Truth's, Lies, and Side-Eye's

I made a list, and I checked it twice. I was going to find out who was naughty or nice.

The footage on the SD card Bentley gave me came in handy. I jotted down the names of people I knew and the people who looked like they might be able to tell me something. Our first stop was a woman named Silvia. From the information I gathered, she was a bottle girl at Club Lure and had served Ivy and her friend a shot or two.

I was sure she would say she didn't know anything because all she did was serve drinks, but I was after any information she could lend. The smallest detail or the slightest memory could move mountains when you least expected.

The ring camera chimed as Rodger and I approached her front door. He looked anxious when he saw the camera. Tiny beads of sweat sprouted across his forehead, and I zoned in like a microscope.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “I always get anxious when I get ready to ask questions.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I'll be the one asking the questions. You relax. I’ll take it from here.”

I rang the doorbell and waited for a response. My phone began to buzz, and I saw that it was a message from Bentley. He was thousands of miles away and still thinking about me. I felt Rodger’s eyes glancing over my shoulder to read the message, and I let him. I had no secrets. Unlike him.

“Hi. May I help you?”

Silvia came to the door wearing overalls splattered with paint. Her hair was tied in a pony, and a pair of large framed glasses sat on the bridge of her nose. Her freckled face was bright and friendly, just like her voice. It was hard to believe she was the bottle girl from the footage I saw.

“Hi. My name is Justine Sky. This is my partner, Rodger Black. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the incident that happened at Club Lure.”

Silvia removed her glasses. A sad look washed over her once inviting face. Right away, I could tell she was full of remorse for what happened to Ivy. So there was no suspect there.

“Sure,” she said. “Come in. I'm happy to help.”

Rodger and I followed her into her cozy little home. There were paintings on every wall, family photos, and three of the fluffiest cats I had ever seen. She cleaned off a spot on the couch for us to sit, then took a seat on the couch across from us. Her eyes looked worried but eager to answer my questions. I liked interviewing people who were eager to help.

“Did you know Ivy?”

I started out with something subtle to make her comfortable. Death was never easy to deal with for anyone. Especially when you were so closely involved.

“I’ve seen her in the club a few times. She was usually there with a friend.”

“Is that friend a woman or a man?”

“Both. Sometimes.” Her eyes shifted to Rodger. “She was a really fun girl who loved to dance, so those people could have been strangers too.”

I thought back to when Ivy and I were in college. She did love to dance and was always the life of the parties. I often stood on the sidelines, vicariously living through her. To hear that she never lost her mojo for a good time made me teary-eyed.

“Did you happen to see her with anyone that night? A woman came forward claiming to be a friend of hers, but I can't seem to locate her. Do you know her?”

“She was with another woman that night,” Silvia said. “I can't say I know who she is, but she did say she was from out of town and staying at the Five Points hotel.”

The Five Points Hotel was owned by none other than Bentley Thomas. I started thinking of scenarios of him letting the woman hide at his hotel until the coast was clear enough for her to leave. It made sense as to why I wasn’t able to find her. But why would she kill Ivy?

“Ivy’s father said she had a boyfriend. Have you ever seen her being intimate with a man or closer than normal?”

Silvia tensed in her seat. A look of nervousness controlled her expression. She looked at Rodger as if she expected him to say something. But he sat impatiently, keeping his eyes on everything in the room except her.

“I saw her with a guy in the alley when I first got to the club that night,” she said. “He looked a lot like your partner. I can’t say for sure that it was him because the alley is pretty dark at night. But the resemblance is there.”

I looked at Rodger and then back to Silvia. I was confused. He looked at her with disgust on his mug as he shook his head and denied ever being with Ivy. He was adamant that white women thought all black men looked alike, and he couldn't have been the guy she saw. But Silvia never strayed too far from her initial thought.

“Did you happen to see what kind of car he drove?” I asked. “Her father said he drives a loud sports car, but there’s so many of those muscle heads in this city, it could be anyone.”

“No, I didn't. Sorry. I was in a rush to get clocked in before Bentley fired me for being late again.”

The way she said his name was as if he were her big brother. There was a lot of respect behind her statement, which made me want to believe he was the righteous man he said he was. But the fact that he owned the hotel where Ivy’s mysterious friend said she was staying kept me questioning.