Cherry
Alaska, 2024
“Nup,”
said the guy behind the deli counter.
He had a hairnet on his shoulder-length hair and a smaller net corralling a chest-length beard.
In his white coat, he looked only slightly less substantial than the mountains had spent most of her drive staring at.
He’d barely even glanced at her flyer before shaking his head.
“Never seen her.”
“Do you know who she is?”
figured her best bet was to start where she knew for sure Cassie had been, and so she’d gone directly from the airport to the Safeway in Homer, without even checking into her hotel.
“Nup.”
The man’s mouth was mostly obscured by the tangle of facial hair.
“Is there a manager I could speak to? Or someone else? Maybe people who work different shifts?”
Someone who doesn’t talk like they’re being charged by the syllable?
The mountainous man shrugged without offering any more information.
bit back a sigh and turned off her phone’s camera.
No point in getting this man to sign a release either.
Nobody would ever want this footage.
Deep breath, she told herself.
Start again.
“Is there a manager in the store?”
“Nup.”
“When will a manager be here?”
“Try tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
walked up and down each aisle, just in case, then plodded, shivering, back to her car.
The cold seeping up from the pavement went right through the soles of her sneakers, and she could already tell that the jacket she’d bought was not going to keep her warm.
It was just after six o’clock.
She was hungry and tired, after hours of driving with her hands tight on the wheel, eyes darting left and right.
The signs along the road had warned about moose in the vicinity; she knew there were bears too.
And maybe she’d see Aunt Cassie, out for a late-night stroll.
Wouldn’t that be lucky?
Her hotel, the Land’s End Resort, was on the Homer Spit, a skinny stretch of land that reached out into the water, with a two-lane road running its length.
pegged it as the touristy part of town as she cruised past the tee shirt shops, the outfitters advertising fishing trips and guided hikes and bear- and whale-watching excursions.
There were restaurants offering fresh salmon and fried halibut, along with ice cream and burritos.
A chilly wind ruffled the water behind them, the gleaming expanse of white and gray that knew from her time with the maps had to be Kachemak Bay.
She followed the road, driving slowly, eyeing the people and the shops, thinking that this was the last place she’d ever find Cassie.
In the lobby of the Land’s End Resort, gave the clerk her name, a flyer, and a hopeful smile.
“Have you seen this woman anywhere?”
“No,”
said the girl, whose name tag read “Aline.”
“But I love Evermore, and I’m a huge Griffin Sisters fan.”
Aline was about Cassie’s age, with pale skin, a mass of light-brown curls pulled up in a messy bun, and a ring through her lower lip.
Aline looked at the flyer, then leaned over the counter.
“Do you really think Cassie Griffin’s here? In Homer?”
“I don’t know.
There was a video that’s been going around, and it looked like she was in the Safeway in town.”
took out her phone and showed her the video she’d saved on it.
Aline looked impressed.
“Wow.
Yeah, that definitely looks like our Safeway.”
She toyed with her lip ring.
“Although I guess every Safeway kind of looks the same.”
Not helping, thought.
“If you were trying to find her, what would you do? Where would you start?”
Aline looked thoughtful.
“That’s the problem.
You know what they say about Alaska, if you’re a single gal? ‘The odds are good, but the goods are odd.’”
“Ha,”
said.
“They say there are people who come here because they got lost, and people who come here to get lost,”
Aline continued.
“And most of them aren’t interested in being found.”
She smiled kindly.
“I guess I’d start by putting some of those flyers up along the spit.
Can’t hurt, right?”
“Can’t hurt.”
towed her suitcase to her room and set it on the bed, not bothering to unpack or even unzip her coat.
She used the bathroom, washed her face, took a stack of flyers, and went back outside.
She bought a bowl of chowder at Captain Pattie’s Fish Fry and then, for the next two hours, stopped into restaurants and campgrounds, outfitters and clothing stores, handing out her flyers, showing them to hostesses and clerks and ice-cream scoopers, asking if she could stick them on their bulletin boards, if they had them, asking the same question. Seen her?
Nobody had.
At six o’clock the next morning, yawning and bleary-eyed, went back into Safeway.
This time, there was a tiny, white-haired woman behind the deli counter.
“Help you?”
she asked.
made herself smile as she extended the flyer.
“Hi.
My name is Rohrbach.
I saw a video of this woman singing here.
I’m trying to find her.”
“Oh. Her.”
The woman’s name tag read “Marcia.”
As she looked at the flyer, her face did something complicated—eyebrows up, lips pressed in a tight line.
Regret? Embarrassment? The remembered thrill of a celebrity close encounter?
“Do you know her?”
asked.
The woman nodded.
“She does her shopping here.”
’s heartbeat quickened.
“Do you know where she lives?”
Marcia shook her head.
“I haven’t seen her in a while.
I don’t even know her last name.”
“It’s Griffin.
Cassie Griffin.
Does she come here a lot?”
“She—well.”
The woman dropped her voice.
“She used to be in here every few weeks or so.
But I haven’t seen her since . . .”
“She sang here, didn’t she? ‘Silent Night’?”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it.”
Marcia stood on her tiptoes to lean across the counter.
“I got a scary letter from a law firm after I posted a video on my Facebook page.”
’s heart was beating so hard, she could feel her rib cage throb, as Marcia looked down at the flyer again.
“She was in a band? Well, that makes sense.
I have never heard anything like her singing in my life.
It was . . .”
Her voice trailed off.
nodded.
“She’s my aunt,”
she said, surprising herself.
She hadn’t meant to lead with that—had intended to talk about The Next Stage, and the mentorship, and her own ambitions—but, somehow, that was what had fallen out of her mouth.
“Lucky you,”
said Marcia.
“Lucky me,”
agreed.
Feeling desperate for even the tiniest crumb of information, she asked, “What does she buy when she’s in here?”
Marcia shrugged.
“Just regular things.
Food.
Dog food.
Cleaning supplies.
Lots of cleaning supplies.
Bottles of shampoo, bars of soap . . .”
A glimmer of an idea was beginning to form.
After the auditions in Los Angeles, had to wait almost a month before learning whether she’d made it to the next round.
Instead of going home, she’d found a room for rent in West Hollywood and had gotten a job cleaning at a fancy hotel in Beverly Hills.
She remembered pushing a cart full of towels and tiny bars of soap and miniature bottles of lotion.
A single person wouldn’t need to replenish those supplies regularly, but someone who owned a cleaning service or was in charge of stocking hotel rooms or rental properties would.
“Thank you,”
said, then pointed toward the bulletin board near the entrance.
“Is it okay if I put a flyer up?”
“That’s fine,”
Marcia said.
Her expression was sympathetic.
Don’t get your hopes up, it said.
Back in her hotel room, called her friend Tova.
Tova was her bandmate Darren’s older sister.
She was a bartender, in her second year of law school at Temple, and a true-crime podcast addict.
She knew things.
If she couldn’t give an answer, she’d at least know who to ask.
“Start with town hall,”
said Tova.
“Or city government offices.
Property transactions are public record.
If she bought a house, or a piece of land, there will be records.”
“Okay,”
said, taking notes.
The phone was on speaker mode, lying on her bed.
“So I just go to city hall and ask—”
“There’s probably a form you’ve got to fill out,”
Tova said.
“Okay.
So I fill out a form and say, ‘I’m looking for the records of any property purchased by Cassie Griffin in’ . . .”
thought for a minute.
The band had broken up in 2003.
But would Cassie have gone immediately to Alaska? wasn’t sure, but she thought there might have been intermediate stops, before Cassie had washed up here, at the end of the earth.
“How long of a time period will they let me search? And are they going to be able to give me an answer right away?”
“Depends.
Everything should be online, but how long it takes is going to depend on whether you get a friendly clerk who isn’t too busy, or whether you’ve got someone who’s underpaid and miserable and trying to take out their misery on everyone else.”
From her friend’s tone, guessed that the second scenario was much more likely than the first. “Also,”
Tova continued, “Cassie might have set up a trust to buy property.”
“A trust?”
“Like, an institution, with a different name than an individual.
Lots of rich people do that, to obscure where they’re living or how much they paid.”
“So then what do I do if she’s got a trust?”
“Hope you get lucky,”
Tova said.
“Hope that she didn’t just call it Anonymous Trust.
That maybe it’s, like, the Griffin Sisters Trust.”
frowned.
If Cass was determined to stay hidden, it wasn’t likely she’d choose so obvious a name.
“Try to narrow it down to the time frame you think she might have ended up in Alaska,”
Tova said.
Which could have been anywhere from two months ago, when the video had been filmed, to twenty years ago, thought, as her heart sank even further.
But Tova was encouraging.
“You’ve got some idea of where she might have bought, and some idea of when,”
she said.
“That’s at least a start.”
And then what? thought, as she trudged back to her car.
Assuming I manage to figure out where she is, assuming I can find her, what if she won’t talk to me? Or if she doesn’t want to help?
I have to try, she told herself.
She started the car and let her phone’s map guide her to the office of the city clerk on East Pioneer Avenue.
That was where she got her next piece of luck.
“So you don’t know when the property was purchased.”
The clerk, who’d introduced herself as Fran, was a middle-aged white lady, with a middle-aged white-lady haircut (a chin-length bob) and a swipe of middle-aged white-lady lipstick (coral pink) on her lips.
had not been immediately encouraged by the sight of her, but Fran had agreed to being filmed, looking flattered instead of freaked out when had asked.
decided not to say I don’t even know if there is a property.
Instead, she said, “My best guess is 2004 or 2005.”
That meant Cassie would have come to Alaska relatively soon, but not immediately after the band’s dissolution, the scenario that had decided made the most sense.
Alaska felt like a last resort, not a first stop, and Cassie had grown up as a city girl.
She would have tried other places before coming here, to the ends of the earth, to hide in the cold and the dark.
Fran clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and slid a piece of paper across her desk.
“Fill this out.”
looked down at the form, her eyes drawn immediately to the line that read the City Clerk’s office shall respond within ten (10) working days. Shit.
“Listen,”
she said, speaking rapidly.
“Here’s the deal.
I’m in Alaska for five more days.
I’m on a reality show?”
Fran raised her plucked eyebrows.
“Is it one of those dating shows? They filmed one of those here once, you know.”
Fran’s face softened as she smiled a little.
“Looking for Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska.
You probably didn’t see it.”
shook her head.
“My show is a talent competition.
The Next Stage?”
“Oh, I know that one.”
Fran looked over, with a fresh level of scrutiny.
“Are you any good?”
“I am,”
said .
No point in being coy.
“And here’s the thing.
I made it to the final round, and I have to find Cassie Griffin and ask her to be my mentor.
She was in this band . . .”
“The Griffin Sisters!”
As she spoke the band’s name, Fran’s entire demeanor changed.
Her voice got higher, her eyes went wide, and her lips curved into a wide and entirely genuine smile.
“Oh God, I loved their music so much.
I saw them in concert, at the Nectar Lounge in Seattle!”
Lost in reverie, Fran looked younger, and happy.
“So that’s who you’re looking for? Does Cassie Griffin live here?”
“Here, or nearby.”
took her phone out of her pocket.
She pulled up the video and showed it to Fran, who said, immediately, “Yep.
That’s her.
Nobody else in the world sounds like that.”
“I know, right!”
held the older woman’s gaze.
“I want her to be my mentor.
I want her to sing again.”
Fran appeared to be thinking, before she nodded.
“Let me take a look.”
It turned out that an entity called CSG Trust had purchased a fifty-acre parcel of land in 2004.
did not know Cassie’s middle name, but the C and the G both worked.
So did the timing.
“It’s zoned residential,”
Fran said.
“So she could have built a house, or rental cabins.”
considered asking Fran to make a copy of the document, decided not to push her luck, and instead took a photo with her phone.
“How do I get there?”
Fran pulled out a map and a Sharpie.
“Follow Pioneer Avenue to Sterling Highway, like you’re heading out of town.
You’re going to pass a weed shop, then a mead shop and a used bookstore, and then, um, another weed shop, and right after you see a sign for the Diamond Ridge Road, turn here.”
Fran tapped with her pen.
“Follow it west for five or six miles.
That should bring you to the property line.”
She gave a level look.
“One more thing.
You should know that a lot of people in Alaska have guns.
For hunting and home protection.
One of my neighbors shot a bear in his backyard last year.”
must have looked horrified.
Fran shrugged.
“The bear was trying to eat his dog.
He had every right.”
Jesus, thought .
“I’ll be careful.
I promise.”
“Good luck.”
thanked Fran profusely.
She hurried out of the building, then remembered to go back and set her phone on a ledge so she could film herself hurrying out of the building, with a smile on her face and a map clutched triumphantly in her hand.
She trotted to her car and peeled out of the parking lot, murmuring, “Pioneer Avenue to Sterling Highway,”
imagining what she’d do if she actually saw Cassie Griffin, her musical idol, her aunt, her mother’s sister, in person.
Would she scream? Faint? Have a heart attack and die right on the spot, in the snow?
Keep it together, she told herself as she drove.
The highway became a two-lane road, which turned into a gravel road that devolved into a rutted dirt path that went more and more deeply into the forest.
inched along, sending strength to the car’s suspension, easing between the encroaching bushes and branches, over the ruts, until she saw a wooden arrow that bore the painted words “Cozy Cabins.”
“Thank God,”
whispered, and drove on.
The road smoothed out—it was still unpaved, but it was wider and flatter, and someone had cut back the brush and filled in the worst of the ruts with gravel.
She inched forward until she saw another arrow-shaped sign with the number “1”
on it pointing left, to a fork in the road.
A second, matching sign that read “2”
pointed to the right.
The road kept going, and kept driving, gripping the wheel tightly, following the path, which ended, as she’d hoped it would, in front of a tiny house, barely bigger than a prefab garden shed, raised up on stilts so that its windows looked out over the tree line.
A flight of wooden stairs led to its front door.
Parked underneath it was a smallish black SUV with an Alaska license plate.
There were two narrow windows along the long side of the house, and one beside the door.
All three had their curtains drawn.
Still, had an uneasy sensation of being watched.
Okay.
Here we go.
executed a clumsy K-turn, so that the car’s nose was facing the road, thinking that the noise of the engine would alert whoever was inside the house to her presence.
Thinking, too, that if she needed to make a quick getaway, having the rental car heading in the right direction would help.
got out of the car, closed the door, and briefly considered her reflection in the car’s windows: jeans more or less clean, hair in reasonable order.
She walked up the stairs.
When she’d reached the top, she opened her phone’s camera app and set the phone on the railing behind her, angling it to catch the action.
She hit record, and started knocking.
She rapped at the door a solid thirty seconds.
No one answered.
“Hello?”
called, and started knocking again.
When she stopped, she heard a dog’s high-pitched yip.
She’d raised her fist to resume her banging when the door swung open.
A woman stood in the house’s dim interior.
She wore a bulky black parka with the hood pulled up, concealing her face.
A little dog was at her side.
There was a rifle in her hands, its stock pressed against her shoulder, its barrel pointing right at ’s face.