“Why not?”
“This man seems very cautious. Everything is well thought out and he spends as little time as possible at the crime scene.”
“Like a trained agent.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Ernie was wandering around on the far side of the cart. Behind him, an American MP jeep rolled up. I recognized the driver, Staff Sergeant Moe Dexter. Moe leaned out of the window, the usual broad smile on his face. He was one of the shift leaders and he and his men rotated between day, swing, and midnight shifts. Ernie and Moe traded barbs. Laughter echoed across the roadway.
“At the fruit stand in the Itaewon Market,” Mr. Kill said, “what was it you were looking for?”
I told him about the totem with the grill of twisted wire and the dead rat.
“You think this might’ve had something to do with the crime?”
“The dark passageway through the Itaewon Market was the logical escape route. This contraption was set up directly in our path. Anyone walking that way with a flashlight was intended to see it. Then, before dawn, it was taken away.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I think there was a message in it. Possibly from the killer.”
Mr. Kill asked me to describe it to him in more detail. I did. He listened intently, not taking notes.
The forensic technicians were about done with their work, and Mr. Kill left to have a final chat with them. The MP jeep zoomed off. Ernie walked toward me.
“They find anything?”
“Nothing yet. What did Dexter want?”
“You know him. Just wants to poke his pug nose into everything.”
“How are the MPs taking the death of Corporal Collingsworth?”
“They want us to catch the guy.”
“Is that what Dexter just said?”
“Not exactly.” Ernie stared after the now disappeared jeep.
“Well, what did he say?”
“He said the gooks better not screw this up.”
“Does he know Mr. Kill is on the case?”
“Sure he does. Word spread fast.”
“And he’s the best the KNPs have.”
“That cuts no ice with Dexter. He knows what the KNPs are like. If it’s not convenient for them, they’ll cover it up.”
“Not with us around.”
“You know that, I know that, but Dexter and most of the MPs don’t know that. They believe when push comes to shove, we’ll do whatever Eighth Army tells us to do.”
“Just like them.”
“Just like most of them.”
After we finished at the crime scene, Mr. Kill hustled us back into his sedan and Officer Oh drove west on the MSR, past 8th Army Compound and past the ROK Army headquarters. At the Samgak-ji circle, she turned north.
“Where are we going?” Ernie asked.
“I have a lead,” Mr. Kill said. “My colleagues have been questioning Korean Eighth Army employees who have recently applied for replacement identification badges. Most of them were innocuous.” I started at the word, remembering again that Mr. Kill had polished his English at an Ivy League school. He continued. “The badges were worn or damaged in some way. One man, however, applied for a replacement badge only one day before the murder of Mr. Barretsford.”
“You talked to him?”
“Not me, but one of my investigators talked with him at length, and with his wife. It appears that when he came home from a bout of drinking, not only had the badge disappeared from the clip on his lapel but also long blonde hairs were clinging to the material and the jacket reeked of perfume.”
“Uh oh.”
“The employee admitted that he’d stopped for drinks at an establishment called Yo Chonsa Gong.”
“What’s that mean?” Ernie asked.
I answered. “The Palace of Angels.”
“Very good,” Mr. Kill said, nodding. “We interviewed the man and his wife last night, so this will be our first visit to the Palace of Angels.”
“Do you think he’s clean?”
“Yes. He’s just a befuddled office worker who drank too much soju.”
“His wife must be pissed,” Ernie said.
“Very,” Mr. Kill answered. When the Korean National Police showed up at a respectable person’s home, everyone in the neighborhood learns about it. Much face is lost.
Officer Oh wound her way through the heavy Seoul traffic. Near the district of Namyong-dong she pulled right off the main road into a narrow lane. She cruised slowly past bicycle repair shops and cheap eateries and open-fronted warehouses containing electrical parts and used hardware. At a small circle with a huge elm tree in the middle, she pulled the sedan over to the side of the road. Next to a store selling discs of puffed rice sat an establishment with green double doors shut tightly and windows barred with iron grates. A hand-painted sign above said Yo Chonsa Gong. The Palace of Angels.
Mr. Kill motioned for Ernie not to try the front door. Officer Oh stayed with the sedan while we slipped down a crack between buildings that led to a filthy alleyway out back. Empty soju bottles in wooden crates leaned against dirty brick.
Mr. Kill pounded on the back door. No answer. He pounded again. Finally, we heard a door slam and then a voice from within. “Nomu iljiki!” Too early! Apparently, they thought we were making a delivery.
Mr. Kill leaned close to the door. “Bali!” he said. Hurry.
The door creaked open. Mr. Kill slid his foot in and gently shoved the door open with his left hand. A woman wearing a cloth robe, grey-streaked hair sticking madly skyward, stared up at him open-mouthed. He flashed his badge at her.
“Kyongchal,” he said. Police.
We pushed through the door.
The woman stumbled in front of us down a narrow hallway until we reached a carpeted lounge that reeked of spilled liquor and ancient layers of fossilized tobacco fumes.
“Bul kyo,” Mr. Kill said. Turn on the light.
The woman wandered over to a bar about six stools long, slid behind it, and switched on overhead neon. The light flickered and then shone red, softly but bright enough to see through gloom. The far wall was lined with vinyl-covered booths with small rectangular tables. Mr. Kill, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat, paced around the room. Finally, he turned to the woman and spoke in Korean. “How many hostesses work here?”
“Three, most nights,” the woman replied, “more on the weekends.”
“Does one of them have blonde hair?”
The woman, still holding her robe shut tight in front of her, thought about this. “You mean now?”
“I mean three nights ago. A Mr. Choi who works for Eighth Army was here. Apparently, he had contact with a woman with blonde hair.”
“Mr. Choi. Yes, I know him.” The woman bowed slightly, which meant that Mr. Choi must be a good customer. As a clerk at 8th Army headquarters he wasn’t getting rich, so if he was spending freely at the Palace of Angels, that would go a long way toward explaining why his wife was so pissed.
“Who served him?” Mr. Kill asked.
“Na,” the woman replied.
“She’s a blonde?”
“Yes. She dyed her hair blonde a couple of weeks ago.”
Mr. Kill glanced up the carpeted stairs. “Is she up there?”
“Yes, but still asleep.”
Mr. Kill glared at her. The Korean National Police have the power to make any bar owner’s life more than miserable. All they have to do is claim that their establishment is a threat to national morals and then they have the legal authority to shut them down. The hard lines on Mr. Kill’s face showed that he was in no mood to wait for Miss Na to get her beauty rest.
The woman clutched her silk robe more closely. “I’ll fetch her,” she said.
“Never mind,” Mr. Kill told her, holding his hand out to stop her. “I’ll do it.”
He crossed the soggy carpet of the barroom and trotted upstairs. Ernie and I followed.
The accommodations up here weren’t nearly as luxurious as downstairs. There was a tiny bathroom with mold-smeared tile and cracked metal plumbing. At the opposite end of the hallway, Mr. Kill slid open an oil-paper covered door.