“And you believe they honestly don’t know who he was?”

“Who can tell? Maybe they’re just covering up. Or maybe they really don’t know. It’s terribly convenient for their side of the story not to have him around for questioning… but it’s also inconvenient, isn’t it?”

“And the shooter I chased, he’s dead, so there’s nobody to say why they opened fire.”

She stood up and straightened her dress. “That’s the gist of it.”

“And it’s their country.”

“Basically, yes,” she replied, picking up the recorder and placing it in her purse. “I’ve got to hurry and get this transcribed and sent back to Washington. For obvious reasons, your testimony is considered crucial.”

Before she could walk out on me, I said, “Hold on. What’s my position in this thing? I mean, if the two police officers were merely responding in self-defense, where do I stand? And what about the fact that the guy I was chasing popped a South Korean in the head?”

“That’s all under continuing investigation. The ROKs admit that you were very brave for chasing him off that hillside. It saved lives. They also think it’s possible he committed suicide. They’re doing an autopsy on his body now. But you’re still being charged with assaulting a police officer, and for stealing his weapon. As for the other body that was found in the alley, there’s still questions about who popped him in the head, as you put it. The bullet that killed him passed through his cranium and hasn’t been found. The poor guy was a mentally handicapped adult.”

Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “I don’t mean to imply that you murdered him in cold blood, but you were involved in a gunfight. You were tense and under great strain, probably on a hair trigger. You didn’t shoot him, did you, Drummond?”

Which I guess was a fairly good indication of what she thought of me.

My response was fairly short of being politically correct. But then, I’m a lawyer. If she tried to slap me with one of those gender crime suits, well, I was drugged and delirious with pain, and therefore wasn’t responsible for my filthy tongue.

CHAPTER 27

Imelda and Katherine showed up two hours later. Make that two hours after I started frantically calling them. I wasn’t happy about it, either.

But after one look at Katherine’s face, I softened my mood. There were deep, dark circles under her eyes. They were puffy and swollen and bloodshot, the way eyes get when somebody’s been crying a lot. She’d obviously gotten no sleep since the massacre.

Imelda, I noticed, was being very custodial toward Katherine. She was holding the door for her, getting her a chair, hovering over her shoulder like an anxious aide-de-camp.

Imelda looked down at me, studied my face, blew some air out of her lips, then returned her attention to Katherine. Imelda Pepperfield, after all, was a woman. In the female Hierarchy of Miseries, physical beatings are a few notches down from afflictions of the soul.

Katherine sniffled. “You look like hell.”

“Yeah, well, I feel like hell. Thanks, though, for getting me out of that rathole. I couldn’t have taken another beating. One more and I was ready to confess I’m your co-counsel.”

She smiled and acted like she got the joke, but you could tell from her eyes she’d lost her sense of humor. Actually, she’d never had much of a sense of humor. At least none I’d ever been able to tap into.

“What you did, Sean… it was incredibly brave. The cameraman called me as soon as he was able to review his tape. He wanted to know who you were. He said he had this film of a complete wildman running through the crowd, people dropping over dead all around him, rushing the assassin.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, blushing beneath my bruises. “So how you doing?”

“It’s been the worst day of my life.”

“Yeah, mine wasn’t so hot, either,” I complained, because I just couldn’t let her score higher on the misery index.

Then Katherine and Imelda exchanged some kind of private look, and Katherine looked even more tortured.

She made a very obvious effort to exert control over her emotions. “Uh… Maria got shot.”

“Maria? Maria the grum – uh, our Maria?”

Katherine looked down at the floor and nodded.

I felt a small knot in my stomach. “How is she?”

Katherine never took her eyes off the floor. “Dead.”

I had to take a moment to consider that. It’s not like I knew Maria real well. We’d shared some room space, but we’d barely said ten words to each other. Except for a few odd smiles, the sum of our communication had been to either exchange frowns or vaguely ignore each other.

I said, “I’m sorry,” which is an entirely inadequate thing to say, but because it’s so commonly muttered in situations like this, it’s a passable sentiment.

Katherine nodded.

“How’s Allie?”

“Not well. They’ve lived together for ten years. They… uh, they were very much in love.”

I nodded because again I was at an embarrassing loss for words. I sort of liked Allie, partly because she was so wildly eccentric you either liked her or hated her, and I had no reason to hate her, which I guess left me sort of liking her. And partly because she was so damned tough and I just naturally admire that quality, even in a six-foot-three lesbian with a face like a South American parrot.

Anyway, Katherine spared me the need to mutter more empty sentiments. She stood up and started pacing. “I knew these people. They were my friends. I’m angry and I’m frustrated. The South Koreans are trying to cover it up. They murdered my friends and now they’re trumping up some horseshit about how the first shot came from us. Like we started it.”

“The first shot did come from our side of the fracas. I heard it and so did you. Is it possible one of the protesters had a gun?”

She angrily shook her head. “Come on. They all took civilian flights over here. They passed through metal detectors and customs.”

“So what? It’s possible to smuggle plastic guns through metal detectors. It’s possible to smuggle disassembled weapons in your luggage. Hell, it’s possible to acquire a weapon here. American servicemen are even allowed their own private weapons, as long as they register them with the MPs. No offense, but some of your friends are angry social misfits. Maybe one of them decided to make a bold point.”

“Don’t be stupid. Why would our people fire on the South Koreans?”

“Reverse that question. Why would the South Koreans fire on us? With television cameras right there?”

I could see from her expression she wasn’t in the mood to discuss this in a rational way, so I asked, “What’s the status of the trial?”

“I’ve filed for a two-week postponement.”

“And have you heard anything?”

“Only that Golden’s fighting it. He claims the massacre is irrelevant to the case.”

“I could’ve guessed that. He’s got all his ducks lined up. He wants his moment in the sun. Eddie’s in a mad rush to be famous.”

“Well, the judge is here, the witnesses are here, everything’s ready. How do you think they’ll decide?”

“It’s up to Spears and Brandewaite to make the decision. Brandewaite’s a diplomat, so I’m sure he wants to get this over with yesterday. He’ll see an early conviction as a way to start healing the rift.”

“There’s only one hang-up. It seems two of Thomas’s co-counsels could be facing charges with the civilian authorities.”

“Really? What are they looking to charge you with?”

“Filing a misleading statement to get authority for the protest. Inciting a riot. Also, it seems South Korea has this law called the National Security Act. They say I may be charged with something called ‘endangering the security of the Republic of Korea.’ ”

I was vaguely familiar with the law she was talking about. It was a controversial statute that had been on the books for thirty years, ever since one of the earlier dictators imposed it. It’s the kind of law every dictator dreams of, since it’s amorphous enough to be twisted and contorted in any direction.