Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing(10)

   “Were you able to find anyone?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “I’m not sure, of course. This is the number of a home in Moscow, but you’ll have to look up the country code? He might be there. If not, ask for Swiss Aaron. He might know.”

Moscow. The OSI was going to open an entirely new investigation into my phone bill. But I couldn’t worry about that. Swiss Aaron passed me on to someone else, who passed me on to someone else. Another home in another country. In all, I went through five numbers before I called a different home in Sweden and Dad answered. Even in Swedish, I knew his voice. I said hi.

He said, “Schatzi!” He always calls me that—it’s something like a German version of “sweetie.” “Hey, kiddo. How are you?” I’d done the math by this point. It was five a.m., and this was how excited my dad was to hear from me. I wanted to cry. I wanted to ask him if he’d been fishing lately, anything but what I had to tell him.

“I’m in trouble, Dad.”

“What? No. What’s the matter?” he said.

I told him everything—started with the death threats, moved on to the car, the investigation. “Anyway, there’s going to be a court-martial,” I said. I knew he might be fuzzy on what that meant. “It’s like a trial, Dad. It is a trial. And if they say I’m guilty, I’m going to jail. The max is ten years.”

“But you didn’t do anything,” he said. “So there’s no need to worry?” At least he didn’t offer to pray with me.

I told him, “No. It looks really bad. I’m the only suspect because they never looked for who did it. And they’re saying I didn’t want to go to Greece.”

   He interrupted me then. “Why wouldn’t you want to go to Greece? That’s so stupid.”

I said, “Fuck if I know, Dad. But they’re saying I couldn’t afford the car and didn’t want to go to Greece, so I torched it. I don’t know. It looks bad.”

He asked for my number. He said he’d call me back. I figured he’d wake up the shepherds, whoever was in charge of the home. They’d pray about it and decide it wasn’t in the Lord’s will for my dad to care about what happened to me—story of my life. I wondered if he’d call me back at all.

My phone rang. “Hey, so when is this happening?” Dad asked. I gave him the dates. He said he was coming. I couldn’t believe it. My dad, who hated that I’d even joined the military. Who I hadn’t seen but a couple times since I was seven. Who stayed in the Family long after we’d left. My dad was coming to my trial. I’d fought against letting myself hope. He said he’d called his brother, a lawyer, who told him I needed a civilian lawyer. Said his mom had left him some money and he’d pay.

And so my dad got me a lawyer named Gary Myers. Gary would run the defense, but Gary said I could pick a free Air Force lawyer from a different base, and should. I might as well have both. The Air Force gave me a captain from a base in Oklahoma. I named him the Apostle because he asked if I was a Christian. When I said I’m not anymore, he wanted to pray with me. I wanted him to defend me, but if he just wanted to pray, I had Gary Myers, who was exactly as big a prick as you want defending you.

I’m serious. He yelled at me on the phone for talking to Sheriff Horton and the investigators on base. I said, “I didn’t know any better. I talked to legal and didn’t talk to him after that.”

   He said, “Well, maybe you’re not a complete fucking idiot. All right. Keep your mouth shut.”



* * *



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My court-martial was held in October 2000. The trial lasted four days. Mom and Dad shared a rental car from the airport and stayed in the same hotel. They showed up every morning and sat outside the courtroom. They couldn’t come in, in case they were called as witnesses.

The prosecution started. (Prosecution, jury, trial—there are different words for all of these in the military. But we’ll skip the lesson in military law.) They said I was a liar, bought a car I couldn’t afford. I didn’t tell anyone about the death threats. The first bit may have been true, but not how they meant it. And “Okay, sure, but I lie to hide who I am” isn’t much of a defense.

Sergeant Peters took the stand. He’d been transferred to another base, but was back for the trial. He said, “Those dogs always bark at anything on the street, even if they’re dead asleep.” I thought we should all drive over to his house, play a game of touch football on his lawn to prove his dogs wouldn’t bark unless someone rang the doorbell.

I wasn’t surprised he’d turned on me. You may think you have friends who’ll help you bury a body. But when the cops show up and flash their badges, your friends will point to bodies you’ve never seen to keep the cops from looking their way. There are only two sides, and when it comes down to it, even those with nothing to hide will side with those who have the power.

   They put my old roommate, Eric, on the stand. He said, “She always locked her car.”

If I always locked my car, no one could have filled it full of gas without setting off the alarm. What he didn’t mention was that soon after I’d had the alarm installed, I’d regretted the money I’d wasted on it. The fighter jets set off every car alarm on base every time they buzzed over. We’d talked about it. He said I should have the alarm sensor recalibrated. Instead, I stopped locking my car, to keep it from going off.