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“Thanks, see you later.”
I hung up and walked back into the kitchen. Bones had just placed the clean skillet on the dish rack to dry.
“I’m leaving. Text me if anything comes up.” I said as I walked on, planning to head to my room.
“You catch feelings for this girl, Prez?” Bones asked.
Before I could answer, Boa came into the kitchen and looked at us with a curious expression. “You talkin’ bout that server that was here last night?”
I stood watching them. I had a sudden urge to slug both of them in the face for giving me those knowing looks. What the actual fuck! Feelings had nothing to do with wanting her. I turned away without answering and flicked my middle finger up over my head when they both laughed and Bones called, “the answer to that is hell yes!”
***
I pulled into the rundown motel parking lot and kicked my stand down as I got off my bike. This motel was one level with two buildings shaped like an arc. By the entrance there was the office and a sad little pool surrounded by an old iron fence. Paint was peeling in places; the shutters looked dingy from age. The sign said pay by the week available. I surveyed the parking lot and noticed three cars. I frowned as I checked the numbers on the wood frames by the doors so that I could find #5, which was at the end of a row. This motel had seen much better days about 30 years ago.
It took a few minutes of knocking on the door of #5 before I heard signs of life.
“Who is it?” Ivy’s voice called out. Her voice sounded hoarse.
“Loki.”
She tentatively cracked the door open and peered out at me. She looked like I’d woken her up. Her hair was a mess around her head.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, not budging to let me in.
“I’ll tell you if you let me in.”
Ivy sighed heavily and moved back to open the door. As I entered the room, I noticed the ‘70s threw up in this space. Wood paneling on the walls was rough with age. Carpet was a shade of brown that was almost unrecognizable. The old oak table scratched, with two orange chairs surrounding it. Predictably, the bathroom titled in a lime green. The only modern thing seemed to be the small flat screen tv. One of the two beds was a mess of linens.
Ivy stood with a pair of pale pink shorts and shirt. Her sleep set with her hair all over the place made her look younger, vulnerable even.
“You left without saying goodbye,” I said.
“Seriously?” She scowled at me as she moved to the head of the unmade bed and sat down, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. I sensed she was guarding herself against me. I didn’t like that one bit.
I sat down in front of her and grabbed her right hand in mine. My right leg was bent at the knee while my other leg remained on the floor. I was careful to keep my boots off her bed.
“I’d hoped we could spend the morning together,” I said.
“Why?”
“You upset about what we did last night?” I asked, tension radiating through my shoulders.
She took several long, drawn out breaths before answering and I wanted to throttle her. “No. I’m not upset about last night. I just didn’t expect you to be here asking me questions about something that clearly was in the moment and not an expectation of something more.”
I ignored that for now. “I need some details about your sister so we can start tracing the source. Do you have a picture of her?”
“Yes,” she said and got up from her spot on the bed and headed over to the wardrobe that was to the side of the wall. She came back with a 4x6 picture with a smiling girl that didn’t resemble Ivy much. If you stared at her expression long enough, you could see their smiles were similar. This girl’s hair cut short and dyed black as it didn’t look completely natural on her. She was wearing a long, flowing skirt and large hoop earrings.
“What can you tell me about her? You okay if I record this? I want to send it to Bones after so he can get to work.” I waited for her acceptance. She nodded her head in response and I turned on my video.
“My sister’s name was Shannon Walsh. 23 years old when she died. She was a back-up singer to a jazz musician named Marcel Louis. She’d been in New Orleans for two years. I didn’t know she had a boyfriend, but I just learned she was seeing someone in the last few months of her life, but she never brought him around her bandmates. I don’t know of any other friends she may have had. When I visited a few times, I only saw the band. She came home about six months before and either she’d not met him yet or she did a great job keeping it from me. Our parents died when she was 16 and I became her guardian. She and I were pretty close, at least I thought we were. A really close family.” She stopped talking as she toyed with a loose string on the bedspread.
“Where are you from?”
“Houston.”
“Anything else you can think of?”
