Money Spent, Windfalls Follow - 14
Jeong Hyeoncheol had put in a support request, so it wasn't long before the patrol car arrived.
"Thank you for your hard work."
As Jeong Hyeoncheol delivered the greeting with a suitably weighty air, the local officers snapped to attention.
"We've caught the fatsia shoot poachers in the act. There are four in total, so I'm afraid we'll need a second patrol car."
"Ah, well, you see, we only have the one patrol car at our substation."
An older officer with a low rank scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
The most crime Ugok-ri ever saw was a cow escaping its pen or a stray dog getting into the chicken coop. Once in a while the elders would get drunk on rice wine and throw a punch or two at each other, but everyone made up once they sobered up, so the police never needed to step in.
No wonder they'd just stood by with their hands behind their backs back when Cheonri Bridge used to come down into the village every night to cut the power lines and set fires.
The muddy-field cop, a figure even famous in movies. They were incompetent, yes, but they weren't exactly evil.
I suppose the most accurate description would be: too lazy to even bother being wicked.
They were nothing at all like the city police who battled desperately to catch criminals. The officers of the Ugok substation seemed to operate on the strange logic that if the police simply did nothing, the village would remain crime-free—supreme inaction above all.
Even the officer dispatched now made no effort to hide his annoyance.
"Uh, would anyone here have a car we could borrow to transport them? We can take the two men ourselves, but we'd appreciate it if the villagers could handle the women."
Had he stopped there, it would have been easy enough to take it in good grace—fine, no patrol car, so what are we going to do about it?
"They'll have to be transferred to the Pyeongcheong Police Station anyway, you see. The detectives up there are all awfully busy, so this is quite a pickle. What bad luck, getting caught this very week of all weeks."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Haha, well, it's wildfire season, you see, so every detective at Pyeongcheong Police Station is staked out around Mount Odae."
A wildfire set by an arsonist would plunge all of Pyeongcheong County into crisis. So apparently the entire county police force was running stakeouts and patrols near Mount Odae to keep arson from breaking out.
"For petty thieves, the procedure is to take their statements, confirm their identities, send them home for the time being, and then summon them back for questioning later."
"So you're just going to let them go?"
"We've confirmed who they are, so yes, we have to release them. It'll take a month or two for a case officer to even be assigned at Pyeongcheong Police Station. That's when wildfire season ends."
Would the assigned officer actually conduct a proper investigation once the case landed on his desk two months down the line? And would these people even bother showing up at Pyeongcheong Police Station for questioning?
"These people live in Seoul, you know."
"Then the case gets transferred to their local precinct, and they'll stand trial sometime around summer, I suppose. You do have evidence, right?"
When Jeong Hyeoncheol mentioned that he had filmed video of the thefts, the officer merely smirked.
"Well, it's not like the fatsia shoots were worth millions, so they'll probably just get a fine."
"They've been stealing for ten years. They've wrecked the fields, I told you."
"But there's no proof of that, is there? No ten years' worth of CCTV footage, no video of them destroying the fields."
If Grandfather Sang-jong had heard that, his eyes would have rolled back in his head. With the police taking this line, he'd have poured out his pent-up fury—this is why we've suffered for ten years!
But the officer simply carried on, as if to say that was just how the world worked.
"The detective here will know as well as anyone—without evidence, we have no choice but to release them. Isn't that right?"
At the officer's question, Jeong Hyeoncheol's face hardened like stone before he finally spoke.
"Understood."
"Haha. Well, you are a fellow officer—you catch on quick. It was Mapo Police Station, you said? Ooh, must be a fine place to work."
"It is. We just wrapped up a murder case two days ago."
A dangerous glint kindled in Jeong Hyeoncheol's eyes as he looked back and forth between the two officers and the patrol car.
"So, in other words—the Ugok substation is short-staffed with only one patrol car, and Pyeongcheong Police Station can't investigate because it's wildfire season. That about sums it up, doesn't it?"
"W-well, yes."
"Then there's nothing for it. Fellow officers ought to help each other out. One moment, please."
Jeong Hyeoncheol pulled out his phone.
"Hey, Seokho. I'm down at my father's hometown right now. Want to take a case? You know how the Metropolitan Investigation Unit's been sweeping the country picking up crop thieves, right?"
Jeong Hyeoncheol was escalating things. I cheered him on silently in my heart.
Yes! This is moving in a very promising direction.
He seemed to intend to hand the thieves over to a friend at the Metropolitan Investigation Unit. Unlike local police, who only solved cases within their own jurisdictions, the unit ran nationwide targeted investigations—serial murders, serial assaults, burglaries and robberies that crossed regional lines. When several jurisdictions needed to be tied together or a nationwide investigation was called for, the unit would either lend support or take the lead itself.
"The investigation's still ongoing, but apparently they've been raiding fatsia shoot fields for a full ten years? Yeah, and they're wearing gold rings and Rolexes, too. Run the story and it'll be great PR for the unit, don't you think? Right."
As Jeong Hyeoncheol's phone call went on, the faces of the two officers drained of color.
It wasn't that the Metropolitan Investigation Unit was a superior agency and ordinary substations an inferior one. But if the unit swooped in and took a case that a local substation could easily have handled itself? The moment Pyeongcheong Police Station—the substation's superior agency—found out, the profanity would fly: You lunatics! What on earth did you do to make the Metropolitan Unit get involved!
A leaky gourd looks leaky from the outside, too.
"Uh, um... Detective?"
"One moment. I'm on the phone. Please wait."
Jeong Hyeoncheol's expression turned stern as he continued speaking to the unit detective.
"You've got a reporter lined up already? I'll bring the suspects up myself—I'm on vacation. Haha, and you'll make sure I get on the news too? Even better! Whether the local substation ever actually intended to catch the criminals who turned those fatsia fields into a wasteland for ten straight years—that's worth examining as well, don't you think?"
When the call ended, Jeong Hyeoncheol addressed the two officers who had come out from the Ugok substation.
"The Metropolitan Investigation Unit will be taking the case. I'll be handing these four over to them myself. Apparently they've designated this a nationwide crackdown on farm-product thieves."
Jeong Hyeoncheol was the one who had caught the thieves, and now that he proposed to escort them straight to the unit himself, there was nothing the officers could do to stop it.
The faces of the two substation officers began to rot with despair. They'd taken rough statements, run the identity checks, and even announced they'd release the culprits so they could be formally charged later.
But now—if the affair blew up beyond all containment and hit the broadcast news?
Pyeongcheong Police Station itself would be turned upside down. Yet at this point, they couldn't bring themselves to tell Jeong Hyeoncheol that they would transport the thieves, and I could see them quietly simmering in their own juice.
"D-Detective, is it really necessary to go this far—"
"Elders should have been able to farm trusting that the police would protect them. Instead, you made private citizens spend their own money on CCTV, and now that they've caught the criminals for you, your first thought is to let them go."
Jeong Hyeoncheol gritted his teeth, as if he could not possibly tolerate it.
"You'll be writing an incident report over this, at minimum. There may even be a pay cut. If anything like this happens one more time, I'll be reporting it up to the higher agency."
Oh Joon-seo, the village chief of Ugok 2-ri, who had been quietly watching the whole scene unfold, stepped forward.
"Detective, I'll assist with handing the culprits over to the Metropolitan Unit. I'm the village chief of Ugok 2-ri and head of the crime prevention patrol."
"A patrol captain is even more reassuring than a local police box, honestly."
"The police weren't protecting our village, so we were forced to strengthen our own security."
"I see it truly was a place with problems."
Under Jeong Hyeoncheol's fierce gaze, the two officers rolled their eyes, unable to figure out where to look.
While Oh Joon-seo and the village youths kept watch over the culprits, I followed Jeong Hyeoncheol back up the mountain trail toward Ugok 1-ri. His car was parked up there, after all, and the Village Head and Grandfather Sang-jong would be stamping their feet in worry waiting for us.
"Oh dear, did you lose the thieves?"
When the Village Head saw Jeong Hyeoncheol and me coming down from the mountain, he flustered over our apparent failure. Grandfather Sang-jong even staggered, as though the disappointment had physically struck him.
"No, no. You must not have gotten the news yet. We caught every last one of them, and the chief of Ugok 2-ri has them in custody."
"Is that so? Then why come back down? What about the thieves?"
"Well, you see—Haksu's youngest son here, Mr. Jeong Hyeoncheol, is going to take them up to Seoul and make sure they're properly punished. That's why we came back, to get his car."
At my brief explanation, the Village Head seized Jeong Hyeoncheol's hands in both of his.
"Haksu raised a fine son. How proud he must be, bragging to the whole world below. That Haksu—he always did love his family with a rare and burning devotion."
"Is... is that so?"
"He ran every errand there was at the fishing grounds, helping his mother. It's plain as day how he must have cherished the son he had late in life."
"Do... do you think so?"
"Of course! Haksu must have strained himself to the bone trying to protect you and your mother. It was just that his heart never quite reached you."
The words the Village Head had just spoken.
At them, Jeong Hyeoncheol wore the expression of a man whose lifelong question had finally been answered.
"I think I can understand my father a little better now."
"There, there."
As Jeong Hyeoncheol climbed into his car, I approached and offered my farewell.
"Thank you for seeing this through to the end. Please stop by my house before your vacation is over—I'd like to treat you to a proper meal."
"I'll hand the suspects over to my friend at the unit and come straight back down."
Jeong Hyeoncheol looked into my eyes and spoke with utter sincerity.
"Thanks to your decision to restore these abandoned houses, Mr. Kim, the questions that have sat like stones in my chest all my life are finally being answered, one by one."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"Thank you. I'll come down often and help with the house restorations myself. And I'll pitch in on fixing my father's house, too."
There was no reason to talk a willing helper out of it.
"Yes, please do. See you again soon."
After seeing Grandfather Sang-jong safely home and returning to my own house, the sky was already darkening.
"Let me think. Seo Jinwoo is supposed to come over, isn't he."
Apparently, Seo Jinwoo wasn't just plagued by nightmares—he'd begun experiencing illusions in broad daylight as well.
They'd been filming a scene in a drama where the protagonist, weeping, hardened his resolve. It was the kind of moment where they'd cut together only the best takes of an actor channeling raw emotion into the most delicate of performances.
And then a woman had touched Seo Jinwoo's neck, and when he turned, she was standing behind him, staring at him unblinking. His concentration shattered completely, and anger boiling up inside him, he'd protested.
But the staff had only gaped at him in horror and asked whether that outburst was part of the acting too.
So he checked the footage, wondering what on earth was going on—and he was the only one in the frame.
Something very bad had latched onto him.
For now, I told Seo Jinwoo to be careful and come straight to my house. I figured I'd need to meet him in person and examine him up close before I could tell what kind of evil spirit had attached itself.
I sent Chai off to Mak-sun Halmeoni's place in the meantime. These days Chai had his dinner over there, watched dramas with Mak-sun Halmeoni, and only wandered into the guest room to fall asleep once night had fully settled in. So even if Seo Jinwoo arrived today, Chai wouldn't be in the way.
I began searching for information on the traditional Thai curse Chai had told me about.
So the symptoms Seo Jinwoo is experiencing are most likely a curse—Thai black magic, or something like voodoo?