The One Who Reads Evil vs. the One Who Rips It Apart
Seoul’s Seocho Police Station.
A man who looked every inch the detective approached the two of them and held out a hand.
"Pleased to meet you. Chief Inspector Choi Taewoong, Violent Crimes Team 3, Seocho Station."
"Likewise. I'm Do Se-lin from the Crime Analysis Team at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency."
The detective's gaze was fixed entirely on Do Se-lin.
Song Tan seemed to have been written off as nothing more than a rookie analyst tagging along after his senior.
Noticing that, Do Se-lin introduced him on the fly.
"This is Song Tan, the officer from Annam Station who came to help me."
"Song Tan from Annam...?"
The detective narrowed his eyes, then suddenly clapped a hand to his forehead.
"Wait, are you the one who arrested Kim Chung-gon?"
"That's right."
The Seocho detective stared at Song Tan with round, rabbitlike eyes.
"Oh! I've heard a lot about you. Wow, so this is where we finally meet."
Song Tan tilted his head, looking faintly puzzled.
"Heard about me?"
"Haha, you may not know this, but among detectives, Officer Song is pretty famous. Word is, Annam's got a monster who catches criminals wherever they pop up."
For Song Tan, who spent most of his time buried in Annam, this was the first he'd heard of it.
"In any case, let me take you inside."
The detective led the two of them to the observation room.
Inside, three other detectives were already talking.
After exchanging brief introductions with them as well, they got down to business.
"I know the broad strokes, but could we get a quick briefing?"
One detective let out a faint sigh and stepped forward.
"At first, it was just a missing-person case. The mother filed a report because her daughter stopped answering her calls at some point. But then we traced the missing woman's last phone records and movements, and they all led back to that bastard."
The detective jerked his chin toward the interrogation room beyond the glass.
Inside sat a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties.
His hands were cuffed, his arms resting on the table, his head bowed without so much as a twitch.
"He's the missing woman's ex-boyfriend. According to him, he called her in one last attempt to patch things up, but since it seemed impossible, he just sent her off."
"What have you confirmed so far?"
"We know for certain he put the victim in his car. We matched that with nearby CCTV. And there was blood found inside the vehicle, too."
"The result?"
"It belongs to the victim. The DNA matched. Forensics called us earlier today."
"Hmm..."
Do Se-lin stroked her chin and looked at the man through the glass.
"What did the suspect say?"
"He changed his story all of a sudden. Said there was some scuffle, and that he got scratched on the fingernail in the process."
"That's all?"
"Yes. He said they fought for a while, he got angry, and then he dropped her off on the way somewhere."
"Hah."
At the absurdity of it all, Do Se-lin gave a cool, disdainful smile.
"Did you trace his route on the day of the presumed crime? If he dumped the body, it would have been on the same day he killed her."
"Of course we did. Between four and six in the afternoon that day, his phone's base-station location was recorded near Dopyeong Mountain in Paju."
"Dopyeong Mountain in Paju..."
Lines formed between Do Se-lin's brows.
"He chose the perfect place to dump a body. Few hiking trails, so hardly any people, and plenty of brush and undergrowth, so once you go a little deeper, you can't see much from outside. Vehicle access is also relatively easy."
"Ah, I see."
The detective let out a low murmur of admiration at the analysis that came so readily.
"Why did he say he went to Dopyeong Mountain?"
"He said he was feeling so down after deciding things were completely over with his girlfriend that he just went out for a drive to clear his head."
"He drove all the way from Seocho to Paju for that? Over two hours behind the wheel?"
"That's his claim, yes."
One detective sighed as though his patience had run out.
"The circumstantial evidence makes it obvious he killed her, but we still haven't found the body, so... If it stays like this, we may only be able to charge him with assault, not murder."
"Detectives, when do I get to go home?! I'm starving to death here!"
From inside the interrogation room, the man suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs.
His speech was thick with the Gyeongsang dialect.
"Look at that bastard acting up," one of the detectives muttered. "It's like he's sitting in his own living room."
"He's sure we won't be able to find the body no matter what," Do Se-lin said quietly, studying the man.
"Did you search the area?"
"We did. Line detectives, local precinct officers—everyone combed through the Dopyeong Mountain area from top to bottom, but... nothing turned up. No idea where the hell he hid it."
The detectives looked at Do Se-lin with desperate faces.
"Please, just give us something—anything—to get even a small lead out of that bastard's mouth. We'll handle the rest."
Do Se-lin nodded, uncrossed her arms, and turned to Song Tan.
"Watch carefully. I'm about to show you why profilers matter."
She picked up her bag and stood.
"I'll go in."
The detective nodded.
"Watch your tongue with that one. Just listening to him will make your blood boil."
Without replying, Do Se-lin pushed open the door and entered the interrogation room.
Clack.
The door shut with a quiet sound.
The man, who had been humming to himself, raised his head and swept his eyes over her from head to toe.
Then the corner of his mouth slowly lifted.
"Oh? New face?"
Do Se-lin said nothing. She sat down, placed the case file on the table, and folded her hands calmly.
"Let's not waste time. I ain't opening my mouth until my lawyer gets here, so don't bother."
The man looked at her with oily eyes.
"But if it's a beauty like you, well, that might be a different story."
The detectives watching from the observation room scowled.
"That bastard..."
Song Tan kept his gaze fixed on the glass without saying a word.
"I'm Do Se-lin, criminal analyst with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency."
Do Se-lin spoke evenly, her voice steady and flat.
"Analyst? Oh! A profiler? Like in the movies?"
The man let out a snort and leaned forward.
"Then you can read my mind too, huh? Go on—guess what I'm thinking right now."
Do Se-lin looked into his eyes for a long moment.
Then she said,
"If I hold out a few more days, this will all be over. Don't let your guard down until the very end. Something like that?"
The man's grin, which had been hanging there from the start, suddenly twitched.
"Pfft. What the hell kind of nonsense is that?"
Do Se-lin lifted her pen as if nothing had happened.
"When was the last time you saw Jang Min-ju?"
"Can you remember what you ate last Thursday, Detective Beauty? I told you, I don't remember."
"Then let me rephrase. Why did you put her in your car?"
"Haah, how many times do I have to say the same thing? I put her in there to talk."
"About what?"
The man narrowed his eyes.
"At first I was trying to win her back, being all careful and nice, wagging my tail to keep her sweet. But that bitch started spitting trash that shouldn't have come out of a mouth, so we got into a little fight. That's all."
"Then what about the blood found in Jang Min-ju's car?"
"That bitch kept hitting me on the head, so when I tried to block her, I got scratched a little by her fingernail. It's not like I was spraying blood everywhere. Quit making a big deal out of a tiny bit of it."
"And after that, where did the victim go?"
"How should I know? She just kept huffing and puffing, then stormed off on her own. I said I'd drive her home, and she told me to get lost. When that bitch gets worked up once, she doesn't see a thing. If you don't believe me, ask her friends."
A brief silence followed.
Do Se-lin, deep in thought, fixed the man with a steady gaze.
"I heard there were a lot of problems while you were dating. Constant calls, showing up when she didn't answer. In the end, confinement and dating violence, too."
"That bitch made me that way. Every time she opened her mouth, it was a lie."
"So you killed her?"
"What?"
"Because even after you kept trying to make it work and swallow your pride, she kept lying to you?"
"Ha! Forget it. Beauty or whatever. From now on, I'm not saying another word. And when I get out of here, I'm suing all of you for making an innocent man out to be a criminal."
"Then just shut up and listen. I'll tell you what happened that day instead."
The mood changed so abruptly that the man looked faintly taken aback.
"No matter how much you begged, Jang Min-ju never looked like she was going to come back to you. So your thinking changed. If I can't have her, I'll just get rid of her. Then no one can have her."
"What the hell are you basing that on—"
"People like you usually think that way."
Her answer came a beat too quickly, and the man's mouth snapped shut.
"So you strangled Jang Min-ju to death, then moved the body to the spot you'd already picked out. Stuffed in a suitcase you'd prepared the day before. Everything was going according to plan, until one variable slipped in. You overlooked the fact that Dopyeong Mountain is a rocky, gravel-layered mountain."
The man's eyelids twitched, just barely.
"You kept digging, but stones kept getting in the way, so the job wouldn't move forward. That's when you started to panic. Anxiety set in, and you changed the plan in a hurry. Since burial was impossible, you decided to cover the body with rocks and leaves instead. After all, you must have figured no one would ever come all the way in here."
"Ha. Hahaha. Are you a cop or a writer? That's getting interesting."
Leaning back in the chair, the man let out an empty laugh, and Do Se-lin's eyes flashed for an instant.
"Don't bluff. The body's going to be found no matter what. Why? Because Dopyeong Mountain isn't that large. There are only so many roads that vehicles can reach, and there couldn't be more than ten sectors where a body could actually be dumped."
She set down her pen quietly.
"A body that isn't fully buried will rot and stink as it decomposes. If you release a few police dogs specially trained to detect corpses, finding it is only a matter of time."
The man said nothing.
"The moment the police find the body, your punishment will get far worse. But if you tell me now, here in this room, it can be taken into account as a mitigating factor in sentencing."
The man's eyes wavered, and his breathing gradually grew rough.
"I... I didn't really mean to do it..."
The carefree look was gone; with a face full of confusion, the man brooded over something for a while.
"Could I smoke a cigarette?" he asked at last, sounding resigned.
Do Se-lin took a cigarette pack and lighter from her handbag and set them on the table.
Fsssh.
"Huu..."
White smoke curled upward in a soft cloud.
By the time the cigarette had nearly burned down, the man lowered his head and his shoulders began to shake.
"That fucking bitch... Damn bitch..."
He muttered to himself for about five minutes before lifting his head and wiping at his eyes.
"All right, tell me where you dumped the body..."
At once, Do Se-lin's expression turned cold.
She noticed the twitching corners of the man's mouth.
"Ah... haha."
The man rolled his neck from side to side, then looked at her.
"How's that? Get a little excited?"
Seeing Do Se-lin's expressionless face, the man burst out laughing.
"Wow, our Detective Beauty's got some nerve. Not even a flicker in that face, even now."
"What exactly are you trying to do?"
The man leaned back.
"Go on, then."
"What?"
"Let the dogs loose, send up drones—if you're confident, find it."
Now fully back in control, the man's face made Do Se-lin's own harden like stone.
She instinctively sensed something had gone wrong.
"Here. I'll say this one last time, so wipe your ears and listen carefully. That bitch Jang Min-ju deserved to die, but I didn't kill her. She stormed off on her own, kept huffing and puffing, and probably ended up falling to her death somewhere. Don't drag an innocent man into this. That's all I've got to say. Unless you're promising to have a drink with me outside, I'm done talking, so get that through your head."
With a snicker, the man propped his chin on his cuffed hand and looked up at Do Se-lin.
His gaze was as sleazy as could be.
Do Se-lin stared at him for a long moment, then gathered her things and left the interrogation room.
The detectives hurried over to her, their faces full of outrage.
"Didn't I tell you? The bastard's as slippery as a snake."
"He's playing with the police, that's what he's doing. Ugh, I could go in there and beat him senseless, honestly."
The lead detective clenched his teeth.
"What if we increase manpower and search the entire Dopyeong Mountain area again, thoroughly this time?"
Do Se-lin shook her head weakly.
"That kind of attitude means he's confident it won't be found. If we search again and still come up empty, we might end up helping the culprit instead."
"Damn it... Then what are we supposed to do? Beg that bastard? Ask him where he hid the body?"
The detective vented his frustration and stared through the glass.
The man had leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, eyes on the ceiling.
He was even humming to himself.
As Do Se-lin bit her lip in frustration, unable to come up with a decent solution, Song Tan stood.
"Would you mind if I went in?"
Do Se-lin looked at him and shook her head.
"You saw it yourself. There's no point going in."
"Still, we should try everything we can. For the sake of the family waiting day and night for the victim to come home."
Meeting his calm, lake-like eyes, Do Se-lin found herself nodding before she knew it.
She couldn't explain why, but for some reason, it felt like that would be all right.
Clack.
Song Tan entered the interrogation room.
The man, who had been squinting, scowled deeply.
"Ah, hell. What the fuck is this now? I already told you—I'm not opening my mouth anymore."
At that, a bright, almost childish smile appeared on Song Tan's lips.
"That's exactly what I wanted."
***
Roughly twenty minutes later.
Clack.
Song Tan came out of the interrogation room.