“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.”
