Chapter 22: The Hunt Begins in Earnest

April 2nd

“Come on, come on!

Let’s cheer up!”

Sergeant Park clapped his hands loudly as if trying to chase away sleep.

Mu-yun’s bloodshot eyes widened.

Only two more hours until quitting time.

Nearly a month had passed, so he should be getting used to it by now, but working all night was still overwhelming.

He wondered if it was because it was a desk job but involved a lot of physical work, and if he was already like this, what would he do later?

Pushing aside the urge to scratch his eyes, which felt stiff and dry, he turned the page of the document he was looking at.

The screen of the phone lying face up on his desk lit up.

[You get off at 9, right?]

It was Tae-i.

Mu-yun immediately wrote a reply.

[By the time I shower and leave, it’ll be almost 9:30.]

[Come out a little later.]

[Okay.

I’ll time it and come out.]

After sending the last message, he lifted his head.

Perhaps because the weather was cloudy, even though it was 8 AM, it was still dark outside.

People busily moved their feet on the streets where the twilight hadn’t fully lifted.

“…Officer.

So Mu-yun, what are you doing?”

Mu-yun moved his gaze toward the call that barely reached his ear.

The police box chief was looking at him.

“Yes!”

Mu-yun answered hurriedly.

The police box chief scratched the back of his neck, where his closely cropped, graying hair was visible, and stared at him.

“What are you spacing out for like that?”

Mu-yun bowed his head instead of answering.

“Aish.

Everyone’s like this after a night shift.

Yesterday, I almost rolled around on the street three times because of a drunk.”

Sergeant Park rattled on instead of Mu-yun.

That wasn’t exactly the only reason, but even with his dull senses, Mu-yun knew it wasn’t the time for him to speak.

The police box chief clicked his tongue as if slightly displeased, but there was no other scolding.

“Let’s begin.”

It was time for the briefing on the previous night’s incidents and accidents.

At Senior Patrol Officer Kim’s words, everyone gathered around the table.

Led by Sergeant Lee, the most senior member present, the meeting began.

“From 22:00 on April 1st to around 03:00 on April 2nd, total……”

As the work report began, Mu-yun busily moved his pen, continuing his notes.

Sentences like codes, cut off at the front and back, continued across his notebook.

When it finally came to his turn, Mu-yun checked the report he had prepared.

“On March 30th.

A stray cat that was assaulted by an unidentified male, estimated height 175 cm, estimated age late teens to early twenties, died around 20:00 on April 1st.

The cause was fractures and internal bleeding from the assault.”

His voice reporting what he had heard from the hospital came out calmer than expected, which he thought was fortunate.

Team 1, who already knew because they had received the call after coming to work, had similar reactions.

Senior Patrol Officer Kang from Team 3, who had just come on duty, frowned.

“It died?”

“Yes.”

When they had agreed to hospitalization and treatment, they said the cat probably wouldn’t last the night, but still, it held on for a day before letting go of its breath.

Mu-yun tried his best not to get choked up by the existence of a life that was a stray cat when alive and became waste after death.

“Crazy bastard.”

Sergeant Park, who had strongly insisted it probably wasn’t an animal abuser, spat out his emotions.

Even Sergeant Lee, whose face had been so calm it seemed indifferent, nodded at that.

“The raincoat Officer So brought was handed over to the forensic unit by Team 4 as evidence, and the CCTV footage was also copied and handed over.

All we can do is patrol as often as possible and check places we don’t usually go.

Everyone knows that, right?”

At Sergeant Lee’s words, everyone nodded.

“We’ll be careful when patrolling the outskirts of the park.”

Senior Patrol Officer Kang sighed and added.

All they could do now was instill in the culprit the impression that they were watching as much as possible.

“We’re going to intensify patrols overall.

Check alleys more carefully than usual, inspect them.

Also crack down on people privately feeding animals in places other than registered shelters.

They say that luring cats as much as possible to feed them in one spot helps speed up identifying individual animals.”

The city was trying to catch, register, and release stray cats to keep track of them, but because the number of abandoned animals was considerable, they couldn’t check all of them.

“Now that it’s kitten season, we’ll probably get a lot of reports too.”

At Senior Patrol Officer Kim’s words, everyone except patrol officers Mu-yun and Go Taek had expressions of resignation.

“Kittens?

No, we get reports about kittens?”

At Go Taek’s question, Sergeant Lee nodded.

“It’s moving season, so they venture out onto the roads a lot.

They drop kittens while carrying them.

There are also many cases where they get run over while moving them in several trips.”

“Eugh.

I really hate that.”

Sergeant Park shuddered as if even hearing about it was repulsive.

Senior Patrol Officer Kim added an explanation, saying that while dead animals hit by cars were handled elsewhere, the reports themselves came in through 112, so they often saw gruesome carcasses.

“Since the number of weak individuals has increased, he’ll probably act again soon.”

Sergeant Lee muttered, sounding worried.

“He won’t stop all at once.

So we have no choice but to look into every nook and cranny.”

The investigation was the responsibility of the detectives at the relevant police station, but anyway, the security of this Seoheung 3-dong was also their responsibility.

Various opinions were exchanged, and the handover ended.

Mu-yun dry-washed his face, scrubbing the complicated emotions from his expression.

“Good work.”

The seniors, who hadn’t blamed him even when he reported that he had almost caught the culprit but let him go, patted Mu-yun on the back and returned to their desks to get ready to leave work.

Mu-yun pressed his lips together tightly and just smiled bitterly.

Before taking off his duty uniform and changing into plain clothes, he washed up at the police box.

His house was right nearby, but he had somewhere to go as soon as he got off work, so he didn’t have time to stop by.

After roughly towel-drying his hair, he stepped outside, and immediately his phone vibrated in his pocket.

[Here!]

At the voice that came through without any greeting, Mu-yun looked around.

Tae-i, standing where his gaze landed, waved his arm.

It looked like he had just come out of the fire station.

“What’s up?”

Sergeant Park, following him out, looked at Mu-yun with a puzzled face.

“You’ve gotten really close with the youngest from next door, huh.”

“…It just happened that way.”

“Is that so?”

Whether that was a good thing or not, Sergeant Park didn’t pry further, left Mu-yun with a ‘go on in’ greeting, and left.

Mu-yun stood in front of the crosswalk.

He could have just stood in front of the fire station, but Tae-i had already come out to meet him on this side.

He waited for the pedestrian signal to change, and when the green light came on, he glanced left and right and hurried across.

“You got out faster than I thought.”

“I hurried a bit.

Is it okay if my hair isn’t dry?”

“Yeah.”

Mu-yun twisted his dripping bangs as if rubbing them.

“Let’s go.”

Tae-i turned back toward the fire station.

“I brought the car to the parking lot.”

Even though his house was in the back alley right there, he seemed to want to save a bit more time.

When they entered the fire station parking lot, Tae-i’s car was visible.

“Aren’t you tired?”

Tae-i, who had opened the driver’s side door, asked Mu-yun, who had opened the passenger door.

Mu-yun laughed softly.

“Just a little sleepy?”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

Mu-yun snorted and met Tae-i’s eyes.

“Are you okay?

You came straight from a full shift.”

After an all-nighter, it was common to close your eyes for a bit on the morning of a day off.

Since it wasn’t a continuous change of day and night, just one day, it was partly a matter of stamina and partly a matter of habit.

“I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up if I fell asleep.

Besides, this is nothing.”

Tae-i said that and started the engine.

Mu-yun leaned back, sinking into the seat.

“Let’s look around quickly and go home.”

Tae-i muttered as if sighing.

At that, Mu-yun smiled calmly, then frowned as if sorry.

“You should be resting.

I’m putting you through this.”

Tae-i’s lips twitched.

“We’re both suffering because of one crazy bastard.”

“That’s true.”

If it weren’t for the culprit in the first place, on his day off he wouldn’t be roaming around like this, he would have quietly gone home and slept like a log.

Then, regretting the day spent sleeping, he would have gone for a walk in the neighborhood late in the evening.

“It was near Peace Motel, right?”

“Yeah.

That alley.”

The car left the fire station.

It wasn’t even a few minutes away.

Taking Donghaean-ro and heading toward Geumjin-ro, they headed to Goyeomgol Small Sports Park, where they had first encountered the culprit.

When they drove the car up to the restroom inside, they saw yellow tape fluttering toward the mountain.

It was yellow duct tape that the detectives had put up after leaving, reading ‘No Entry.’

“There are three back paths here.”

Tae-i looked at the laminated notice saying ‘No Entry’ and spoke.

“Three?”

Mu-yun asked back.

Tae-i reached out and pointed to the right.

Rolling down the window and sticking his head out, Mu-yun saw an apartment complex called ‘Cheongsan Paradise.’

“It’s a bit of a detour, but there’s one hiking trail coming up from that apartment complex, and one more now-closed walking path connecting from the theme botanical garden beyond the ridge.”

“The botanical garden…”

That was the place connected to the private property they had visited before.

The place with the unused field, the rotting shed, and the furnace-shaped incinerator.

Tae-i let out a long breath.

“It’s a path that was closed about ten years ago, so they said probably no one knows about it.”

“How did you know, then?”

“You know Supervisor Jeong.”

Tae-i mentioned the center’s fire investigator.

“The Supervisor worked here ten years ago.”

Saying that, he reached into the back seat, pulled out his bag, and took out a file.

He handed it to Mu-yun.

Mu-yun took it and opened it.

Several pages resembling forest land maps were printed.

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