Chapter 16: Still No Sign of Rambo

March 24th

In the dim hour before sunrise, Mu-yun carefully checked the road ahead and behind.

“Rambo?

Rambo-.”

He held a treat stick and called the cat.

When there was no response, he took out a canned food from his bag and tapped the lid with his fingernail, scraping it.

“Here, kitty―.

Kitty?”

Stray cats usually acquire names as people call them, so he called out every cat name he knew.

He rustled different types of treat bags, but it was quiet, as if no cats were nearby.

Not just Rambo—no other cats came either.

He had thought that if he waited at the place where he saw the cat before, it might appear, but the treats and food he had packed generously in his bag were useless.

Even tapping a can gently in his hand while wandering the mountain slope was no use.

“How far did you move?”

Not having seen Rambo for almost two weeks, anxiety inevitably rose.

Of course, it was natural to find a safer place.

Just in case, he had visited all the parks: Seoheung Sports Park south of the apartments, Jinan Park behind the Administrative Welfare Center, Motgol Park, and every other park in the area.

Walking along the path adjacent to Bongosan Mountain where the fire had occurred, he came across a place with no park name, not even on the map, but with a small walking trail and water flowing like a stream.

He wondered if he should check there as he moved his feet.

Walking all the way down the back road of the apartments, the black, charred areas gradually became visible.

Even though it was just visual, it was as if the memory was stored in his sense of smell—the smell of smoke vibrated at the tip of his nose.

Walking along the drainage ditch below the erosion control barrier built on the mountain slope, Mu-yun spotted a patrol car in the distance.

“Hello.”

He greeted the senior officer in the patrol car.

It was Sergeant Song.

Next to him, Probationary Officer Lee Eun-shin waved with a sleepy face.

“Oh― Officer So.

What brings you out at this hour?

Do you live nearby?”

“No.

My house is behind the market.”

“Is that so?

Ah―.”

Sergeant Song saw the cat food can in Mu-yun’s hand and chuckled.

“Working hard since early morning.”

Mu-yun smiled awkwardly.

“By the way, is something going on here?”

It was patrol time, but even so, there were designated zones.

At this hour, they should be somewhere else, not here.

He glanced sideways at his colleague next to the senior.

Officer Lee shook her head slightly.

Her face looked like she had seen something terrible.

“You’ll find out when you come on night shift.

The investigation team is out, examining the scene.”

Sergeant Song said that and smiled.

“At this hour?”

At the mention that detectives were out investigating, Mu-yun involuntarily craned his neck toward the mountain to look at the temple, but he couldn’t even see the rooftop.

“You’ll hear about it at the meeting later.”

Sergeant Song spoke to him in a low voice.

“Huh?

Yes.

Understood.”

Mu-yun nodded first, then put the cat food can in his pocket into his pocket.

He would find out whatever it was anyway.

“Then I’ll be going.”

“Yeah.”

Instead of saying ‘cheer up,’ he silently waved to Probationary Officer Lee Eun-shin and left the spot.

As he moved away from the patrol car, a heavy sigh escaped.

The investigation had begun ten days after the fire.

It was a scene where, even if access had been restricted, he wondered if the evidence had been well preserved.

It seemed too late.

Come to think of it, it probably meant there was nothing distinctive enough about the scene to give it priority.

If it had been easy, they would have caught the culprit by now.

***

“You followed the GPS location and didn’t salvage a single thing?”

Sergeant Lee clicked his tongue and, unusually, had a stern expression.

Senior Patrol Officer Son from Team 4 downed a mug full of cold water and nodded.

“That’s what they say.

They said there was nothing usable.

Absolutely nothing.

Because of the sudden cold wave warning, I guess many cars had their dashcams turned off to prevent battery drain.

There are CCTVs, but the quality is so poor that many video frames are missing, so it’s unlikely to be admitted as evidence.

Even if they infer from gait or other factors, data needs to overlap and accumulate to figure anything out.

But isn’t it strange that even checking the footage from the likely times, there’s no suspicious person?

Then that means the dog wasn’t taken by a person but walked there on its own.

And if that was done impulsively without any preparation…”
Senior Patrol Officer Son sighed.

“He’s a crazy bastard.

That’s what it is.”

Senior Patrol Officer Kim, arms crossed, spat out a harsh curse.

“For an impulsive act, it’s excessively planned.

Unless he’s always prepared to do it at any time, it’s hard to explain.

So Sergeant Song said it’s going to be a headache to solve.”

At Senior Patrol Officer Son’s explanation, those seated around the table all wore troubled faces.

Senior Patrol Officer Son took another sip of water and snorted.

“Well, anyway, it’s been handed over to the investigation department, so there’s nothing we can do.

We’ll just have to keep our eyes open during patrol.”

“Aish.

Goodness.”

Sergeant Park shuddered as if just thinking about it was unpleasant.

Mu-yun recalled what Tae-i had told him yesterday.

The explanation that the bodies were burned for the purpose of ‘pleasure’ bothered him greatly.

If the perpetrator had repeated the act for that purpose several times and had not been caught yet, they would have already become quite bold.

It didn’t seem like they would suddenly stop.

No one knew what a culprit who thought they wouldn’t get caught might do next.

As the evening meeting for shift change progressed, Mu-yun’s night shift also began.

Before starting work, he sent a short message to Tae-i, who would be up around now, feeding Kkammi.

[Are you up?]

A reply came after a long while.

[Kkammi rolled in the dirt during his walk.

I have to bathe him.]

[Fighting.]

He had wanted to ask if any information had come in from the fire station side, but that seemed like it would have to wait until tomorrow.

***

March 28th

A yawn escaped.

The long yawn was hard to stop.

Mu-yun covered his mouth with both hands, but as if it had transferred in the meantime, Tae-i yawned in succession.

They had both been roaming the streets without a wink of sleep, so it was natural.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Mu-yun looked at Tae-i, who asked with a tired face, and nodded.

“I can close my eyes for a bit before going to work later.”

After a few days of this lifestyle, he had developed his own knack for it.

On night shift days, it was better to take an afternoon nap before going in.

Even as he said that, consecutive yawns poured out.

No matter how good his stamina, moving around for nearly two weeks while cutting into his sleep time, the accumulated fatigue all at once threatened to collapse like precariously stacked Jenga pieces.

“You have work tomorrow too.”

Tae-i snorted.

“I work from tomorrow morning.

You have night shift tonight.”

Yawns erupted from both of them simultaneously again.

Mu-yun just lay down on the carpet spread wide in the living room.

Just the feeling of his back touching something gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.

If he stayed still for a few minutes, he felt like he would fall asleep like that.

“Where haven’t we been?”

He asked, mumbling with his eyes closed.

Tae-i, leaning against the sofa, propped his arm on a cushion and looked ahead.

The hand-drawn neighborhood map Mu-yun had hung above the television was visible.

Places they had checked so far were marked with red stickers, places they had revisited with blue, and places where other cats were with green.

Despite covering almost all of Seoheung 3-dong in red, Rambo hadn’t shown so much as a tail hair.

They had asked around at places that protect stray cats and even waited all night at a place that ran a feeding station, but it was the same.

“Was the last time you saw him at Goyeomgol Small Sports Park?”

“Yeah.”

Mu-yun answered shortly.

Even that was brief.

His consciousness gradually sank.

He thought he heard Tae-i’s laughter from somewhere.

The occasional long crackling sound in his head and the floating feeling were unpleasant, but his body soon relaxed as if nothing was wrong.

“You said you couldn’t sleep if someone was around.

Officer So, you’re a liar.”

‘That’s right,’ he wanted to answer, but he didn’t feel like doing anything except exhaling.

A large, warm body heat brushed past his forehead and the bridge of his nose, then soon separated.

Feeling a bit regretful, Mu-yun wrinkled his nose, then completely fell into sleep.

***

Like mist from a spray bottle, a drizzle stopped and started again.

Even though it was Friday evening, well past quitting time, the endless flow of traffic surged.

In front of that wave, a flashing traffic baton held the line.

Each time the signal changed, the flow of cars that had been tailgating the vehicle ahead finally broke.

Following Sergeant Park’s hand signals, Mu-yun waved his arms diligently.

Repeating the process of stopping and releasing them like a traffic light, his body heated up as if he had done intense exercise, even though it wasn’t much.

“Rest a bit if you’re tired.”

Mu-yun unzipped his raincoat and laughed.

“No, it’s just a bit hot.”

Sergeant Park’s mouth corners twitched.

Mu-yun smiled awkwardly.

He watched the road, where traffic had decreased significantly compared to rush hour.

Perhaps because a large shipbuilding company and an industrial complex hugged the port to the west and south of Seoheung-dong, motorcycles, bicycles, and anything with wheels seemed to have poured out, and that, too, seemed to be tapering off.

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