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“According to the Russian News Agency TASS, ‘Arirang is a gymnastics and artistic festival, known as mass games. The extravaganza unfolds an epic story of how the Arirang nation of Korea, a country of morning calm, in the Orient put an end to the history of distress and rose as a dignified nation with the song 'Arirang'. The Arirang performance has been included in the Guinness Book of Records.’” — Arirang Festival
Fulghum reached his office five minutes before Silvia arrived with armloads of copies of papers related to the Anderson family. Seated in the captain’s chair across the desk from his, she arranged the papers in three neat piles. Satisfied, she looked Fulghum in the eyes and began.
“First, John, your office is a filthy sty. I love you, but you’re a slob. Admit it and repent. You should get a cleaning person to give it a once-over every month—whether it needs it or not.” She smiled at him brightly. He remained silent, steepling his index fingers and nodding for her to continue.
“Relax, Silvia. Have a Marlboro?”
Across the desk, he handed her a box of Marlboro Reds and a book of matches from the New York Hilton. She drew a cigarette from the box and lit it. She looked at the writing on the matchbook and smiled. Then she passed the box and matchbook back to Fulghum and he lit up as well. They shared his ashtray, which was not the pristine glass of the unused receptacle on Silvia’s desk at the Globe, but it would serve. She took a deep draft and expelled the smoke, which mingled with his to spiral up and disappear in the dark recess near the ceiling.
“All right, what I’ve brought is clearly in three piles.” As she recounted what each pile contained, her right hand touched the one she was addressing at the time. Her left hand wielded her cigarette like a baton.
She touched the pile to her left. “This pile is all about our deceased hero. It’s everything in the public domain and all spiked stories that never saw the light of day.” She paused while he squinted his eyes and nodded. “From this pile, you’ll see you’re dealing with a national hero of the first rank with an unimpeachable record on the bar and at the bench. What he lacks in philanthropy, he makes up in seclusion and mystery.”
She moved her hand to the center pile. “Moving right along, the second pile contains every reference to all of the Anderson clan. Birth notices, marriages, police reports, society articles, everything. I’ve arranged the articles under fourteen paperclips, one for each child and their resultant progeny. There are fourteen and not thirteen paperclips because the fourteenth clip contains gossip column reports about offspring of mistresses.” Again, she paused to gauge his reaction. He remained deadpan and nodded for her to continue. “In this pile, we get the bigger picture of an entire family of wealth and influence marrying into other wealthy families across generations. Clearly, gossip has been managed. Only in the youngest generation has technology made obfuscation difficult. The young lions and lionesses have been busy making fools of themselves in public.”
She stopped to chain light a cigarette. Then she laid her right hand on the last pile, a little thinner than the others. “The third pile is my favorite. It contains the hand-written notes of a pair of investigative reporters—let’s call them Currier and Ives for fun—who tried to fathom Anderson’s war history. Their investigation was summarily terminated by a phone call to the publisher of the Globe from someone way high up in the government. These are copies. The archives hold the originals. They’re filed away in the morgue as the Arirang Papers. I can’t overstate the sensitivity of these papers. Just what’s sensitive and what’s not, you’ll have to judge for yourself. These records officially don’t exist. When you’re done with them, please burn them page by page and stir the ashes so no one can reconstruct them.”
“Why don’t I just bring them back to you?”
“John, I like my job. No one at the Globe knows I made these copies. I’d like to keep it that way. Maybe you’ll find something interesting in them. I just don’t know. Anyway, this gift more than atones for my peccadillo with Darcy Figlear. That reminds me - Darcy called me this morning just before I left the office to come here.”
“Was her call a coincidence? You know I don’t believe in coincidences.” Fulghum was sitting upright in his chair, his eyes flashing with interest.
“She wanted to know what I was going to tell you about Anderson.” Silvia sat back in her chair and took a long drag on her Marlboro. Then she looked at the tip of her cigarette, took another from the box and chain lit it. “She knew you’d be in touch with me.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her about the first two piles sitting on your desk, but not about the Arirang Papers. I figured she had no need to know about that.”
“Did that satisfy her?” Fulghum asked, arching his brow in a way that implied his doubts.
“She wanted me to duplicate everything I was giving to you and give her the second copies. She’ll be dropping by my office at two o’clock this afternoon to pick up her set of copies.”
“I see. Thanks for the copies and the warning about Figlear. Do you have any other interesting data for me?” Fulghum chain lit another Marlboro and leaned forward to encourage her to talk.
“You’ll learn soon enough that the so-called homicide investigation will be limited to forty-eight hours. Frost has been reporting to City Desk from the Judge’s estate on Onota Lake. He’s also been calling me regularly as well. Not for publication is the fact that Pounce is furious he’s only got two days to make his case. He’s livid the Chief is trying to rush him to judgment as to the guilt of Harry Anderson, the eldest son of the deceased. Politics and justice—go figure!”
“What’s happened so far at the estate?”
“Officers Riley and Shaunessy, working for Pounce, have sealed it off. Pittsfield police are helping to enforce the quarantine. To start things going, Pounce assembled the entire household of twenty-odd employees in the Judge’s study yesterday morning. He demanded that none of them leave the grounds of the estate under threat of arrest as an accessory to murder. He ordered an APB for the apprehension of the Judge’s Korean executive assistant. She evidently was fired and sent away by the eldest son, Harry, the day the old man died. The Police Commissioner dispatched a police guard and special team, including forensics, from Boston to enforce Pounce’s orders while the investigation is in progress.”
“I understand what you mean about politics. I suppose Pounce is doing the usual police ritual with regard to a homicide?”
“Pounce ordered a meticulous search of the building and grounds. He wanted a complete inventory of any poisonous substances with their locations. He interviewed each of the household members privately with a stenographer and Officers Riley and Shaunessy present as witnesses.”
“All this is standard police procedure. Who are the current suspects?”
“First under suspicion, according to Frost, is Harry Anderson, the eldest son. Second is the judge’s butler Albert Maynard. Riley observed that the butler usually is the murderer.”
Fulghum laughed out loud and started coughing. He composed himself and told Silvia to continue.
“Pounce is opposed to Riley’s view. As it turned out, there was no motive for murder because of the terms of the latest will. Anyway, the butler has an iron-clad alibi - he was absent from the property the previous night as he was at the apartment of the well-known prostitute, Madame Lulu Ko.”
“Murder investigations do turn up the oddest associations.”
“I agree wholeheartedly. Madame Ko was summoned to corroborate the butler’s story. When Sadie Maynard, the butler’s wife, heard of her husband’s long-term infidelity, she was outraged and flew at her husband with a carving knife but was restrained from castrating him. Having been summoned to appear at the estate, Madame Ko claimed the butler owed her money for her services, but he denied this vehemently. Pounce ordered the prostitute removed bodily from the estate, confident the butler didn’t ‘do it’ this time, if he ever did it in the first place. He returned to sifting his evidence with the help of more sludge and sugar from the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts.”
They smoked in silence while he pondered her story.
Fulghum was the first to speak. “What progress has the investigative team made with the search for the Korean assistant?”
“I noticed when I arrived here that the woman’s automobile is still parked out in front of this building with a ticket on the windshield.”
“So that’s the car you mentioned when you called me?”
“Yes, it is. I found it odd.”
“What?”
“In the morning you spoke of poisoning and Anderson, yet not long afterward, the missing person’s car ended up in front of Joe’s Malt Shop.”
“I find it odd also.” He tapped his cigarette ash into the ashtray appearing as if he was lost in thought about the matter.
“I don’t believe in coincidences any more than you do, John. Come clean. Was she your client when you came to see me in my office?”
He knit his brow. “Categorically, no!” He stood up, stubbing his cigarette out. “Care to take a drive?” He picked up the sensitive pile of copies and placed them in the right third drawer of his desk, ostentatiously locking it with a small key on his key ring.
Silvia smiled, put out her cigarette and walked down the stairs to his car. Fulghum noticed the plainclothes policeman who was trying to look inconspicuous while keeping his eyes on the vehicle with the ticket on its windshield. Fulghum waved at Joe through the malt shop window. He extended his arm, and Silvia took it. Like a married couple, they walked down the street to his car and settled in for a drive down Route 128.
“Can you tell me anything I don’t already know, John?”
“Silvia, I don’t know what you know, but I can guess what you’re thinking. I do know I’m on dangerous ground. I don’t want to involve you. The going may get rough.”
She turned towards him, excited by the way things were going. “I knew there was a story in here somewhere. Goody! Can you give me any hints?”
“Ever the newshound, Silvia.”
“Ever the gumshoe, John.”
“Touché.”
“Well, if things do get rough and you need a place to recover, my door is always open.”
“Thank you. I know. The reason I asked us to talk outside my office is that the office may have a new bug. I wouldn’t be surprised if this car has a new bug also. I need to get a message to certain people Figlear knows, but I can’t be known as the source of information.” He paused and looked at her through squinting eyes.
“You look worried, John. It’s not like you.”
“No, I suppose it’s not. Will you give Figlear a message for me?”
“I don’t suppose you can write it down?”
“Definitely not. In fact, if you can get Figlear out of your office long enough to tell her the message, it would be prudent.”
“I can do that. What’s the message?”
“Tell her you need the name and contact number of one of her friends who knows the most about sayak.”
“Sayak?”
“Yes.”
“Is that the whole message?”
“Yes.”
“Should I mention your name in conjunction with this message?”
“No. But when you get the name and phone number from Figlear, call me on my cell phone. I’ll see it’s you from your Caller ID. I won’t answer. Just leave the one-word message ‘Mithridates’ on my voicemail. I’ll drop by your apartment that evening to pick up the information. By then I should know enough to talk intelligibly. I may have entered a killing zone. In that case, I’ll not be able to come. If you sense any danger to yourself, call my cell phone and leave the message, ‘Dunkin’ Donuts.’ Then go to the Dunkin’ Donuts where we first met. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
“John, you’ve gotten me frightened for you—and for me.”
“Perhaps it’s nothing. It pays to be cautious. I’ll drop you by your car.”
Fulghum’s cell phone rang as he said this. The caller ID was blocked. He ignored the call, which went straight to voicemail. Silvia’s phone then rang.
“This is Silvia. Oh, yes. What have you got? No. Have you told City Desk? Busy hell! Look, I’m out of the office, but I’ll be driving back there right now. Keep online and talk to me. I’m going to record everything. You’ve got your other cell phone with you, haven’t you? Well, speed-dial City Desk repeatedly until you get through.”
Silvia covered her audio input and whispered to Fulghum, “The Judge’s lawyer has just been murdered. His office has been plundered and burned. Pounce has ordered the murder scene sealed as an extension to his investigation and not a separate case. It’s better if you drive me straight to the Globe. I’ll pick up my car later, perhaps this evening. Is that okay with you?”
Fulghum nodded and headed for the Globe. Silvia kept listening to Frost’s reportage with her phone on record and speaker. He kept her cigarettes coming, watching for any signs of followers. A maroon Cadillac Coupe Deville seemed to be tailing him four cars back, but he could not be sure. When they arrived at the Globe building, Silvia flung open her door and charged up the steps with her cell phone to her ear. She did not turn to wave before she went through the door.
As Fulghum pulled out, he thought he recognized Darcy Figlear. The lithe woman had Figlear’s height and build. The giveaway was her gait. She made a beeline path to the Globe entrance, hell bent on business and so focused she did not notice him watching her. The detective thought of a large clock works with many cogs. It was almost time for Figlear’s two o'clock meeting with Silvia. Fulghum edged into traffic and received another call. He recognized the caller ID.
“Hello, Molly! Are you all right?”
“John, I’m so glad to get through. I’m fine, but this has been one nightmarish day.”
“Keep calm, Molly, is Nigel okay?”
“Nigel’s why I called. He needs your help right away, but he’s in a political fix, so he can’t contact you directly.”
“Can he fish in the evenings out there in Pittsfield?”
“How did you know he was in Pittsfield?”
“I suspect he might want to throw some lines in the water with me at Onota Lake. I can pick him up in my boat around ten o’clock tonight if he’s game. I’ll bring the bait. Tell him he’s to meet me at the pier jutting out from the estate where he’s working.”
“I’ll give him the message right away. Thank you, John.”
“Molly, are you really all right? And the kids?”
“We’re all fine. I’ve gotta go now to phone Nigel. I’ll talk to you later.”
She terminated the call. Fulghum breathed deeply and drew out a Marlboro. He decided he would not return to his office. He found the 128 and headed south to the Mass Pike. It was going to be a long drive out to Pittsfield, but he was sure he could be there on time to make his nighttime fishing date.
From Fulghum’s point of view, fishing was one of the best sports invented by humankind. It allowed the mind to follow wherever it was inclined to wander, while beneath the surface, a war was waged for lures, minnows, wet flies or other bait with death in the balance for fish and solutions in the balance for men. Fulghum and Pounce were fishing buddies from way back, for pleasure and business. They fished Pontoosuc and Onota Lakes, particularly whenever they needed to talk. Often Molly Pounce was the go-between when they could not talk with each other to arrange their meetings. Many a tricky case was managed sitting in a small boat with those two men watching a Massachusetts dawn or sunset.
Out on the steel-gray lake in a boat rigged for trolling, Pounce could pour out his frustrations to a like-minded individual who never bullshitted him and never gave him slack. When they communicated, they became one smooth-running machine working for justice in a cruel world of deceit and subterfuge. Molly had done it again, but this time her urgent call was necessary for both men’s needs.
Pounce needed to know things a policeman was not privileged to know by the rules. Fulghum needed to tell the police things he could not tell by dialing the usual numbers. It had been a fruitful relationship for over a dozen years. Fulghum had helped Pounce gain promotions and raises. He never asked for money. He never asked for payback of any kind. From the outside, their collaborations would have seemed sinister at best and possibly criminal. Rules were good, weren’t they? Of course, they were. The trouble was, the rules allowed hardened criminals to roam free. Expediency sent innocent people to prison for long terms. The bureaucracy often caused easily solvable cases to become cold.
As he drove along the Mass Pike, Fulghum thought about his long history with Pounce, now the head of homicide for the Boston police. They were both Tennessee Squires with tiny patches of land in Tennessee on a plot owned by the Jack Daniels brewery. Joseph Pounce, Nigel’s brilliant son, was now an agent of the CIA after proving his worth by solving an impossible case when he was still a minor. Colleen, Pounce’s beautiful and talented daughter, had been introduced to the intrepid Deputy Director of the CIA and became her intern and protégé after Fulghum’s introduction. If a family existed that was Fulghum’s perfect web work of relationships and not at all dysfunctional, it was the Pounces.
Molly Pounce was a Catholic woman who was unimpeachable and unfathomably good. Fulghum, though not a Catholic, thought of Molly as the earthly embodiment of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this Nigel Pounce, not originally a Catholic but a Presbyterian, fully agreed with his friend and collaborator. Pounce only regretted his busy schedule allowed too little time for him to enjoy the company of his spouse, son, and daughter. So fishing became the way the family, including Fulghum as its extension, came together.
Today the Massachusetts sky was melancholy. The forest-green landscape rose up in splendor to meet the pervading gray. Fulghum thought of the many times he had fished with Pounce. The first time on Pontoosuc, they had both taken record pike and turned them back into the leaden water. “Catch and release” was their policy, and it was wise since they often caught their record fish on subsequent occasions, each growing the legends the two fishermen spun. Joseph was a fisherman too, and during one fishing expedition, he had become a player with his father and Fulghum. The chance encounter changed the boy’s life forever and gave the nation another unimpeachable national asset.
Fulghum’s friend Kenneth Mander, known as Salamander in the black world that was his métier, was not a lake fisherman. He was a solitary fly fisherman who sought out almost inaccessible streams alone. Nevertheless, he benefitted from the lake fishing that Fulghum and Pounce did together. He tended the boundaries they could not cross. He and his connections patrolled the inchoate territories between police jurisdictions and the broader world where criminals and terrorists held sway. He was a denizen of regions most ordinary CIA agents could not comprehend because of Agency rules and protocols. Why? Because he and the Deputy Director of Operations, a formidable woman named Sheila McCaw, also known as the Crow, could collaborate and range widely in their nation’s defense. The DDO became the personal mentor of Colleen Pounce. She also became the personal sponsor of young agent Joseph Pounce. She did these things because of her relationship with Kenneth Mander, who was, in turn, a friend to John Fulghum.
As he drove westward into the sunset, Fulghum thought back through his history with Mander. He had difficulty remembering a time before he numbered Ken Mander among his lifelong friends and associates. Now Mander was his primary Agency contact working at the boundaries of the CIA and local law enforcement. Of course, Boston had its share of international criminal activities. The problem for both the local police and the Agency was sorting out how to handle each case. Sometimes it was necessary for the police to look the other way while the Agency took care of business. Sometimes it was necessary for the Agency to engineer a situation so local law enforcement could bring international criminals to justice under American criminal laws. As a former Special Forces soldier, Fulghum knew the fuzzy boundaries between ordinary law enforcement and the law of the jungle that prevailed outside the continental United States. The detective sincerely hoped his nation would not become numbered among the lawless failed states in which he had labored with the Special Forces.
Before he knew it, Fulghum was turning north towards Pittsfield, aware he was going to be arriving at Onota Lake early enough to rent a boat and fishing gear. He was obligated to pick Pounce up in a boat where the Anderson estate extended down into the lake’s water. He found the boathouse and rented the fully gassed-up metal motorboat he wanted for cash with a deposit, promising to return what he had rented before the following dawn. He also rented flotation devices, two cushions, plastic rain gear, two Shakespeare fishing poles fitted with reels and ten-pound test fish line and a large fish net. He bought a can of the bug repellant Off, a pair of pliers and a half-dozen Rapala lures and tied one on each line. He secured the lures by their hooks to the eyes on the rods. Then he stowed the rods in the boat within easy reach and shoved off.
At ten o’clock, Fulghum motored his metal boat towards the pier in the back of the Anderson estate. Not seeing Pounce on the pier, he cut his engine and loitered casting his lure into the night waters toward the shore where light from the estate fell on the glassine surface. Between casts, he stopped to spray his head, neck, arms and ankles with Off. After the sixth or seventh cast of his lure, a bat tried to catch the lure in flight and flew right by his left ear. The light from the pier was cut into silver coins in the black water when his lure hit the surface. He heard crickets and bullfrogs in a rising chorus. At ten thirty, a man walked from the estate proper down to the pier. He flashed a flashlight at the end of the pier, two flashes then a pause before two more flashes. Fulghum responded with the same sequence before he motored to the pier’s end and picked up Pounce.
Nigel Pounce climbed into the boat and shook Fulghum’s extended hand. The two remained silent as Fulghum shoved off and motored back out into the lake. They were a long way out from shore before Fulghum handed Pounce a fishing pole. Pounce needed no instruction to let his line out behind the boat. In a few minutes, the two fishermen were tending lines running a hundred feet back from either side of the boat. The boat continued running from shore while the men acclimated to their surroundings.
Finally, Pounce whispered, “I’m glad you could come. Things are a mess. The Chief wants me to make a definitive judgment and close my case within thirty-six hours. I needed to talk with you to get options. What do you think?”
“I think your case has become political. Justice will have little to do with the outcome. Though this may be true for every case, the special circumstances of this one will require unique handling.”
“How much do you know about this case? I understand a fugitive’s car ended up in front of your office.”
“As you know, I talked with Molly. I’m glad she and your children are well. I know only a few things about your case. I’m trying to learn more. It’s fair to say the Agency is deeply involved. The story goes back at least to the Korean War and maybe to World War II.”
Pounce whistled. “What do you think has been going on?”
“I’m guessing at the moment, but the Judge was playing wet black operations. His executive assistants were his arms and legs. Some of his targets were North Koreans actively working against us from within the US.”
“Do you have proof?”
“Have your men pry up the marble doorstep at the back entrance of the estate. They must take extreme care not to get anything under the marble moist. You should find records of the Judge’s work for an agency of some kind. The records are in the Korean language, and some are in a special code.”
“Are you suggesting I should turn the investigation over to the CIA or FBI?”
“You don’t know enough to do that now. The Agency will want to put out disinformation about the murder and seek justice on their own terms. Just don’t use my name as your source. Say the search was done on a hunch of your own. I think when you find the notebooks, you’ll be interdicted right away. I could be wrong. What you find might just be ignored.”
“I’ve just lost the lawyer I was going to use for deep background in cracking my case.”
“I know, but his knowledge was limited.”
“His office is now a wreck. The bastards who killed him ransacked and torched the place.”
“Do you think he had a copy of the deceased’s last will and testament?”
“I’d hoped so, yes.”
“What if I told you I know who the beneficiary of the last will actually is?”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me it was Harry, the eldest son.”
“No. Surprisingly, it was the Korean woman tending him during his final convalescence.”
“She may be our murder suspect, but no one can locate her. Do you, perchance, know where she’s hiding?”
“Nigel, I don’t know where she is now. I do know she has access to all the old secret records of the Judge’s work.”
“And a portion of those records are under the marble on the back stoop?”
“That’s so. At least, it’s what I’ve been told.”
“Look, John, paint me a picture so I can act within the next few hours and make a difference. If my clock runs out without a solution, I’m finished. Both the Commissioner and the Chief are counting on me. They’ve made promises to some very powerful people who’ll want my head if I fail.”
“Relax and tend your line. I’m not sure how much of what I’m going to tell you is true, but if any of it is true, this case is bigger than the untimely death of a centenarian. If it’ll help, I brought Jack Daniels to lend a hand through this night.” Fulghum handed his friend an unopened bottle of the brown elixir. Pounce opened the bottle and took a long drink. He handed it to Fulghum, who also drank. The detective lit a Marlboro and began to talk while he smoked.
“Nigel, I’m not saying this. You aren’t hearing it. I’ll deny it if I’m ever asked about one detail I tell you. Agreed?”
“I guess so. Yes. I agree. What’ve you got?”
“I have learned recently of a history of assassinations stretching back until at least the Korean War, many victims being killed on American shores.”
“Good Lord!”
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. Anderson was a war hero, but somehow in the process of his winning the Congressional Medal of Honor, he became involved with the intelligence agencies of both Korea and the USA. He employed workers from the same family who nursed him back to health after his fabled action behind the lines in North Korea. They became his agents and assassins. I don’t know who gave the orders, but I suspect they came from the highest levels of both governments concerned.”
“So you think the Judge was a clandestine agent of America and a foreign power for over fifty years?”
“I do indeed. In fact, no one but a government could have supported such actions over that long period. A special bond between the control and the agents had to exist during that time so the operations could be continued.”
“You’re talking murders.”
“Yes, and one-half of the documentations of those murders lies buried under that marble slab at the estate.”
“You’re aware the Judge’s lawyer has been killed as well?”
“That makes at least three dead in the last week. The Judge’s former executive assistant, Judge Anderson and his lawyer. I expect you discovered all the records at the lawyer’s office were destroyed?”
“How did you guess that?”
Fulghum waited a long time before he responded.
“I believe the lawyer was the hidden hand in the operations for at least the last couple of decades. I also believe the assassin who killed him was hoping to eliminate the final will that the Judge wrote as well as the only credible witness to his activities.”
“What will was that?”
“It was the will leaving everything to the woman named Kim Su Baek, his last assistant. She’s the woman you’re trying to find right now.”
“Jesus Christ Almighty. How do you know these things?”
“It’s better you don’t know. It’s also better that no one else besides us knows about the terms of the last verifiable will. I believe the inheritance terms will tell us who actually killed Judge Anderson. That’s a different line of thought from the long list of assassinations done in the name of national security during the continuing Korean War.”
“The man who now looks most likely as the murderer is Harry Anderson.”
“I’m convinced that man’s innocent.”
“Why do you think so?”
“He has too much to lose. Don’t forget the Andersons are a venerable Boston family needing the support of the blue-bloods. Harry Anderson is not a Lizzy Borden.”
“If he didn’t kill his father, who did? My next suspect is the Korean woman who disappeared—the one you say is Anderson’s sole heir.”
“Nigel, I don’t believe she committed the murder either.”
“Wow. What makes you sure she didn’t?”
“Are you aware she was the deceased’s daughter by his fourth wife?”
“What? I’ve been over this case with a fine tooth comb. Anderson had three wives and by them, thirteen children. Now you’re telling me there was a fourth wife and a fourteenth child. You’re also telling me she was made his sole heir. That breaks every rule of the social code in New England.”
“Nigel, sometimes when you go for the truth, all the old paradigms fall by the wayside. I won’t violate client privilege by telling you I have access to the evidence of the Judge’s fourth marriage. I also have access to the birth certificate of his daughter.”
“This is almost too absurd to be true.”
“There’s more. I know where the final signed and witnessed last will and testament is right now.”
“You do? What are you saying, John?”
“I’m saying the latest assassination of the lawyer was not sufficient to eliminate the will in question. The perpetrators may have thought they destroyed the will, but they didn’t. They hoped the fourteenth child would be incarcerated and silenced. Instead, she escaped the state and the country. She’s right now obtaining the records you won’t find when you look under that marble slab tomorrow morning.”
“What records are those?”
“The records that go back to the Korean Armistice. Those will connect the current history to the distant past. Looking at the whole picture will give your investigation the perspective you’ll need to discover the true offenders.”
Nigel was silent while he pondered what Fulghum had said. He drank Jack Daniels whiskey and passed the bottle back to Fulghum. They tended their lures while the moon continued its nocturnal travel. An otter broke surface near the boat and sank again. Far off, a loon uttered its mournful cry.
“John, I need to talk with your client.”
“In due course, you will. Right now, her life’s in danger. Consider that she’s the only link between the historical data and the Judge. Now that the lawyer is dead, she’s all alone. Whoever killed the others will probably try to kill her also.”
“How did she come to you?”
“The lawyer sent her to find me after she’d been dismissed from her employment. The Judge had given his lawyer instructions to send the girl to me if anything went wrong. I don’t know why he did that. I never knew him.”
“Stupid Harry Anderson! If he hadn’t sacked the girl, we’d be able to question her right now.”
“Often doing the expedient thing is wrong in the long term. In fact, the eldest son’s peremptory action may have saved the woman’s life.”
“I can understand that. I’m not pleased, though, you didn’t connect me with her right after she contacted you.”
“You’ll have to live with that, and so will I, Nigel. I went with my gut instinct. Do you want to know more?”
“I feel supersaturated now, but I’d better hear it all. We may have difficulty communicating again before this case is terminated by higher authority.”
The two passed the bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth as the motorboat turned back towards the pier where Fulghum had picked Pounce up. Fulghum spoke in whispers because he knew how far sound carried over still water.
“The EA’s family is connected to the royal family in Korea.”
“Korea doesn’t have a royal family.”
“Not today, but Korea was once ruled by kings with big, contentious families. They are masters of poisoning, with a substance called sayak. The art passed from mother to daughter. She learned her skills from her mother and grandmother. I’m convinced they were all agents of the KCIA, the Korean counterpart to our Central Intelligence Agency. Kim Su Baek is a genius and well trained. She’s also a Korean citizen and probably KCIA.”
“Assuming all this is true, what mitigates their having committed murders on US soil?”
“The Korean War never ended. An armistice has held the conflict in limbo since the actual fighting ceased. It’s a Korean Cold War that has outlasted the Cold War between the US and the USSR, though the two are certainly related. During the continuation of the Korean War, agents of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK have infiltrated the United States. KCIA agents have infiltrated the DPRK. Enforcement had to be handled by some entity, but it couldn’t be handled here by the CIA or FBI.”
“Why not?”
“Because neither organization could be trusted at the level we are talking about.”
“So what do you think happened?”
“I think the South Koreans created Anderson as the dream connection that would last until he died. They used him by joining him with their trusted KCIA agents, who kept him alive all these years. You have to understand how important lineage is to the Koreans. They had to have a guarantee that their interests would be protected. Anderson was their trusted enforcer in the USA. Whenever the South Koreans discovered a North Korean agent had been infiltrated into America, they sent Anderson the details, and he took care of the problem.”
“You mean, he killed on orders.”
“I mean exactly that. Our CIA’s hands were tied. Our FBI had to look the other way. Our people couldn’t be counted on to remember what was at stake. Anderson remembered. He was remarkable. His son was not worthy to succeed him. South Korea must have been desperate to find a replacement in the event of the Judge’s death. While they deliberated, they played with fire and prolonged his life.”
“He lived over one hundred years. Do you mean to say he remained active until he died?”
“Yes. Every time it was rumored that his wits were failing, he rallied. His mind could run circles around his eldest son’s mind.”
“So in the end, he had to die.”
“Yes, but he was not ready to die when he expired. He was pushed over the line by someone.”
“Do you know who that someone was?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”
“I can do only two things. First, I can lift the marble slab and find what’s under it. Second, I can refocus my search on everyone except the eldest son and the former assistant. In the meantime, if you get the chance, tell Kim Su Baek I’d like to talk with her. I won’t violate her security, but I desperately need to connect the dots and find the killer.”
The boat was running up to the pier at the Judge’s estate. Pounce made up his fishing pole. He shook the detective’s hand and prepared to climb out of the boat. Fulghum steered the boat so Pounce could jump onto the pier.
It was a smooth execution. As soon as Pounce had leapt to the pier, Fulghum revved up his motor and drove along the shore to the boathouse. There he made his line to the cleat that belonged to the boat. He dropped the rented gear at the drop off point. He stowed the Off and extra Rapala lures in his trunk.
He climbed into his car for the long drive home to Boston. He was exhausted, but he reminded himself of his work in Central Asia, which never ended. Always on watch while in uniform, he was a numbered national asset. He knew the stakes and what was required of him.
Fulghum checked his cell phone messages to find one. Silvia had left the message, “Mithridates.” She had not invoked their emergency protocol yet. He knew he’d have to rush home to Boston, but her life was not in danger.
He responded to her message with a simple “K” and drove into the Massachusetts night.