Now deceased.
We spent the rest of the evening canvassing the bars and brothels of Songtan-up. The MPs were happy because they were able to loiter in the brightly lit alleys amidst blaring rock music and play grab ass with the Korean business girls. Ernie and I, however, were becoming less happy the more we learned.
By the time our little convoy left Songtan, we were downright morose.
The MPs drove us all the way back to Seoul. We stopped at various military checkpoints along the way because it was after the midnight curfew. We showed the stern-faced ROK soldiers our emergency dispatch and, holding their rifles at port arms, they waved us on. We approached the southern outskirts of Seoul, the Han River quiet and calm. Through glimmering moonlight, we crossed Chamsu Bridge, and the MPs drove us onto 8th Army’s Yongsan Compound and dropped us off in front of our barracks. I thanked them for the lift and told them we would no longer need their services. There was some grumbling about that; every GI likes easy duty. The sergeant in charge took it well, however, and sped off, leading his little convoy back to their home in the cave at Tango, 8th Army Headquarters (Rear).
The next morning, Ernie and I were showered, shaved, changed into clean clothes, and back on the job at 8th Army CID headquarters. But there was a new attitude toward us now. Cool. Distant. Agents walked down the hallway, not looking at us, pretending we weren’t there.
I knew, of course, why.
First, I’d committed the sin of losing my weapon and my badge. Something most cops swore would never happen to them unless they were dead. Second, Ernie and I together had committed the much worse sin of going “over the heads” of our immediate supervisors. Of course we hadn’t intended to. The decision to lay the blessing of the 8th Army Commander on us had come, not from us, but from General Armbrewster, the 8th Army Commander himself. Still, in the army, it doesn’t matter if you’re not responsible for a bureaucratic breach. The sin has been committed. No amount of rational explanation can wash away the stain.
As always happens in military units, the attitude of the bosses flows downhill to the peons. Although they wouldn’t state it directly, the orders from the Provost Marshal and the CID Detachment First Sergeant were clear. Sueno and Bascom are to be shunned. Anyone who associates with them will be guilty of disloyalty.
Even Staff Sergeant Riley, the Admin NCO of the CID Detachment, acted as if we were strangers. Ernie put up with this new attitude for about twenty seconds.
“You’re the biggest drunk in Eighth Army,” he told Riley, “and suddenly you’re too good for us?”
Riley’s skinny face looked shocked. “The biggest drunk?”
“What? Did I stutter?” Ernie asked. “If you hadn’t started with lining up those shots along the bar at the NCO Club, none of this shit would’ve happened.”
That was the night a group of us had gotten drunk, stumbled out to Itaewon, and I’d ended up losing my weapon and my badge.
“So it’s my fault now?”
“It’s always been your fault.”
I interrupted.
“Let’s get down to business, Riley. Show me the lists.”
Sullenly, Sergeant Riley slid a stack of paperwork across his desk.
Ernie shot Riley a sour look and then turned and stalked across the room to the other side of the office. He sat down in front of the desk of Miss Kim, the attractive young Admin Office secretary. She ignored him, continuing to hammer away at the hangul lettering on her manual typewriter. Not that she didn’t like Ernie. She liked him a lot. In fact, for the last few weeks they’d been dating regularly. But Miss Kim also had the Korean respect for harmony in the family-and in the work place-that’s hammered into them from birth. She certainly didn’t want to step into the middle of any dispute between Americans.
I plopped down on a vinyl-cushioned chair and started going through the lists.
At first I couldn’t focus. I was still thinking about last night, the crime scene at the home of Jo Kyong-ah, and the gossip I’d heard about her from the bar girls and GIs who hang out in the back alleys of Songtan.
Miss Jo Kyong-ah was retired, people said. She’d been a big-time black-market mama-san in Seoul, in Itaewon to be exact, before something caused her to pack it all in and move down south to Songtan. Now, with a packet full of ill-gotten money, she’d bought a nice home and set herself up as a respectable citizen. Still, old habits run deep, and she’d continued to dabble in the black market, concentrating on high-value items, like the television sets and stereo equipment we’d seen in her storeroom. And her clientele, one of the owners of a local bar told me, were rich Koreans who could afford to buy the high-priced items. Her suppliers were field-grade Air Force officers who could write themselves up Letters of Authorization to weasel their way around the strict 8th Army Ration Control regulations.
Why had everyone been so forthright with their information? Jealousy. Jo Kyong-ah was seen as a wealthy intruder who’d taken business away from the more longtime residents of Songtan. Still, she’d lived a quiet life, and no one could imagine a competitor going so far as to kill her.
As Ernie and I made our rounds, we flashed the sketches of the dark-haired shooter, the Caucasian thief, and the half-American smiling woman.
Nobody recognized any of them.
It seemed strange to me. Whoever had murdered Jo Kyong-ah-and I had no reason to think it hadn’t been the brown-haired casino thief-had picked their target well. She was a wealthy woman. No telling how much cash and jewelry the killer might’ve gotten away with. But if the brown-haired man planned to pick out a wealthy target, he would’ve either had to have lived here-and known who had money- or he would’ve had to come to Songtan and gather information. Either way, someone would’ve noticed him.
Captain Noh and his legion of Korean National Policemen were having no better luck than we were. Instead of interviewing business girls and GIs, they worked the Korean side of the fence. Talking to citizens who lived nearby, who worked in the open-air Songtan Market. Even, he told me, wealthy local residents who were suspected of having bought black-market goods from Jo Kyong-ah. All dead ends.
Somehow, the brown-haired GI had slipped into Songtan unnoticed, gone directly to his intended target, beat her, raped her, robbed her, and murdered her. All without being noticed by anyone.
I put Songtan out of my mind and studied the lists Sergeant Riley provided.
AWOL GIs. Absent without leave. That was the first list and, I figured, the most likely to produce results. I decided to save that for last, and set it on the bottom of my pile of perforated onion-skin computer sheets.
Riley also ran a check at 8th Army Data Processing to see if anything had been purchased with my Ration Control Plate. I was worried that whoever had stolen my wallet would use my military identification card and my RCP to go on compound and buy duty-free goods out of the Commissary and PX. So far, nothing. But the computer punch cards were only collected once a week, so something might turn up on the next list.
I set that one aside and quickly studied the list of GIs on mid-tour leave back to the States and in-country leave here in Korea. Both lists were massive. What with over 50,000 GIs in country, five to ten percent were on leave at any given time. Neither list would be useful. They were both too long. I set them aside.
Finally, I was back to the list of AWOL GIs. There must’ve been close to five hundred names on it. Each entry showed the name of the GI, his rank, his unit, the date of unauthorized departure, and-in most cases-the date of return. American GIs in Korea don’t usually stay AWOL long. Where were they going to go? The country only has one international airport: Kimpo, near Seoul. And the Korean authorities are always on alert and allow no one to enter or leave the country without being thoroughly checked. To leave Korea, an AWOL American GI would need a passport and a forged visa. Very few GIs have passports and even fewer of them are creative enough to forge the other documents. And what with the terrorism threat from Communist North Korea, there was no black market in forged passports and visas. The Korean National Police would never allow it. They come down hard on anyone who tries, and the jail sentences are unbelievably harsh. Like heroin smuggling and arms trafficking, passport forgery is a criminal enterprise that just doesn’t exist in Korea.