Up Country (3 page)

We began walking, Karl and I, along the Wall, our breaths misting in the cold air. At the base of the wall were flowers, left by friends and family, and I recalled that the last time I’d been here, many years ago, someone had left a baseball glove, and when I saw it, before I knew what was happening, tears were rolling down my face.

In the early years of the memorial, there had been a lot of such things left at the Wall: photos, hats, toys, even favorite foods, like a box of Nabisco graham crackers, which I saw that time. Today, I noticed, there weren’t any personal items, just flowers, and a few folded notes stuck in the seams of the Wall.

The years have passed, the parents die, the wives move on, the brothers and sisters don’t forget, but they’ve already been here and don’t need to return. The dead, young as they were for the most part, didn’t leave many children, but the last time I was here, I met a daughter, a lady in her early twenties, who never knew her father. I never knew a daughter, so for about ten minutes, we filled a little of the emptiness in each other, the missing parts, then we went our separate ways.

For some reason, this made me think of Cynthia, of marriage, children, home and hearth, and all sorts of warm and fuzzy things. If Cynthia were here, I might have proposed marriage, but she wasn’t here, and I knew I’d be myself again by morning.

Karl, who had probably been thinking similar thoughts about war and peace, mortality and immortality, said, “I try to come here once a year, on August 17, the anniversary of a battle I was in.” He stayed silent a while, then continued, “The battle of Highway 13 . . . Eleventh Armored Cavalry, the Michelin rubber plantation. You may have heard of it. A lot of people around me were dying. So, I come here on August 17, and say a prayer for them, and a prayer of thanks for myself. It’s the only time I pray.”

“I thought you used to go to church every Sunday.”

“One goes to church with the wife and children.”

He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. We turned and walked back the way we came.

He said, in a different tone of voice, “So, are you curious about the man who was murdered?”

“I may be curious. But I really don’t want to know.”

“If that were the case, you’d leave.”

“I’m being polite, Colonel.”

“I would have enjoyed that politeness when you worked for me. But as long as you’re being polite, hear me out.”

“If I listen, I can be subpoenaed at some future judicial proceeding. Says so in the manual.”

“Believe me, this meeting and this conversation never took place. That’s why we’re here, not in Falls Church.”

“I already figured that out.”

“May I begin?”

I was on solid ground now; the next step was a greased slope. There was not a single good reason in the world that I could think of for me to listen to this man. But I wasn’t thinking hard enough.
Cynthia
. Get a job, get a life, or whatever she said.

Karl asked, “May I begin?”

“Can I stop you anytime I want?”

“No. If I begin, you listen, I end.”

“Is this a criminal case?”

“I believe homicide is criminal, yes. Do you have any other stupid questions?”

I smiled, not because of the insult, but because I was getting on his nerves. “You know what? To prove how stupid I really am, I’ll listen.”

“Thank you.”

Karl had walked away from the Wall toward the Women’s Memorial, and I walked with him. He said, “It has come to the attention of the CID that a young lieutenant, who is listed as killed, or perhaps missing in action, was in fact murdered in the city of Quang Tri, on 7 February 1968, during the Tet Offensive battle for that city.” He added, “I believe you were in Quang Tri Province at that time.”

“Yes, but I have an alibi for that day.”

“I only mention that as a coincidence. In fact, your unit was some
kilometers away from the provincial capital of Quang Tri City on that day. But you can appreciate the background, and visualize the time and place.”

“You bet. I also appreciate you checking my service records.”

Hellmann ignored this and continued, “I was, as I said, with the Eleventh Armored Cavalry, stationed at Xuan Loc, but operating around Cu Chi at about that time. I don’t remember that particular day, but that whole month during the Tet Offensive was unpleasant.”

“It sucked.”

“Yes, it sucked.” He stopped walking and looked at me. “Regarding this American lieutenant, we have evidence that he was murdered by an American army captain.”

Karl let that sink in, but I didn’t react. Now, I’d heard what I didn’t want to hear, and now I was in possession of a Secret. Details to follow.

We stared at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, the three nurses, one tending to the wounded guy lying on sandbags, one kneeling close by, and the other looking up at the sky for the medevac chopper. The four figures were in light clothing, and I felt cold just looking at them.

I said to Karl, “These statues should be closer to the Wall. The last person a lot of those guys over there saw or talked to before they died was a military nurse.”

“Yes, but perhaps that juxtaposition would be too morbid. This man here looks to me as though he will live.”

“Yeah . . . he’s going to make it.”

So we stayed silent awhile, lost in our thoughts. I mean, these are statues, but they bring the whole thing back again.

Karl broke the silence, and continued, “We don’t know the name of the alleged murderer, nor do we know the alleged murder victim. We know only that this captain murdered this lieutenant in cold blood. We have no corpse—or I should say, we have many corpses, all killed by the enemy, except the one in question. We do know that the murder victim was killed by a single pistol shot to the forehead, and that may narrow down the name of the victim based on battlefield death certificates issued at that time. Unless, of course, the body was never found, and the victim is listed as missing in action. Are you following me?”

“I am. A United States Army captain pulls his pistol and shoots a United States Army lieutenant in the forehead. This is presumably a fatal wound. This happened in the heat of battle nearly thirty years ago. But let me play defense counsel—maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe it was one of
those unfortunate instances where a superior officer shot a lower-ranking officer for cowardice in the face of the enemy. It happens, and it’s not necessarily murder, or even illegal. Maybe it was self-defense, or an accident. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” I added, “But of course, you have a witness. So I shouldn’t speculate.”

We turned and began walking back toward the Wall. The light was fading, people came and went, a middle-aged man placed a floral wreath at the base of the black granite and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.

Hellmann watched the man a moment, then said, “Yes, there was a witness. And the witness described a cold-blooded murder.”

“And this is a reliable witness?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who and where is this witness?”

“We don’t know where he is, but we have his name.”

“And you want me to find him.”

“Correct.”

“How did you first hear from this witness?”

“He wrote a letter.”

“I see . . . so, you have a missing witness to a thirty-year-old murder, no suspect, no corpse, no murder weapon, no motive, no forensic evidence, and the murder took place in a godforsaken country very far from here. And you want me to solve this homicide.”

“That’s correct.”

“Sounds easy. Can I ask you why? Who cares after thirty years?”

“I care. The army cares. A murder was committed. There is no statute of limitations on murder.”

“Right. You realize that this lieutenant who was killed, or is missing, is believed by his family to have died honorably in battle. So what is gained by proving that he was murdered? Don’t you think his family has suffered enough?” I nodded toward the man at the Wall.

“That is not a consideration,” said Karl Hellmann, true to form.

“It is to me,” I informed him.

“It’s not that you think too much, Paul, it’s that you think of the wrong things.”

“No, I don’t. I think that there is a name on this wall that is best left alone.”

“There’s a murderer at large.”

“Maybe, maybe not. For all we know, the alleged murderer was later
killed in action. That was a nasty time, and odds are that this captain got killed in battle.”

“Then his name doesn’t belong on this wall with those men who died honorably.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

“I knew you’d understand.”

“I think we worked together too long.”

“We worked well together.”

This was news to me. Maybe he meant we got the job done together, which was true, despite our big differences in personalities, and the fact that one of us was a stickler for rules, while the other was definitely not.

We walked away from the Vietnam Women’s Memorial and stopped at the three bronze male statues: two white guys and a black guy, who were supposed to represent a marine, an army guy, and a sailor, but they were all dressed in jungle fatigues, so it was hard to tell. They were staring at the Wall, as if they were contemplating the names of the dead, but in a creepy sort of way, these guys looked dead themselves.

Karl turned toward the wall and said, “At first, I didn’t like that Wall. I preferred these heroic bronze statues because the Wall, for all its abstractness and metaphorical nuances, was in reality just a massive tombstone, a common grave with everyone’s name on it. That’s what disturbed me. Then . . . then I accepted it. What do you think?”

“I think we have to accept it for what it is. A tombstone.”

“Do you ever feel survivor’s guilt?”

“I might have, if I hadn’t been there. Can we change the subject?”

“No. You once told me that you bear no ill will toward the men who didn’t serve. Is that true?”

“It’s still true. Why?”

“You said you were more angry at the men who did go to Vietnam, but who didn’t do their job—men who let the others down, men who engaged in dishonorable acts, such as rape and robbery. Men who carelessly killed civilians. Is that still true?”

“Finish the briefing.”

“Yes. So, we have this captain, who most likely murdered a junior officer. I want to know the name of this captain and the name of the murdered lieutenant.”

I noticed that the obvious question of why—the motive—hadn’t specifically come up. Maybe, as with most cases of murder in wartime, the
motive was petty, illogical, and unimportant. But maybe it was the central reason for digging up a thirty-year-old crime. And if it was, and if Karl wasn’t mentioning it, then I wasn’t going to mention it. I stuck to the facts at hand and said, “All right, if you want some reality checks, consider that this captain—this alleged murderer—if he didn’t die in combat could be dead of natural causes by now. It’s been thirty years.”

“I’m alive. You’re alive. We have to find out if
he’s
alive.”

“Okay. How about the witness? Do we know if
he’s
alive?”

“No, we don’t. But if he’s not, we want to know that, too.”

“When is the last time this witness showed signs of life?”

“Eight February 1968. That’s the date on the letter.”

“I know the army post office is slow, but this is a record.”

“In fact, the witness was not an American soldier. He was a soldier in the North Vietnamese army, named Tran Van Vinh. He was wounded during the battle of Quang Tri City, and was in hiding among the ruins. He witnessed these two Americans arguing and witnessed the captain pulling his pistol and shooting the lieutenant. In his letter, which he wrote to his brother, he referred to the murderer as dai-uy—captain—and the murder victim as trung-uy—lieutenant.”

“There were some marines around Quang Tri at that time. Maybe this is not a case for the army.”

Hellmann replied, “Tran Van Vinh, in his letter, mentioned that these two men were ky-binh—cavalry. So obviously he saw their U.S. Army First Cavalry shoulder patches, which he knew.”

I pointed out, “The First Cavalry Division, of which I was a member, had over twenty thousand men in it.”

“That’s correct. But it does narrow it down.”

I thought about all this for a moment, then asked Karl, “And you have this letter?”

“Of course. That’s why we’re here.”

“Right. And the letter was addressed to this guy’s brother. How did you get it?”

“In a very interesting way. The brother was also a North Vietnamese soldier, named Tran Quan Lee. The letter was found on Tran Quan Lee’s body in the A Shau Valley in mid-May of the same year by an American soldier named Victor Ort, who took it as a souvenir. The letter was sent home by Ort and lay in this man’s steamer trunk full of other war memorabilia for almost thirty years. Very recently, Ort sent the letter to the Vietnam Veterans
of America, based here in Washington. This organization asks its members to return found and captured enemy documents and artifacts, and to provide information that these veterans might have concerning enemy dead. This information is then turned over to the Vietnamese government in Hanoi to help the Vietnamese discover the fate of their missing soldiers.”

“Why?”

“They are no longer the enemy. They have McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Saigon. In any case, we want them to help us find
our
missing in action. We still have about two thousand MIAs unaccounted for. They have an astounding three hundred thousand missing.”

“I think they’re all in San Diego.”

“No, they’re all dead. Including Tran Quan Lee, killed in the A Shau Valley, possibly by Mr. Ort, though he was vague about that.” Hellmann continued, “So, this American veteran, Victor Ort, sent the letter he found on the body of Tran Quan Lee to the Vietnam Veterans of America, with a note saying how, where, and when he found the letter and the body. The VVA, as a courtesy to the men who are sending such letters, had the letter translated, and was about to send the translation to Mr. Ort, but someone at the VVA—a retired army officer—read the translation and realized that what he was reading was an eyewitness account to a murder. This man then contacted us. A civilian would have contacted the FBI.”