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armed robbery beef. Louise, she was pretty wild when she was young. Never bothered getting a wedding ring from anyone.”
    “Tell me about Tobias.”
    “What’s Toby got to do with this?”
    “Probably nothing. But it’s the kind of question a private investigator asks.”
    “Trouble, that one. Smokes weed all day, gets drunk nights. No help to my sister at all.”
    “How old?”
    “Seventeen.”
    “Is he close to Mariah?”
    Arceneaux shook his head. “Close to what he calls his homeboys, that’s it.”
    “Is he in a gang?”
    “Nuthin organized on the rez. Just a bunch a kids with nuthin to do all day except get into trouble.” He fell silent for a few moments and stared out the café window, where the overcast sky made the lake water look charcoal. “There’s something you should know,” he finally said. “Something Mariah told me before her and Carrie took off.”
    Their food came. While they ate, Arceneaux told them a story.
    First, he said he wanted them to know that he was a modern Shinnob, so what he was going to tell them didn’t have anything to do with believing in old myths. He asked if they knew about the windigo. Cork and Jenny said they did. Arceneaux said he’d first heard about the monster when he was a kid. It was told to him like one of those scary stories kids tell each other around a campfire or on a sleepover. He never believed it. Then Mariah told him something he’d been chewing on for a long time.
    “She told me that Carrie heard a windigo call her name.”
    “How’d she hear it? I mean, what were the circumstances, do you know?”
    “Mariah and Carrie and some of her friends were doing some partying out on the lakeshore, a place called Point Detour. They’d been drinking, smoking weed. She told me it was one of those nights when the moon was full. She said it was like this big eye looking down on ’em. It was real calm, then this strange wind come up out of nowhere. Hell, that happens all the time up here, the big lake and all. But she tells me that Carrie goes real pale, and says, ‘Did you hear that?’ And Mariah says, ‘Hear what?’ And Carrie says, ‘Somebody out there on the lake. They called me.’ And Mariah says she didn’t hear nuthin. And then one of the other girls tells her, ‘Must’ve been the windigo.’ But Carrie, she’s never heard of it. So the girl tells her about the windigo and how it’s thisgiant cannibal beast that pulls the heart right out of your chest and eats it. And she says that when it’s coming for you, it calls your name. Mariah told me that Carrie freaked out, and they had to leave. I didn’t think nuthin about it until they found Carrie’s body on Windigo Island. Now I can’t think about anything else.”
    His dark eyes had been downcast the whole time he told the story. Now he looked up, glanced briefly at Cork, who kept his own face neutral, then settled his gaze on Jenny, who was clearly full of sympathy.
    “You got a job, Red?” Cork asked.
    “Yeah. Working at the restaurant at the casino. Dishwasher. Not a lot of money, but I also get some disability payment from the government. Vet, wounded in the first Iraq war. Enough between ’em so I make ends meet. And I usually got a little left over to help out Louise. Missing a leg and trying to make it on welfare, things don’t never quite stretch enough.” He squinted at Cork, and distrust was there again in his dark eyes. “You chargin’ for your services?”
    “At the moment, I’m working on what you might call spec,” Cork said. “Before I charge you, I’ll let you know. I’d like to talk to your sister.”
    “I figured. I wanted to check you out first. You understand?”
    “Sure.”
    “And you go easy on Louise. That woman’s already had more than her share of misery.”
    Jenny reached out but didn’t quite touch Arceneaux. “We’re here to help.”
    For a long time, he stared directly into her eyes, an odd thing for a Shinnob. And then he gave a nod,