The Circle of Sodom

by Pat Mullan

  In those early weeks after they first met they were inseparable. They shared so many of the same interests. She loved literature. Zach had always read voraciously. She introduced him to Korean theater, even taking him to see a Korean production of Shakespeare. It only seemed natural for Zach to be open with her about his sexual ambiguity. They had become so intimate in every way that physical intimacy seemed natural and normal. But she didn't rush Zach. She would bathe him with warm towels and massage his body with her nimble fingers and oriental expertise. She knew all the acupressure points and every erotic trigger. Gradually Zach responded. He didn't count the days or the weeks but after about three months he and Joy-San actually achieved intercourse. And that was the beginning of the end for them. Zach's military career had no place in it for a partner, especially one of dubious family origins. His sexual ambiguity also dominated his nature. The success with Joy-San only aroused his sexuality, something he had suppressed for a long time. And he felt himself drawn once more towards members of his own sex.

  By the time that Zach had finally convinced Joy-San that there was no future for them, she was pregnant. Intentionally. If she couldn't have him, she wanted his baby. He wanted her to have an abortion and she stayed away from him in the last months of her pregnancy. She went to live with an aunt in Seoul. But she had a difficult pregnancy that ended in tragedy. Joy-San died giving birth to a beautiful baby daughter at seven and a half months into her term. Despite his sorrow, Zachary Walker knew that he couldn't care for the baby. He also knew that he didn't want the little girl growing up as a mixed-blood child in Korea where she would be a victim of racial prejudice.

  Zachary Walker knew that Ruth Whiteside couldn’t have children of her own. He also knew that Ruth wanted a baby. So he called Henry Whiteside. He insisted that neither Ruth nor the little girl should ever know that he was her father. And Henry Whiteside kept that secret.

  FOUR

  ….and six months later………………

  It was almost three a.m. when MacDara finally left Costelloes. Somehow he found where he had parked his car that previous morning on First Avenue, climbed in, turned the key in the ignition, flipped on the headlights and moved out into the Avenue heading for the midtown tunnel. He never made it. Four or five blocks later the police car, lights flashing, pulled alongside. MacDara glanced across to see an officer pointing his finger and commanding him to pull over.

  The policeman shone his flashlight in Owen's face.

  "Raise your arms to shoulder height"

  "Now touch your nose with each forefinger."

  It didn't work. Owen touched the top of his nose with his right forefinger but his left kept missing. He tried twice more but only made things worse. Now he missed with both fingers! That sealed his fate. The policeman cuffed Owen's hands behind his back and put him in the rear of the policecar. There were no handles on the inside of the doors and he was separated from the driver's seat by a clear plexiglas partition.

  At the police station, they locked him in the drunk tank. Only a small square opening in one wall connected him with the desk sergeant. In a few minutes (or so it seemed) they came for him again, two of them. First they fingerprinted him, holding each finger rigid and pressing it first on the ink and then on the paper. Next they made him blow into a tube to record his blood alcohol level. Then they dumped him back in the drunk tank.

  Owen MacDara had seldom thought of that strange procedure in the 53rd MASH in Korea in 1970. That is, until last night in Costelloes. That tall, saturnine Colonel was now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The feeling of unease wouldn't leave him. MacDara had just woken up to find himself in the drunk tank at the police station. His head was killing him. His mouth felt like a gorilla's armpit. I really tied one on last night, he thought. Haven't been as drunk as that since my army days. That night in San Antonio. Years ago. Three day hangover. I'm a lot older now, he told himself. This hangover will last for a week.

  "MacDara, there's someone here to see you," the desk sergeant's voice seemed to boom through the small window that connected the holding cell to the precinct's front desk. Jack Cummins was standing at the desk.

  "Connolly called me. You left some kind of garbled message on his answering machine at three this morning. You were definitely out of it, Babe!"

  "Jack, it's all very vague to me. I think they told me I could make one phone call. Jimmy's number was the only one I could remember."

  "What happened?"

  "I knew I should have taken a taxi when I left you guys last night."

  "That's what we thought you were going to do."

  "Sure... but I remembered that I'd parked my car over on First Avenue. Nobody could have convinced me that I couldn't drive."

  "Owen, you should have stayed at my place last night."

  "Now you tell me. As I remember, you weren't too sober yourself."

  "Listen, I called Ted Billings, your attorney. He's handling whatever charges they've got against you. Right now we need to get some breakfast into you while I fill you in on the latest."

  P.J. Clarke's stood stubbornly surrounded by towering skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan. The old brownstone was an institution. No financial inducement by the developers had succeeded. So it stood incongruously amid the faceless steel and glass structures. P.J's still served the best eggs benedict in town. MacDara wondered where they got their bacon from as he cut through his second egg smothered in the hollandaise sauce that must surely be a secret recipe. He had downed three mugs of their best coffee and was feeling a little more human as Jack described the carnage and shootout between the cops and the albino.

  "Owen, I met with the cops this morning, the CID. The brass in the NYPD are uptight about this one. Since the World Trade Center bombing last year they see terrorists everywhere. They want to meet with you and me at 3 o'clock today."

  "Why?"

  "I had to tell them about our friendship with Murph and our get-togethers at Costelloes. I'm sure they'll be talking with Jay too."

  "I don't know how I can help them. Murph is gone. Are they gonna bring him back?"

  Cummins didn't respond. MacDara had grown morose again. He finished two more cups of coffee in silence before he headed for his apartment to soak out the night's boozing in his tub. He told Cummins he'd meet him at the precinct at three.

  Captain Duffy was taking a personal interest in this one. There had been a one hundred percent increase in wanton killings and mayhem in his upper Manhattan precinct in the past year and Duffy wanted to know why. None of the so-called experts could tell him. The killing in the Peppermint Stick and the slaughter of the four policemen by the albino was the last straw. He had had to see their widows and young children and write a personal letter of condolence to each family. The public was on the Mayor's neck and the Mayor and the Commissioner were both on his. Duffy had assembled three of the best CID men in Manhattan to investigate the slaughter. The team was headed by Lt. George Nichols, a Jamaican who had worked his way up from the beat while taking night classes in criminology at John Jay. Nichols had smashed two of the major drug rings in the city in the past five years. Murray and Gennaro, the two detectives assisting Nichols, were the most decorated officers in the NYPD.

  This was the team that greeted MacDara and Cummins when they arrived at Nichols' office in the 42nd precinct. After the preliminaries, Captain Duffy explained that he was going to sit in on this one. Lt. Nichols took over from Captain Duffy.

  "Mr. MacDara, we understand that you were a close friend of the deceased, Murphy Armstrong."

  "That's right. Murph and I first met in the army. Korea. Twenty years ago", said MacDara, making it sound as though it were yesterday.

  "We know that, Mr. MacDara. Four of you, including Armstrong, met regularly. Mr. Cummins told us that. We pulled your service records," said Nichols.

  "Why? Murph's death was just another random killing. Isn't that right?" said MacDara.

  "Do you really believe that, Mr. MacDara?" said N
ichols.

  "There's nothing to suggest otherwise," said MacDara. He wasn't about to voice any unsubstantiated claims against the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. They'd lock him up and throw the key away.

  "We're not so sure. The perpetrator - I believe you call him the albino - has never been known to commit a senseless killing," said Nichols.

  "You know who he was?" questioned MacDara.

  "Yes, we do. We had no luck with his fingerprints. So we tried Interpol. They had both prints and DNA on him," said Nichols.

  MacDara waited as the Lieutenant went around his desk and picked up a blue folder. Detectives Gennaro and Murray had not uttered a word since the meeting began. Captain Duffy had retreated to a corner of the office. Lt. Nichols opened the folder.

  "The albino's real name was Eberhard Mueller. German national - East German, actually. When he was nine years old his father drove him and his fifteen year old sister through the Brandenburg Gate into West Berlin. The East German guards fired on them. His sister was killed instantly. His father was seriously wounded but managed to drive into West Berlin. He died a few hours later. The boy was placed in a West German orphanage. At nineteen he joined the Baader Meinhof Gang. In the subsequent five years he had become one of the most ruthless members of the gang. The West German security police were on his trail in Bremen three years ago when he simply disappeared. There's been no trace of him since then. Well, not until he killed your friend, Murphy Armstrong."

  Nichols paused, poured himself a glass of water from a tall jug on the desk and continued.

  "He had a driver's license made out to Ernie Miller and an address in Miami, Costa Del Sol. It's a development of townhouses situated on a golf course just fifteen minutes west of Miami's International Airport."

  "The Miami police checked him out for us. Just received their report. Ernie Miller showed up in Miami two years ago. Had an American accent that sounded like Lawrence Welk. Said he was from Wisconsin. They knew little about him. Loner. Kept to himself. Worked as a golf pro at many of the clubs in the Miami area. Apparently, he was good," continued Nichols.

  "His neighbors in Costa Del Sol haven't seen him for a month. But they didn't think that was anything unusual. He often went away for days or weeks at a time. Golf tournaments, he said" Nichols informed them.

  The phone rang. Nichols grabbed it.

  "It's for you, Captain."

  Duffy materialized out of the corner, took the phone and answered in a series of monosyllables.

  "Yeh, yeh, yeh, yeh," each one a little louder than the previous one. He hung up the phone.

  "I have to leave. But I'll be in close touch on this one. I don't want terrorists loose in my city. Lt. Nichols has my full authority in this investigation."

  The door slammed as he left. It was the only discordant sound since Nichols had started to speak. He continued :

  "There's one thing about Eberhard Mueller that not even Interpol knew of. He had a small discreet tattoo on the inner side of his left forearm. An 'S', like a snake, enclosed in a small circle."

  Nichols opened the blue folder, picked up a photograph of the tattoo on Mueller's arm and passed it to MacDara and Cummins.

  "Have you ever seen this? Do you know what it is?" asked Nichols.

  MacDara and Cummins examined the photo. The tattoo had been enlarged so that it was perfectly clear. A red snake in the shape of an 'S' inside a black circle.

  "Never seen anything like it before. Sorry, we can't help you on this," MacDara answered for both of them.

  "Now you see why we think your friend's killing might not have been a random murder, Mr. MacDara. Tell us what you know about Murphy Armstrong," said Nichols.

  "There's very little to tell. Murph's life is an open book. You have his service record and his family background", said MacDara.

  "Did he make any enemies? Who did he associate with? What was he involved in?", asked Nichols.

  "Lieutenant, Murph didn't have an enemy in the world, as far as I know. Everybody liked him", said MacDara.

  "What about his job? Did he create enemies there? Did he ever talk with you about that?", pursued Nichols.

  "Again, Lieutenant, Murph was well known in the Civil Rights Movement. He always worked within the law. He was not confrontational. He never used his position to gain political points", continued MacDara.

  "Nevertheless, he may have made enemies, Mr. MacDara. If his death was not an act of random violence, then somebody wanted him dead", argued Nichols.

  "I hear you, Lieutenant. But Murph wouldn't hurt a fly. Even the people he defeated in court respected him. I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for a reason", said MacDara.

  Lt. Nichols glanced over at Gennaro and Murray. He asked them if they had anything to add. Neither of them had. Then he turned to MacDara and Cummins:

  "Gentlemen, I want you to let us know where you'll be at all times. Contact us immediately if you think of anything. No matter how trivial it may seem to you."

  And, as they both rose to leave, Nichols face broke into a wide smile and he said, almost satirically:

  "Gentlemen, have a nice day!"

  Gloucester, Massachusetts

  Three days later………….

  Ruth Whiteside had aged. She was fifty-five but looked seventy-five. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin had an ashen hue. Yet nothing could hide the fact that she was once a most beautiful woman.

  "Please join me on the deck, Mr. MacDara"

  "Harry loved it here"

  MacDara was in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Ruth Whiteside lived in an old, comfortable, New England colonial overlooking the bay in the oldtown part of Gloucester. All ocean-going traffic passed right in front of them. The deck connected to a wooden pier that stretched out into the water. MacDara had phoned his contacts in the military and discovered, to his surprise, that Major Whiteside had retired ten years ago. He had always thought of the Major as a lifer, a career army professional, even though he was a medical man. He recollected yesterday's phone call:

  "Mrs. Whiteside, you won't know me. I served with your husband at the 53rd MASH in Korea in '70. My name is Owen MacDara"

  "Oh, Mr.MacDara, so many of Harry's friends have called these last few months"

  "Well, Mrs. Whiteside, I'd very much like to meet with your husband. I believe it's important"

  There was a long silence over the phone.

  "Mrs. Whiteside?"

  "Yes, Mr. MacDara, I'm sorry. You took me unawares. I thought you knew. Harry passed away six months ago"

  After recovering from this unexpected news, MacDara felt that it would be better to talk with Mrs. Whiteside personally. Maybe the Major had confided in her over the years. Maybe she knew something about that event in the 53rd MASH and the mysterious Colonel who was now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. MacDara's reverie was broken by Ruth Whiteside:

  "Yes, Mr. MacDara, it's easy to forget the world when you look out there"

  "Harry and I thought that the sea soothed the savage breast. It's a great place for contemplation here"

  "Tell me about your husband. How did he pass away?", asked MacDara, using the same euphemism that she had used yesterday over the phone.

  "Well, Mr. MacDara, in some ways I think that Harry is still with us. I can feel his presence all the time"

  She went on to relate how her husband had been given orders to Vietnam at the height of the Tet offensive. Even though he fought for his country, he fought by saving lives. But Vietnam disillusioned him. He knew the body count given to Washington was a lie. He knew about the cover-up of the massacre at Mylie. And other massacres. He lost his loyalty to the army. So he took early retirement at fifty. They moved back here to Gloucester. This was their summer home. They both loved the sea, especially Harry. When he wasn't consulting at the VA Hospital or working on his memoirs, he was out in his boat.

  "On his memoirs?", queried MacDara.

  "Oh Yes, Harry had started to write about a year ago. He had been a
t the center of events in Korea and Vietnam and had personally known many of the household names of the period. It was also therapy for him. He had wanted to record the events that he had witnessed. And their participants. Harry had a great sense of history. He felt he owed this to posterity"

  Ruth Whiteside went on to describe Harry's very last day. He often went out on his boat alone to write. He had said that the solitude and the sea stimulated his memory. It was a Friday in May. The sea was very calm that week, no storms were forecast and summer was in the air. The Major had chosen to get up at dawn. He wrote and thought better in the morning. That was the difference between them. His brain worked best in the morning and hers in late evening. She always wanted to talk when he wanted to go to sleep. She had heard him get up that morning as usual. He crept around to avoid waking her. But she was always awake although he never knew it. He had probably gone down to the end of their pier, untied the dingy, and rowed out the short distance to his boat, the Whitey. The boat's name was a joke at his own expense. The Major had always known what the troops had called him. As usual he had climbed aboard, tied the dingy to the boat, and prepared to sail. There would have been no-one in the bay at that hour and he would have started the engines and headed out to sea as dawn appeared on the horizon.

  Harry had always been back home in time for their afternoon tea. Lapsang Suchong. One of their pleasures. But he didn't come home. By six o'clock that evening Ruth, filled with worry, had contacted the Coast Guard. It took them less than an hour to locate the Whitey, anchored about three miles out. There was no-one on board. The Coast Guard had conducted a thorough search for the next seventy-two hours and had continued to check the area for the following week. But the Major had never turned up. No body was recovered.

  "That's the hardest part of it, Mr. MacDara. We never found Harry."