The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 158

The initiative in this interrogation room had to be taken by Prosecutor Joo Taeson; he was not swayed by past ties and maintained his authority. He was a person with clear principles.

Chief Tak put the cigarette I had offered between his lips and took a long drag, exhaling the smoke.

“That’s right. There wasn’t enough drugs, and I demanded more money. Jahyeon lost her cool and rushed at him, Koryo-in Mr. Kim hit her, and I picked up the nicotine syringe and stabbed his neck.”

“Are you admitting to all the charges?”

“I admit to all of them.”

“How can we trust that Oh Jahyeon didn’t stab him? The principal party to this transaction was Oh Jahyeon.”

“The opponent was over 180cm tall. It’s not easy for Jahyeon, who isn’t even 160cm, to stab his neck. When I stabbed his neck, he retreated backward, convulsed, and then suddenly collapsed and died. Because I pressed the syringe piston, I thought it was nicotine poisoning as Prosecutor Joo expected. The symptoms were similar, too.”

“If that is the truth, would you be willing to be verified by a lie detector? Without a warrant?”

“Sure, why not? A warrant would be issued anyway.”

This time, I selected a photo of gloves from the files and slid it toward him.

“There was one more accomplice when disposing of Koryo-in’s body. It is your and Oh Jahyeon’s son.”

At my pointing out, Chief Tak raised his eyebrows. Chief Tak, who had been staring intensely at us from across the table, immediately put on a mask again, laughing as if he were a good-natured person.

“Those gloves were borrowed. That’s why someone else’s DNA was found on them.”

“So, they weren’t Tak Sungwoong-ssi’s original gloves?”

“Correct. I just used them because they were left in the car. So don’t touch that side. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

No matter how many times we probed, Chief Tak did not change his statement. It was difficult to find contradictions in his explanation that he had used gloves that were left behind.

“The multiple mobile phones that came out during the search and seizure of Ms. Oh Jahyeon were all burner phones. However, there was no burner phone with the last four digits 1225 among them.”

At the mention of the number ‘1225,’ Chief Tak’s eyebrows rose and fell minutely. I recorded the timeline where Tak Sungwoong had reacted. He folded his arms during Prosecutor Joo’s questioning and replied with a bored attitude.

“Am I the only one who has a burner phone? This is Danhyeon City. It’s a place with a casino, and there are many people who possess burner phones.”

“Why are you being like this? You know perfectly well how investigations are done. This burner phone moved at the same time and along the same route as your burner phone, Tak Sungwoong-ssi, on the day the body was disposed of. Who is it? The person using the burner phone ending in 1225.”

“…How would I know that?”

“You were moving with them the whole time. Is this person your son? The human who uses burner phone 1225.”

Prosecutor Joo raised his voice and pressed Chief Tak.

“Neither you nor Oh Jahyeon used the burner phone ending in 1225. And son’s DNA was found at the scene. Your son is the accomplice in disposing of the body, isn’t he?”

“It’s a number I don’t know.”

Even though we pressed him for hours to get a confession regarding his son, nothing changed.

We left the interrogation room for a moment, leaving Chief Tak alone. Prosecutor Joo crossed his arms and stared quietly at Chief Tak through the magic mirror.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t think the glove story makes sense. It was a day with heavy rain. Even if he hadn’t worn them during the crime—his own DNA didn’t turn up—it makes no sense that his son’s DNA would have survived in the rain.”

“I agree. What about the syringe?”

“What is the Prosecutor’s opinion?”

“…It seems correct. That he did it himself. While listening to his statement and you were asking questions, I looked at the autopsy report again, and the angle of the syringe entry is from top to bottom.”

“If that is the case, it is highly probable that Chief Tak is the main perpetrator of all the incidents, including the murders of President Kang Woosung and the doctor grandmother. That holds true in terms of the continuity of the cases, and he also studied abroad in Russia.”

Thinking of Prosecutor Joo’s situation, I inwardly hoped that Oh Jahyeon would be the main perpetrator of all the cases. But it seemed things were not going to be resolved so easily. Lost in thought, he nodded.

“…Right. Do you think he will confess to the other charges?”

I quietly shook my head. Prosecutor Joo chewed on his lower lip, then sighed and ran his hands through his hair.

“He must have colluded with Oh Jahyeon. Let’s just accept guilt for this incident, serve a little time, and get out. If it’s attempted murder and corpse abandonment, it goes according to Chief Tak’s claim—as manslaughter and corpse abandonment. No matter how heavy the sentence is, it’s not as bad as murder.”

“That seems to be it. He will never confess to anything else. And we don’t have many cards to play regarding the past murder cases on our end. Everything is just circumstantial evidence; there is no direct evidence.”

“…For now, let’s hold him a bit longer and talk.”

Prosecutor Joo opened the door to the interrogation room again as if he had made up his mind. We were sucked back into the suffocating air, facing Chief Tak, who sat there with an indifferent expression, without a single shred of guilt.

Prosecutor Joo set aside the murder case of President Kang Woosung for the moment and sharply questioned him about the two cases that had occurred in succession.

“Seven years ago, Ms. Oh Jahyeon’s husband and the grandmother who was her obstetrician died. Two years before those two incidents occurred, Tak Sungwoong-ssi, you lost general anesthesia agents from a case you were in charge of.”

“It’s true that I lost the anesthetic.”

Tak Sungwoong admitted what had to be admitted calmly.

“Records of calls with Ms. Oh Jahyeon’s husband were found on the grandmother’s mobile phone.”

Of course, it was a lie. The mobile phone forensics hadn’t even finished, and the probability of recovery was slim. Chief Tak lifted one corner of his mouth again at Prosecutor Joo’s words and laughed leisurely.

Watching Tak Sungwoong’s expression, I felt as if a bell had rung in my head—ding. I felt I knew why he was smiling like that. I had met countless criminals until now.

That was the face of someone who knew the fact that the mobile phone had been wiped clean. There was a high probability that he himself had handled the dead doctor grandmother’s phone. Or… someone had already leaked the fact that the forensic results hadn’t come out yet.

The faces of Prosecutor Yoon Gyuho and Chief Song hovered in my mind. Chief Tak might not have great power in the prosecution, but he was in a position to pay off junior prosecutors or investigation officers. Either professionally or financially.

I just hoped it was neither of them.

“I admit I lost the anesthetic. Jahyeon’s husband died of a heart attack, and I don’t know much about that grandmother incident.”

“What about President Kang Woosung?”

Prosecutor Joo asked emphatically. Perhaps because they were friends of several decades, Chief Tak’s gaze seemed to waver for a moment, but like a veteran, he did not lose his calm attitude.

“Woosung was killed by Lee Gilyoung.”

Chief Tak, who answered dryly, stared straight at me, Lee Gilyoung’s son. His gaze crawled down my face like a snake and arrived at my chest. As if reading the crime of the scarlet letter hanging raggedly upon me.

The interrogation did not end until late in the afternoon. As soon as I finished and came out, I ran into Prosecutor Yoon Gyuho. He seemed to have been waiting for us. Prosecutor Yoon said to him:

“The arrest warrant was issued. For both Chief Tak and Ms. Oh Jahyeon.”

“That’s good. I will have Chief Tak detained in the detention center. Officer Lee, you can contact them, right?”

“Yes, Prosecutor.”

I answered immediately and handled his instructions.

We held a meeting late that evening in Prosecutor Yoon Gyuho’s office. It was a place to compare the statements of Tak Sungwoong and Oh Jahyeon.

Piles of investigation materials and transcripts of their statements were stacked high on a large table. Two prosecutors and two investigators spent until midnight meticulously comparing the two people’s statements.

Only after midnight did Prosecutor Joo reach a conclusion.

“They match exactly.”

“Indeed. It seems he confessed the truth.”

Prosecutor Yoon let out a long sigh and stretched deeply. I found my gaze constantly drifting toward Prosecutor Yoon Gyuho, and I had to try consciously to suppress it. Chief Tak seemed to know about the forensic results following the previous warrant request, so I was suddenly suspicious of the people in this room.

I was most concerned about Prosecutor Yoon, who shares all information with Prosecutor Joo. I heard he originally worked in the Special Investigation Department but came down to the Danhyeon Branch Office after things didn’t go well; he might be the type of person who values his own success over his dead family. That kind of human is more common than one thinks. Especially in groups close to power, like prosecutors.

Prosecutor Joo muttered.