The Ultimate Inspector, Kang Ji-hyeok - Chapter 57



Only Noblemtl

Episode 57

“I never thought that the perpetrator and the victim were lovers.”

Honestly, I was surprised too.

I thought we were on good terms, but I didn’t know we were romantically involved.

“Are you saying that the two were lovers until the day of the incident?”

“It’s subtly different. That······.”

Hyejin tilted her head slightly.

‘Subtly different? Then it would be difficult to accept as legal evidence.’

Ji-cheol said something like, “What’s the problem with that?”

“Can’t we just accept as evidence the testimony that they are lovers?”

I said something to Ji-cheol.

Misusing evidence in this way is sure to be met with backlash.

Most people would rather tell the truth to a lawyer than to a prosecutor.

“No. If there is even a slight possibility of breaking the logic, it can be used as evidence, but if that one piece of logic breaks, everything becomes useless in court.”

“The fact that he is trying to tell a story with such thorough evidence is why I decided to follow Prosecutor Kang.”

Ji-cheol immediately admitted his mistake after hearing Hye-jin and me speak.

“I’m sorry. I guess I got too caught up in the military courts. I learned another thing, Your Honor.”

Ji-cheol quickly agrees.

He neither insists nor is stubborn.

I asked Hyejin the reason for the subtlety.

“Why is the testimony so subtle?”

“You will listen to the recording later, but there is testimony from acquaintances and the victim’s family that they broke up four months ago and that they did not see each other often enough to be considered lovers.”

“Even if he’s an acquaintance, he came from the family?”

“Yes. He said they met about two or three times a month. It must be true, since it’s the testimony of my roommate.”

Hyejin hesitated for a moment.

I caught her heart and told her.

“So you think it would be credible based on your intuition from your time as a detective?”

Hyejin nodded.

The peach tea she was drinking was almost empty.

Ji-cheol finished organizing the CCTV footage into files with a tired face.

The two must have been running around all day.

“I’ll take care of the rest, so you two go home. I’m more than happy to stay up all night by myself.”

They prepared to leave work together.

“Hyejin, I’ll give you a lift home.”

“I’m a former detective. It’s okay.”

Just because you have a criminal background doesn’t mean you’re immune to danger.

“Be careful. People who are good at fighting tend to get hurt more.”

Hyejin also nodded at my words.

“Well, it seems that even among detectives, the most skilled ones are more often victimized by criminals. It’s so late at night, so please take me home, Detective.”

“Haha. Sure.”

Ji-cheol gave me a small, grateful smile and disappeared with her.

“Office romance is prohibited. Kim Ji-cheol.”

I muttered like that.

It was also sincere.

Beep.

I wrote a few lines and letters on the whiteboard.

[Lovers? Broke up 4 months ago? See you occasionally?]

‘Choi Jin-cheol. At least it wasn’t an accident caused by bad luck. It was definitely an incident.’

It was clearly intentional.

It was an incident where he deliberately bumped into a woman he had been seeing on the stairs, even though they were not his lovers, and at least he was more than a friend.

Click.

The CCTV footage that Ji-cheol collected also clearly proved the hypothesis.

“Gotcha, you son of a bitch.”

In an instant, a scene flashed through my mind.

It was a tattoo engraved on both wrists.

I found a video of the interrogation room where the wrist was deliberately raised and recorded.

‘If it’s SY, then it’s probably the English abbreviation for Suyeon, the victim and the woman. If that flower drawing is also a tattoo that symbolizes eternal love, then could it be that problems arose after breaking up with a lover?’

But that alone didn’t paint a picture in my head.

It bothered me the whole time I was staring at the whiteboard.

It was that uncomfortable feeling that got stuck in my teeth after eating delicious beef.

“It keeps bothering me. Something······.”

Something flashed through my mind.

We quickly checked the victim’s belongings.

As I went through my inventory, I kept finding myself searching for reasons why my insight and memory were somehow disconnected.

“This was it. The reason why I felt uneasy······’”

Her list of belongings did not include a ‘cell phone’.

Even though it’s 2008, there’s no way someone doesn’t have a cell phone.

Even more so if you are a woman in her 20s who went out for an interview.

“Cell phone······.”

One of the hundreds of CCTVs I had seen earlier came to mind.

The ability I have, my memory, has been activated.

“When the guy who was asking the victim if he was okay finally climbed up the stairs and entered the street, he was holding the victim’s cell phone in his arms.”

That CCTV footage left a lingering feeling in my head. The moment I found the key that said ‘no cell phone’, I felt a sense of relief, as if a piece of beef that had been stuck between my teeth was slipping out.

The vague chain of events has been connected.

This incident was not just a case of trying to kill a woman he loved by pretending it was an accident.

‘Could it be that he was prepared to kill the woman in order to steal her cell phone?’

As I investigated the case, my insight was not that there was any retaliation against his ex-girlfriend, but rather that it was pointing to the missing cell phone.

widely.

I wiped the name and photo of Jincheol Choi off the whiteboard with my palm.

“What are you hiding? You want me to know that this isn’t just a murder case?”

As dawn approached, I lay down on the sofa and tried to sleep.

The final answer to all questions was to go to the scene of the incident and check it out.

* * *

“I made some coffee.”

“thank you.”

As the coffee HyunA gave me seeped into my body, my heavy head became clearer.

I tapped Ji-cheol on the shoulder while he was working in the office.

“I should go. I guess I missed something.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“···Do you know where it is?”

Ji-cheol smiled as he picked up his car keys.

“The scene of the incident. You’ll feel better if you go to Gunja Station, right?”

Around Gunja Station.

There were several stations around the large intersection.

“This is it.”

Standing in front of the exit where the accident occurred, I took out the map and checked it.

“Exit 3······.”

Perhaps because I had seen the road on CCTV all night, it felt familiar.

Damn it.

Damn it.

He walked to the CCTV in front of the entrance just like Jincheol did.

There is one pharmacy.

A small plastic surgery clinic.

And a convenience store.

It was an ordinary road, nothing special.

“She said she went for an interview, but there’s no place here where a graduate of the urban engineering department she studied would go.”

The Department of Urban Engineering was a department that prepared to solve complex urban problems and create smart cities by utilizing various IT.

Let’s say that this is the basic setting of the Urban Studies department. After all, upon graduating from here, you will be employed as a civil servant in various places such as construction companies, architecture-related engineering companies, research institutes for land research or transportation research, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, or the Ministry of Environment.

“Since when? Universities have become specialized schools for employment.”

“That’s true. How well you get a job has become a criterion for choosing a university.”

“I know.”

Ji-cheol, who was watching my actions from the side, pointed out something to me.

“If you want to know the perpetrator’s situation clearly, turn your head to the right. About 10 degrees.”

I turned my head at Ji-cheol’s words.

“I looked upwards a little. Just for a brief moment.”

Ji-cheol is indeed a good detective.

The whole time I was watching the CCTV, I seemed to be focused on his actions and the direction he was looking.

“uh?”

I raised my head and looked slightly upward, and only then did I see something.

“Gunja Human Resources Office.”

That’s where it was.

“Wait a minute. Then what about the victim’s position?”

I quickly went down the stairs under the entrance and came back up.

Before impact, he bent his head and body so that his height was similar to that of the victim.

That way I could see where she was looking and walking.

I held the camera to take the video at eye level and came up the stairs at an angle similar to my face.

“Oh my? Is that old man walking like a duck?”

“Are you by any chance Prosecutor Kang Ji-hyeok?”

“How can that be? Are you a pervert? You’re taking pictures of women’s legs with that camera.”

“Should I report it to the police?”

People walking on the subway were whispering.

Ji-cheol shouted next to me.

“That’s right. That’s Prosecutor Kang Ji-hyeok. I’m checking the scene of the incident right now, so don’t worry about it.”

Surprisingly, the outside of the entrance was not visible from that angle. However, one sign was clearly visible.

Damn it.

Damn it.

If possible, come up slowly.

“You must have come up like this, right? While concentrating on something······.”

I went up to the entrance and made a phone call because I had something to ask Hyejin.

– Yes, sir.

“When you were interviewing people around you yesterday, there were two acquaintances of the victim. Didn’t you have time?”

– The victim didn’t have many acquaintances. I heard he had some sort of social phobia?

I knew that too.

Was testifying.

I said it’s been like that since last year.

“Okay. Then, Hyejin, please investigate the Gunja Human Resources Office in front of Gunja Station from now on. Ask Secretary Lee Hyeon-ah to find out about Choi Jin-cheol and Ha Su-yeon’s immigration records for the next three years.”

Hyejin said she understood and quickly hung up the phone.

Ji-cheol, who had been watching me like a monkey, came over and asked.

“Do you really think that human resources office has anything to do with the case?”

“That’s a pretty good question. It seems like it’s become a lot more detailed.”

“I appreciate the compliment, but isn’t it too hasty?”

“I should have gone to the scene of the incident.”

“Huh? What kind of nonsense is that, Inspector?”

“Anyway, let’s go to that human resources office first.”

“suddenly?”

The door to the human resources office was on the first floor.

It was designed to lead up to the human resources office via stairs on the first floor.

“There are three CCTVs installed. On the top of those stairs.”

A red light blinked on the CCTV hidden in the ceiling.

Ji-cheol, who had been watching secretly, nodded.

“Why is there something like that over there? Kim Ji-cheol?”

“There’s something fishy about it. It’s excessive to have three CCTVs in a human resources office.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I think so too. Let’s wait nearby for now.”

Ji-cheol grabbed my hand and pulled me.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, Inspector?”

He dragged me to the convenience store right next door and had me sit down on a chair on the terrace outside.

“The inspector is watching you carefully. I’ll buy you some coffee.”

I watched for an hour or so, drinking the coffee he brought, but no one was going to the human resources office.

‘What kind of place is this? For a human resources office, there’s not a lot of traffic. And for something like that, the CCTV is kind of funny.’

It reminded me of when I went undercover as a detective.

A man and a woman who looked to be in their mid-30s quickly got out of the taxi, took out a business card, compared it with the one in the human resources office, and picked up the phone.

Immediately afterwards, a large man came out of the door leading up to the personnel office.

“Inspector. What is that?”

“That man and woman, they’re probably a couple. Or maybe they’re brother and sister. But someone in the family might have a chronic illness.”

Ji-cheol drank the second carton of milk he bought in embarrassment.

“How do you know right away? Like Sherlock Holmes?”

“It was right in front of the subway station entrance, but I took a taxi. That shows how impatient I was.”

“Well, if you’re a gentleman, all the nearby roads are jammed with cars, so you might as well take a taxi instead of the subway, which is faster.”

“She’s not wearing any makeup and her hair is all over the place. Look at her shoes. They’re dirty like old slippers, but the bottom is clean. That means she wore them somewhere like a hospital.”

I stopped talking and looked at the woman more closely, then said to Ji-cheol.

“And her fingernails are cut short. That means she’s not an old person, but a mother nursing a sick child.”

As the man in the human resources office held up five fingers, the faces of the man and woman who got out of the taxi became heavy.

A man gets out of a taxi and spreads out four fingers.

A man comes out of a human resources office shaking his head with a look of disapproval.

“They’re buying and selling. The two of you have darkened faces when you say you can’t negotiate the price below five.”

Ji-cheol responded by repeatedly bowing his head to what I said.

“Yes, that’s right, sir.”

As the man coming out of the human resources office turned around, the man coming in the taxi grabbed his arm.

I looked at Ji-cheol and gave him serious instructions.

“That’s definitely… Let’s go back. It was an incident that required much more preparation than I thought.”