The Ultimate Inspector, Kang Ji-hyeok - Chapter 15



Only Krnovel

Episode 15

The case wasn’t that complicated.

This case was also well documented.

That bothered me.

If it was a suicide case, would the documents need to be organized this well?

I remembered all the contents of the document.

So, let’s think about where my intuition… no, my insight is concerned.

The outline of the incident was as follows.

December 8th.

Two o’clock in the morning.

A private on night duty discovered Cha No-hyun committing suicide in the bathroom.

That’s right, he is Chanojin’s son.

Sergeant Cha No-hyeon was three months away from being discharged from the military.

There are three toilets in total in the bathroom.

He climbed onto the flush toilet in room 1 and hung himself with a clothesline he had saved.

When the private on guard duty found him, he was already dead.

Here the first question arose.

“Why did he commit suicide?”

I closed the papers and muttered as I looked at the sky where snow was starting to fall.

Ji-cheol answered, thinking that he was asking him.

“Usually they are bullied or most likely sexually assaulted.”

Bullying or sexual assault······.

How could a sergeant who was three months away from being discharged experience something like that?

He was the third senior in the unit?

It’s the 2000s now.

Even when I was dying, the military was talking about human rights, like the Tang Dynasty······.

“I heard that these days in the military, they use cell phones and play games?”

“It’s really gotten better. In the past, it was hard to even make a phone call to my lover.”

“Detective Kang, even if I were to become a detective again, I wouldn’t be able to do it if I had to go back to the military.”

“But wouldn’t it be nice to have the rank of sergeant?”

“Well, if I have to live the life of a sergeant, I’ll go back to the military.”

I remember talking about my military life when I was a detective.

Aren’t we in a time when the sergeant is like the president of the barracks?

In that situation, it would be highly unlikely for a senior sergeant in the unit to be subjected to harsh treatment, right?

“That can’t be right. Your father is a one-star general. What kind of crazy person would bully the son of such a family? There’s no manager who would bully the son of a conglomerate chairman who has just joined as a new employee.”

Ji-cheol nodded.

It’s a face of agreement.

“Yes. I don’t think so.”

Talk.

I said as I typed the seventh page of the document.

“The other military prosecutors didn’t seem to care, but the victim was scheduled to go on a four-night, five-day vacation a week later.”

“You’re going on vacation?”

“Yes. And there is a letter among the evidence. But I couldn’t finish the letter.”

I held up the unfinished letter in the archive and shook it.

“Is the recipient your girlfriend?”

“A girlfriend I’ve been seeing for about three months. Her name is, yeah. Here she is. I think he’s going to Jeju Island with his girlfriend named Kim Ji-yeon.”

“I’m really jealous. You’re going on a trip to Jeju Island with your girlfriend.”

Detective Kim Ji-cheol has a resentful expression.

As if I had suffered a questionable defeat.

That’s not the point, is it?

Do I have to tell you this in detail so you’ll understand?

“It’s a letter that couldn’t be sent. The sergeant committed suicide while writing this letter. And isn’t it really strange that a young sergeant who was planning to go to Jeju Island with his girlfriend committed suicide?”

Kim Ji-cheol squinted his eyes and tilted his head.

Only then did he make a face that seemed incredibly strange.

“That’s right. It’s really strange. As a man, I can’t understand it. But why was it ruled a suicide? Was this an organized murder case within the military, like the recent murder of Private Park Choong-deuk?”

I scratched my head.

I can give you an answer to that.

Because I have all the material memorized in my head.

“No. The military prosecutors just looked at the evidence itself. If you check the entire contents of this document, it is clear that it was suicide. There is no sign of murder.”

“···Yes! That’s right. Photos! Don’t you have the photos of the body taken after the suicide that were crucial evidence in the last case?”

Kim Ji-cheol approached me, proud of himself for coming up with that idea.

Huruk.

I drank the rest of my coffee and offered the cup to him.

“Iced Americano, please.”

“Sir, tell me. Don’t you have any pictures?”

“Iced Americano.”

“···Okay. I’ll get a drink for myself too.”

“okay.”

Jiying.

The coffee machine my mom sent me operates, making the sound of grinding coffee beans.

He brought coffee in a hurry.

“Here! Ahh! Show me quickly.”

“Okay. Don’t complain.”

Oh my god.

Are you using abbreviations in a way that is not military-like?

Bam.

I show you two pictures.

Clearly, there are scars here and there on her neck from the clothesline.

These are typical scars that appear when someone commits suicide by hanging.

When people are about to die, they shake their bodies in pain.

If these scars had not been present, any reasonable examiner would have suspected murder.

In addition, another photo was of a face and black lips that had turned white due to lack of oxygen.

There was a round bruise on his forehead.

If these photos are true, they show signs of suicide by hanging.

Judging from the photo, it was clearly a body that had committed suicide by hanging itself.

“Hmm. So that’s why the investigators were convinced it was suicide.”

“It’s not perfect. It’s clear that he died from suffocation. Since it was suicide, it would be normal to not take any special measures······.”

Bam.

Another piece of material was placed in front of him.

“It seems that since the victim happened to be Brigadier General Cha’s son, they even had an autopsy done. It seems that the deputy commander wanted to prove that it was suicide so as not to be a problem for the Brigadier General.”

“I see. That would certainly be a good thing for a deputy commander.”

Kim Ji-cheol looks over the report.

It was definitely stated that death was due to lack of oxygen in the lungs.

“There is such clear evidence.”

“If you just look at the facts, that’s true.”

“When you list the evidence, it seems like a pretty difficult case.”

“Yes. From the military prosecutor’s perspective, it is enough to conclude that it was suicide. That is why we need to approach this case in a different way than the Park Chung-deuk case.”

I grab my coffee and look out the window again.

Snow is falling and piling up.

The soldiers working in the building came out with annoyed faces and started clearing the snow.

“It’s snowing so they are shoveling it so diligently.”

“That’s right.”

Kim Ji-cheol also stood next to me holding a coffee.

Five soldiers came out and worked hard to clear the snow.

My military life was like that in my previous life.

I liked the white snow, but in the military, I would get so annoyed whenever it snowed.

“Hey! Private Park, are you walking slowly for fear of slipping? Do you want to bury your head in the cold snow? It’ll cool you down.”

A sergeant squatted down, smoking a cigarette, and shouted.

“no!”

“I will work hard.”

That’s the military.

But the sergeant is committing suicide?

A superior who doesn’t even blink an eye and a sergeant who is the star of the barracks?

“General Cha’s son was usually very active. He liked writing, so he often wrote love letters for his juniors. I saw the information earlier, and a novel that Cha No-hyun wrote while he was a private in the military was even accepted into the New Year’s Literary Contest.”

“Well, if you’re going to Seoul National University, you must have read a lot of books. You must have written well. You must have been a pretty popular senior among your juniors.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

I smiled.

What kind of novel did he write?

I was wondering about that.

When you think you should read it later.

“The work hours are getting too long! The captain will be here soon! Speed ​​up!”

“all right.”

Is it because the sergeant was nagging you?

The successors’ speed of clearing snow has increased.

“The snow has stopped, and once that’s all cleared, the other units will have cleared their snow too, right?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then, there shouldn’t be any problem with the car getting in, right? The unit is located deep in the mountains.”

“Have you memorized the unit locations?”

“I know the address too.”

“Wow. Your memory is really killing me, inspector. You read that document once and memorized it all.”

That’s a special ability given to me by a ‘guide’ who was like a tutorial for my life in this life.

Bitter coffee disperses in the mouth.

It’s nice to be able to enjoy the luxury of an iced Americano in the middle of winter in the military.

“Then, contact the unit where the suicide incident occurred. We’ll be there in an hour.”

Ji-cheol looks at me with his coffee in his mouth.

My eyes widened.

It seemed more exciting than I thought.

“Are you planning on going to the scene of this incident and investigating it seriously?”

“To be honest, I have a few questions. They’re missing from this report.”

Detective Kim Ji-cheol.

My insight tells me.

The incident was also confirmed on site.

I’m a former detective who is stronger in the field.

“Understood, Inspector. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a great sight on the scene.”

“Thank you for the compliment. Is this coffee good?”

“Haha. Lime fits well.”

Ji-cheol’s laughter makes me smile as I sip my coffee.

I am a prosecutor, and before that, a veteran detective.

At least this much is certain.

‘If there is anything strange about the incident, check it with your own eyes.’

This is a law I learned while working as a detective.

Nothing will change just because it’s an inspection.

The answer never changes.

“Private Choi! Can you see my feet? Let me ski with my head on the snow?”

Outside the window, the sergeant’s voice was ringing, making it clear that this was the military.

“The sergeant committed suicide······.”

I muttered like that.

【The devil exists everywhere】

“Loyalty!”

Perhaps because we had told them in advance, the guards opened the doors for us when they saw our car.

We slid into the unit where the suicide incident occurred.

“Loyalty.”

I saluted the unit commander who came out to greet me in front of the unit building.

His face was worried, as if he had already received a call from Brigadier General Cha.

“I got a call from Lieutenant General Chanojin. He’s going to investigate the case again?”

“Yes, that’s right. I will investigate thoroughly and make sure that Lieutenant General Cha No-jin can be convinced that it was suicide.”

The expression on the deputy commander’s face, who had been worried that the suicide case might be overturned, brightened.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll do that.”

“I ask for your warm cooperation, Commander.”

“Of course. Of course. It’s for Brigadier General Cha who lost his son.”

We definitely got the stamp of approval from the deputy commander.

“Let’s go around comfortably and investigate together.”

“Okay, but I have a favor to ask, Commander.”

I asked him to borrow one of the private’s clothes from the unit.

He kept looking at his watch and instructed the man on duty to do so.

“Go play golf. We’ll take care of this.”

“Ah······. Haha. Right. You have good instincts. That must be why you became a military prosecutor at such a young age?”

He quickly got into his car and left the unit.

That damn golf.

What’s so good about it?

As he left, the orderly found a private’s uniform in the unit and handed it to him.

“I’ll wait outside, so you can change into your clothes and come out.”

Ji-cheol asked me with a bewildered look on his face as I was changing my clothes.

“Why do you insist on walking around in a private uniform?”

“There is a reason for everything.”

“···All right.”

After changing into my uniform, I went out and asked the officer on duty.

“Where can I smoke?”

“Over there, next to the incinerator.”

“Okay. Well, thank you for your hard work. What happened today is a secret. If word gets out, you’ll be immediately put in prison. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand. Loyalty.”

The very nervous squad leader saluted me and quickly disappeared somewhere.

“Okay, shall we go then?”

To hear real, living stories.

“Go to the PX and rest for a while. I’ll pick you up.”

Ji-cheol frowned and handed me a small recorder.

“Here it is. Do you need this?”

“As expected! Kim Ji-cheol.”

He smiled.

It’s a good thing to be recognized by your superiors.

* * *

“Phew.”

I know winter tobacco tastes good.

I used to be a smoker too.

A corporal and a private were smoking cigarettes.

Private First Class Choi Jin-sang spoke to me while glancing at my rank insignia.

“What are you? Is this the first time I’ve seen you?”

“Loyalty. I am a private dispatched from the neighboring unit.”

The corporal asks what the dispatcher is doing, shaking off the ash from his cigarette.

“Sir, I’m working on my master’s thesis. My presence here is a secret in the unit.”

“Inma. Don’t worry. Tsk tsk, you must have had a hard time coming to another unit too.”

I quietly asked Private First Class Choi Jin-sang, who was relieving tension by sharing a secret.

I pressed the recorder button in my pocket.

“But, you know, I heard there was a suicide here a while ago. Is that sergeant suffering from depression?”

Phew.

Private Choi Jin-sang exhaled a long puff of smoke from his cigarette and spoke with fierce eyes.

“Isn’t Sergeant Cha mentally ill? Who is spreading such rumors?”