Martin Limon - Jade Lady burning

“It’s not the middle of the night, sir.”

“… and stand him here in front of all his men, half naked-”

“He refused to put his clothes on.”

“You could have dressed him!” His face was flushed but I think even he realized how silly his statement was. A couple of the MPs snickered. He cleared his throat and continued. “And then you try to coerce a conscientious desk sergeant-who after years of military training is well aware of the proper way to treat his superiors-into booking Major General Bohler and locking him up as if he were some sort of common criminal!”

“I’m booking him for first-degree murder.”

Ernie held Bohler by the elbow. His arms were still handcuffed behind his back and his knobby knees stuck out of his silk lounging robe. His face had been hanging down but he looked up when he realized that he had gotten some support from a fellow member of the officers corps. He got his regular voice back. It was a growl.

“I’m going to have somebody’s ass for this, Captain. You’d better square it away.”

Captain Manning fiinched and turned to the general, thrusting his shoulders even further back. “Yes, sir.”

Ernie jerked Bohler towards the desk. “Enough of this bullshit. Give me that goddamn form. I’ll fill it out and book him myself.”

The MPs glowered at the desk sergeant. One of them shouted, “Book the son of a bitchl” Another obscenity faded away. A murmur filled the room.

“At ease!” Captain Manning walked up to the desk sergeant. “Don’t you give him any form. This officer will not be booked, do you understand me?”

I got between him and the desk sergeant. “Interfering with an official investigation, sir? Obstructing justice?”

A moment’s confusion entered Captain Manning’s eyes. Ernie grabbed the paperwork out of the desk sergeant’s hands and started filling it out while I held on to Bohler. When Ernie asked the general for his service number and full name, Bohler wouldn’t answer, so we took it off his ID card.

Ernie slapped the completed form down in front of the desk sergeant and Captain Manning started yelling at him that it wasn’t valid. The MPs closed around us in a tight circle. A couple of them were fed up.

“We ought to book the captain for interfering with an arrest.”

“Yeah. Get back to the headquarters building where you belong.”

One of them reached out and put his hand on Captain Manning’s elbow. He swung his arm around like someone who had just been seared with a blowtorch. He actually hit the MP and then two MPs grabbed him. He tried to push them away and then the whole crowd started jostling. Ernie and I were trying to pull General Bohler out of the melee when someone slammed the door and hollered, “Attention!”

Everyone froze. Colonel Stoneheart, provost marshal of the Eighth United States Army, strode into the room, silver eagles glistening off his fatigue uniform like attack planes making their dive through the sun.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Everybody talked at once and General Bohler got his courage back and pretty soon Colonel Stoneheart was bowing and scraping to him and Captain Manning kept jumping in on their conversation like a puppy trying to get in with the big dogs. More MP jeeps rolled up, sirens blaring, Colonel Stoneheart gave some crisp orders, and the next thing I knew, Ernie and I were looking at each other in the relaxing quiet of an eight-by-ten holding cell.

We were alone, there were no hooks or sharp edges on the walls, and we couldn’t hear any of the commotion going on outside.

Ernie turned towards me slowly.

“Nothing like a career in military law enforcement, eh, pal?”

I let my head wag.

“Fun, travel, and adventure.”

When they released us, the first sergeant was waiting at the front desk looking as if he’d outlived his normal life span by about five hundred years.

“Don’t say it, Top,” Ernie said.

“I’m beyond words now.”

The desk sergeant had us sign some paperwork and we walked out to a green Army sedan with a Korean Army driver waiting behind the wheel. The morning was cold but bright and fresh, like a new chance on life. The first sergeant didn’t say anything until we got back to the CID Detachment.

The walk down the hallway resembled a funeral procession. Riley stared at us and when the phone rang he just lifted it off the receiver and set it back down. Miss Kim’s eyes were red and she fumbled with a well-worked handkerchief.

“Sit down, you guys.”

We took the same chairs we had sat in so many times while we received ass-chewings and braced ourselves for what was certainly going to be the El Primo of all time.

The first sergeant cleared his throat.

‘The charges against Major General Bohler have been dropped.”

Ernie hissed through his teeth.

My stomach tried to swallow itself and maybe it was the lack of sleep but the world got green again for a moment.

Ernie was the first to be able to speak.

“How can they do that, Top? They haven’t had a chance to look at the evidence we got.”

‘The commanding general saw the prints first thing this morning. He and Colonel Stoneheart were up at dawn going over them. The people from the judge advocate general’s office told him that it doesn’t prove anything as far as murder but only proves that he once had an affair with a young woman who looks somewhat like Miss Pak Ok-suk.”

The first sergeant held up his hands so Ernie would be quiet and he could finish.

“Even if we could prove that the woman was Pak Ok-suk, it still doesn’t prove that he killed her because apparently a number of men had formed sexual liaisons with her, and having been one of them doesn’t make you the killer.”

“But we have corroborating witnesses,” Ernie said. “Kimiko can maybe put him there, at the scene, on the night of the murder.”

“A bar girl convicting a general? It won’t fly, Bascom. Her word won’t hold up in court. The CG reviewed all the evidence, along with Colonel Stoneheart and the Eighth Army judge advocate, and they came to the conclusion that the only thing to do was to get General Bohler out of the country right away so this thing doesn’t get blown out of proportion. The ROKs have agreed. They saw no reason to jeopardize our bilateral relations by going forward with such a flimsy case.”

The first sergeant walked over to the coffee urn, poured himself a cup of coffee, and came back to his desk. Neither Ernie nor I made a move.

‘There is some good news to come out of all this, though. The ROKs have agreed to drop the charges against Spec-4 Johnny Watkins. He was freed this morning and is on his way back to Yongsan. They’re putting out the word to the Korean papers that subsequent investigation has shown the fire and resulting death to have been accidental. We’ve already booked Watkins on a flight back to the States this afternoon.”

“Getting rid of everybody involved,” Ernie said.

“That’s no way to look at it, Bascom. This is an ugly situation and now it’s over.” The first sergeant fidgeted in his chair. ‘The CG talked to Colonel Stoneheart about you two. He says to let you know what a good job you did and he’s proud of your tenacity in going after the case. And he’s sorry that you were held while we tried to unravel everything. I’ve been authorized to give you some time off, too, to sort of unwind.” The first sergeant stood up. ”Take off the rest of today. That will give you a long weekend and then be back here Monday ready to go to work.”

He shook both our hands and we stumbled down the hall.

“Can you believe these assholes?” Ernie said.

“Yeah. I can believe’em. But they forgot one thing.” I patted my coat pocket. “I still got the negatives. We make a few more prints, a cover letter, and I bet there’s a few congressmen around who’d love to ask some questions up at the Pentagon.”