The Tent Won’t Go Up
November 27.
It was the second visitation day.
From the village bus stop in front of Seoul Detention Center to the main gate, the ground had turned to glare ice under the snow that fell before dawn.
The warden’s taking off his uniform, so has he just given up completely?
There had already been plenty of talk for years—Forget aging facilities. They just dumped this place in our district because Seoul didn’t want a hated facility in its own backyard—so every warden in living memory had gone out of his way to preach Cleanliness! Top-tier security! Probably second only to the Blue House! and keep the surrounding area in order.
Rumor even had it that the center had snowplows bigger than Gangnam’s.
But today, all that caution seemed to have been thrown out the window; only a grumbling staff member, complaining that someone had filed a civil complaint, was out there scattering calcium chloride around the detention center.
Still, as long as I can meet Lee Seon-dong, that’s all that matters.
He brushed the slush off his shoes and went inside.
Lee Seon-dong looked better than before when he walked into the visiting room.
“Attorney Cha!”
“Lee Seon-dong. I trust you’ve been well.”
He sat down with a broad, almost childlike smile.
“Yes. It’s strange, but ever since you came by, things have been easier to bear. Nobody’s been muttering behind my back and calling me a—well, you know.”
“I mentioned it to the correctional officers, just in case. I’m glad it helped.”
“Ah, that explains it. I thought I was just feeling better for no reason.”
Even as he said he felt better, his fingers worried at each other in his lap.
It looked like he had something he wanted to say, but couldn’t get it out.
“Did you look over the house?”
“Yes. But for someone who stays home so much, there was hardly anything in it.”
Usually, a homebody had all sorts of things to keep them occupied—computers, game consoles, and the like.
But in Lee Seon-dong’s house, there had been nothing but books and a tablet.
“My mother clears everything out whenever she gets a chance. She says you shouldn’t keep old things around the house. I once bought a Nin—, uh, a game console before, but when I didn’t use it much, hahaha, it ended up in the trash.”
“I see. So that’s why there was so little there. I honestly thought no one lived in the place.”
“It does give off that kind of feeling.”
It really had been as he said: an hour was enough to see everything.
“Did you find the evidence?”
“I found a few things.”
“A few?”
“Yes, but they’re circumstantial.”
“Circumstantial?”
“Indirect evidence. Things like fingerprints or bloodstains left behind at the crime scene.”
“Huh? Even the culprit’s fingerprints are indirect evidence?”
“Yes. Direct evidence would be something like a witness who saw the crime happen, CCTV footage of the criminal act, a corpse, or the murder weapon itself.”
Lee Seon-dong stared blankly for a moment, then nodded and murmured, “I see.”
“Then, uh, can indirect evidence still be used as evidence?”
“Of course. You have to approach it more carefully than direct evidence, but it’s still evidence.”
“That’s a relief.”
Whether direct or indirect, anything they could submit would be extremely useful.
“Oh, I found the tablet too. But the community app you said you used most often had been logged out. I was trying to find the login information, but—”
“That can’t be. I’d set it to auto-login, so I didn’t give you the ID or password separately.”
Did his wife delete it? Or...
He looked at Lee Seon-dong, whose face had gone tense and confused.
“Really? There also wasn’t the academic site you said you used so often in your bookmarks.”
“What?”
“To be exact, there weren’t any bookmarks at all.”
It was more or less like a brand-new tablet with a few apps installed and nothing else.
Not even PubMed, which pharmaceutical company employees used by default.
“That doesn’t make any sense!”
“That was my thought too. I’d gone in expecting to check the time stamps on when you downloaded the papers you mentioned.”
“I-it wasn’t me!”
Was he worried I didn’t believe him?
His breathing seemed to hitch again, sharp and indignant.
“Lee Seon-dong, could you calm down and answer my questions while breathing normally? This isn’t an interrogation. I’m asking so I can defend you.”
“Haa... y-yes.”
“First—do you usually delete your internet search history?”
“N-no.”
Just as I thought.
“How about shopping sites?”
“I only put things in the cart. I don’t pay for them.”
“Why not?”
“My mother buys everything for me, so there’s no need for me to buy anything. If I buy something and never use it, then it just ends up in the trash anyway. That’d be a waste of money.”
“Even toiletries?”
“Yes.”
“Clothes too?”
“...Yes.”
It was suffocating.
How could it possibly make sense to allow only what his parents approved?
They’ve castrated Lee Seon-dong’s very existence.
“Then the company—was that your own choice, at least?”
“Y-yes. But even that... I’m not sure it was really my choice.”
“...?”
“I majored in English Literature at Seo-un University, but I went on to graduate school in life sciences at the same university.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Some students pursued graduate school in a field different from their undergraduate major, even if they were few and far between.
“I got in here on a professor’s recommendation.”
“At Seo-un University, that kind of recommendation can get you around.”
Some Korean University students mocked it as a forever Seo-un University, but Seo-un was just as strong as Korean University when it came to output.
He let out a long, heavy sigh.
“Anyone hearing this would probably say I’m complaining from a full stomach, but sometimes I feel like I’ve been handing my life over to other people. Except when I’m working.”
At over thirty, the only thing he could really do on his own was work.
That must be why he buried himself in it.
“I really do like this company. My coworkers are great too. And the papers—ugh, I hated finding them, but reading them was fun. ...But I guess I can’t go back now, can I?”
His face twisted, as if he were sick of himself for talking about the company while trapped in a situation like this.
...Can a company really mean that much to someone?
I didn’t fully understand it, but rapport with a client mattered.
I looked at Lee Seon-dong, who was crying in big, falling drops.
“...Why wouldn’t you be able to go back? You just go back.”
It was rare for me to offer comfort so directly.
“How am I supposed to show my face there?”
“There may be talk at first, but if you disappear entirely, won’t the rumor harden into fact?”
“But people get swept up in rumors so easily.”
Lee Seon-dong had been dragged into a crime he had no part in, against his own will.
The words I would give him later might amount to little more than cruel hope, but still—
“There’s no way out? That’s not true.”
“Th-there’s a way?”
“Yes. But what matters now is that Lee Seon-dong gets a not guilty ruling in this case, or at least a finding of no charges.”
“A-attooorney Cha!”
“Let’s take it one step at a time. Slowly.”
Watching him force a smile, a thought suddenly surfaced about the culprit.
The culprit was someone who had gone far outside the bounds of normal human thinking.
For example, the usual assumption normal people made about sex criminals was that they committed those acts because they wanted sexual gratification.
But that wasn’t it.
Sex criminals did it for the satisfaction of utterly destroying a victim’s life.
This case is the same. What they want is not just the victim’s suffering, but the intoxicating sense of superiority over Lee Seon-dong—and the pleasure of crushing his life beneath their heel.
“Then may I ask a few more questions?”
“Ask anything you like!”
“Does your father live with your younger brother?”
“...Why are you asking that?”
“In court, we also look at the culprit’s background in order to make a comprehensive judgment. Not that I’m saying you’re the culprit, of course.”
He still looked as though he couldn’t follow.
“For example, someone commits a crime because they were emotionally abused as a child. If they hadn’t grown up in that environment, maybe they wouldn’t have committed it. That kind of social context is also used to understand a criminal.”
“Ah... so that’s what people mean when they say the court makes a comprehensive judgment.”
“Only part of it.”
He nodded, and finally spoke.
“My father travels around running the business, and my younger brother has been living in Los Angeles for about thirteen years.”
“Does he come back to Korea often?”
“My father does, but my brother doesn’t. He changed his name and ran off as soon as he became an adult. My parents said they’d change it back for him, hahaha.”
I had finally caught the culprit.
Tap.
I pulled a thick stack of papers from my bag.
“I’ll be taking part in the suspect interrogation in two days, but first I need to tell you what to watch out for during questioning.”
“Yes!”
I laid the statement record from the police investigation out in front of Lee Seon-dong.
“For consistency, you need to review the interrogation record in advance. Especially the major timeline and the actions involved. It’ll help if you memorize those details solidly before you go in.”
The successful kind of interview was one where I could add the things police had failed to ask, and I’d already finished preparing for that, so there shouldn’t be a problem.
“D-do we really have to go that far?”
“Yes. The prosecution prepares the suspect interrogation questions in advance before summoning you, along with expected answers.”
“Yikes.”
“But what happens if Lee Seon-dong says something different from what he said to the police?”
“...It’ll sound like I’m lying.”
“Exactly. That’s why I marked the important parts by case with a highlighter.”
“I’ll make sure I pay attention.”
The second thing.
“The initial questioning is handled by the detective supervisor. The prosecutor will supplement it with important follow-up questions, but here’s what you need to watch out for.”
He swallowed hard.
“Keep in mind that even during the investigator’s questioning, the prosecutor will be watching you.”
He must not dismiss it just because the prosecutor wasn’t the one asking directly.
The investigator’s questioning involved checking every word the suspect said, one by one, while also serving as a kind of buffer for the prosecutor’s key questions—the ones that would ultimately decide whether to indict or not.
After I’d gone through a few more points to watch for overall, quite a bit of time had passed.
“The prosecutor may ask certain questions multiple times. I’ll cover that in my opinion letter, so don’t get too nervous.”
“Just hearing that makes me nervous.”
Lee Seon-dong wiped the sweat from his palms onto his prison uniform.
“Think of it as a little outing.”
“An outing?”
“I’m scheduled to meet with the prosecutor assigned to your case tomorrow, and with the evidence we have, a no-charges decision should be more than enough.”
“Oh, wow. I see why my mother hired you, Attorney Cha.”
“You’re flattering me.”
Come to think of it—
“Are you taking your medication properly in here?”
“...Huh? Medication?”
He looked genuinely lost.
Did he forget the medicine he takes? That could’ve been serious in detention.
“I found pharmaceuticals in your home safe. I’m going to submit a request to have them issued to the detention center. You won’t be here long, but you had hyperventilation today too, and it could happen again.”
“Wh-what? N-no! Y-you really don’t need to do that.”
Lee Seon-dong spilled out his panic all at once.
His face flushed bright red.
“But it’s a cardiovascular condition, isn’t it?”
“N-no, it’s not.”
Why is he so flustered? Does he not want the illness exposed?
In some families, even illness was treated as a weakness, and they preferred to avoid seeing anyone outside their usual doctor or hospital.
But I thought it would be fine since Lee Seon-dong had prescriptions from a clinic near his home.
“All we need now is a doctor’s note and the prescription. It’ll also be protected as a professional secret.”
“I-it’s fine! I said it’s fine!”
Look at him now—his capillaries looked ready to burst.
In moments like this, I had to push hard.
For the sake of my client’s health.
“If it’s a cardiovascular condition, isn’t it dangerous? Even if only temporarily, I used the power of attorney to visit the internal medicine clinic and obtain a medical certificate.”
“...W-what?!”
Hit by hardship, adversity, and every storm life could throw at him all at once, he gave a helpless laugh.
“N-no, I mean—”
“...?”
“Wh-why... haa.”
Lee Seon-dong sighed again and again.
“Is there some problem?”
“Yes, a lot.”
“...?”
“I told you I wasn’t the culprit. I can’t do it.”
“Do what?”
He hung his head low and squeezed out a voice so faint even ants might not have heard it.
“In the morning... I can’t get the tent up.”
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