Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2004

He looked at me as if I were nuts. Ernie and I both flashed our badges. In a few minutes we were talking to the night shift desk officer. We explained that we wanted Clerk Lee Ok-pyong taken into custody immediately, so he wouldn’t be able to talk to his cohort and thereby ruin our case against him. The khaki-clad officer listened patiently and when I was done he lifted his open palms off the top of his desk.

“Nobody,” he said in English. “No cops.”

Sure, he was short staffed but the real reason he didn’t want to help us was that he didn’t want to bust a fellow Korean without orders from on high. Who knew who the man was connected to?

Ernie argued with the desk officer for a while but finally gave up. When the Korean National Police don’t want to do something, they don’t do it. I pulled him out of there.

Outside, the night was completely dark. And the rain drifting in off the Yellow Sea was colder than ever.

The next morning, Ernie and I rose early from the warm ondol floor in the room we’d rented in the Yong Param Yoguan, the Dragon Wind Inn. After we washed and dressed and pushed through the double wooden exitway, Ernie said, “The place even smells like dragon wind.”

“It was cheap,” I said.

“So’s pneumonia.”

Without stopping anywhere for chow, we headed straight to the police station. This time the commander was in, and he introduced himself as Captain Peik Du-han. We shook hands.

“I understand you were in last night requesting an arrest,” he said in English.

Briefly, I explained the situation to him. He nodded his head. His expression was calm, but I noticed that his fists were beginning to knot.

“Kei-sikki,”

he said finally. Born of a dog.

Ernie came alert at that. I speak Korean, at least conversationally. Ernie’s vocabulary is limited mostly to cuss words. Captain Peik caught our alarmed expressions and said, “Not you. My duty officer last night. He should’ve listened to you. Or at least called me at home.”

“Why?”

Captain Peik sighed heavily. Then he stood up and grabbed his cap off the top of his coat rack.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

General Douglas MacArthur, floppy hat atop his head, corncob pipe gripped in his teeth, hands on his hips, stared out across an expanse of lawn and over a cliff that fell off into the misty expanse of the churning Yellow Sea.

“Doug, baby.” Ernie slapped the back of MacArthur’s shin.

South Korea is one of the few countries in the world, outside of the United States, to have located about the landscape statues of famous Americans. Up north at Freedom Bridge just south of the DMZ stands a statue of White Horse Harry Truman. In June of 1950, if he hadn’t made the decision to fight to save South Korea, this country wouldn’t exist today. MacArthur’s contribution was the invasion of Inchon, cutting North Korean supply lines so U.S. forces could manage to break out of the Pusan Perimeter, retake Seoul, and push the North Korean Communists all the way north to the Yalu River, bordering China.

But Captain Peik hadn’t brought us here to this place known as Jayu Gongyuan, Freedom Park, for a history lesson. While MacArthur stared thoughtfully at the Yellow Sea, Peik led us into the heavy brush beneath a line of elm trees.

“Chosim,” he said.

I understood and managed to avoid the two mud-covered stone steps that led downward into the brush. Ernie hadn’t understood and he stumbled over the hidden masonry. I caught him before he fell.

“Chosim means ‘be careful,’ ” I told Ernie. “When are you going to start taking those Korean language classes on post?”

“When you stop bugging me about it.”

Ernie pushed away my hand and straightened his jacket.

Some of the bushes in front of us had already been cleared and strips of white linen surrounded the area, the Korean indication of a place of death.

The body of Lee Ok-pyong lay in a muddy ditch.

“Shit,” Ernie said.

Lee had changed out of his T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Now he wore slacks and an open-collar white shirt that had been spattered with dirt. His head had been bashed in with something long and heavy. All I could think of was an M.P.’s nightstick.

Blue-smocked technicians milled around the body. Ernie and I tried to think of something to say to one another, or something to say to Captain Peik, but there was nothing to be said. We’d screwed up royally this time. If only we’d collared Dubrovnik last night when we’d had our chance.

A KNP sedan pulled up to the edge of the park. Two officers climbed out and one of them held the back door open. A woman dressed in black emerged. Holding both her elbows, the two officers escorted the woman across the damp lawn. She kept her head bowed; a veil of black lace covered her face.

As they approached she glanced up at me, and even through the flimsy shroud I recognized the beautiful face of the wife of Clerk Lee. The look she gave me would have cooled hell by about twenty degrees.