Carthage (20 page)

“’Course other times, Pa would get drunk and just kind of forget me out in the car. And forget to feed me, too. And this was the opposite of that.”

ASKING WHAT HE’D DONE
with her. What he’d done with
her body
.

And he’d said what was true: he didn’t remember.

Some things he remembered, a swirl of things like dirty water rushing down a drain, but it was not possible to attach names to these; and it was not possible to shape the words, the sounds of the words, with his mouth.

Between somewhere in his brain and his mouth/tongue there was slippage.

. . .
make things easier for us, and for you. The judge would be lenient considering your service to the country. And the girl’s family you would allow them to bury the body it’s the only decent thing and you are a decent person corporal and still young—out on parole in eight, nine years.

What do you say, son?

Here was a surprise: they released the corporal.

Could not comprehend this! Had to be a mistake.

For now, there was a lawyer—“representing” Brett Kincaid.

He’d been adamant: he hadn’t wanted a lawyer. Thinking if his father knew, if Staff Sergeant Graham Kincaid found out, that his son had a lawyer, required a lawyer, in this situation he was in, his father would be disgusted. He believed that retaining a lawyer is an admission of guilt and so was ashamed to have a lawyer “representing” him—like a criminal.

Shaver, Muksie, Broca, Mahan, Ramirez—all had
legal counsel
.

Army prosecutors had negotiated with Ramirez, only nineteen and the youngest of the men: plead guilty, inform on the others, sentence will be less than twenty years.

Ethel had been furious claiming her
disabled hero-son
was being
railroaded
into prison—to
Death Row.

She’d made arrangements. There were many who supported Corporal Kincaid. Not a public defender but a
first-rate
private lawyer.

See what Zeno thinks now. Trying to destroy us!

Brett refused to speak with what’s-his-name—Pedersen. His brain just shut off.

The guys were staying away from him now. His old friends. Maybe they were anxious—he’d inform on
them.

Fuckhead snitch. Got what he deserved.

It was astonishing, he’d been released by the Beechum County police. Allowed to leave the building, make his way outside leaning on Ethel and what’s-his-name—Pedersen.

Photographers, TV camera crews outside in the parking lot. Nothing to be ashamed of, Ethel said. In the TV lights, Ethel’s eyes flared like cat’s eyes.

It was an indeterminate time he was sick part-collapsed on the soiled old sofa in Ethel’s living room. Days now, a week couldn’t move his bowels like concrete. Screamed with pain. Screams like hyena laughter.

“Coyote” laughter—Muksie sawing at the girl’s face with the knife.

Sergeant Shaver had cut off the little finger, with the trauma shears.

Broca took pictures. Little cell phone flash in the shadows.

A smell of oil pervading everything here. Oil, heat and sand.

The corporal hadn’t seen, really. Hadn’t been within twenty feet was the estimate.

Yes but—he could not swear. Under oath you must
swear
.

Under oath you could not speak vaguely. You could not speak emotionally.

It was an open secret it would happen to him: Kincaid.

His friends warned him. His friends were anxious for him. One of his friends sent emails home to his father, retired navy officer, telling him of
the situation in Kirkuk.

He’d been a fuckhead snitch. Motherfucker snitch. They’d warned him, he hadn’t listened.

Well, he’d listened—he’d told the chaplain. Turned out to have been a mistake maybe.

But he had not known how otherwise to behave.

Later, after the explosion, after the hospitalizations, when he hadn’t been paying attention they’d released him from military service—“honorably discharged.”

Purple Heart. Iraq War Campaign medal. And the beautiful Infantry Combat Badge that was the special sign of his bravery and his sacrifice.

Proudly Ethel displayed these in the living room. Giving interviews to the press and to TV, Ethel held these in cupped hands for the camera.

The investigating committee wouldn’t be subpoenaing the corporal.

His testimony was inconsistent. His testimony was impaired.

Strange to him now, he was being released again. During his days in custody at sheriff’s headquarters he’d considered
If I reach for a gun. One of their guns. They will shoot me point-blank, put me out of my misery.

For the plainclothes detectives wore their revolvers, inside their coats. On duty, a man must never be without his firearm.

He’d lost his rifle somewhere—that was a painful fact. All his gear, sixty pounds—seemed to have been lost. Where?

In a sweat awaiting the drill sergeant’s infuriated voice.

Kincaid. What the fuck have you been doing.

You little shit Kincaid what the fuck d’you mean letting the army down. You disgust me.

His lawyer had negotiated the terms of his release which was that Brett Kincaid could not leave Beechum County without notifying law enforcement officials. The corporal hadn’t been arrested on charges of homicide, kidnapping, unlawful disposal of a body, obstruction of justice—yet.

Detectives were circumspect, how close they were to making an arrest. It was known that they were investigating the Adirondack Hells Angels bikers, too.

In the house on Potsdam Street he had time to think about these matters except his brain was awash with debris as in a muddy inlet of the Nautauga River after a heavy rainstorm.

Ethel’s relatives came to visit. A few of Brett’s father’s relatives whom he hadn’t seen in years.

They spoke together incensed of how “shitty” was the treatment of a
war hero
in Carthage.

The enemy was perceived to be Zeno Mayfield who’d been the one to accuse Brett from the start. The matter of the broken engagement was seen to be the motive.

Some of Brett’s friends from high school came by. Guys he’d known years ago and a few girls including one who was married now, and pregnant, and had come to see him defiant of her husband’s objections, as she’d made sure Brett knew.

Halifax, Stumpf, Weisbeck came by. Awkward in Brett’s company since Brett lapsed into silences while they talked, guzzled beer and greedily ate potato chips Ethel set out for them in front of the TV.

Real shitty, Brett. What the fuckin cops are tryin to do.

People sayin crazy things. Assholes . . .

. . . we weren’t there, you tell them that? None of us, we weren’t there, whatever happened, wherever you took her, or—whatever it was . . .

After the Roebuck Inn. Wherever it was . . .

It was just you, Brett, OK? That girl climbing all over you, had to be crazy-high, asking for—whatever it was, that happened.

Overhearing, Ethel stormed into the room, screamed at them to get the hell out of her house. If they were Brett’s friends God damn they had to
help him
. Fuck them all they wanted was to cover their fucking asses well how’s about
helping him,
Brett was the one in
need of fucking help.

Neighbors came over. Not many. Others, sighting wild-eyed Ethel by the curb, or Brett Kincaid limping to his Jeep to drive to rehab, turned quickly away without a greeting.

Interviewers ceased coming to the house. Visitors ceased.

Not what Ethel Kincaid had expected! When the phone rang it wasn’t relatives, friends, neighbors wishing them well, assuring them they believed that Brett was
innocent,
but strangers calling to accuse Ethel of harboring a murderer.
Aren’t you ashamed! You’re his mother—tell him to confess.

Cards came to the house addressed to Corperal Kinkaid:
You disgusting killer. You are a rapest killer of that young girl, you are a coward to confess.

Jesus sees into your heart you are both Sinners & will be brougt to justice.

In the house on Potsdam Street he stayed inside most days. In his old boyhood room with yellowing postcards from his father still taped to the wall, he never saw any longer. He could not leave the house without being observed. He could not enter the rehab clinic without being observed. Seth Seager who’d been his therapist/friend until he’d broken up with Juliet and for a while afterward had quit the clinic and moved away without saying good-bye. Sessions at the clinic were arduous, painful. A shimmering coil of pain ran up and down his spine like electricity. His breathing was labored, his lungs were yet acrid with fine filaments of sand, like death; tears ran down his cheeks, he could not brush away fast enough; his new therapist, replacing Seth, was a middle-aged woman named Inge who smiled tightly at him as if she could not bear to touch him, despite their physical intimacy.

Sometimes, Inge called him “Corporal”—he gave no sign of hearing.

On bad days Ethel had to take off work to drive him to the clinic and home again which was a round-trip of about six miles. Where in mid- and late summer Ethel Kincaid had been triumphant at the fact of her son being
out of police custody
now in the fall, as time passed, she was becoming ever more resentful of her situation as the mother of a
disabled Iraq War veteran
under nonstop police surveillance.
In her mood of embittered strain she was likely to swerve, skid, hastily brake and sideswipe the now-battered Jeep Wrangler against rails or even other vehicles stationary or in motion.

Out of nowhere as in a TV movie a girl Brett had known (before Juliet Mayfield) reappeared in his life to drive him to rehab and to the doctors in Watertown and anywhere else he wished but one day when Gayle Nash called him it was Ethel who answered the phone saying tersely
No more. He can’t see you no more. He says to tell you. Thanks for all you done but—no more.

Last thing the grieving mother wanted was another man-crazy female grabbing hold of her son. The last one that did that, stuck-up Mayfield bitch, see how
that
turned out.

It was rare that Brett ventured outside now. Drinking with his friends at the lakeside taverns on weekend nights had ended abruptly that night in July.

Occasionally, he went with Ethel to the mall. It was Ethel’s idea:
get out of the house, show your face, nothing to be ashamed of, they’re the ones should be ashamed!—sonsabitches.

At the mall, Brett walked haltingly. He was still tall—but curiously asymmetrical, as if his spine were twisted and his hips out of alignment. He wore a baseball cap pulled down over his forehead, loose-fitting shirts with long sleeves, khaki pants with drooping cuffs. At first glance you thought his face was a gauze mask, or parts of a gauze mask. Dark-tinted glasses hid the upper half of his face.

He stared straight ahead. He walked with his arms close against the sides of his body. Ethel gripped his arm, to steady him. She was trembling with indignation even when no one stared at them.

What are you looking at, you?—take a good look.

Know who this is?—a wounded veteran of the Iraq War.

Sacrificed himself for you—now look at him!

What’s the matter—can’t face us? Asshole!

Once, Ethel gave a little rush in the direction of several young teenagers who were gaping at her and her tall lanky son who looked fitted-together out of mismatched parts, hissing—
Get away! Go to hell! Think your turn won’t come—it will!

No one asked Brett about Cressida Mayfield. No one spoke of
the girl, that girl—the girl they say is missing.

Ethel did not ask him about Cressida. It was a long time before Brett realized she’d never asked him anything about that night, or about what had happened to him in Kirkuk.

He’d overheard her on the phone, speaking with a relative very likely one of her sisters.

This place Kik-kik it’s called—in Ir-wack—turns out there’s a big oil field there—like, really big. So the U.S. government, you can figure, there’s big-business oilmen paying them off, so they go into the Arab states to take over the oil. Capit’lists laying some damn big pipeline. That’s why Bush declared war! Poor Brett, he didn’t know none of this, nobody did, but you wise up fast. Poor dumb kid is what you call col-late-ral damage nobody gives a shit for, once they’re out of uniform like his sonuvabitch old man that disappeared into the West like who’s-it—Clint Eastwood.

You bet, they owe us big-time. Once this trial is out of the way we’re going to sue the U.S. government for “liability.” Department of Defense. Rumsfield. Everybody says we’d be fools to take the first offer of a settlement, like only a million or two when the papers and TV gets hold of Brett’s story and the shit hits the fan of America.