#202

The the man was arrested.

The charges were kidnapping and murdering Kim Cheol-soo, and abandoning the body.

Four detectives from the Violent Crimes Unit of the Ansan Police Station barged into the hospital room and executed the arrest warrant. The warrant, issued by the Suwon District Prosecutor’s Office, was fresh, having been released just two hours before the Man’s arrest. The the man was handcuffed and dragged away without resistance, right in front of the the child.

Lee Seon-jae, without seeking Chairman Shin’s help, directly contacted Park Soo-nam, a lawyer from a large law firm. He was originally a lawyer that the Helper, who had Lee Seon-jae’s arrest in mind, and Jeong Jae-jin had scouted and investigated, a former high-ranking prosecutor. In other words, he was on their side and could ensure preferential treatment as a former official.

Although the Man’s arrest was sudden, it wasn’t entirely unexpected, so the lawyer was appointed quickly.

It was Prosecutor Baek Gyu-ri who was flustered. Not only had she lost Detective Oh Dae-Ho, but Kim Byung-chan had also disappeared. The detectives on Prosecutor Baek’s side had failed to track the movements of the hunting dogs.

Prosecutor Baek’s failure to restrain Lee Seok-doo was also due to enemies within the prosecution. There were more than a few high-ranking officials who had received money from Lee Seok-doo. They had their own lines and their own sense of justice. It would be more accurate to call it loyalty rather than justice, but anyway, they were as tightly knit as Prosecutor Baek and Jeong Jae-jin. Moreover, that damn procedure also held Prosecutor Baek back.

With Prosecutor Jeong Jae-jin out of the picture, Prosecutor Baek was furious at having lost the most important suspect. The detectives working with her were mortified, but she didn’t say a single harsh word to them.

Anyone would have done the same in that situation, she said, but at least one person should have been watching Detective Oh Dae-Ho. Judging by her immediate treatment of the police officers, it was hard to understand why Prosecutor Baek’s reputation within the police force was so bad.

Anyway, after appointing the lawyer, Lee Seon-jae barely managed to calm the shocked the child and then looked for a new hideout. He was preparing for the possibility that the the child’s whereabouts had been exposed. Since the Helper Jeong Eun-hee couldn’t step in right away, someone else was needed. Someone trustworthy, someone who hadn’t been exposed on either side. It was perhaps natural that Kim Bae-dal came to mind.

Although he had flatly stated that he only worked with Jeong Jae-jin, he couldn’t just stand idly by. He decided to give it a shot. After all, it was up to Kim Bae-dal to decide whether to agree or not, so he made a call.

Kim Bae-dal already knew about Jeong Jae-jin’s situation.

“I know it’s a difficult request, but I don’t have anyone else to ask right now,” Lee Seon-jae said.

Lee Seon-jae explained the situation from beginning to end.

Kim Bae-dal sighed repeatedly, as if the ground was sinking beneath him. He didn’t add any words appealing to emotion. Kim Bae-dal had already done more than enough by saving the man and Jeong Jae-jin, so he wanted him to judge objectively. Of course, deep down, he wanted to beg on his knees.

“I’m sorry to burden you,” Lee Seon-jae said.

Lee Seon-jae was more polite than ever.

Ugh. Why are you like this? Please, just be yourself.

Kim Bae-dal grimaced. Lee Seon-jae smiled.

“Are you still in Gimje?”

Why would I be there? My home is in Seoul.

Kim Bae-dal said this and asked for some time.

I’ll decide the hideout, and I’ll decide the meeting place and method, so keep that in mind. Is that a public phone?

“Yes, it’s a public phone.”

I’ll contact the hospital desk. What’s the room number?

Lee Seon-jae gave the hospital and room number where the man was staying.

Okay. I’ll call you in an hour.

“Thank you.”

I’m not doing this because of you. I’m just pissed off because our old man got hurt because of that bastard Lee Seok-doo. Don’t get me wrong!

“I know. But thank you anyway.”

Okay. See you later.

Lee Seon-jae was relieved that he didn’t have to worry about the the child thanks to Kim Bae-dal.

Lee Seon-jae had Chairman Shin’s men bring So-jin and So-jin’s grandmother to the hospital. The the child burst into tears as soon as he saw them. He had been trying so hard not to cry in front of Lee Seon-jae, but he was still a child.

Exactly one hour later, Lee Seon-jae received a call from Kim Bae-dal. Lee Seon-jae took the three of them to the meeting place as instructed and left them there. He didn’t even watch from afar to make it easier for Kim Bae-dal to take them. Trust was most important in times like these, so he responded with trust.

And a little later, a text message arrived.

「Pickup complete」

Lee Seon-jae no longer wondered about the the child.

Now, only the Man’s matter remained. Going to the police station wouldn’t do any good, and it wouldn’t help the man at all. Finding out the truth of the incident wasn’t important either. Whatever he had done, it was Yoon Ki-beom’s crime, and Yoon Ki-beom should receive the punishment.

The task that Lee Seon-jae had to do from now on was to prove that the man was not Yoon Ki-beom. If the man was not Yoon Ki-beom, everything would be resolved.

Of course, it wouldn’t be as simple as it sounded. In all official documents, Yoon Ki-beom was the Man.

The registered fingerprints of all ten fingers were in Yoon Ki-beom’s name, and in the physical examination he received for military enlistment, the man had recorded and left all his physical characteristics in Yoon Ki-beom’s name. So, proving it wouldn’t be easy. But it wasn’t impossible either. It might end more simply than he thought.

Lee Seon-jae handed a note with a message for the man to Lawyer Park and immediately got into the car with Yong. He was going to meet Detective Jo Hyang-rae, who had given him the case file. He didn’t need to know the details of the case, but he needed to have a general understanding, so he decided to meet him in person and listen to what he had to say.

Detective Jo Hyang-rae, a lieutenant at the Suwon Nambu Police Station, had hastily taken the afternoon off for Lee Seon-jae. Not all corrupt police officers were incompetent, nor did they have bad reputations. He was a rare man who was both a corrupt police officer and recognized for his abilities and good reputation.

‘Money is good, you know.’

He would say this with a sly smile and readily accept Lee Seon-jae’s money.

Detective Jo greeted Lee Seon-jae with his signature smiling face. He immediately treated Yong as if he didn’t exist. He was a quick-witted man.

“It’s been a while. I knew I had to see our Chief in person. My eyes are immediately purified.”

“It’s been a while, Detective Jo.”

“So, how is it serving Chairman Shin?”

Detective Jo acted as if Lee Seon-jae had changed jobs like any other salaried worker. Lee Seon-jae chuckled and played along, saying, “Better than my previous boss. For now.”

The three of them went into the cafe together. The cafe was deserted, and no one followed them. Lee Seon-jae and Detective Jo sat facing each other, and Yong sat directly behind them, facing the door.

The two exchanged simple small talk while waiting for their drinks. And as soon as the drinks came out, Detective Jo opened his mouth about the case.

“I investigated after hearing what Chief said, and it turns out that the victim of the assault case went missing. But it was a month after that incident that he went missing, so there was no circumstance to link it to Yoon Ki-beom at all. It seems that it was judged as a simple runaway at the time.”

Detective Jo said this and took a sip of his juice.

He then introduced Detective Jang Il-seop, who was in charge of the missing person case, and added that he was a senior to him.

“Then, six years ago, a tip came in. Yoon Ki-beom killed Kim Cheol-soo. Buried him at the Borisu Vocational School. Like this.”

“Borisu Vocational School?”

Lee Seon-jae raised his eyebrows.

“Yes. Yoon Ki-beom was affiliated with it, I heard.”

Detective Jo replied casually.

Lee Seon-jae tilted his head. The name Borisu Vocational School was completely unfamiliar.

However, considering that Galilla Orphanage had advertised itself as a vocational school, it wasn’t a completely strange name. According to the data Jeong Jae-jin had given him, Galilla Orphanage had moved to Pyeongtaek in the year Yoon Ki-beom had entered, so it wouldn’t be strange if a vocational school had been established in place of the orphanage.

However, considering Kim Young-ja’s statement that the orphanage had moved to Pyeongtaek only after Yoon Ki-beom’s death, and that the records of minor incidents Yoon Ki-beom had committed were concentrated in a police box in Ansan, it was clear that the orphanage was still in Ansan. There must have been a main branch or a branch of some kind in Pyeongtaek at the same time.

If they had used tricks to move the orphanage’s address to Pyeongtaek and even changed the ownership to a third party, the basis for linking Galilla Orphanage and Borisu Vocational School would disappear. As a result, the prosecution wouldn’t have been able to track Borisu Vocational School either.

Anyway, from Galilla to Borisu, the director, who had used both Christianity and Buddhism, was truly remarkable.

“The senior detective in charge of the missing person case had visited Borisu Vocational School at the time. Not because it was directly related to the disappearance, but because Kim Cheol-soo’s last destination was in the vicinity. Well, in the end, it seems that they couldn’t find anything and it was concluded as a long-term disappearance.”

“Was there any information about the person who sent the tip?”

“No. Nothing was found on the letter paper, and the fingerprints on the envelope were all from postal workers. It seems that the letter was put in a mailbox, and the degree of contamination was so severe that there was nothing to salvage at all.”

“Is that so?”

Lee Seon-jae narrowed his brows.

“Were there any strange rumors about that vocational school?”

“What kind of strange rumors?”

“Things that would be on people’s lips. For example, abuse.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

Detective Jo shook his head.

“To be honest, unless there was a violent crime or a fire there, I don’t think the front-line detectives would know much about it. There were dozens of vocational schools in Ansan at the time.”

Detective Jo changed his posture and continued.

“Chief may not know, but that was when the industrial complex was first established in Ansan. All sorts of riffraff from all over the country flocked there, so it was so chaotic. As a result, countless unauthorized vocational schools sprang up. I had just passed the police exam and was working at that time, and it was really a mess. Besides, looking at the location of the vocational school, it was completely isolated. I don’t think anyone would have gone there unless they were from the local police box. I’m not making excuses, but that’s what I found out.”

Lee Seon-jae nodded lightly at Detective Jo’s words.

“So, did you reinvestigate after receiving the tip?”

“Well, not a reinvestigation, but they did some investigation. Since it had been almost 10 years, they seemed to be half-believing and half-doubting. In the meantime, the vocational school had closed, and the school site was private property, and the owner was a U.S. citizen, so access was impossible. In fact, there was no judge who would issue a search warrant based on the tip alone, and how could they dig up that vast land? One way or another, Yoon Ki-beom was the only person they could meet right away, so they went to find Yoon Ki-beom directly. Since the neighborhood where that friend lived was so small, the rumor that a detective had visited spread quickly. Detective Oh Dae-Ho heard about it and came to the Ansan Police Station.”

“Ah. I see.”

The reason why Detective Oh Dae-Ho became interested in the case finally came out. Unlike expected, it wasn’t voluntary. But Lee Seon-jae couldn’t shake the feeling that Detective Oh Dae-Ho didn’t welcome the Man’s return itself. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have dug so persistently into a baseless tip, an incident that even the detective in charge had given up on.

“Is the detective in charge still working at the Ansan Police Station?”

“No. He retired this March.”

“Ah….”

Lee Seon-jae made a disappointed expression.

Detective Jo glanced at him and added, “But our senior knows more than the current officers in charge.”

“Of course, he would.”

Lee Seon-jae agreed.

“Did you continue to contact Detective Oh Dae-Ho after he retired?”

“Yes, that’s what I heard. But it was one-sided. I mean, Detective Oh was the one chasing after our senior. Strangely, our senior didn’t seem to like that detective very much. I know detectives don’t like people poking their noses into their cases, but he seemed to dislike him even more than that. Tsk. In the end, he had an amazing eye for people.”

Detective Jo subtly implied Detective Oh Dae-Ho’s involvement in the recent attack on Prosecutor Jeong Jae-jin. No matter how thoroughly they tried to cover it up, the rumor had already spread within the police station.

“Was there a specific reason he disliked Detective Oh?”

“Well, he absolutely refused to talk about it over the phone, so I figured I’d take some vacation time and meet him in person to ask.”

He was indeed a man who handled his work cleanly.

Seon-jae wordlessly slid an envelope across the table to Detective Jo. Detective Jo very naturally accepted the envelope, slipped it into his pocket, and downed the rest of his juice in one go.

“Oh, is it that late already?”

Detective Jo glanced at his wristwatch and stood up.

“That senior of mine, he hated people so much he went into the mountains. Thanks to Chief, I’m suddenly going to have to do some mountain climbing.”

Detective Jo grumbled with a smiling face as he left the cafe.

Seon-jae waited until Detective Jo’s car disappeared before leaving the shop with Yong.

Detective Oh, after six years of relentless pursuit, had obtained evidence to prove Yoon Ki-beom’s crime.

But why had he kept it all this time?

If it was good enough to give to Lee Seok-doo right away, it was good enough to take to the police station. But Detective Oh had just held onto it.

Why?

What was there to gain from Man?

Seon-jae couldn’t understand Detective Oh’s actions.

Of course, thanks to keeping it to himself, he received a large sum of 100 million won from Lee Seok-doo, but that was purely a lucky result.

If Park Dong-Hee hadn’t caused trouble in the first place, and if Lee Seok-doo had been arrested and Lee Seon-jae had lived well without incident, that card couldn’t have been used to make money. Nevertheless, Lee Seok-doo hid the facts instead of informing the detective in charge or the local police station.

It was full of questions as to why he did that, but since there was no one to ask, he had no choice but to bury it for now.

203 – Chapter 203