by Brian Haig
Before I could get out a word, she snapped, “What the hell’s your problem? You’ve been walking around like you got a brick up your butt.”
“Oh, you’ve noticed,” I spitefully replied. “I’m the one you worked with these past eight years. The one who flew you over here. The one who’s wearing the same uniform you’re wearing.”
“I ain’t forgotten.”
“Damn it, Imelda, those people, they make me uncomfortable.”
“What people? You mean Allie and Maria?” she innocently replied.
“Yeah, them two,” I said. “Haven’t you noticed anything odd about them? I mean, real odd.”
“You mean, they’re lawyers? So what? Ask me, all lawyers are stone-cold weird.”
“Let me give you a little hint. When you were a kid, didn’t your mother ever have one of those awkward chats with you? That birds-and-bees thing? Haven’t you noticed those two have their stingers on backwards?”
“Oh.” She stopped, adjusted her glasses on her nose, and gave me a discerning look. “You mean, ’cause they’re lesbians?”
“Damned right. That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Hmmph,” she said, shaking her head like this was really ridiculous. “I got no problem with that.”
“You don’t?”
“Hell, the Army always had plenty of lesbians.”
“And you got no problem with that?”
“Any reason I should? They do their jobs, let well enough be.”
I was getting exasperated. “Don’t try telling me Allie and Maria don’t give you the heebie-jeebies. Christ, the big one makes paint flake off the walls. The other one glooms up a room faster than anybody I ever met.”
She stopped in midstride. “You know your problem?”
“I didn’t think I had a problem.”
“Oh, you got a problem, all right. You’re a White man.”
I very calmly said, “Imelda, it’s got nothing to do with it.”
“Hell it don’t. You ain’t never been on the spiky end of prejudice.”
“Let me quote the illustrious Colin Powell. ‘Skin color is a physical quality; homosexuality is a behavioral quality.’ He’s a Black man, if I remember correctly. He’s not comfortable with gays.”
“Ain’t no rule says only White people can be irrational. Maybe it’s a man thing,” Imelda retorted.
“You can’t have it both ways,” I shot right back. “First you claim it’s only White males. Now it’s a man thing.”
Her eyes got narrow and squinty, and she cocked her head to the side. Philosophical debates aren’t a real good idea with Imelda. Debates in general aren’t a good idea with Imelda. Not if you like walking on two unbroken legs.
She said, “Let me ask you something.”
“What?”
“You ever seen me with a man?”
“Huh?”
“A man. One of them things with a poker and two balls between its legs.”
“I know what the hell men are. Of course I’ve seen you with men,” I stiffly replied.
“No, you ever seen me with one?”
“I, uh . . . no. So what?”
“You ever get to thinking about that? Never wonder that ol’ Imelda’s forty-nine years old and don’t have no man around?”
“What are you telling me?” I choked out. I mean, I thought I suspected, but it couldn’t be. Not Imelda Pepperfield. Not my trusted right hand . . . my able assistant . . . my girl Thursday . . . or Friday, or whatever.
“You can’t ask, and I don’t have to tell. That’s the rule, ain’t it?” she smugly replied.
“Oh my God,” I groaned, suddenly confronting the inevitable truth. Okay, I’d never seen her with a man, but I’d never attached any seamy misgivings to it. I always thought she was such a dedicated professional that she was like, well, married to the Army. Or she was such a headstrong, resolute woman that she couldn’t find a man who wasn’t intimidated by her.
Without another word on the subject, she abruptly started walking again. I hurried to catch up. “Hey, wait.”
She looked coldly over her shoulder. “I got nothing more to say,” she frigidly announced.
“No, I, uh, hold on, damn it.”
She stopped and turned toward me. “What?”
“I need to ask you something,” I haltingly said, unable to come to terms with what she’d just told me.
She fluttered her lips and rolled her eyes, and, knowing her like I did, I recognized the look. I’d better get over this fast or she’d pop me in the nose.
“Do you think Whitehall did it?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe’s equivocal.”
“Maybe,” she mysteriously reiterated.
“Why maybe?”
“Maybe, because Whitehall, he seems like a smart boy. And boys that smart don’t screw up so bad they seem completely guilty. A boy that smart would figure some way to inject some doubt.”
I hadn’t considered it that way before, but like most things Imelda says, it made stunningly good sense. Here’s a guy who graduated at the top of his class at West Point. And he had ample opportunity the morning of the murder to contrive something. Maybe he couldn’t have erased every doubt, but he could’ve muddied the waters and blurred the lines. He hadn’t, though. He’d lain on his sleeping mat beside a corpse until Moran discovered him. Then he’d made a sloppy, halfhearted attempt to get Moran and Jackson to tell a few tiny falsehoods. But the truth was he’d left every arrow pointing directly at himself. You might conclude he was overcome by the pressure, but that didn’t fit, either. He was a champion boxer. He had the composure to get out of tight corners when fists were flying.
“Think he was framed?”
“How should I know?” Imelda asked, clearly peeved about my little gay prejudice thing.
I gripped her arm. Looking into her eyes, I said, “Stop this. I need your help.”
She stared down at my hand, and I politely disengaged it before Imelda kneed me in the groin, or bit me, or just bored a hole through my forehead with her sulfurous eyes. If I haven’t mentioned it before, Imelda can be mean as hell when you get her dander up. Sometimes you don’t even need to get her dander up. Sometimes she bites your ass off just for sport.
She drew her chest up and asked, “What’s this, now? You don’t got no problem askin’ help from a lesbian?”
“Damn it, Imelda, even if you are gay, you’re not really gay.”
“Huh?”
“Like Rock Hudson,” I said, grinning stupidly.
She shook her head as though that was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. Then she got a resigned look on her face, like it didn’t matter if I was a complete dolt, maybe she could manage to fit a small-mercy favor into her very busy schedule.
“What help you need?”
I rapidly explained everything, from Katherine’s unexpected request for my services, all the way through the bugs in my room. She patiently clucked and gurgled in the appropriate places, but didn’t seem the least bit fazed or disturbed. Imelda was like that, though — as unflappable as a lead pancake.
“So what do you need from me?” she asked once I’d finally concluded.
“I need you to get all our rooms and the office swept every day. And I need to know who Keith Merritt is. What was he doing here?”
“Some reason you can’t just ask Miss Carlson?”
“I have. She lied.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Come on, Imelda. You see my problem, right? Katherine’s up to something. That bit — Well, she’s always up to something. And Merritt was probably in the middle of it. People don’t get tossed in front of moving cars just for kicks.”
“You got a problem with her, too? With Miss Carlson?”
“I’ve always had a problem with her. You don’t know her like I do. Trust me on this. You never met anybody more manipulative, treacherous, and deceptive. Don’t fall for her act.”
“I like her,” Imelda said, confirm
ing that she was already dancing around inside the spider’s web. “I won’t do nothing to hurt her.”
“Who said anything about hurting her? Trust me on this, she’s up to something.”
“Okay,” she said, then scooted away, like there was nothing more to be discussed.
“Thank you,” I called after her.
She left me standing alone on the hot sidewalk, feeling somehow like we’d just crossed a Rubicon, or whatever you call it when two formerly close people take a gigantic step back from each other.
Imelda Pepperfield, gay? I was going to have great trouble adjusting to this. After eight years together, too. I suddenly knew how Ernie Walters felt when he found out about Whitehall.
How the hell could I have missed it?
CHAPTER 19
Koreans can be infuriatingly bureaucratic when it suits them, which just happens to be most of the time. They can also cut through the crap when they want to, and my request to meet with Minister of Defense Lee Jung Kim and his wife in their home got approved within hours.
It obviously required Minister Lee himself to make that happen. Although we’d met only briefly — and on unfortunate terms — he didn’t know me from Adam . . . or Kim . . . or whomever. I assumed he granted my request out of curiosity, or because he wanted the opportunity to box my ears, both because I’d been so curt to him and because I was helping defend the man who’d so cruelly slain his son.
At six o’clock in the evening, I was standing gingerly in my starchiest battle dress and my most sparkling boots, dead center on the floor mat in front of his door. The home was made of musty red brick and was larger than most Korean houses, particularly ones inside the city limits, although it would’ve seemed tiny and ordinary in any middle-class American neighborhood. Koreans have this thing against flaunting wealth, so they tend to live unpretentiously, except when it comes to cars and TVs. They’re nuts for Mercedeses and Sonys.
Having been inside a few Korean houses in my day, I took the cultural precaution of bending over and halfway unlacing my boots, so I could smoothly step out of them. It’s one of those Asian things, and I’m a worldly guy, so I know the drill.
I rang the bell, and a sharp-looking Korean Army major with a holstered .38-caliber pistol on his hip opened the door. He wore the Korean Army version of battle dress, and I guessed by the muscular, sinewy look of him he’d probably been handpicked from the Special Warfare Command, which is one of the toughest, deadliest outfits in the world. The guy could probably crack ten bricks with the bridge of his nose. I also noticed he was wearing his combat boots inside the house. I observed this right after I saw him staring curiously at my untied, mostly unlaced boots.
I said, “Hi, I’m Major Sean Drummond. I have a six o’clock appointment to meet with Minister and Mrs. Lee.”
In fluent English, he said, “I know who you are. I advise you to tie your boots, so you don’t look stupid.”
“Uh, yeah, sure,” I mumbled, bending over and lacing my boots as fast as my nimble hands could manage. Nothing like making the right first impression, I always say.
“Follow me,” he said when I was done.
Like many Korean homes, this one was dimly lit inside and sparsely littered with old Korean chests and bric-a-brac. The walls were spotted with scrolls, and paintings of mountains, and more of those flying cranes. The Lee family tastes ran toward Korean traditional.
The major led me down a hallway and through the living room to a covered porch tucked off the dining room. I could see two old people seated and sipping tea.
The major stepped aside to let me proceed. Following me in, he stayed close behind me like a good bodyguard. This is what comes from living in a country known for its frequent coups and attempted coups, not to mention the occasional terrorist attack by the bad guys up north.
Minister Lee stood up and crossed over to shake my hand. His face was grave and unsmiling, but curious. He courteously said, “Welcome to my home. May I introduce my wife.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Lee,” I said, bowing in her direction and calling her Mrs. Lee, even though Korean wives almost never share their husband’s name. I knew she wouldn’t mind, though. Koreans have long since learned that Westerners, and Americans in particular, are too inconsiderate to learn their customs, so they politely ignore our bad manners.
I said, “Minister Lee, I apologize for what I said in the minister of justice’s office last week. I had no idea who you were.”
He nodded.
“Also, please allow me to express my condolences for the death of your son. I’ve learned a great deal about him. He was a remarkable young man. I can only imagine how terrible this loss is for you both.”
Again he nodded. Then, the diplomatic necessities obviously concluded, he waved for me to sit across from him and his wife. I stole a glance at her while I arranged my trousers. She was small and slender, delicate-looking, and although she was in her mid-sixties, you could see the traces of astonishing beauty. A noble beauty. Her features looked carved, and although there was an aging puffiness around her eyes, they still reminded me of a pair of big dusky black pearls.
She was demurely studying me right back, and I couldn’t even begin to guess what she was thinking. I knew what my mother would be thinking had it been me that ended up with a web belt around my throat, and the defender of the son of a bitch who did that to me was seated on her back porch.
Mrs. Lee, however, graciously rose and leaned across the small coffee table that separated us. She placed a small green porcelain cup in front of me, then filled it with pale, watery tea from a small, discolored, badly dented teapot. Had it been my mother, the tea would’ve been laced with strychnine.
“What an interesting teapot,” I mentioned in an attempt to break the ice. “A family heirloom?”
The minister answered for her. “My father gave me the pot when I entered the army in 1951. He was a poor man. He made it with his own hands before he was murdered by the North Koreans. I carried it with me my whole career, through two wars, even during my years in prison.”
I leaned forward and studied the teapot more closely while he said, “So what did you wish to see us about, Major?”
I looked up at him. “Sir, did the hospital return your son’s possessions after his death?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like your permission to search them. I have no right to ask, and if you say no, I’ll certainly understand. However, I’m sure you want the right man convicted for your son’s murder. Your son’s belongings might hold an important clue.”
Most folks would’ve told me to hit the street and don’t let the door hit me in the ass. I was banking on the same streak of fairness Minister Lee had shown in the justice minister’s office. On the other hand, I braced myself for a typhoon of anger.
He studied me with an intrigued glance. “May I ask what you’re searching for?”
Well, we got past the typhoon, but this was the tricky part. I, of course, came here to see if I could discover whether the key to Whitehall’s apartment was still in No’s possession when he died. The problem was, as far as the minister, his wife, and everybody else was concerned, Lee No Tae wasn’t gay, and he certainly wasn’t having an affair with Whitehall — he was an unsuspecting, gullible hetero who’d been lured to a party where he got brutally beaten, murdered, and raped.
I couldn’t very well admit I was looking for the key to the romantic hideaway where Lee No Tae went to make love with the man he supposedly wasn’t having an affair with.
“Well, sir,” I said as convincingly as I could, “my client claims there might have been some evidence in No’s possession that would vindicate him.”
“And how can that be?”
“Because we believe my client was framed for your son’s death.”
I watched his reaction, because I figured that if the South Koreans were the ones tapping my phones and bugging my room, he’d already know damn well we were preparing to claim Whitehall was framed.
If he wasn’t surprised, he fooled me. His neck reared back, his forehead crinkled, and his lips twisted in a funny way. He was either an ace actor or was genuinely unaware. Of course, no man was likely to rise to the atmospheric heights of minister of defense unless he was fairly skilled at deception. Especially in the capital of Korea, where intrigue’s an everyday sport.
Then he spoke in rapid-fire Korean to his wife, who nodded and looked instantly distressed.
He turned back to me. “What might have been in No’s possession that could help Captain Whitehall?”
“A slip of paper. Our client claims your son showed him a note that night. A death threat.”
I made this up on the fly, but the minister’s face became instantly alarmed. He stared at the floor, and the alarm changed to dread. I could literally see the blood rush from his face. I felt even more miserable about lying to him, but necessity is the mother of moral corruption.
“Did, uh, did he say who the note was from?” he stammered.
“Uh, no,” I improvised. “And it was written in Hangul. Whitehall can’t read Korean.”
The minister exchanged more words in Korean with his wife, and she nodded a few times, but except for a mild crinkling around her eyes and mouth, I couldn’t tell how she was reacting.
They stood up. “Please follow me,” the minister said.
We walked back inside with the bodyguard staying tightly behind me. He was as well-trained as a Doberman.
We crossed through the living room and ended up in a hall where there were three or four doorways. The minister and his wife walked slowly and laboriously. This was clearly a journey they didn’t want to make. It smelled slightly musty, as if the corridor hadn’t been used lately.