The Ultimate Inspector, Kang Ji-hyeok - Chapter 24



Only Krnovel

Episode 24

As I recall, it was five years after I became a special detective for cracking down on a pyramid scheme that that huge incident occurred.

Four middle school girls went missing in one year.

It was a hot topic of conversation, called the “middle school girl disappearance case.”

However, because disappearance alone did not constitute a crime, it was not classified as a criminal case at the time.

“What kind of crazy guy kidnaps only middle school girls?”

“That’s right. We need to catch that son of a bitch and beat him up······.”

There was talk among detectives that this was definitely a kidnapping and murder case.

At that time, detectives could not conduct an investigation first unless the prosecutor conducted a cognitive investigation.

“Does it make sense that none of the children’s parents requested an investigation?”

“I think they only targeted kids who would be thought to have run away from home.”

Moreover, for some reason, none of the parents of the four children reported the crime.

Because of this, the incident gradually faded from people’s memories.

Time passed and it was Christmas Eve that year?

An incident occurred where a corpse, presumed to be that of a missing middle school girl, was hung on a cross in front of a small church.

This was the beginning of what the world called the “Middle School Girls Serial Murder Case.”

The killer carved the names of the three other missing women into the body’s back with a cutter knife.

“Is that son of a bitch teasing us?”

“···This is a fucking bastard.”

After three months of searching for the culprit, crucial evidence was found in a parked car’s black box.

The suspect was Jin Ki-cheol, the only son of Yeonggwang Construction, one of the top ten construction companies in Korea.

What made that incident so bizarre was not only the kidnapping and murder of four female middle school students, but also······.

The fact that the remaining three bodies were buried under the apartment complex his father had built.

“They chopped all those kids up and poured them into the ready-mix concrete used to build the apartments. Should I search the entire apartment?”

You son of a bitch.

According to this testimony, the entire complex had to be demolished to find the body.

“You have to destroy the entire apartment to find the body? Even if that’s true! But what if that’s a lie?”

It was said above.

The guy was playing with us.

The bodies of missing middle school girls are buried throughout the apartment complex.

The most important body in a murder case was never found as the people living in the apartment collectively protested.

“Apartment prices are falling! So please stop investigating this case here.”

Apartment residents raised an uproar, threatening to sue the government.

The prosecutors and police, fearful of the criticism that would pour in, closed the case there.

With three bodies missing, Jin Ki-chul’s crimes had to be proven based on his own testimony.

“Actually, I didn’t kill them. I carved their names with a cutter knife to show the incompetence of the police and prosecutors who can’t find those children.”

As his final statement changed during the trial, the guy became the guy who killed a single middle school girl by hitting her with his car while intoxicated.

“I don’t remember very well. I was high on drugs, and that middle school girl suddenly jumped in the car and······.”

Drug addiction and intoxication.

My blood boiled at the thought of that being a mitigating factor.

Rumor has it that he hired the best lawyer in the country and won a reduced sentence for this trial, which cost him over 1 billion won.

The case was concluded with only a two-year prison sentence. The prosecution did not even request an appeal.

The parents of the dead middle school girl were bribed with money.

Those kids don’t even look like their parents!

Even the media, which should have been in an uproar over an incident of this magnitude, was quiet.

It may have had something to do with the construction company’s advertisements covering every daily newspaper that year.

It was a comedic incident created by the unique circumstances of South Korea, namely apartments and real estate.

The special investigation team that arrested the guy was all promoted one rank.

It’s unusual that they haven’t even investigated properly.

It was a ‘gagging promotion’.

Thanks to that, my position improved as I was promoted from a regular police officer to a detective.

Meanwhile, serial killer Jin Ki-cheol spent 300 days a year in a hospital in a private room, receiving IV drips, claiming ridiculous reasons like back pain or hair loss after his arrest.

There was nothing I could do as a detective.

If the prosecutor closes the case, the investigation cannot continue.

It was like X, but it was reality.

There was a rumor going around that the prosecutor in charge of the case took off his job after the trial, joined a large law firm, and then became a legal advisor to a construction company.

“This is a case where three middle school girls were sacrificed, five police officers were promoted one rank, and one prosecutor was given a huge raise. You piece of shit······.”

It was an incident that was told like a round song over a glass of soju.

Even that had been forgotten in the midst of a busy detective’s life.

That’s the guy!

I quickly scanned the incident records.

It all came into my head at once.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay. Then I have to go out. Detective Cha Hyun-soo.”

“yes.”

Cha Hyun-soo approached us.

His thick shoulders and cold face were certainly threatening.

“Prosecutor Kang Ji-hyeok, please. I’m busy right now so I’ll be heading out.”

“Okay. Then, should we bring that little brat into the interrogation room?”

He will grow up to be a big criminal, even though he is just a little kid.

He’s not the kind of guy you’d call cute.

“Please move him to the juvenile suspect interrogation room······. Please be as rough as possible when bringing him in.”

“Okay, I like that kind of stuff. Oh, by the way, you may not know, but that guy’s father······.”

“I know. I saw it when I was looking through the documents earlier. And please give me the construction company’s recent financial data and the data on labor issues.”

I turned my head and spoke to Lee Hyun-ah.

She smiled and handed me dozens of documents.

“Our inspector has already prepared it.”

“As expected, you are the strongest prosecutor.”

“It looks like Prosecutor Kang Ji-hyeok is also looking into this, so I guess the two of you get along well?”

I came here because I thought it would work out well.

As expected, he was a good prosecutor.

Clang.

I headed to the interrogation room, looking over the documents in my hand.

When I was almost done reading, the door opened.

Jin Ki-cheol came in with his arm held by the investigator.

“Miss. What’s wrong? If you hurt my arm, I’ll report you for excessive investigation!”

Druk.

“Sit down. Stop being so cocky.”

He said as he pulled the chair back.

The guy glanced at that sight and smiled.

Familiar?

You son of a bitch.

“Please even take out the chair. As expected, you are a very educated person. Hehe.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“You have good manners. I heard you’re a rookie prosecutor.”

“That’s right. This is my first case. Let’s sit down and talk.”

“Okay, then.”

The moment the guy sat down on the chair, I pulled the chair out.

Crazy.

The guy who was trying to sit down in peace rolled around on the floor.

It must have been a back-breaking pain.

But still, you’re young.

You won’t get hurt too badly, right, punk?

“Fuck. Why is this happening? Ah! My back! Ugh······. It hurts!”

“Shut up. Before I get hit.”

I whispered to the guy.

“You’ve played a lot of pranks like this on your friends, haven’t you? It’s written here.”

The fact that he had committed school violence was written in a statement written by his friends.

He said that even though two friends were injured when the chair was pulled out, it was passed off as a ‘prank between friends’.

“Sit properly.”

The guy sat down on the chair carefully.

“Eww!”

I screamed and jumped up as a few of the pressure points I had placed dug into my butt.

“Sit on it!”

I hit the guy on the head with the document I was holding.

widely!

The guy who sat back down in surprise was stabbed again.

“This is oppression!”

“It’s written here too. You said you sprinkled pressure on the chair and that it was a prank between friends? I was just playing a prank on myself. It was fun, wasn’t it? You had fun too.”

The guy glares at me as he takes out the pins stuck in his butt one by one.

Those sparkling eyes.

When you were a detective, you glared at me like that when I caught you, right?

You dare catch me?

That’s what it felt like.

“Did you take all the pressure off? Sorry. I thought you liked that kind of prank.”

“Don’t do that.”

“It’s not as fun as I thought. Why did you do this? It’s not fun and the scars don’t last long.”

Wounds from oppression heal quickly.

That must be what he was after, right?

The guy sat down on the chair more carefully than before.

I also sat on the other side.

“Every statement you make from now on will be recorded and videotaped. Is that okay?”

“yes.”

“Okay, I got it.”

It has become more and more polite.

You don’t think you can win even if you rush in?

These guys are like animals.

When you meet someone stronger than you, you tend to become more submissive.

For now, he’s accepted me.

Yanmar.

I’m a veteran detective.

I’ve dealt with so many motherfuckers worse than you······.

“Here’s a cutter knife just like the one you used.”

Bam.

I placed a cutter knife in front of him.

“Why did you slit the throat of the girl sitting in front of you with this?”

The guy looks at me with a bewildered expression.

Why are you looking at me like that?

“I’m just a little hurt. Should I write a few pages of reflection?”

A reflection paper?

Why do you use that?

Without any reflection at all······.

“Let’s see. Ah. Last time you came here after cutting another kid’s hand with a cutter knife, you wrote a reflection paper for a week. Ten pages a day······.”

“Yes. What should I do this time?”

Look at this crazy guy?

You hurt someone and now you want to write a few pages of reflection?

Knock knock.

I pulled out the cutter blade.

“How did you do this?”

The guy held the cutter knife I handed him tightly and smiled faintly.

Binggle.

He has fun spinning a small cutter knife in his hand.

That little bastard······.

Isn’t this skill not something you’ve only tried once or twice?

“Did you practice?”

“yes?”

“You must have wondered how many times you have to cut with a cutter knife to kill a person. Aren’t you? Jin Ki-cheol.”

The guy looked surprised for a moment, then hid it.

The middle school girl murdered by Jin Ki-cheol.

People’s names were written all over their bodies with a cutter knife.

The culprit, Jin Ki-cheol, left only one stab wound on her neck.

In court, he claimed he was drugged and drunk and couldn’t remember anything.

But it was different in the police interrogation room where I was first taken.

“I did it in one breath. I don’t think anyone else knows. How deep do you have to cut someone’s throat with a cutter knife before they die? I know that.”

Yeah, I get it now.

You’ve been practicing consistently.

I asked the guy who was caught then.

“But why a box cutter? You son of a bitch! There are better knives out there.”

“It’s a killer feeling. The feeling of cutting flesh with a cutter knife is different from that of other knives. What should I say? It’s the smallest of cuts, and it doesn’t bleed much, but it feels killer on your fingers.”

I definitely said that back then.

He had been experimenting with cutting people with a cutter knife since he was fifteen.

That was the whole story of this incident.

“Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you’ll be forgiven for everything.”

“yes?”

“A reflection paper? You, a piece of human trash, don’t need one. To be honest, you don’t reflect on anything, do you?”

The corners of his mouth went up for a moment, and he couldn’t hold back his laughter.

“Ha ha. You know a lot, sir. You really are an educated person.”

Kwak.

He grabbed the guy’s ear.

Turn half a turn.

“Ugh. It hurts. My ear hurts. I feel like it’s going to break.”

“It doesn’t hurt as much as that girl getting her neck cut by a cutter knife. Stop whining, you little punk.”

The bastard’s eyes rolled back.

I can feel the strength in my hand holding the cutter knife.

Yeah, new.

Try it. Try it for me.

“Hey. F**k!”

The guy twirled the cutter knife around in his hand.

“Die! You crazy inspector!”

The guy lost his mind and swung his sword.

But this little guy is not one for a cutter knife.

He had never been stabbed by dozens of gangsters’ swords even once.

I mean.

He’s a natural fighter.

“Nice, you son of a bitch.”

“Why do you keep swearing! F*ck. That’s all for the prosecutor!”

“Yeah. That’s all for the inspection. You little bug-like nephew.”

In fact, from the beginning of the interrogation, the recording function was turned off and only the recording function was turned on······.

The guy lunging at me was recorded.

But our conversation is not heard.

Crazy.

I could have subdued him in one breath, but I deliberately fell under the table with him.

“Hand it over. That cutter knife.”

Kuk.

I broke two of his fingers.

“Ugh.”

When his index and middle fingers were broken, the man screamed in pain.

Phew.

I used a cutter knife to cut a V shape above the bastard’s left ear.

“Eww! My ears! My ears!”

Are you sick? You little criminal.