Chapter 49: Summons and Choice

Park Daehyung, after a long time, was on his way to meet Oh Min-seok, a colleague he once worked with and now the team leader of the Strong Crime Unit.

The place they agreed to meet was an old pojangmacha they would sometimes stop by.

It was a place that mainly sold jeon, and when Park Daehyung arrived, Oh Min-seok was already there.

“Hey, over here.”

“When did you get here? I came straight after work.”

Park Daehyung sat down across from Oh Min-seok.

After he and Lee Jaehyun had gone after the loan shark Goo Hyunseok, he had immediately set up this meeting with Oh Min-seok.

During the Myung Jinhan case, Oh Min-seok had been the one who worked with him to find evidence, so he wanted to catch up, even if only briefly.

“I came straight after work too. It’s payday, so the kids wanted to go out for dinner, but I turned them down to come here.”

“Our side… the atmosphere is kind of awkward.”

“Why? Didn’t you get your bonus?”

At Park Daehyung’s words, Oh Min-seok looked up with an ‘Ah, I see’ expression.

Oh Min-seok didn’t know all the details about the performance of Team 4 at the Capital Region Police Station where Park Daehyung was, but—

At the very least, he knew they’d caught Myung Jinhan and then even Park Chunbeom.

Catching those guys alone should have been enough for a decent bonus, so he couldn’t understand why the atmosphere was awkward.

Park Daehyung scratched his cheek and started to speak.

“I got it, but, you know Myung Jinhan?”

“Yeah. What about that bastard?”

“He reported me for property damage.”

“Wow, he really does everything, huh? The guy who killed two people.”

As Park Daehyung explained, Oh Min-seok frowned and filled the glass in front of Park Daehyung with soju.

They weren’t on the same team, but they had worked together to search for evidence at the time.

Even if they hadn’t, as fellow police officers, having a murderer report a police officer for property damage was infuriating.

Once his own glass was full, Park Daehyung took the soju bottle from Oh Min-seok’s hand and filled his glass as well.

Clink.

They lightly tapped glasses and downed them in one shot.

The food was seafood scallion pancake.

With chopsticks, Park Daehyung grabbed a piece of the savory seafood pancake, shoved it into his mouth, swallowed after barely chewing, and continued.

“So anyway, no one brought up going out for dinner, and we all just went home on our own.”

“How’s Lee Jaehyun, that Sergeant? Isn’t it his first time getting both a bonus and being reported?”

“He seemed calmer than I expected. I don’t know if he was already prepared, or what.”

Given how odd Lee Jaehyun had been acting lately, his calmness didn’t even seem strange anymore.

At Park Daehyung’s words, Oh Min-seok chuckled and said,

“Well, when he called 112 and smashed things up, saying he thought it was a robbery, I knew he wasn’t a normal guy. But to be calm even in that situation… he’s really something.”

“Right? Seriously, our rookie is no ordinary guy.”

“You should have seen him at the scene. You would’ve been blown away and insisted he become a Detective right away.”

“I mean, I do think he’s really got the Detective disposition.”

Park Daehyung nodded lightly.

As he spoke, Oh Min-seok put a piece of seafood pancake in his mouth, swallowed quickly, and asked,

“Why, did something else happen?”

“There was that case where a six-year-old kid was almost beaten to death.”

“Don’t tell me your rookie caught that one too?”

There was no way Oh Min-seok wouldn’t know about that case.

It was attempted murder, so it almost got handed over to the Strong Crime Unit.

But if he remembered correctly, it was solved in less than a day.

At the time, he hadn’t paid attention to which team handled it.

Could it have been Team 4 at the Capital Region Police Station?

At Oh Min-seok’s question, Park Daehyung nodded awkwardly.

“Yeah, it was a loan shark. We couldn’t find the office’s location, but then out of nowhere, he picked up a business card on the street offering loans, called the number, and tracked down the location.”

“Crazy bastard…”

Ever since he saw him smash the glass door at the pet shop, he knew the kid was crazy.

As Oh Min-seok was thinking this, Park Daehyung went on.

“Oh, and you know that guy who’s been on the run for a few years, scamming people? Jung Min-woo.”

Jung Min-woo—a name he knew.

It wasn’t really a case for the Strong Crime Unit, but he’d heard the name here and there…

Recently, he seemed to recall hearing that he’d been caught.

“He was caught recently, right? I think I heard that.”

“Yeah. Our rookie caught him, too.”

“…Where did he catch him this time?”

At this point, it was just unbelievable.

Sure, Myung Jinhan was his own father’s taxi passenger.

As for Park Chunbeom… he’d just heard Lee Jaehyun solved it, so maybe it was a stroke of luck.

Calling the number on a loan business card? Maybe a smart kid could pull that off.

But catching a scammer who’d been on the run for three years?

Park Daehyung’s next words were even more absurd.

“In the hospital parking lot.”

“What, out of nowhere? What kind of situation was that?”

“The dad of the kid who almost died was Jung Woo-min. On the way back from setting up protection for the kid and his mom and giving them a Smart Watch, he spotted him and caught him.”

Hearing all that, Oh Min-seok couldn’t hold it in anymore.

He cleared his throat and filled Park Daehyung’s glass again.

“Hey, Daehyung. There’s something up with that guy. Can’t you send him over to our team?”

“He’s still just a Sergeant.”

“So what? There’s no law saying Sergeants can’t join the Strong Crime Unit.”

“…Are you kidding?”

Park Daehyung refilled Oh Min-seok’s glass, looking exasperated.

Oh Min-seok put down his full glass and continued,

“I know it’s not allowed, but honestly, can you blame me for wanting him? We’re so short-staffed I’m dying here. If we just had your rookie, half our cases would solve themselves.”

Cases kept flooding in.

Murder, robbery, assault, theft, rape, and lately, drugs were everywhere.

At least drugs could be handed off to the narcotics team, so somehow they managed.

But the other cases had the detectives totally overwhelmed.

But here, there was a Sergeant who in just one month had caught two murderers, busted illegal medical practices, took down an illegal loan shark for attempted child murder, and even solved a scam case.

Wouldn’t that be worth a try?

“If I send him, can you guarantee he won’t get hurt?”

“How can anyone not get hurt in the Strong Crime Unit?”

“Then, it’s a no.”

Park Daehyung shrugged as if to say of course not.

After taking a bite of seafood pancake, Oh Min-seok put down his chopsticks and challenged,

“Hey, who are you to say no? If he wants to come, he can come.”

“Then why are you asking me?”

“Well, you know, just to have you pass along the word…”

At that, Park Daehyung waved his hand as if to say, ‘Get lost.’

He hadn’t expected Oh Min-seok to be this aggressive about it.

“That’s enough. Do what you want.”

“Hey, you admitted he’s got the Detective disposition. Why not?”

At that, Park Daehyung fell silent.

Quietly, he looked down at the soju glass in front of him.

It was true—Lee Jaehyun really was cut out to be a Detective.

But sometimes he jumped in too boldly, and that was worrying.

“For now… let’s just work together for a year.”

When he felt Lee Jaehyun was ready and working cautiously, then he could bring it up.

With that thought, Park Daehyung emptied his glass in one go.

***

The next day.

Lee Jaehyun used his morning half-day off but left home as usual.

His destination today was the suspected place where Choi Daehyun, the victim of the past child abduction and murder case, had been kidnapped.

There were three total CCTV blind spots suspected as crime scenes, so he had three places to check.

First was an old playground near a cram school.

There was a CCTV installed, but it was broken, making it virtually useless.

“Even if it’s a kid, he would have resisted during the abduction, so this spot is less likely.”

Lee Jaehyun looked around the playground, thinking to himself.

The playground was covered in sand, with a few rusty pieces of equipment.

The ground level of the playground was higher, so you had to go up stairs to reach it.

There wasn’t even a spot nearby where you could easily park a car.

If someone wanted to subdue an 11-year-old boy resisting, carry him down the stairs, and put him in a car…

That wouldn’t be easy.

Of course, considering the perpetrator was an adult male who had worked on a farm, it wasn’t impossible.

After slowly scanning the area, Lee Jaehyun moved to the next location.

The second blind spot was an alley between two apartment complexes.

It wasn’t a busy area, but as soon as you came out of the alley, you could park a car… So compared to the playground, it was easier to carry out an abduction.

However…

“Hey, how are your hands so bad that you’re still Bronze?”

“Bronze or Silver, it’s all the same…”

A group of students chatted noisily, glanced at Lee Jaehyun, then quieted down and whispered among themselves.

The alley itself might not be known to adults, but it was a convenient path for students heading to cram schools, so they would pass through sometimes.

Choi Daehyun was returning home at the time when cram schools ended…

That meant there would be a lot of students using the path at that moment.

That would make an abduction much riskier.

“This one’s iffy too.”

The last spot was a Mart parking lot not far away.

A large grocery Mart that you’d see in every neighborhood.

The parking lot in the back didn’t have any CCTV installed.

It was a place people used often, so it wasn’t ideal for a crime scene, but there was a reason Lee Jaehyun specifically picked this as the third location.

On the day of the crime, Park Yech’an, the child abductor and murderer, used this Mart.

And he used it after the presumed time of the abduction.

What he bought was just a few snacks.

Nothing suspicious among the purchases.

Since he had kidnapped a child, he was presumed to have bought snacks for the kid.

Lee Jaehyun carefully inspected the parking lot behind the Mart, then turned away.

Lunchtime was nearly over.

It would have been better to look more closely, but he didn’t have enough time.

Honestly… even if he looked more, he didn’t think he’d find anything.

“What should I do?”

He couldn’t proactively ask Se-re-hen for help before something happened.

But he couldn’t wait until everything was over, the child dead, and then look for Se-re-hen, either.

After all, his goal was to prevent the child from being kidnapped in the first place.

In the end, Lee Jaehyun returned to the Capital Region Police Station as usual, empty-handed.

“I’m here.”

“Okay.”

As soon as he checked in, he noticed something was a little off about the station.

Something had definitely happened.