What Happened at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (3)
News of the suspect’s arrest in the Geumunsan High School Girl Murder Case, a case that had been bogged down for weeks, began breaking from early morning.
“The alleged prime suspect in the so-called ‘Geumunsan High School Girl Murder Case,’ which took place around Geumunsan in Seongbuk District, Seoul, has been apprehended by police, bringing the case into a new phase.
“The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it is investigating a woman in her thirties, identified as Ms. A, who lives near Seongbuk District, on suspicion of murder.
“Ms. A was confirmed to have worked as a butcher at a nearby meat processing plant.
“According to police, Ms. A is accused of stabbing a high school girl multiple times with a knife last month and killing her as she passed along a walking trail on Geumunsan.
“After the crime, evidence suggesting that the weapon had been hidden in a nearby alley drain was uncovered during CCTV analysis and a search of the scene. Police said the knife, still bearing bloodstains, has been secured and sent to the National Forensic Service for examination.”
***
Two women sat facing each other across a table.
Do Se-lin, with the case files spread out before her, fixed her gaze on the suspect, Oh Myeong-suk, with relentless focus.
She had the utterly ordinary look of a woman you might see anywhere in her mid-thirties.
The only unusual thing about her was the profusion of scar marks on her hands and arms, as if she’d been cut by knives again and again.
Her cuffed hands were folded neatly on her knees.
At a glance, she might have seemed tense, but her face was completely serene.
“Did you sleep well?”
Oh Myeong-suk rolled her eyes upward for a moment, as if considering the question.
“Yes. I slept well.”
Her voice was calm.
There was almost no fluctuation in her tone.
Do Se-lin tilted her head slightly.
“Even though someone died?”
“Would they come back to life if I didn’t sleep?”
A brief silence.
Do Se-lin rolled her pen between her fingers.
“Did you go to Geumunsan often?”
“Sometimes. It’s quiet.”
“Did you know the victim?”
“I’d just seen her face a few times, in passing.”
“Then why did you stab her?”
The question came in hard and fast.
Oh Myeong-suk blinked.
She didn’t look surprised.
“Do you think I stabbed her?”
“All the circumstances and evidence point to that.”
Thinking for a moment, Oh Myeong-suk spoke in an even tone.
“I just... found her irritating.”
“What did?”
“Her smile.”
Do Se-lin stopped moving the pen.
“So you killed her?”
“It just... happened.”
Leaning back in her chair, Do Se-lin studied her closely.
The pupils did not waver. Her breathing was steady.
It meant she felt no guilt at all.
Do Se-lin’s gaze dropped to the scars on the back of her hands, then lifted again.
“You’ve worked as a butcher for a long time, I take it.”
“About seven years...”
“You must’ve gotten used to the sensation of cutting into flesh.”
“It wasn’t all that different.”
“..........”
Do Se-lin pressed her lips together.
It was a deliberate silence.
She had judged that if Oh Myeong-suk was indeed the type she suspected, she wouldn’t tolerate this empty space for long.
And, as expected—
“But people are warmer than you’d think.”
After watching Oh Myeong-suk in silence for a moment, Do Se-lin quietly closed the folder.
“One last question. If you hadn’t been caught yesterday... would you have done the same thing to someone else?”
Oh Myeong-suk hesitated, seeming to consider it.
“Of course not. That time, it was truly an impulsive accident. I do feel sorry for the student who died.”
She offered a faint smile.
Do Se-lin stared at her for a moment, then slowly rose from her seat.
“That’s all for today’s interview.”
As Do Se-lin stepped out of the interrogation room, the lead detective approached with a deeply furrowed brow.
“She’s not ordinary, is she?”
“She’s completely hollow where human emotions should be.”
“Anyone can see she’s a psychopath.”
“She’s close to the psychopathic spectrum, yes, but not the predator type.”
“Predator type?”
“The sort who takes pleasure in using and manipulating people. Oh Myeong-suk isn’t that kind.”
“Then what is she?”
“That woman doesn’t perceive people as ‘subjects.’ She sees them as objects. That’s where the lack of guilt comes from.”
Watching Oh Myeong-suk as she blankly looked around the interrogation room, Do Se-lin went on.
“You can’t push someone like that with emotion. She’ll only respond to logical causality.”
When the detective tilted his head, Do Se-lin elaborated.
“For example, instead of asking directly why she killed, ask why she chose that option in that situation. It should make it easier to draw out an answer.”
The lead detective made a face that suggested he was thoroughly disgusted by the whole thing, then bowed his head.
“Anyway, thanks to you, we were able to solve the case. We appreciate it.”
“I didn’t really do anything. The weapon was found by the detective who came to assist us.”
Apparently taking that for modesty, the detective laughed good-naturedly.
“Haha, sure, sure. Still, how did you identify the suspect in the first place? And how did you find the weapon?”
At his question, Do Se-lin suddenly found herself at a loss for what to say.
That a young detective on assignment had traced the suspect’s movements from nothing more than a faint impression left in fallen leaves—one even the forensic team had missed?
Who would believe that, if she said it?
“In any case, I’ll be counting on you in the future as well.”
From the detective’s point of view, having had such a troublesome case neatly solved for him, she must have looked like a savior.
“And that young man there.”
Lowering his voice, the detective whispered as he pointed toward Song Tan, who was dozing off in a corner of the observation room.
“He seemed to be listening for a bit, then ended up nodding off like that. He looks young enough to be the deputy commissioner’s new pet profiler or something... Ahem, but he doesn’t seem all that interested in this kind of work, does he?”
Do Se-lin’s gaze landed on Song Tan.
“I am, in name at least, a detective. I’d like to think I know people fairly well, but that young man doesn’t look suited for psychology, profiling, or anything of the sort. If he tried, he’d only be barking up the wrong tree.”
At the detective’s whispering, Do Se-lin almost burst out laughing without meaning to.
If she told him that the credit for finding the suspect’s trace at a scene he had confidently declared empty, and then following that trail all the way to the decisive evidence, had all begun with that young detective—she could already imagine the look on his face.
“Ahem, I was just shamelessly meddling where I shouldn’t have. Well then, I’ll be off.”
The detective led Oh Myeong-suk away somewhere, and Do Se-lin tapped Song Tan on the shoulder, where he stood with his head bowed in the corner.
“Detective Song?”
Song Tan’s eyelids twitched, and his hazy eyes appeared.
“Ah, sorry. I seem to have dozed off.”
Looking at Song Tan’s face, still not quite awake, Do Se-lin let out a small snort of laughter.
Anyone who knew her would have been shocked by the sight.
For a perfectionist who hated mistakes and laziness with a passion, even this slight display of softness was surprising in itself.
“I suppose my interview was boring.”
“No, it wasn’t that...”
Song Tan scratched his head, looking awkward.
“It’s just that... the suspect seems ready to spill everything. Though if you think about it, it’s less confessing than bragging.”
Do Se-lin nodded in agreement.
“A textbook self-aggrandizing confession. It’s something psychopaths display when they view the crime itself as an achievement.”
Then she added,
“She definitely would have become a serial killer, if we hadn’t caught her this time.”
“Probably. She’d finally gotten a proper taste for blood.”
Glancing at Song Tan, Do Se-lin said bluntly, “Shall we go get coffee? I also have something important to discuss.”
“Gladly.”
Song Tan decided that caffeine was the only way to fight off the wave of sleepiness bearing down on him, and nodded readily.
***
Perhaps because it was still early, the café was quiet.
“That... I am helping, right?”
At Song Tan’s question, Do Se-lin gave a dry laugh.
“Are you joking?”
It wasn’t just help. He had practically solved the case alone, one that might otherwise have gone cold.
Which left her face burning with embarrassment.
She had requested his assignment for collaboration, only to end up receiving help one-sidedly.
Of course, she intended to write the case report with all the credit attributed firmly to Detective Song.
It was only right.
After lifting her cup and setting it back down, Do Se-lin asked casually, “Those things you showed at the scene earlier... where on earth did you learn them?”
A short silence passed.
“Those were traces even the forensics team didn’t find. Honestly, if I were told to look for them again now, I don’t think I could. So how was Detective Song able to do that?”
Song Tan took a sip of coffee without answering.
“And not just that—you even read the details of a person’s gait from a simple impression in the ground... I’ve never seen anything like that in any paper or book.”
Under her intense, expectant stare, Song Tan scratched his chin.
“I did my military service on the front line in Gangwon Province. What people usually call the GOP.”
Song Tan glanced out the window for a moment, then spoke evenly.
“When you’re on duty there, sometimes you find holes in the barbed-wire fence. That’s an emergency, of course. In situations like that, you have to report carefully on which direction the fence was torn, whether there are signs of digging, whether there’s any excrement nearby, and whether there are footprints left behind.”
His gaze returned to Do Se-lin.
“After doing that sort of thing often enough... I suppose I just got used to finding traces in the mountains.”
His voice trailed off slightly at the end.
Even he thought it sounded absurd, but he couldn’t exactly say, ‘I’ve got the old-life experience of chasing martial world criminals, so that’s why!’
As expected, Do Se-lin looked at him in bewilderment.
“So everyone from the GOP has skills like Detective Song?”
“That... not exactly.”
Song Tan scratched his head, having failed to come out ahead at all.
“In the end, that just means Detective Song is special.”
“Unusual would be a better word.”
“I like unusual people. ‘Special’ comes from comparison with others, but ‘unusual’ comes from the person themselves.”
“Pardon?”
“Think about it again. Aren’t you really not interested in learning proper profiling?”
“If you mean what you asked me last time...”
“I’m asking because it would be a waste. Detective Song, you have talent. No, talent isn’t enough to describe it—you’re overflowing with it. You’re already this good now; if you were properly trained...”
Do Se-lin thought that perhaps a profiler comparable to John Douglas, whom experts called one of the best in the world, might emerge from Korea.
But Song Tan shook his head firmly, as though leaving no room for argument.
“I like being a detective who runs around in person and even cuffs the criminal myself. Of course, profilers are a fine profession too, but I have no intention of giving up detective work.”
Meeting those stubborn eyes, Do Se-lin let out a faint sigh.
Since reading human psychology was her job, she knew better than most that once he made up his mind, he wouldn’t change it.
So she decided to change tactics.
She would persuade him through action rather than words.
Profilers were experts at analyzing crime.
In other words, the real stage where they shone was in interviews with suspects.
At the moment they sat face-to-face—their speech, their eyes, their breathing, their silences.
If she could show him herself, right there, how to read all of that and draw the proper conclusion...
It would be far more effective than trying to convince him with words.
A faint smile touched Do Se-lin’s lips.
I have to get him.
There were plenty of good detectives.
But people who could instinctively understand the patterns of a criminal’s behavior and thought were rare.
That was why Do Se-lin couldn’t afford to let this go.
Taking up her handbag, she rose from her seat.
“Shall we head out?”
“Where are we going now?”
“To Seocho Police Station. The violent crime unit there requested a suspect interview.”
“A suspect...?”
“It’s a murder case. He’s suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming, but the body still hasn’t been found.”
Standing, Do Se-lin looked down at Song Tan with a sharp smile.
“I’ll show you properly this time. How a profiler reads the mind of evil. If you see it yourself, I think you might change your mind, even if only a little.”
She strode forward with confidence, and Song Tan, who had been watching her silently, rose and followed after her without a word.
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