Chapter 49
Chapter 49
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 49
Chapter Title: Over Soju with the Team Leader
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Park Dae-hyung headed out after a long time to meet Oh Min-seok, a former colleague who now served as the team leader of the Violent Crimes Unit.
The place they had agreed to meet was an old pocha they occasionally visited.
It mainly served jeon, and when he arrived, Oh Min-seok was already there.
“Hey, over here.”
“When did you get here? I came straight after work.”
Park Dae-hyung sat down in front of Oh Min-seok.
Last time, right after he and Lee Jae-hyun had gone to catch the loan shark Gu Hyun-seok, they had made plans to meet.
Oh Min-seok had helped search for evidence during the Myeong Jin-han case, so this was just a chance for a quick chat.
“I came straight after work too. It’s payday, so the guys wanted to go out for drinks, but I turned them down.”
“Our side…… the mood’s kinda iffy.”
“Why? Didn’t get your bonus?”
At Park Dae-hyung’s words, Oh Min-seok looked up with a puzzled expression.
He didn’t know every detail about the performance stats of Park Dae-hyung’s team at Hanseong Police Substation, but he did know they had caught Myeong Jin-han and then Park Chun-beom right after.
Catching those guys alone should’ve meant a decent bonus, so he couldn’t understand why the mood was iffy.
Park Dae-hyung scratched his cheek and spoke.
“We got it, but there’s Myeong Jin-han, you know?”
“Yeah. What about that bastard?”
“He filed a property damage complaint against the rookie.”
“Holy shit, that guy really does it all. Killed two people and now this.”
As Park Dae-hyung explained, Oh Min-seok grimaced, picked up the soju bottle, and filled the glass in front of him.
They weren’t on the same team, but he had busted his ass back then searching for evidence too.
Even without that, as a fellow cop, it was infuriating that a murderer had filed a property damage complaint against police.
Once his glass was full, Park Dae-hyung took the soju bottle from Oh Min-seok’s hand and filled his glass.
Clink.
They lightly clinked glasses and downed them in one go.
The side dish was seafood jeon.
Park Dae-hyung shoved a roughly torn piece into his mouth, swallowed it with barely any chewing, and continued.
“So yeah, no one even brought up drinks. We all just went home on our own.”
“What about Patrol Officer Lee Jae-hyun? First time getting a bonus or dealing with a complaint like that, right?”
“He seemed more unfazed than I expected. Not sure if he was prepared for it or what.”
His recent behavior had been so unusual that the calm Lee Jae-hyun didn’t even seem weird.
At Park Dae-hyung’s words, Oh Min-seok chuckled and spoke.
“Well…… ever since he suddenly called 112 saying there was a robbery in progress and smashed the place up, I knew he wasn’t your average guy. But unfazed even in that situation? He’s something else.”
“Exactly. Man, our rookie’s got something special about him.”
“You should’ve seen him at the scene. Your eyes would’ve rolled back and you’d be begging him to become a detective.”
“Honestly, he does seem cut out for it no matter how you look at it.”
Park Dae-hyung nodded lightly as he spoke.
Oh Min-seok shoved a piece of seafood jeon into his mouth, swallowed it down, and opened his mouth.
“What, something else happen?”
“Some guy nearly beat a six-year-old to death.”
“No way that was your rookie too?”
It was a case Oh Min-seok couldn’t not know about.
It was attempted murder, so it nearly got bumped up to the Violent Crimes Unit.
But he remembered it getting solved in less than a day.
He hadn’t paid attention to which team handled it at the time.
No way it was Hanseong Police Substation Team 4?
Park Dae-hyung nodded lightly at Oh Min-seok’s question.
“Yeah, it was a loan shark. Couldn’t pin down his office location. But suddenly the kid picks up a business card on the street saying ‘loans available,’ calls the number, and gets the location out of him.”
“That crazy bastard……”
He’d known from the pet shop glass-smashing incident, but yeah, total madman.
As Oh Min-seok thought that, Park Dae-hyung continued.
“Oh, and there’s this guy who’s been scamming and on the run for a few years, Jeong Woo-min.”
Oh Min-seok knew the name Jeong Woo-min too.
It was fraud, not their jurisdiction, but he’d heard about it in passing……
He vaguely remembered hearing he’d been caught recently.
“That guy got nabbed recently, right? I think I heard.”
“Yeah. Our rookie caught him too.”
“……Where’d you catch that one?”
At this point, it was starting to feel absurd.
Fine, Myeong Jin-han was a passenger in his dad’s taxi.
Park Chun-beom…… he’d only heard Lee Jae-hyun solved it, not the details, so maybe he just stumbled into it.
Calling from a ‘loans available’ business card? A smart kid could pull that off.
But nabbing a scammer who’d been on the run for three years?
Park Dae-hyung’s follow-up answer was even more ridiculous.
“In a hospital parking lot.”
“Out of nowhere? What was the situation?”
“The dad of the kid who almost died was Jeong Woo-min. On his way back after handling protection for the kid and mom and handing over the smartwatch, he spotted him and nabbed him.”
Hearing that much, Oh Min-seok couldn’t hold back anymore.
He cleared his throat loudly and refilled Park Dae-hyung’s glass.
“Hey, Dae-hyung. That kid’s got something special. Can’t you send him to our team?”
“He’s still just a patrol officer.”
“What rule says patrol officers can’t join Violent Crimes?”
“……You joking?”
Park Dae-hyung refilled Oh Min-seok’s glass with a baffled look.
Oh Min-seok set down his full glass and continued.
“I know it’s not that simple, but from my position, how could I not want him? We’re dying from manpower shortages. Send your rookie over, and half our cases solve themselves.”
Cases were piling up endlessly.
Murder, robbery, assault, theft, rape—lately, drug cases were exploding too.
Drugs at least went to the Narcotics Team, so they managed somehow.
But detectives were getting shredded by the other cases.
Now imagine a patrol officer who, in one month, caught two murderers, an illegal medical practitioner, illegal loan sharking, child attempted murder, and even fraud?
That could make a difference.
“If I send him, you got confidence he won’t get hurt?”
“How’s he gonna get hurt in Violent Crimes?”
“Then no deal.”
Park Dae-hyung shrugged, stating the obvious.
Oh Min-seok took a bite of seafood jeon, set down his chopsticks, and pressed.
“No, why are you deciding? If he wants to come, he comes.”
“Then why ask me?”
“Just, y’know, pass the word along nicely.”
At Oh Min-seok’s words, Park Dae-hyung waved him off like he should scram.
He hadn’t expected Oh Min-seok to push this hard.
“Whatever. Handle it yourself.”
“Hey, you admitted he’s detective material. Why hold back?”
At those words, Park Dae-hyung shut his mouth.
He quietly stared down at the soju glass in front of him.
Yeah, Lee Jae-hyun was detective material.
But sometimes he charged ahead with too much confidence, which worried him.
‘For now…… let’s stick together for a year.’
Once he learned to play it safe, then they could talk.
Park Dae-hyung thought to himself and emptied his glass in one gulp.
* * *
The next day.
Lee Jae-hyun took the morning off but left the house as usual.
His destination today was the site where Choi Dae-hyeon, the victim of the child kidnapping-murder case from his previous life, was presumed to have been abducted.
There were three CCTV blind spots at the presumed crime scene, so he had three spots to check.
First up: an old playground near the academy.
It had CCTV, but it was broken, rendering it pointless.
‘Even a kid would resist during a kidnapping, so low chance here.’
Lee Jae-hyun thought as he looked around the playground.
The sand-floored playground had a few rusty, worn-out structures.
The terrain was elevated, requiring stairs to access.
No nearby parking either.
From here, you’d have to subdue an 11-year-old boy resisting and carry him down the stairs to a car……
Not easy.
Of course, considering the perpetrator was an adult male who worked at a farm, it wasn’t impossible.
Lee Jae-hyun slowly scanned the area, then moved to the next spot.
The second blind spot was an alley between two apartment complexes.
Not much foot traffic, and you could park cars right after exiting the alley…… so easier for a kidnapping than the playground.
However……
“Hey, what’s your hand made of, bronze?”
“Bronze or silver, same difference……”
Students chattered noisily, glanced at Lee Jae-hyun, and whispered quietly.
The alley wasn’t for adults but was convenient for heading to academies, so kids passed through occasionally.
Choi Dae-hyeon’s presumed return time coincided with academy end times……
So naturally, lots of students would be using it momentarily.
That raised the kidnapping difficulty a lot.
‘This one’s iffy too.’
The final spot was a nearby mart parking lot.
A large grocery mart like you’d find in any neighborhood.
No CCTV in the back lot.
Frequently used by people, so not ideal for a crime, but Lee Jae-hyun had picked this as the third spot for one reason.
The kidnapper-murderer Park Ye-chan had used this mart on the day—after the presumed abduction time.
He bought a few snacks.
Nothing suspicious among the items.
They figured he bought snacks for the kid he’d abducted.
Lee Jae-hyun quietly surveyed the back parking lot, then turned away.
Lunchtime was ending soon.
He could’ve looked more closely, but time was short.
Honestly…… even if he did, he doubted anything would turn up.
“What to do.”
He couldn’t ask Serhen for active help before the incident.
Nor could he wait until after the kid died to seek her out.
Preventing the kidnapping was his goal from the start.
In the end, Lee Jae-hyun gained nothing and headed to Hanseong Police Substation as usual.
“I’m here.”
“Yeah.”
Right after clocking in, he sensed something different about the substation today.
Something had definitely gone down.