The Prosecutor’s Office’s Proposal Chapter 73

Han Sujin, the mother, entered the office wearing a worn, stained short padded jacket, brushing back her disheveled hair. Her shoulder was leaning on her husband. Since victims’ families often pay surprise visits without making appointments, I didn’t panic and stepped forward to greet the couple first.

“You can sit over here.”

“Yes, Prosecutor.”

“I am an investigator, and the person next to me is Prosecutor Joo Taeson.”

I had lost count of how many times I had to say this. I felt like I wanted to attach a name tag to my shirt.

“Ah, I see. Hello, Prosecutor.”

“I am Prosecutor Joo Taeson of the 1st Criminal Division.”

As Ahn Dongjin reached out his hand as if to shake mine, I caught it instinctively and let go. He also reached out to shake hands with Prosecutor Joo, but Prosecutor Joo ignored the hand Ahn Dongjin offered, sat down, and immediately got to the point. Ahn Dongjin lowered his rejected arm with an awkward expression.

“We were planning to contact you for a summons soon, so how did you come to be here?”

“My wife said she had something to say.”

I carefully observed the husband’s expression and attitude. I could feel Prosecutor Joo, sitting next to me, also scrutinizing the two of them intently, even while pretending otherwise.

Although it is common for fathers to maintain their composure, Ahn Dongjin was particularly expressionless. His wife, Han Sujin, struggled to open her swollen eyelids and barely opened her mouth.

“Please punish that bastard Lee Hyunsu, punish him severely, Prosecutor. I came to tell you that. He killed my children, who were like my own flesh and blood…. Now that I had finally raised them all….”

Han Sujin stopped talking as she burst into tears again. Her face was deathly pale without any energy, and her shoulders shook with sorrowful sobbing. Her husband was just pressing his lips into a straight line while wrapping his arm around his wife’s.

“The things you are saying now can all be used as testimony in court. Do you agree to the preparation of a formal record?”

Prosecutor Joo asked the couple straightforwardly. It was a statement usually made after waiting for the tears to subside even a little, but his cold personality, which disliked exceptions, did not change even with the victims’ parents in front of him. Han Sujin took the tissue I pulled out and offered, wiped her eyes, which were starting to swell, and nodded.

“Yes. If it helps punish that bastard Lee Hyunsu.”

“Officer Lee, bring your laptop and write up the record.”

“Yes, Prosecutor.”

I could never get used to the sorrow of parents who had lost their children. I took a quick look at the couple’s backs and sent a signal to Prosecutor Joo with my eyes to be a bit gentler, but the request was immediately rejected. He was the same as always, even with the victims’ parents in front of him. He was observing the victim’s family in detail with a sharp gaze, as if looking at a suspect.

It was just fascinating that his thorough objectivity and sensitive senses were neutralized only in front of Oh Jahyeon.

I suppose that means it’s a case he is that obsessed with. Prosecutor Joo was a person who thought rationally and flexibly according to physical evidence and statements, but in front of the hypothesis that Oh Jahyeon was the culprit, he was immovable no matter what logic I presented.

When I brought my laptop and sat down, Han Sujin wiped her chapped cheeks and spoke.

“When I returned home with my older sister and checked, my children were all dead.”

“What time was it when you discovered them?”

“10 PM? 11 PM? Around then. When I came home, I could see right away that a robber had broken in. The living room was a mess, so I checked the children’s room right away, and then….”

We already knew everything the mother was saying because we had read the statement referred by the police station. However, since I knew that the victims’ parents wanted the prosecutor and the investigator to confirm the same content, I listened attentively. And I asked about the situation afterward.

“What did you do after you found the children?”

“I called the police and 119 immediately. The firefighter came and said it had been quite a while since they died.”

“Did you call your husband?”

“No, I was beside myself….”

Prosecutor Joo’s gaze extended toward the husband.

“Mr. Ahn Dongjin, where were you at that time?”

“I was working in the provinces, Prosecutor.”

“From what time?”

“From 5 PM.”

“What time did you leave home?”

“Around 4 o’clock by car. My wife wasn’t home then, so there’s no one to vouch for that, but… I saw the children napping and left.”

This time, I asked Han Sujin.

“Do the children usually take naps at that time?”

“Yes, both of them sleep a lot.”

Han Sujin answered in a small, faint voice.

The husband left home at 4 o’clock. It was an ambiguous time.

Because the electric blanket was turned on to 50 degrees, the estimated time of death range was wide. If he had killed them and rushed to move, it might have been just enough time for the murder to be possible.

I diligently recorded the husband’s and wife’s statements and asked Han Sujin an additional question.

“I heard the paramedics didn’t even perform CPR because it was certain they were already dead.”

“Yes.”

“Did you, Ms. Han Sujin, attempt CPR?”

“No. Even to my eyes, it was certain they were already dead.”

“Were you certain about both children?”

“Yes.”

Prosecutor Joo, who had been listening to the testimony quietly, finally opened his mouth, and an unexpected question popped out from him. It was something that could not be confirmed in the police record.

“Ms. Han Sujin, why did you come home together with your older sister?”

“Because it was late at night. My sister said she would take me.”

“Why didn’t your sister go back right away, but enter the house with you, Ms. Han Sujin?”

“I asked her to have a cup of coffee before she left. I was also going to have her greet my husband if he had come in. Prosecutor, that bastard Lee Hyunsu watched my children grow up and did such a thing. How could he kill his friend’s children for a few pennies? The three of us are friends. So please, punish him more severely.”

Prosecutor Joo replied somewhat coldly.

“It would be better if you told that to the judge.”

He asked a few more questions after that. Han Sujin had wailed at first, but as time went on, she explained the situation calmly without crying.

Ahn Dongjin did not say anything himself or show any emotion other than when Prosecutor Joo and I asked questions. He was calm enough that one would believe him if he said he was a neighbor, not the father. Sharp suspicion poked uncomfortably at my mind.

“We will finish the statement here, and we will contact you if we have any other questions.”

“Yes, Prosecutor. I’m counting on you.”

Han Sujin bowed repeatedly, and Ahn Dongjin stood up without a word.

How can one fathom the heart of a mother who sent her children away first? Feeling sorry for her, I followed them out to see them off. I stopped her when she tried to bow to me as well.

“Please don’t ask. An investigation is something we must do thoroughly; you don’t need to ask.”

“Thank you, Investigator. Please resolve our children’s case.”

“Don’t worry. Go safely.”

“Still, I feel a little better after saying it. Thank you.”

She bowed her head a few more times and then went back the way she had come along the cold hallway with her husband.

Now that she has gone home, she will no longer be able to talk to or hug her children. She won’t be able to see their smiling faces either. Thinking that, my heart felt heavy.

Did Kang Woosung’s two sons also cry like that throughout their statements?

Since Saturday, I had been thinking of the family of Mr. Kang Woosung, whom I didn’t even know, more often than my father. Although there were suspicious points, after seeing the second son’s witness statement and the results of the DNA analysis of the awl, I could not deny that the father was the murderer. A cold sense of guilt crawled up my spine.

Only after the hem of Han Sujin’s skirt turned the corner and disappeared toward the elevator did I turn around. The pale faces of the children attached to the materials hovered before my eyes.

The first was stabbed in the chest with a knife, but the second died of suffocation and was clean without any external wounds. Of course, just because it is death by suffocation doesn’t mean there are no marks on the body. Because the culprit sat on the child’s arms with his body and suffocated the child with a pillow, there were bruises on both arms and petechiae4) behind the eyelids.

It was about time to go to the interrogation room, so I went back into the inner office. I closed the door and said one word to Prosecutor Joo, who was still expressionless.

“Why don’t you be a little nicer? She’s the mother of the children who died.”