Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 15

Chief Warrant Officer Three Michael Bales could not have been more amiable or polite. He smiled so hard it was a miracle he didn’t break his face. He shook hands with holy fury and said “pleased to meet you” like he really, really meant it. He invited me into his office, offered me a seat, brought me coffee, asked me how I was doing, how I liked Korea, how I liked the accommodations at the hotel, and so on, and so on.

As performances go, it was a doozy; about what you’d expect from a professional cop who knows the way things are. See, Bales, being an experienced CID investigator, knew that he and I were on a collision course. He was the investigator who broke the case. He was the chief witness for the prosecution. He was the linchpin to every iota of evidence that pointed at my client.

He was going to end up on a witness stand where Carlson or I were going to try our best to bend him over backward and slip him the willie. We had to prove he was an incompetent bungler, the damned fool who messed up the evidence, jumped to conclusions, mishandled the witnesses, overlooked things that would exonerate my client, and just generally dicked it up.

This was inevitable. He knew it and I knew it. Any attorney representing a seemingly guilty client has no other option but to attack the credibility of the key prosecution witness.

That’s why he was turning on the charm. As we say in the Army, he was presetting the conditions of the battlefield.

The moment I laid eyes on him, I silently cursed. Young, maybe thirty-five or so, dark-haired, strong-featured, with pleasant, pale blue eyes and a benevolent, engaging smile. Unlike most CID guys, who dress horribly, he wore a finely cut gray pinstripe suit with a plain white, freshly starched cotton shirt and a simple striped tie. Lord Fauntleroy he wasn’t, but he looked dapper enough. Worse, he seemed competent and damned handsome in a very earnest, midwestern, likable way.

Here’s why this was bad. Court-martial boards are as susceptible to appearances as anybody else. In fact more so. They’re trapped in their chairs ten hours a day with nothing to do but observe the main actors. They watch and they listen, and they watch and listen some more, and they form opinions. And military men and women, just because of the screwy way they are, are more swayed by appearances than just about anybody else.

I would’ve been much happier if Bales was a middle-aged, balding guy with grungy teeth, a hefty beer gut, scuffed-up shoes, and a plaid sport coat and striped trousers. At least then, when I tried to persuade the board that he’d been criminally negligent, they’d look at Bales, and say to themselves, “Yep, I could see that.”

Anyway, Bales got done with his pleasant routine, and we sat and stared at each other like a bull and matador.

Then I broke the ice. “So, Chief, I’ve read your statements, and, as you might imagine, I’ve got a few questions.”

“Yes sir,” he said, perfectly straight-faced. “I thought you might.”

“Right. Question one, then. When you first got to Whitehall’s apartment building, exactly how many South Korean police were there?”

Suspecting I was up to something clever, he paused, appeared thoughtful, then said, “To the best of my recollection, perhaps twenty.”

“Perhaps twenty, huh? Does that mean you don’t exactly know how many?”

Again, he appeared thoughtful. He said, “That’s correct, Major. I don’t know exactly how many.”

“Pardon me for asking again. I just want to be clear on this point. You don’t know how many Korean police officers were at the apartment building?”

He looked at me very steadily. Crime scenes are supposed to be tightly controlled, almost hermetically sealed. From reading his and Sergeant Wilson Blackstone’s earlier statements, I already had some fairly strong suspicions that things had gotten out of hand. Now I had the feeling I was getting that big break – the stuff we defense attorneys dream about.

He said, “No.”

“Then you have no idea who passed in and out of that crime scene? Is that right?”

Without blinking, he said, “I didn’t say that.”

“No? Well, that’s what I asked you.”

“No, you asked me how many Korean police officers were at the apartment building – and that, I don’t know. There were two guarding the front entrance of the building when I arrived, but they might’ve put more there after I went upstairs – I don’t know. There may have been some guarding the rear entrance – I don’t know. Then there were three or four in the hallway leading into Captain Whitehall’s apartment. There might’ve been more – I don’t know.”

He paused and examined my face. “But if you want to know how many entered Captain Whitehall’s apartment, that I know for a fact.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Sergeant Blackstone and I followed standard procedures. He and his partner arrived at the scene right on the tails of the South Korean police. They took the name of every police officer who entered the apartment. A control log was maintained, IDs were checked, and every visitor who entered was escorted.”

“Funny, I saw no mention of that in either of your statements.”

“You wouldn’t, though, would you? We never list all the procedural things we do at crime scenes.”

If I didn’t know better, I might almost have suspected at this point that Bales had been playing with me, leading me on, then maliciously slamming the door on my nose. Maybe he was sending me a warning not to get too cocky or abrasive in the courtroom or he’d find some sly way to make me pay for it. If that was his game, it worked.

Anyway, I tried to appear unruffled as I said, “In your statement, you mentioned that when you arrived at the scene, you encountered Sergeant Blackstone arguing with Inspector Choi. Could you explain what that argument was about?”

“Sure. Just some standard jurisdictional issues. No big thing.”

“Like what?”

“Like who was responsible for gathering and tagging the evidence. Like who should interview the witnesses.”

“And these issues were resolved?”

“Certainly. Inspector Choi’s a very professional and reasonable man. He’s also an old hand. This wasn’t the first time he’d had GIs commit crimes inside his beat.”

“So what was the resolution?” I asked.

“His guys would bag and tag, and handle the autopsy. Our guys would handle the interrogations. Choi didn’t have any problem with it, either. I think Sergeant Blackstone got a little overbearing and it rubbed him a little wrong. We got it straightened out.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “So it was more a personality thing than a substantive thing?”

“That’s how I’d describe it, yes.”

“Were you comfortable having the Koreans handle the evidence?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Well, you and I both know there are very distinct differences between Korean and American rules of evidence. Nor are Korean police taught to handle evidence the same way ours are.”

He rubbed his jaw like this was the first time he’d ever heard such a thing and he needed a moment to think about it. He was very convincing. If I didn’t know better, I would almost have believed it.

Finally, he said, “Well, to be frank, there probably are a few tiny procedural differences, but I can’t think of any that would have a germane impact on this case. Can you?”

This was another very crafty move on his part, because I was obviously on a fishing expedition and he wasn’t about to help me put the worm on the hook.

But to show him that two could play this game, all I said was, “I might have a few ideas, but I’ll save them for later.”

He blinked once or twice, but that was all.

I said, “Did you get a look at the lock on the front door?”

“I did.”

“The crime summary states that the lock had not been jimmied or tampered with. Who made that judgment? And how can you be so sure?”

Bales said, “Look, Major, the Koreans are sparing no resources on this case. They brought in an inspector named Roh, a burglary guy they flew up from Taegu, because he’s considered their foremost national expert on locks. I was there when he checked it. And I learned more about picking locks in that thirty minutes than I learned in ten hours at CID school. He disassembled it and carried it back to the lab so he could inspect every little piece under a microscope, then ran it all through radioactive testing, checking for dents or abrasions, or a scarred tumbler, any telltale signs somebody had tampered with it. There weren’t any. By the way, we also learned it was a brand-new lock, installed by the management company the day Captain Whitehall moved in. You can try to challenge Inspector Roh’s judgment if you want, but he sure as hell convinced me.”

I paused to perform a swift mental inventory. I knew from reading Bales’s written statements that he’d performed all the proper rituals when he’d interrogated Whitehall, Moran, and Jackson. He’d read them their rights, never coerced or threatened them, and performed what appeared to be a model interrogation. I now knew there had been proper police controls at Whitehall’s apartment. I now knew the Korean doctor who performed the autopsy was an exceptionally competent pathologist. And I’d just learned that a national expert had checked the lock.

These were not hopeful signs. Where before I thought I had detected a few cracks, I now saw a blank white wall. There was only one more venue left.

“Chief, how did you get Moran and Jackson to testify against Whitehall?”

A look of impatience crossed his face. “Don’t you all talk with each other?”

“Don’t who all talk with each other?”

“You and that lady, Miss Carlson.”

“What do you mean?”

“She asked almost exactly the same questions. Her and some guy in a nice suit named Keith something. A week ago. So I’ll give you the same answer I gave them. I don’t know why Moran and Jackson confessed. They lied and misled me in the initial interrogation, then after they were charged they experienced a change of heart.”

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, trying to recover from the discovery that Katherine and Keith had already interviewed Bales. This was news to me. She’d never mentioned a word.

Anyway, I continued. “So what did you initially charge Moran and Jackson with?”

“Moran we charged with murder, rape, sodomy, committing homosexual acts, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to obstruct justice, lying under oath, failure to obey orders, fraternization, violation of his general orders-”

“Stop! That’s enough,” I barked. “And Jackson?”

“All of the above. Well, except rape or sodomy. In his case, there was no inkling of evidence to support those two charges.”

I should’ve expected this. An old lawyer’s dictum has it that most divorces are unruffled and amicable until the attorneys get on the scene: So it goes with conspiracies as well.

What CID and the command had done was an old and reliable favorite – the junkyard dog strategy where you pile every imaginable charge on the shoulders of the co-conspirators, knowing damn well that if enough mud is thrown against the wall, something is bound to stick. Then, when Whitehall, Moran, and Jackson went fearfully to seek the advice of counsel, their lawyers probably took one worried glance at the nearly infinite list of charges and recognized that inevitably their client was going to be found guilty of something. And since lawyers instinctively advise their clients to act in the most selfish manner possible, they would immediately advocate a deal with the prosecutor. The odd man out in these things is always the man who has the most to lose, which in this case means the man who has the most incriminating evidence against him on the most serious charge – which in this case pertains to the charge of committing murder.

In other words, Thomas Whitehall never stood a chance.

I said, “Who cut the deal with the lawyers?”

“I did. With the permission of the commanding general, of course.”

“Of course,” I dryly observed. “And who might have handled this affair for the commanding general?”

“His legal adviser, a gentleman named Colonel Janson.”

For some odd reason that came as no surprise either.

“And can you tell me, Chief, what have the charges against Moran and Jackson been reduced to?”

“You could easily check it yourself, so I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. Committing homosexual acts.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” he sheepishly replied.

I politely thanked him for his time, then stood up and got ready to leave. He sat calmly, and I’ll give him credit for this – he didn’t appear the least bit smug or elated. He had every right to be, but he didn’t show it. It’s a damned good feeling to be sitting on top of an airtight case.

It’s awfully damned depressing when you’re on the other side.