The Iron Sickle by Martin Limon

cart?”
    “Where else? But I couldn’t sleep much.”
    I already knew many of the
pochang macha
owners were virtual mendicants. Their cart was their livelihood and their home. Without it, they had nothing.
    She looked up at me, her eyes crinkled. “Will they be done before the evening rush starts?”
    “We’ll see,” I said. I returned to Mr. Kill.
    “We’ll send what we have to the lab,” he said, “and it will be given top priority.”
    “I don’t expect much,” I said.
    “Why not?”
    “This man seems very cautious. Everything is well thought out and he spends as little time as possible at the crime scene.”
    “Like a trained agent.”
    “Maybe,” I said.
    Ernie was wandering around on the far side of the cart. Behind him, an American MP jeep rolled up. I recognized the driver, Staff Sergeant Moe Dexter. Moe leaned out of the window, the usual broad smile on his face. He was one of the shift leaders and he and his men rotated between day, swing, and midnight shifts. Ernie and Moe traded barbs. Laughter echoed across the roadway.
    “At the fruit stand in the Itaewon Market,” Mr. Kill said, “what was it you were looking for?”
    I told him about the totem with the grill of twisted wire and the dead rat.
    “You think this might’ve had something to do with the crime?”
    “The dark passageway through the Itaewon Market was the logical escape route. This contraption was set up directly in our path. Anyone walking that way with a flashlight was intended to see it. Then, before dawn, it was taken away.”
    “What do you think it means?”
    “I think there was a message in it. Possibly from the killer.”
    Mr. Kill asked me to describe it to him in more detail. I did. He listened intently, not taking notes.
    The forensic technicians were about done with their work, and Mr. Kill left to have a final chat with them. The MP jeep zoomed off. Ernie walked toward me.
    “They find anything?”
    “Nothing yet. What did Dexter want?”
    “You know him. Just wants to poke his pug nose into everything.”
    “How are the MPs taking the death of Corporal Collingsworth?”
    “They want us to catch the guy.”
    “Is that what Dexter just said?”
    “Not exactly.” Ernie stared after the now disappeared jeep.
    “Well, what did he say?”
    “He said the gooks better not screw this up.”
    “Does he know Mr. Kill is on the case?”
    “Sure he does. Word spread fast.”
    “And he’s the best the KNPs have.”
    “That cuts no ice with Dexter. He knows what the KNPs are like. If it’s not convenient for them, they’ll cover it up.”
    “Not with us around.”
    “You know that, I know that, but Dexter and most of the MPs don’t know that. They believe when push comes to shove, we’ll do whatever Eighth Army tells us to do.”
    “Just like them.”
    “Just like most of them.”
    After we finished at the crime scene, Mr. Kill hustled us back into his sedan and Officer Oh drove west on the MSR, past 8th Army Compound and past the ROK Army headquarters. At the Samgak-ji circle, she turned north.
    “Where are we going?” Ernie asked.
    “I have a lead,” Mr. Kill said. “My colleagues have been questioning Korean Eighth Army employees who have recently applied for replacement identification badges. Most of them were innocuous.” I started at the word, remembering again that Mr. Kill had polished his English at an Ivy League school. He continued. “The badges were worn or damaged in some way. One man, however,applied for a replacement badge only one day before the murder of Mr. Barretsford.”
    “You talked to him?”
    “Not me, but one of my investigators talked with him at length, and with his wife. It appears that when he came home from a bout of drinking, not only had the badge disappeared from the clip on his lapel but also long blonde hairs were clinging to the material and the jacket reeked of perfume.”
    “Uh oh.”
    “The employee admitted that he’d stopped for drinks at an