Chapter 13
"A retainer?"
The older woman burst out laughing.
I had guessed from the way she carried herself that she came from money, so I’d figured she probably already had a private lawyer on call, but I hadn’t expected her to laugh that hard.
Normally, someone like her probably wouldn’t even bother consulting a nobody like me.
"I said I was only here for a consultation. You want to hire me too? You’re quite the greedy one."
"I’m just saying this sounds exactly like the kind of case I handle. If you don’t want to retain me, that’s fine too—you can just pay the consultation fee."
"Hmm."
She tapped the paper cup wrapped in tissue with one finger.
"Did you work at a big firm?"
"I used to be in Continent Law Firm’s criminal trial and corporate litigation divisions."
"What was the biggest case you handled?"
"The largest was the OCA industrial-technology leak case. The last case I handled was the Oh-sung Group matter—as second chair."
"Ah. So you were the lawyer on the youngest son’s case. That must’ve been rough."
No wonder she knew. The Oh-sung Group case had been all over the news this year.
"All right. Let’s draw up the retainer agreement. But Continent charges, what, twelve million won for an ordinary case, right?"
She really had done her homework.
"That’s right. If a case looks likely to lose, first-instance fees start at fourteen million won."
"Is that so? Then let’s make it one hundred million won. Whether it goes to the third trial or not, I’ll pay a total of one hundred million won."
Had I heard that correctly?
One hundred million?
"I trust my son, but we don’t know how things will turn out, so let’s be generous and include operating expenses. One hundred million won it is."
"……"
"Even Oh-sung Group’s youngest son got a suspended sentence, after all. Our son should at least be able to get probation, shouldn’t he?"
Unless the situation was special.
If it was a first offense, it was possible.
The mission also required a ruling that favored the suspect, so if I worked hard, I could make something happen.
"And if he’s found not guilty, I’ll pay an additional fifty million won as a success fee."
In that case, I had every reason to take it.
"Ma’am, shall we draft the retainer agreement right away? If a family member is signing, I’ll need a copy of the resident registration."
For a split second, her expression stiffened, then relaxed.
"…Could I use your computer for a moment?"
"Of course. Use this one."
I pointed to the computer on the table where my counsel nameplate sat.
"Mm."
The madam held her fingers poised like a pianist and clicked away.
Tap, tap, tap.
She went into Government24 and printed out the resident registration copy.
She’s the type who gets things done in a straight line.
After using the hand sanitizer on the table, she searched her handbag for her smartphone.
"Secretary Jeong, the papers for Seon-dong are in the car, right? Please bring them to the underground mall at Gangnam Express Bus Terminal. You know where that is? Go straight down from the entrance with Daiso, then take a left. Yes, toward Banpo Station."
Then she poked at her phone again.
"Counselor, could you check your account once? See if the money’s been deposited."
What would normally have taken another client two days was done in ten minutes.
I opened my banking app at once and checked the account, whose leading digits had changed.
"Yes, I confirm the transfer."
The door squeaked open.
"Ma’am?"
"Secretary Jeong, you’re here."
The secretary, who had arrived almost immediately, glanced at the madam before handing me a large envelope.
"Counselor, here it is."
"Thank you."
Inside were not only the arrest warrant application, but also what looked like materials the madam had gathered herself as evidence.
Rustle.
"A friend told me the detention notice would only be a brief summary, so I should go to the detective in charge and ask for the arrest warrant application."
"That’s right. If you get the application from the court or the prosecutor’s office, it slows down the defense’s response."
Usually, once a suspect was held in a detention center, the police would call the suspect’s family to inform them of the arrest and then deliver a detention notice to their home.
The notice was nothing more than a single sheet listing the reason for detention.
When families received it, they would go to the detention center for a visit.
Those visits usually lasted ten or fifteen minutes.
In such a short time, it was hard for the suspect to explain the facts clearly and accurately to the family members who came to see them.
So when those family members hired a lawyer afterward, they often failed to convey the details properly.
But the arrest warrant application had to describe not only the gist of the criminal charges, but also what evidence proved them and how the crime had actually been carried out.
That was why lawyers and families alike sometimes used a loophole of sorts and obtained the application directly from the police detective handling the case.
With this much preparation, she should’ve hired me much earlier. I still don’t know why she waited.
I organized the case in my head while reading the warrant application.
"But Counselor, when my son was arrested, they didn’t tell us the gist of the charges or that we could hire a lawyer. Isn’t that a problem?"
"Even if the procedure was violated, it doesn’t affect the validity of the warrant."
"I see."
"Let me read through the documents for a moment, and then I’ll tell you how I plan to approach the case."
Maybe because I’d been concentrating so hard on the warrant application, the quiet madam suddenly got up from her seat.
"Counselor, I should get going now, so please take your time."
"Ah, I’m sorry. I got so focused on the paperwork."
"It’s all right. Call me if you need anything. Then I’ll be counting on you."
"Take care on your way out."
Not long after the madam and Secretary Jeong left, I put the documents down.
The situation was worse than I’d expected.
"A serial rapist? Damn. I need to apply for an attorney visit right away."
First, I checked the resident registration copy.
"Lee Seon-dong, 9012x…"
Once I’d confirmed his identity, all I needed to do was submit my notice of representation to the court tomorrow and apply to inspect the case record.
I logged into the Ministry of Justice online civil service portal without delay.
A few years ago, attorney visits could still be requested by email, but this year they’d made it online-only.
The Ministry of Justice seemed determined to keep up with the times.
"Let’s see. Go into the civil service request section."
I completed the identity verification for the attorney-visit reservation and clicked to register the inmate.
Detention facility - Seoul Detention Center
Inmate number - 0000 (If you don’t know the inmate number, just enter 0000.)
Inmate name - Lee Seon-dong
"And I’ve selected the date and time for the visit."
Now it was time to go see him.
November 22.
In the early morning cold, my breath came out white as I rode the subway toward Indeogwon Station.
Eight in the morning means rush hour. It’s packed.
The hellish crush I’d endured when traveling from Soongsil Univ. Entrance Station to my office at Gangnam Express Bus Terminal was alive and well on Line 4, too, on the Oido-bound side.
By the time I reached Indeogwon Station, there was finally a little breathing room.
I took Bus 103 from Exit 2 of Indeogwon Station to Seoul Detention Center.
No sooner had I boarded than I got off at the Seoul Detention Center intersection and walked for another ten minutes or so.
"Finally."
Because Seoul Detention Center housed so many pretrial detainees who were still awaiting trial, its attorney visitation area was much larger than those at other detention centers.
On top of that, the ordinary visitation rooms were boxed in on all sides by glass, which meant guards, other inmates, and their lawyers could all see one another. Personally, I found them a little uncomfortable.
Luckily for me, I’d been assigned the VIP visitation room.
It wasn’t the lavish sort of attorney visitation room you’d see in a movie or on TV, but it was a spacious room with no partitions—Room 1.
Since there didn’t seem to be any celebrity inmates in the facility at the moment, I figured that was probably why.
As I passed through the corridor leading to the visitation rooms, I noticed posters on the wall warning that cellphones could not be carried or used inside.
"Still here, huh."
Back around 2001, I think it had been.
There had been a sharp rise in cases where arrested defendants tried to use their lawyers’ cellphones to destroy evidence, and that led to the rule being codified under the Act on the Execution of Sentences and Treatment of Inmates.
Not just electronic devices, cigarettes, lighters, and alcohol, but even ordinary-looking items like pens, candy, and chocolate were prohibited.
I was reminded of how, when I was a rookie, Geuk Ji-ham had never warned me, and I’d been thoroughly embarrassed because of it.
Thinking about it now still annoys me. Would it have killed him to tell me even a ballpoint pen wasn’t allowed?
After that, I made sure to tell every new junior lawyer who came under me that bringing in anything from outside except documents was absolutely impossible.
It was 8:50 a.m. now.
Before entering the visitation room, I greeted the guard.
"Are you Attorney Cha Do-hyuk?"
"Yes."
"You made it right on time."
"That’s basic."
The guard laughed and said I was definitely different from the lawyers who only handled visitation work, and I found myself wondering whether there were still lawyers these days who specialized in nothing but prison visits.
Anyway.
"Officer, there’s some paperwork Lee Seon-dong needs to sign."
"You know the rules, sir. Use the emergency call."
"I’m just telling you in advance."
"Huh. You’re smoother than you look."
"I’ll take that as a compliment."
Once the guard finished checking everything, I was let into the visitation room.
There were still about ten minutes before the suspect arrived, so I went over the documents the madam had given me one more time.
He wasn’t caught in some undercover sting. He was caught with hard evidence.
It was evidence that left no room for doubt, which was why I’d been so confident in front of the madam—but even so, I wasn’t sure whether a suspended sentence was still realistic.
The door squeaked open at exactly nine o’clock.
The suspect looked, at a glance, like a textbook rich inmate—one of those well-off, highly educated prisoners people would call a “big-timer.”
An exclamation mark seemed to flare above his head.
But then.
"…Lee Seon-dong?"
The sight of Lee Seon-dong when he walked into the attorney visitation room was almost too much to look at.
His face was bruised yellow and green, as though he’d just been in a fight, and the thick-rimmed glasses he wore were slightly crooked.
The moment he sat down, he started rubbing the lenses of those glasses clean against his brown prison uniform.
"You’re my lawyer?"
"I’m Cha Do-hyuk."
"You came right after taking my case?"
"Yes. I submitted the notice of representation and booked the visit immediately afterward. I thought I’d need to hear a lot from you, Mr. Lee Seon-dong."
"I see. So your mother hired you a little late because she wanted to find someone capable."
As if a weight had finally slipped off his shoulders, they sagged down.
"Phew. I feel like I can breathe again. Can I rest for a bit?"
Something had happened inside the detention center, but that could wait. There was no need to bring it up yet.
I already had a rough sense of what it was.
"Mr. Lee Seon-dong, I’m sorry, but while you’re resting, could you tell me what happened that day in a relaxed way? I’ve set aside plenty of time for this visit, but we may still not have enough."
"Well, that makes sense."
He nodded and straightened his posture.
"It was on November 8. I’d finished work late at the lab and was on my way out. Ah, Hanseon Pharmaceuticals’ research lab is where I work. In Dongtan."
"I see."
"I usually take the SRT because it’s a company partnership, but I missed the train, so I took a Gyeonggi bus to Gangnam Station. The kind that stops by Kyobo Bookstore. My place is near Gangnam Station."
I listened carefully and packed the key details into memory.
"I got off the Gyeonggi bus and started walking, but then a neighborhood bus came right away, so I got on it."
"What was the route number?"
"Seocho 03."
"Do you remember around what time you boarded?"
"Hmm, probably between nine and ten p.m. I can’t be completely sure."
"Please continue."
"The neighborhood bus stopped right in front of Leaders Apartment, where I live, so I got off."
Up to that point, nothing sounded strange.
"But I was hungry, so I decided I’d buy a fried chicken before going in. I was waiting at the crosswalk and placing the order."
"So there’s a chicken place near your home."
"Yes. There’s one across the street called Grilled Chicken. Anyway, I’d finished ordering and was crossing the street when some woman suddenly grabbed my arm and hung on to it."
"…All of a sudden?"
"Yes, all of a sudden!"
Could it have been a setup?
But the chance that the woman and the man who’d been chasing her were in cahoots was extremely low.
After all, Lee Seon-dong’s DNA had been found on the victim.