The Ultimate Inspector, Kang Ji-hyeok - Chapter 97
Only Noblemtl
Beep.
The photo of the victim at the time of death that was shown earlier appeared again.
“Attorney, look at that picture carefully. The bruise on the back of my head was said by the National Forensic Service to be caused by hitting a rock in the water, so there was no tear or bleeding. Do you remember?”
I approached him and spoke quietly.
“What would happen if you were floating around unconscious and hit that rock? Your head would be torn off by the water.”
Gulp.
The cheating lawyer swallowed dry saliva.
I dug deeper there.
“Okay. Let’s say you were lucky enough to hit a round rock and get a big bruise like that.”
Beep.
I enlarged another photo.
It was a picture of two hands, fingers, knees, and chest.
“Look at the fingers. If a drowning victim were to crawl to the center of that jagged rock······.”
I opened my hands wide and spoke firmly to the lawyer.
“The tip of this finger is torn and bleeding profusely!”
Bam.
She said, pushing his chest with her finger.
“This heart will be torn apart by that rock.”
I tried to kick the lawyer in the stomach by lying on my knees.
As fast as a knee kick!
“Ugh!”
The lawyer, trying to avoid being hit, stumbled backwards and hit his back against the table.
“My waist… my waist.”
He was in pain.
I stopped in a kneeling position and said.
“What would that knee have looked like? It would have been scraped and torn by that rock and bleeding. But what about that photo?”
Everyone, including the audience, looked at the photo.
It was the same for Um Ja-hyeon.
The lawyer, frowning and clutching his waist, muttered the truth.
“Wow, it’s clean. There are no scratches anywhere? Huh? Why aren’t there any? It’s strange to see it again.”
His cognitive abilities seemed to have temporarily malfunctioned, perhaps due to his back pain.
Laughter erupted from the audience.
“Look at the lawyer.”
“Why are you doing that? Why don’t you know that?”
“I didn’t think about it because I had to take that devil bitch’s side no matter what.”
Thump thump.
The judge swung his gavel and called for silence.
“Be quiet. If you keep doing this, I’ll have you all get kicked out.”
Of course she was smiling too.
But now another problem remained.
After all, if someone killed the victim, there has to be someone.
The judge was also approaching the core argument of the trial.
“I have a good understanding of the trial process so far. I believe that the evidence and logic prepared by the prosecutor are all appropriate.”
The judge spoke firmly.
But he looked at me with his head tilted.
“But inspect.”
“Yes, your honor.”
“It appears that there is still no direct evidence that the suspect, Ms. Eom Ja-hyeon, killed the victim, Mr. Lee Hyeon-su.”
As expected, it was an accurate point.
I looked at my watch.
By now, the National Forensic Service will definitely have the results.
Wheein.
At that moment, the cell phone rang.
As promised, I got a call from Ji-cheol.
“Your Honor. From now on, I will present evidence to prove why Mr. Eom Ja-hyeon, who is sitting in the suspect’s seat, is the culprit in this case.”
I took out my cell phone and placed it in front of the microphone.
“Your Honor, may I take this on speaker phone?”
Nod.
Judge Ha Soo-jin nodded.
She seemed to know intuitively, too.
The weight of this one phone call······.
Beep.
I pressed the speaker phone button.
“Tell me. Tell me everything you know.”
– Yes, sir. It was a simple matter, so the National Forensic Service was able to confirm it right away.
“Okay. What are the results of the analysis of the ashes?”
– Your guess is correct, sir. First of all, ash is a material commonly used in the South.
The judge focused on our conversation.
Ji-cheol’s voice coming through the microphone was loud.
“Is that all?”
– No. The ashes were analyzed and found to contain some alcohol, which comes from high-quality liquor. As we all know, alcohol is flammable, so it must have burned like this.
“But alcohol was found?”
– People often think that things like alcohol or petroleum will all burn, but that’s because they watch movies and stuff like that. In reality, petroleum or alcohol doesn’t burn completely and leaves a residue. They say you can tell by analyzing the ash.
I already knew.
The arsonists I caught made that mistake sometimes.
Experience teaches us that knowledge is different from what we think.
It’s like if you throw a match that’s got oil on it, the fire will spread.
“T-That can’t be true? I bet you had a good ride······.”
The lawyer muttered with a bewildered look on his face.
I glared at the lawyer in disbelief, then turned my head and asked again.
“Is there anything else?”
– Yes, sir. A piece of broken glass was found in the ashes. It was found to be identical to the broken bottle of liquor submitted as evidence.
A commotion.
The audience was in an uproar.
This time, the judge didn’t even stop him.
Her eyes also became sharp and she even asked a question.
“Did you say your name was Detective Kim Ji-cheol?”
– Oh, yes. Your Honor… Eek? What is it? Is this a speaker phone?
“Be careful what you say, because everything can be used as evidence in court.”
– Ah… I understand, Your Honor.
Judge Ha Soo-jin asked.
“I heard you were talking to the inspector separately earlier. What was it?”
bingo!
It was a question that the judge was much better off asking than me asking it.
Contrary to her nickname, “Queen of Sentences,” Judge Ha Soo-jin was a sharp judge.
– Didn’t you touch the plastic bag containing this evidence earlier, Mr. Wi-gi? The fingerprints on it match the fingerprints on the broken bottle of liquor.
“Stop it! That has nothing to do with the case!”
The lawyer cried out in frustration.
Judge Ha Soo-jin glared at him and spoke quietly.
“Attorney, please be quiet. This call is deeply related to the case.”
A single word from the judge would have been like a cold knife, piercing the lawyer’s heart and deceiving him.
Shh.
I said with a smile.
“Isn’t it like the huge amount of unidentified fingerprints found in the villa?”
– Yes, sir. Of the 16,000 fingerprints we seized and searched but could not find the owner of, the owner was lawyer Gi-Hae.
“Thank you for your hard work. Be careful when you come back.”
– Yes, inspector. After work today, we will have a beef dinner.
Beep.
I hung up the phone abruptly and asked the judge.
“Your Honor, I hereby request that the defense attorney be brought in as an emergency witness.”
“Why? Why me?”
The deceived lawyer stepped back.
Judge Ha Soo-jin gave permission in a sharp voice.
“Very well. The judge hereby authorizes the request for financial witness testimony.”
The deceived lawyer took the oath and sat down on the witness stand.
Suspect Um Ja-hyeon’s eyes shook.
“Ms. Eom Ja-hyeon. What’s wrong? You’re sweating a lot.”
“No, it’s okay.”
Um Ja-hyeon answered nonchalantly, using all her might.
“Then that’s fortunate.”
From now on, the final performance that will mark the climax of this trial will begin.
Beep.
I uploaded the car CCTV footage that I uploaded earlier as evidence again.
Then, as expected, the judge asked with a displeased expression.
“Isn’t this the CCTV footage that the prosecution has already shown you? With this, they must have confirmed the suspect’s seatbelt habits and movement path.”
I turned my head without an immediate answer to that and asked the deceitful lawyer sitting on the witness stand.
“Witness. What kind of car do you have?”
“Yes? My car?”
“Please tell me the car model and license plate number.”
“It’s a white Genesis Luxury, and the last digits of the license plate number are 7987.”
I turned my head and answered the judge’s earlier question.
“Please look at the back of suspect Um Ja-hyeon’s car on the CCTV.”
“Look behind you?”
Some CCTV footage showed a car with a sign following behind.
Other photos showed the vehicle hanging off to the side.
I spoke quietly to the judge.
“That white car is a Genesis Luxury. You can see the license plate number in some of the photos, Your Honor?”
“I can see the license plate number… Now that I look at it, it’s 7987?”
“Yes. The car following or following Ms. Eom Ja-hyeon’s car is the witness’s car. That is, the car of Ms. Ki Man-hae, who was the defense attorney just now. Right? That is your car, right?”
The witness’ face turned pale as he deceived her.
Unlike the lawyer, he was obviously nervous.
“That’s right. That’s right.”
Beep.
Two hours later, several CCTV footage with time stamps emerged.
Two of them had their license plates stamped exactly as they were shown on speed signs.
“Two hours later, without knowing what had happened, the witness’s Genesis vehicle sped back to Seoul.”
I looked at the witness and asked cautiously.
“Witness. You were caught speeding twice. Did you pay the fines?”
“No. Not yet······.”
“You’d better hurry up and submit it. Then you’ll become a good lawyer who doesn’t have to write novels.”
Gimanhae poured the water placed in front of him and drank it quickly.
“Witness, can I ask you an easy question?”
“Huh? Easy question?”
“When did you become a lawyer, witness?”
“That… why is that?”
Beep.
I put his attorney’s certificate on the evidence screen.
“You obtained your lawyer’s license eight years ago. You studied on your own without even graduating from law school.”
“What does that have to do with this?”
The voice of the deceived lawyer grew louder.
Then the judge gave him a sharp rebuke.
“Witness. This is not a place to ask questions. This is a place to answer questions.”
He drank water again at the judge’s overwhelming words, even in the courtroom.
I continued asking questions.
“Then how about this?”
Beep.
After the death of Um Ja-hyeon’s older brother, who was paralyzed from the waist down, an insurance claim document was created and appeared on the evidence screen.
“What is this, inspector?”
Judge Ha Soo-jin looked through the submitted evidence and asked.
“The statute of limitations has already passed, but a long time ago, my brother Um Ja-hyeon became paralyzed on one side of his body in a car accident.”
Swish.
I spoke while touching the table in front of the witness stand with my fingers.
I could feel the table shaking at my fingertips. Witness Deception was shaking without me knowing it.
“But how many life insurance policies did Um Ja-hyeon take out on her brother? And then her brother, who was paralyzed from the waist down, drank poison and died.”
The judge nodded as he reviewed the past case records submitted.
“That’s strange. But you’re saying that they didn’t investigate it at all?”
“At that time, the police did not investigate unless the family reported it.”
The judge asked again, seeming to find it strange.
“No. At the time, they were receiving a huge amount of insurance money, 220 million won, but the insurance investigator turned a blind eye to such an obvious murder… no, poisoning? That’s what’s strange.”
I looked at the judge and smiled.
bang!
And he lightly tapped the witness table with his palm.
“At that time, the insurance investigator was Gi Man-hae, the witness and lawyer sitting right here. By the way, his name at that time was Ki Young-hoon.”
Only then did the judge look at the evidence screen again.
I’m talking about the name of the insurance investigator, ‘Ki Young-Hoon’, written on the insurance claim-related documents.
I looked at the witness and asked.
“You changed your name twice, so we had a hard time finding you during our investigation. Witness. Your original name was Ki Young-hoon, right?”
The deceived lawyer did not answer.
He just hung his head and trembled.
“Witness! Answer quickly! This is an important matter.”
It was not me, but the judge who shouted.
The judge of ‘Spring Breeze’ said this with a very angry face.
“That… that’s right. I’m the insurance investigator in charge of that case. My past name is Ki Young-hoon.”
“The witness did not report this incident. He gave up an incentive of over 20 million won.”
Beep.
And he uploaded a copy of the register with the name Ki Young-Hoon.
It was a copy of the incident and a current photo of the address.
“In a wonderful coincidence, he, who was living in a small apartment with a salary of 640,000 won at the time, bought a 48-pyeong single-family home in Pangyo for 84.6 million won a week after the insurance payment. That’s his only asset worth 1.4 billion won right now, right, Mr. Ki Young-hoon?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Here we go back to the original incident.”
I walked to the center of the courtroom and said with a sad look on my face.
“Witness, I have one question for you. You said in this court that the suspect, Mr. Eom Ja-hyeon, is not the culprit. So, are you the one who killed the victim, Lee Hyeon-su?”
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