Martin Limon - Mr. Kill

“There must’ve been plenty of hair and fingerprint evidence in that bathroom,” I said. It was, after all, a public bathroom. “So this might help us narrow our search, but it won’t do much in helping us win a conviction.”

Lieutenant Pong agreed. “We’ll have to rely on other evidence for that.”

Now that the difficult part was over, Lieutenant Pong pulled a sheet of paper out of a folder and slid it across his desk. It was a drawing of a face.

“From Mrs. Oh?” I asked.

“Yes. It was very difficult for her to try to remember the face of the rapist-she had her eyes closed during most of the assault-but she did her best.”

Ernie slid his leg off the edge of the chair and leaned toward the drawing. He stared at it in astonishment and then barked a laugh. He continued to laugh, holding his stomach, and finally said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Lieutenant Pong’s face flushed red, but he said nothing.

The drawing showed a man with devilish upturned eyes, thick eyebrows, a heavy five-o’clock shadow of a beard, and a nose so huge it was almost as big as a banana. In other words, the extreme caricature of a Westerner through Korean eyes.

Ernie held the drawing up to the light and studied it again. “This doesn’t look like anybody I know,” he said.

“She was frightened,” Lieutenant Pong replied.

“I’ll say. I would be too if something like this came at me.”

“Okay, Ernie,” I said. “We get the point.” I took the drawing from him and slid it back to Lieutenant Pong. “I think it would be better if we didn’t use this.”

Lieutenant Pong shoved the drawing back into his desk. The echo of Ernie’s laughter subsided and Lieutenant Pong composed himself. He straightened his shoulders and said, “Now, how about you? What have you come up with?”

I glanced away. “Not much.” He stared at me quizzically. “I’ve eliminated a few suspects,” I continued, “and identified a couple more I want to talk to.”

“When will you talk to them?”

Ernie snorted. We both looked at him, and then I turned to Lieutenant Pong and said, “Maybe never. Eighth Army is not admitting that the rapist was a G.I. They’re saying this is a KNP problem.”

Lieutenant Pong stared at me for a long time, as if he were having trouble deciphering my words. Ernie spoke up. “The honchos have screwed us again. They’re not letting us go to Pusan to investigate.”

Once again Lieutenant Pong was flabbergasted. Finally, he managed to say, “Why?”

“Because they don’t want to admit,” Ernie said, “that a G.I. would rape a Korean woman on a train.” He splayed his fingers and spread his hands out to the side. “That’s it. We’re out of it. It’s up to you to catch this guy.”

Ernie rose to leave.

I rose with him. “I’m sorry,” I said.

As we left, Lieutenant Pong remained sitting, staring after us.

Ernie and I spent the rest of the day in his jeep, parked in the back row of the lot outside the Yongsan commissary, pretending to be interested in busting someone for blackmarketing. Actually what we did was buy Styrofoam cups of PX coffee from the snack stand, return to the jeep, and shoot the breeze about Marnie and the girls of the Country Western All Stars.

“You didn’t take long getting into her blue jeans,” I said.

Ernie shrugged. “She didn’t take long getting out of them.”

I sipped my black coffee. It was bitter but strong, and so hot that I could barely hold on to the cup. Women walked into the commissary and women walked out of the commissary, most of them Korean, a few of them American. Middle-aged Korean men in gray smocks pushed huge carts overflowing with groceries for them, loaded the goods into the trunks of black Ford Granada PX taxis, and then bowed as they accepted a gratuity-usually a buck-for their services. I let the silence grow until Ernie spoke.

“She wants something from me.”

I swiveled my head to look at him. “Not money?”

He laughed. “You’ve been here too long. No, not money. She wants information.”

I waited. The coffee wasn’t quite as hot anymore, but it was still just as bitter.

“She wants me to find somebody for her. A G.I.-an officer, actually. One Captain Frederick Raymond Embry.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Neither have I. She says she met him when he was an ROTC cadet at Texas A amp;M. They started dating, only casually, and then she got busy with her band and they drifted apart. But later he came to visit her after he received his commission.”

“Where was all this at?”

“At the time, she’d moved to Austin, Texas. Freddy Ray, as she calls him, apparently looked real attractive to her, wearing his uniform with his shiny new butter bars, and that’s when it happened.”

“What happened?”

“She got pregnant.”

“Did she have the kid?”

“Of course. She’s a good Southern girl. Goes to church every Sunday.”

“So, where’s the kid now?”

“Staying with Marnie’s mother.”

“And she wants you to find this Freddy Ray?”

“You got it.”

I sipped my coffee again. “Are you going to do it?”

“He owes her child support.”

Maybe, maybe not, I thought. There are ways for state agencies to apply through the Department of the Army to collect back child support directly from a soldier’s pay.

“Why doesn’t she use the usual channels?” I asked.

“She has. Hasn’t worked. Maybe Freddy Ray has some influence with the Finance Officer.”

I didn’t believe it. When a mandated allotment is slapped on a soldier’s pay, as far as I knew, there was no way around it. Still, Ernie seemed to be buying the story.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Find him,” he said. “Can’t hurt.”

“How does she know he’s stationed over here?”

“Mutual acquaintances.”

“Does she know what unit?”

“No idea.”

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” I said.

“I know.”

“Think about it.”

Ernie tossed his empty Styrofoam cup out the jeep’s window. “I just did.”

“What’d you decide?”

“Screw her.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing.”

“And I’ll do it some more, unless she decides she doesn’t like it when I tell her she can find her old boyfriend on her own.”

The cannon sounded in the distance for Close of Duty Day. Metal speakers at the edge of the parking lot belted out a scratchy version of the bugle call for retreat.

“Damn,” Ernie said.

We both clambered out of the jeep, stood at attention facing the main post flagpole, and saluted. I always felt like an ass doing this. So did Ernie. Normally we’d be indoors at this time of day so we didn’t have to go through the ritual of standing at attention and saluting a flag being lowered somewhere off in the unseen distance. But today, what with all that was happening, we hadn’t paid attention to the time.

When we returned to the CID office, Miss Kim had already gone home, but Riley was waiting for us. Frowning.

“The Provost Marshal wants to see you,” he said.

“You’ve been talking to the KNP Liaison Officer,” Colonel Brace told us. “And don’t try to deny it.”

“We just wanted to keep him updated on the case,” I said.

“I ordered you off it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So now that you told this Lieutenant Pong that 8th Army has decided not to exercise jurisdiction, he ran it up the flagpole, and somebody in the ROK government decided they didn’t agree. So now the word comes down from the Chief of Staff that they want you, both of you, tomorrow morning at zero eight hundred hours to report to the SOFA meeting at the J-1 building.”