“Oh, I think it has everything to do with that. Why else would you come here to incriminate your husband?”
I can feel my face flushing. What is this? Do I need to defend myself now?
“Listen,” I say. “I don’t find this especially pleasant, and I certainly take no joy in saying these things. But no matter what happened, the fact is, he saw Ted hanging in the living room, and he didn’t do anything. He didn’t even call the security forces. Who does that? Who sees a guy, a good friend, dangling from the ceiling and doesn’t tell anyone, not even his wife? Does that not seem suspicious to you? I can’t explain why he would do that unless he has something to hide.”
Rick Thibodeau exhales, then leans back in his chair. “You’re forgetting something here. Your husband has been to war, Mrs. Davis. He has seen death up close before. He might have panicked when seeing Ted Kenopensky; he might have been scared to death, and it might have ripped up some bad memories in him, seeing his friend like that. Maybe he’s afraid of what he might do to himself. Did you ever think about that? There are many reasons why he would do just what he did. And maybe, just maybe he was only drinking coffee with his good female friend, Sandra. Maybe they were even talking about stuff they experienced in the war that could lead to her committing suicide. Or maybe it was an affair gone wrong. Sad as it may be for your marriage, I don’t see anything suspicious, and either way, both cases were deemed suicides. There’s nothing more to it, Mrs. Davis. No active murder investigation. Just tragic suicides, which we, unfortunately, see way too often. Do you know how many soldiers kill themselves?”
I shake my head, feeling like a child at the principal’s office. Rick Thibodeau seems annoyed with me now.
“No.”
“Twenty-two veterans per day, one every sixty-five minutes. That’s a lot.”
He sighs and leans back in his chair. “Now, I don’t know what’s going on at home, in your marriage, or why you feel the need to hurt your husband. But I suggest you put your energy into saving your marriage instead of running to me with accusations against your husband. I think you’re just mad at him, and that’s why you’re busy claiming these things. I have nothing here telling me anyone was murdered or even a crime committed. I am sorry, but I can’t really help you.”
I feel defeated. I wonder for a second if I should tell him about what Frank has said, about how Ted’s death didn’t look like suicide, but then I decide against it. He’ll ask me how I know this, and I’ll only compromise Frank, and I promised not to tell anyone. I have nothing. I realize I am not getting anywhere with this guy, then get up, fuming with anger. If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s being talked down to.
“This was a mistake,” I say, then leave while shaking my head, once again reminded of what my mother always used to say:
If you want anything done in this world, you have to do it yourself.
Chapter 25
I tiptoe around Ryan for yet another two days, making sure I don’t anger him or draw any suspicion to myself before Vera and Frank both come over for lunch. Frank says he has news to share with us. Vera is on a lunch break and decides to stop by and eat with us. I make them sandwiches, and we eat them in our kitchen. I tell them about my visit to the OSI, and how investigator Rick Thibodeau had brushed me off.
“I think I’m going insane,” I say. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Maybe if she went to the police outside of the base?” Vera says, taking a bite of her chicken sandwich.
“They’ll tell her to go to the OSI,” Frank says. “It’s their jurisdiction. Plus, there are no open investigations into those two deaths, so it’s gonna be hard to make anyone look into it.”
“So, that’s it?” Vera says. “She’s on her own? No police will help her?”
“If they don’t believe there has been a crime…” Frank says and trails off. He sips his iced tea. “They’re not easy to dance around with. We know. I tried so hard to get them to reopen Clarice’s case, based on what I saw in the autopsy report, but they refused. It was deemed suicide, and that was the end of it. They won’t listen.”
I look at him with a sigh. I genuinely fear that one day, my parents will be trying to get the military officials to reopen the case of my suicide because they desperately want to know what really happened. Because they believe Ryan killed me, but they’re the only ones. The thought saddens me, and a wave of fresh fear rushes through my body. I have been weighing my options the past few days, wondering what I can possibly do.
“You said you had some news?” I ask Frank.
He nods, wipes his fingers clean on a napkin, then pulls out a folder that he places so that both Vera and I can see it if we skootch closer on each side of him.
“I took another look at Sandra Mulcahey’s autopsy report; actually, I went through the entire death report, and this is what I found. Look.”
He pulls out a sheet, and we both look at it but don’t really understand what it is. Frank knows this, so he translates.
“The cuts on her wrists. They were deeper on her right side than on her left side. That would usually indicate that she was left-handed.”
“But she wasn’t,” I say, my eyes growing wide. “I know because I more than once talked to her about Joe, Jr., her son. When she realized he was left-handed, she worried it would make things difficult for him.”
“In her files, it doesn’t say anything about being a lefty either,” he says. “That’s why it had me wondering.”
“So, she didn’t cut her own wrists?” Vera asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“That could be the explanation,” Frank says. “It would have been the other way around if she did. The cuts would have been deeper on the left side instead. But it’s not exactly evidence. Not enough to reopen her case.” Frank pauses and finishes his sandwich, then wipes his fingers again.
“There’s more.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” I said, still wondering about the two coffee cups on the kitchen counter in Sandra’s kitchen. I should have told the investigator about them on the day she was found. Then it would have been in the report; then, they would have looked for that person, at least to know if Sandra mentioned anything about wanting to end her life. But I didn’t think it was important then, and now, it’s too late.
“Her toxicology report states her blood had an exceedingly high concentration of fentanyl. She had sixty-nine micrograms per liter. This drug has been proven deadly at much lower rates than that. They found huge amounts in her liver and her stomach as well.”
“So, she overdosed on painkillers?” I ask. “Before her wrists were cut?”
Frank nods. “Looks like it.”
“Still sounds like suicide,” I say.
“Of course,” Frank says. “And that’s what they’ll tell us if we point it out. But what I found odd was that the exact same thing was found in Ted Kenopensky’s blood. The same drug and almost the same amount.”
“Which can also still be argued as being a way to commit suicide,” I say.