out of me. No more damn favors, huh?”
I could hear Katherine draw in a deep breath.
Before she could say any more, I said, “Other than that, how’s things?”
“Unbearable.”
“Think you could stand this the rest of your life?”
There was a moment of still silence. Then out of the shadows he said, “I’d kill myself.”
It sounded fairly bizarre because he didn’t say it angrily, or forcefully, or even threateningly, like most folks would say it, either to garner some sympathy or to make you offer to do something. His tone was perfectly flat, absolutely unaffected, like it was just a fact.
I said, “Captain Whitehall, the more I look into your case, the more likely it seems you’re facing just that. Your only chance is me and Katherine here. You’re going to have to tell us more.”
A reflective look came to his face. The truth was, I’d been sadistically hoping a few days of Korean prison would make him sing like a castrated canary.
“All right,” he finally said, “I’ll answer two more questions. So pick wisely.”
“Tell me about Lee No Tae,” I said.
I heard him release a heavy sigh, and he didn’t say anything for a long moment. That moment stretched on so long, I worried that I’d picked something so vexing or embarrassing that he was going to go back on his word.
He finally said, “I’m sure this will sound sick to you, but we were in love. It started about five months ago. His sergeant sent him into finance to collect some forms and I was there checking on something, and we took one look at each other, and both of us just knew.”
“Five months?” I said.
“That’s right. That’s why I got the apartment off base. It was our… well, I’m sure you get the picture. I could see him, spend time with him, be alone in our private space.”
“You… uh, you what? You
“Regularly.”
“Then… what about witnesses? There must’ve been witnesses?”
“No, no witnesses. At least, none I know of. When you’re a gay in the Army, Major, you’re extraordinarily careful about these things. You get very expert at sneaking around in the dark. And if you’re a Korean, it’s even worse.”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why do we sneak around?”
“No. I think I got that part. Why are Korean homosexuals so paranoid?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t know. Educate me.”
“Because in Korea, homosexuals are lower than any other life form. Many Asians are viciously prejudiced. They’re all very big on their racial bloodlines, and they despise anybody who makes that blood seem in any way tainted or perverted. Korean homosexuals are nonpeople, pariahs, beneath contempt. They don’t even peek out of the closet. That’s the world No lived in. He was scared to death about being discovered. Even more scared than me.”
“But everybody, the Koreans, the American Army, even Moran and Jackson, they’re all saying he was straight. How do you account for that?”
“Moran and Jackson know better. The rest of them probably believe he was. He was very persuasive. He even went so far as to date women, just to elude suspicion. They liked him, too. He was beautiful, you know. When he’d walk into a room, they’d all start eyeing him, as though he were a stud bull.”
“Did his parents know?”
“Absolutely not. That’s the single thing that scared No the most. He adored his parents. He knew it would kill them. I sometimes had this fantasy that he’d move back to the States with me, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He would never do anything to shame or disappoint his parents.”
This sounded like some weird twist on Romeo and Juliet, the old doomed love story, only in this case I somehow didn’t feel any surge of sympathy for the afflicted lover.
“Okay,” I said, moving along. “Your apartment was locked. There were no signs of a break-in, so if you didn’t kill Lee, that leaves only Moran and Jackson. If you had to pick one of them, which would it be?”
He mulled that over for a moment. For a frame defense to succeed, we had to have a scapegoat we could pin this on. We didn’t necessarily have to prove Moran or Jackson did it, but we had to create enough doubt in the minds of the court-martial board that they weren’t sure who did do it. In other words, there had to be a reasonable doubt that Whitehall was the guy.
What he finally said was, “Neither of them would’ve done it.”
“That’s not what I asked. Give us something to go on. Which one of the two?”
“Look, Major, maybe I’m terribly naive, I just don’t believe either of them could’ve done it.”
“Damn it, Whitehall, grow up. They’re both saying you did it.”
He snapped right back. “That’s not what they’re saying. I’ve read their testimonies. They’re saying they thought they heard a loud argument. They’re saying that No was in my room, with me. They’re saying I removed the belt from No’s neck. Except for the argument, that’s all true.”
I couldn’t argue with him on that point, since I hadn’t yet read the statements they’d made to Bales on the second go-around.
“Did Moran rape him?” I asked.
“You’ve gone beyond your allotted questions.”
“Who cares? Just answer the question.”
“No. You do some more research and come back to me again.”
I wanted to thrash him. The guy was living on rice and water, had twice been beaten, and was facing either a death sentence or life in a Korean prison – which he’d already said was tantamount to a death sentence. Despite all that, he was still playing ring around the rosy. The guy either had sawdust between his ears, or he had a death wish.
Maybe that was it, I suddenly realized. Maybe the damned fool wanted to become a martyr to the gay movement, a suffering Lothario who’d sacrificed himself for the cause. But that would only succeed if he was innocent. Which he wasn’t.
I glanced over at Katherine and she just shrugged her shoulders, like, What can you do?
“Look, Whitehall,” I said, “I have to be honest here. You’re starting to piss me off. We’ve got eleven more days to prepare your defense, so you better stop playing games.”
“I’m not playing games, Major. I’ve got my reasons.”
He was hunched over in a stubborn posture and it was pretty damned obvious I wasn’t going to get him to relent. I felt my temper rising. One of his co-counsels was in a hospital room on the edge of death, while the rest of us were working feverishly to defend him. The hell he wasn’t playing games.
I gritted my teeth and asked, “Could you at least tell me what the hell you’d like us to plead? Guilty or innocent?”
“Innocent, of course.”
“Innocent of what? Of homosexual acts? Of consorting with enlisted troops? Of rape? Of murder? Of necrophilia?”
“You tell me, Major. Isn’t that your job? You do your research, then come back and advise me.”
I couldn’t believe this. The guy was acting impudent. I glared at him through the darkness. He stared right back, unruffled. As for Katherine, the only sound I could hear coming from her was slow, shallow, tightly controlled breathing.
Why in the hell wasn’t she as mad as I was? Why wasn’t she jumping up and down and screaming at this jerk? She was the lead counsel, the anointed one sent over to save this guy. She should’ve been the one coaxing and boxing her client into opening up. She should’ve been livid with rage because he was being stupid and making it impossible for us to adequately defend him.
She wasn’t, though. She was as calm as ice.
