Frank looks at me, his nostrils flaring slightly. I can tell I’m right. He’s not objecting. He’s not trying to tell me I’m wrong. We’re past that now. We’re down to damage control. His muscles are flexing in his jaw, and he speaks through gritted teeth.
“Laurie, please…you don’t know what it’s like…when they all lie to your face. No one wanted to listen, and I…they all killed her, Laurie. Everyone in that unit killed her. I just know they did. They were covering for one another. She was raped and murdered, and we were getting no justice. Yes, I went to Sandra Mulcahey’s house. I wanted to confront her and ask her about what really happened. We ended up fighting, and I sedated her using liquid Fentanyl—not in her coffee but with an injection. Then I dragged her upstairs and placed her in the tub and slit her wrists. Later, I went to Ted Kenopensky’s house and broke in through the back door. I injected the Fentanyl into his system, then hung him up. Yes, I attacked you at Duke’s house, but what else could I have done? You might have revealed me. I didn’t want to hurt you, but you gave me no choice, Laurie. I didn’t mean for it to get this far, Laurie. You must believe me.”
I swallow the lump growing in my throat. It’s so hard to wrap my mind around this. How had I not seen this earlier?
“How, Frank? How am I supposed to believe anything you tell me after this?”
He steps toward me. I wince, and he stops. He points his finger at me.
“One in three women who join the military will be sexually assaulted or raped by men in the military. Those are the facts, Laurie. Clarice was just a number in the statistics. And even more alarming is the rate of women coming home in caskets. Ninety-four U.S. military women have died in Iraq or during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Thirteen U.S. military women have been killed in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Of the ninety-four U.S. military women who died in Iraq, the military says thirty-six died from non-combat related injuries, which included vehicle accidents, illness, death by ‘natural causes,’ and self-inflicted gunshot wounds, or suicide. Thirty-six! From Fagrad Air Base alone right now, fifteen more deaths have occurred under extremely suspicious circumstances, where the relatives have received no acceptable explanation. This is not just about Clarice, Laurie. This is about the military and what they allow to happen to our sisters, to our girlfriends, and our wives.”
I stare at him, not even blinking. I still have my phone in my hand, and I fumble with it, trying to call nine-one-one. Frank doesn’t see it. He scoffs.
“Don’t you understand how terrible it is what they do to these girls? To their relatives who’ll never know the truth? Do you have any idea what kind of pain this has inflicted on my parents? How about all the other relatives who’ll never know the truth? Clarice was badly bruised. She had teeth imprints on her skin; she had scratches all over her body. Her nose was broken, and her teeth knocked backward. One elbow was distended. The back of her clothes had debris on them, indicating she had been dragged from one location to another. Don’t tell me they aren’t lying. And she’s not the only one this happened to. As I started digging, I found one story after another similar to hers. You wanna hear? I can name them for you. Also, at Fagrad Air Base, Private Gail Lavesque, twenty years old, was raped by a fellow soldier in February two years ago. The Air Force said she was found dead in her room by a self-inflicted M-16 shot, a suicide they called it, only ten days after she reported being raped. Her parents were told it was suicide, but they don’t believe it. They talked to her several times after the rape, and even though she was upset, she was not suicidal, they say. Her family continued to challenge the eight-hundred-page-long investigative report that contained many suspicious elements, like how they believed she had used her toes to hold the weapon when shooting herself. Yet, the Air Force never investigated her death as a homicide, only as suicide. And on top of that, the rape charges against the soldier whose sperm was found on her body were dropped a few weeks later—no explanation to her family as to why. Also, at Fagrad, six months earlier, Private Mabel Jolander’s death was ruled an accident as the Air Force claimed she fell or tripped out in front of a military vehicle as she crossed the road, walking from a guard tower to a latrine. The suspicious part is that the vehicle that ran her over was driven by a drunk sergeant from her unit who had first sexually assaulted her. The sergeant was convicted of drinking in a warzone and received a fine, while her death was ruled an accident. Do you want me to continue? Because I know all these cases by heart. There are so many of them; you won’t believe it.”
I am shaking my head in disbelief. I am trying to make the call in my hand without him noticing it, but it doesn’t work. Frank continues, “And then when you started talking about Ryan and how you believed he might have killed Sandra, that was when I got the idea to make it look like it was him. I played along and helped you believe that. I started following him around and made my move as soon as he was out of sight.”
“And in that way, you’d get him too. If his wife thought he was a killer and left him for you, that was great revenge. You wanted to see how far I would take it; maybe I could get the police to start investigating Ryan. You made me think my own husband was…a murderer?”
I hold up the phone, his burner phone, toward him, my hands shaking heavily in anger. “You destroyed my family.”
“I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” he says, reaching out toward me. “You must understand this, Laurie. I tried to stop you. I tried to warn you, but you…you were relentless. You just kept pushing and pushing, and…I thought you’d stop after Duke’s house and after I sent you those texts, but you didn’t, and then...I was desperate, Laurie.”
I narrow my eyes. “So, you attacked my parents in their own home just to scare me off.”
He takes another step toward me. He drops the towel and starts getting dressed, his movements aggressive as he puts on his jeans.
“I was desperate. You wouldn’t stop. You left me no choice. It’s actually your own fault when you think about it. But it also means we’re in this together, Laurie. You and me. No one needs to know what really happened. It’ll be our secret.”
The rain is pounding on the window outside, and my breathing is ragged and shallow. Frank looks up at me, his pupils are huge. There’s panic in his eyes. We’re standing in front of one another like two cowboys in a western movie. Sizing one another up, wondering what the next move will be. Who will go first? I’m thinking about the gun downstairs, wondering how to get to it. I also wonder if he knows I brought it. I’m calculating whether I can reach the stairs before he can get ahold of me. I just need to get down those stairs first, before he can stop me. We drove here in my car. I remember putting the keys on the counter when entering. I pray they’re still there.
“What do you say, Laurie? Are we in this together? You and me, forever joined by this secret?”
I make the decision quickly since I figure it is now or never. I put the phone in my pocket and jolt for the stairs, pushing myself forward, sprinting for them. I get to the top of them, my hand on the railing, so I don’t fall when I hear him spring for me, his bare feet accelerating on the wooden floors. I feel his leg as it hits me in the back and pushes me forward. The push is forceful, and I scream as I fly down the stairs in an explosion of pain.