The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 119

A part-time worker brought ramen over to where Chief Tak’s son and his friend were sitting. The kids also ordered soft drinks.

I waited for them to finish their meal with an anxious heart, hoping to finally harvest the trash discarded by the high school senior. The boy ate his ramen diligently, chatting loudly with his friend, and used napkins and drank cola. It took another hour before they finally got up from their seats, and the tedious stakeout didn’t show signs of ending until nearly 10:00 PM.

Confirming the boy had left, I approached the empty table, overjoyed at the prospect of finally getting some evidence. The moment I reached out for the straw left behind by the high school senior, someone violently grabbed my elbow from behind. I almost let out a loud shout in surprise, but a firm palm covered and blocked my lips as they started to part.

Even in my fright, I recognized the sensation. I tilted my head back just in case, and Prosecutor Joo entered my field of vision.

“Shh.”

He signaled softly, then loosened his grip on the hand covering my lips. Keeping his body low, Prosecutor Joo took my hand and started moving toward the back of the PC bang; I followed his lead, hunching my waist and walking quickly.

When had Prosecutor Joo entered the PC bang? I hadn’t seen him come in when Chief Tak’s son left through the entrance a little while ago. Besides, if our paths had crossed, the boy likely would have recognized him, so questions bubbled up like storm clouds in the short interim.

As if showing me the route he had taken to enter, he walked to the back door and hid me behind a poorly placed partition wall. I could see the entrance connected to the emergency exit. Barely grasping the situation, I whispered to him in a small voice.

“Why…”

“Chief Tak is here.”

My heart plummeted at the short reply.

“Did he see you, Prosecutor?”

“No. It looked like he was heading down this way, so I came down the back path faster.”

Chief Tak was here. Could it be that he noticed we were staking him out?

Stakeouts were standard in investigations, so there were no procedural issues. However, since Chief Tak was a prosecutor at the Danhyeon Branch, it was highly likely to cause a significant moral controversy. The prosecution dislikes having their family members messed with far more than the police do.

Suppressing my pounding heart, I observed the situation through a crack in the partition, which looked like it was made of nailed-together wood planks. For the moment, Chief Tak was nowhere to be seen. Just as I was wondering if we should escape through the emergency exit door, Chief Tak walked into the PC bang through the entrance, just as he had predicted.

The superior I had always held in high regard looked like the grim reaper himself. If Prosecutor Joo hadn’t judged the situation quickly, we would have been caught immediately while trying to head out the front door.

“If I open the emergency exit and leave now, will it make a sound?”

I asked in a voice so small it was barely audible even to my own ears, but Prosecutor Joo, having understood me well, nodded quietly. His sharp gaze soon nailed itself to the crack in the partition.

Chief Tak walked toward his son’s seat, glancing at the spot where I had been sitting. I quickly replayed the monitor screen in my head; I hadn’t had anything problematic open other than the game screen, so I didn’t think I needed to worry on that front. The only concern was whether there had been a moment where Chief Tak could have recognized Prosecutor Joo, even from a distance.

The fact that Prosecutor Joo had spotted Chief Tak meant that Chief Tak had also had the opportunity to see him. People who have worked in investigations for a long time have a keen eye, so they can recognize someone they’ve seen once from hundreds of meters away.

Chief Tak wandered around the computer area where his son had been sitting, then stared at the partition wall where we were standing. It felt like our eyes met, and the ground seemed to fall out from beneath my feet. My heart beat in an irregular rhythm, and sweat sprouted.

Chief Tak, who had been staring at the partition, slowly started walking toward where we were standing. Prosecutor Joo reached out his arm quietly, like a crawling snake, and gripped the emergency exit handle. If push came to shove, there was nothing we could do about the noise.

The distance remaining between Chief Tak and the partition was only about four steps.

Three steps. Prosecutor Joo clicked the door handle. Although it sounded loud enough to make my hair stand on end, in reality, it must have been a very small sound.

Two steps. Prosecutor Joo’s arm grabbed me and pulled me toward the emergency exit.

One step. The moment I turned my body to leave with him, a cell phone ringtone rang out as loudly as thunder. I thought it was my phone, but Chief Tak stopped in his tracks.

“Hello.”

We stopped moving again. I caught a blurry glimpse of Chief Tak’s profile. It must have been an important call, as he turned around immediately.

“Just a moment. I’ll call you back in 10 minutes after I drop my son off at home. No, there was something that bothered me, but I don’t think it’s anything. Don’t worry about it. Did you talk to the lawyer?”

Soon, Chief Tak’s voice grew quieter, and he headed back the way he came toward the PC bang entrance.

Only then did I exhale the breath I had been holding for so long. My heart leaped violently, perhaps because I hadn’t realized I’d stopped breathing. It was only after Chief Tak disappeared from view through the entrance and the part-time worker returned to clean up the seats that we barely managed to slip out from behind the partition.

Prosecutor Joo also had beads of sweat on his forehead like me, as if he had been quite tense. We sighed in relief side-by-side, moved on, and presented our identification to the part-time worker who was trying to clean up the trash.

“We’re from the 1st Criminal Division of the Danhyeon Branch. We’d like to collect the straw for investigation purposes; we ask for your cooperation.”

“Yes? Wait a moment. Boss!”

Flustered, the part-time worker called the owner. Since the PC bang was a place frequently visited by fugitives, the owner sighed but cooperated with the investigation obediently. He did so with a request that we stop coming by so often. Thanks to that, we showed our IDs side-by-side, put the straw into an evidence bag, and left.

The next day, Prosecutor Joo and I visited the National Forensic Service ourselves. Since Chief Tak only had one child, it would be correct that the high school senior was involved in the crime, but we had to be thorough. It wouldn’t do to request a warrant from a prosecutor recklessly.

Prosecutor Joo requested an emergency DNA analysis from his senior, and we sat on a bench in the hallway waiting for the results. Not long after, she opened the lab door and came out. With her hands shoved into the pockets of her white lab coat, the researcher calmly notified us.

“The DNA results are a mismatch.”

“What?”

Prosecutor Joo jumped up from his seat and asked back. Even he, who usually didn’t show his emotions, couldn’t hide the trace of panic in his voice.

With us looking on in surprise, the senior continued her explanation.

“The straw you brought today isn’t the same person as the glove from the body abandonment site in Koryo-in. It’s also not a father-son relationship compared to the DNA from the paper cup. They’re completely unrelated people, aren’t they?”

I got goosebumps. I heard the sound of Prosecutor Joo beside me taking a shocked breath.

Chief Tak was not the biological father of his high school senior son.

He had a real, biological son elsewhere. The real son who had worn the gloves and helped abandon the body.

The gears in my brain, which had always been out of sync, quickly engaged and started turning. From the murder of President Kang Woosung 15 years ago to the recent body abandonment case. The gears, traveling between the past and present at high speed, stopped their movement at the case of the grandmother killed at the Osong apartment.

“One moment.”

I asked the NFS employee for understanding, then pulled on Prosecutor Joo’s hand. Only after moving far enough away that she couldn’t hear our voices did I finally summon the courage to whisper to him.

“Prosecutor, the case of the grandmother killed at the Osong apartment.”

Prosecutor Joo looked down at me.

“That person was Oh Jahyeon’s obstetrician.”

“…That’s right.”

“What if that person was the doctor who helped deliver the baby?”

Every time I spoke out a word of what I was thinking, goosebumps broke out across my body. Even though I had thought of it in my own mind, I felt a chill run along my skin because it seemed there couldn’t be a secret that fit the puzzle pieces more perfectly.

“What if Oh Jahyeon gave birth to a child with the Chief?”

Prosecutor Joo’s eyes flickered rapidly from side to side.

“If it wasn’t that person, with whom would Chief Tak have had a child?”

“Then, Officer Lee is saying…”

“If Oh Jahyeon’s husband found out that there was a child born out of wedlock and tried to confirm it with the retired obstetrician, then it explains why both people died three days apart. If the husband found out the truth—if he was in a situation where he had to pay alimony and be cut out of the will—he wouldn’t have been able to keep the doctor who could confirm the secret alive, either.”