Mr. Kill

by Martin Limon

  “You’re suspicious of this guy,” I said.

  Norris frowned. “Not of him so much, but of the people he might be dealing with.”

  “Like who?”

  “I wish I knew. He hasn’t told me anything. He only wants to talk to you. It just seems odd, though.”

  “What does?”

  “That he knows you by name.”

  Norris was right. That did seem odd.

  The Hialeah Compound Data Processing Center said they’d work on gathering Pruchert’s ration-control records for me and I could pick them up that afternoon. At the MP station, I called Riley.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Riley screamed.

  I held the phone away from my ear. “Chasing criminals,” I said. “What the hell do you think?”

  “Do you consider your partner, Bascom, to be one of those criminals?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Taegu. Camp Henry. At oh two hundred hours this morning. MP report sitting on the Provost Marshal’s desk this morning. Looks like your buddy Ernie punched out a captain in the United States Army.”

  “Embry?”

  “Aha! I knew you’d know what I was talking about. There was a fight at the …” Riley rustled through some paperwork. “… the New Taegu Tourist Hotel in downtown Taegu. The KNPs were called, along with the MPs, and then a medical unit ambulance from the compound. It looks like Captain Frederick Raymond Embry was roughed up royally. He’s in the dispensary on Camp Henry right now.”

  “How badly was he hurt?”

  Riley looked at the paperwork again. “He’ll live. A few stitches. And maybe his nose will be a little twisted.”

  “How about Ernie?”

  “Scratches and bruises. Nothing serious. He was treated and released to the tender mercies of the Camp Henry MP station.”

  “They have him locked up?”

  “What else? You can’t go beating up officers for no good reason.”

  “No good reason? Captain Embry was stalking one of the women in the band, Marnie Orville. Ernie was assigned to protect her. We even have reason to believe that Embry might’ve been the one who attacked that MP.”

  As usual, instead of rewarding us for doing a tough job, 8th Army was berating us for doing what they’d told us to do.

  “Marnie?” Riley asked. “She’s in the report here too.”

  “And you’re the one,” I said, “who helped her locate Freddy Ray Embry, so she could contact him and get this shit started.”

  Riley ignored me. “Let me see,” he said, shuffling through more paperwork. “Yeah, here it is. Marnie Orville says that Agent Ernie Bascom attacked Captain Frederick Raymond Embry without provocation.”

  “‘Without provocation’? I’m on my way.” I slammed the phone down.

  By the time I’d made the two-hour drive to Taegu, I was so tired that I was starting to hallucinate. Still, I made my way to the MP station, parked the green army sedan in the gravel lot, and walked inside and asked the desk sergeant about Ernie.

  “No one’s allowed to talk to him,” the desk sergeant told me.

  “By God, I will,” I said. “I didn’t drive all the way up here for nothing.”

  “I don’t give a damn how far you drove. Nobody talks to him.”

  “By whose orders?”

  “Major Squireward.”

  “Where’s his office?”

  “You don’t have a need to know.”

  I was about fed up with everybody’s attitude around here. I grabbed the desk sergeant by the collar of his fatigues and hauled him part way over the counter.

  “You get Agent Bascom out here, and you get him out here now! You got that?”

  The desk sergeant clawed at my arms, and I kept pulling. Soon he was on top of the counter, kicking with his combat boots. He rolled off of the counter and hit the wood-paneled floor with a thud. By then, other MPs had run in from the back rooms. One of them grabbed me, and I swiveled and punched him. Then nightsticks came out. A couple of them swung, and I dodged and grabbed more green material. I felt myself falling, and a huge pile fell on top of me. Somehow, someone clamped handcuffs on one wrist; two men held the other wrist steady as the second cuff was clamped shut.

  They dragged me into a back room.

  It was another twenty minutes before I stopped cursing. And kicking the bottom of the door with my foot, smashing the hell out of my toe.

  13

  The best way to pass the time in a jail cell—as I’ve learned from my two or three sojourns therein—is to sleep. Due to my state of extreme exhaustion, sleep was something I had no trouble doing. Actually, I wasn’t locked up in a jail cell, but rather in an interrogation room with no windows and a doorknob that turned freely but wouldn’t unlock. In the center of the room was a scarred wooden armyissue field table and two dented gray metal folding chairs. I pushed the chairs together, both facing the wall, and did my best to lie down on the impromptu bed. It was dreadfully uncomfortable, but my exhaustion was so complete that within seconds I was dead to the world.

  A door slammed open and jerked me awake.

  “On your feet!” someone shouted.

  I staggered upright.

  “The position of attention!” the same voice shouted.

  I realized who it was; the same desk sergeant whom I’d jerked across the counter. It figured that he’d be a little cross.

  When I was in a reasonable approximation of the position of attention—my back straight, my feet together, my hands at my sides, thumbs aligned with the seams of my trousers—the desk sergeant opened the door and an officer wearing his dress green uniform strode in. His name tag said Squireward, the gold maple leaf on his shoulder indicated his rank as major, and I already knew that he was the Provost Marshal of Camp Henry and of the 19th Support Group.

  Major Squireward stopped in front of me and examined me like a hawk would a particularly distasteful rodent. Finally he said, “What have you got to say for yourself, Sueño?”

  “About what, sir?”

  “About pulling Sergeant Copwood across the counter.”

  Sergeant Copwood leaned his weight from one foot to the other. “He didn’t pull me all the way across the counter, sir.”

  “Shut up, Copwood.” Squireward continued to glare at me. “So what is it, Sueño? What’s your excuse?”

  “No excuse, sir.”

  “Then you admit you were in the wrong.”

  I shrugged. “I have the right to remain silent, sir, like anyone else.”

  Squireward’s narrow face seemed to suck in on itself, and his brown eyes flashed behind the hooked nose.

  “We’ll see about that,” he said. “We’ll see if you can retain the right to remain silent. I’m not standing for that type of behavior in my area of operations, Sueño. Do you understand? I’m pushing this thing all the way up to Eighth Army. You think you’re smart now, coming down here from Seoul and throwing your weight around, but we’ll see who laughs last.”

  I didn’t respond. I knew better. Most members of the US Army officer corps, when they’re angry, want desperately to deliver their tongue-lashings. If they’re allowed to do that, given time, they’ll calm down; once they come to their senses, any attempt they make at punishment will be less severe. Not that I thought Major Squireward could do much to me, but there’s no sense in tempting fate.

  “I’ve already demanded,” he said, “that you and your partner, that guy Bascom, be removed physically from Camp Henry and all Nineteenth Support Group subordinate units. I want you out of here, and I want you out of here now. You got that?”

  I nodded. “Got it, sir.”

  “Good. And to that end, Seoul has sent down a babysitter for you. I’m signing both you and that Bascom character over to him, and he’ll escort you out of Taegu. Is that understood?”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Major Squireward glared at me again, this time for a long moment. Finally, he said, “It had better be understood, Sue
ño. It had better be. And it should also be understood that your investigation of the Blue Train rapist failed miserably.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “Talk to your KNP buddy down there. What’s his name? Inspector Kill. He’ll tell you.”

  With that, Major Squireward pivoted on his highly polished low quarters and marched out of the interrogation room.

  The “babysitter” who signed for Ernie and me was Staff Sergeant Riley. After we walked out of the front door of the Camp Henry MP station, Ernie said, “How the hell did you get down here so fast?”

  “Chopper,” Riley replied. “The Provost Marshal has a case of the big ass.”

  “That’s news?” Ernie asked.

  “For starters,” Riley said, “you punched out Captain Freddy Ray Embry and put him in the aid station; and you, Sueño, roughed up the desk sergeant at the Camp Henry MP station.”

  “Allegedly,” I said, “on both counts.”

  “‘Allegedly,’ my ass,” Riley replied.

  “Why is it,” Ernie asked, “that Eighth Army is always willing to believe the worst about us?”

  “Because you deserve to have the worst believed about you,” Riley replied.

  Ernie climbed in the driver’s seat of the old green sedan, pulled out his keys, and turned on the ignition. It started right up. Riley sat in back. I rode shotgun. On the way out the gate, Ernie waved to the MPs. They frowned back at him, hands on the grips of their .45s.

  “Where to?” Ernie asked.

  “Pusan,” Riley replied. “We turn this vehicle in, and then I’m to escort you both back to Seoul.”

  “Belay that,” I said.

  “What? There’s no belaying shit. I’m under orders to return you two assholes to Seoul.”

  “First,” I said, “we talk to Inspector Kill.”

  “The hell you will,” Riley replied.

  “The hell I won’t,” I said.

  Inspector Kill shook his head sadly and pushed a sheaf of pulp across his metal desk. “No good,” he said.

  I was sitting in the Pusan Central Police Station. Riley and Ernie were waiting for me in the sedan, partly because in the middle of the day, in downtown Pusan, Ernie couldn’t find a parking spot, and partly because Ernie was playing the role of mental health nurse while Riley fumed and turned red and cursed about being under orders to escort us back to Seoul. “Immediately if not sooner” was the way he put it.

  “You brought in the witnesses,” I told Kill.

  He nodded. “Separately. Both the woman who sold the purse in front of the train station and the cab driver who transported the Blue Train rapist to the Shindae Hotel. Both witnesses took their time, they studied the man, but in the end they both said the same thing. It’s not him.”

  “But they don’t see many foreigners,” I said. “We all look alike to them. Maybe they’re mistaken.”

  Kill shook his head. “The old lady in front of the train station sees plenty of foreigners; they shop there for souvenirs. And the driver works the Texas Street area. He probably has almost as many foreign passengers as he has Korean. They both took their time. We emphasized to them how important this was.” Kill fondled the black-and-white photo of Corporal Robert R. Pruchert. “It’s not him. He’s not the Blue Train rapist.”

  Finally I accepted what he was telling me. Then my self-questioning began. What had I done wrong? Where had my investigative procedures failed? There are only so many American G.I.s at the compounds in Taejon, Waegwan, Taegu, and Pusan, totaling only in the hundreds, and they’re watched closely; passes and leave requests are monitored by their superiors. They don’t just run up and down the spine of Korea on the Blue Train willy-nilly.

  Most crimes committed by American G.I.s in Korea are solved easily. G.I.s aren’t criminal masterminds and they don’t cover their tracks well. Often, it seems that many of them actually want to be caught. Maybe they’re tired of the slogging routine of military life. Maybe they’re tired of living in a country where they don’t understand the language and can’t read the signs, where they don’t understand the customs and everything seems to be done backward. When Koreans wave a hand they usually mean “come here,” not “good-bye.” When they say “yes,” they are often trying not to embarrass the person who’s doing the asking, and what they really mean is “no.” For Americans, who are used to revering youth and beauty, it seems odd that in Korea the young and the beautiful are expected to prostrate themselves in front of the old and the ugly. So G.I.s commit crimes out of rage and frustration, or just out of a desire to leave “frozen Chosun” and go home. That’s what I thought the Blue Train rapist case was. A guy acting out his resentments. A guy waiting to get caught.

  Apparently, I was wrong.

  The disappointment must’ve shown in my face. Kill leaned forward and slipped the photograph into a folder. “We’ll catch the right man,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  I told him about Ernie and me being ordered back to Seoul.

  Kill’s face hardened. “Eighth Army promised us your services until this case was solved.”

  “I know. But my partner was involved in an argument with a superior officer. They’re very angry about that.”

  “The people of Korea,” Kill said, “are very angry about the Blue Train rapist.”

  He walked me out of his office and down the long corridor. “I will contact my superiors,” he said. “They will contact yours. Don’t leave Pusan until you’ve heard from me.”

  I promised I wouldn’t.

  In the foyer, just in front of the arched entranceway to the Pusan Police Station, a small group of people waited. Two were old grandparents wearing traditional Korean hanbok, supporting themselves on canes; another was a middle-aged man in a natty blue suit. With them were three children, a boy and two girls. The blue-suited man’s eyes widened when he spotted Inspector Kill. He stepped forward and bowed. The man wore glasses; he had a square face with high cheekbones, and I could see that his eyes were deeply lined in red. The children cowered next to their grandparents.

  “This,” Mr. Kill told me, “is Mr. Ju, the husband of Hyon Mi-sook.”

  In Korea, a wife doesn’t adopt her husband’s family name but keeps the name she was born with. This then was the husband of the woman who’d been brutally raped and then murdered in the Shindae Hotel. The children staring at me in wide-eyed horror had huddled in the bathtub while their mother had been humiliated, stabbed, and partially dismembered.

  Without thinking, I held out my hand.

  Mr. Ju recoiled from it. He stepped back, waving his palm negatively. “Andei.” No good. He launched into a vituperative spiel, some of which I couldn’t understand but, unfortunately, much of which I could. He said the American government must certainly know who had murdered his wife because soldiers are controlled and all their time accounted for, and therefore we Americans must be protecting the man who tore apart his family. He accused me of trying to block the investigation, trying to stall for time, hoping Koreans would forget about the outrage. He vowed he would never forget. He would continue to demand that we give up the killer even if it meant that Korea finally stood up for its rights and forced every last miscreant American G.I. to leave the country.

  By now he was screaming, pointing his finger at me. The children were crying, burying their faces in the folds of their grandparents’ silk garments. A few uniformed cops loitered nearby, not sure what to do. Inspector Kill stepped toward Mr. Ju and held up two open palms.

  Involuntarily I retreated from Mr. Ju’s assault, wanting to say it wasn’t true, we weren’t hiding anyone, but afraid of what he was saying; afraid of the truth of what he was saying. In each unit of the United States Army—especially while stationed overseas—we live cheek by jowl, both on duty and off. We know all about one another, often more than we want to know. If someone was leaving his unit, leaving his place of work, leaving his bunk in the barracks, and traveling around the country raping and murdering women, somebody who lived or w
orked with him would know of his strange behavior, or at least have strong suspicions. As of yet, no one had contacted 8th Army law enforcement. Not one tip. Partly that was because the story hadn’t appeared in the Pacific Stars and Stripes and therefore hadn’t risen above the level of rumor. But Riley confirmed to us that no tips had come in to the 8th Army CID office or the 8th Army MP station or any MP station in the entire country.

  Was Mr. Ju right? Was 8th Army covering something up?

  It had happened before. The Army protects its own. That’s not just an observation, it’s a motto that many soldiers—if not most—live by.

  I stepped away from the screaming man, away from the crying children, away from Inspector Kill, who was trying to calm down the hysterical civilian. With a knot in my gut as big as a winter cabbage, I shoved my way out of the Pusan Police Station and stumbled down the stone steps. Ernie was in the sedan waiting for me, engine idling.

  When I climbed in the front passenger seat, Riley said, “What the hell happened to you?”

  My only response was “Drive.”

  Ernie slipped the car in gear, stepped on the gas, and roared his way through the midday Pusan traffic.

  After a few minutes, I started to calm down. The roads had widened now and were filled with fewer cars but, so far, no one had said a word. Even Riley was keeping his big trap shut. To fill the silence, Ernie started to explain what had happened between him and Captain Freddy Ray Embry.

  “The USO popped for some really nice rooms in downtown Taegu,” Ernie told us. “Marnie and I were on the sixth floor—”

  “What’s this ‘Marnie and I’?” Riley growled.

  “Just what I said,” Ernie repeated. “‘Marnie and I.’ We were staying in room 607, up on the sixth floor.”

  “You’re supposed to be guarding those broads,” Riley said. “Not cohabitating with ’em.”

  Ernie shrugged. “So, anyway, it was just before the midnight curfew hit and suddenly there’s this pounding on the door. For a minute I thought it was the bed because Marnie was screaming at the time and thrashing around a bit—she’s a big girl—but finally I realized that somebody was at the door. I tried to get up, but Marnie wouldn’t let me go until finally I broke her grip and slipped on my jockey shorts. When I opened the door, there’s this big ugly G.I. screaming at me, wanting to know what I was doing with his Marnie.”