The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 18

“Chief Lee, you’re right. The perpetrator stated that they killed Grandma Park while stealing items, but I also think those signs of searching for valuables were staged. The inner pockets of the clothes were all pulled out and items were overturned, but it differs from the meticulous traces a real theft leaves behind. For example, they took out the sewing kit but didn’t open the bottom, and they didn’t flip through the heavy mattress or the inside of the pillows. They might have disliked needles spilling out, but those are items a burglar would surely check if the victim were a grandmother.”

“Still, they staged it really well.”

“To an excessive degree.”

“That’s why I even thought, ‘Could someone who knows investigative work well have disguised this?’ A first-time offender couldn’t stage it like that. It is logically sound to view the suspect as someone who knows investigation well, or perhaps someone with a criminal record.”

“But the person who is the ‘real culprit’ had no criminal record at all. Not even for theft.”

I flicked off the burning ash and took a puff of the cigarette again. Only now did Prosecutor Joo honestly reveal his inner thoughts to me.

“Besides, there wasn’t even a trace of forced entry, despite it being a ‘theft.’ If it weren’t for that, I would have thought the issue with the signs of searching was just the clumsiness of a first-time offender and moved on.”

“Grandma must have opened the door.”

“That means it was someone familiar, or….”

“…it must have been someone with a trustworthy identity. Like a delivery uniform, someone wearing an official uniform, or someone who presented an ID.”

“That’s right.”

After Prosecutor Joo nodded at my words, he muttered while clenching the end of the cigarette in his teeth.

“And it was stabbed too many times to have been done by a burglar.”

Grandma Park had collapsed near the living room sofa with an awl stuck in her neck. Prosecutor Joo lowered his head as if thinking deeply about something. As he looked down at the falling sleet, he inhaled the cigarette several times, and the traces of smoke drifting around him grew thicker.

Soon, he looked down at me with an intense gaze.

“Is that all you felt was strange? If you’re going to go as far as telling me, I assumed there would be something more concrete.”

He hit the mark exactly. Actually, I had intended to say that in the prosecutor’s office. Perhaps because he was waiting for an answer, his gaze lingered on my lips. Because I was conscious of his stare, my lips moved somewhat awkwardly as I spoke.

“I believe the awl that was stuck in Grandma’s body was not the real murder weapon. The perpetrator took the awl they used, and stuck the awl that was in Grandma’s house in its place. That the awl belonged to Grandma is a fact the police already confirmed.”

“…”

“The thickness and length of the awl do not match the traces left on the body. I went to a hardware store on Sunday and bought the exact same product as that awl. The length and thickness weren’t stated accurately in the materials. The awl stuck in Grandma’s neck is 15cm in length and about 1–2mm in thickness.”

“But if you look at the autopsy report, the depth of the wound was 20cm, and the diameter was 3mm.”

“That is correct. Even considering the margin of error, one must assume a longer and thicker tool was used. For some reason, the real culprit seems to have wanted to hide the awl they actually used. Seeing as they went through the trouble of disguising it with a different awl.”

“Even that point makes it seem like someone who knows the investigation too well. If the weapon hadn’t been at the scene, the police would have struggled to find the murder weapon no matter what, but if you stick a different awl in, there’s no way they would. And that’s what happened in reality.”

“Why would they replace the awl?”

“Because they thought of it as a souvenir, they had used it before, or it was something that could identify them.”

Prosecutor Joo clearly pointed out the possibilities without hesitation. It seemed like a matter he had already thought about.

He suddenly furrowed his brows sharply and ruffled his neatly styled hair with one hand. His black hair rose up, then settled back down as if nothing had happened.

Not knowing why he was like that, I tensed my shoulders a little. Prosecutor Joo even muttered a curse, saying “fucking,” then looked off into the distance and inhaled the cigarette smoke as if to calm himself.

A heavy voice cast a question at me again.

“Chief Lee Chaeha, have you ever seen a murder case that used an awl other than this one?”

My deceased father’s case, where he stabbed a casino boss to death with an awl, came to mind first, but I erased it from my head immediately. Prosecutor Joo was asking if there was a similar method among the cases I had personally investigated.

“It wasn’t an awl, but I have seen a screwdriver. A Russian foreign worker was the perpetrator. It’s a fact I learned while investigating then, but it’s said that in Russia, screwdrivers and awls are used as often as knives as murder weapons. Screwdrivers, by sharpening the tip.”

Prosecutor Joo’s lips, which had been holding the cigarette, parted slightly.

I thought I was crazy.

Since Prosecutor Joo muttered it so quietly, it was uncertain whether I had heard it correctly, but it seemed he had muttered that. For a veteran Prosecutor Joo, who was always full of confidence, to say something that sounded like he was doubting himself. It was so out of character that I wondered if I had heard wrong. Even the sound of the wind carrying the sleet was very loud.

Prosecutor Joo crushed the cigarette, which had become short before I knew it, into the silver trash can and took the cigarette from between my fingers that was dropping only gray ash. He tilted his head slightly, raising and lowering his eyebrows as if asking for permission. Thinking it would be strange to hesitate, I nodded my head quickly.

Seeing the shape of the cigarette end I had touched being sucked into Prosecutor Joo’s mouth, my toes felt like they were aching, so I curled them tight. I was curious. Had Prosecutor Joo ever smoked a cigarette that someone else had smoked before? Was it because the lighter had run out of oil?

However, Prosecutor Joo didn’t seem to care much about the situation of smoking the cigarette I had touched.

“As you know, Chief Lee, the person who confessed is a man in his 70s. He has no criminal record, either. He wasn’t an acquaintance, and he isn’t the type of person to use an awl as a weapon. He had absolutely no connection to the deceased grandmother, so there is no reason for the cautious grandmother to open the door.”

“It’s too sophisticated to be signs of searching staged by a 70-year-old with no criminal record.”

“This time, I’ll ask. If this is a false confession, why did that person confess?”

“…Could there be a separate instigator who ordered them to kill Grandma, and the person who executed it is the one who confessed?”

“It was stabbed too many times to be called instigation. Usually, this level of overkill is a revenge murder. Even if it was to disguise the weapon, the act of going out of the way to stick an awl into a person’s body, and at the neck at that, is a typical form of revenge murder. Just looking at the 20 stab wounds left behind, it feels like an explosion of pent-up anger. But this grandmother had no reason to harbor a grudge against that old man.”

He spat it out again as if chewing on the words.

“It was stabbed too many times to have been done by someone who didn’t know her. It has to be an acquaintance with a grudge for the pieces to fit.”

It was as he said. Grandma Park died after being stabbed a whopping 20 times. The stab wounds were rampant with feelings of anger the perpetrator could not control.

“The perpetrator’s occupation was unemployed, right?”

“At the time of the confession.”

“Then before that?”

“A miner.”

I paused for a moment after hearing the unexpected occupation. The words I had heard from a taxi company president a while ago came to mind.

‘Many families of miners live near the casino. That village is like a clan village, so they cover up each other’s mistakes.’

“Then, the Grandma Park awl murder case. Are you going to reinvestigate or retry it?”

“No.”

It was an unexpected answer. Because I thought of him as a righteous and courageous person, I vaguely assumed that if it were Prosecutor Joo, he wouldn’t even fear a retrial. While talking to me, Prosecutor Joo flicked off the cigarette ash that had been hanging long.

“That is a question beyond your authority, Chief Lee. Next.”

“Then, is it a case you investigated yourself?”

“No. A strange case I discovered while looking for crimes with similar methods.”

“What kind of method?”

“There was a case among murder cases using an awl that caught my interest.”

“What case was it?”

“…That’s a secret. Instead of my secrets, Chief Lee, you would do well to think about the secrets that are being buried in Danhyeon City from now on.”

Danhyeon City’s secrets. Does he mean there are more besides this case? Like cases where it seems the person who confessed isn’t the real culprit, or deaths where the murder weapon seems to have been disguised?

He conveyed a simple thought to me.

“You’re doing well, Chief Lee.”

“Thank you.”