The Wandering Ghost Read Online Free Page B

sag. Her eyes were blank and her mouth open. I almost expected to see spittle roll across her pink lips.
    “Korvachek?” Ernie asked.
    Slowly, she looked up. The embroidered name tag on her fatigue shirt confirmed that Ernie was right. The insignia pinned to her collar was PFC.
    A. Korvachek. Private First Class. Corporal Jill Matthewson’s roommate.
    Korvachek gazed at Ernie, but the expression on her face didn’t change.
    Ernie reached down, cupping her narrow chin in the palm of his hand, and tilted her head back. Blue eyes continued to stare up at him. Lifeless.
    Ernie let her chin go and stepped away. He turned to three men standing at the far end of a counter. They’d stopped working now and were looking at us. The ranking man wore the insignia of a buck sergeant.
    “You let her come to work like this?” Ernie asked.
    The buck sergeant shrugged. “It’s her life.”
    I read his name tag: HOLLINGS.
    “She should be in a program,” Ernie said.
    “Been in one. Fell off the wagon a week ago.”
    Ernie looked back at Specialist Korvachek. The MP report said her first name was Anne. Ernie walked over to the water cooler in the corner of the office, grabbed a paper cup from the dispenser, and filled it with water. Then he walked across the office to Korvachek’s desk and tossed the cold water directly into her face.
    She sat up sputtering.
    I expected her to start cursing but she was too surprised. Ernie stepped around the desk, grabbed her by the arm and hoisted her to her feet, walking her toward the open door.
    I followed, closing the door as we left the office, warning off the three men inside with my eyes. Soon, the three of us were in the center of the warehouse. Piles of folded canvas and green wool blankets towered above us like pungent cliffs of cloth.
    “Matthewson,” Ernie said, grabbing Korvachek by her narrow shoulders. “Talk.”
    The young woman’s head swiveled and her eyes rolled. “You’re cops.”
    “Good guess, Miss Marple. What happened to Jill Matthewson?”
    “I don’t know. She’s gone.”
    “Gone where?”
    “There.” She pointed vaguely toward the main gate and beyond to the city of Tongduchon.
    “She went to the ville?” Ernie said.
    “Yeah.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “She always went to the ville. She worked there and when she was off duty she went there, too.”
    “Why?”
    “Why?” Korvachek seemed surprised by the question. She waved her hand again. “To get away from this shit.”
    “To get away from the army?
    “Yeah. And all the jerks who are trying to pinch your butt and call you names.”
    “Some of the other MPs were giving her a hard time?”
    “Of course. I told that other guy that. The one with the big nose. What’s his name?”
    “Bufford?” Ernie asked.
    “Yeah, that’s right. Mr. Bufford.”
    “So this GI who was giving Jill a hard time, what was his name?”
    “Not a GI,” Korvacheck said. “Any GI. They’re always making comments about your body, or what they want to do with you, or rubbing their crotch and leering. You know, things like that. That’s why Jill wanted to get away.”
    None of this had been in Bufford’s report. Not surprising. Not only would he not want to embarrass the Division but in the United States Army such behavior is so routine that it’s not worth mentioning.
    A door opened and slammed, the same door Ernie and I had used to enter the Central Issue Facility. I motioned to Ernie and we ushered Anne Korvachek deeper into the bowels of the CIF warehouse. Once in a position where we hoped nobody could hear us, we stopped. Above us now, instead of mothballed army blankets, a jagged mountain of entrenching tools—short-handled shovels— loomed. Ernie resumed his questioning.
    “When Jill went to the ville,” he asked, “where did she go?”
    “I don’t know exactly,” Korvachek answered. “We weren’t that close. She didn’t tell me.”
    She pouted as she crossed her arms. Ernie let go of her and