Page 34 of I Will Ruin You

“Like just a friend, or like more than a friend?”

“You tell me.”

“Didn’t get any kind of sex vibe. We’re not exactly that kind of bar, although times have changed. Everybody kind of goes everywhere now.”

He had that right, Marta thought. There were very few lesbian bars anymore.

Jim said, “She wasn’t even here long. Had a gin and tonic. Cherise left her for a couple of minutes to go to the john, and when she came back the skinny chick was heading out the door. Didn’t wave goodbye or nothin’.”

“Cherise stayed.”

“Yeah.”

“Short meeting. You think she went into the bathroom to take something?”

Jim said, “Didn’t exactly follow her in. When she came back I asked if she wanted another drink and she just kind of shook her head. She was spacing out, so yeah, maybe she did take something. It was happening pretty fucking fast, pardon my Lithuanian.”

“How was she acting?”

“Like a puppet got its strings cut. Lethargic, having a hard time putting a sentence together, all wobbly-like. Finally, she slides off her stool and starts heading for the door, except she’s heading in the wrong direction, toward the dartboard, gonna get a dart in her ear if she’s not careful. And then she figures out she’s going the wrong way, stops for a second like she’s thinking about throwing up, and I’m like, shit, if you’re going to do that, can you make it to the sidewalk? She finds the door, and out she goes. And I started thinking, I hope she didn’t drive, and even if she didn’t, I was a little worried about whether she’d be able to get a cab or an Uber or anything and what someone might do to her in that condition, you get me?”

“I get you.”

Marta had already been through Cherise Fowler’s phone and checked her emails and texts. She hadn’t ordered an Uber. There was one call to her earlier in the evening from a number the detective had not been able to identify. Her guess was a burner phone.

“So I left the bar here for a second and went outside, but by the time I got there, there was no sign of her. She must have wandered into the alley soon as she walked out. Maybe she’d gone in there to puke or something and then passed out.” He paused. “That’s all she wrote.”

“Did you actually see this woman give her anything? Did Cherise give her money?”

Jim shrugged. “No idea. Like I said, it was busy around that time.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

He shook his head slowly.

“This woman she met with. She ever been in here before? She a regular?”

“Maybe once or twice.”

“How’d she pay?” Marta was hoping the woman had used a credit card, that there would be a record of her name.

Jim shook his head. “Cash. You know, I think she was in here one time with some guy.”

“You think if you saw her again, you could give me a call?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “You got a card?”

She did, and she gave him one.

“What about the guy she came in with? Remember anything about him?”

“Like I said, I think it was just once. They sat over at that table, had something to eat. Guy was short, stocky. Bald. Kind of muscular. But there was something about the two of them.”

“What was that?”

“Like she was in charge.”

“Married?”