The Wandering Ghost

1

Stray flakes of snow swirled around the fur-lined edges of the MP’s parka. He kept his M-16 rifle clutched close to his chest, glaring at us, and snatched the clipboard out of Ernie’s hands.

“Emergency dispatch,” Ernie said. “Good for anywhere Eighth Army operates, at any time of day or night.”

“This ain’t Eighth Army,” the MP answered.

He was right. We were twenty miles north of Seoul sitting in a jeep at a checkpoint on the MSR, the Main Supply Route. Naked poplars lined the road, quivering in the cold wind of February. Five miles farther north stood Tongduchon, the city that straddles the front gate of Camp Casey, the headquarters of the United States Army’s 2nd Infantry Division.

“You’re a subordinate unit,” Ernie said.

The MP tossed the clipboard back to Ernie and said, “We ain’t subordinate to nobody.”

Ernie studied the MP and the armed hon-byong, Korean Army military policeman, standing only a few feet away. Then he glanced at another American crouched behind an M-60 machine gun, muzzle pointed our way, safely ensconced behind sandbags in a reinforced concrete gun emplacement. Apparently, Ernie decided against raising hell. Instead, he grinned at the MP, shrugged, and handed the clipboard to me. Then he shoved the jeep in gear. Slowly, we zigzagged our way through rows of crosshatched metal stanchions strewn across the roadway like jacks discarded by a careless giant.

“Welcome to the Second Infantry Division,” I said.

Ernie grunted.

Wind-borne cones of snow swirled across the ice-slick blacktop. Ernie maneuvered the jeep smoothly from first to second gear and then shoved it into third and finally fourth. The road was lined on either side with frozen rice paddies, fallow now during the long Korean winter. In the distance, narrow chimneys above straw-thatched roofs spewed wisps of gray smoke toward the abodes of revered ancestors.

My name is George Sueno. My partner, Ernie Bascom, and I are agents for the 8th United States Army Criminal Investigation Division in Seoul, Republic of Korea. A congressional inquiry, a demand for information from an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, had dispatched us up here to the DMZ, the northernmost area near the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Why? An American female MP assigned to the headquarters of the 2nd Infantry Division was missing. Disappeared. Evaporated. The entire manpower of the 2nd Infantry Division had searched but had been unable to find her.

Nor her body.

The missing woman’s name was Corporal Jill Q. Matthewson, but she wasn’t just any missing female soldier. She was the first woman MP ever assigned to the 2nd Division Military Police. Female soldiers had only recently, within the last year, been allowed in the Division area. Prior to that they were prohibited.

A peace treaty had never been officially signed between the United States and North Korea. A ceasefire, and a ceasefire only, was agreed to in June of 1953. Now in the early seventies, more than twenty years later, the 2nd Infantry Division area of operations was still considered to be a combat zone. As if to prove it, about a dozen firefights per year flared up across the 150-mile Korean DMZ. With 700,000 heavily armed North Korean communist soldiers on one side of the Military Demarcation Line and almost half a million South Korean troops on the other, this was to be expected. Despite the danger, Congress decided to allow women to serve in the 2nd Division, smack dab in the middle of mayhem.

Back at 8th Army, the bulk of the speculation about Corporal Jill Matthewson’s disappearance centered around rape. Namely, that someone had sexually assaulted her, murdered her, and then disposed of her body. That was certainly possible. But there was another school of thought that postulated Matthewson might have been killed due to professional jealousy. Wielding the baton of a military policeman in the midst of 20,000 barely civilized combat soldiers, most GIs thought, was not a job for a woman. If she had been doing her job, and doing it well, male egos would have been bruised. Not a comfortable position for a woman alone. Besides Corporal Jill Matthewson, only three dozen other women soldiers-none of them MPs-were assigned to the Division area of operations out of nearly 20,000 American troops.

We wound around a curve in the road and passed beneath a massive concrete overhang: two hundred tons of cement riddled with plastic explosives. A tank trap. Ready to be blown up by retreating Republic of Korea soldiers if the heavily armored North Korean Army tries to bull its way south again. Running perpendicular to the road, as far as the eye could see, were double rows of closely packed concrete megaliths. Dragon’s teeth, GIs call them. Another obstacle designed to slow down any future communist juggernaut.

Since Jill Matthewson disappeared almost three weeks ago, the 2nd Infantry Division Military Police Investigators had yet to locate any clue as to her whereabouts. For some reason, 8th Army Criminal Investigation thought that a couple of outsiders, like Ernie and me, could do what the Division MPI couldn’t. Maybe it was because I spoke the language and Ernie knew the back alleys and brothels of Korea better than any CID agent in country. Or maybe it was because our bosses wanted to send us as far away from the flagpole as possible. That is, away from 8th Army headquarters in Seoul. Ernie and I had acquired the nasty habit of following an investigation wherever it led, even into the carpeted and mahogany-paneled war rooms of the honchos of 8th Imperial Army. Whatever the reason, the 8th Army provost marshal had chosen the two of us for the assignment and now it was our duty to find Corporal Jill Matthewson.

And find her we would.

Ernie didn’t talk about it but I knew his determination was total. He’d spent two tours in Vietnam, seeing fellow GIs and Vietnamese civilians being wasted for no reason. He’d become fed up and now, day to day, he tried to do the best he could to protect people. If you asked him, he’d deny it. He’d claim that he was just doing his job, keeping a low profile, trying to put in his twenty. But he knew and I knew and even the honchos at 8th Army knew, that Ernie and I worked for the little guy. We worked for the private or the sergeant or the Korean civilian who’d been stepped on by criminals or by the system. And a female corporal who’d disappeared from a military environment where everyone and everything is accounted for daily-and then accounted for again- definitely fell into that category.

As we continued north, the landscape became more barren and the wind became colder and every few feet seemed to harbor a new military compound or gun emplacement.

“Cozy,” Ernie said. “Just like ’Nam.”

“But colder.”

“A tad. ’Nam on ice.”

I pulled Corporal Jill Matthewson’s photograph out of my inside jacket pocket. Ernie gave me a sidelong glance.

“You still mooning over that photo?”

“Not mooning,” I answered. “Investigating.”

I turned my attention to the photo and studied it once again, for the umpteenth time. Full-length, black-and-white, taken directly from Corporal Jill Matthewson’s military personnel records. She was tall, five-seven-and-a-half according to her recruitment physical, husky-appearing in her uniform but not fat. She had long hair, light I guessed from the photo, tied back tightly behind her head. She wore the mandatory army dress green uniform sporting a corporal’s stripes on her sleeves and, on her collar, the crossed-pistols brass of the United States Army Military Police Corps. She was smiling, just slightly, just enough to show that she was confident in who she was and what she was doing. Her face was dusted across the nose with a smattering of freckles, the cheeks broad, the nose rounded at the end. Not a beauty but an attractive woman nevertheless. The type of woman who seemed full of life. The type of woman most healthy young GIs would like to get to know better.

Maybe Ernie was right. Maybe I was mooning over her a little. But what was wrong with that? Until we found her, she’d be the object of all my affection.

Ernie swerved past an ox-drawn cart laden with frozen hay. I shoved the photo back into the folder and pulled out a copy of the letter attached to the congressional inquiry cover sheet. It was from Jill Matthewson’s mother, to her congressman in the district that includes Terre Haute, Indiana. The handwriting was childish. The ink was smeared and some of the letters were difficult to read. Still, it was legible. Jill had grown up in a trailer park, her mother wrote, and her mother had struggled to get by, working nights in a convenience store. Jill’s father never paid his child support and never, not once, came to visit Jill. In fact, the only thing he’d ever done for his daughter was send her a birthday card on her fifth birthday. Jill treasured it. Kept it wrapped in plastic and took the card with her when, at the age of eighteen, she enlisted in the army and shipped out to boot camp. Her mother asked that we check for the card amongst Jill’s personal effects. If it was gone, if Jill had taken it, then her mother would know that she was still alive. If, on the other hand, the card was still there, her mother would know she was dead.

Maybe. As a cop, I couldn’t assume any such thing. Still, I’d search for the card. Immediately.

The letter also explained why Jill had joined the army. To buy her mother a car. After years of interminable waits at bus stops- lugging torn bags of groceries home from the supermarket and baskets of damp clothing back from the Laundromat-Jill had sworn, even as a little girl, that someday she’d buy her mother a car. After six months in the army, Jill kept her promise and managed to buy her mom a used Toyota Corolla. It didn’t run anymore, according to Jill’s mom, but she was grateful for the months that she’d been able to drive it. And then the letter trailed off in smeared ink as Jill’s mother said that Jill was her only child and she pleaded with the congressman to find her daughter and send her home. The congressman, as far as I could tell from the paperwork enclosed in the congressional inquiry packet, hadn’t answered. Yet.

I would. As soon as I had more information. You could bet on it.

A convoy of ROK Army two-and-a-half-ton trucks passed us rolling south. Attached to the front bumpers were white placards splashed with red lettering in hangul, the indigenous Korean script: UIHOM! POKPAL MUL. Danger! High Explosives.

A twenty-foot-high statue of a military policeman stood in front of the 2nd Infantry Division Provost Marshal’s Office. The huge MP wore a black helmet emblazoned with the letters MP and was clad in a dark green fatigue uniform and black boots laced with fake white strings. One hand rested on his hip, just above a holstered. 45. His face was bright pink and his eyes a glassy blue, with an expression about as mindless as some flesh-and-blood MPs that I knew.

The PMO building was, like most buildings here on Camp Casey, a series of Quonset huts connected by mazes of corridors made of plywood and glass, topped with corrugated tin. The entire edifice was then spray painted in a camouflage pattern of various shades of puke green.

GI elegance.

We pushed through the front door at the end of the main Quonset hut into a reception area lined with wooden benches. At a high counter in front, a mustachioed black sergeant glowered at us. His shoulders were bulky-hunched-as if expecting the worse. The embroidered name tag on his fatigue blouse said OTIS. Five black stripes were pinned to his lapel: sergeant first class.

When we approached him, he said, “Why you dressed like that?”

He was referring to our civilian coats and ties.

Ernie didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he brushed melting flakes of snow off his shoulders and then pulled out his identification. With a flourish, he flipped open the leather case. The desk sergeant peered at the Criminal Investigation badge and then aimed his red-rimmed eyes at me. I performed the same ritual.

“You here about Druwood.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of fact. Ernie didn’t correct him; he just waited. Sergeant First Class Otis shook his head slowly. “Shame. Young trooper like him.”

Lost in thought for a moment, Otis seemed to realize that we were still waiting. He looked up at us and as he did so he understood, probably from the blank expressions on our faces, that we’d never heard about anybody named Druwood. He sat up straight, thrust back his shoulders, and cleared his throat. This time his voice was even gruffer than before.

“Who you want to see?”

“Bufford,” Ernie replied.

“MPI?”

Ernie nodded.

“Then it’s ‘Mister’ Bufford to you,” the desk sergeant said. “You in Division now. You call a warrant officer by his proper title.”

Ernie squinted at the desk sergeant, unable to fathom whether or not he was serious. Kowtowing to a wobbly-one military police investigator? At 8th Army headquarters in Seoul, there’s so much brass wandering the hallways that warrant officers empty the trash. Sergeant Otis grabbed the black phone in front of him and started dialing. I took the opportunity to pull Ernie aside.

“Remember,” I told him. “We’re in Division now.”

Ernie mumbled something obscene.

Cradling the phone against his beefy shoulder, Otis scribbled in his logbook and told us to spell our names. Then someone apparently picked up on the other end of the line; the desk sergeant whispered discreetly into the receiver and, after listening for a few seconds, hung up.

“Room 137,” he said, pointing to his right. “Down the hall, take a left at the water cooler, then follow the signs.”

As our highly spit-shined footgear clattered down the hallway, MPs and clerical staff in fatigues stopped what they were doing and stared at us from their cramped cubicles. The suits gave us away. They knew we had to be from Seoul and they knew we had to be from the Criminal Investigation Division. It all has to do with the way the military mind works. The honchos at 8th Army are smart enough to realize that for criminal investigators to be effective they have to blend in with the general populace. To do that, they have to wear civilian clothes. However, being military men, they didn’t want us to gain an advantage over them by not having to wear a military uniform during duty hours. Therefore, they dictated that, while on duty, the civilian clothes we were required to wear would be white shirts, ties, and jackets. But this is the seventies! Nobody wears a coat and tie unless they’re getting married, attending a funeral, or having an audience with the Pope. So the whole purpose of allowing us to wear civilian clothes-to blend in with the general populace-was defeated. Whenever anyone-Korean or American-saw a young American male with a short haircut wearing a coat and tie, they automatically assumed that he was an agent for the Criminal Investigation Division.

So much for sneaking up on the bad guys.

Mumbles followed us down the hallway: “REMFs.” The acronym for Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers.

If the coddled staff at 8th Army headquarters looked down their snooty noses at the 2nd Infantry Division, the combat soldiers up here at Division returned the animosity tenfold. Anybody stationed in Seoul, they believed, lived in the lap of luxury and would be no more useful in a firefight than a hand grenade with a soldered pin.

“So far,” Ernie said, “we’re receiving a warm reception.”

In addition to the epithets, I also heard the name Druwood spoken a few times, in hushed tones. At the water cooler we hung a left, wandered down the meandering hallway until we spotted the signs, and this time turned right. Finally, after two more turns, we stood in front of a placard that read: ROOM 137, MILITARY POLICE INVESTIGATION.

We strode through the open doorway.

The office was plastered from floor to ceiling with enlarged black-and-white photos of blood, guts, and gore. An overhead fluorescent light buzzed. At a small gray desk, a lanky GI seemed to rise from his chair in sections. The name tag on his faded fatigues said BUFFORD and the rank insignia on his collar was the black-striped rectangle of a warrant officer one.

I expected Mr. Bufford to hold out his hand but, instead, bony fingers clenched hip bones. His face was narrow and his black crew cut contrasted with the paleness of his flesh. His waist was thin and his chest so emaciated that I’d seen more robust rib cages on porcelain platters at Thanksgiving. It was his eyes that held you. Black and deep set. The pupils shining like tiny eight balls, above a nose that pointed forward like a bayonet on the end of an M-16. He sniffled as he studied us and both nostrils clung to inner flesh. Then he snorted and the moist flesh released with a pop.

The room smelled of cigarettes and burnt coffee. Bufford didn’t say anything. Neither did Ernie. I broke the ice.

“Mr. Bufford?” I asked. Inanely, because his name and his rank were sewn onto his uniform.

He stared at me with no sign of response. Puffy dun-colored bags sat beneath eyes so dark they were almost purple. I glanced from his odd, ravaged face to the celluloid carnage that surrounded us. Brutality, rape, murder, assault. All of it was here. Frozen in time and plastered on the walls of this Quonset hut as if to preserve it for posterity. As if someone here, probably Bufford, hated to let it go.

Finally, Warrant Officer Bufford’s voice emerged as a nasal whine.

“I stand by my report,” he said. “It’s all in there. That’s it.” He slashed a bony finger in the air. “And if you talk to the provost marshal, he’ll tell you the same thing.”

“Whoa,” Ernie said, holding up both hands. “Whatever happened to ‘Hello’? ‘How you doing?’ ‘What’s new in Seoul?’ and all that shit?”

Bufford looked puzzled, as if he’d never heard of anything as mundane as social amenities.

“It’s in my report,” he repeated.

“ ‘Hello’ is in your report?”

Bufford was growing more confused by the minute.

Ernie eyed him, still trying to figure out what we’d stumbled into. I sat on a gray steel chair beneath a photograph of a dead GI slumped over a steering wheel. I cleared my throat and spoke.

“Mr. Bufford,” I said. “Where is Corporal Jill Matthewson?”

For once, he couldn’t say it was in his report. Bufford’s pasty flesh was no longer white but almost aflame now and his sunken cheeks didn’t quite quiver but seemed to suck in, like a bellows drawing breath.

“It ain’t going to work,” he said.

“What ain’t going to work?” Ernie asked.

“You’re CID. Eighth Army. You’re not going to make us look bad.”

“We’re not here to make anybody look bad,” I told him. “We’re here to find Corporal Jill Matthewson.”

His skull swiveled away for a moment, as if he were in pain, and then he turned back to look at me. “You got no rights. You’re REMFs. From Eighth Army. This is Division.” Then he started to scream. “This is Division!”

Ernie leaned across the desk. Bufford backed up, ready to leap away from Ernie’s grasp but as he did so the door to the small office squeaked open and a stranger entered the room. He was a short man, about five and a half feet tall, wearing green fatigues. Sandy brown hair was slicked across his round head and, through a pair of square-lensed glasses, he smiled, all of which gave him the air of a deacon attending Sunday services at a Southern Baptist church. As a military man, what my eyes latched onto first was his name tag, which said ALCOTT, and then his rank insignia-a silver maple leaf-indicating that he was a lieutenant colonel. I already knew that LTC Stanley X. Alcott was the Provost Marshal of the 2nd United States Infantry Division.

Bufford composed himself long enough to thrust back his shoulders and holler, “Attention!”

Lieutenant Colonel Alcott smiled and waved his soft palm. “At ease,” he said. “At ease. Everybody take a seat.”

I pulled two metal chairs from the stack leaning against the wall, unfolded them, and the three of us-the provost marshal, me, and Ernie-sat in a semi-circle in front of WO1 Bufford’s desk.

Most 8th Army GIs, stationed comfortably in Seoul, would consider being sent north to Division as the equivalent of a temporary duty assignment in hell. Now, after only the first few minutes of our sojourn at the 2nd ID, I was starting to understand why.

“I’m so glad you two gentlemen took the time to travel all the way up from Seoul to help us,” Colonel Alcott said. He was smiling even more broadly than he had been when he entered the room. He motioned again with his open palm. “Mr. Bufford has been working around the clock trying to locate Corporal Matthewson. It’s a tragedy that she disappeared. Believe me, it’s touched all of us here deeply. And since it’s been over two weeks that she’s been gone, we thought it would be a good idea to bring in a pair of fresh eyes to review the evidence.”

I glanced sharply at Ernie, warning him not to laugh. The reality of the situation was that Ernie and I had been crammed down Colonel Alcott’s throat. He knew it and we knew it. 8th Army didn’t want any more letters from irate congressmen accusing the 2nd Infantry Division of not being able to keep track of its own female soldiers.

“And I know,” Colonel Alcott continued, “that Mr. Bufford will bring you up to speed on the case right away.”

As if the joints in his neck had been suddenly lubricated, Bufford nodded his head vigorously.

Colonel Alcott glanced at me and then at Ernie. “You’ve read the report. What are your thoughts so far?”

Actually, Ernie hadn’t read the SIR, the serious incident report. Too boring. He left that sort of thing to me. I spoke up.

“Must’ve been something personal, sir,” I said. “No indication that Corporal Matthewson was having trouble in her work. No black marketing indicated by her ration control records. No history of mental disorder.”

Alcott nodded sadly. “True. True enough. So what’s your plan of investigation?”

“Shoe leather,” I said. “Talk to everyone who knew her. Reconstruct her every move up to the moment of her disappearance.”

“We’ve already done that,” Bufford said. “It wasn’t personal. I’m telling you, we’ve already covered that ground. Had to be random. She was attacked by someone she didn’t know, probably a Korean after a rich American. He robbed her, killed her, got rid of the body. We just haven’t found it yet.”

Ernie’s green eyes flashed behind his round-lensed glasses. Here it comes, I thought.

“Robbed her?” Ernie asked, his voice a growl. “Murdered her?”

Buford leaned back reflexively, as if to protect himself from Ernie. “Yes,” he said.

“And how many times,” Ernie asked, “in the more than twenty years since Camp Casey was established, has an American GI been robbed and murdered by a Korean?”

Bufford, confused, glanced at Colonel Alcott for support. Before either could reply, Ernie was back on the attack.

“I’ll tell you how many times,” he said. “Never! Koreans don’t do that. They might slicky money from a GI or cheat him on a business deal or con him out of a few dollars, but they don’t hit and they definitely don’t murder!”

Ernie was right. Korea is a tightly controlled society with a former general for a dictator and the Korean National Police patrolling every street corner. But more importantly, they’re Confucian. They give unquestioning allegiance to their superiors and anyone who so much as threatens physical violence loses face and is forced to slink away in shame. Sure, Koreans become emotional. Often. They’re not called the Irish of the Orient for nothing. And sometimes they punch out one another on the street for everyone, including their neighbors and their ancestors in heaven, to see. But those are personal disputes. And as loud and as prolonged as they sometimes are, no one gets hurt. Violent crime is rare in Korea. And against Americans, it’s unheard of.

“First time for everything,” Bufford said.

“What evidence do you have?” Ernie asked.

Bufford’s face flamed but his thin lips remained taut.

Colonel Alcott jumped in. “She was a woman.”

“That’s evidence?”

“A woman on the street,” Alcott persisted. “An American woman. Tall. Blonde. A much more tempting target than a Korean would have seen before.”

“So you think her creamy white flesh drove some Korean mad with lust,” Ernie said.

Colonel Alcott nodded vigorously. “And why not?”

Before Ernie could answer, I jumped in.

“There’s always more evidence to be found,” I told Colonel Alcott. “Ernie and I will go over the same ground again, although I’m sure it’s been covered thoroughly by Mister Bufford. Like you said, sir, ‘a pair of fresh eyes.’ Maybe, just maybe, we might find something new in her personal life.”

“Not possible.” Bufford crossed his arms so tightly that his skinny elbows stuck out like spikes.

Ernie’s face was turning red. He’d heard enough.

“What do you mean, not possible?” he said. “If my partner wants to talk to her acquaintances, he’ll talk to her acquaintances. Until he’s blue in the face if he wants to.”

“Waste of time,” Bufford said.

I was about to say something when Colonel Alcott, once again, raised his open palm.

“Personal,” he said. “I agree. A good place to start. You never know what secrets lurk in someone’s background. You never know what nugget might be turned up that was missed the first time around. Don’t you agree, Mr. Bufford?”

Bufford unfolded his arms and placed his palms flat on his desk, leaning forward. The look on his face was so reverential that, for a moment, I thought he was going to bow. “Absolutely, sir,” he said. “Starting with her personal acquaintances makes sense. That’d be the way to go.”

I glanced back and forth between the two men. The complete 180-degree revolution of opinion that Bufford had just performed was being ignored by both of them. They’ve done this before, I realized. Warrant Officer Bufford floats his ideas, Colonel Alcott floats his, and immediately they agree to do it the colonel’s way.

I glanced at Ernie. He rolled his eyes. His opinion was clear. Colonel Stanley X. Alcott and Warrant Officer Fred Bufford were both nuts.

“Regarding Private Druwood,” I said. “Has the body been examined yet?”

Colonel Alcott swiveled in his chair and studied me head on. Warrant Officer Bufford sat up straighter and re-wrapped his skinny arms around his chest.

“Why, yes,” Colonel Alcott said. “By local staff. The body will be shipped down to the coroner in Seoul later this morning.”

“Suicide?” I asked.

Colonel Alcott grimaced. “Oh, no. Accident. Strictly an accident. But how did you know? The report hasn’t been sent to Seoul yet.”

Ernie’s eyes were as wide as the headlights on his jeep, wondering how I knew all this. I ignored Colonel Alcott’s question and asked one of my own.

“Did Private Druwood know Corporal Jill Matthewson?”

“Know her?” Colonel Alcott glanced toward Bufford but received only a blank stare. “I suppose so,” Alcott replied. “They were both MPs. But there’s no relationship. None at all. Druwood was simply a highly motivated young soldier who hadn’t done well on the obstacle course and he wanted badly to improve his skills. He climbed to the top of the tower in the middle of the night, to practice and gain more confidence we imagine. Unfortunately, he must’ve lost his balance. A tragedy. Head first. Cracked his skull on cement.”

“He was alone?” Ernie asked. “And he climbed to the top of the obstacle course tower in the middle of the night?”

“That’s what the evidence indicates,” Alcott replied.

“Was he a boozer or a druggie? Had he received a Dear John letter?”

“If what you’re implying,” Alcott replied, “is that Private Druwood committed suicide, you’re dead wrong. He was a highly motivated soldier. Dedicated to his mission. Besides,” Alcott added, “there was no note.”

“Alone in the middle of the night,” Ernie said. “Sounds like suicide to me.”

Alcott’s face turned red. He’d had enough. Suicide is one of the problems that the army hates to talk about, but every year in every duty station in the United States and around the world, young GIs take their own lives. What are the reasons? Loneliness. Mental illness. Depression from drugs or alcohol. Harassment from other soldiers. The day-to-day pressures of military life. You name it. But whatever the reasons, the honchos hate to classify any GI death as a suicide. Every commander looks bad when his suicide statistics go up and if there’s an excuse to classify a suicide as an accident, they’ll take it.

Colonel Alcott spread his stubby fingers. A gold wedding band twinkled on his left ring finger. “I think,” he said, slapping his knees, “this concludes our interview.”

As he rose to his feet, the three of us rose also. Then Alcott waggled his forefinger at my nose. “Stay away from Druwood,” he told me. “Corporal Matthewson will keep you busy enough.”

The provost marshal of the 2nd Infantry Division swiveled and left the office.

We were outside of the Provost Marshal’s Office, back in the cold crisp air of the 2nd Division morning, walking across blacktop beneath the shadow of the twenty-foot-tall MP, heading for our jeep. The snow had stopped. Only a few clumps still clung to slumping pine boughs and to the corrugated iron roofs of Quonset huts. Now, in late February, the question everyone kept asking was: Will winter ever end?

Ernie cleared his throat and spit on ice. “How in the hell did you know all that stuff about Druwood?”

“Most of it I guessed,” I said.

“How?”

“Well, Druwood was clearly on everyone’s mind in the Provost Marshal’s Office. Sergeant Otis figured that’s why we’d come up here from Seoul, and the other folks were whispering his name as we walked down the hallway. So something must’ve happened and happened recently. If it was a routine sort of incident-theft, AWOL, a fight in the ville-there wouldn’t be such a consensus of concern. So it must’ve been serious. Death. Not a vehicular accident, Sergeant Otis never would’ve expected Eighth Army CID to come north to investigate that. So it had to be murder. Or at the very least, suicide. The way everybody seemed sympathetic and concerned led me to believe that Druwood must’ve been the victim and not the perpetrator. Therefore, Druwood was dead.”

“But you called him ‘Private Druwood’ right off. How’d you know his rank?”

“If he was an officer, Otis or somebody in the Provost Marshal’s Office would’ve mentioned his rank. The death of an officer is rare in Division and would’ve been remarked upon. So he had to be enlisted. Otis said that Druwood was young.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. You weren’t listening. Young means low rank. Corporal, PFC, private. If he somehow got himself killed maybe he was inexperienced. So I guessed the lowest rank: private. Just lucky on that one.”

Ernie studied me as we walked. “Too bad you didn’t finish high school, Sueno. You might’ve developed some brains.”

When we reached our jeep, Ernie jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Using a stenciled map attached to the serious incident report, I guided him through the maze of Camp Casey, the headquarters compound of the 2nd Infantry Division.

We spent the morning visiting the chow halls and the administrative buildings and the barracks that had been home sweet home to the missing Corporal Jill Matthewson. After inventorying her personal effects, we realized that one complete set of fatigues had disappeared from her room, along with Jill’s MP helmet and her combat boots and her army-issue pistol and her web gear.

Why had Jill packed her full MP regalia? Most GIs, when they go AWOL, don’t take their uniforms. After all, the whole point of bugging out is to flee all things military.

We interviewed the “house girl.” Actually, she was a middle-aged Korean woman allowed on post to clean and do laundry for the female soldiers billeted on Camp Casey. She told us that Jill had also packed a tote bag full of clothes, a hair brush, and other things a woman needs. But not much. Only one pair of soft-soled shoes was missing and a couple of blouses and a pair of blue jeans and a skirt. The rest of Jill’s civilian clothes and uniforms were lined up and pressed, hanging neatly inside her open wall locker.

What we did not find, no matter how hard we looked, was the birthday card Jill’s father had sent her when she was five years old.

In ten more days, when Corporal Jill Matthewson had been gone a total of thirty days, she would cease being merely AWOL, absent without leave; she would be dropped from the 2nd Division roles as a deserter. She wouldn’t be facing local punishment anymore; she’d be facing a court-martial. Time in a federal penitentiary would not only be likely but almost a sure thing.

Could Jill have jumped on an airplane and returned to the States?

Not possible. South Korea is a tightly controlled society. Jill’s name and service number-along with the names and service numbers of every AWOL American GI in country-was on a list at the single international airport in Korea: Kimpo, outside of Seoul. The Korean authorities check such lists carefully. Nobody enters or leaves the Republic without the Koreans being damn sure that the person is who they say they are-and that they’re not on any watch list. Another way out of the country is by sea from Pusan, but that embarkation point is watched just as closely as the airport at Kimpo. After that, the only way out of South Korea is across the Demilitarized Zone. Trying to cross the DMZ would be suicide. You’d either be blown up by a landmine or shot by a North Korean soldier.

Jill Matthewson was still in Korea, of that we could be sure. Maybe dead, maybe alive. But still here.