The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 31

“Mister, could you please come to the Prosecutor’s Office and repeat that one more time?”

“I suppose I can.”

“Your name?”

“Do Chilsoo.”

Hearing the grandfather’s surname, the two of them exchanged looks, startled. This was because the person who had illegally dumped trash—whom they had confirmed at the police station’s forensics unit—was a person named Do.

I asked in a hurry.

“Mister, did you illegally dump trash in front of this place? Under the streetlamp?”

“Huh? Uh, no…. Is that illegal dumping? I didn’t know. I didn’t know….”

I tried to keep asking nicely, but Prosecutor Joo took out his phone and quickly blocked me. He zoomed in on the photo of the trash bag he had taken while stopping by the forensics unit and showed the bill with the surname ‘Do’ written on it. Worried that we might even fine him, the grandfather cleared his throat and avoided our gaze. Prosecutor Joo caught his wandering eyes with a sharp voice.

“Mister, did you also throw away a knife that day? A size slightly larger than a paring knife.”

“No, I didn’t throw away a knife.”

“You aren’t lying, are you? Try to remember well. If you lie, it’s perjury.”

Prosecutor Joo made a ridiculous threat. The poor, clueless grandfather was so startled that he jumped and even waved his hands.

“No! I didn’t throw away a knife!”

“Then, Officer Lee Chaeha here will call you to schedule an appearance date, so please come in and tell us that as well.”

“Uh, okay….”

Perhaps regretting that he had opened his heart over two packs of cigarettes, the grandfather sighed deeply while looking at my coat pocket, which was bulging with a hand warmer and a cigarette pack. We took the CCTV footage on the USB drive we had brought and left.

I looked up at Prosecutor Joo and exhaled a long breath. The deep sigh, thanks to the cold air, made for quite an effective performance. Prosecutor Joo shrugged even before I could say anything.

“That could happen.”

“Perjury only applies if you take a witness oath in court.”

“It seems Officer Lee knows the law better than I do. Trying to lecture me.”

“…”

“How is it? Getting harder and harder to respect me?”

“…It isn’t easy.”

When I admitted it honestly, he let out a short laugh. It was the first time I had seen the expression on Prosecutor Joo’s face when he smiled at me, and my mind went momentarily numb.

That smile seemed as if he had, for just a moment, let go of the tension—no… the suspicion he was always clinging to. Once the amusement faded, his face immediately returned to its original sharp appearance as it became relaxed for a moment.

Come to think of it, Joo Taeson was always suspicious of me, too. Is this a capable investigator, can they work with me, can I trust them with the work—those kinds of doubts. And then he would keep testing me to try and resolve that suspicion, but no matter how many times he checked, it never seemed to be fully satisfied.

The first test was the case of the death of Koryoin Mr. Kim, the second was the Grandma Park ice pick murder case, and the third was the Taepyeong Villa owner’s injury resulting in death case.

Because he was such a deeply suspicious person, I wondered if this testing phase would ever end. I did not believe his repeated words that he could now trust Officer Lee. The more I heard them, the more they sounded less like words spoken out of genuine trust and more like a resolution to himself because he could not end his suspicion.

The matter of wanting to conspire with me was likely a similar type of case. Matters he couldn’t stand because he was suspicious of them.

“Prosecutor, shall we ask the police to find the white bicycle?”

“No, wait. Since we’re already out, let’s look for it. Do you have the CCTV footage of that bike?”

“It’s in the shared folder. One moment.”

I took out my phone with fingers warmed by the hand warmer and found the video. I chose the part where the bicycle was relatively clear and captured it. Perhaps because I was looking at it with suspicion, the silhouette of the person riding the bike was undoubtedly the former gangster, Choi Jincheol.

Even though it was his first time in this neighborhood, Prosecutor Joo remembered that there was a bicycle shop across the intersection. He seemed to have a good eye.

The shop owner recognized the bike at a glance and even knew which neighborhood resident rode the same model.

“All the bike repairs in this neighborhood are done at our shop. This one costs over 3 million won, so it’s a rare bike to see around here.”

“Then do you know who the owner of the bike is?”

When Prosecutor Joo asked, the owner replied.

“This belongs to the person running the noodle shop on the first floor of Taepyeong Villa. The first floor of that villa is a commercial space.”

Taepyeong Villa.

As soon as I heard that word, I got goosebumps for a moment. The victim was the owner of Taepyeong Villa. The person who lent the bike to the former gangster was a tenant of Taepyeong Villa. Suddenly, the connection became clearly exposed.

For the first time in a while, I remembered. That I liked this sensation. This emotion that can only be felt when you uncover the truth. The thrilling feeling that had made me crave moving to the violent crimes unit, and that had eventually caused everything I had left in my hands to fall apart.

We left the bicycle shop and went to the back of the commercial area where people didn’t pass by. I looked up at Prosecutor Joo and said.

“The Taepyeong Villa tenant is the instigator.”

“I suppose so. A tenant instigating the villa owner to kill, that’s a plausible scenario. Now all we have to do is find the point of contact between the three.”

“Prosecutor’s suspicion was right. Now the sentencing will be completely different.”

Injury resulting in death carries a sentence of at least 3 years, accidental homicide carries a maximum of 15 years by precedent, and murder by instigation is legally at least 5 years, but usually at least 15 years or more. It was the moment the injury-resulting-in-death camouflage operation, carefully built up by the former gangster and the tenant, crumbled starting with Prosecutor Joo’s suspicion.

Prosecutor Joo said to me.

“One must be suspicious. Only when you are suspicious can you approach the substantive truth.”

It was an expression I hadn’t heard in a long time. Substantive truth.

Everyone who works in investigations learns the same thing. That the purpose of an investigation is not to uncover the criminal facts necessary for a trial, but to find the substantive truth.

To reveal exactly what happened, down to the last detail. Even if the result of that effort is irrelevant to the trial.

Everyone learns it that way, but it was a resolution that people easily forget once investigation becomes their profession. Yet, Prosecutor Joo still remembers that proposition. He guaranteed that I would soon stop respecting him, and although I thought that might perhaps be true, I didn’t think it would be very easy to lose my respect for the person named Joo Taeson.

“We must tell the truth. To the victim’s family.”

Prosecutor Joo took out a cigarette and continued.

“People can distinguish between truth and lies. If the prosecution and the police don’t dig into the inner story, who will tell the truth to the bereaved family? If they are told false facts, the bereaved family will be shackled to the time they lost their loved one and will never be able to live their lives properly.”

He did not offer me a cigarette this time. Instead, he took out an old Zippo lighter and lit his cigarette. It seemed he had refilled the fuel.

The harmful smoke that Prosecutor Joo inhaled deep into his lungs and exhaled drifted up toward the Haneul that had already started to darken.

📄🖊️

Once we grasped the framework of the case, finding the connection between the murder instigator, the Taepyeong Villa tenant, and the former gangster was not very difficult. The tenant and the former gangster had perfected the injury-resulting-in-death scenario so elaborately that they handled everything else rather sloppily. It seemed they had been somewhat off their guard.

For one, they did not use burner phones, which are commonly used in murder instigation. It seemed they thought that even if they were caught, the investigative agency would easily believe them if they confessed according to the injury-resulting-in-death scenario.

In fact, things had proceeded just like that. Even the police, and even I myself.

Everything had gone according to plan until the former gangster unfortunately met Prosecutor Joo Taeson. Everyone had easily believed that a 12-time offender could just get angry on the street and stab someone. The investigation was heading toward the substantive truth that would have been hidden forever if Prosecutor Joo hadn’t been suspicious.

However, we did not arrest the tenant right away. Or rather, it was more appropriate to say we couldn’t.

There was evidence that the two had contacted each other, but there was no trace of payment for the instigation. There was also no evidence such as recording files of phone conversations.

With Chief Song Haneul joining us, we held a strategy meeting in a small office attached to the prosecutor’s office. Chief Song put down the call history records and opened his mouth.