Carthage. Joyce Carol Oates

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СКАЧАТЬ he knows.”

      A chill passed into Zeno, hearing these words.

      He knew, Hal Pitney had told him all he’d tell him right now.

      Driving east of Carthage into the hilly countryside, into the foothills of the Adirondacks and into the Nautauga Preserve to join the search team that morning, Zeno had made a succession of calls on his cell phone trying to learn if there were “developments” in the interview with Brett Kincaid. Like a compulsive cell phone user who checks for new calls in his in-box every few minutes Zeno could not shut off the flat little phone, still less could he slide it into his shirt pocket and forget it. Several times he tried to speak with Bud McManus. For Zeno knew Bud, to a degree, enough, he’d thought, to merit special consideration. (In the scrimmage of Carthage politics, he’d done McManus a favor, at least once: hadn’t he? If not, Zeno regretted it now.) Instead, he wound up speaking with another deputy named Gerry Eisner who told him (confidentially) that the interview with Brett Kincaid wasn’t going well, so far—Kincaid claimed not to remember what had happened the night before, though he seemed to know that someone whom he alternately called “Cress’da” and “the girl” had been in his Jeep; at one point he seemed to be saying that “the girl” had left him and gotten into a vehicle with someone else whom he didn’t know—but he wasn’t sure of any of this, he’d been pretty much “wasted.”

      Wasted. High school usage, guys boasting to one another of how sick-drunk they’d gotten on beer. Zeno trembled with indignation.

      During the interview, Kincaid had seemed dazed, uncertain of his surroundings. He’d smelled strongly of vomit even after he’d been allowed to wash up. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin-grafted face made him look like “something freaky” in a horror movie, Eisner said.

      You’d never guess, Eisner said, he’s only twenty-six years old.

      You’d never guess he’d been a good-looking kid not so long ago.

      “Jesus! A ‘war hero.’ ”

      In Eisner’s voice Zeno detected a tone of wonderment, part-commiseration and part-revulsion.

      It was pure chance that Corporal Kincaid had been apprehended that morning at approximately the time the Mayfields were making frantic calls about their missing daughter: taken into custody by a sheriff’s deputy at about 8 A.M. when he was found semiconscious, vomit- and blood-stained sprawled in the front seat of his Jeep Wrangler on Sandhill Road; the front, right wheel of the Jeep had gone off the unpaved road, that was elevated by about two feet above a marshy area. Early-morning hikers in the Preserve had called 911 on their cell phone to report the seemingly incapacitated vehicle with an “unresponding” man sprawled in the front seat and both front doors open.

      When the deputy shook Kincaid awake, identifying himself as a law enforcement officer, Kincaid shoved and struck at him, shouting incoherently, as if he was frightened, and had no idea where he was—the deputy had had to overpower him, cuff him and call for backup.

      Still, Kincaid hadn’t been arrested. Just brought to the Sheriff’s Department headquarters on Axel Road.

      Zeno knew, Brett Kincaid wasn’t supposed to be drinking while taking medication. According to Juliet he was taking a half-dozen prescription pills daily.

      Zeno knew, Brett Kincaid was “much changed” since he’d returned from Iraq. It was not a new or an uncommon situation—it should not have been, given media attention to similar disturbed, returning veterans, a surprising situation—but to those who knew Kincaid, to those who presumed to love him, it was new, it was uncommon, and it was disturbing.

      Eisner said it did seem that Kincaid was maybe “brain damaged” in some way. For sure, Kincaid remembered something that had happened—he remembered a “girl”—but wasn’t sure what he remembered.

      “You see that sometimes,” Eisner said. “In some instances.”

      Zeno asked, what instances?

      Eisner said, guardedly, “When they can’t remember.”

      Zeno asked, can’t remember what?

      Eisner was silent. In the background were men’s voices, incongruous laughter.

      Zeno thought He thinks that Kincaid hurt her. Hurt her, blacked out and now doesn’t remember.

      The father’s coolly-cruel legal mind considered: Insanity defense. Whatever he has done. Not guilty.

      It was the first thought any defense lawyer would think. It was the most cynical yet the most profound thought in such a situation.

      Yet, the father nudged himself: He was sure, his daughter had not really been hurt.

      He felt a flood of guilt, chagrin: Of course, his daughter had not been hurt.

      Sandhill Road was an unimproved dirt road that wound through the southern wedge of the Nautauga Preserve, following for much of its length the snaky curves of the Nautauga River. There were a few hiking trails here but along the river underbrush was dense, you would think impenetrable; yet there were faint paths leading down an incline to the river, that had to be at least ten feet deep at this point, fast-moving, with rippling frothy rapids amid large boulders. If a body were pushed into the river the body might be caught immediately in boulders and underbrush; or the body might be propelled rapidly downriver, leaving no trace.

      It was perhaps a ten-minute drive from the Roebuck Inn at Wolf’s Head Lake to the entrance of the Nautauga Preserve and another ten-minute drive to Sandhill Point. Anyone who lived in the area—a boy like Brett Kincaid, for instance—would know the roads and trails in the southern part of the Preserve. He would know Sandhill Point, a long narrow peninsula jutting into the river, no more than three feet across at its widest point.

      Outside the Preserve, Sandhill Road was quasi-paved and intersected with Bear Valley Road that connected, several miles to the west, with Wolf’s Head Lake and with the Roebuck Inn & Marina on the lake.

      Sandhill Point was approximately eleven miles from 822 Cumberland Avenue which was the address of the Mayfields’ home.

      Not too far, really—not too far for the daughter to make her way on foot if necessary.

      If for instance—(the father’s mind flew forward like wings beating frantically against the wind)—she’d been made to feel ashamed, her clothes torn and dirty. If she had not wanted to be seen.

      For Cressida was very self-conscious. Stricken with shyness at unpredictable times.

      And—always losing her cell phone! Unlike Juliet who treasured her cell phone and would go nowhere without it.

      Zeno was still on the phone with Eisner who was complaining about the local TV station issuing “breaking news” bulletins every half hour, putting pressure on the sheriff’s office to take time for interviews, come up with quotable quotes—“The usual bullshit. You think they’d be ashamed.”

      Zeno said, “Yes. Right,” not sure what he was agreeing with; he had to ask, another time, if he could speak with Brett Kincaid who’d practically been his son-in-law, the fiancé of his daughter, please for just a minute when there was a break in the interview—“Just a minute, that’s all I would need”—and Eisner said, an edge of irritation in his voice, “Sorry, Zeno. I don’t think so.” For reasons that Zeno could appreciate, СКАЧАТЬ