Mortal Allies

CHAPTER 30

Imelda waited impatiently by the front door to the hair parlor. She grabbed my arm and dragged me into a back room, then closed the door behind us.

She said, “Michael Bales.”

“Right, Michael Bales.”

“I checked his ass out.”

“You checked him out.”

“In country five years. Came over on a three-year tour, married a Korean, and extended.”

“So he’s a homesteader?” I asked, or concluded. Homesteaders are troops who get tired of being shifted from one end of the earth to the other and fight to remain in one place. It’s a fairly common thing with troops in Korea especially, because so many of them marry Korean girls who aren’t real eager to leave Mamasan and Papasan to go live in a strange culture on the other side of the globe.

“Guess who his wife is.”

“A girl who’s into S amp;M. On weekends they send the kids to stay with Grandma and Grandpa so they can tie each other up and beat the bejesus out of each other.”

“Choi’s sister.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Actually it was a stupid question, because one of the things about Imelda Pepperfield is that she never kids. I’ve heard her try to tell jokes, but frankly her timing sucks. Imelda’s one of those folks who’re only funny when they’re not trying to be. A natural comedienne, I guess you’d say.

Unlike me – a forced laugh a minute.

“Bales is the number one boy around here. A tough case rolls in, he’s the man. Boy’s broken more cases than Jesus saved souls.”

“And now we know how he does that, don’t we?”

“He busts their nuts and don’t get caught.”

By the time we walked out of the office, Katherine had already called Fast Eddie and arranged for him to meet us at the holding facility. We had two days left. Katherine wasn’t wasting time.

Since both witnesses were soldiers, it seemed obvious I should come along. We decided to bring Imelda as well, technically as our recorder, but really because she was a senior noncommissioned officer and might catch something we missed. The Army’s like that. All kinds of hidden cues pass among the troops that officers and civilians can’t begin to detect.

Twenty minutes later, we walked into the holding facility. A tall, gangly MP lieutenant met us at the door and lethargically escorted us to an interview room. Eddie was already there, seated beside a short, wispy, skinny kid who looked frightened as hell. The kid had wavy blond hair, a sallow, skinny face, reddened rudiments of popped, scabby pimples, and big, round, frightened blue eyes. I recognized his face from his photo. He looked even more effeminate in person.

“Good morning, Eddie,” Katherine said, giving Golden a perfectly churlish smile.

“Have a seat,” Eddie said, no longer using any of his famous charm on Katherine or me. Eddie’s a smart boy. He doesn’t waste ammunition.

Katherine instantly extended her hand across the table at Jackson. “Hello, Everett, I’m Katherine Carlson, the attorney for Thomas Whitehall.”

She gave him a positively dazzling smile, and she was a beautiful woman, and although Jackson was gay, a smile on a beautiful woman’s face is still a glorious thing to behold. I mean, I was staring at her. Of course, I’m hetero. But then, she’s not, which just goes to show how chaotic everything was in this case. Anyway, Jackson shook her hand.

“And this,” she pointed at Imelda and me, “is Major Sean Drummond, my co-counsel, and Sergeant Imelda Pepperfield, our legal assistant.”

He gave a brief glance in our direction, then turned immediately back to Katherine. Imelda, I noticed, had backed herself into a corner with a pained expression on her face.

Katherine continued. “Everett, I’ve been hired by OGMM, whom I’ve worked for, I guess, for about eight years now. I’m a civilian, of course. My specialty is military gay cases. I’m what you might call an advocate. I believe gays should be allowed to serve, and I make my living fighting for that right in the courts.”

This was a very clever move on her behalf. She was informing young Everett Jackson, a soldier imprisoned and about to be dishonorably discharged for committing homosexual acts, that her life’s work was fighting for guys like him. By implication, she was saying, Hey, about that legal pretty boy on your right – that’s right, the good-looking stud in the green uniform. Don’t be taken in by him; sure he might act like a nice fella, but he’s the guy who gets paid for getting guys like you shoved out of the service. I’m the good guy here, Everett. We’re simpatico. Let’s be chums.

Jackson was nodding like he understood. I was trying to look invisible. I didn’t want him looking at me and thinking, Hey, what about him? Isn’t he one of the gay haters, too?

But Eddie wasn’t any chump, either. He quickly said, “Don’t be fooled by her, Everett. She’s the attorney for Thomas Whitehall, the man who murdered Lee No Tae and got you into this mess. She doesn’t care about you. She cares only about her client.”

Jackson’s eyes shifted back and forth a few times from Eddie to Katherine, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

Katherine swiftly said, “Of course, he’s right, Everett. My job is to defend Thomas Whitehall. And I do it willingly, because I know he’s being railroaded, just like I suspect you were railroaded into giving the testimony you provided.”

Jackson so far had not said a word. He had not been asked to say a word. The prosecutor and defender were too busy fussing and fencing over his loyalty.

“Now, Everett,” Katherine continued, “let me tell you what this is about. In your testimony, you said you were invited to Captain Whitehall’s apartment by First Sergeant Moran. Is that right?”

Jackson looked at Eddie, who nodded at him that it was okay to speak. The fact that he looked over at Eddie, this wasn’t a good omen.

He said, “That’s right, ma’am.”

A big, warm, friendly smile. “Please, Everett, drop the ‘ma’am’ stuff. Call me Katherine. I’m not one of these stiff-lipped Army guys here.”

“Okay, Katherine. Yes. First Sergeant Moran invited me.”

“Didn’t you find that strange? I mean, how often do you get invited to an officer’s quarters for a party?”

“A little odd, yes. But I was, uh, well-”

“You were First Sergeant Moran’s significant other?”

“Yes, that’s right. I thought, well, you know, I thought I was invited like his date.”

“Of course,” Katherine said, as though this were the most innately aboveboard thing in the world. After all, she was a gay rights advocate. He didn’t have to be embarrassed to disclose these intimate details to her. He didn’t have to feel awkward. He could say it like it was. She, after all, was Jackson’s only real soul mate in this room.

“Anyway,” Jackson continued, “I felt odd at first, but Whitehall, uh, the captain, he was a real nice guy. I mean, he seemed real nice. He kept pouring me drinks, and he spent a lot of time talking with me. I, uh, I felt pretty comfortable.”

“And what was Carl Moran doing? Was he talking with Lee No Tae?”

“Yeah. Part of the time, anyway.”

At this point, Eddie lurched forward in his chair. “What in the hell’s going on here? What does this line of questioning have to do with the interrogation?”

“I’m sorry?” Katherine stiffly replied, like, What the hell do you mean by what in the hell?

Eddie gave her a taste of his friendly-exterminator expression. “Lady, you’re not here to practice your cross-examination on my witness. The judge’s written order is clear. You can ask questions pertaining to Jackson’s interrogation. That’s it.”

Katherine archly said, “Let me see your copy of the order.”

In our haste to get back to our office, we hadn’t actually stuck around to get a copy. Shame on us.

He triumphantly tossed it across the table at her. She picked it up, read it, then handed it to me, and I read it, then I handed it to Imelda and she gave it back to Eddie without looking at it herself.

It was a limited order. Carruthers was nobody’s fool. We’d said we were investigating the possibility the witnesses were tortured. We could ask about the sequence that occurred after the arrest – period.

Katherine took a moment to regroup. She drew a couple of deep breaths, then smiled at Jackson again. This time it was a forced smile.

“Okay, Everett, let’s review what occurred after you were arrested. Where were you taken?”

“To the Itaewon Police Station. We all were.”

“And what happened there?”

“Well, first they separated us into different rooms. Then they took my fingerprints. Then they asked me a bunch of questions and-”

“Who asked you the questions?” I interrupted.

“A Korean police officer. I can’t remember his name. It was like, uh, like-”

“Like Choi?”

“Yes… maybe.”

“A uniformed cop, or a detective in civvies?”

“He was in civvies. I think he said he was like a chief inspector, or something like that.”

“Where was this?”

“In a room in the back.”

“Were any Americans present?”

“No.”

“Okay, then what?” Katherine asked.

“Then I was put in a cell till some MPs came and got me. They brought me to base. They kept me in a room in the MP station. Then Chief Bales and the same Korean guy came in and asked me some questions.”

“Did they touch you?” I asked.

He suddenly broke eye contact. He looked at Eddie, and Eddie nodded for him to go ahead and answer.

He said, “No… uh, they didn’t touch me.”

I bent toward him. “You’re sure?”

“Yes sir, I’m sure.”

“Then what happened?” Katherine asked.

“After an hour or so, I was released to go back to my unit.”

Katherine turned and looked at me. I shrugged. She looked back at Jackson. “You went to see a lawyer, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. I’d been at a murder scene. Who knows what the Korean cops thought, right? I thought I’d better be safe.”

“And did the attorney advise you to go back and revise your initial statement?”

Jackson looked at Eddie again. Then he fidgeted for a moment. “Yeah. He said I should tell the truth. I mean, I didn’t kill or rape anybody.”

“Did you contact Carl Moran before you went back?”

“Yeah. I mean, I thought I owed him that. I couldn’t leave him hanging.”

I said, “Does that mean you knew Moran lied in his official statement to the MPs also?”

Eddie came forward. “Drummond, you’re crossing the boundary.”

“The hell I am. Your witnesses were interrogated twice and their initial and final statements conflict. We have the right to know why.”

Eddie scratched his chin for a second. Then he said, “I don’t agree. Do we need to get on the phone and ask the judge?”

“We’re only trying to get the truth. What the hell are you afraid of?”

He smiled. “Nothing. When you get him on the stand, ask anything you want. As long as it’s relevant, of course. Otherwise, I’ll break it off in your ass. You remember what that feels like, don’t you, Drummond?”

If I hadn’t mentioned it before, I don’t really like Eddie Golden. In fact, I dislike him intensely. And not just because he’d bested me twice, but because he was such a puffed-up prick. I guess I was letting my feelings show, because Katherine put her hand on my arm to quiet me. I simmered but kept my mouth shut.

Then Katherine asked, “Everett, this is very important, now. Were you brought to the Itaewon station for a second visit?”

Jackson looked nervous. He turned to Eddie again, but Eddie stayed quiet.

He said, “I, uh, I’m sorry. What was your question again?”

“I asked, were you brought to the Itaewon station for a second visit?”

“No. Uh, I never went back there again.”

He was lying. He wasn’t even a good liar, because his eyes turned away from her, and his face turned red.

Katherine got forceful. “Were you ever beaten? Did Chief Bales or Inspector Choi touch you? Did they attempt to coerce you?”

Then, in a quick, taut, almost frantic rush of words, “No, never. They never touched me. I wasn’t beaten.”

To which I quickly said, “How odd, Everett. I have a copy of a statement from the Itaewon station that says you were beaten.”

His face suddenly became alarmed. “What?”

“You heard me. I have an official police statement that says you were beaten at the Itaewon station.”

Jackson’s lips were just parting, but before he could say a word, Eddie grabbed his arm, and said, “Show me the statement.”

“I didn’t bring it with me,” I replied, which was technically true. Since I didn’t have any such statement, I obviously didn’t have it with me. But such a statement did exist – the cover-up statement I’d overheard Choi confide to Bales that he’d filed, the one that claimed Jackson was beaten by his cellmate. I made a quick mental note to lodge a request with the Korean Ministry of Justice to see if they would produce it. I made a second note not to hold my breath.

Eddie, in the meantime, was smiling. “You’re claiming you have evidence that contradicts my witness. I expect to see that evidence before he has to answer.”

I wondered at this moment how much Eddie knew. Was he aware his witnesses were liars? Or was he just so eager to get another victory notch on his belt that he didn’t want to know what he didn’t want to know? Or did he really just think Katherine and I were a couple of sleazebag defense counsels trying to pull rabbits out of the hat?

Anyway, we’d reached what’s called a deadlock, and Eddie was looking at his watch. “Now, if you two don’t mind, I have a very busy schedule to keep. Unless you have a reasonable objection, I’m going to have Jackson returned to his cell and I’ll have Moran brought in.”

Without waiting for our reply, he got up and sauntered to the door and signaled a guard. Jackson was led out with his head hung low. I found it telling that he never turned and looked at us before he left. Not once. He got out of there as fast as Eddie could arrange it.

Then it was just us lawyers. And Imelda, of course, still standing quietly in the corner, observing us.

Eddie chuckled. “You guys are really grasping at straws. What’s the matter, Carlson? I thought you said you and Drummond had some big surprises for me.”

Like I mentioned earlier, Eddie was into playing mind games.

I was steaming, but Katherine was calm and unruffled, since mind games were her idea of sport also. “Oh, we do, Eddie, we do. We’re just cleaning up a few loose ends.”

“Sure you are, Carlson. You’re hoping to assassinate Bales on the stand. Not unexpected, but a very bad idea.”

“Really? Why’s it a bad idea?”

“Because Bales is clean. He’s rated one of the top three CID agents in the entire system. He’s got the second highest arrest record, the highest conviction rate, and he’s never had a single brutality charge leveled against him.”

Katherine stared him right in the eye. “He’s dirty.”

And he stared right back. “Say that in court, and I’ll make you regret it. This is a court-martial, Carlson, not a trial in some Black inner-city ghetto. Our jury’s going be made up of ten Army officers. They respect CID officers. You open the issue, and I’ll spend three days proving what a great guy he is. Don’t waste your time.”

“We’ll see,” Katherine said.

That was the moment when the door opened and First Sergeant Carl Moran was led in. His eyes roved around the room and locked on each of us for a brief second.

Eddie stood and held out a chair. Moran lumbered over and sat.

If I had any lingering misperceptions that you could pick gays out of a crowd, they went right up in smoke. He looked much like his photograph, except the picture didn’t do justice to his size and apparent physical strength. The man was a mountain of muscle. An instant mental picture formed of him with his big paws gripped around an Army web belt as Lee No Tae coughed and choked and bucked out the last moments of his life.

Katherine went through her introductions again; same routine – I’m your real buddy here, not the well-groomed creep to your left. He believes gays should be drawn and quartered. Just tell me everything.

Carl Moran, though, wasn’t Everett Jackson. He didn’t look frightened, or vulnerable, or cowed. He was an old soldier, leathery and scarred, and despite what Katherine had confided to me about him being a big teddy bear in the bedroom, he looked like a kingsize hardass to me.

Katherine then proceeded through the same drill of asking about his arrest, and he said essentially the same things as Jackson: a trip to the Itaewon station, a standard booking, a brief stay in a Korean cell, a trip to the MP station, a by-the-book interrogation, a tortured battle with his conscience, a visit to a lawyer, a voluntary return to the MP station – a progression that ended in a voluntary, full-up confession.

I sat still and patiently waited for Katherine to get through her questions. I didn’t intervene or interrupt once. She did a first-rate job, too, although it was completely hopeless. She made no headway. When she was finished, I bent forward, placed my elbows on the table, and stared skeptically at Moran a long time.

He tried to ignore me, till that grew awkward, then he said, “What? You got somethin’ you wanna ask, Major?”

“Yeah, actually. You said you were never beaten?”

“That’s right.” He chuckled. “Do I look like a guy who’d take a beating from some gooks? Shit, one of them slant-eyes touches me, I’ll bury his ass.”

He was staring at my bruises and lumps, and I had the sense he knew how I got them. I had an even stronger sense he was taunting me.

I said, “Not if you’re in manacles or tied to a chair, Moran. Not if they’re ten of them and one of you. Not if you’re scared stiff about being charged with murder. Come on, now, there’s no shame in it. Tell us. Did anyone touch you?”

He leaned across the table and looked me right in the eye. “Nobody never touched me. I swear nobody touched me. No gooks touched me. Bales never touched me. That’s the God’s-honest truth. Nobody never touched me.”

Then, on a quick instinct, I said, “One last question. You went to see your lawyer, then what’d you do? Did you at least warn Jackson you were about to confess?”

“Yeah, sure. Jackson’s just a kid, y’know? I felt responsible for him.”

And that’s all it took. Voila! The man’s ego tripped him up.

Eddie, instantly aware of the disconcerting discrepancy, hastily announced, “All right, all right, we’ve exhausted this angle. First Sergeant Moran, thanks for your help. Go ahead and return to your cell.”

Moran’s face revealed his puzzlement. He knew he’d said something wrong, he just wasn’t sure what. Anyway, he got up and lumbered back to the door, where two MPs were waiting to return him to his cell.

The door closed, and Eddie sat back and smiled. It was his man-eating smile, one of those things where the corners of his lips stretched so far they touched his earlobes.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

This was the one risk we’d run by coming over here. Now Eddie knew where we were trying to go. And like us, he’d just heard his witnesses walk on each other over who’d gone to see the lawyer first, and who’d advised who to confess. There was a chink in his armor, but now he knew where. Knowing Eddie like I know Eddie, I had no doubt he’d walk them through a few rehearsals and make sure they got all the kinks ironed out by the trial.

“Very satisfied,” Katherine said, and both of us did our best to smile confidently, like we had just learned something providential and compelling.

“Drop it,” he sternly warned, standing up and looking at his watch again. “Trust me on this, Carlson, don’t screw with Bales on the stand. I won’t allow it. This judge won’t, either.”

He walked out with a satisfied strut. The instant he was gone, our phony smiles turned into gloomy pouts. We had nothing to smile about. Katherine and I did the usual lawyer’s second-guessing when you come up short, wondering what questions we should’ve asked that we didn’t, what we should’ve phrased differently, how we misplayed the witnesses, how we blew our big chance.

Then we walked out and dejectedly headed back to the parking lot and our sedan.

“You two did good back there,” Imelda announced.

“What?” Katherine asked.

“I said you did good.”

“We did?” I asked.

“Got it all figured out now, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “Which part are you talking about?”

Imelda spun around and faced me. She reached up and adjusted her glasses around her ear. “Moran wasn’t lyin’. They never touched him.”

“Of course they didn’t,” I said – uncertainly, but I said it.

Imelda turned back around and chuckled. “That Bales, he’s got good instincts. A man like Moran, he’s all ego. A man like that, you could beat him silly and he won’t talk. Nuh-uhh. Imagine pickin’ the weak one to make the big one break.” She chuckled some more.

And of course, Imelda was right. That’s exactly what had happened. Bales and Choi had somehow gotten the two of them back in the Itaewon station for a second visit. They had somehow figured out the relationship between Moran and Jackson. They figured that Moran had an ego like a battleship, which wasn’t too hard to guess, so they kicked the crap out of Jackson until Moran, the big teddy bear, broke to protect his boyfriend.

I looked at Katherine, but her eyes were still fixated on the back of Imelda’s head.

I said, “Did you know the JAG office keeps a log of everybody who stops by to seek legal counsel?”

She smiled. “No, I didn’t. How very convenient for us.”

“Yes,” I said. “All we need to do is check what day Jackson and Moran sought counsel, then we’ll have proof of whether they were persuaded by their lawyers, or by a bunch of sadistic cops. If there’s a discrepancy, maybe you can break it off in Eddie’s ass.”

“Already done that,” Imelda mumbled from the front seat.

Katherine bent forward. “I’m sorry. What was that?”

“I said I’ve already done that. Jackson and Moran didn’t visit no lawyer till a week after they made their final statement.”

See, that’s the thing with Imelda. She doesn’t play fair. She knew before we even sat down with them that Moran and Jackson were lying about the lawyers. That’s why she was able to unravel their fabrications.

If I were twenty years older, I’d marry that woman.