anything, he left.”
“How long did the kids stay in there?” I asked.
“Until morning,” Gil replied. “Until the maid found them.”
Outside the Shindae Tourist Hotel, Mr. Gil ordered the doorman to call a taxi. He blew a whistle, and a small Hyundai sedan appeared almost instantly. We piled in and rode silently. The broad streets of the city of Pusan were swathed in darkness and washed with a salty mist from the sea. We swept through lonely streets until we finally reached the cement-block foundation of the building known as the Pusan Main Police Station. As we climbed the well-lit stone steps, an officer wearing a gray Western suit was waiting there for us. He bowed to Mr. Kill and then shook hands with Ernie and me. He turned and ushered us into the huge wooden building.
I paused and studied a plaque written in Chinese. A few of the characters I could read. Apparently, this building had been built in 1905 during the waning days of the Chosun Dynasty. It had originally been the Pusan area’s main administrative building, but had then been converted to other purposes. Unspoken were the uses it had been put to during the Japanese occupation from 1910 to 1945. Still, the building had been in continuous use for almost seventy years.
I hurried to catch up with the other men and followed them down long wooden corridors. Inside open-doored offices, blue-clad Korean National Policemen worked at desks or interrogated prisoners, even at this late hour. There were a few Korean women in uniform, mostly typing reports or carrying paperwork. We climbed three flights of broad wooden stairs until we were ushered into an office marked with Chinese characters I couldn’t decipher. As soon as I had a chance, I copied the characters into my notebook. Later I discovered they meant “Homicide Division.”
We sat on hard couches surrounding a coffee table. Soon, a female officer brought a metal tray with cups and a bronze pot of barley tea. We drank. The officer in the gray suit pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered them all around. When everyone refused, he grimaced and stuffed the pack back into his coat pocket. Then, in English, he introduced himself: Senior Inspector Han of the Pusan Korean National Police.
He pulled out a teletype report written in hangul. The ticket sellers at the train stations in Seoul, Taejon, and East Taegu had all been interviewed thoroughly. The ones at Taejon and East Taegu were certain they hadn’t sold any tickets to foreigners yesterday. This made sense because there were few foreigners in Taejon and Taegu, and they were unlikely to be traveling south toward Pusan. The American military has only a small contingent in Pusan. The bulk of our forces-about 90 percent of the over 50,000 G.I. s stationed in-country-are either in Seoul or north of Seoul, on compounds in the 2nd Infantry Division area near the Demilitarized Zone.
The ticket sellers at the Seoul Station itself, however, couldn’t be sure if they’d sold any tickets to foreigners or not. There are plenty of foreigners living in Seoul, and when you’re a ticket seller in a busy station like Seoul’s, one day blends in with another, and the customers become an undifferentiated mass.
The 8th Army RTO receives its own block of tickets and sells them to 8th Army military personnel only. That report was being created by Staff Sergeant Riley while we traveled south on the Blue Train and should be waiting for us at the MP station on Hialeah Compound.
Detective Inspector Han presented both Ernie and me with his card and we promised to call him as soon as we had any information concerning any G.I. s who’d taken the Blue Train. The time was getting on toward 2200 hours, 10:00 p.m. Ernie and I said our good-byes to Inspector Han, and Mr. Kill escorted us outside. Rather than having us take a cab, he led us to a brand-new blue Korean National Police car. A white-gloved officer sat up front. Mr. Kill opened the back door, and Ernie climbed in. Before I could follow, Kill stopped me and said, “Your report said something about a ‘checklist.’ What do you think it means?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “Whatever it means, something has caused this guy to escalate his violence.”
Inspector Kill stared at me, puzzled.
“Escalate means to step higher,” I said. “In this case, to move up from simple rape to murder.”
Kill nodded. “And ‘checklist’ implies a list that’s longer than two.”
“Yes. It implies a list that can be very long.”
Inspector Kill sighed and looked away.
I folded myself into the backseat next to Ernie. The driver turned on the siren and pulled away from the Pusan police headquarters. Although his knees were scrunched up in front of him, Ernie was pleased by the plush ride. “Beats getting chased by them,” he said.
After twenty minutes, we rolled up to the stone-and-concertina-wire gate of the United States Army’s Hialeah Compound. Ernie and I climbed out of the sedan, thanking the driver as we did so. He saluted and roared off.
Floodlights lit wet pavement. From behind a reinforced concrete barricade, two American MPs glared at us. A heavy mist, laced with salt, was blowing in off the ocean. I shuddered, hoisted my bag, and marched toward the winding cattle chute that was the pedestrian entrance to the compound.
Behind me, Ernie muttered, “Why are those guys staring at us?” When he received no response, he raised his voice and shouted, “Mom! I’m home!”
Neither MP moved.
6
Ernie and I had met Lieutenant Messler before, on a previous case. He must’ve extended his tour in Korea, because that previous trip to Pusan had been almost a year ago.
“Hot one this time, eh, Sueno?” he asked. “And you brought Bascom along with you. They got tired of him in Seoul?”
“You’ll get tired of me here,” Ernie growled.
The lieutenant smirked. Messler was a smallish man, a fact that he tried to compensate for by keeping his chest puffed out and his posture ramrod straight, so straight that he was practically leaning backward. He was wearing his dress green uniform because he was pulling the duty tonight, and his tie was knotted tightly and his hair combed straight back. He was chomping gum.
“There’s a report,” I said, “should’ve been sent down here by now, from the Chief of Staff’s office.” I kept my voice as even as I could. I didn’t like Lieutenant Messler any more than Ernie did, but we were going to have to work with him for as long as this thing lasted. I could at least encourage him to act professionally.
Mention of the 8th Army Chief of Staff made his eyebrows rise.
“I saw it,” he said. “Not much in it.” He tossed the paperwork on the counter in front of me.
“Thanks for reading it,” Ernie said. “Even though it’s classified and you don’t have a need-to-know.”
“The duty officer needs to know everything,” Messler replied.
“Yeah. You’re needy, all right.”
I grabbed Ernie by the elbow and pulled him away from the MP desk, pretending that I needed his help in evaluating the message. What I really needed was for him to quit needling Messler. Turning the young lieutenant into a yapping Chihuahua wouldn’t help us find the Blue Train rapist.
The report was from the Seoul RTO and listed the names of the G.I. s who’d been issued tickets yesterday for the Blue Train to Pusan. At the civilian ticket counters, all you needed was some hard cash, in won, the Korean currency, and anybody could buy a ticket. No names were recorded and no questions were asked. The military, on the other hand, issued tickets mostly to G.I. s who were on official business. And, as such, they had to present their identification and travel orders, and their names were then logged in and their train tickets were issued to them for free. A G.I. on leave orders-or even on weekend pass-could purchase a ticket at the RTO, but once again-it being the military-they would demand to see his identification and he’d be logged in with his purchase point and destination.
I studied the names.
“The courier,” Ernie said, pointing at the name Runnels.
“Figures he’d be on the train returning to Pusan,” I said. “It’s his job to carry classified information back and forth from Seoul.”
“He’s the one who talked to the guy who got off the first train in Anyang, isn’t he?”
“He’s the one.”
“So if the same guy was on this train, Runnels would’ve seen him.”
