A Corpse in the Koryo (21 page)

I shoved the door open, climbed out, and made a quick check of the car. If I could get it out of the ditch, it would get me back to the office.

Pak would murder me over the repairs. He wouldn't let us drive a car that was banged up, said it undermined our dignity. Worse, when it went to the repair shop, they would check the log, and he would have to explain why I had the car overnight and hadn't signed it in. Hell, I hadn't even signed it out.

"You people have to drive so reckless?" The younger of the two men was angry. The older man put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"What's your problem? Your ox is fine, my car is wounded, and I think I strained my back. I'd say your side came out on top." I didn't want any trouble. If a co-op farm manager wrote a letter of complaint to the Ministry, it would be referred to a discipline committee and I would find myself in endless meetings. I would also have to help with the harvest. This would entail days, maybe weeks, of bending under a hot sun.

The older man tightened his grip on the younger man's shoulder, then let his hand drop free. "We had an accident a couple of weeks ago.

Car came flying across the road and killed his nephew."

"Cars don't fly." I had a sudden feeling that the ox I almost hit had not put me in a ditch but rather on the road to a solution. "What did you say about last month?"

"Three oxen hit by crazy drivers. Never seen anything like it."

"How come? More traffic?"

"Only in the morning. We like to move the carts across the road early. That way the ox gets to browse for a few hours before we get to work. For a long time, there was no problem, never any traffic that early. A couple or three years ago, a car came out of nowhere and killed an ox, must have been about six in the morning. It was a Thursday. Local security man came around and told us to keep away from the road every other Thursday morning."

"He tell you why?"

"I don't care. I'm not curious. Twice a month I sleep late, that's all."

"So, what happened last month? Couldn't sleep?"

"It was a Monday. Not me, one of the other men, it was his turn to move the carts. Ox stepped into the road. Wham. Dead ox, and the driver of the car almost killed."

"Did you see the driver?"

"No, I told you, it wasn't my day to move the carts. I was somewhere else."

"Alright, you were somewhere else. What about the other two accidents?"

"Following

week, we stayed off the road on Monday, figured Tuesday was alright. It was my day for the cart. Same thing. About six in the morning. Ox stepped in the road. This time the driver tried to stop, sort of like you did. Only he was going faster than you were. He lost control.

The car spun around and the back end hit the ox. Killed the beast, but it saved the driver."

"What did he look like?"

"Small guy, skinny, mad as hell."

"Was he in any sort of uniform?"

"Nah."

"The car?"

"Back end was caved in. Too bad, nice car."

"Black?"

"Yup. Clean as you'd want to see, except for the gore all over the back."

"Didn't anyone from Pyongyang come out to question you?"

"Funny thing, no one did. I kept thinking the party committee would chew us out, even though it wasn't our fault. They always blame us."

"You sure no one came to see you?"

The older man crossed his eyes and looked at the sky. "Well, no one except the local security man."

"And?"

"He told us he was sorry about the ox."

"And?"

"He gave us a little money to keep quiet. Wasn't much."

"Wasn't much. Alright. Third time. Must have been a Wednesday or a Friday."

"Wednesday. The youngster here had the lead. I was just walking alongside." The older man nodded at the younger one. "He looked both ways, didn't see anything, though there was a little mist. The ox got halfway across when it stopped. Must have felt the vibrations on the road. Wouldn't move. Sure enough, there was a car, almost stopped this time, but almost wasn't good enough for the ox. Not much damage to the car, though the driver howled that he'd have us all shot."

"Skinny guy again?"

"No, this one was military of some sort. Muscular, short hair. Gray uniform, nothing like I've seen before. Banged his fist into the top of the car, he was so mad."

"Still no investigation?"

"Not a thing. And no compensation for the three oxen, either. Just some hush money. Not very much. How are we supposed to explain losing three animals?"

"But last week it was worse--it wasn't an ox, was it, it was a child.

You know what happened?"

Both men stood quietly, as if an invisible hand had pulled a string attached to their jaws.

"Okay, let me tell you what happened." I let my imagination spin out a reasonable scenario, based on what I knew. I liked to hear myself say these things out loud. When I just had a conversation in my head, it was always brilliant, but when it got fashioned into words, my ears could spot the weak points and tell my brain to take a walk. "The car took off after its side window, the driver's side window, was shot out.

The driver, wounded or dead, lost control. The car was going at high speed, hit a bump on this lousy highway, blew a tire, spun around, and landed in a ditch. Almost where I am now. Your nephew, who saw it all happen from that hill over there, was naturally curious and came to investigate.

He saw someone going through the driver's wallet. He turned to go, but the person, more likely two men, saw him, ran him down, and killed him. They told you later he'd been hit by the car, but they never let you see his body. All you got was an urn of ashes, which was buried the same night." It sounded plausible, not brilliant but plausible, though I made up the fact about the car landing on its left side and omitted that the boy's throat had been cut.

The two of them stared at me. The younger one trembled until I thought he would fall over. The older one shook his head slowly. "We don't want trouble."

"Well, trouble is what you've got, and you'll have even worse if you tell anyone, anyone at all, what I just said to you." I let that sink in. "Now help me get this car out of the ditch." Neither of them moved. "I'll put it another way for you. I'm your only hope of finding out who killed that boy, believe me. Or don't. If I were you, I wouldn't believe me. If I were you, I'd get to a phone and call the local security man, Li Min Sung. He and I were in the army together.

We stayed in touch." I could see from the face of the younger man that this made an impression. The locals liked Li; they trusted him.

He had been around here a long time and was always fair with them, didn't give them a lot of trouble over minor regulations. If Li and I were friends, then maybe they could trust me, too. "Tell him Inspector O says hello."

The older one spit on his hands. "Let's get this car back on the road."

11

"Where are you?" Pak was irritated.

"I'm calling from a street phone."

"You're supposed to be in here. People are looking for you."

"I gathered as much. Someone parked in my parking space, so I figured I'd take a ride."

Pak's voice donned the cloak it wore when he wanted me to listen closely. "A couple of muscular types were here about a guy named Chong. You know anyone named Chong?"

"Just a minute. Let me think." I let a decent interval pass. "No.

What are the odds? You go through your whole life and never meet a Chong. Isn't that an Arab name?" I glanced out onto the street to see if anyone had stopped to watch. No one.

"Who's talking about Arabs? They wanted to know where you've been the past week. I told them you were jumpy so I gave you time off to rest. You felt rested when you came back to work, didn't you?"

"Rested isn't the word for it."

"One more thing. They said your brother is joining the case. He'll be here tomorrow to get briefed by you."

"Forget it."

There was a long silence. "Inspector, we weren't asked for our opinion.

We don't get a vote. Your brother has been assigned to monitor this case. Do I make myself clear?"

"I told you. Forget it. And I meant it. I'm not working near him.

Five years ago, we reached an agreement. We're not brothers anymore.

We don't meet. We don't speak. We live on different planets. I'm sticking to the agreement. If he's on the case, you'll have to take me off."

"Family matters cannot interfere--"

"Look, Pak, it's not your business, it's not the Ministry's business, it's not the party's business. This is between me and my former brother.

He's dirtying my grandfather's name. I won't have it. Can I say it again for you? I won't have it. Let's drop it, alright?"

Pak must have thought I was crazy, talking like that on the phone.

Most of the time our line wasn't monitored--too many other targets and not enough personnel--but we both knew that this case had probably put us on the Military Security Red List, meaning the office phones were near the top of some roving team's weekly priorities. I was banking on it. What I'd said would get to my brother. I wanted him to hear it directly from me, even if it wasn't face-to-face. And I wanted the transcript to get circulated in places where it would put a question mark after his name. Not a big one, but a nagging doubt. It wouldn't destroy him, but he would be in limbo for a while. People wouldn't return his phone calls; invitations would dry up. That would make him mad, maybe ruin his appetite for a few days as he tried to figure out why people were avoiding him. He might even lose some sleep, wondering if his name was on the short, black list of those who had unknowingly said the wrong thing, made the wrong decision, had their heads up when they should have been down.

Pak was talking again, but the connection went bad and I missed the first part of what he said. "... so let's not get off track over private feuds."

"This isn't a private feud. It's moral. It's philosophical. It's about lofty ideals and people who are so eager to serve the revolution that they step on friends, family, even little children." I paused at that thought, but I didn't want to follow it through. "My brother doesn't know the first thing about murder investigations, only about murder, and he doesn't care. Someone has transferred him onto the case to get to me.

Guess what? It won't work."

I heard Pak clear his throat. "Just get in here. We'll have a cup of tea and see what the tea leaves say."

"I have a better idea. How about you push me on the swings?" I didn't have the heart to tell him what I'd learned at the morgue, that tea was unhealthy in large doses.

"Then you have to push me down the slide."

Pak was sitting under the willow tree near the swing set when I got there. "No one around at the moment. You realize, not meeting in the office is going to get the listeners annoyed. They hate dead time."

"Yeah, well, I'll make it up to them. I'll read aloud from a book of poetry some afternoon. Meantime, we've got a problem."

Pak laughed out loud. "A problem." He laughed again, a long, rolling laugh, so that pretty soon I joined in. The two of us, sitting by a rusty swing set, laughing. A few people walked by, but no one stopped.

"Good, we both feel better now." I grinned. "You want to know what the problem is?"

Pak put on his sunglasses. "Sure. I don't have enough problems. I need another one to round out my hand."

"The corpse is a Finn. He was moved to that eighth floor room from somewhere else. Someone doesn't want an autopsy. His being a Finn means something to that particular someone. Maybe that's why they messed with the labels in his clothes. And I'll bet you anything this is all connected to the kid whose throat was cut near that black Mercedes with the scanner. You know, the car that ended up in the ditch." I wasn't sure this was the time to tell Pak about my conversation with the two farmers on the side of the road.

"That's it? That's what you have?" Pak snorted. "You're just dumping stray facts on me. All beads, no string."

"Wrong image. Don't think of beads. Think of trees."

Pak groaned. "Here we go. Wood, I should have known."

"I'm not talking about wood, I'm talking about trees. You ever seen tree roots? They go everywhere. No pattern. Same thing with branches, when you think of it. But they all work together. One thing about you, Pak, you always look at facts as mechanical. Each one has to fit in a certain place."

"I do that, don't I, Inspector? Try to see how things fit. That's how we solve cases. It's standard operating procedure. Proven, tested, gets results. Or after all of these years, do you have a better idea?"

"Facts are organic. They don't have to fit, they just have to work together.

Think about it. A car doesn't go out of control at high speed, blow a tire, and then end up in that ditch without getting pretty banged up. I know that ditch. I saw it." I paused to see if Pak would react. If he did, the sunglasses hid it pretty well. "That car was planted there, same as the body in the hotel. What do you know about the eighth floor of the Koryo?"

"Meaning?"

"The hotel manager told me it was hard to rent on that floor. I'd guess that's where some of the central monitoring closets are. It may even be a floor that Military Security has taken over. Can't we check that?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But why would they plant a body there? And whose body is it?"

I ignored the second question. "Maybe whoever did it was part of an out-of-town unit. What if it wasn't planned but was a big mistake, a screwup by someone who didn't check what he didn't know? Those rooms on the eighth floor are never rented unless the hotel is full. It hasn't been for weeks. It's slack. The manager is worried that if word gets out about a dead body in his hotel, it will ruin the Koryo's reputation and he'll lose business. That's why he told me about the eighth floor. He wanted to tell me the murder didn't happen in his hotel. Only he couldn't say it directly."

"So we need an autopsy, something that might show the victim was dead before being moved to the room."