The two had been making calls for a long time already, and Jongdae was starting to get tired of it. They were looking for any recent funerals, one that they could plan a stakeout to, and get the thieves red-handed while they steal the body.

Jongdae, feeling that his ear was red from being pressed against the phone for so long, decided to take a break, putting the papers and cellphone down, and started leaning back on his chairs, stretching. Minseok was just finishing a call, and once it was done, he looked over at his partner and sighed.

“They’re cremating too.”

He stated, and Jongdae rolled his eyes.

“Does no one else in this city bury their dead anymore?”

The man couldn’t help but feel frustrated, as their list was growing short, and so far no one was actually going to a cemetery. They were beginning to lose hope that they’d get anything done that night.

“But they have stolen a body every night so far. What will they do if they don’t have a fresh body to steal?”

Jongdae wondered. He tried to get into the minds of the thieves, but he didn’t quite know enough about the motive to be able to figure out their next move.

“Maybe they’ll wait. They have been very lucky so far, because from what I’m seeing, not a lot of people get buried anymore.”

Minseok responded, sighing and taking Jongdae’s half of the list. He was done with his part, and he could see that his partner couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Nothing…”

Minseok sighed, pushing the phone away from him and leaning back on his chair, placing his arms behind his head as he tried to stretch out his body. He had been sitting for too long, and his muscles felt stiff. That was a quite natural thing for them to feel, and the duo had learned ways and tricks to deal with it.

“Damn it… What now? We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

Jongdae responded, frustrated. He crushed the empty plastic cup that was in his hand – which previously had coffee in, as he did himself and his partner the favor of going out and getting some – and threw it over to the trash can, feeling so annoyed by the lack of results from their main lead that he didn’t even celebrate the fact that his throw was a beautiful goal in.

“Relax, we still have a lot of evidence to examine, and more clues to follow. What we can do with this for now, is just talk to the cemeteries in town again, and have them warn us when another body is coming in. And also widen our search a bit more; see if we missed any cemeteries.”

Minseok kept calm and tried to help his friend. He was also frustrated on the inside, but as the oldest one, he was able to put things in perspective and help his partner simmer down from time to time.

“You’re right, let’s do that. And then what else have we got?”

Jongdae asked as he searched for the case file amidst the other papers on his desk. He still didn’t look much better than he did a second before, but he seemed to be trying hard to keep cool. He knew that freaking out and having an angry fit wouldn’t get them anywhere.

“A team did a full swipe of each crime scene right? The first two reports that were in the file said that the sweeps were unsuccessful, since no clue was really left behind, but the report of the third crime scene is still on its way. Maybe our thieves got cocky and made a mistake. We should wait for that to come in.”

Minseok started, and Jongdae was already nodding along and thinking things through.

“Also, the first two bodies only just surfaced, so we’re still waiting on a forensic report on that too. Whoever is doing this might be smart enough not to leave a trace at the crime scenes, but there has to be something on the bodies, don’t you think?”

Minseok then smiled, very faintly, but yet encouraging enough to cause Jongdae to respond with a more relaxed expression. The younger had panicked uselessly, as there was still a lot more work ahead of them before they were out of clues. He was so caught up in trying to be fast and perfect – to show their abilities – that his brain wasn’t seeing the entire picture.

“You’re right, we have work ahead of us. We should call those cemeteries and get that out of our way, and then start looking into the other stuff.”

Jongdae said, finally responding to Minseok’s smile with a confident one, as he picked up his cellphone and got started right away.

Jongdae sighed as he massaged his temples, looking down at his desk and checking the list in front of him. It felt like he had spent his entire day on the phone, and there were still many more calls to be made.

Mid-way through calling the cemeteries, the two took some time to think things through, and they decided to call other places that could temporarily store bodies as well – such as morgues, hospitals, and others – just so they could stay one step ahead, in case the thieves decided to started getting even fresher bodies, ones that they didn’t have to go through the trouble of digging up. That was a very smart and professional move on their end, but it only added onto the list of places to call.

So far, all of the places he had called reported to have quite a good security, with cameras, and mechanical locks, sometimes even with some armed personnel. They seemed like hard places to get into, and he wondered if the criminals would dare to try. But it was logical to think that they’d steal a fourth body that evening, since they had stolen one the last three nights so far. And the third body hadn’t surfaced back yet, so if the thieves went on without interruption, Jongdae could see a clear pattern to their actions – stealing one body every day, getting rid of the remaining body parts every other day, two bodies at a time. Jongdae couldn’t help but feel curious about what would happen if the thieves weren’t able to find a fourth body. Would they just give up? Would they start over? It was hard to conjecture on things like that when they didn’t actually know what the thieves were doing all that for; but it definitely gave off a ritualistic vibe. If only they had more information, they could possibly narrow it down.

Jongdae tried to focus back on the task at hand, reaching over for his cellphone once more, but he hesitated. He could hear his partner talking on the landline phone, right across from him on his desk, saying the same things Jongdae had been saying for over an hour. Even though they were doing so much, it occasionally felt like nothing was getting done. Like nothing would chan