police arrived at the scene. The victim’s uniform was lying in a pile on the floor. Choi said the nametag on the uniform identified the victim as Lee No Tae. Choi said he had already called in that name to the Itaewon station for further identification.
A few minutes later came a call on the radio, and they all learned that Lee No Tae was the son of the minister of defense. That had a gut-tightening effect on the South Korean police officers, who until that point, according to both Blackstone and Bales, had been almost lackadaisical and haphazard in their activities. Murders were common enough in Itaewon, and South Korean police officers, like cops everywhere, adopt a kind of jaundiced, unhurried, seen-it-all approach, if for no other reason than to impress upon their peers that they’re emotionally callused.
The calluses suddenly disappeared. They all looked like their asses were on fire. Three more South Korean detectives appeared within minutes, then the station commander, then the chief of police, then the mayor of Seoul himself. Bales described it as a long procession of busybody officials with worried expressions, all shouting out instructions and trying to appear more important and commanding than the last.
Crime scene photos were shot, evidence was bagged and tagged, the corpse was rushed off to a Korean hospital, and an immediate autopsy was requested.
The three Americans weren’t interrogated until two hours after the first police officer arrived on the scene. They were first transported to the Itaewon Police Station, where they were booked, then to the American MP station at Yongsan Garrison. Bales handled the interrogation. Inspector Choi sat beside him and acted as the liaison.
Very interesting. There were some strong possibilities here – at least if you went with the strategy I’d advocated, of knocking holes in the prosecutor’s case. Assuming, of course, that Whitehall didn’t hang himself in his interrogations.
I was opening the folder that contained Whitehall’s initial statement when the phone rang. It was Carlson. She coldly ordered me to get my butt up to the office. I told her I was busy. She said she didn’t care if I was busy. I told her I was doing something vitally important. She said what she wanted to talk about was much more important. She hung up.
I just love it when somebody hasn’t got a clue what you’re doing, yet still insists that what they’re doing is more important. Maybe I was tying a tourniquet around a severed artery in my leg. I obviously wasn’t, but how in the hell did she know that?
Anyway, like a good soldier, I locked my room and headed up to the hair parlor with the HOMOS sign over the door. As before, I looked around and checked carefully to make sure nobody was watching.
Imelda was again ensconced on one of the big rotating chairs in the middle of the floor. A stack of legal documents rested on her stomach. Her nose was tucked inside a thick folder. I heard her snort with disapproval at something as I walked by.
I entered Carlson’s office, where Keith, Allie, and Maria were seated and listening to their boss jabbering to somebody on the phone.
“Uh-huh,” she was saying. “Good. The sooner the better.”
She listened for a moment, then said, “CNN today, then NBC and ABC in the morning. That’s the best order. CNN always presents flat news without editorial twist. Give ABC and NBC enough time and they’ll make it look like a minidrama.”
I listened as she continued coordinating details. I developed this real queasy feeling.
Finally Carlson finished. She triumphantly hung up the phone and then shared quick, satisfied nods with the other three.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
Before she could answer, the door swung open and in came a big, dykish-looking woman wearing way too much makeup, and hauling a microrecorder from a strap on her shoulder. She hugged Katherine, then they kissed. Uh-huh, I got that. Then a man with a big camera slung on his shoulder barged his way into the overcrowded office.
“Where do you want to do it?” the woman asked.
“Outside,” Carlson answered, standing up.
“What is this?” I stupidly asked. I mean, it was damned obvious what it was. A catastrophically bad idea was what it was.
The other three happily followed the camera crew out the door while I threw my arm across the sill and blocked Carlson. I gave her a hard look. “I don’t like being ignored. I’m going to ask one more time. What the hell is this?”
“Isn’t it obvious? We’ve got a one-minute spot on CNN.”
“Don’t.”
“It’s already scheduled.”
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “It’s a really bad idea.”
“Nonsense,” she said with an apathetic shrug. “It’s perfectly harmless. All they want is a quick puff piece on the defense team. Follow me. You’ll see.”
Some inner sense told me I shouldn’t. But to my everlasting regret, I ignored it. I put my arm down and she squeezed past me. I shuffled a few steps behind her. She preceded me out the front entrance and then mysteriously paused till I was walking beside her. To my immense surprise, she put her tiny right hand on the crook of my elbow, started waving her left hand in the air, and began flapping her jaw.
I didn’t pay any attention to what she was saying, though. I was too busy gawking at the cameraman, who had his lens pointed at the two of us. I felt like a spastic deer staring at the headlights of the thirty-wheeled semi roaring down on him. About five awkward seconds passed before I swiftly disengaged my arm and spun on her.
“What the hell-” I blurted.
“Major Drummond,” the CNN reporter asked, jamming her microphone in my face. “Is it true your client was beaten by the South Korean police?”
I gave Carlson a blistering stare, and she tilted her head in a challenging cant.
I looked at the reporter, my face clouded with anger, my jaws tightly clenched. “No comment,” I growled.
She paused, apparently confused, then asked, “Is that all you have to say?”
“No damned comment to that, either,” I roared, this time saying it with enough emphasis in all the right places that she had to get the message.
Carlson then took the reporter’s arm and the two of them casually strolled to a shaded spot underneath a big tree. The cameraman followed them and Carlson gave a three-minute impromptu interview. I watched and smoldered. You could tell Carlson was very practiced in the art of interviews, because she even helped arrange the cameraman to get the best angle – away from the sun – and her movements in front of his lens had that theatrical, picturesque quality of a born actress.
When she finally finished, she and the CNN crew warmly shook hands and parted ways. My hands were shaking, too, only in anticipation of getting themselves clenched firmly around her tiny neck.
She ignored me as she walked by. I didn’t ignore her, though. I moved like a lion going after its prey. Her trio of co-counsels kept their distance, because it was pretty damned obvious that Chernobyl was about to bleed radioactive dust all over the countryside.
When we got to Carlson’s office, I slammed the door shut behind me. There was a thunderous bang. The whole building reverberated.
“You’ve got a problem, lady!” I yelled.
She fell into her chair and looked up at me. Her expression was anything but receptive. “I’ve got a problem?” she yelled right back.
“Yeah. A big one.”
“No, Drummond, you’re the one with the problem.”
“Yeah?”
She nearly exploded. “You still don’t get it, do you? My job is to protect my client. That’s supposed to be your priority, too.”
“You don’t protect your client by yammering in front of a camera every chance you get.”
“When it comes to homosexuals, it’s the only way you protect them. You have no idea how despised they are. No, that’s not right. Maybe you do.”
