It was dark inside the house, probably because night was falling outside, though not as heavily as the rain, which was making a roaring sound, the clouds having flicked the switch from downpour to fusillade. Thinking that maybe time had managed to get away from me, I checked the clock on the oven: 5 P.M. I was probably too late, but I rang base information anyway and got a phone number for the investigator who I knew from the report was based here at Hurlburt Field. I called. Lucky me, the DI was in.
White lettering on the thin, black plastic plate screwed onto the bare wood-veneer door announced that this was the office of Lieutenant Colonel Clare Selwyn, DI. I knocked and stood in the doorway. The colonel was leaning over something on a bench that ran along one side of her office. She glanced up and frowned. I watched her eyes flick from the Hawaiian shirt to my face. Being out of uniform, I was an unknown quantity, either a temporary interruption or a more long-term pain in the ass.
“Special Agent Vin Cooper,” I said, narrowing it down to the latter.
“Come on in,” she said.
Lieutenant Colonel Selwyn had attended Master Sergeant Ruben Wright after he splashed down. Selwyn was at least thirty-six years of age — had to be, given her rank — though she appeared much younger. Having met quite a few death inspectors over the years and knowing what they did in their regular nine-to-five, her youthfulness was surprising. Death had a way of leaving his imprint on your face, but not on hers. Her eyes were soft, brown, and intelligent, and her dark eyebrows contrasted with hair that was almost white blond. If she let it loose from her ponytail and gave it a flick, I'd be thinking Swedish shampoo commercial. A thick strand of that hair had managed to escape the elastic and hung in front of her face. The colonel tucked it behind an ear with a finger and then spread the photos out on the table. All featured Ruben Wright, and the poses weren't flattering.
“He looked a lot different the last time I saw him,” I said. For one thing, the guy in these photos didn't have a beer in his hand or a grin on his face. For another, in these he resembled a puddle wearing clothes. One photo showed a close-up of a distinguishing mark, a Superman symbol tattooed on his shoulder. There was a tear in the S where the skin had split. On the other shoulder, Wright had sergeant's chevrons tattooed in khaki. I recalled the day and the place where he'd had both tattoos done. We were in Bangkok, with a bunch of Navy Seals, looking for action. As I remember, we found it. The morning after, Ruben visited a tattoo artist in a back alley. When the job was done, he bought a bottle of whiskey, drank half, and poured the rest of it over his newly acquired artworks. We then went on to find some more action, again successfully, I believe. Bangkok was that kind of town. I've been told it still is.
“You knew the deceased?” Selwyn asked, standing up straight. She was tall, around five ten.
“In a different life I was in the CCTs. I served with Sergeant Wright in Afghanistan and other places.”
“Oh.”
“So, would you mind taking me through your problems on this thing?” I asked.
“Sure. This is my problem.” Selwyn slid back a door beneath the bench and pulled out a large, clear plastic evidence bag.
I recognized the item as a parachute harness and chute bag. The chute appeared to have been removed. I must have made some kind of face because the colonel said, “I've also got the parachute.”
I nodded.
“It was one of those ram-air chutes the Special Forces guys use, and there was nothing wrong with it. The problem was with the harness itself.” The colonel dug around through the plastic until she found what she was after. “Take a close look at the thigh strap.”
“Appears to have been cut,” I said, aware of the problem with the harness, and now also of her perfume.
“Go to the head of the class.”
“Had the chute been deployed?”
“Yeah. We found it a mile from your friend's point of impact.”
With that thigh strap cut, the considerable unbalanced forces coming into play when the chute popped open would have flicked Wright out the bottom of the harness like a stone from a slingshot. The reserve chute would have also gone with it. Ruben was free-falling with no chute and with possibly around twenty seconds to think about what would happen next. Pinpricks of perspiration erupted on my top lip. The guy had lived my own personal nightmare, and then it had killed him.
“You OK?” Selwyn asked. “You've gone kinda green.”
“Bus lag,” I said. “So, one theory is that Sergeant Wright cut the thigh strap himself and then deployed the chute. He would have known exactly what would happen. The chute and harness went one way, he went the other.”
“Suicide?” said Selwyn with a snort. “Sure. Then I could've signed the autopsy and gone to lunch.”
“So why didn't you?”
“Because that's not what happened.”
“Then what did?”
“Let's run with the suicide angle a minute. If Wright intended to kill himself, why not just forget to pull the rip cord? Why the hell would he go to all the trouble of cutting himself out of his own harness?”
I couldn't think of a single reason, except that people who do commit suicide are rarely what you'd call reasonable.
Selwyn fetched another evidence bag from the cupboard. “He had two of these — one's missing from its scabbard, probably the one that did the cutting. Only, where is it?” In the bag was a distinctive knife, a British Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. I remembered it being Ruben Wright's preferred close-in weapon. He'd had this one modified, honed to a razor's edge on both sides. Inscribed along the slender blade were the words “Truth. Justice.”
“If he did cut his own harness and then dropped the knife, you'd think the dagger's trajectory would have been vertical like his own. You should have found it close to his body,” I said.
“Yep.”
Thinking aloud, I continued, “There's no way the knife could have somehow got caught up in the suspension lines, or the wing itself, and come down somewhere between where you found Wright and where you found the chute?”
She shook her head. “The deceased and the knife would have been on a divergent course to the chute, pretty much the instant it was deployed.”
“OK, so let's look at the accidental-death angle. I understand this was a night-training jump.”
“Yep.”
“What if he became disoriented for some reason when he came out of the plane, found himself tumbling, and the chute didn't come out of the bag clean? What if he needed to cut himself out of the main chute before he could open the reserve, and accidentally sliced through his thigh strap instead?”
“And maybe leprechauns live in my underwear drawer,” she said.
Lucky leprechauns. I glanced at Selwyn. She wasn't smiling. OK, so this theory was dumb, every bit as dumb as the suicide angle.
“You and I both know there's a far more likely scenario that fits the facts,” she said. “I examined the suspension lines and the chute. Everything was in A-one condition. If Wright got in a knife fight with his chute, you'd expect pretty extensive damage to it, right?”
I nodded. “You would. Did you ascertain whether Wright had his second knife on him when he went up? If you can't find it, is there a chance he left it in his locker?”