"Maybe it's a game they're playing. Cressida and Brett."

"A game?"

" . . . to make Juliet jealous. To make Juliet regret she broke the engagement."

"Canton. What on earth are you saying?"

They looked at each other in dismay. Madness swirled in the air between them palpable as the electricity before a storm.

"Jesus. No. Of course she hasn't 'returned' to Canton-she was deeply unhappy in Canton. She doesn't have a residence in Canton. That's insane." Zeno wiped his face with the damp cloth Arlette had brought him earlier, that he'd flung aside onto the bed.

Arlette said: "And she and Brett wouldn't be 'playing a game' together-that's ridiculous. They scarcely know each other. And I don't think that Juliet was the one to break the engagement."

Zeno stared at his wife. "You think it was Brett? He broke the engagement?"

"If Juliet broke it, it wasn't her choice. Not Juliet."

"Lettie, did she tell you this?"

"She hasn't told me anything."

"That son of a bitch! He broke the engagement-you think?"

"He may have felt that Juliet wanted to end it. He may have felt-it was the right thing to do."

Arlette meant: the right thing to do considering that Kincaid was now a disabled person at twenty-six.

Not so visibly disabled as some Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans in Carthage, except for the skin-grafts on his head and face. His brain had not been seriously injured-so it was believed. And Juliet had reported eagerly that doctors at the VA hospital in Watertown were saying that Brett's prognosis, with rehab, was "good"-"very good."

Before dropping out impulsively, after 9/11, to enlist in the U.S. Army with several friends from high school, Brett had taken courses in finance, marketing, and business administration at the State University at Plattsburgh. Zeno had the idea that the kid hadn't been highly motivated-as Kincaid's prospective father-in-law, he had some interest in the practical side of his daughter's romance, though he didn't think he was a cynic: just a responsible dad.

(Juliet would never forgive him if she'd known that Zeno had managed to see Brett Kincaid's transcript for the single semester he'd completed at SUNY Plattsburgh: B's, B+. Maybe it was unfair but Christ, Zeno Mayfield wanted for his beautiful daughter a man just slightly better than a B+ at Plattsburgh State.) He'd tried-hard!-not to think of Brett Kincaid making love to his daughter. His daughter.

Arlette had chided him not to be ridiculous. Not to be proprietary.

"Juliet isn't 'yours' any more than she's mine. Try to be grateful that she's so happy-she's in love."

But that was what disturbed the father-his firstborn daughter, his sweet honeybunch Juliet, was clearly in love.

Not with Daddy but with a young rival. Good-looking and with the unconscious swagger of a high school athlete accustomed to success, applause. Accustomed to the adoration of his peers and to the admiration of adults.

Accustomed to girls: sex. Zeno felt a wave of purely sexual jealousy. Nothing so upset him as glimpsing, by chance, his daughter and her tall handsome fiance kissing, slipping their arms around each other's waist, whispering, laughing together-so clearly intimate, and comfortable in their intimacy.

That is, before Brett Kincaid had been shipped to Iraq.

Initially Zeno had wanted to think that the kid had had too easy a time, cutting a swath through the Carthage high school world with an ease that couldn't prepare him for the starker adult world to come. But that was unfair, maybe: Brett had worked at part-time jobs through high school-his mother was a divorcee, with a low-paying job in County Services at the Beechum County Courthouse-and he was, as Juliet claimed, a "serious, committed Christian."

It was hard to believe that any teenaged boys in Carthage were "Christians"-yet, this seemed to be the case. When Zeno had been active in the Carthage Chamber of Commerce he'd encountered kids like these, frequently. Girls like Juliet hadn't surprised him-you expected girls to be religious. In a girl, religious can be sexy.

In a boy like Brett Kincaid it seemed like something else. Zeno wasn't sure what.

Recalling how Brett had said, at the going-away party for him and his high school friends, each enlisted in the U.S. Army and each scheduled for basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, that he wanted to be the "best soldier" he knew how to be. (His own father had "served" in the first Gulf War.) Winter/spring 2002 had been an era of patriotic fervor, following the terrorist attack at the World Trade Center the previous September; it had not been an era in which individuals were thinking clearly, still less young men like Brett Kincaid who seemed truly to want to defend their country against its enemies. How earnestly Brett had spoken, and how handsome he'd been in his U.S. Army dress uniform! Zeno had stared at the boy, and at his dear daughter Juliet in the crook of the boy's arm. His heart had clenched in disdain and dread as he'd thought Oh Jesus. Watch out for this poor sweet dumb kid.

And now recalling that poignant moment, when everyone in the room had burst into applause, and Juliet's face had shone with tears, Zeno thought Poor bastard. It's a cruel price you pay for being stupid.

Difficult for Zeno Mayfield who'd come of age in the late, cynical years of the Vietnam War to comprehend why any intelligent young person like Brett Kincaid would willingly enlist in the military. Why, when there was no draft! It was madness.

Wanting to "serve" the country-whose country? Virtually no political leaders' sons and daughters enlisted in the armed services. No college-educated young people. Already in 2002 you could figure that the war would be fought by an American underclass, overseen by the Defense Department.

Yet Zeno hadn't spoken with Brett on this subject. He knew that Juliet didn't want him to "intrude"-Zeno had such ideas, such plans, for everyone in his orbit, he had to make it a principle to keep clear. And he hadn't felt close enough to the boy-there was an awkwardness between them, a shyness in Brett Kincaid as he shook hands with Zeno Mayfield, his prospective father-in-law, he'd never quite overcome.

Often, Brett had called him "Mr. Mayfield"-"sir."

And Zeno had said to call him "Zeno" please-"We're not on the army base."

Zeno had laughed, made a joke of it. But it disturbed him, essentially. His prospective son-in-law was uneasy in his presence which meant he didn't like Zeno.

Or maybe, didn't trust Zeno.

In the matter of the military, for instance. Though Zeno hadn't tried to talk him out of enlisting, Zeno hadn't made a point of congratulating him, either, as everyone else was doing.

Serve my country. Best soldier I can be.

Like my dad . . .

There was a father, evidently. An absent father. A soldier-father who'd disappeared from Carthage twenty years before.

Brett had been brought up some kind of Protestant Christian-Methodist, maybe. He wasn't critical, questioning. He wasn't skeptical. He wanted to believe, and so he wanted to serve.

Chain of command: you obeyed your superior officer's orders as he obeyed his superior officer's orders as he obeyed his superior officer's orders and so to the very top: the Administration that had declared war on terror and beyond that Administration, the militant Christian God.

None of this was questioned. Zeno wouldn't have wished to stir doubt. He'd defended the high school biology teacher Cassidy who'd taught Darwinian evolutionary theory to the exclusion of "creationism"-more specifically, Cassidy had ridiculed "creationism" in the classroom and deeply offended some students-and their parents-who were evangelical Christians; Zeno had defended Cassidy against the Carthage school board, and had won his case, but it had been a Pyrrhic victory, for Cassidy had no professional future in Carthage and had been soundly disliked for his "arrogant, atheistic" stance. And Zeno Mayfield had suffered a good deal of abuse, too.

Except that Brett Kincaid had become engaged to his daughter Juliet, Zeno had no wish to enlighten the boy. You had to learn to live with religion, if you had a public career. You had to know when to be quiet about your own skepticism.

Juliet belonged to the Carthage Congregationalist Church: she'd made a decision to join when she was in high school, drawn to the church by a close friend; after she and Brett began seeing each other, Brett accompanied her to Sunday services. No one else in the Mayfield family attended church. Arlette described herself as "a mild kind of Protestant-Christian-Democrat" and Zeno had learned to parlay questions about faith by saying he was a "Deist"-"In the hallowed tradition of our American Founding Fathers." Zeno found serious talk of religion embarrassing: revealing what you "believed" was a kind of self-exposure not unlike stripping in public; you were likely to reveal far more than you wished. Cressida bluntly dismissed religion as a pastime for "weak-minded" people-she'd gone to church with her older sister for a few months when she'd been in middle school, and been bored silly.

Strange how Cressida could be right about so much, and yet-(this was not a thought Zeno allowed himself to express aloud)-you resented her remarks, and were inclined to dislike her for making them.

Juliet's Christian faith had certainly been a great solace to her, since news had come of her fiance's injuries-a hurried and incoherent phone message from Brett's mother had been the first they'd heard; she'd been grateful, and never ceased proclaiming her gratitude, that Brett hadn't been killed; that God had "spared him."

The shock to Juliet had been so great, Zeno thought, she hadn't altogether absorbed the fact that her fiance was a terribly changed man-and the changes weren't likely to be exclusively physical.

Since Brett had returned to Carthage, and was living in his mother's house about three miles from the Mayfields, Juliet had spent a good deal of time with him there; the elder Mayfields hadn't seen much of him. When she could, Juliet accompanied Brett to the rehab clinic attached to the Carthage hospital; she attended some of his counseling sessions, as his fiancee; eagerly she reported back to her parents that as soon as he was better able to concentrate Brett intended to re-enroll at Plattsburgh and get a degree in business and that there was talk-(how substantial, Zeno didn't know)-of Brett being hired by a Carthage businessman who made it a point to hire veterans.

See, Daddy-Brett has a future!

Though I know you want me to dump him. I will not.

Zeno would have protested, if Juliet had so accused him.

But, of course, Juliet had not.

Beautiful Juliet never accused anyone of such low thoughts. Least of all her father whom she adored.

But there came impish Cressida to slip her arm through Daddy's arm and to tug at him, to murmur in his ear in her scratchy voice, "Poor Julie! Not the 'war hero' she'd expected, is he." Cruel Cressida squirming with something like stifled laughter.

Zeno had said reprovingly, "Your sister loves Brett. That's the main thing."

Cressida snorted with laughter like a mischievous little girl.

"It is?"

Several nights later, on the Fourth of July, Juliet had returned home early-and alone-(the most gorgeous, gaudy fireworks had just begun exploding in the sky above Palisade Park)-to inform her family that the engagement was ended.

Her cheeks were tear-streaked. Her face had lost its luminosity and looked almost plain. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

"We've both decided. It's for the best. We love each other, but-it's ended."

Zeno and Arlette had been astounded. Zeno had felt a sick sinking sensation in his gut. For this was what he'd wanted-wasn't it? His beautiful daughter spared a life with a handicapped and embittered husband?

When Arlette moved to embrace her, Juliet pushed past her with a choked little sob and hurried up the stairs and shut her bedroom door.

Even Cressida had been shocked. For once, her shiny black eyes hadn't danced with derision when the subject of Juliet and Brett Kincaid came up-"Oh God! Julie will be so unhappy."

At twenty-two, Juliet was still living at home. She'd gone to college in Oneida but had wanted to return to Carthage to teach (sixth grade) at the Convent Street School a few miles away from the family home on Cumberland Avenue. Planning her wedding to Corporal Brett Kincaid-guest list, caterer, bridal gown and bridesmaids, music, flowers, wedding service at the Congregationalist Church-had been the consuming passion of her life for the past eighteen months, and now that the engagement had ended Juliet seemed scarcely capable of speech apart from the most perfunctory exchanges with her family.

Though Juliet was always unfailingly courteous, and sweet. Tears welling in her eyes at which she brushed with her fingertips, as if apologetically.

There'd been no reproach in her manner, when the father gazed at her searchingly, waiting for her to speak. For never had Juliet so much as hinted Are you happy, Daddy? I hope you are happy, Brett is out of our lives.

Numbly Zeno said to Arlette: "She hasn't spoken to you-yet? She hasn't wanted to talk about it?"

"No."

"What about Cressida?"

"No. Juliet would never discuss Brett with her."

In the issue of the sisters, it had often been that Arlette clearly sided with the pretty one and not the smart one.

"Maybe Brett wanted to talk about it with Cressida. Maybe that was why-the reason-they were together last night . . ."

If truly they'd been together-alone together. Zeno had to wonder if that was true.

It was totally out of character for Cressida to go to a place like the Roebuck Inn. Totally unlike Cressida, particularly on a Saturday night. Yet witnesses had told investigating officers that they were sure they'd seen Cressida there the night before, in the company of several people-mostly men; and one of them Brett Kincaid.

Saturday night in midsummer, at Wolf's Head Lake. There were a number of lakeside taverns of which the Roebuck was the oldest and the most popular, very likely the most crowded, and noisy; patrons spilled out of the inn and onto the decks overlooking the lake, and even down into the sprawling parking lot; on the deck was a local rock band, playing at a deafening volume. A drunken roar of motorboats on the lake, a drunken roar of motorcycles on Bear Valley Road.

Before he'd become a settled-down husband and father of two daughters, Zeno Mayfield had spent time at Wolf's Head Lake. He knew the Roebuck taproom. He knew the Roebuck men's rooms. He knew the sloshing of brackish water about the mossy posts sunk into the lake, that supported the Roebuck's outdoor deck.

He knew the "scene" on a Saturday night.

How puzzling, that Cressida would go to such a place, voluntarily! His sensitive daughter who flinched hearing rock music on the radio and who disdained places like the Roebuck and anyone likely to patronize them.

"Most people are so crude. And so oblivious."

Such pronouncements Zeno's younger daughter had made from an early age. Her pinched little face pinched tighter with disdain.

Brett Kincaid acknowledged that he'd encountered Cressida at the lakeside inn. He'd acknowledged that she'd been in his Jeep. But he seemed to be saying that she hadn't remained with him. His account of the previous night was incoherent and inconsistent. Asked about scratch-marks on his face and smears of blood on the front seat of his Jeep he'd given vague answers-he must have scratched his face somehow without knowing it, and the blood-smears on the seat were his. There were other items of "evidence" a deputy had found examining the vehicle that had been found with its front, right wheel in a ditch on the Sandhill Road on Sunday morning.

The bloodstains would be analyzed, to determine if the blood was Kincaid's or someone else's. (As part of a physical examination the previous year, Cressida had had blood work done by a local Carthage doctor; these records would be provided to police.) Zeno had been told about the bloodstains in Kincaid's Jeep that appeared to be "fresh" and "damp" and Zeno's brain had seemed to clamp down. Arlette, too, had been told, and had gone silent.

For they knew-they knew-that Juliet's fiance, Juliet's ex-fiance, who'd come very close to being their son-in-law, wasn't capable of hurting either of their daughters. They could not believe it, and would not.

As they could not believe that, at any minute, their missing daughter might not arrive home, burst into the house seeing an alarming number of vehicles parked outside-a mix of familiar faces and strangers in the living room-and cry: "What's this? Who won the lottery?"

The father wanted to think: it might happen. However unlikely, it might happen.

"Oh Daddy, for God's sake. You thought I was lost? You thought I was-killed or something?"

The daughter's shrill laughter like ice being shaken.

THAT MORNING, Zeno had wanted to speak to Brett Kincaid.

Zeno had been told no. Not a good idea at this time.

"But just to-see him. For five minutes . . ."

No. Hal Pitney who was Zeno's friend, a high-ranking officer in the Beechum County Sheriff's Department, told him this was not a good idea at the present time and anyway not possible, since Kincaid was being interviewed by the sheriff McManus himself.

Not interrogated, which meant arrest. Only just interviewed, which meant the stage preceding a possible arrest.

I need to know from him just this: Is Cressida alive?

" . . . only just to see him. Christ, he's like one of the family-engaged to my daughter-my other daughter . . ."

Zeno stammered, trying to smile. Zeno Mayfield had long cultivated a wide flash of a smile, a politician's smile, that came now unconsciously, with a look of being forced. He was frightened at the prospect of seeing Brett Kincaid, seeing how Brett regarded him.

Just tell me: is my daughter alive.

Pitney said he'd pass on the word to McManus. Pitney said it "wasn't likely" that Zeno could speak face-to-face with Kincaid for a while but-"Who knows? It might end fast."

"What? What 'might end fast'?"

Into Pitney's face came a wary look. As if he'd said too much.

" 'Custody.' Him being in custody, and interviewed. It could end fast if he gives up all he knows."