“Shit,” Ernie said.
He jammed the jeep in gear and swerved past Pollard and around the other jeep. The two MPs looked after us, shaking their heads, glad that they weren’t going to have to delve into the messy family life of Colonel Oswald Q. Tidwell.
Jessica Tidwell was notorious in the 8th Army. Only seventeen, she’d already become a legend. Last year, when she was a junior at Seoul American High School, the Department of Defense school on post for military dependents, she’d become involved with some fast-talking G.I. who worked at the 9th Support Group, the personnel unit on post. She attended a party at the barracks and, apparently, she’d first turned her amorous attentions on the guy who invited her and then on at least a half-dozen other young soldiers. Word leaked out. Ernie and I hadn’t investigated the incident and I was grateful for that. Nobody thanks you when you air the dirty laundry of the family of a field-grade officer. But after the official report wound its way up the chain of command, the half-dozen or so G.I. s involved were brought up on charges-statutory rape and disrespect to the dependent of a field grade officer. Within days, they were not only convicted but two of them did some time in the stockade and all of them were summarily dismissed from the army.
But punishing the guilty wasn’t enough for the honchos of 8th Army, not when one of their own was involved. They went one step further. The entire 9th Support Group-personnel, offices, barracks, equipment, vehicles, everything-was transferred to a small logistics compound about twenty miles outside of Seoul. In other words, banished for their sins.
Since then, Mrs. Tidwell had been keeping a very tight reign on her willful teenage daughter. Ernie knew of her from reports and gossip but even he was smart enough to stay strictly away from Jessica Tidwell. Or at least I hoped he was.
The Tidwells lived in a sprawling split-level home on Yongsan Compound South Post. A squad of MPs had already secured the perimeter and I recognized a sedan parked in the driveway as belonging to Colonel Cosgrove, the Chief Chaplain of the 8th Army. Inside, the chaplain sat on a leather upholstered couch, comforting Mrs. Tidwell. She held an embroidered handkerchief to her mouth and rose to her feet when we walked in.
“Are you the investigators?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“What took you so long?”
I didn’t know how to answer that one so I didn’t.
She held her body stiffly and wore a cotton dress that was shaped by petticoats and elastic undergarments.
“I don’t care about the money,” she said, waving her arm. “They can have all that. I just want you to find Jessica.” Her face wrinkled into a mask of rage. “And I want you to find her now!”
Neither Ernie nor I moved. The chaplain, a tall man with thick gray hair, moved toward her and grabbed her elbow. “Now Margaret,” he said, “these young men are professionals. Let them do their jobs. And don’t worry, they’ll find Jessica.”
We proceeded into the den, the room that Mrs. Tidwell told us was used by her husband as his home office. She explained what was missing. As we examined the evidence, she said, “I know you’re afraid to ask but you must want to know why Oswald isn’t here.”
Both Ernie and I gazed steadily as Mrs. Tidwell, not speaking. The chaplain grimaced.
“My husband is a very busy man,” Mrs. Tidwell said. “His responsibilities are massive. If he could, he’d be here right now, looking for his daughter.
“Don’t smirk like that,” she said to us. “I won’t have it! Not in my own home. There is such a thing as silent contempt, you know,” she screamed.
The chaplain stepped toward her. She lashed out at him with a fist. He dodged it easily, waited a moment, and then touched her shoulder. She turned and crumpled into his arms, where she stayed for a few minutes, sobbing.
None of the windows leading into Colonel Tidwell’s home office had been broken or jimmied in any way. He normally kept the door leading into the den padlocked from the outside. Mrs. Tidwell told us that when she checked the room shortly after her husband left for work that morning, she’d found it open. At the time she hadn’t thought much of it. But later, while airing out the house, she noticed that the door to the safe was open also. She called her husband and he told her to make sure that the thousand dollars in U.S. greenbacks he kept there for emergency use was still intact. It wasn’t. The envelope was gone. Colonel Tidwell called the MPs from his office.
Technically, no American personnel in Korea are supposed to be in possession of U.S. currency. When a G.I. or his dependents arrives in country, all cash is converted into blue or red Military Payment Certificates. The idea is that it will make it more difficult for the North Korean Communists to get their hands on U.S. currency which they could then use as international exchange. Despite this restriction, greenbacks are still available, illegally, on the black-market and fetch a higher price in won, the Korean currency, than MPC.
A full colonel who is the 8th Army J-2 was not going to be criticized for keeping a small pile of American cash on hand; an enlisted G.I. would be locked up for it.
Clearly, the theft of the money had been an inside job. There was no sign of a break-in and whoever had entered the den had used a key. The safe had been opened by someone using the combination.
The household help consisted of a Korean maid and a Korean “serviceman,” what G.I. s would call a houseboy. I spoke to both of them. They were nervous they might lose their jobs. Neither admitted seeing anyone entering the den but they’d left the previous evening and hadn’t returned until dawn. There were also two contract Korean security guards outside, supposedly to protect the J-2 and his family from possible attack by North Korean commandos. I didn’t bother to speak to them because neither had entered the house. But I took note of which guards had been on shift the previous night in case I needed to speak to them later.
Mrs. Tidwell was less concerned about the theft of the greenbacks than she was about the whereabouts of her daughter, Jessica.
“She didn’t come home last night,” Mrs. Tidwell told us.
Mustering a neutral tone, Ernie asked, “Is that unusual?”
Slowly, Mrs. Tidwell shook her head. “Not anymore.”
“‘Not anymore?’” I asked.
“Not since she met that Mexican.” She spat the word out. Then she looked up at me. “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re Hispanic, aren’t you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Who is the Mexican you’re referring to?”
“The driver,” she said. “Nothing but a damn driver, when she could be dating any of the young officers at the O Club.” Mrs. Tidwell’s words fairly sizzled. “I don’t know his name,” she continued. “Jessica and I never speak of him. About a month ago he was assigned to drive for the Officers’ Wives’ Club and I dragged her along to a meeting on Daughters’ Night, hoping that she’d hit it off with some of the other girls her age. Instead, she went outside to smoke and struck up a conversation with the driver.”
“How do you know she’s been seeing him?” Ernie asked.
“She tells me,” Mrs. Tidwell replied, “every chance she gets.”
Our first stop was the Orderly Room of the 21st Transportation Company, also known as Twenty-one T Car, the 8th Army motor pool. It wasn’t difficult for Ernie and me to narrow down our search given the clues we had: Hispanic, assigned to drive for the Officers’ Wives’ Club. The first sergeant had the answer for us in less than two minutes: “Bernal, Francisco, rank of corporal.”
“What’s he like?” I asked the first sergeant.
“Don’t know,” the gray-haired man replied. “Too many young troops coming and going for me to keep track of them all.”
“But that’s your job,” Ernie said.
“Screw you, Bascom.”
“Save that for your troops,” Ernie said.
I told the first sergeant we’d find our own way to the barracks. He didn’t protest.
Outside, as our footsteps crunched across a field of gravel, I asked Ernie, “Why are you messing with him?”
Ernie shrugged. “Just in a good mood, I guess.”
“But you’re making life more difficult for us.”
