comes around the corner, I recognize her immediately from her profile pics. Tall. Elegant. Black. She’s wearing a leotard with a ballet skirt and a sweatshirt tied around her waist. Her hair is braided and piled on top of her head.

“Eva?”

“If you’re here to pick somebody up, they all just left.”

“Actually, Eva, I’m looking for you.” I step up to the counter. “My name is Brea Cooke. I’m writing a book about Cole Wright.”

Her smile fades. “Isn’t he on trial up in Brentwood for killing that local woman?”

“He is. The case just went to the jury.”

“Then I don’t understand. What kind of book are you writing?”

I reach into my backpack and pull out copies of the books I helped Garrett research,Stolen HonorandIntegrity Gone.“This kind. The kind that gets at the truth. Sometimes after everybody else has given up. Sometimes decades later.”

She looks at the books I’ve placed on the counter and taps them nervously. “Who’s Garrett Wilson?”

“He was my partner. We met at Dartmouth. He died looking into the truth about Cole Wright.”

I can tell Clarke is trying to figure me out, deciding if she can trust me. “What happened to him?” she asks. “How did he die?”

I shake my head. “Not now. I’m here to talk about what happened to you.”

Clarke comes around from behind the counter. “I’m not sure why you’re here,” she says.

“Eva, please. You don’t have to carry this by yourself.”

She apparently makes a decision. “Come with me,” she says.

I follow Clarke into a small office that looks out onto the dance space. There’s a vanilla-scented candle burning on the small desk.The wall is lined with posters from Black dance companies. Dance Theatre of Harlem. Alvin Ailey. Chicago’s Deeply Rooted.

“How long have you been teaching?” I ask.

“Ten years. Ever since my ankles gave out.” Eva sits down behind the desk. “But you’re not here to talk about my dance career.”

“No, Eva, I’m not. I’m just trying to find out what happened that night after homecoming.”

“Who told you?” Her brown eyes are blazing.

“Somebody who was there that night. Somebody who heard that you were assaulted.”

“Only the other person in that room knows what happened to me. I did tell my friend Floyd Whelan, but when he tried to write a news story about it, he was threatened into silence.”

“You never told anybody? Never went to the campus police?”

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