Boundary Waters (2 page)

Cork eyed the nearly empty lake as he passed the chip boxes through the window to Annie. “What do you say we call it a day,” he suggested.

“What about Jenny?”

“She knows the way home.”

“We’re supposed to stay open another hour,” she reminded him. “What if someone comes expecting to eat and we’re not here?”

“What’s the use of being the boss if you can’t break the rules once in a while?” Cork told her. “Let’s shut ’er down.”

Annie didn’t move. She nodded toward a car pulling into the place vacated by Charlie Aalto’s chip truck. “See? A customer.”

The car was a rental, a black Lexus. The man who got out pulled off his sunglasses and walked their way.

“Corcoran O’Connor?”

He was a big man, late fifties, with thin hair going gray and a thin, graying mustache. He had a long, jowled face, not especially handsome, that reminded Cork a little of a bloodhound.

“I’m O’Connor.”

The man was dressed in an expensive leather jacket, light brown suede like doe hide, with a rust-colored turtleneck underneath. His clothes were the color and weight for a normal fall day. Too warm for that day, but the long, hot autumn had them all surprised. Despite the quality of his clothing, he seemed—maybe because of his easy, lumbering gait—like a man who’d be at home staring at the rump of a mule all day while he wrestled a plow through red clay.

“My name’s William Raye.” He offered Cork his hand.

“I know,” Cork said. “Arkansas Willie.”

“You remember me.” The man sounded pleased.

“Even without the biballs and the banjo, I’d recognize you anywhere. Annie.” Cork turned. “Let me introduce William Raye, better known as Arkansas Willie. Mr. Raye, my daughter Annie.”

“Well, hey there, little darlin’. How y’all doin’?”

His voice was slow, like his gait, and all his words seemed to be gifted with an extra syllable. It was a voice Cork remembered well. Twenty years ago, every Saturday night, Cork had managed to clear his schedule to be in front of the television for
Skunk Holler Hoedown
. The program was syndicated, a country music review full of guitars and fiddles and banjos and enough corn to feed a hungry herd of cattle, broadcast from the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville and hosted by Arkansas Willie Raye and his wife, a woman named Marais Grand.

“Sugar, I wonder if you’d pour me a little water there,” Raye asked Annie. “My throat’s dry as a Skunk Holler hooch jug come Sunday mornin’.”

“Still entertaining, Mr. Raye?” Cork asked.

“Might as well call me Willie. Most folks do. Nope, don’t even do charities anymore. I put away my biballs and banjo after Marais died.” The hurt was old, but the man’s voice carried a fresh sadness. He put his hands in his pockets and explored the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “I have a recording company now,” he said, brightening. “Ozark Records. Biggest country label in the business. The Blacklock Brothers, Felicity Green, Rhett Taylor. They’re all on Ozark.”

“Here you are, Mr. Raye.” Annie passed a big Sweetheart cup full of water and ice through the window.

“I thank you kindly, honeybunch.”

“Up here for the color?” Annie asked.

“No, actually I’m up here to see your daddy.” He turned to Cork. “Is there a place we can talk for a few minutes? In private.”

“Mr. Raye and I are going to walk a bit, Annie. Hold down the fort?”

“Sure, Dad.”

They strolled to the end of the dock, where sunnies swam in the shallows. The water was rust colored from the heavy concentration of iron ore in the earth. Raye looked out over the lake, smiling appreciatively.

“I only made it up here once. When Grandview was being built. It’s every bit as beautiful as I remember it. Easy to see why Marais loved it like she did.” He set his water cup down on the bleached planking of the old dock and pulled a compact disc from the pocket of his leather jacket. He handed the disc to Cork. “Know who that is?”

“Shiloh,” Cork said, remarking on the woman whose picture filled the cover. She was a slight woman, young, very pretty, with smooth black hair like a waterfall down her back all the way to her butt. “One of Annie’s favorites.”

“My daughter,” Raye said. “And Marais’s.”

“I know.”

Raye regarded him earnestly out of that long, hounddog face. “Do you know where she is?”

Cork was caught off guard. “I beg your pardon.”

“If you do,” Raye rushed on, “I only need to know she’s all right. That’s all.”

“Willie, I’m afraid I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

Raye’s big shoulders dropped. His face glistened with sweat. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on one of the posts that anchored the dock. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’ve got to sit down.”

Cork hooked his foot around the leg of a small stool he sometimes used when fishing from the dock and nudged it toward Raye, who sat down heavily. The man picked up a golden leaf that had blown onto the dock and idly tore it into little bits as he spoke.

“Marais sometimes talked about the people back here, the people she grew up with. When she talked about you she called you Nishiime.”

“Means ‘little brother,’” Cork said.

“I guess she thought a lot of you.”

“I’m flattered, but I don’t understand what that has to do with Shiloh.”

“The deal is this: My daughter’s been missing for a while. Several weeks ago, she canceled all her engagements and dropped from sight. The tabloids are having a field day.”

“I know. I’ve seen them.”

“She’s been writing me. A letter every week. All the letters have been postmarked from Aurora. Two weeks ago, the letters stopped.”

“Maybe she just got tired of writing.”

“If I thought that, I wouldn’t be here.”

“She didn’t say in her letters where she is?”

“Nothing specific. She didn’t want anyone to know. She was here for something she called . . . I don’t remember exactly. It sounded like
misery
.”

“Misery.” Cork pondered that a moment.
“Miziweyaa,
maybe? It means ‘all of something. The whole shebang.’ Does that make sense to you?”

“Not to me.” Raye shrugged. “Anyway, she talked about a cabin way out in the Boundary Waters. And she said she’d been guided there by an old friend of her mother, someone with Indian blood. That’s why I thought it might be you.”

“I don’t know anything about your daughter, Willie. What’s your worry exactly?”

“See, Shiloh’s been under the care of a psychiatrist for a while. Drug abuse, depression. She’s tried suicide before. When the letters stopped . . .” He looked up at Cork like a man staring out of a deep well hoping to be thrown a rope. “All I want is to know for sure my daughter’s alive and okay. Will you help me?”

“How?”

“You could start by helping me find the man who guided her in. That’s all.”

Out on the lake, a motor kicked in. A couple of hundred yards from shore, a boat began to troll, gently wrinkling the perfect surface, leaving a wake that rolled away from it like a blue silk flag on a listless breeze.

Cork shook his head. “A man with Indian blood? That could be a pretty tall order. Half this county has some Anishinaabe blood in them. I’m not the sheriff around here anymore. I just run a hamburger stand. I think you should go to the proper authorities on this one.”

“I can’t take a chance on publicity,” Raye said, looking stricken. “If word got out that Shiloh was somewhere up in the woods here, those tabloid reporters would be on this place like dogs on a ham bone. No telling who’d be out there looking for her. Shiloh gets more than her share of letters from psychotic fans. My God, it would be like open season.” He threw away the remains of the leaf he’d torn apart. The broken pieces drifted away, shuddering as the sunnies nibbled at them, fooled by their size and color and sudden appearance, which mimicked insects lighting on the water. “Look, I know you don’t really know me. But I’m not just asking this for me. If Marais were still alive, she’d be the one doing the asking.”

Cork rubbed his arms to generate some heat. He could feel in his legs and shoulders the stiffness from his run. “I have a business, Will. And I don’t do police work anymore.”

Raye stood up and desperately took hold of Cork’s shoulder. “Help me find her and I’ll pay you enough to retire tomorrow.”

“I don’t know if I could help you find her.”

“Will you try? Please?”

Behind the serving window, Annie screamed. Cork looked her way. The scream had been one of excitement, not terror, but it made him think. What if Annie were the one out there? Or Jenny? One of his own. He’d be desperate, too. Circumstance alone had saddled Willie Raye with this burden. It wasn’t Cork’s business or responsibility, but he said, “You say you got a letter every week. And all were postmarked Aurora?”

“Yes. There wasn’t much in them that I could see would be any help. But maybe there’s something y’all would pick up on. You’re welcome to look at them. They’re back at my cabin.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Grandview.”

“Grandview? Been a long time.”

“I know. Told myself lots of times to get shut of the place. It’s the past. But Marais, she loved it so. I just couldn’t bring myself to let it go.”

Cork said, “I’ll stop by this evening. I want to shower and eat first. Say, seven o’clock?”

“Thanks.” Raye grabbed his hand and pumped it hard. “Thank you kindly.”

After Arkansas Willie had driven away, Cork returned to the serving window. “How’s the game going?”

“Over. Notre Dame won.” Annie gave a big victory grin.

“What do you say? Think we can shut ’er down?”

Annie started about the business of closing. “What did Mr. Raye want?”

“A little help finding something. I’ll take care of it.”

“He talks like a hillbilly. Is he?”

“Don’t let him fool you, Annie. I’m sure he’s made a fortune sounding like a hayseed.”

Cork cleaned up outside, pulling the big trash bag from the barrel by the picnic table and hauling it to the Dumpster near the road. As he headed back toward Sam’s Place, he noticed that the fisherman also appeared to be packing up his gear and calling it a day. Cork considered him a moment. Charlie Aalto’s question had been a good one. Why would a fisherman, even a goddamn dumb one, spend the whole day in a place where the fish weren’t biting?

4

A
LTHOUGH IT WAS THE BEST FALL
anyone could remember in years, the town of Aurora was prepared for the worst. In that far north country, winter was always on the mind. Cords of split wood were stacked against garages and porch walls. In the evening, the air was heavily scented with the smell of wood smoke. A sign in the window of Mayfair’s Clothing on Center Street warned,
DON’T BE FOOLED! IT’S COMING. WINTER COATS 20% OFF!
Rows of snowblowers flanked the bin of Halloween pumpkins outside Nelson’s Hardware Hank. Heading down Oak Street as he took Annie home, Cork spotted Ned Overby up on his extension ladder affixing Christmas lights to his gutters.

Cork pulled onto Gooseberry Lane and into the driveway of the two-story house where he’d been raised. Stepping from his Bronco, he considered the porch swing, empty now in the shadows. For Cork, the approach of winter wasn’t palpable until he’d taken down the swing and stored it in the garage for the season. He stood on the lawn, considered the brilliant red of the maple tree against the clear blue afternoon sky, and took in with long, deep breaths the warm autumn air. He decided that despite Charlie Aalto’s warning of heavy snow by Halloween, it would still be a long time before he put that swing away.

Annie sprinted through the side door into the kitchen. Cork followed and found himself in a house that, except for Annie and him, seemed empty.

He hadn’t lived in the house on Gooseberry Lane for nearly a year and a half. He’d grown used to living alone at Sam’s Place, but it wasn’t the way he’d choose to live if the choice were his alone.

Annie had the television on, tuned to highlights of the Notre Dame game. Cork passed through the living room and called up the stairs, “Anybody home?”

“In here.” Jo’s voice came from her office just down the hall.

Nancy Jo O’Connor sat at her desk, papers spread out before her, a pen in her hand. She was dressed in faded jeans and a denim blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her blond hair was short and a little disheveled as if she’d run her hand through it in frustration. She wore her glasses, which made her ice-blue eyes big and startled looking. She smiled at her husband as he stepped in.

Jo wasn’t alone. Near her at the desk sat a tall man with the black hair, almond eyes, and light bronze skin of the Ojibwe Anishinaabe. He sat back a little from Jo as soon as Cork stepped in.

Jo took off her glasses. Her eyes grew smaller but no less blue. “I didn’t expect anyone for a while.”

“No customers,” Cork explained. “We shut down early.” He nodded toward the tall Shinnob. “Afternoon, Dan.”

“Hello, Cork.” Daniel Wadena offered him a cordial smile. Wadena was the manager of the Chippewa Grand Casino, an enterprise operated by the Iron Lake Band of Ojibwe. He wore a red T-shirt that read
CASH IN AT THE GRAND
across the front in black letters.

“Business on Saturday?” Cork shook his head.

“We’re trying to get the contracts together so we can actually break ground for the casino hotel before winter sets in,” Jo said. She’d been counsel for Iron Lake Anishinaabe for years.

“Better hurry,” Cork cautioned. “Word is, snow by Halloween.”

Wadena glanced outside. “Did you get that from the weather service?”

“Muskrats,” Cork said.

Jo stretched. “I think that’s it for me today, Dan.”

“A good day’s work,” Wadena concluded and stood up. He carefully placed a number of documents in his briefcase, clicked the latch, and stepped away from the desk. “Monday?” he asked Jo.

“I’m in court most of the morning. After lunch?” she suggested.

“Fine. I’ll see myself out. Take ’er easy, Cork,” he said as he exited.

Cork walked to the chair Wadena had vacated and plopped himself down. He watched Jo as she arranged the papers on her desk.