The House with Too Much to Hide
Screeeech.
A black shadow struck the student's head. When the blade pressed hard into the lower abdomen, the victim kicked out with all his strength.
"You piece of trash!"
"I told you to keep your mouth shut a while ago."
Thwack!
"...Don't!"
As the victim cursed the culprit and wailed in misery, the shadow gave a cruel laugh.
"Well now. I was only going to step on you a little so you'd go quietly."
"...What?"
Thud.
"There. Quiet at last."
"......"
"Oh, I like that look on your face. You'd make a great actor."
Drip.
Psychometry experience increased.
"...You crazy bastard."
My stomach lurched.
When I had been on Continent Law Firm's criminal team, I'd seen people far worse than this on paper more times than I could count.
Sometimes I would read about crimes that seemed like they belonged in a novel and wonder if the person involved was even human.
But because I had only ever encountered those cases on paper, I never felt my faith in humanity crack or my chest begin to boil when I looked at the defendant.
I only told myself, in the back of my mind, that I was the one who had to defend them, and felt sorry for the victim.
Today was the first time I'd ever heard my own heartbeat pounding in my ears and felt my hands shaking.
Haa.
"...This is fucking disgusting."
After I finally calmed down, I went to Leaders Apartments in Seocho-dong.
"2104 building, 2903, right? That's very close to the main gate."
After checking the surroundings, I confirmed that there were no CCTV blind spots along the route from Lee Seon-dong's home to the outside of the complex.
"If I just ask for copies of the elevator footage, the emergency stairwell, the line's communal entrance, and the main gate, that should be enough."
I headed straight to the apartment management office and had a week's worth of CCTV copied for each incident date, both before and after the crimes.
I planned to map out Lee Seon-dong's route and submit it with the footage as proof that he had been at home during the time of each offense.
"By the time I finish watching all the footage, tonight is definitely going to be another all-nighter."
Beep, beep, beep.
I entered the communal entrance code, took the elevator, and arrived at 2903.
The code was 79...
Just as I was entering the door lock number, the front door flew open.
It was the madam.
She stood there for a long while without saying a word, her expression stiff.
I was a little startled that she had opened the door, but I pretended not to be and bowed my head.
"Madam, good afternoon. I don't know whether Lee Seon-dong told you, but I'm here for the investigation."
Lee Seon-dong had said that when someone entered the code at the apartment's communal entrance, a call would go to the video phone in that unit and the front door would unlock.
So this must have been why the madam had come to the entryway.
He did say his mother sometimes visited the house, but I never imagined today would be the day.
An instinctive feeling of bad luck prickled at the back of my neck.
"A lawyer who chases evidence all the way to a client's home and asks about the success fee? I've lived a long time, and you're the first one I've ever seen."
She certainly didn't look pleased.
Still, I couldn't help it.
I was Lee Seon-dong's attorney.
"At the very least, if I want an acquittal, I have to be passionate about it. Then I'll come in."
Just as I reached for the doorknob and tried to step inside, the madam turned pale.
"W-wait! Sanitize your hands first. Then put on latex gloves."
She nodded toward a bottle of hand sanitizer and a box of latex gloves.
Tap.
"And these too."
Even disposable slippers, the kind you would expect to see in a hotel.
I had expected something like this when I used the keyboard at the office, but this was serious.
"Thank you."
The moment I put on the slippers and stepped into the hall, the madam frowned.
"...There's dust everywhere. The cleaning company will be here soon, so finish within two hours at the latest."
"I'll do my best."
"Come along. I'll explain the layout."
I followed behind her and looked around the apartment.
It was almost obsessively neat, with what looked like several air purifiers running at once.
It didn't fit at all with the easygoing Lee Seon-dong I knew.
"If you go through the kitchen, there's the shared living room and the bedroom Seon-dong uses. Start here."
She pointed to the largest room. But something else caught my eye before the room itself did.
"Madam, do you always take care of Lee Seon-dong like this?"
"Only the occasional side dish now and then. He's the type who knows nothing but work."
"He did talk a lot about work in the interview room."
"Right? He's been like that since he was a kid. He'd say students should study and do nothing but study, and once he became an office worker, he'd say all he had to do was work."
I agreed that was exactly like Lee Seon-dong, then casually moved on to the point.
"By the way, is that a family photo? The person with long hair next to Lee Seon-dong—"
"What does that have to do with my son's case?"
Clack.
Looking openly displeased, she covered the family photo sitting on top of the living room display cabinet.
"If you find any clues, tell me."
"...Understood."
"This is why I said I hated having people in the house, and then Seon-dong goes and starts doing things he never used to."
Grumbling under her breath, she disappeared into the dressing room.
So there is something she doesn't want to talk about. I think I know what it is.
She was acting offended because I'd asked something personal, but to me it looked more like she was avoiding the question.
Come to think of it, I don't see a housekeeper anywhere either.
If they'd called a cleaning company, they would have brought the housekeeper too, if only to throw out the trash at the end.
Maybe she's been given some other errand.
For now, I set aside the question I couldn't answer and went into the bedroom.
"There isn't much furniture."
Bed, table, chair.
That was it.
"Lee Seon-dong said he could look through everything in the drawers in an hour, and this is what he meant."
Anyone looking at this place would think he was an extreme minimalist. Still, if I dug through it thoroughly enough, something ought to turn up.
First I opened the drawer under the table and took out the tablet.
I checked the search history and carefully looked for purchase records from shopping sites he had used at the time.
The community app Lee Seon-dong had said he sometimes used was logged out, and the cart was empty.
"He definitely deleted the search history too, but that doesn't fit Lee Seon-dong, who's the kind of person to wipe his glasses on his prison uniform."
Everyone had habits of their own.
In terms of tidiness, some people arranged everything down to the smallest detail.
Some, like me, only kept the important parts in order.
And some claimed they were organized, even though to everyone else they were nothing but chaos.
Lee Seon-dong was a chaos type. The way he scattered papers everywhere meant he should behave the same way at home too, even if the cleaning company came regularly.
Online, especially, that tendency should be even more pronounced.
If you don't delete things separately, it's easy to forget what you've searched and let it slip by.
"If someone did delete it, then at this point the only person it could be is the madam."
It was starting to feel like I was being dragged straight toward the worst-case scenario.
Scritch, scritch. Scrape, scrape.
"What is that?"
Out of nowhere, an irritating sound came from another room.
It sounded like something being lightly scratched with a fingernail.
Without thinking, I followed the noise into the dressing room.
"Madam?"
"Eek!"
She jumped in surprise and hid something behind her back.
She tried to cover it up, but I could see it clearly enough.
A plastic box plastered with stickers, completely out of place in this spotless apartment.
"Y-you finished looking through the bedroom?"
Everything about her tone and movements was forced, but I pretended not to notice.
"Almost."
"You're looking at this room now?"
"If possible."
Was she going to dodge this one too because it was personal?
But this time, it seemed she couldn't think of an excuse right away. I could see her looking away as she worked out what to say.
"By the way, Madam. Does Lee Seon-dong have a girlfriend?"
"...If he did, I'd be delighted, because then I wouldn't have to keep making side dishes for him. But why are you asking about my son's girlfriend all of a sudden?"
It was a subtle probe, meant to see whether the question had anything to do with the case.
Of course, I had no intention of letting anything about the investigation slip, so I kept my expression easy.
"Lee Seon-dong is so neat-looking that I was curious. When I saw him in the interview room, I thought he was a celebrity."
"Well, I wondered what that was about. It's not just because he's my son, but yes, he is rather good-looking."
"Yes, and if he wore the clothes hanging here, whew. He'd look incredible."
"Right? He wears whatever I buy him."
"Oh? So all of this was your taste, Madam?"
"Our Seon-dong never bothers to buy clothes, so I pick some up for him now and then."
The madam buys his clothes?
Beep. The video phone rang, notifying her that the communal entrance door had opened.
"Oh dear, the cleaning company must already be here. Go look around another room for now. This one's still not tidy."
"Understood."
Looking a little flustered, the madam left the dressing room.
I slipped the sticker scraps she'd left behind into my pants pocket.
I should try Psychometry with this once I get outside.
Instead of the dressing room, where she'd tried to get rid of the evidence, I headed for the study.
Beep-beep-beep!
I opened the study door, which was the only one besides the front entrance that required its own password.
The study had bookshelves on three sides, with a rocking chair placed in the center.
"This at least feels like a room where someone actually lives."
While I was looking over the books crammed in haphazardly, a small safe tucked into the corner of the bookshelf caught my eye.
"Is it the same password as the study?"
Since she hadn't said otherwise, I tried the study password on the off chance it worked.
Beep, beep, ding!
"...It opened? Let's see."
Inside the safe were a girlfriend's photos, papers that looked like real-estate registry documents, and just about everything else worth hiding away.
"But what's this medicine?"
I checked the medication name written on the prescription bag and took out a box of pills.
"Internal medicine prescribed cardiovascular treatment, so why hasn't he taken it? It's been more than a month since the prescription was filled."
At that moment, I remembered the day I'd first met Lee Seon-dong.
Could his hyperventilation be related to a cardiovascular condition? I think I'd better take the power of attorney and go to the hospital.
After that, I should take the evidence I'd left in the apartment parcel locker and head to the office first.
8:00 p.m.
I bought cup ramen and came back to the office.
"I got back way too late because I stayed to watch the cleaning company work."
I didn't think I'd wasted the time.
I had also talked with the owner of the cleaning company who had come by to check for any problems.
I had spoken a little more with the workers cleaning Lee Seon-dong's apartment too.
And I'd secretly picked up the trash the housekeeper had thrown away.
While I was tearing open the garbage bags and sorting out what could be discarded and what could serve as evidence, the office door opened.
"Lawyer! You're here?"
"...Aunt Yeji."
Seeing that she was wearing her coat instead of her usual apron, it looked like she'd stopped by on her way home before calling it a day.
"You're leaving early?"
"I've been getting home around this time for a while now. Ever since that incident, I've started going home earlier."
She was talking about the random stabbing attack.
"It must have been a huge psychological shock. Please get some rest for a while."
"I should."
The aunt gave a crooked smile. It was a face I'd never seen on her before. It vanished almost at once.
"S-so, let's have lunch together sometime soon, during the day. I have things I want to talk about too."
"Yes, go on in."
After the door closed, I locked the latch a moment later.
From here on out, I had to focus.
I spread an A4 sheet of paper across the desk and took a pair of tweezers from the drawer.
After putting on smooth latex gloves, I used the tweezers to lift the torn sticker pieces one by one.
Scrape.
Scrape.
Once the sticker had been pieced back together, I let out the breath I'd been holding.
I placed my hand over the sticker and prepared to use the last chance I had today.
What kind of footage will it show this time?
Psychometry experience increased.
Whirr.
It was footage of the culprit choosing clothes in a store.
Click.
So it really had been the person I'd expected.
But...
"Why would the madam tear it open and throw it away? If it was just because of the sticker, she could have thrown away the whole box."
The aunt, who had been driving with such confidence, had suddenly acted like she'd forgotten how to shift gears.
People don't do meaningless things.
Tap.
"Could she know the culprit?"