Two of the policemen pushed through the crowd of wailing kisaeng and helped the Tiger Lady to her feet. Another emerged from the hallway and called for Ernie and me to accompany him. The girls ignored us as we left, all their attention turned toward the moaning Tiger Lady.
When Ernie saw Miss Ku’s body I thought he was going to collapse. I grabbed him around the waist and helped him down the alley past it, out into the coldness of the morning air. Lieutenant Pak and the other policeman were waiting for us. Ernie pulled himself together although his face was as pale as I’d ever seen it.
Lieutenant Pak strode forward and poked his nose in Ernie’s face.
“You sleep with her,” he said, pointing at the corpse.
I stepped between them. “Wait a minute. He’s in no condition to answer questions. Not yet. He needs a chance to recover.”
There is no right to immediate counsel in Korea. You either answer the policeman’s questions or face the consequences-from a jail cell.
Ernie laid his hand on my shoulder. “That’s okay, George. I’ll talk to him. I need to.” He unwrapped another stick of gum, put it in his mouth, and turned slowly to Lieutenant Pak.
“Yeah. I spent the night with her. I came late. She wasn’t busy, we went to her room and talked.”
Lieutenant Pak tried to keep his face from moving but the eyes crinkled involuntarily around the edges. Korean men weren’t happy about Americans spending time with their women. But since fraternization was inevitable, they preferred that Gl’s stick to the business girls in Itaewon. The ones who’d teen designated for the job.
“In the morning she let me out the back door.” Ernie turned, pointing. “This door here. She was wearing the same clothes she has on now. The silk nightgown. The robe.”
“After you left, did she lock the door?”
“No. She wore slippers and she followed me out into the alleyway.” He pointed again, to a spot about ten yards in front of the back door. “When I reached the main road, down there, I turned one last time and waved. She waved back.”
“So she was standing there, away from the door, alone, when you left her?”
“Yes,” Emie answered: “And it was still dark.”
“We found sandals,” Lieutenant Pak said. “They must’ve fallen off her feet in a struggle, and the tops of her feet are scraped raw, as if she’d been dragged.”
Ernie shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that.”
Lieutenant Pak stared at him. Waiting to see if he’d fidget.
“Check her pockets,” Ernie said.
“Why?”
“You’ll find a stick of ginseng gum. I gave it to her just before I left. It probably has my fingerprints on it.”
Lieutenant Pak studied Ernie some more. Without looking over his shoulder he shouted an order to one of the uniformed policemen. The policeman answered, trotted off to the body, and after bending over it and checking, returned to Lieutenant Pak.
“Nei. Issoyo.” Yes. It’s there.
I spoke up. “He wouldn’t have left such clear evidence if he was planning on killing her.”
Ernie winced.
Lieutenant Pak half smiled. “I said nothing about killing.”
He hadn’t and suddenly I felt embarrassed. But it was what everyone was thinking.
“You know I didn’t kill her,” Ernie said.
Lieutenant Pak’s eyes probed Ernie’s face. “We’ll see.
He turned to me. “This woman who calls herself Miss Ku, she is same woman you saw at Kayagum Teahouse. The one who wanted you to black-market?”
I didn’t answer.
“And maybe she knew something that you didn’t want anyone else to know.”
A chill of fear went through me. Pak was close to finding out that we had been paid to deliver the note to Cecil Whitcomb, thereby demonstrating a motive for Ernie to murder Miss Ku. What with the way military justice works, just the suspicion was enough to get us both locked up. I had to give him something else to think about.
“Miss Ku was able to identify the American who followed us in the U.N. Club.”
Lieutenant Pak thought about that.
“So the American’s been following you,” he said. “And he killed Miss Ku.”
“Maybe.”
“Who is this man?”
“That’s what we all want to know.”
He raised his finger and pointed it at me.
“I received your reports. They told me nothing. You are Americans, so I am patient with you, but if you keep me from this killer, your life in Seoul will be most miserable.”
He pointed his forefinger at Ernie. “You will not leave Korea.”
Ernie nodded. “Can do.”
Lieutenant Pak pivoted and walked back to the technicians in the alleyway, barking orders.
When they forgot about us, we slipped down to the end of the alleyway and disappeared.
On the ride back, Ernie couldn’t stop jabbering.
“The son of a bitch!” He pounded his fist against the steering wheel. “He’s been following us since this investigation began. First in the U.N. Club, then the Kayagum Teahouse, and even down here to Mukyo-dong. When we got close to Miss Ku, he took her out.”
I leaned back in the seat, trying not to show my terror as Ernie whizzed within millimeters of careening kimchi cabs that charged like cavalry through the narrow streets. “He’s been following us, all right. Whoever he is.”
“Who does he kill next?” Ernie asked. “The guy who owns the print shop?”
“Maybe. Miss Ku saw his face. Now she’s dead. So did Mr. Chong, the print shop owner.”
“So we ought to tell Lieutenant Pak about it so he can get there first.”
“The print shop guy can take care of himself. Besides, if we tell Lieutenant Pak, he’ll have to go through regular procedures for search permission at the Namdaemun Police Station and this print shop Chong is liable to hear about it. He’s making good money. Maybe somebody in the police precinct is on his payroll. If he gets wind of it, he hides any important information. I want to take another approach.”
Ernie glanced at me. “You’re not crazy enough to go back there and break in yourself?”
“No. Those boys in the shops are liable to lynch us. I’ll send somebody else.”
“Like who?”
“You’ll see.”
No sense letting Ernie know everything. This whole case was about to explode in our faces. And if we went down, the less he knew about my plans the better.
Ernie wasn’t the type to press if I told him I didn’t want to talk about something. We rode listening to the screech of brakes and the honking of horns and the pitiful pleadings of the dying Miss Ku.
When troubles start they don’t stop. Back at the CID building Ernie let me off while he parked the jeep.
Inside, the Nurse sat in the First Sergeant’s office, her dimpled knees peeking out from beneath the hemline of a neatly pressed brown skirt. Her long black hair was tied back in a bun and she clutched a cheap plastic handbag primly on her lap, nodding patiently as the First Sergeant spoke in loud English.
I hurried down the hallway and grabbed Riley.
“What’s going on?”
“She came in a few minutes ago,” he said, “demanding to talk to the Provost Marshal.”
“About what?”
“About Ernie. And his ‘crimes,’as she put it. The First Sergeant knew it was trouble. She looks so cute and innocent that if she latches onto the right colonel or one of the dorks over at the Inspector General’s office, she’ll make the whole CID look bad.”
“What sort of ‘crimes’?”
“Going out with girls. Not staying home. Drinking too much.” Riley shrugged.
“But they’re not even married.”
“I don’t think she sees it that way.”
Korean women often went to their husbands’ superiors to complain about off-duty behavior. In Korea, the role of the boss is so revered that he is considered to have the right-even the responsibility-to provide personal guidance to his subordinates. The Nurse was doing what came naturally. Trying to convince the men who controlled Ernie’s professional life to control his personal life.
Miss Kim, the Admin secretary, kept her head down and pounded furiously on the keys of her electric typewriter. Having her rival here in the office, being treated like a queen by the First Sergeant, wasn’t doing much for her mood.