The paycheck is in (though our account balance looks a little funky so I need to spend some phone time getting things back in order there). But, the money came in so that's what counts. Woo-hoo!
I've been thinking about my friend Renate a lot lately. Her story is a strange one. Someday perhaps we'll get to the bottom of it, but for now it's a conspiracy theorists dream, a true mystery. I'll tell it to you now.
Renate was an awesome friend of mine in high school. She was a unique girl, full of mischief and spunk. She was the friend who snuck boyfriends into her room and kissed and told, lol. She was our good little catholic friend :wink:. Her parents were really fun, so was her annoying little brother. Her dad was a head chef at a club in Denver. Birthday slumber parties centered around the food her dad prepared for each stage of the party. We had fresh homemade belgian waffles with fresh strawberries and real whipped cream for breakfast for example. He made the BEST German Potato Salad from scratch.
A few years after graduation Renate, out of the blue, told us of her intentions of joining the Army Reserves. We were freaked out, didn't want her to go, but she found homes for her beloved Ferret's and went off to boot camp. It happened pretty fast. From the time she said she was going to the time she was gone was about a month I think, very fast and sudden. She went off to boot camp in Missouri. She didn't graduate from boot camp with her company because she had a stress fracture in her hip from being forced to run on icy ground during boot camp. At some point they sent her home for R and R hoping the fracture would heal. She was home for several weeks and the stories were horrendour. For her birthday she was forced to scrub the dining hall floors on her hands and knees with a toothbrush since she had the stress fracture and they couldn't make her do her regular duties. This was considered light duty. Her superiors, she said, were unhappy that they had to cater to this whole group of injured soldiers who'd been left behind without graduating and they made their lives hell. Surprisingly she went back anyway when her time was up.
I can't remember exactly but over the course of the next few months they decided to release her from duty. Her stress fracture was not healing (DUH, they wouldn't let it heal, made her run and scrub floors through the fracture) so they were going to send her home. They'd set a date. The date would come and go. No Renate would appear. The phone would ring, they'd pushed it forward for some reason. That happened a few times until finally the phone rang but it wasn't Renate. It was someone from the military looking for Renate. Chaos ensued at this point because nobody knew what was happening. Renate was AWOL and the Army was questioning all of us, all her friends, her family (including her brother who was in the Army and stationed in Afghanistan). Here's where the story gets really weird.
Renate was last seen on a Sunday entering the Buddhist Temple on base. Remember I said Renate was Catholic. It's now a week later and they are making phone calls to family and friends, so she's already been gone a week. None of her credit cards, bank accounts, or family have heard from her or been accessed. Not one dime is missing from her account. A few days later we learn that not only is Renate missing but so is a friend of hers from her company. The accounts and such for the other girl are untouched as well. Interviews and such continue for awhile when the phone rings late one night. Renate has been found in Hawaii. She and her friend have apparently jumped from a 13th story balcony in an expensive high-rise hotel to their deaths. The news is devastating and a few days go by as arrangements are made for her funeral. The Army flies her brother home from Afghanistan to attend the funeral. There is confusion and suspicion as to how Renate got TO Hawaii, paid for the hotel room for a month, what she was doing while she was there, why she would jump etc... . The day before the scheduled funeral the Army says they won't ship the body home, that they haven't released her body after the autopsy. TJ, her brother, goes BACK to the front lines of whatever conflict he's fighting in, confusion ensues, the funeral is postponed, etc... . All of this just heightens the suspicion and confusion as to what happened. There was talk of a note, but the wording was not what we'd have expected from Renate and there is no signature so the other girl could have written it. It did look like Renates handwriting but it still didn't really fit. Some time goes by and the Army finally agrees to send the body home, but at the last minute insists on it being cremated first. Renate did not want to be cremated. In the paperwork all enlisted people have to fill out she very clearly states that she wants to be buried. The Army says "cremated or nothing" so her distraught parents agree to the only thing they could. They reschedule the now memorial service (not really a funeral), fly TJ BACK home AGAIN, again make preparations. The phone rings. The body won't be cremated in time for the service but if you want US to pay for the service you can't reschedule, you have to do it on this date or it's out of your own pocket. Reluctantly the service goes on without so much as a speck of dust that used to be Renate in attendance which is distressing to her very catholic mother. The service is lovely, a memorial tribute with an undercurrent of frustration, confusion and skepticism in everyone's minds.
For months we gather regularly and try to piece together the puzzle that was the last few months of Renate's life. None of us can believe she has committed suicide. It's just not HER. None of us can come up with any sort of red flag, no hindsight that smacks us in the forehead and says "ah, see, she was contemplating ending her own life". And how did she get to Hawaii, and who was this girl she NEVER MENTIONED. Not once had any of us heard this girls name before. Not even her parents. Why Hawaii? Who wrote the note? What was she doing in a Buddhist temple? Why did it take a week for the Army to contact anyone? Why did they break her contract by insisting on cremating her? Lots of questions, no answers.
Not one of us believes she committed suicide that night. My personal belief is that she is still living. I believe she may be involved in some sort of secret agent sort of thing with the government. Now THAT would be our Renate. Suicide? No! Secret agent? That I'd buy, lol. Most people believe she was murdered but that just opens more questions. To my knowledge the case is closed. The base she was on was later investigated because of the number of injuries the recruits were sustaining during boot camp over the years. There is either a very LARGE piece of the puzzle missing, or none of us knew Renate very well, or this entire story was concocted for some other purpose. I fully expect to see her waltz into a reunion somewhere down the line like she'd been there all along. When the questions start "where have you BEEN, they told us you were dead" she'll say "If I tell you I'd have to kill you".
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