This Mrs. Hyon Mi-sook must have been fairly well off if she could afford to stay in a tourist hotel. Mr. Kill slid a photograph out of the inner pocket of his jade vest and laid it on the table.
“That’s her?” Ernie asked.
Kill nodded.
She was a knockout. A gorgeous Korean woman with full cheeks and sparkling white teeth smiled out at us. Kill continued his story.
“As soon as Mrs. Hyon had checked in, she and her children were escorted upstairs by a bellhop. Almost immediately after her elevator doors closed, a Western man entered and approached the front desk holding a woman’s handbag, saying it was hers and that she had left it on the train. The desk clerk offered to take it from him, but the man waved him off and asked which floor she was on. The startled clerk told him. The big Western man went to the stairs and climbed them two steps at a time.”
“Will the clerk be able to identify this man?” Ernie asked.
“So I’m told.”
We could imagine what happened next, but Kill elaborated. The Western man, lurking in the hallway of the third floor, waited until the bellhop left and then immediately knocked on her door. Whether she looked through the peephole and saw a Western man holding a purse or thought it was the bellhop returning, we’ll never know. Korea is a trusting society. Violent crime is so much more rare here than it is in the States. Whatever the reason, she opened the door.
“Are the kids still alive?” Ernie asked.
Kill nodded. “They weren’t hurt,” he said. “Not physically.”
I studied this strange, calm man who sat in front of us. Despite his age, his body expressed the grace of someone who’d studied martial arts for years; his knuckles were callused and his waist waspish. He stared at us pleasantly, his mouth set in a half smile, black eyes absorbing everything. Waiting.
I wanted to ask more questions, about him, about the beautiful woman who’d been so cruelly raped and murdered, and about the fate of her children. But the train jerked and a blast of steam screamed out of the side of the engine. Our cups rattled atop their saucers. We were entering Pusan Station. Mr. Kill rose, spoke briefly to the waiter, who bowed, and then turned and made his way through the train back to his seat.
Ernie and I followed.
The train came to a complete stop. We grabbed our bags and waited as the elderly passengers and women with children filed off in front of us. When we reached the end of the car and were about to step off onto the cement platform, the stewardess was there waiting for us. She bowed to me and then, after I’d passed, she stepped close to Ernie. I turned in time to see her whisper something in his ear.
We walked in darkness toward the row of streetlights shining in front of the station. I asked, “What was that all about?”
Ernie held out his palm, showing me a slip of folded paper. I grabbed it and opened it, twisting it toward the light. The stewardess’s name, written in English, and a phone number.
I handed the paper back to him.
“See, Sueno,” he said, grinning. “Acting like an asshole pays off.”
I didn’t reply.
Ernie wadded up the little note and tossed it in the gutter.
The staff at the Shindae Tourist Hotel bowed so much, I almost mistook them for a flock of ducks. They weren’t showing this elaborate politeness to Ernie and me, but to the revered gentleman in the blue silk hanbok-a revered gentleman who’d also flashed the badge of an inspector of the Korean National Police.
The head clerk, wearing a black suit with matching bow tie, showed us the steps the rapist had climbed to reach the room of Mrs. Hyon Mi-sook. The room had been taped off by the local Pusan contingent of the KNP, but Mr. Gil ordered the clerk to unlock the door. We stepped in.
The sink in the bathroom and the counter surrounding it were slathered in dried blood.
“He washed himself here,” Gil said. “Or at least that’s what we believe. The oldest son told us that he forced him and his two sisters to crouch there in the bathtub and then he jerked down the shower curtain and covered them with it. They could barely breathe.”
“But he didn’t actually hurt the children?” Ernie asked.
Gil shook his head. “No.”
Not physically, at least.
“The mother was found bound and gagged with some of the towels.”
We returned to the main room. There was more blood on the bed. “He tied one arm here.” Gil pointed at the posts at the head of the bed. “Another arm there, and a leg each down there.”
“Spread-eagled,” I said.
“Yes,” Gil agreed. “Spread-eagled. This rag,” Gil said, pointing to a washcloth, “was found stuffed in her mouth.”
Inspector Gil knew all this from the detailed KNP report that had been sent to him in Seoul by teletype. His eyes shone as he paced slowly around the room, examining everything. The bed was stained brown, as if an urn of mess-hall coffee had been spilled, but I knew it wasn’t coffee. I could tell by the stench. The air reeked of the meaty odor of a butcher shop’s slaughter room.
“After he raped her,” Gil said, “he started cutting her. She fought. One hand was found free and there was blood and flesh under the nails.”
“Good for her,” Ernie said, sudden passion filling his voice.
Gil glanced at him. “It didn’t do her any good. She died anyway. The boy said he heard his mother stop struggling. Then the foreign man entered the bathroom and washed himself thoroughly; and, without saying anything, he left.”
“How long did the kids stay in there?” I asked.
“Until morning,” Gil replied. “Until the maid found them.”
Outside the Shindae Tourist Hotel, Mr. Gil ordered the doorman to call a taxi. He blew a whistle, and a small Hyundai sedan appeared almost instantly. We piled in and rode silently. The broad streets of the city of Pusan were swathed in darkness and washed with a salty mist from the sea. We swept through lonely streets until we finally reached the cement-block foundation of the building known as the Pusan Main Police Station. As we climbed the well-lit stone steps, an officer wearing a gray Western suit was waiting there for us. He bowed to Mr. Kill and then shook hands with Ernie and me. He turned and ushered us into the huge wooden building.
I paused and studied a plaque written in Chinese. A few of the characters I could read. Apparently, this building had been built in 1905 during the waning days of the Chosun Dynasty. It had originally been the Pusan area’s main administrative building, but had then been converted to other purposes. Unspoken were the uses it had been put to during the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945. Still, the building had been in continuous use for almost seventy years.
I hurried to catch up with the other men and followed them down long wooden corridors. Inside open-doored offices, blue-clad Korean National Policemen worked at desks or interrogated prisoners, even at this late hour. There were a few Korean women in uniform, mostly typing reports or carrying paperwork. We climbed three flights of broad wooden stairs until we were ushered into an office marked with Chinese characters I couldn’t decipher. As soon as I had a chance, I copied the characters into my notebook. Later I discovered they meant “Homicide Division.”
We sat on hard couches surrounding a coffee table. Soon, a female officer brought a metal tray with cups and a bronze pot of barley tea. We drank. The officer in the gray suit pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered them all around. When everyone refused, he grimaced and stuffed the pack back into his coat pocket. Then, in English, he introduced himself: Senior Inspector Han of the Pusan Korean National Police.