The Line (A Sergeants Sueño and Bascom Novel) by Martin Limon

Author:Martin Limon [Limon, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2018-10-23T05:00:00+00:00

-16-

By the time we reached Kimpo Airfield, the only flight from the States scheduled for the day had just landed. We parked the jeep in the military section of the lot and trotted toward the two-story cement-block terminal. From the second floor we looked down through the plate-glass windows onto passengers descending the staircases that had been rolled up to the side of the planes. A line of them made their way onto the tarmac.

“We won’t be able to tell which one she is,” Ernie said.

“A woman alone,” I told him. “Can’t be many.”

Some twenty years after the devastation of the Korean War, the tourism industry in Korea was virtually nonexistent, except for Japanese businessmen flooding in on package-deal sex tours. So the only Americans who arrived in country were either missionaries or Peace Corps volunteers, or more likely those associated with the US military, either dependents or civilian contract workers. Since the vast majority of civilian workers who arrived alone would be men, an American woman traveling to Korea by herself was not something you saw every day.

And we didn’t see one. Even after the last passenger had balanced himself carefully down the stairs, we hadn’t seen anyone who looked like an American female lawyer by herself. I glanced at my notes. “Riley said her name is Corrine Fitch.”

We hurried downstairs to the big double glass doorway that was the exit from Korean customs inspection. The first passengers emerged.

“We should’ve brought a sign,” Ernie said.

“Yeah. I guess we’ll just have to stick with deductive reasoning.”

“Like what?”

“Ask any woman who seems as if she might be a Stateside female lawyer if her name is Corrine?”

“I like that name,” Ernie said.

“Calm down. You haven’t even met her yet.”

As the travelers emerged from the customs area, I asked a couple of women who were clearly with their husbands if they were Corrine Fitch and received odd looks in return. Finally, it dawned on me that I was assuming too much. When I adjusted my expectations, I spotted her almost immediately. A slender woman in a conservative dark blue skirt and matching vest, pulling a suitcase on rollers. In her left hand she held a briefcase. I walked up to her.

“Are you Corrine Fitch?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered, surprised. “Who are you?”

I showed her my badge. She smirked. “Am I under arrest already?”

Her face was pure Korean, a long oval with inquisitive eyes and an expressive mouth. Black hair fell to her shoulders in a wave.

“No, not under arrest,” I stammered. I introduced Ernie. “We’re just here to give you a ride into town. And to show you something, a piece of evidence that might be pertinent to your case.”

She eyed me carefully, trying to discern my intentions.

“Is the Army trying to set me up?”

“Not at all. We were originally assigned the Corporal Noh Jong-bei murder case. We were brought to the crime scene just an hour or two after the body was discovered. We’ve interviewed your client, Private Fusterman, and we subsequently discovered an item that we believe will be important to the defense.

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