Just at the edge of the old town limits, Cork came to the new Best Western and stopped. The motel complex had been built to accommodate the influx of outsiders coming to Aurora to gamble at the Chippewa Grand Casino. Much of the ground the big motel sat on had once belonged to Ellie Grand. The old house that had stood there had been both her home and her business. When the bulldozers razed the house to make way for the motel, Cork had felt a deep sadness, but who was he to argue with a destiny for the town that profited so many. New tracts for housing had been cleared, moving the edges of Aurora further into the forest. Stores were doing record business. Even Sam’s Place had had an outstanding season. Unfamiliar faces populated the streets every day. Cork was often at a loss to distinguish the tourists and gamblers from the permanent transplants, the growing number of urban escapees with enterprise in their eyes. Aurora had no less than three gourmet coffeehouses now. Even Johnny Pap was serving cappuccino at the Pinewood Broiler.
The old house had been abandoned for years when Ellie Grand bought it. The paint was blistered, flaking away. The boards in most places had weathered to a sun-bleached white. The porch sagged like the back of an old horse with a broken spirit. A lot of the windows were empty of glass. The yard around it had gone over to timothy and thistle.
The work of renovating had been done mostly by Cork’s father and Wendell Two Knives. Cork’s father labored at the urging of his wife, Ellie Grand’s cousin. Wendell, who was the husband of Ellie Grand’s aunt, Lenore, did it for family. In the way of men in those days and in that country, both Cork’s father and Wendell knew about carpentry. They did a bang-up job of helping to create Ellie’s Pie Shop.
Behind the shop, Ellie Grand had planted a huge garden full of raspberry vines, strawberries, pumpkins, rhubarb. Whatever was in season filled her pie crusts. The tourists who returned to Iron Lake every year made Ellie’s Pie Shop part of their annual pilgrimage. Cork had spent a lot of his paper-route money on slices of Ellie Grand’s pie. But he hadn’t gone just for the pie. Like a lot of the other young men in Aurora, he’d gone because Marais worked there behind the counter, helping her mother.
When the young men came around, and sometimes older men, too, Ellie Grand was harsh. How a woman so bitter about men-about anything-could make pies so sweet, Cork couldn’t figure. As far as he knew, there were only two men Ellie Grand didn’t consider cohorts of the devil-his father and Wendell Two Knives. She even distrusted the priest at St. Agnes, Father Kelsey, who, she fiercely maintained, looked at Marais in a way that would make holy water boil.
He remembered a time-he must have been twelve or thirteen because his father was still alive-when he sat at one of the tables while Marais worked the counter. It was late summer. He was eating a piece of strawberry-rhubarb. Marais hummed to herself, hummed beautifully. Cork, as always, tracked her every move. She was fifteen or sixteen then. Straight black hair that hung to her butt. Dark, East Indian princess skin. She wore cutoff jeans and a tight red jersey top. Three young men came into the shop. Tourists, or sons of tourists. Eighteen, nineteen years old. They asked what kind of pie Marais recommended. She offered several good options. They took the blueberry, Cork recalled.
“What do you do when you’re finished here for the day?” the one who gave her the money asked.
“That depends on what my choices are.” She didn’t smile, but Cork was certain there was an invitation in her gold-dust eyes.
“We’ve got a speed boat,” another one said. “Come for a ride.”
“Or a swim,” the third suggested. “Bet you look great in a swimsuit.”
“Oh, I do,” Marais said. She looked him over briefly and added, “Too bad I can’t say the same for you.”
The other two laughed.
The first one pressed her. “So, what do you say?”
She gave them the pie and change. “Got a cigarette?”
“Sure,” the second one said. He reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a pack of Marlboros.
He was holding the pack out to Marais when Ellie Grand burst from the kitchen, a pie server gripped murderously in her hand.
“Out,” she cried. “Get out of my shop. All of you.”
“Hey, wait a minute-” the first one began.
Ellie Grand pushed Marais aside and leaned over the counter, the pie server only inches from the heart of the kid who held the cigarettes. “I said get out. And don’t ever let me see you in my shop again.”
They backed away, glanced at Marais, who offered them only slight sympathy with a shrug of her shoulders; and left the shop.
“They only asked if I’d like to go for a boat ride,” Marais explained casually.
“Men always start out asking small, but in the end they want everything.” Ellie Grand aimed the pie server at her daughter. “Don’t you be fooled, Marais. Don’t ever let them use you. You do the using. Understand?”
“Yes, Mama,” Marais said.
When Ellie Grand returned to the kitchen, Marais looked to Cork, laughed silently, rolled her eyes, and said, “ Giiwanaadizi, nishiime.” She’s crazy, little brother.
When Marais Grand had been a star on television, the town council had voted to put up a sign at the town limits declaring it the HOME OF MARAIS GRAND. Ten years after her death, when annexed land extended the town limits, the old sign, full of rusted holes from a. 22 target pistol, had been removed.
Cork continued his run, veering from Center Street where it became once again the state highway, and following a county road that paralleled the lake. He was a mile or so outside of town when a black Lincoln Town Car drew alongside him and the charcoal-tinted rear window slid silently down.
“O’Connor?”
The man whose face filled the frame of the car window looked to be in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. He had thick black hair, a rich man’s tan. His left ear had been pierced, and he wore what appeared to be a diamond stud. Cork had never before set eyes on him.
“Yeah?” Cork put his hands on his hips and stood at the side of the road, breathing hard.
“Mind getting in?” the tanned man said with a smile. He had very white teeth. Although they were unnaturally even, the smile they formed seemed easy and genuine. However, Cork’s mother had taught him early the danger of getting into a stranger’s car. It was a rule that had stood him in good stead for over forty years. He didn’t see a particularly compelling reason to disregard it now.
“I’m in the middle of something here,” he pointed out.
“I’d like to talk to you about Shiloh,” the man said.
That was one pretty compelling reason. Then through the window of the Lincoln, the man aimed a very large handgun right at Cork’s nose. That made two pretty compelling reasons. The door swung open and Cork got in.
The other man in the car, the one behind the wheel, appeared to be in his midthirties, blond, a neck full of more muscle than most people had in their whole bodies. Cork thought he could outrun the big man if he had to, but if the guy ever caught him, he’d take Cork apart like his bones were nothing but soda straws.
The handsome man smiled and put the gun on the seat between them.
“Sorry. This is really a friendly visit,” he said. “I just had to get your full attention. This won’t take long; then you can finish your run.”
“You said you wanted to talk about Shiloh.” Cork glanced at the gun. He could have reached for it easily enough, but he decided he wanted to hear what the man had to say.
“There are some things you need to know. For your own good.” The handsome man tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Take off, Joey. We don’t want to attract attention.”
Good luck, Cork thought. In Aurora, a Lincoln Town Car would be as inconspicuous as a nun in a G-string.
Joey drove north along the lake.
The man in back was clean-shaven and smelled of a good, subtle aftershave. He wore calfskin boots, tight jeans, a red chamois shirt under a dark green sweater.
“My name is Angel
o Benedetti. You probably already know my family’s name. You spoke with the FBI about us? Last night, I believe.”
“And if I did?”
“Then they told you a lot of lies, mostly about my father.”
“Vincent Benedetti?” Cork said. “What kind of lies do you believe they told me?”
“That my father killed Shiloh’s mother. Look, they’ve been after my father, my family, a long time. Isn’t that right, Joey?”
“Long time,” Joey said into the rearview mirror.
“They never get anything, but that doesn’t stop them,” Benedetti said. “They’re like flies. They hang around and make a nuisance of themselves.”
“If they’re only a nuisance, why are you here?”
“To help you. And to help Shiloh.”
“Yeah,” Joey said, turning his thick neck and speaking over his shoulder, “you’re in deep shit.”
“Shut up, Joey.” He lightly slapped the back of Joey’s head.
“Sure thing, Angelo.”
“The feds told you about Libbie Dobson, I’ll bet.” Benedetti waited for Cork to confirm but went on when Cork only stared at him. “I’ll bet they didn’t tell you about Dr. Sutpen. Shiloh’s psychiatrist.”
“What about her?”
In the front seat, Joey made a noise, a boy noise, the kind Cork often heard from Stevie in his play when he pretended something was exploding. Joey laughed to himself.
“She’s dead.” Benedetti allowed a dramatic moment before he went on. “Killed in a gas explosion at her Palm Springs office that burned the place down and destroyed all client records. Authorities are listing it officially as accidental.”
Joey swung the car into a turnaround and headed back in the direction from which they’d come.
“You don’t think it was an accident,” Cork said.
“Highly coincidental, don’t you think? I don’t know about you, Cork, but I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Only my friends call me Cork.”
“That’s what I’m here to tell you. In this, you won’t know who your friends are.”
“You claim the FBI lied to me. Why would they?”
“My father believes they’re protecting someone. Someone big.”
“Who?”
“He doesn’t know. He believes whoever it is, they were responsible for the murder of Shiloh’s mother. Back then, Marais Grand had a powerful friend, someone who pulled a lot of strings for her. My father never knew who it was, but he thinks Marais was killed to keep that friendship from being exposed. Now they’re trying to kill Shiloh.”
“Why?”
“Come on, Cork. The feds filled you in on that part. Shiloh’s shrink helped her remember things about the night her mother was killed.” Benedetti held up his hands in easy guilt. “It’s not hard to find these things out. Cops are civil servants and terribly underpaid.”
“Why isn’t your father here taking care of this business himself?”
“He’s not a well man. The flight here was hard on him. He’s resting. But my words are his.”
Cork looked straight into Benedetti’s eyes. They were green with flecks of gold. Women no doubt found them compelling. “Elizabeth Dobson was probably killed because someone wanted the letters she’d received from Shiloh. Some more letters from Shiloh were stolen last night.”
Benedetti didn’t flinch at all. “I’m not going to lie to you, Cork. Yeah, I know people who know how to steal. I know people who can set fires that look like accidents. I know people who kill as easily as you or I brush our teeth. But then, so does the FBI.”
Cork looked away from Benedetti, watched the placid morning surface of Iron Lake glide past. “Why should I believe you?”
Benedetti folded his hands to his lips as if he were praying. In the moment of silence inside the big Lincoln, Cork heard the snap of bubble gum from Joey up front.
“I hear you’re that rare bird, Cork-an honest man.
They say you have Integrity. If the FBI goes into those woods after Shiloh, she won’t come out alive. You’re her only hope as far as I can see. Even if you don’t believe me, what harm can it do to help her?”
“Help her how?”
“Go in and bring her out before the FBI can get to her. That’s all. No other strings attached. If you do this, my father will pay you fifty thousand dollars.”
“Fifty thousand dollars.” Cork let his surprise show. “What’s his interest?”
“If Shiloh does remember who killed her mother,” Benedetti said, “my father wants to know the name.”
“There’s one problem. I don’t know where she is,” Cork said.
Benedetti lifted his hand as if to silence Cork’s objection. “If everything I’ve heard about you is true, you will.” He reached under his sweater and drew out a card from the pocket of his shirt. “Joey, a pen.”
Joey handed a gold ballpoint over the seat. Benedetti wrote on the back of the card, then handed the card to Cork. On one side was a lithographed purple parrot in a gold cage and under it Angelo Benedetti’s name. On the other side, Benedetti had written a telephone number.
“My cell phone,” he said. “Call me when you know something.”
They’d returned to the place where Cork had entered the Lincoln. Joey stopped the car.
“Like I told you,” Benedetti said. “You make sure Shiloh comes out safely and my father will be very grateful. Joey, is my old man grateful or what?”
“His gratitude is boundless,” Joey confirmed. “You should take the money,” he advised, grinning over the seat at Cork. “Keep Angelo’s old man happy. Cuz when he ain’t, he’s one mean son of a bitch.”
Cork noticed that this time Benedetti didn’t tell Joey to shut up.
“Tell your father to keep his money. Whatever I do, I do for my own reasons.” Cork opened the car door and stepped out.
Benedetti leaned out after. “I’ve been as straight with you as I’ve ever been with any man. Help Shiloh. Please.”
The door closed. The big Lincoln pulled away.
Cork started running again, back toward Sam’s Place. He’d told Meloux things became clearer to him when he ran. But the way the situation stood now, he could run all the way to the fucking moon and everything would still be a mess.
12
At Grandview, Willie Raye opened the door to Cork’s Bronco and stepped in.
“Morning,” he said cheerfully.
“Tell me about Vincent Benedetti,” Cork said.
Raye looked startled. “Benedetti? Why do you want to know about him? ” The last word was full of poison.
Cork explained his morning meeting.
“Don’t ever trust a Benedetti,” Raye said. He stared at the trees that isolated his cabin and worked his jaw as if he were chewing on something old and bitter. “I never knew for sure if it was him who killed Marais. But if he wanted her dead, he knew how to get it done.”
“What do you know about him?”
“I haven’t seen him in years. Not since-well, not since Marais’s funeral. The bastard had the gall to be there, looking innocent as a lamb,” Raye said. “Man like that,” he added in an acid Ozark twang, “got hisself a cast-iron soul and a shithole for a heart.”
Wendell Two Knives’ mobile home sat on a patch of green lawn that rolled gently down to the reflection of blue sky that was Iron Lake. Under the windows were flower boxes that held red geraniums still in full bloom. The whole place was surrounded by birch trees, trunks white as icicles, leaves gold as freshly minted doubloons.
The note Cork had left the night before was still taped to Wendell’s door. Cork knocked, but Wendell didn’t answer. He crossed the lawn to the big corrugated shed that Wendell used as a garage and peered in at a window. He beckoned Willie Raye over.
“Wendell drives a Dodge Ram pickup,” Cork said. “Pickup’s gone. But take a gander at what’s sitting in its place.”
The floor of the shed was covered with fragments of birch bark, and the
shed itself was full of tools that Wendell used in the building of birch-bark canoes, an art he’d practiced his entire life. Mallets, wood chisels, buckets, sawhorses, brushes-all hung on racks or sat on benches. In the center was a cleared area large enough for a truck to park. Instead of Wendell’s truck, a small red sports car sat there, highlighted in a long shaft of sunlight that came through the window on the far side of the shed. A coating of dust dulled the sheen of the car’s finish.
“Shiloh loves sports cars,” Raye said.
Cork walked around to the back of the shed where there stood a canoe rack with spaces for four canoes. Only one space was filled.
“What do you think?” Raye asked.
“I think he’s gone for a while.”
“To Shiloh?”
“Let’s hope so. Come on.”
“Where to?” Raye asked as he followed Cork to the Bronco.
“To Stormy Two Knives. He’s the only other person I can think of who might know where that is.”
Two miles up the road, just beyond the far outskirts of Allouette, Cork pulled into the drive of a small log home set among white pines growing in planted rows. A sign posted beside the drive advertised firewood for sale. Next to the house, a woman stood at a clothesline, her arms lifted, holding a wet sheet. A slight northwesterly breeze had picked up and the ends of the hung linen ruffled leisurely. The woman finished pinning the corner of the sheet to the line with a clothesphi, then shielded her eyes against the sun as she watched the two men approach.
“Anin, Sarah,” Cork greeted her.
“Anin, Cork.” Her reply was polite, but not warm. She was a small woman in her early thirties with high cheeks and dark red hair that she wore long. She had on Nikes, neatly creased jeans, and a blue denim shirt. Her attention glanced off Raye, then quickly settled again on Cork.
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