Page 132 of The First Gentleman

CHAPTER 128

I hang 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 Honor and Integrity 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?”

“Do you know anything about Hanover twenty years ago? What it was like to be a skinny Black girl from Barbados? Nobody was going to listen to me.”

“I know about Hanover. I was there not long after you were. I know what it’s like to get the wrong kind of attention. Or no attention at all.” Bob Woodward’s comment about interviews suddenly comes to mind: “Let the silence suck out the truth.”

Slowly, it comes…

“I went to the homecoming bonfire with some other first-year students from my dorm and had some vodka shots. Then somebody brought us all to a party off campus. I barely knew anyone there and I lost track of the people I came with.”

“They left you there alone?”

Clarke shrugs.

“People kept handing me drinks. I remember the music was really loud and I started feeling woozy. I was sitting on a sofa with my head between my knees. Then I felt a hand on my back. I heard a guy asking me if I was okay. I said I needed to lie down, which I know was a totally stupid thing to say.”

“Not if you’re about to get sick.”

“I look up and see a guy in a Big Green football jersey. It wasn’t until days later that I figured out it was Cole Wright. He picked me up like he was carrying a baby. I felt like I was floating. I didn’t even know where we were going until he put me down on a bed. I was kind of in and out. Room spinning, that old cliché.”

My pulse is racing.

“What did he do next?”

“He put a blanket over me and left.”

“He didn’t…”

“He didn’t touch me. It was somebody else.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t Cole?”

“Yes. Cole was so big he filled a door frame. This guy was smaller. I thought maybe it was his room, so I started to get up and apologize for being in there. Then he came over and started kissing me. I told him I was feeling sick. And he said something like ‘I’ll make you feel better.’ Then he pulled the blanket down and got on top of me. I struggled, but I was about ninety pounds, all arms and legs. He pinned me down and he covered my mouth with one hand and he pulled up my dress with the other… and he raped me.”

“Eva, I’m so sorry that happened to you. Did you ever see the guy’s face? Do you know who it was?”

It takes her a few seconds to answer.

“I didn’t then. I do now.” She looks right at me.

“He works in the White House. His name is Burton Pearce.”