We strode through the open doorway.
The office was plastered from floor to ceiling with enlarged black-and-white photos of blood, guts, and gore. An overhead fluorescent light buzzed. At a small gray desk, a lanky GI seemed to rise from his chair in sections. The name tag on his faded fatigues said BUFFORD and the rank insignia on his collar was the black-striped rectangle of a warrant officer one.
I expected Mr. Bufford to hold out his hand but, instead, bony fingers clenched hip bones. His face was narrow and his black crew cut contrasted with the paleness of his flesh. His waist was thin and his chest so emaciated that I’d seen more robust rib cages on porcelain platters at Thanksgiving. It was his eyes that held you. Black and deep set. The pupils shining like tiny eight balls, above a nose that pointed forward like a bayonet on the end of an M-16. He sniffled as he studied us and both nostrils clung to inner flesh. Then he snorted and the moist flesh released with a pop.
The room smelled of cigarettes and burnt coffee. Bufford didn’t say anything. Neither did Ernie. I broke the ice.
“Mr. Bufford?” I asked. Inanely, because his name and his rank were sewn onto his uniform.
He stared at me with no sign of response. Puffy dun-colored bags sat beneath eyes so dark they were almost purple. I glanced from his odd, ravaged face to the celluloid carnage that surrounded us. Brutality, rape, murder, assault. All of it was here. Frozen in time and plastered on the walls of this Quonset hut as if to preserve it for posterity. As if someone here, probably Bufford, hated to let it go.
Finally, Warrant Officer Bufford’s voice emerged as a nasal whine.
“I stand by my report,” he said. “It’s all in there. That’s it.” He slashed a bony finger in the air. “And if you talk to the provost marshal, he’ll tell you the same thing.”
“Whoa,” Ernie said, holding up both hands. “Whatever happened to ‘Hello’? ‘How you doing?’ ‘What’s new in Seoul?’ and all that shit?”
Bufford looked puzzled, as if he’d never heard of anything as mundane as social amenities.
“It’s in my report,” he repeated.
“ ‘Hello’ is in your report?”
Bufford was growing more confused by the minute.
Ernie eyed him, still trying to figure out what we’d stumbled into. I sat on a gray steel chair beneath a photograph of a dead GI slumped over a steering wheel. I cleared my throat and spoke.
“Mr. Bufford,” I said. “Where is Corporal Jill Matthewson?”
For once, he couldn’t say it was in his report. Bufford’s pasty flesh was no longer white but almost aflame now and his sunken cheeks didn’t quite quiver but seemed to suck in, like a bellows drawing breath.
“It ain’t going to work,” he said.
“What ain’t going to work?” Ernie asked.
“You’re CID. Eighth Army. You’re not going to make us look bad.”
“We’re not here to make anybody look bad,” I told him. “We’re here to find Corporal Jill Matthewson.”
His skull swiveled away for a moment, as if he were in pain, and then he turned back to look at me. “You got no rights. You’re REMFs. From Eighth Army. This is Division.” Then he started to scream. “This is Division!”
Ernie leaned across the desk. Bufford backed up, ready to leap away from Ernie’s grasp but as he did so the door to the small office squeaked open and a stranger entered the room. He was a short man, about five and a half feet tall, wearing green fatigues. Sandy brown hair was slicked across his round head and, through a pair of square-lensed glasses, he smiled, all of which gave him the air of a deacon attending Sunday services at a Southern Baptist church. As a military man, what my eyes latched onto first was his name tag, which said ALCOTT, and then his rank insignia-a silver maple leaf-indicating that he was a lieutenant colonel. I already knew that LTC Stanley X. Alcott was the Provost Marshal of the 2nd United States Infantry Division.
Bufford composed himself long enough to thrust back his shoulders and holler, “Attention!”
Lieutenant Colonel Alcott smiled and waved his soft palm. “At ease,” he said. “At ease. Everybody take a seat.”
I pulled two metal chairs from the stack leaning against the wall, unfolded them, and the three of us-the provost marshal, me, and Ernie-sat in a semi-circle in front of WO1 Bufford’s desk.
Most 8th Army GIs, stationed comfortably in Seoul, would consider being sent north to Division as the equivalent of a temporary duty assignment in hell. Now, after only the first few minutes of our sojourn at the 2nd ID, I was starting to understand why.
“I’m so glad you two gentlemen took the time to travel all the way up from Seoul to help us,” Colonel Alcott said. He was smiling even more broadly than he had been when he entered the room. He motioned again with his open palm. “Mr. Bufford has been working around the clock trying to locate Corporal Matthewson. It’s a tragedy that she disappeared. Believe me, it’s touched all of us here deeply. And since it’s been over two weeks that she’s been gone, we thought it would be a good idea to bring in a pair of fresh eyes to review the evidence.”
I glanced sharply at Ernie, warning him not to laugh. The reality of the situation was that Ernie and I had been crammed down Colonel Alcott’s throat. He knew it and we knew it. 8th Army didn’t want any more letters from irate congressmen accusing the 2nd Infantry Division of not being able to keep track of its own female soldiers.
“And I know,” Colonel Alcott continued, “that Mr. Bufford will bring you up to speed on the case right away.”
As if the joints in his neck had been suddenly lubricated, Bufford nodded his head vigorously.
Colonel Alcott glanced at me and then at Ernie. “You’ve read the report. What are your thoughts so far?”
Actually, Ernie hadn’t read the SIR, the serious incident report. Too boring. He left that sort of thing to me. I spoke up.
“Must’ve been something personal, sir,” I said. “No indication that Corporal Matthewson was having trouble in her work. No black marketing indicated by her ration control records. No history of mental disorder.”
Alcott nodded sadly. “True. True enough. So what’s your plan of investigation?”
“Shoe leather,” I said. “Talk to everyone who knew her. Reconstruct her every move up to the moment of her disappearance.”
“We’ve already done that,” Bufford said. “It wasn’t personal. I’m telling you, we’ve already covered that ground. Had to be random. She was attacked by someone she didn’t know, probably a Korean after a rich American. He robbed her, killed her, got rid of the body. We just haven’t found it yet.”
Ernie’s green eyes flashed behind his round-lensed glasses. Here it comes, I thought.
“Robbed her?” Ernie asked, his voice a growl. “Murdered her?”
Buford leaned back reflexively, as if to protect himself from Ernie. “Yes,” he said.
“And how many times,” Ernie asked, “in the more than twenty years since Camp Casey was established, has an American GI been robbed and murdered by a Korean?”
Bufford, confused, glanced at Colonel Alcott for support. Before either could reply, Ernie was back on the attack.
“I’ll tell you how many times,” he said. “Never! Koreans don’t do that. They might slicky money from a GI or cheat him on a business deal or con him out of a few dollars, but they don’t hit and they definitely don’t murder!”
Ernie was right. Korea is a tightly controlled society with a former general for a dictator and the Korean National Police patrolling every street corner. But more importantly, they’re Confucian. They give unquestioning allegiance to their superiors and anyone who so much as threatens physical violence loses face and is forced to slink away in shame. Sure, Koreans become emotional. Often. They’re not called the Irish of the Orient for nothing. And sometimes they punch out one another on the street for everyone, including their neighbors and their ancestors in heaven, to see. But those are personal disputes. And as loud and as prolonged as they sometimes are, no one gets hurt. Violent crime is rare in Korea. And against Americans, it’s unheard of.