Carthage (7 page)

Though he’d been thinking how ironic, when Cressida had been, as witnesses claimed, in the company of Brett Kincaid at Wolf’s Head Lake, her sister Juliet had been home with their parents; by then, Juliet had probably been in bed.

That night, the Mayfields had invited old friends for dinner and Juliet had helped prepare the meal with Arlette. And Cressida had made it a point to explain that she couldn’t come to dinner with them that night because she was seeing her high school friend Marcy Meyer.

Evvie Estes asked if there’d been anything to lead them to “suspect”—anything? When they’d last seen Cressida?

“No. It was an ordinary night. Cressida was seeing a friend from high school and she hadn’t had to tell us, we would have known, she’d have been back home by eleven
P.M.
at the latest. It was just—an ordinary night.”

Zeno hadn’t liked Evvie Estes pitching that word to them—“suspect.”

Zeno and Arlette were seated side by side on a sofa. Zeno clasped Arlette’s hand firmly in his as if to secure her. Earlier, Juliet had helped Arlette locate photographs of Cressida to provide to police and media people, to be shown on TV and posted online through the day; Zeno assumed that these photos would be shown on the 6
P.M.
news, during the interview. And he hoped that the interview, which was being taped, about fifteen minutes in length, wouldn’t be drastically cut.

“All we can hope for is that Cressida will contact us soon—if she can. Or, if she’s been injured, or lost—that someone will discover her. We are praying that she is in the Preserve—that is, she hasn’t been—taken”—Zeno paused, blinking at the possibility, a sudden obstacle like an enormous boulder in his path—“taken somewhere else . . .” His old ease at public speaking was leaving him, like air leaking from a balloon. Almost, Zeno was stammering, as the interview ended: “If anyone can help us—help us find her—any information leading to her—her whereabouts—we are offering ten thousand dollars reward—for the recovery of—the return of—our daughter Cressida Mayfield.”

Arlette turned to stare at him. Ten thousand dollars!

This was entirely new. This had not been discussed. So far as Arlette knew, Zeno had not thought of a reward before this moment.

Uttering the words “ten thousand dollars” Zeno had spoken in a strangely elated voice. And he’d smiled strangely, squinting in the TV lights.

Soon then the interview ended. Zeno’s white shirt was sticking to his skin—he’d been sweating again. And now he, too, was trembling.

Of course the Mayfields could afford ten thousand dollars. Much more than this, they could afford if it meant bringing their missing daughter home.

“ZENO? WHERE ARE
YOU GOING?”

“Back to the Preserve. To the search.”

“You are not! Not now.”

“There’s two hours of daylight, at least. I need to be there.”

“That’s ridiculous. You do not. Stay here with us . . .”

Zeno hesitated. But no no no
no
. He had no intention of remaining in this house, where he couldn’t breathe, waiting.

FOUR

Descending and Ascending

I
KNEW. AS SOON AS
I saw her bed wasn’t slept-in.

I knew—something had happened.

AT 4:08 A.M.
that Sunday morning Arlette awakened with a start.

The strangest sensation—that something was wrong, altered. Though in the shadowy interior of her bedroom—her and Zeno’s bedroom—here was comfort, ease. Though Zeno’s deep raspy rhythmic breathing was comfort to her, and ease.

Must’ve been a dream that wakened her. A swirl of anxiety like leaves spinning in a wind tunnel. She’d been pulled along—somewhere. Waking dry-mouthed and edgy believing that something was changed in the house or in the life of the house.

Or—one of her limbs was missing.
That
was the dream.

What was the phenomenon?—“phantom limb”? In that case an actual limb is missing from the body but you feel the (painful) presence of the (absent) limb; in this case, nothing was missing from Arlette’s body, so far as she knew.

It was mysterious to her, this loss. Yet it seemed unmistakable.

After this hour she would not ever feel otherwise.

WITHOUT WAKING ZENO
she slipped from their bed.

Sometimes in the night when they awakened—through a single night, each woke several times, if but for a few seconds—Arlette kissed Zeno’s mouth in playful affection, or Zeno kissed hers. These were kisses like casual greetings—they were not kisses meant to wake the other fully.

How’s my sweet honey
Zeno might mutter. But before Arlette could answer, Zeno would sink back into sleep.

Zeno was deeply asleep now. What subtle and irrevocable seismic shifting of the life of the house Arlette had sensed, Zeno was oblivious to. Like one who has fallen onto his back he lay spread-limbed, sprawled, taking up two-thirds of the bed in his warm thrumming sleep.

Arlette had learned to sleep beside her husband without being disturbed by him; whenever possible, her dreams incorporated his audible breathing in the most ingenious of ways.

Zeno’s snoring might be represented, for instance, by zigzag-shapes like metallic insects flying past the dreaming wife’s face. Sometimes, Arlette was awakened by her own surprised laughter.

That night, at dinner with friends, Zeno had consumed a bottle of wine himself, in the interstices of pouring wine for others. He’d been in very good spirits, telling stories, laughing loudly. He’d been tenderly solicitous of Juliet and refrained from teasing her, which was unlike the girls’ Daddy.

Through their long marriage there had been episodes—there had been interludes—of Zeno drinking too much. Arlette understood, Zeno had been drinking tonight because he felt guilty: for the relief he’d expressed when Juliet’s engagement had been broken.

Not to Juliet of course but to Arlette.
Thank God. Now we can breathe again.

Except it wasn’t so easy. It would not be so easy. For their daughter’s heart had been broken.

Juliet had spent the evening with them. Instead of with her fiancé.

That is, her ex-fiancé.

Helping her mother prepare an elaborate meal in the kitchen, helping at the table, smiling, cheery. As if she hadn’t a life elsewhere, a life as a woman elsewhere, with a man, a lover from whom she’d been abruptly and mysteriously divided.

It was a small shock, to see the engagement ring (of which Juliet had been so proud) missing from Juliet’s finger.

In fact Juliet’s slender fingers were ring-less, as if in mourning.

At the dinner table, three couples and the daughter. Three middle-aged couples, a twenty-two-year-old daughter.

And the daughter so beautiful. And heartbroken.

Of course, no one had asked Juliet about Brett. No one had brought up the subject of Brett Kincaid at all. As if Corporal Kincaid didn’t exist, and he and Juliet had never been planning to be married.

It’s God-damned sad. But not our fault for Christ’s sake.

What did we do? Not a fucking thing.

He’d been drunk, muttering. Sitting heavily on the bed so the box springs creaked. Kicking a shoe halfway across the carpet.

Juliet should talk to us about it. We’re her God-damn parents!

When he was in one of his moods Arlette knew to leave him alone. She would not humor him, or placate him. She would leave him to steep in whatever mood rose in him like bile.

It was an asshole decision, to enlist in the army. “Serve his country”—see where it got him.

Anyway he won’t pull our daughter down with him.

Arlette didn’t stoop to retrieve the shoe. But she nudged it out of the way with her foot so that neither of them would stumble over it in the night, should one of them rise to go to the bathroom.

Immediately his head was lowered on the pillow, Zeno fell asleep.

A harsh serrated breathing, as if briars were caught in his throat.

The air-conditioning was on. A thin cool air moved through the bedroom. Arlette pulled a sheet up over her sleeping husband’s shoulders. At such moments she was overcome with a sensation of love for the man, commingled with fear, the sight of his thick-muscled shoulders, his upper arms covered in wiry hairs, the slack flesh of his jaws when he lay on his side. Inside the middle-aged man, the brash youthful Zeno Mayfield with whom Arlette had fallen in love yet resided.

In a man’s sleep, his mortality is most evident.

They were of an age now, and moving into a more emphatic age, when women began to lose their husbands—to become “widows.” Arlette could not allow herself to think in this way.

Remembering later, of that night: their concern had been for Juliet, and for Brett Kincaid whom possibly they would not ever see again.

Their thoughts were almost exclusively of Juliet. As it had been in the Mayfield household since Corporal Kincaid had returned in his disabled state.

Cressida passing like a wraith in their midst. On her way out for the evening to visit with a friend from high school who lived so close, Cressida could walk instead of driving. At about 6
P.M.
she must have called out a casual good-bye—in the kitchen Arlette and Juliet would scarcely have taken note.

Bye! See you-all later.

Possibly, they hadn’t heard. Cressida hadn’t troubled to come to the kitchen doorway, to announce that she was going.

Zeno hadn’t been home. Out at the liquor store, choosing wine with the fussy particularity of a man who doesn’t know anything about wine really but would like to give the impression that he does.

It shouldn’t have been anything other than an ordinary evening though it was a Saturday night in midsummer.

In upstate New York in the Adirondack region, the population trebled in summer.

Summer people. Campers, pickup trucks. Bikers’ gangs. In the night, on even a quiet residential street like Cumberland, you could hear the sneering roar of motorcycles in the distance.

At the lakes—Wolf’s Head, Echo, Wild Forest—there were “incidents” each summer. Fights, assaults, break-ins, vandalism, arson, rapes, murders. Small local police departments with only a few officers had to call in the New York State Police, at desperate times.

When Zeno had been mayor of Carthage, several Hells Angels gangs had congregated in Palisade Park. After a day and part of a night of drunken and increasingly destructive festivities local residents had so bitterly complained, Zeno sent in the Carthage City Police to “peaceably” clear the park.

Just barely, a riot had been averted. Zeno had been credited with having made the right decisions, just in time.

No one had been arrested. No police officers had been injured. The state troopers hadn’t had to be summoned to Carthage.

The bikers’ gangs hadn’t returned to Palisade Park. But they congregated, weekends, at the lakes. Still you could sometimes hear, in the distance, at night, a window open, the sneering-defiant motorcycle-whine, mixed with a sound of nighttime insects.

Arlette left the bedroom. Zeno hadn’t wakened.

In a thin muslin nightgown in bare feet making her way along the carpeted corridor. Past the shut door of Juliet’s room—for she knew, Juliet was home—Juliet had been in bed for hours, like her parents—unerringly to the room in which she knew there was
something wrong
.

By this time, past 4
A.M.,
Cressida would have returned from Marcy Meyer’s house. Hours ago, she’d have returned. She wouldn’t have wanted to disturb her parents but would have gone upstairs to her room as quietly as possible—it was a peculiarity of their younger daughter, since she’d been a small child, as Zeno noted she could
creep like a little mousie
and no one knew she was there.

Even as Arlette was telling herself this, she was pushing open the door, switching on a light, to see: Cressida’s bed still made, undisturbed.

This was wrong. This was very wrong.

Arlette stood in the doorway, staring.

Of course, the room was empty. Cressida was nowhere in sight.

They’d gone to bed after their guests left and the kitchen was reasonably clean. They’d gone to bed soon after 11
P.M
., Arlette and Zeno, without a thought, or not much more than a fleeting thought, about Cressida who was, after all—as they’d been led to believe—only just visiting with her high school friend Marcy Meyer less than a mile away.

Maybe the girls had had dinner together. Or maybe with Marcy’s parents. Maybe a DVD afterward.
Misfit girls together in solidarity
Cressida had joked.

In high school, Cressida and Marcy had been “best friends” by default, as Cressida said.
Friendships of girls unpopular together are forged for life.

(It was Cressida’s way to exaggerate. Neither she nor Marcy Meyer was “unpopular”—Arlette was certain.)

Slowly Arlette came forward, to touch the comforter on Cressida’s bed.

With perfect symmetry the comforter had been pulled over the bedclothes. If Arlette were to lift it she knew she would see the sheets beneath neatly smoothed, for Cressida could not tolerate wrinkles or creases in fabrics.

The sheets would be tightly tucked in between the mattress and the box springs.

For it was their younger daughter’s way to do things
neatly
. With an air of fierce disdain, dislike—yet
neatly.

All things that were tasks and chores—“household” things—Cressida resented having to do. Her imagination was loftier, more abstract.

Yet, though she resented such tasks, she dispatched them swiftly, to get them out of the way.

Can’t imagine anything more stultifying than the life of a housewife! Poor Mom.

Arlette was frequently nettled by her younger daughter’s thoughtless remarks. Though she knew that Cressida loved her, at times it seemed clear that Cressida did not respect her.

But if you hadn’t been up for it, Jule and I wouldn’t be here, I guess.

So, thanks!

Arlette wondered: was it possible that Cressida had planned to stay overnight at Marcy’s? As she’d done sometimes when the girls were in middle school together. It seemed unlikely now, but . . .

For God’s sake, Mom. What an utterly brainless idea.

Arlette left Cressida’s room and went downstairs. She was breathing quickly now though her heartbeat was calm.

From a wall phone in the kitchen downstairs, Arlette called Cressida’s cell phone number.

There came a faint ringing, but no answer.

Then, a burst of electronic music, dissonant chords and computer-voice coolly instructing the caller to leave a message after the beep.

Cressida? It’s Mom. I’m calling at four-ten
A.M
. Wondering where you are . . . If you can please call back as soon as possible . . .

Arlette hung up the phone. But immediately, Arlette lifted the receiver and called again.

The second time, she fumbled leaving a message.
Just Mom again. We’re a little worried about you, honey. It’s pretty late . . . Give us a call, OK?

Now invoking
us
. For Cressida did respect her father.

It occurred to Arlette then that Cressida might be home: only just not in her room.

From earliest childhood she’d been an unpredictable child. You might look for her in all the wrong places as she watched you through a crack in a doorway, bursting into laughter at the worried look in your face.

Especially, Cressida had thought
scrunched-up (adult) faces
were funny.

So Arlette checked the downstairs rooms of the house: the TV room in the basement, which Cressida didn’t often occupy, objecting that it was partially underground and, in very wet weather, wriggly little centipedes appeared on the (Sears, slate-colored, slightly stained) wall-to-wall carpeting to her extreme disgust; Zeno’s cluttered home-office, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with far more than just books, and an ancient rolltop desk Zeno liked to boast had been inherited from a Revolutionary War “quasi-ancestor” when in fact he’d bought it at an estate auction: a room in which, when she’d been a moody high school student, Cressida had sometimes
holed herself away in
when Zeno wasn’t there; and nooks and crannies of the living room which was a long narrow room with a beamed oak ceiling, shadow-splotched even when lighted, with a gleaming black baby-grand Steinway piano which, sadly, to Arlette’s way of thinking, no one played any longer, since Cressida had abruptly quit piano lessons at the age of sixteen.

But why quit, honey? You play so well . . .

Sure. For Beechum County.

No one. Nothing. In none of these rooms.

But then, Arlette hadn’t really expected to discover Cressida sleeping anywhere except in her bed.

At the rear sliding-glass door, which opened out onto a flagstone terrace in need of a vigorous weed-trimming, Arlette leaned outside to breathe in the muggy night air. Her eyes lifted to the night sky—a maze of constellations the names of which she could never recall as Cressida could even as a small child brightly reciting the names as if she’d been born knowing them:
Andromeda. Gemini. Big Dipper. Little Dipper. Virgo. Pegasus. Orion . . .