"The news will come by phone. No other way-phone."

HE'D ORDERED six thousand flyers. A first printing.

This was a replica of the national endangered missing adults Web site for Cressida Catherine Mayfield.

He'd arranged for a massive mailing to households in Beechum, Herkimer, and Hamilton counties.

Volunteers affixed flyers to telephone poles, trees, public walls and the sides of buildings in Carthage and in the villages of Wolf's Head Lake, Echo Lake, and Black River. In post offices in these places and as far away as Watertown, Fort Drum, Sackets Harbor, and Ogdensburg.

And everywhere in the Nautauga State Forest Preserve-restrooms, the ranger stations, every one hundred feet along popular trails.

Walking in the Preserve, along the Sandhill Road where-(he persisted in thinking)-he might yet discover some inexplicably overlooked article of clothing or item belonging to his daughter he stared at the ENDANGERED MISSING ADULT CRESSIDA MAYFIELD flyers stapled to trees making his way from one to the next-to the next-and the next-like a man with a single leg, stumbling on a crutch.

Where a flyer appeared to be missing, or was torn, or rain-ravaged, he stapled another. In a backpack he carried an infinite supply.

"SOMEONE WILL RECOGNIZE HER. Someone will have information. We have faith."

Through July, that nightmare month, and into August, and early September-the expectation prevailed in the Mayfield household.

Waking in a place she had no idea she'd been-(slumped on a sag-bellied sofa in the basement TV room, sunshine glaring through narrow horizontal not-very-clean windows)-or when-to a sudden piercing pain at the back of her skull. A phone ringing upstairs!

Stumbling upstairs to grab at the receiver.

For always there was the expectation that the next call would be Cressida.

Or news of Cressida.

Mrs. Mayfield? Arlette? We have good news . . .

Are you Mrs. Mayfield? The mother of Cressida? At last we have good news for you and your husband . . .

"Yes. I mean no-we don't give up waiting. We will never give up waiting. We are convinced that our daughter is alive and will contact us . . ."

Or: "It's a matter of faith. We know that Cressida is-somewhere. And sometime, we will see her again."

They were being interviewed: TV cameras.

They were being photographed: flashbulbs.

They were the Mayfields, Arlette and Zeno. And sometimes, Juliet.

Family of the missing girl.

"No. We are not bitter. We understand that the detectives are 'investigating'-'collecting evidence.' They can't arrest him-anyone-until they have 'built a case.' "

And: "We know that he knows. Everyone in Carthage knows that Brett Kincaid knows what has happened to Cressida-but he's protected by the law, for the time being. Until the detectives have 'built their case.' "

Stalwart Zeno seemed oblivious, that faith in his daughter being alive after more than forty days did not compute with faith that Brett Kincaid would soon be arrested for a crime involving his daughter.

Arlette understood the illogic. Arlette sensed the pity of others in the face of the Mayfields' obdurate faith.

And there was Juliet, with her stunned smile. Beautiful Juliet Mayfield, elementary school teacher at the Convent Street School, prom queen of Carthage High Class of 2000 and ex-fiancee of Corporal Brett Kincaid believed to be the "last person" to have seen Cressida Mayfield in the early morning hours of July 10.

"I know that my sister Cressida is alive and well-somewhere. I know that Brett did not harm her but I think that Brett might know who did harm her and where she is. All my prayers are with her and with Brett also . . . I do believe in the power of prayer, yes. No, we don't see each other now-Brett Kincaid and me. Not right now. But I pray for him, too-I pray for his troubled soul."

SHE WAS FIFTY-ONE years old! A few months ago, she'd been a girl.

Something skeletal had taken root inside her, not soon to be shaken.

What she'd come to dread: opening her eyes in the morning.

For once her eyes were opened, she could not close them again until nighttime.

Once the thoughts of her lost daughter were unleashed, like a landslide, like a flash flood, they could not be curtailed. They could not be contained.

Oh God. Cressida! Tell us where you are, honey.

If we can come to you-tell us . . .

Nor could Arlette avoid acknowledging her husband lying exhausted in sleep beside her like a winded, wounded beast that groaned and muttered in its sleep; or, worse, lay awake; having been awake for hours, thoughts churning in his head like laundry in a washer.

It had long been their custom to kiss in the morning-casually aimed kisses like greetings. But now, Arlette lay very still not wanting to move in the hope that Zeno wouldn't know she'd wakened.

Yet, Zeno always knew. His brooding monologue, that had rumbled through the night inaudibly, now surfaced: "God damn I'm going out to see McManus this morning. Bastard never returned my call yesterday and I think-I've been thinking-there is something they know, they're hiding from us. Some reason they haven't arrested Kincaid yet."

Or: "I'm going over to the Meyers' this morning. I think-I've been thinking-there is something more Marcy knows, she hasn't told anyone. But maybe I can prevail upon her to tell me."

Wordless Arlette moved to kiss her husband on his mouth, that had so little to do with her, only with the continual monologue, the argument.

A kiss is a way of not-speaking. A way of cowardice.

Arlette was thinking of Cressida's pen-and-ink drawing-Metamorphoses.

White humanoid figures that evolved by degrees into abstract shapes and became "black"-then evolved back to their original shapes, and their original "whiteness"-but profoundly altered.

JULIET TOO WAS QUESTIONED by detectives.

Absent from the house for more hours than Arlette would have considered reasonable.

Arlette called Juliet on her cell phone, repeatedly-Honey? This is Mom. Just wondering how you are. When you're coming home. Give me a call, will you?

But no call. Which wasn't like Juliet.

Arlette was beginning to be afraid that Juliet, soon, would move away from home.

A feeling of terror, her only remaining daughter would leave.

And then: just Arlette and Zeno in the large house.

When she'd been so happy for Juliet previously. So happy at the prospect of Juliet marrying Brett Kincaid-What a nice, gentlemanly, handsome young man! Except he's in the army, Lettie-you're damn lucky.

The newlyweds would live in Carthage. That had seemed to be the plan. Juliet was teaching at the Convent Street School just two miles from Cumberland Avenue and Brett would be working for Elliot Fisk, if all went well. No reason to think that all would not go well. Zeno had spoken with the couple, he'd said, in the most diplomatic way, suggesting that he could help them finance a house, help with a mortgage, anytime they were interested . . .

After her interview with the detectives Juliet returned home in the early evening subdued and evasive and with an excuse that she wasn't hungry, hurried upstairs to her room and shut the door. And when Arlette knocked Juliet might have said Oh Mom please-go away but Arlette seemed not to hear. Pushing open the door, saying she just wanted to know how the interview went, what did the detectives ask her, and Juliet who was lying on her bed, fully clothed lying on her bed with her arm over her face to shield her face from her anxious-smiling mother, did not reply at first saying then that the interview had been very tiring, questions about Brett she had not wanted to answer . . . Arlette came to sit on the edge of the bed stroking her daughter's hair, which was lovely glossy honey-brown hair, unsure what to ask Juliet for Arlette knew she must not pry, even with her unfailingly sweet-natured daughter she knew she must not pry; until Juliet said, with a little sob, "The questions they asked me about Brett! I was just so-ashamed . . ."

" 'Ashamed'? Why?"

"Because-because there are things about him, of course there are 'personal' things, 'intimate' things, you don't tell about anyone you've been so close to . . . You just don't."

Arlette said in what she hoped wasn't a voice of complaint or alarm: "Your father warned us, there will be nothing 'personal' or 'private' in our lives, once there's a police investigation. They have to ask questions-all kinds of questions. About Brett, they would have wanted to know"- Arlette spoke carefully-"if he'd ever been, you know-threatening or abusive to you."

"Yes. I know."

" 'Yes'-what? He wasn't was he?"

"No. I told them no."

"Well-it's the truth, isn't it?"

"Yes."

But Juliet had hesitated so long, Arlette wondered what this reply meant.

"They asked me also about what he'd told me about being in Iraq. What kinds of things he'd done there. What might have happened to him, or to men in his platoon. And I told them, I didn't know-Brett wouldn't talk about that."

When he'd first been shipped to Iraq Brett had emailed Juliet frequently and sent her countless pictures from his cell phone, which Juliet shared with everyone in the families and with mutual friends. Then, these had dropped off. Shortly before he'd been injured and hospitalized, Brett was sending no more than an email every two or three days, ever more terse and evasive.

Zeno had said about the early emails and pictures-If the kid has other kinds of war-news, he isn't sending it to his fiancee.

Arlette had said to Ethel Kincaid, on one of several occasions when she'd tried to befriend her daughter's fiance's standoffish mother It's like holding your breath-just waiting for Brett to get back.

And Ethel Kincaid had looked at Arlette with an expression that had seemed to suggest that Arlette and her family hadn't any right to be waiting for her son-even to say such inane remarks.

Now, Ethel Kincaid was their enemy. In an interview with WCTG-TV she'd accused the Mayfields of "exaggerating" and "falsifying" things about their son-"slandering a war hero." Pressed by Evvie Estes, shameless in her zeal to stir up local excitement and controversy, she'd claimed, unforgivably, that "both Mayfield daughters" had "chased after" her son.

How Juliet felt about such terrible things being said, Arlette didn't know. She hoped that Juliet's Christian faith was helping her-in some region of the soul where not even her loving mother could follow her.

Though she knew that Juliet wanted to be alone, Arlette lingered in her bedroom. She was reluctant to break off the conversation which was the most intimate conversation she'd had with Juliet since before the engagement had been broken.

"Well, honey! You didn't have anything much to tell the detectives, did you? If Brett hadn't ever been 'threatening' or 'abusive' with you."

"Yes. That's right."

"So-you didn't tell them that. You didn't . . ."

"Nothing 'personal' or 'intimate.' I did not."

"Because-there was nothing to tell. Is that it?"

"Yes. I've told you, Mom."

Arlette looked closely at Juliet. A just perceptible edge of impatience in the daughter's voice so that the mother knew, for the moment, she had better back off.

On the day following Labor Day 2005 another massive mailing of the ENDANGERED MISSING ADULT CRESSIDA MAYFIELD Web site flyer to households in Beechum, Herkimer, Hamilton counties.

What the price was, for such desperate mailings, fourth-class bulk mail regulated by the U.S. Postal Service and distributed to thousands of anonymous "homeowner" addresses Zeno never told Arlette and Arlette never asked.

Nor did Arlette ask what proportion of such mailings yielded any measurable responses at all-telephone calls, emails.

She didn't remind Zeno of how ruthless he was, disposing of the fourth-class mail that crammed their mailbox. Such flyers, mixed with throwaway advertisements and local shopping weeklies, Zeno Mayfield would never have condescended to glance at, himself.

As if Arlette had voiced such uncertainties aloud Zeno said, defensively: "Granted, most of these are thrown away unread. But of thousands of flyers, if just one yields some crucial information-that will be worth it!"

OTHER LOCAL INCIDENTS seized headlines and breaking news bulletins in Beechum County.

Drunks in a boating accident on Echo Lake. A domestic fracas spilling out onto a South Carthage street, three adults and a ten-year-old child killed in a blast of gunfire. Adirondack Hells Angels arrested in a methamphetamine lab raid by New York State Police at Independence River and of seven individuals taken into custody, three had been sought for questioning by Beechum County sheriff's detectives in the Cressida Mayfield investigation.

"YES. IT HAS BEEN HARD. It has been . . ."

" . . . but we're hopeful, and very grateful . . ."

" . . . so many people, many of them strangers, expressing support for us-for Cressida. So many volunteers, searching the Preserve . . ."

" . . . do have faith, yes. Our daughter returning to us . . ."

"Yes it's sad-the fall term is beginning at St. Lawrence, and she isn't there . . ."

" . . . Cressida loved her classes . . ."

" . . . yes, they've promised . . . there will be a 'breakthrough' soon. They've been interviewing . . ."

" . . . interviewing many people, they've said . . ."

" . . . following 'leads' in other parts of the state . . ."

" . . . people who've 'sighted' our daughter . . ."

" . . . they mean well, but . . ."

" . . . the police have brought Brett Kincaid back twice more to interview him . . . 'Building a case' takes time and if there's a premature arrest . . ."

" . . . will undo the work of months . . ."

" . . . faith of course. We are not 'religious' but . . . we do have faith that . . ."

" . . . our daughter will be returned to us."

And there came Zeno, subtly corrective: " . . . our daughter will return to us."