Sergeant Copwood leaned his weight from one foot to the other. “He didn’t pull me all the way across the counter, sir.”
“Shut up, Copwood.” Squireward continued to glare at me. “So what is it, Sueno? What’s your excuse?”
“No excuse, sir.”
“Then you admit you were in the wrong.”
I shrugged. “I have the right to remain silent, sir, like anyone else.”
Squireward’s narrow face seemed to suck in on itself, and his brown eyes flashed behind the hooked nose.
“We’ll see about that,” he said. “We’ll see if you can retain the right to remain silent. I’m not standing for that type of behavior in my area of operations, Sueno. Do you understand? I’m pushing this thing all the way up to Eighth Army. You think you’re smart now, coming down here from Seoul and throwing your weight around, but we’ll see who laughs last.”
I didn’t respond. I knew better. Most members of the US Army officer corps, when they’re angry, want desperately to deliver their tongue-lashings. If they’re allowed to do that, given time, they’ll calm down; once they come to their senses, any attempt they make at punishment will be less severe. Not that I thought Major Squireward could do much to me, but there’s no sense in tempting fate.
“I’ve already demanded,” he said, “that you and your partner, that guy Bascom, be removed physically from Camp Henry and all Nineteenth Support Group subordinate units. I want you out of here, and I want you out of here now. You got that?”
I nodded. “Got it, sir.”
“Good. And to that end, Seoul has sent down a babysitter for you. I’m signing both you and that Bascom character over to him, and he’ll escort you out of Taegu. Is that understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
Major Squireward glared at me again, this time for a long moment. Finally, he said, “It had better be understood, Sueno. It had better be. And it should also be understood that your investigation of the Blue Train rapist failed miserably.”
“How’s that, sir?”
“Talk to your KNP buddy down there. What’s his name? Inspector Kill. He’ll tell you.”
With that, Major Squireward pivoted on his highly polished low quarters and marched out of the interrogation room.
The “babysitter” who signed for Ernie and me was Staff Sergeant Riley. After we walked out of the front door of the Camp Henry MP station, Ernie said, “How the hell did you get down here so fast?”
“Chopper,” Riley replied. “The Provost Marshal has a case of the big ass.”
“That’s news?” Ernie asked.
“For starters,” Riley said, “you punched out Captain Freddy Ray Embry and put him in the aid station; and you, Sueno, roughed up the desk sergeant at the Camp Henry MP station.”
“Allegedly,” I said, “on both counts.”
“‘Allegedly,’ my ass,” Riley replied.
“Why is it,” Ernie asked, “that Eighth Army is always willing to believe the worst about us?”
“Because you deserve to have the worst believed about you,” Riley replied.
Ernie climbed in the driver’s seat of the old green sedan, pulled out his keys, and turned on the ignition. It started right up. Riley sat in back. I rode shotgun. On the way out the gate, Ernie waved to the MPs. They frowned back at him, hands on the grips of their. 45s.
“Where to?” Ernie asked.
“Pusan,” Riley replied. “We turn this vehicle in, and then I’m to escort you both back to Seoul.”
“Belay that,” I said.
“What? There’s no belaying shit. I’m under orders to return you two assholes to Seoul.”
“First,” I said, “we talk to Inspector Kill.”
“The hell you will,” Riley replied.
“The hell I won’t,” I said.
Inspector Kill shook his head sadly and pushed a sheaf of pulp across his metal desk. “No good,” he said.
I was sitting in the Pusan Central Police Station. Riley and Ernie were waiting for me in the sedan, partly because in the middle of the day, in downtown Pusan, Ernie couldn’t find a parking spot, and partly because Ernie was playing the role of mental health nurse while Riley fumed and turned red and cursed about being under orders to escort us back to Seoul. “Immediately if not sooner” was the way he put it.
“You brought in the witnesses,” I told Kill.
He nodded. “Separately. Both the woman who sold the purse in front of the train station and the cab driver who transported the Blue Train rapist to the Shindae Hotel. Both witnesses took their time, they studied the man, but in the end they both said the same thing. It’s not him.”
“But they don’t see many foreigners,” I said. “We all look alike to them. Maybe they’re mistaken.”
Kill shook his head. “The old lady in front of the train station sees plenty of foreigners; they shop there for souvenirs. And the driver works the Texas Street area. He probably has almost as many foreign passengers as he has Korean. They both took their time. We emphasized to them how important this was.” Kill fondled the black- and-white photo of Corporal Robert R. Pruchert. “It’s not him. He’s not the Blue Train rapist.”
Finally I accepted what he was telling me. Then my self-questioning began. What had I done wrong? Where had my investigative procedures failed? There are only so many American G.I. s at the compounds in Taejon, Waegwan, Taegu, and Pusan, totaling only in the hundreds, and they’re watched closely; passes and leave requests are monitored by their superiors. They don’t just run up and down the spine of Korea on the Blue Train willy- nilly.
Most crimes committed by American G.I. s in Korea are solved easily. G.I. s aren’t criminal masterminds and they don’t cover their tracks well. Often, it seems that many of them actually want to be caught. Maybe they’re tired of the slogging routine of military life. Maybe they’re tired of living in a country where they don’t understand the language and can’t read the signs, where they don’t understand the customs and everything seems to be done backward. When Koreans wave a hand they usually mean “come here,” not “good-bye.” When they say “yes,” they are often trying not to embarrass the person who’s doing the asking, and what they really mean is “no.” For Americans, who are used to revering youth and beauty, it seems odd that in Korea the young and the beautiful are expected to prostrate themselves in front of the old and the ugly. So G.I. s commit crimes out of rage and frustration, or just out of a desire to leave “frozen Chosun” and go home. That’s what I thought the Blue Train rapist case was. A guy acting out his resentments. A guy waiting to get caught.
Apparently, I was wrong.
The disappointment must’ve shown in my face. Kill leaned forward and slipped the photograph into a folder. “We’ll catch the right man,” he said. “You’ll see.”
I told him about Ernie and me being ordered back to Seoul.
Kill’s face hardened. “Eighth Army promised us your services until this case was solved.”
“I know. But my partner was involved in an argument with a superior officer. They’re very angry about that.”
“The people of Korea,” Kill said, “are very angry about the Blue Train rapist.”
He walked me out of his office and down the long corridor. “I will contact my superiors,” he said. “They will contact yours. Don’t leave Pusan until you’ve heard from me.”
I promised I wouldn’t.
In the foyer, just in front of the arched entranceway to the Pusan Police Station, a small group of people waited. Two were old grandparents wearing traditional Korean hanbok, supporting themselves on canes; another was a middle-aged man in a natty blue suit. With them were three children, a boy and two girls. The blue-suited man’s eyes widened when he spotted Inspector Kill. He stepped forward and bowed. The man wore glasses; he had a square face with high cheekbones, and I could see that his eyes were deeply lined in red. The children cowered next to their grandparents.
“This,” Mr. Kill told me, “is Mr. Ju, the husband of Hyon Mi-sook.”
In Korea, a wife doesn’t adopt her husband’s family name but keeps the name she was born with. This then
