Bailiffs held back the distraught Mrs. Kincaid, who wanted to rush to her son to embrace him. As the corporal himself shrank from the excited woman and could not bring himself to face her.

Exiting the courtroom stiff-walked by bailiffs gripping each of his arms above the elbow. The awkward shackle-shuffle through a doorway at the rear which no one except courthouse employees and law enforcement officers could use as Mrs. Kincaid cried after them-Murderers! Murderers of my poor soldier-son!-and then to a corridor and another door outside which a van with barred back windows was waiting to transport Brett Kincaid immediately to the Clinton Correctional Facility at Dannemora, New York, to begin his indeterminate sentence fifteen to twenty years.

AT DANNEMORA, at the Canadian border-"Little Siberia."

For much of the first year, in isolation.

For it was believed by the warden of the facility, K.O. Heike, that the corporal's crime was such, the publicity had been such, some of the inmates would have the impression that Brett Kincaid had raped and murdered a child, and his life in the general population would be at risk.

BUT WHAT RELIEF THEN, in that other world.

Now he'd crossed over. Now he was imprisoned like a beast, and surrounded by beasts. And in the eyes of the COs-the guards-there was no ambiguity, he was not the corporal but only just a young-white-Caucasian-inmate B. Kincaid with medical disabilities who'd been designated security-risk at the time of his transfer.

The terms of his incarceration were so much a part of his official identity, it was as if fifteen to twenty years had been tattooed on his forehead.

Manslaughter, voluntary. Fifteen to twenty years.

As soon as a man was incarcerated at Dannemora, he would think of how much time he must "do" before being released. How much time before he might apply for parole.

Except if his sentence was life-without-parole. Except if his sentence was death.

Often, the corporal forgot, and thought-Am I on Death Row?

For in even his lucid moments the corporal did not truly believe that he would ever be freed from the isolation unit, from a confinement of a few discolored walls, floors and ceilings, and bars, let alone from Dannemora-(of which he had but the vaguest impression having seen the astonishing long sixty-foot-high concrete wall of the color of old, soiled bones when he'd been first brought to the facility in shackles to begin his sentence as prescribed by law); he did not truly believe that time was continuing to pass like a stream bearing him along as in his younger, former life but rather, time had become a molten substance very sluggishly moving and it was against this movement, against the current and not with it, he had to struggle just to stay afloat and keep from drowning.

This effort, this exertion-most days, it required all of his strength.

Except for a shifting team of volunteer-lawyers, most of them newly graduated from upstate law schools-Albany, Cornell, Buffalo-he had few visitors.

He had few callers.

And sometimes, if a call came for B. Kincaid, he refused to speak to the caller.

His throat closed up, as if a fist had been shoved down it.

The Kincaid case as it was called had generated controversy in legal circles, in upstate New York. But this controversy did not involve the corporal who refused to give thought to what his life had become as a case.

God did not think of a man as a case. For a case is to be solved-and a man cannot be solved.

Still it was known to him, for he'd received letters on the subject from numerous parties, that in Beechum County where the search for the missing girl had prevailed for months there remained outrage in some quarters that Brett Kincaid's sentence was so "light" and that he would be eligible for parole in so few years; and there remained outrage in other quarters, that Brett Kincaid had been incarcerated at all, and in the notorious maximum-security prison at Dannemora, for the prevailing belief in these quarters was that the wounded Iraq War veteran was not the man responsible for the disappearance of Cressida Mayfield; or, if he was the man, he hadn't been legally responsible for his actions and if he'd been institutionalized at all, he should have been sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

Defense funds had been established, to "bring justice" to Brett Kincaid. Who these individuals were, calling for funds on the Internet, what connection they had with one another or with Corporal Kincaid or any of the volunteer-lawyers officially attached to his case the corporal had no idea. Father Kranach was concerned, none of these strangers was accountable for money sent to them in Brett Kincaid's name but Brett Kincaid himself seemed scarcely to care.

Saying to the priest, "Anywhere I am is Death Row. And where I am, I belong."

ILLUMINATION ROUNDS-WHITE PHOSPHORUS-STREAMING onto the enemy.

Deafening roar of attack helicopters, he woke cringing and whimpering in his sleep and the interior of his mouth and lungs coated with sand.

Both his legs were gone. Yet, the pain remained.

His hands, his arms to the elbow. Blown off, and the stark white bone shining through the blood bright as ridiculous false blood of a child's TV horror film.

Screaming he'd heard his name, one of his friends screaming his name he was hearing this now but could not see where.

Fuck they deserved some fucking fun, the guys said. If you survived and had not been blown up or shrapnel in your guts or heads you deserved some fucking fun shooting at civilians like rats freaking in terror, cutting off a finger, an ear, a teeny dick, nipples-making a pouch of civilian-Iraq faces sewn together like to keep snuff in, or meds.

See it's like some warrior-custom, Muksie was saying. Pouches made of enemy-faces and actual scalps to wear on your head but prob'ly you'd had to cure the damn things-like "taxidermy"-so they wouldn't rot and stink on your head.

THOSE WHO TELEPHONED Brett Kincaid in Clinton Correctional Facility were few. And all were female, from Carthage.

Of these the most persistent was Brett's mother Ethel Kincaid. For Ethel in her shrewdness had found a way to make calls to her incarcerated son at taxpayers' expense through a county family-services "emergency" fund.

As Ethel in her shrewdness and something very like a subversive sense of humor had found a way to keep alive her son's case in the Carthage press and TV news by announcing "fresh clues"-"new witnesses"-"exculpatory evidence"-at regular intervals, calling such local-media figures as Evvie Estes of WCTG-TV and Hal Roche of the Carthage Post-Journal and when they failed to respond to her phone messages approaching them on the street, stalking them to their very homes secure in the knowledge that probably, certainly, no one in Carthage would dare to summon the police to arrest her, Ethel Kincaid the grieving mother of the wrongly persecuted, wrongly convicted and incarcerated Iraq War hero Corporal Brett Kincaid.

Since the late summer of 2005 virtually every lawyer in Beechum County including those long retired and elderly had been contacted by Mrs. Kincaid to aid in the campaign to free her son and had learned to avoid the grieving mother.

Even individuals convinced that Corporal Kincaid was unjustly convicted and willing to contribute money to his "defense fund" had learned to avoid the grieving mother.

It had happened more than once that Ethel Kincaid had approached Cressida Mayfield's parents in public places, individually-Arlette she'd approached on the front walk of the battered women's shelter in the suburban village of Mount Olive at which Arlette had become a frequent volunteer following her daughter's disappearance, with a demand that Arlette "make full disclosure" of the whereabouts of her daughter; Zeno she'd approached in a Carthage restaurant in which Zeno was seated with friends, denouncing him as a "class-warfare enemy" whose daughter had "run off" and was alive somewhere in an "illegal conspiracy" to keep her innocent son in prison.

At a performance of Euripides' Medea staged at Carthage Community College in the spring of 2008 the startled audience had at first thought it was a continuation of the play, performed in "modern dress," when, after the lights came up, a middle-aged woman with a ravaged-girl's face leapt into the aisle to declaim in a loud voice that here she was a "true loving mother"-"not a crazy monster-mother like Medea"-but did anybody "give a damn about" her?

Only after some minutes did it become clear, to a portion of the audience at least, that the thin, excitable woman with eyes like the glittering steel balls of a pinball machine was in fact Ethel Kincaid the mother of Corporal Brett Kincaid who'd confessed to the murder of Cressida Mayfield in the fall of 2005.

The shrewdest maneuver Ethel Kincaid had yet attempted was to sue for public funds as a victim of 9/11.

Too God damn bad she hadn't thought of this until nine years after 9/11-four years after Brett was incarcerated-so it was hard to get people to take her lawsuit seriously arguing that she, Ethel Kincaid, was a victim of the terrorist attack if indirectly, as her only son Brett had been sent to Iraq to fight El Kwada-that is, the Muslim terrorists-and in that terrible place he'd been wounded in combat and sent home "disabled" and "defective" and as a result of this was "incarcerated" in a maximum-security prison in a Godforsaken corner of the state, hundreds of miles away virtually in Canada. None of this was her fault as the damaged lives of family members of individuals killed in the World Trade Center or in the hijacked airplanes were not their fault but the result of the terrorist attack from which the U.S. government had not protected its citizens. Ethel had written to the President in the White House as to other, more local politicians and not one of them had responded; and now she was picketing Beechum County family services believing that she deserved an upgrade on her payments and should not have to prove "paupership" but be allowed to own a car, at least.

In her state of nerves since July 2005, Ethel had retired from clerical work. She had not yet sought out employment, knowing there was a bias in Carthage against her.

She did collect unemployment. But that was a laugh, living at the "paupership line."

Far away in Dannemora, New York, Brett knew of these remarkable episodes in his mother's life through Ethel's boasting of them over the phone.

Steeling himself to listen. And sometimes, as her voice rang in his ears like struck glass, he did not listen.

"Never guess what your crazy old mother was doing just this week!"-so Ethel would exclaim as soon as Brett came on the line.

Saying, when Brett failed to respond as a normal son would respond, "Somebody has got to keep your case alive, God damn it! And that somebody has got to be your mother since nobody else gives a shit."

Ethel yearned to visit Brett at the prison but couldn't make the long trip by bus, her health had been ruined since that terrible summer of 2005-a bus trip would kill her. There was an offer from a cable-channel talk show to tell her son's side of the story if Mrs. Kincaid would allow the TV crew to drive her by "limousine" to Dannemora and accompany her to the prison gate and afterward be interviewed by the host frankly and candidly on the subject of visiting her only son in prison and such invitations Ethel considered seriously-wistfully-but Brett flatly refused.

"The world needs to be educated to your side of the story, Brett. So you will be granted a new trial or your sentence commuted by the governor."

And when Brett still failed to respond, saying in a wounded voice, "All the world believes you are guilty, Brett. Your enemies never gave you a chance and some you'd thought were your friends turned out to be your enemies and you have to do something about it."

The corporal seemed to be summoning himself from a long distance but then could manage only a shrug of a murmur his mother could barely hear: "Why?"

AND ANOTHER CALLER from Carthage was Arlette Mayfield.

Juliet's mother! Mrs. Mayfield! The corporal could not bear to hear the woman's voice and refused to come to the phone.

Out of cowardice, shame. Could not come to the phone.

And so, Arlette wrote to Brett Kincaid in the Clinton Correctional Facility, Dannemora, New York. He'd had to steel himself to open the handwritten letter for his instinct was to quickly dispose of it.

Dear Brett, I am sorry you will not speak with me. But I will try again-of course.

I would like so much to hear your voice, Brett. I would like to see your face. I think of you so often-I pray for you. I think the bond between us is very deep though you and my daughter Juliet were not married yet it had seemed at times-(forgive me, this is strange to say, I know)-that you were my son-in-law. And of the Mayfield family.

There is so much between us, Brett, we must speak of before it is too late.

We were in the courtroom at the sentencing and it was then I felt so strongly, that you were of my family. Though I could not acknowledge it at that time. My heart was broken, I think-the loss of Cressida, that was also a loss of you.

I would not ask you about Cressida, Brett. So many others have asked you Why? Why do such a thing but I would not ask you. If I came to visit there I would only just request to sit with you for a while in quietness and we would discover what God wishes from us. (I know it is forgiveness on my side but there may be more than this.) No one knows that I am writing to you, Brett. Not my dear Juliet nor my husband Zeno who would not understand for these years have been hard on him, without faith in God to guide him. My husband is a public man as they say-he is not so easy in his own soul.

And even Juliet, who is a Christian, as you know, has not had an easy time, so I would not tell Juliet, at least not at this time.

You are in my prayers, Brett. There is so much more that must pass between us!

In Jesus's name Arlette Mayfield This letter was dated July 9, 2008. The third anniversary of that night.

Several times Mrs. Mayfield wrote to Brett and each time he did not reply but kept the letter neatly folded in the Bible Father Kranach had given him; then, for what reason he could not have said, impulsively he did reply to Mrs. Mayfield's letter of November 11, 2008, writing on lined notebook paper with a stub of a pencil Dear Mrs Mayfeld thak you. I have read your letters many times & but I don't think it is a good idea right now. Sincerly, Brett Kincaid.

SCREAMING. LIKE SOME sort animal torn apart by hyenas.

Screaming screaming! But worse, when the screaming ceased.

AT THE START of his incarceration it had been his thought-(it was both a hope and a fear)-that-maybe-Juliet might call him, or write to him. For it was astonishing, that so many individuals kept in phone contact with prisoners in the facility, presumably women who were wives, mothers, girlfriends, sisters; no inmate so unattractive, so truculent or debased, so much a loser, there wasn't at least one female willing to remain attached to him in some mysterious way.

It was true, the corporal had received letters from women in Carthage and elsewhere, a number of these from young women who'd known him as long ago as high school, even middle school-but he hadn't answered any of these letters nor even in most cases finished reading them. And more often now, a letter with a return address not known to him was quickly disposed of for he had no wish to enter into the fantastical musings of another regarding himself.

For the female entranced by the prisoner, particularly a prisoner who has been convicted of killing another female, filled the corporal with disgust.

You don't know me Brett Kincaid. But I believe that I know you.

Hello! In a dream you bade me write to you Brett Kincaid. And so- Such letters on pastel-colored stationery exuded a sickish fragrance. You were meant to luridly imagine, the writer had pressed these pages against her breasts powdered in talcum.

But Juliet Mayfield had not written. And in truth, Brett had not expected her to write to him.

What he'd done! Not only Cressida but Juliet had been destroyed, he saw that now.

Yet still, in a weak moment he fantasized that Juliet might wish to contact him. If only to state that she would not ever see him again, and had not forgiven him.

They'd been so very close at one time.

He had loved her so much. So deeply.

Strange to think of it now, as one whose limbs have become gangrenous might strain to recall a time of health, what it could have been like-then.

He'd sent her away, finally. Fearful of hurting her. It had been the wisest decision.

In confused dreams she did come to him. Though it wasn't always evident if the female figure was Juliet Mayfield.

Her features blurred as in a film that has begun to disintegrate.

Her terrible screams. Such screams, the girl could not have drawn breath between them.

Before he'd left for Iraq for the second tour, he'd had a premonition.

The first tour, blindly he had not-he'd believed that he was a U.S. soldier on a mission of justice. He'd believed that God would protect him-everyone in his platoon had believed this, without question.

But the second time he'd known. He'd given to Juliet the sealed envelope Only open this if you never see me again.

Juliet had stared at him frightened. For she too had taken for granted that he would return exactly as he'd left her; whether by the grace of the Christian God or by the U.S. forces' superior firepower, American soldiers were protected.

He'd been in a state of extreme emotion when he'd written that letter. Yet now, a few years later, he could not recall what he'd written.

He supposed that Juliet might have opened and read it. And, after he'd confessed to killing her sister, thrown it away.

Couldn't remember a single email of the many-hundreds?-he'd sent to Juliet and to others from Iraq. Pictures he'd sent. A dizzying succession of emails and each so immediate, so urgent and breathless typed hurriedly in those brief minutes of relative privacy snatched from the buzzing oblivion of the soldier's life.

They'd been proud of him. For a while, damned proud.

He'd wanted to think that his father Sergeant Graham Kincaid had been proud, too.

No matter the elder Kincaid had said of the Gulf War it was a shit-hole and everything to do with the war, the U.S. military, and "patriotism" was for asshole-suckers.

He'd taken a dim view too of folks back home-asking their damn questions like they had a right.

Still, Brett had to think his dad would be proud of him-if just his father knew.

Before the injuries, that is. Just Corporal Brett Kincaid in his dress uniform standing so straight and tall and looking so good, you had to smile.

Makes you feel good to be proud of the young corporal who'd been a good sweet decent kid, a great athlete at the high school, before 9/11 and the U.S. Army.

Purple Heart-that was the medal everybody knew.

Iraq War Campaign medal which was just a shitty medal everybody got who was sent to Iraq and didn't seriously fuck up like get killed or jailed by the military police.

The Infantry Combat Badge was a good one. Bravery under fire, soldierly courage and skill. Not bad for the corporal with half his brain shot to shit.

Highest medals were the Silver Star and the Medal of Honor he had not been awarded of course nor had anyone he knew, or would ever know. He'd explained this but somehow writing the "human interest" feature about Corporal Brett Kincaid focusing on his "return home" and his "rehab" and "upcoming marriage"-(at the time, he and Juliet Mayfield had been engaged)-the giddy female journalist had included in the last line of her piece for the Carthage paper something called Gold Medal for Valor.

Juliet had tried to placate him. He'd been disgusted, furious.

Like it's all a joke, fucking joke he'd said furious and Juliet had stared at him as if she'd never seen him before and he'd said like tossing a match into something already smoldering, Fucking cunt make a joke of me she'd better stay out of my way.