Nightmare Range (36 page)

Heavy boots pounded down the hallway, and a herd of elephants crashed through the door.

I kept grabbing and turning and twisting, hoping to keep her from firing again. Finally a pair of knees ground into my back. MPs knelt above me and handcuffed my hands. In the confusion no one knew who was friend or foe. They sat me up against a bookcase.

They dragged Ernie, kicking and screaming, behind the safety of the couch.

General Skulgrin, the 8th Army commander, marched into the room. He knelt next to Lieutenant Burcshoff, one khaki-covered knee sopping up a puddle of blood. He turned his head and bellowed an order. “Get an ambulance!
Now
!”

Ernie was till wrestling with the MP he’d given the finger to. I heard knuckles crack on bone, and then reinforcement held Ernie to the ground until he finally stopped struggling.

General Skulgrin stuck gnarled fingers into the base of Burcshoff’s neck, feeling for a pulse. There wasn’t much left of the top of her skull. Finally he spoke to the MP officer hovering nearby. “Cancel the ambulance. She’s dead.”

He started to reach for the pearl-handled .45. A voice erupted in the room. To my surprise I realized it was mine.

“Don’t touch it! That pistol belongs to
her
! Not to her father. Not to her grandfather. Not to anyone else. It belongs to her!”

All eyes in the room stared at me, figuring I’d gone mad.

T
he old woman tugged so fiercely on my shirtsleeve that I almost toppled off of my barstool.

“You save my son!” she screamed.

Ernie set down his frothing brown bottle of Oriental Beer, swiveled, and grabbed the elderly woman by the worn cotton of her loose Korean tunic. I regained my balance and grappled with her for a moment, and soon Ernie and I wedged her between us, me waving my open palm in front of her nose and telling her, “
Choyong hei.
” Calm down.

Ernie and I were off duty, bar hopping through the red light district of Itaewon and, as we were wont to do, hoisting a few wets. About the last thing we expected was to be assaulted, for no apparent reason, by a hysterical old woman.

The out-of-tune rock band twanged their last note and then stopped playing, their mouths open, gawking at us. The GI customers also stared, as did the “business girls,” their nightly work interrupted in mid-hustle.

The old woman stopped screeching long enough for Ernie and me to walk her over to a corner table. I sat down next to her, patting the back of her bony hand.

She had to be in at least her early sixties. Most of her teeth were missing. The strong brown eyes in the center of her face were enveloped by the burn wrinkles of someone who had spent the
better part of her life toiling in muddy rice fields. When it seemed that she wouldn’t start grabbing on me again, Ernie returned to the bar and brought over our drinks.

Now that she had our attention, she spoke in rapid Korean. Breathlessly, so fast that I had trouble following and asked her to repeat herself more than once. Finally, I managed to absorb the outlines of her story.

Her son had been arrested, tried, and convicted of that most horrible of crimes: murder.

The case wasn’t exactly unknown to us. In fact, it was the biggest flap to hit 8th Army in years.

A US Army doctor, Captain Richard Everson, had been stabbed to death in one of the narrow back alleys behind the flashing neon of Itaewon. An ice pick was found at the scene, and smeared blood confirmed it as the murder weapon. The apparent motive? Robbery. Captain Everson’s wristwatch, fraternity ring, and wallet were all missing.

Since the crime occurred outside of a military reservation, jurisdiction for the case fell squarely on the capable shoulders of the Korean National Police. With the international spotlight on them, the KNPs wasted no time. All known thugs in the Itaewon area were rounded up, and soon—after interrogations involving rubber hoses—a suspect was identified. Choi Yong-kuang was his name, the son of the woman sitting in front of us. He had accomplices. Three other young men who were members of his gang, according to the KNPs, but all three of the men had testified that it was Choi Yong-kuang who had actually done the stabbing of Captain Richard Everson.

Why had they killed Everson when they’d already had him outnumbered and disabled? Sheer meanness, according to Choi’s former comrades. Choi Yong-kuang had just wanted to watch an American die.

Although Ernie and I had monitored the case—as had everyone else in 8th Army who worked in law enforcement—we hadn’t actually worked on it. No Americans had.

I explained this to the old woman. She would have to talk to the KNPs.

Of course she already had.

“They told me to leave them alone, and when I refused, they did this to me.” She pointed to a puffed blue welt on the side of her face.

I had been translating for Ernie as we went along. He turned to the old woman and said in English, “What the hell do you want us to do?”

She understood and answered in broken English. “My son rob American doctor,” she said, “but he no kill American doctor. His friend, they all lie because Korean police beat them up. Somebody come later, after my son take money, go and stab doctor with ice pick. You Americans. Everybody in Itaewon say you CID. You can find out about American doctor. Find out who want kill him.”

Ernie shook his head. “There’s no reason in the world, Mama-san, to think that the killer was anyone besides your son.”

“Yes. There’s reason,” she answered. “Korean police, they know. Ice pick come from drink place up top hill. The Silver Dragon.”

The most expensive nightclub in the Itaewon bar district.

“How do they know that?”

“They know many things, but they no say.”

“Why not?” Ernie asked.

“I don’t know. You ask them. You find out.”

Ernie shook his head again. “This isn’t our case.”

The old woman leaned forward and grabbed his wrist in a white-knuckled clench. “If I have money, I give you, but I no have money. Next week, they kill my son.”

The Korean judicial system doesn’t tolerate endless appeals or long waits on death row. Within a month or two of arrest, convicted murderers are on their way to the gallows.

“If my son die,” she said, “then I die.” She sliced her thumb across her throat.

Ernie glanced around at the swirling interior of the smoke-filled bar. The business girls had become bored with us and were back to hustling GIs. The rock band was blaring again. Waitresses were busy slamming down bubbling bottles of Oscar, a locally fermented sparkling burgundy.

Ernie crossed his arms. “No can do,” he said.

With that, the old woman closed her eyes, fighting back tears. A moment later she started rocking back and forth, mumbling some Korean folk song.

Her singing grew louder, so loud that I could no longer hear the hubbub of the voices that surrounded me. I could only hear her ancient song of death.

Later that evening, after the old woman left, Ernie and I walked up the hill to the Silver Dragon Club.

“What the hell,” Ernie said. “Won’t hurt to look.”

The joint was more elaborate than the other dives in Itaewon and the chairs even had upholstered seats. Also, club policy was to hire only waitresses with straight legs. With all these amenities the Silver Dragon Club was twice as expensive as the other local bars and as such was mostly patronized by civilian businessmen and American officers.

The bartender wore a white shirt with its sleeves rolled up and his collar held close by a black bow tie. I leaned over the counter. With a glistening metal pick, he chopped into a blue-white block of ice.

“What happened to the old ice pick?” I asked.

He looked up at me, as if he’d been shocked by electricity. “You policeman?” he asked.

I showed him my badge.

He pointed down the hall. “Then you go ask Korean policeman. They know everything about ice pick.”

“Maybe you can explain it to me,” I said. Ernie fondled a delicate glass goblet, tossing it up in the air, catching it, while keeping his eyes riveted on the bartender. The young man swallowed.

“Miss Tae, she took it.”

“Who’s Miss Tae?”

“A waitress. She used to work here. Same night GI doctor killed, she take ice pick go. Never come back.”

“You told the Korean police this?” Ernie asked.

The bartender nodded.

“Did Miss Tae know Captain Everson?” I asked.

The bartender looked puzzled.

“The GI who was killed,” I explained.

The bartender shrugged. “How I know? Miss Tae take ice pick, she go, she never come back. That’s all I know.”

“You saw her take it?”

“Yes. She told me she bring right back. So I say okay. She lie.”

Ernie returned the bartender’s goblet—unbroken. We walked down the hill toward the Itaewon district office of the Korean National Police.

Lieutenant Pak Un-pyong had handled the investigation into the homicide of Captain Richard Everson. He wasn’t in at this time of night, but when I flashed my identification and told the desk sergeant what we wanted, he called Lieutenant Pak at home.

Fifteen minutes later Lieutanant Pak walked into the big concrete bunker of the Itaeown Police Station. He was a tall man, thin even by Asian standards, with a hooked nose and a no-nonsense cast to his sharp features. He waved to us, and without a word we followed him down the hallway to his office.

We sat on two metal chairs in front of his desk, pulled out a pack of Turtle Boat brand cigarettes and offered us each a smoke. When we turned him down, he struck a wooden match, lit up, and leaned back in his rusty swivel chair.

“We’ve been waiting for one of you Americans to ask this question,” he said.

I hoped he’d explain, but instead Ernie spoke up. “This Miss Tae took an ice pick from the Silver Dragon Club,” Ernie told Pak. “She disappears. Captain Everson turns up murdered by an ice pick. What’s the connection?”

Lieutenant Pak let out a plume of smoke. “She’s the girlfriend of Choi Yong-kuang.”

The convicted killer and the son of the old woman who’d harangued us into looking into this case.

It came together quickly for Ernie.

“So Captain Everson is hanging out at the high-class Silver Dragon Club,” Ernie said. “Spending plenty of money because doctors make more than regular officers. This Miss Tae spots him, fingers him to her boyfriend, and Choi Yong-kuang and his partners jump him and rob him. She delivers the ice pick so Choi can silence Everson for good.”

“That’s what we think,” Pak said.

“But why kill Everson?” I asked. “He was down. They had his money and his watch and his ring. Why make things worse for themselves?”

Pak continued to puff for a moment and then finally spoke.

“Maybe they wanted to make sure that he couldn’t identify them. Maybe they thought he would have more money on him than he did and they would all leave Seoul together, and they didn’t want us following. Maybe Choi Yong-kuang hates Americans. Maybe he was jealous because Miss Tae had been having an affair with Everson. Maybe a thousand things. Who can say?”

“And Miss Tae disappeared?”

“We haven’t been able to find her. Her mother lives alone in Masan. We checked. No sign of her daughter. The local police are keeping an eye out for her in case she shows up. So far, nothing.”

The way Ernie was fidgeting, I could tell he didn’t like Lieutenant Pak’s explanation any more than I did.

“There has to be more to this case,” I said.

Pak shrugged.

“If you don’t find Miss Tae and if this guy Choi is executed, we’ll never know for sure.”

Pak shrugged again. “The government is happy.”

I knew what he meant. The Korean government receives millions of dollars from the United States each year to help in their
defense against the communist regime up north. When a Korean kills an American officer, that special relationship is at risk. The way to save grief is to have the case closed quickly. Hanging Choi Yong-kuang would make a lot of government bureaucrats breathe easier.

“What is Choi’s story?” I asked.

“He says that he and Miss Tae had originally planned to murder Captain Everson. That’s why she brought the ice pick. They thought he was going to be bringing a lot more money. Supposedly, so he could buy Miss Tae out of her contract with the Silver Dragon Club, so she’d be free to quit work and live with Everson. An old trick. But Everson didn’t bring the money; he was using Miss Tae just as she was trying to use him. Choi say that when they realized Everson didn’t have more than a few dollars, he was furious. His partners ran away, Choi claims, but finally he didn’t have the heart to murder a helpless man. He dropped the ice pick and left while Everson was still breathing.”

“Miss Tae had already left?” I asked. Pak nodded. “And a few minutes later, one of your officers found Everson’s body.”

“A routine patrol.”

“How long had he been lying there?”

“Hard to say. It was a dark walkway, seldom traveled. Could’ve been as much as an hour.”

“Plenty of time for someone else to come along, grab the ice pick, and murder Everson,” Ernie said.

“That’s what Choi told the judge. Nobody believed him.”

“Plus,” I said, “it’s more convenient for the government not to believe him.” Pak shrugged once again. I leaned across the desk and stared into Lieutenant Pak’s dark eyes. “There’s a reason you came out here at night to talk to us. You’re not certain Choi is guilty.”

Pak stubbed out his cigarette. “If I had jurisdiction, I would search further into Captain Everson’s background. But I don’t have jurisdiction on your American army compound, and
besides, my superiors are satisfied with the resolution.” He raised his open palms toward the ceiling. “What more can I do?”

“But we can do more,” Ernie said.

Lieutenant Pak smiled at him like a teacher indulging a bright student.

“Yes,” he answered. “You can do more. You can do much more.”

The next day at the CID office, I looked over what records were available concerning the Everson case. Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem, two of our fellow CID agents, had been assigned liason duties. They’d studiously regurgitated the translated record of the Korean police version of events but had done no investigative work themselves.