“Marnie,” I said, staring directly into her pale blue eyes, “when we first met you, you said that Freddy Ray wasn’t paying his child support.”
“That was just a little white lie.”
“A little white lie? The Army takes these things seriously.”
“I just wanted to find him so I could tell him that he ought to take his responsibilities as a father more seriously. Casey misses him, and she keeps asking me why her daddy never comes to see her.”
“You caused all this trouble just for that?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Just for that. My daughter is important to me.”
I had said the wrong thing and now she was indignant. Still, I soldiered on.
“When he showed up at your BOQ at Camp Carroll in Waegwan,” I said, “you suspected Freddy Ray of being the peeper, didn’t you?”
Marnie crossed her arms. “I’m not sure.”
“That’s why you sent him away without talking to him,” I continued. “It suddenly dawned on you that maybe he was the one following you from compound to compound, the one stealing small items. Isn’t that what you thought, Marnie?”
“You’re the detective,” she snapped. “Why don’t you find out?”
“Maybe I will,” I said, “once I have a little time.”
Marnie snorted. “We’re not important enough.”
There wasn’t much point continuing to talk to her. Instead, I said good-bye, then said good-bye to the other ladies of the Country Western All Stars and told them I hoped we’d be back from Cheju Island soon enough to catch their act again. Shelly, the lead guitar player, stepped forward and hugged me. Then she leaned away, smiling, and squeezed my hand.
Marnie followed me outside, where the others couldn’t hear. “I don’t think Freddy Ray’s the peeper. I did, but I don’t anymore,” she said.
I turned. “Why not?”
“Because of what he did last night in Taegu. He came for me. He didn’t sneak up or peep through a window, he knocked on the door like a man.”
“And punched out Ernie.”
Marnie shrugged and turned and walked back into the Quonset hut.
Lieutenant Colonel Ambrose Q. Laurel looked spindly in his head-to-toe black wet suit, a tremendous contrast to the burly Warnocki. About a dozen women sat on rocks on the beach, the hoods of their wet suits pulled back, revealing suntanned faces and moist black hair. The sea was blue close in, then gray, fading into a solid wall of mist about a hundred yards offshore. Most of the women were working on equipment-netting, flotation devices, sturdy-looking wooden-handled knives-and while they worked, they smiled at us, amused to have so much G.I. company.
“You dive with these ladies?” I asked Colonel Laurel.
“That’s right,” he said, staring directly at me, his gnarled face without expression.
He was not a tall man, five six or five seven, and he couldn’t have weighed more than 140 pounds. His grim expression was partly caused by the awkwardness of his situation. The full-length photo I’d seen in his personnel folder showed him standing proudly in his dress green uniform, shoulders thrust back, chest dripping with medals. But what wasn’t hidden, neither in his photos nor in this personal encounter, was the savage wound to his chin. Much of the jawbone had been blown off. It was partially reconstructed now, but still protruded only slightly below his mouth, an oddly shaped mass, not the pugnacious square jaw that a military man covets. He shoved his misshapen face out at me, and at Ernie, as if he were ready to fight.
“We’re here to check your morning reports, sir,” I said, “for the last two or three weeks, however far back we have to go. We’d like to know who in your unit was on leave, temporary duty, or who has otherwise left Cheju Island and traveled to the mainland.”
“Why?” he asked.
I told him.
“None of my men,” he said slowly, enunciating every word, “would ever be involved in such a thing as a rape or a murder.”
Then he stood silent, daring us to speak. I dared.
“Nevertheless, we have to check. It’s our duty.”
Something told me that long, involved explanations were not going to work with this man. Get right to the point. Stand your ground. Ernie stood at my side, unmoving. The haenyo sensed the tension between us, and the clinking of equipment grew more sporadic.
Colonel Laurel’s intelligent blue eyes held mine. Was he wavering? I couldn’t be sure. The thin lines of his lips were unreadable. Finally, he spoke.
“The men in my unit have no need of rape. Women flock to Green Berets.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure that’s true. Still, we’d appreciate it if you’d give Sergeant Warnocki here permission to show us the records.”
Colonel Laurel stared at us for what seemed like a long time. The only sound was the gentle washing of waves on the beach, the occasional swish of thread through netting, and the steady cawing of sea birds. Finally, Colonel Laurel spoke.
“You think you can come to Cheju Island and just decide that you’re going to poke your noses into the personal records of the brave men of the Special Forces?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You think I’m some nervous career officer who falls apart at the sight of a couple of CID badges? You think you frighten me? You think that prissy-ass, no-combat-experience Provost Marshal up there at Eighth Army scares me?”
Colonel Laurel paused. Ernie took the opportunity to roll his eyes and stare up at the sky, clicking his gum loudly. Laurel turned his attention to him.
“Am I boring you?” he asked. “You think I’m just being difficult? You think that if you dial up some chief of staff back in Seoul that I’m going to roll over and allow you access to the movements of my men?” Laurel stepped toward Ernie, his arms akimbo, an enraged rubberized scarecrow.
“I think, sir,” Ernie replied, keeping his voice steady, “that I know what they used to say in Nam: the Special Forces take all the glory while the grunts do all the dying.”
For the first time, Warnocki stopped grinning. He stepped closer to Ernie, as if to take him down from behind. I moved closer to Warnocki. By now, Ernie and Colonel Laurel were nose to nose, glaring at one another. Ernie’s nose was about half a foot higher. The haenyo sat immobile.
“You get anywhere near my unit morning reports,” Colonel Laurel told Ernie, “or anywhere near my compound, and I will personally plant my army-issue combat boot up your rear-echelon ass.”
“Why wait, Colonel?” Ernie replied. “You can try it now.”
With a motion that was too fast for me to stop, Warnocki grabbed Ernie’s left wrist and, in some deft twisting motion, rotated the forearm upward. Involuntarily, Ernie bent forward at the waist. Without thinking, I hopped forward and slammed Warnocki with a straight left to the side of his head. The tough man staggered, didn’t go down, but released his grip on Ernie.
Ernie swiveled on Warnocki, raising his right fist when Colonel Laurel shouted, “At ease!”
The sound was so loud, and so jarring, that all of us-me, Ernie, and Warnocki-froze in mid-motion.
“Assume the position of attention,” Colonel Laurel commanded.
We did.
Laurel walked up to Ernie and stood there for a long time, letting the strength of his authority seep into our overheated minds.
“You will not,” he said finally, “under any circumstances, have any more conversations or associations with any of the men in my unit. And you will not, under any circumstances, access the records of my unit’s personnel strength or of my men’s comings and goings. Not unless,” he added, “I release the information myself. Is that understood?”
Ernie nodded.
“Is that understood?” Laurel shouted.
“Yes, sir.”
“Warnocki,” Laurel said, spinning away, “take the jeep back to the compound.”
Warnocki nodded, grabbed his beret, which had fallen into the sand, replaced it on his almost-bald head, saluted Colonel Laurel, and trotted off toward the jeep. On the way, he grinned at me broadly. It wasn’t a friendly grin. More like being laughed at by a skull.