“Then they made a good guess when they chose those numbers.”
“All four?” He frowned. “More likely they knew something.”
“How could anyone determine what number sequences you use?”
“Beats me. It’s strictly classified.” He handed the paper back to me. “Sorry we couldn’t help.”
I pointed to the boxes on the table behind the counter. “What about those?”
“Those? Cards from PX’s and commissaries around the country. They’re just in.”
“How about running them for us? Checking for these numbers?”
“But they just came in.”
“It’s a bother, that’s for sure. But, you know, murder and all that…”
He sighed, looking extremely tired and harassed. “Okay. But it’ll take a while.”
“We’ll wait.”
He went back into the noisy bowels of the data processing unit and I sat back down next to Ernie.
“Dick,” Ernie said.
It was almost midafternoon by the time the sergeant reemerged, and both Ernie and I were grumpy because with all the activity today we hadn’t been able to squeeze in lunch. The sergeant handed me a three-page computer printout. Rows of numbers were printed on it. The numbers were so light, I had to squint to read them.
“Don’t you guys ever change your ribbon?”
“Every week.”
“What’s all this supposed to mean?”
“Your number.”
“Where?”
“One of them anyway.” He pointed an ink-smudged finger at the second page. “Card was used once in the PX on Hialeah Compound. And again, less than an hour later, at the commissary on the same base.”
“How long ago?”
“This morning.”
“Where’s Hialeah Compound?”
“Pusan.”
“How’d these cards arrive here so fast?”
“Flown up by helicopter.”
“They bring them in every day?”
“Every day. Unless the weather grounds the aircraft.”
So Shipton had murdered the Nurse and then hopped on a train or a bus and headed down to Pusan, the southernmost city on the Korean Peninsula, a trip of about five hours. He’d appeared bright and early this morning at the PX and commissary, making purchases, knowing that we wouldn’t be looking for him that far away.
I grabbed the printout. “Can I keep this?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks for your help, Sarge.”
Before he could say anything, Ernie and I were out the door, running for the jeep.
It was finally time to level with the First Sergeant. Not about everything, but about most things.
Before I had given him the whole story he raised his hand and said, “Hold it.”
He checked on his intercom, received clearance, and the three of us marched down the slickly waxed hallway to the Provost Marshal’s office. The receptionist eyed us suspiciously but the Provost Marshal, Colonel Stoneheart, was waiting for us and waved us on into his office. We took seats in comfortable leather chairs. The flags of the United States, the United Nations, and the Republic of Korea stood behind his desk.
The Provost Marshal relit his pipe.
“Okay,” the First Sergeant said. “Go ahead.”
I cleared my throat, hoping I’d be able to play this right. Ernie was tense; I needed to make sure they didn’t ask him any questions. With two of us answering, they could trip us up.
“Cecil Whitcomb was a thief. You saw that, sir, in our preliminary reports. We have reason to believe that whoever killed Whitcomb down in Namdaemun knew him, or at least had seen him before.”
“What reason?”
“We’re not sure yet. We just don’t think it was random.”
Ernie shuffled in his chair. I continued.
“We got a lead that a woman in Mukyo-dong, a kisaeng-”
“A what?”
“A kisaeng, sir. A professional entertainer. Like a geisha girl.”
“Oh.” The Provost Marshal fiddled with his pipe. “And where in the hell is Mukyo-dong?”
“Downtown Seoul.”
“Go ahead.”
“So we got this tip-”
“Where’d you get this tip?” This was from the First Sergeant.
“Sources in Itaewon.”
“Sources in Itaewon? You mean gossip from business girls.”
I didn’t answer.
The First Sergeant folded his arms. “Go ahead.”
“So we went and talked to this girl. She knew a Korean man who owns a print shop, and he had an American friend. She thought this American guy was black-marketing, so we went to the print shop owner and got the guy’s picture.” Actually, the slicky boys stole the picture. But I didn’t want to tell the colonel that I was working with them. “We also found some phony ration control plate numbers.”
The First Sergeant and the Provost Marshal looked at each other.
“Good work,” the First Sergeant said. “But you’re not on the black market detail. You’re investigating a murder.”
“So this kisaeng, the next morning, ends up dead.”
The Provost Marshal shuffled through some papers. “I saw something about that in the blotter reports. And another one in Itaewon.”
“Yes. This American guy’s next victim.”
“What’d this Itaewon girl have to do with it?”
“She knew us.”
The Provost Marshal puffed furiously on his pipe, but it had gone out. “Corporal Sueno, would you please explain yourself?”
“This guy somehow found out that Ernie and I were investigating the murder of Whitcomb. Although our lead in Mukyo-dong wasn’t a very solid one, this guy, for reasons of his own, thought it might lead to something. He killed the kisaeng so she wouldn’t be able to identify him, and then he killed the woman Ernie has been seeing in Itaewon, probably trying to scare us off the case.”
The Provost Marshal looked at Ernie. Ernie remained completely stoic, as if he hadn’t even heard what I said. The Provost Marshal turned back to me.
“It’s sort of thin.”
“You’re right, sir, but if we can pick this guy up, interrogate him, we’ll probably be able to pin the Whitcomb murder on him. If he hadn’t been involved, why would he be murdering these women we talked to?”
I hadn’t thought out very clearly what I was going to say to the First Sergeant and the Provost Marshal, but I was warming to the explanation now.
“He’s getting desperate. He probably thinks we know more than we do, and even if he didn’t kill Whitcomb, he certainly has information that will help. We can already bust him and turn him over to the KNP’s for the murders of those two women.”
“Okay,” the Provost Marshal said. “We pick this guy up for questioning. But where can we find him?”
I pulled the folded computer printout from my pocket.
“We just got this from Data Processing. One of these phony RCP numbers, one of those associated with his photograph, was used down on Hialeah Compound in Pusan this morning. He probably thinks he’s safe down there for a while. Ernie and I can go there now. Pick him up when he makes his next purchase.”
The First Sergeant didn’t like it. “Why not just notify the Pusan MP’s?”
“How are we going to get the photograph down there to them that quickly? We’d have to send a courier down with it, anyway. Might as well be me and Ernie. Besides, the Pusan MP’s have other things to worry about. Ernie and I wouldn’t have anything else to concentrate on, other than busting this killer.”
“What’s his name?” the Provost Marshal asked.
“Beauregard Shipton. Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy. Former Liaison to the ROK Navy headquarters. Been AWOL for about three months.”
The Provost Marshal set down his pipe. “An officer?”
I nodded.
He shuffled some papers, probably hoping it would give him time to think. Apparently it did.
“Okay. Very good report, Corporal Sueno. You and Bascom can go now. First Sergeant, you stay here.”
The First Sergeant followed us into the hallway. “Wait in my office,” he told us. He went back into the Provost Marshal’s office. The door closed.