"Breaking new: today another victim has been found in her house, cut open. Once again the police failed to find the killer. How long will the citizens run danger?"
The chief turned off the TV in the police precinct in an angry huff and looked pointedly at Moo Chi, who tried not to look his boss in the face.
It had been only yesterday when he had gotten a speech from the man that the higher ups were breathing in his neck because of this case. And now a new murder had occurred. Of course the city was in an uproar now.
He had checked social media this morning and the police were being slain by the people on there. The pressure was rising and people were afraid.
Moo Chi sighed again, taking everything with him to search the scene in the hopes of finding that one clue that could help to turn the bastard in. So far it had been difficult, but he knew, serial killers like that became arrogant and eventually left a clue.
But this case proved a bit hard. Moo Chi held it tightly in the back of his mind that he had already gotten several instances where he suspected that this case had been sabotaged. Not only did he have difficulty obtaining some of the medical files, but all the CCTV was mysteriously broken.
He would have to work on this case with as little assistance of possible, because he didn't know where the leak was, or even if it was indeed sabotage or unhappy coincidence. But for now he had to act like he hadn't noticed anything. Otherwise they might hide from him completely.
Yo Han was trying to contain his excitement when he entered the car, driven by his younger brother;
Of course, intern Min Jae had no clue that Yo Han was his older brother of course. And he wouldn't, at least not for some time.
They exchanged awkward greetings and then they started a silent drive towards the prison.
Min Jae was tapping on the steering wheel with his fingers, obviously nervous about this weird atmosphere.
"So you are going to examen the old lady for us?" he asked, Yo Han nodded in response.
"Yes. A friend asked me a favor."
"It's certainly nice of you to come this quickly. Mostly when we demand an expert it takes at least two weeks before an appointment is made. Sometimes even longer."
"Ah." Yo Han said. His brother started to look nervous again.
"So, you are intern, soon to graduate?" Yo Han asked. Small talk wasn't his forte, but he was willing to make an effort.
"Yes. I'm hoping that after my graduation I can keep staying with this firm. They treat their clients really well and have a very good reputation." Min Jae said enthusiastically.
"Your family must be proud." Yo Han asked, fishing a bit. Min Jae smiled at his remark.
"Yes, my mom is already planning a big party for when I graduate and I hope I can soon show them my contract. Dad tells said that becoming a lawyer was once his dream that he never had been able to fulfil."
"And any siblings?" Yo Han asked, trying to keep the conversation going and prying as much as he can about his family. Min Jae didn't seem to think that any of his questions were suspicious and just kept on answering his questions.
"I have one sister, my twin. She is also very happy for me." Min Jae said, not mentioning about her disorder. At least he showed a bit of discretion. Not all strangers were kind to people with disorders.
The rest of the ride was spend in small talk. It was almost a pleasant ride, but soon they arrived at the prison and it was time to get the work done.
Min Jae didn't like prisons, but seeing that he was going to be a lawyer, he had to tolerate them. He hated the cold atmosphere that hung around these and just the thought that so many criminals were so close to him made his blood turn cold.
But still, even with all these criminals, once in a while there was someone who didn't deserve to go to prison, and it was for these kind of people that he wanted to became a lawyer. That's why he applied to this firm. They had a reputation to protect the weak and downtrodden.
Dr. Sung was currently examining the grandmother in the private room of the hospital, and he of course gave them the necessary privacy.
The doctor had been kind and nice in the car, which was good. He had been afraid that he would have to drive an arrogant cold hearted doctor who just did these kind of jobs for the money, but this one seemed to genuinely care.
It didn't take long, about half an hour, before the doctor returned.
He stood up to join him.
"So, did you find anything?" Min Jae asked. The doctor lifted his eyebrow at his question.
"I found that her lungs indeed sound bad. There are crepitations, crackling, with auscultation. The air in these cells will do he no good and together with her age the risks of infections and pneumonia is rather high." The doctor explained.
"So, we have a chance if we apply for medical leniency?"
"We do, but first we have to back up our findings. I will have to do a CT-scan. We will have to move her to the hospital. I already called and there is a spot free this afternoon."
"That's great. I'll go talk to the warden about transporting her." Min Jae was very glad at how smooth this all was going.
He was glad that he got assigned to this case. It would definitely look good that his name was connected to this.
Halmoni had wanted to refuse to see the doctor at first, but seeing as she was confined to the hospital wing, the warden had given her the change to make a phone call.
When she told her daughter that she didn't want to be seen by the doctor, her granddaughter had begged her to just follow this through. And so, halmoni subjected to the visit.
She was surprised when the doctor, after his examination had whispered his plan to her, so she just went along with it.
So she followed the plan. She played nice and had the CT-scan and when she was guided back to the prison vehicle, she pretended to faint, creating full chaos. She opened one of her eyes and saw the wheelchair with the unconscious patient being rolled in the vehicle.
Then she sat up and was guided to a wheelchair as well. Doctor Sung of course volunteered to go with them in the ride.
When the prison guard who had been driving the car came out fifteen minutes later to demand where his car was and his prisoner, panic ensued, until the prison called and told him that halmoni was brought back to the hospital wing by the doctor.
No one knew about the secret stop they made and about the other person that had been snuck out of the hospital with hopefully no one knowing.
Yo Han had to admit that the hard part was finding a replacement that resembled Soo Jin enough and was in good enough condition to look like she just passed away.
There had been a victim of a recent car crash, the family had decided to pull the plug, seeing as the victim was brain dead.
He paid of the cremation service and right after the family left he put all the machines back on. He apologised to the women in his head.
He wheeled her to Soo Jin's room put her in the bed and made sure she was correctly attached to all the machines there.
With some luck, she would not be discovered too soon, but he was next on guard and they had planted it after the nurses rounds, so they would have some time.
When Ba Reum turned on the news, the first thing he heard was the new murder that had happened. Ba Reum looked at the screen, angry at himself that he hadn't been able to do anything yet about this, angry at himself that another person had to die because he wasn't good enough.
But at least he had some clue about who might have done it. It was time to go further with his plan and hopefully get this solved before another murder happened.
Ba Reum grabbed a whole bunch of pamphlets he had made yesterday and went to the neighbourhood of the killer. He started at the far end of the street and made sure to put one in each mailbox.
It was a pamphlet to make people aware of the climate change. He always had some templates lying around in case that he would need something believable like this.
He got his camera back and put it in his pockets and the went further with distributing the papers.
And the he saw the guy, the stalker, getting out of the car and switching places with someone else. He smelled an opportunity and hurried along.
The stalker was just walking away, his eyes fixed on the screen of his smartphone, typing in something and then he put it in his back pocket.
A second later, Ba Reum suddenly stepped backwards from a mailbox and bumped into the man, both fell down to the ground hard and Ba Reum's flyers flew around them.
"I'm sorry, I didn't you see you there I'm sorry." Ba Reum kept on apologizing, even when he was helping the man back up and dusting him off, making sure to slip out the phone out of the back pocket.
"It's fine, it's fine." The guy grumbled, looking to the sides to see if anyone saw him, "I should have looked where I was going as well."
They both apologized and went their separate ways. Ba Reum made sure to finish putting the pamphlets in the mailboxes until he turned the corner of the street, making sure that he was well out of the sight of the other guy who was now occupying the car.
Ba Reum came home, putting both the camera and the smartphone on the desk. First things first.
A murder had occurred this night, so there was a big change that the culprit would have been filmed.
The time lapse showed around two in the morning two figures left the house on the right, two persons dressed in black who fitted the general description of the persons he had seen that night. He saw the guy following these two and was surprised that he didn't do anything about it.
Why was that man following the murderers and not doing anything about this. Was he also a killer?
Ba Reum shook his head. Well, at least he now knew who the killers were. He had their address and could easily look up their names. This way they could be sent to jail for the rest of their lives and he and his mother could live in peace again.
Ba Reum didn't like hacking the civil register from his home, but he was skilled enough to not leave any traces. It would be so much easier to do it from work, but he was still in sick leave for another week and it would be suspicious to turn up for just this.
He quickly hacked the system and soon enough found the occupants of the house.
Father: Kim Dong Hyun – Teacher - Highschool
Mother: Cha Hyun ok – Doctor - specialist gynaecology
Son 15 y: Kim Tae Woong
Daughter 12 y: Kim Jung Hwa
Ba Reum recognised the doctor's name immediately. She had been the fertility expert that the first two victims had seen. He looked at the father's name and it did ring a bell, but he couldn't really remember.
But what mattered was that he was a high school teacher. He looked up the school that he had found the emblem of and checked the teachers list.
He was right. The name was on there.
So the father was the murderer, but who was the second person? Was it the doctor? He looked up her photo online.
He found multiple pictures of her, one of them was her standing in front of the hospital with a bunch of other doctors. No the second figure that left the house was much too small to be her. She was quite tall for a woman. The second figure had been very slim as well, and the doctor wasn't a big person, but not slight either. And much taller, she was at least as tall as her husband.
Ba Reum thought about who the second person could be and the only thing he could think of made him real back in shock.
Could it be the son? Did that bastard take his son with him to kill people?
Thanks to SNS it didn't take long to find a recent photograph of the child and it looked like he could be a match with the figure he had seen. Slim build, still in his earlier grow spurt phase, so not quite tall yet.
Ba Reum felt slightly nauseous. How could anyone take their child to these kind of things and why? Was the kid the reason that they were stalked? Perhaps he also had the psychopath gene like he and Yo Han had.
He took the stolen smartphone in his hands and started to work on it. To safety was easily passed, and he made a copy of all the data, making a virtual copy of the smart phone on his PC, connected to the two devices.
Everything that was going to be done on the original one would be copied by the digital phone and of course taped.
Now to get it back to the stalker?
Ba Reum looked at the picture of the mother, seeing her standing in front of the hospital with some other doctors, including Yo Han.
Ba Reum smiled. He would not seem suspicious in the neighbourhood.
Now all he had to do was to inform Yo Han that he was going to return the phone.