The Line

by Martin Limon

  “You lost your temper.”

  “Yes. He was so self-righteous. Lecturing me. Telling me I was wrong. Who was he, a lowly KATUSA corporal, to look down his nose at me, a field-grade officer in the US Army?”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I bashed him,” Brunmeyer said. “He hadn’t been dismissed, and yet he turned his back on me. I ordered him to return to the position of attention, but he continued to walk away from me, ignoring me as if I were nothing. It was more than I could tolerate. I caught up with him and hit him on the back of his arrogant head. The wound was worse than I thought it would be,” he said, staring blankly, as if at a distant memory. “The entrenching tool was so heavy. It swung forward on its own, faster and harder than I’d intended. When it hit, I heard something pop. Skin. And then the crunch of bone.” Brunmeyer paused. He swallowed heavily, then said, “It was the worst sound I’ve ever heard. And there was blood gushing everywhere.”

  “He fell?”

  “Like a sack of wet rice.”

  “And you left him there,” I said, “and you slipped the entrenching tool into Fusterman’s field gear?”

  “First, I knelt down and checked Noh’s body. He was already dead. I was sure of it. I looked around and no one had been watching. I had to get out of there. As quickly as I could, I walked away. The barracks was quiet. Everybody snoring. Asleep. And I was cautious.”

  “And Fusterman’s entrenching tool?”

  “After replacing it with the bloody one, I took it with me and hid it overnight. The next day, down at Camp Liberty Bell, I stuffed it deep into a trash drum.”

  “You didn’t think it would resurface?”

  “No. I certainly did not.”

  “Koreans recycle their trash,” I said.

  “So I’ve come to find out.”

  -29-

  The next morning, all charges were dropped against Private First Class Theodore H. “Teddy” Fusterman. He was released the following day from the ASCOM stockade. At the CID office that afternoon, Corrine Fitch was delighted with me for having freed her client, but not so happy about me locking up her boyfriend. Before she could say anything, I handed her a three-by-five card with an address written on it in both Korean and English. She glanced at it.

  “A Catholic orphanage?” she asked.

  “Yes. In Taean. I think this might be the place you were looking for.”

  “How’d you know?”

  I shrugged. “Just a hunch. You spent your first day in country wrestling with Korean officialdom and came up with the name of Taean in Chungcheong South Province. Our admin assistant, Miss Kim, made some phone calls and discovered that an order of Catholic nuns operated an orphanage there during and after the Korean War. In fact, it’s still in business.”

  She clutched the paper to her chest. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  After sliding the notecard into her handbag she said, “You don’t seriously believe that Rudy murdered Corporal Noh, do you?”

  “I do,” I told her. I tossed her a copy of the transcript of Lieutenant Colonel Brunmeyer’s official statement.

  As she read it, she pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. Shaking her head, she said, “Why didn’t he talk to me?”

  “So you could have advised him to take the fifth?”

  She shot me a sharp look. “What’s it to you?”

  I stared at her for a while, pondering the smoothness of her skin, the angles of her long face, the intelligent eyes staring at me from beneath heavy lids. “Oh, nothing, I guess.”

  She stuffed the transcript into her briefcase, stood, and walked out of the room.

  Evelyn Cresthill met us in the front room of her friend and neighbor, Madge Bronson. Madge, being the patient and considerate woman she was, excused herself to take a walk. The home was virtually identical to the one the Cresthills lived in, since all the field-grade family quarters had been built by the same contractor—using the same design—to save money. Because military families seldom stayed more than a year or two, modifications weren’t allowed. No extra bedrooms, no treehouses out back, no extra workstations in the garage. On some people, sameness has a reassuring effect. I know it does for me, after a childhood of being bounced from one foster home to the next. Other people despise its drabness, but I like the uniformity of the US Army.

  Evelyn sat on Madge’s sofa, fidgeting because Madge didn’t allow smoking in her house. Or her “quarters,” as the Army called them.

  Ernie started. “You got lucky,” he said. “Very lucky.”

  “I know,” she said nonchalantly. “Thank you for convincing them to release me.” She stared at us unapologetically, and I wondered if she’d truly wanted to be saved. Maybe Evelyn Cresthill had been more than just an unwilling participant in her own disappearance.

  “We only want to talk to you about some administrative things,” Ernie said. “None of it is on the record. Okay?”

  She didn’t answer but turned to glare at him.

  “You’ll be going back to the States soon,” he continued, “by order of the Chief of Staff. When’s your household goods appointment?”

  “The movers will be here tomorrow. Bob will be in the field, so he’s letting me take care of it.”

  “And Jenny?”

  “She’s in school, but she’ll be returning to the States with me.”

  “Tough for her to move like that in the middle of the school year.”

  Evelyn didn’t answer.

  Ernie continued. “So you have nothing to lose, Evelyn. But me and my partner here still have criminals to catch.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “We don’t want this gang threatening any more American dependents.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “I don’t know anything about them.”

  “You know more than you think,” Ernie snapped. “Besides the Cloud Garden in Mugyo-dong, where my partner roughhoused with those tough guys, where else did they take you?”

  She thought about the question, then ran through a long list of joints where she’d met important men in suits. She didn’t know the names of these places because she couldn’t read the signs. All she could tell us was that she’d poured scotch for the men—using two hands, like they’d taught her—and lit their cigarettes and laughed even though she couldn’t understand their jokes. She also couldn’t tell us who was Japanese and who was Korean. Everything they said, apart from their broken English, was gibberish to her. When it came to geography, she was even worse. She had little comprehension of the layout of Seoul, and the only landmark she recognized was Namsan Mountain on the southern edge of the city. She said as far as she could tell, they stayed pretty far away from that.

  “Did you keep the tips you earned?” Ernie asked.

  “Yes, all of them. The men this time were even richer than before.”

  “So you didn’t have to reimburse anyone for transportation or the introductions or security?”

  “Nobody said a word about it. These were powerful men who wanted to meet an American woman, so Shin and her employees were doing them a favor and my guess is they were well paid.”

  “What we want to know,” Ernie said, “is the location of Shin. Where does she live and run her operation?”

  Evelyn Cresthill waved her arm. “You think she’s at the head of this? She’s smart, but she’s still sort of a recruiter—she gets sent all over Seoul by someone else.”

  I pulled out a map of Seoul, spread it out on the coffee table, and showed Evelyn where we were now, then where the Cloud Garden club in Mugyo-dong was located. I also pinpointed the road that ran north out of Yongsan Compound toward Myong-dong. None of it helped. She shook her head vehemently. “It was all just a jumble to me.”

  “What were you taking?” Ernie asked.

  She stared at Ernie, seemingly su
rprised at the accuracy of his guess. “Something to relax me.”

  “And you got them from Shin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Weren’t you worried about accepting drugs from her?”

  “No. They were branded red capsules. They had ‘Eli Lilly’ stamped on the side.”

  “So they must’ve been okay?”

  “I’d say so.”

  Ernie leaned forward again. “Somebody may have told you that you’re off the hook, Evelyn, but that can change. Eighth Army wants to believe that all of you ladies are as pure as the driven snow. But you’re putting more women at risk here. If more American women get taken by these criminals, you’ll be facing more questions, either here or in the States.”

  “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  “Not everything. If you had to find this Shin, how would you go about doing it?”

  “I’d hang out in the Officers Club.”

  “She won’t be back there,” Ernie replied.

  Evelyn thought about it. “Then I suppose if I wanted to see her again, I’d go where very rich men hang out. Where international deals are struck. I do remember her telling me about the expensive gifts she received from foreigners.”

  “That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

  “I know. Sorry, but that’s all I’ve got.” She glanced back and forth between us. “Do either of you have a cigarette?”

  “Your reach,” Staff Sergeant Riley said, “extends even beyond the Eighth United States Army.”

  We were back in the CID office.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Read this.” He tossed me a blue-bordered coversheet marked confidential with only two sheets of paper attached. An hour after we’d left the Joint Security Area, after Colonel Peele’s body had been picked up by the 8th Army Coroner, Lieutenant Kwon was seen departing the JSA. It is believed that he was driven to the North Korean Army battalion headquarters, less than a quarter mile north of the Military Demarcation Line. Twenty minutes later, a single gunshot was heard. Then a second gunshot, this one muffled. Perhaps the coup de grâce. Thirty minutes later, a new North Korean lieutenant named Sohn arrived at the JSA to take over Kwon’s duties.

  I handed the report to Ernie.

  “Summary execution,” Riley said. “Just confirmed by South Korean intelligence. You’ve got to hand it to those Reds, they don’t mess around.”

  Miss Kim grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk, rose to her feet, and hurried down the hallway.

  Riley beamed like a proud father. “Nice work, boys.”

  Ernie let him know the dark, unholy place where he could shove it.

  -30-

  Cymbals clanged and a reedy flute wailed. Ernie and I stood at the bottom of a hill as the funeral procession slowly made its way up the incline. At the top, mourners fell to crying as workmen expertly lowered the casket into the ground via pulleys of hemp rope. Incense was waved, more prayers intoned, and then dirt clattered on wood. A woman howled in pain and was immediately surrounded by others who muffled her anguish.

  Finally, as the procession started to return downhill, a young woman parted ways with the group and made her way toward us. She wore the traditional white cloth skirt and short blouse of mourning. She pulled a hemp scarf off her head. Noh Myong-bei, or Marilyn, the deceased man’s younger sister. Her smooth cheeks were streaked with dried tears.

  “Where’s Teddy?” she asked.

  “Gone,” I replied.

  “Gone where?”

  “Back to the States,” I told her. “The Army didn’t give him a choice. After he was released from the stockade, they gave him just enough time to return to his barracks and pack up his stuff. Then an MP escort drove him to Osan.” Osan Air Force Base, the main terminal in Korea for the Military Airlift Command.

  “He’s home now?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He doesn’t even have my address,” she said sadly.

  “Write it down,” I told her. “I’ll send it to him.”

  I handed her my notebook and a pen. After scribbling a few lines, she looked at me, worried. “I don’t know how to write it in English.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” I told her.

  After handing the items back to me, she lingered, looking at both of us in turn. She said, “My parents regret having been so against me and Teddy. They understand now that if they had been more—how do you say?—‘open-minded’ about it, my brother might not have done what he did.”

  “Your brother was brave,” Ernie said.

  I agreed. “We investigated this case,” I told her, “and your parents should know that this isn’t their fault. A man driven by ambition and greed did a terrible thing to your brother. It’s Colonel Brunmeyer’s fault and no one else’s. He’ll be punished for it.”

  She nodded slowly as more tears started to flow. “Maybe it’s no one else’s fault. Maybe it’s mine. Only mine.”

  Before I could respond, Marilyn turned and ran down the hill, disappearing behind a row of quivering birch trees.

  The next morning, Ernie and I left the CID office and drove about twenty miles south to Osan Air Force Base. We wore our dress-green uniforms and stood at attention as an honor guard loaded a flag-draped coffin up the back ramp of a C-130. As the coffin passed, Ernie and I saluted.

  One of the crewmen asked us, “You knew him?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Colonel Peele. XO of the MAC.”

  The crewman held an onionskin copy of the manifest fluttering in the breeze. “Must’ve been an asshole,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re shipping him back to Dover Air Force Base, but there’s no forwarding address after that. Nobody wants him.”

  “No,” I said. “There’s no one back home for him.”

  “Too bad,” he said, shaking his head and walking away.

  Ernie and I saluted the casket one more time, then turned and walked back to the jeep.

  Acknowledgments

  This book could not have been completed without the help and advice of Amara Hoshijo.