I N V E S T I G A T I O N   3

Taeyeon sipped her warm sweet coffee before speaking, “I know it’s kinda ridiculous but,” she paused for a moment. “Cho Joohyun’s dad mentioned a person named Tao, and I think this Tao guy kinda gave Cho Joohyun some advices. But he didn’t give me any further info about this guy. Any clue where to look?”

On the other line, Jessica seemed to be excited, “I can check our archives. I’ll get right on it.”

“Thanks, babe!” And with that, Taeyeon cut the line.

Placing her phone back onto the table, also with her mug, Taeyeon stretched her arms, neck, and fingers before continuing with her work with her laptop. She was looking for any information about this Tao guy too. By the amount of instant coffee packs inside her cupboard, she thought that she won’t be sleeping tonight.

∞

The next day, Taeyeon woke up still on her desk, a half mug of coffee by her side, laptop still on, showing a bunch of meaningless words. She basically didn’t found anything and couldn’t fight with her sleepiness. She remembered seeing the clock showing 4:07 A.M., now it was already 6:19 A.M., meant she only had 2 hours of sleep.

Frustrated, she turned her laptop off and took a shower to refresh her mind. After her morning shower, she walked by the chiller to get a small breakfast, a bowl of wheat cereals. She then remembered her phone. Luckily it still had 2 bars of batteries left. She saw 4 missed calls from Jessica and 1 message, from her too.

‘Where are you, pick up your phone! I’ve found something. Call me when you’re up!’

She immediately connected herself with Jessica. After 6 beeps, Jessica finally answered the call.

“Finally!”

“Sorry, I overslept last night! So you found anything?”

“Noticed that. I did. Tao is a judge, as known as Judge Huang Zi Tao, and yes he’s Chinese.”

“Judge? What’s his tie with the Seos?” Taeyeon asked, shoving a spoonful of cereal into .

“A family friend. I just knew that Joohyun who was 19 that time was married to Kyuhyun, who was 28. And the one performing the ceremony was Judge Huang Zi Tao.”

“That’s a lot to process, Jess. But thank you so much for the priceless information. I can’t believe you actually found something!”

Jessica chuckled, “Never underestimate my researching powers, Detective Kim.”

“Judge Huang Zi Tao, I’m on it!”

“Good luck!”

∞

Taeyeon got into the department around 10 A.M., practically tidied up her apartment first before leaving for work—it’s been 3 weeks since the last time she did it.

“You look a bit freshened up today, Detective. Only, not for your eyes,” Joonmyun greeted, a carton cup of tea in his hand.

“Yeah, just got some info regarding to this homicide case. And I barely slept last night,” Taeyeon replied, looking at Joonmyun with tired eyes.

“Me too. It turned out to be a fake identity of the thieves, dang it!”

“Oh, poor you! Don’t give up just like that, Joonmyun-ssi. I think as a junior, you’ve done a great job. I don’t think I did mine as great as you did.”

“Don’t be like that, Taeyeon-ssi. Still, I’m a junior,” Joonymun said. “Anyways, you’re doing a great job on your case. Keep it up!”

“Thanks a lot, and you too, Joonmyun-ssi. See ya later.”

As for Joonmyun, the only person that keeps him away from not giving up was her, Taeyeon.

He had to bit his lower lip to prevent him from smiling, and he nearly squeezed his carton cup of tea.

He just hoped Taeyeon didn’t see this embarrassing side of his.

∞

“Judge Huang Zi Tao,” Youngwoon mumbled, burning the tip of his cigarette with his lighter. “I’ve heard of him. Not quite famous among the judges.”

Taeyeon nodded, “I’ve never did. Probably that’s because he wasn’t famous.” She received a nod. “A friend of mine said that Judge Huang was a family friend of the Seos.”

“Judging from his look, I think he’s still young,” Youngwoon said, taking a glimpse of a printed picture given from Taeyeon.

Taeyeon nodded while leaning back on her seat. “Sir, may I have a permission to see him?”

Youngwoon blew smoke from his mouth and smiled, “Permission granted. Go for it, Taeyeon-ssi.”

∞

Taeyeon felt her heartbeat raced when she was about to knock on the door to Judge Huang’s office. She inhaled a good amount of oxygen before finally knocked on the wooden door.

“Good afternoon,” Taeyeon bowed.

Behind his desk, Judge Huang Zi Tao, or Tao, stood up and bowed. “Good afternoon. You must be Detective Kim. My secretary had called.”

“Yes, you’re right, Judge Huang,” Taeyeon said, walking towards his desk.

“Tao,” he smiled, “And please have a seat.”

Taeyeon shook her hand with his before sitting on one of the chairs in front of his desk. Youngwoon was right, he looked young. His voice was also far from Taeyeon’s expectation.

“Is there anything I could help, Detective?”

Taeyeon cleared before she began, “It’s about Cho Joohyun’s murder.”

Tao looked sad immediately, “I knew you’ll be asking this. It’s really sad to hear her death, she was such a nice girl.”

“You seem to know her pretty well,” Taeyeon remarked.

“I absolutely do. Joohyun and his father visited me last week.”

“What did the three of you talk about, may I ask?”

“Well, she said that she’d found out that her husband, Kyuhyun, was involved in a secret society and she intended to expose it,” Tao explained, entwining his fingers on the table.

“Secret society? What kind of?” Taeyeon asked, getting even more curious.

“I don’t know anything more about this society. I didn’t want to know, it’s their own business,” Tao said, placing his hands in the air. “My advice to her was to leave somebody else’s business. Obviously, she didn’t listen to me.”

Taeyeon was in the middle of mini heart attack knowing all of this information.

“I follow my own advice, Detective Kim,” Tao said, “And so should you. To keep you out from any danger.”

Taeyeon thought that he was right. His words were right. But she won’t leave her curiosity abandoned like this, and she had sworn to both victims that she’d bring justice to them, and let them to rest in peace.

“I know what I’m doing,” she said and stood up. “Thank you so much for the time, Tao. I’d be seeing you.”

Tao nodded and smiled, “Pleasure to meet you, Kim Taeyeon. Please take care on your way.”

Tao was a nice guy, but maybe he’s not as ignorant as he claimed about the secrets that were spilled to Cho Joohyun. Nobody knows.

But I will.

∞

“Baek? Where are you?” Taeyeon asked over the phone.

“At my office, why?” She heard him talking.

“Nothing, just wanna hear your voice. I met somebody who was the victim’s family friend today,” Taeyeon explained, resting her head on her car seat.

“Was it fun?”

Taeyeon chuckled, “A bit.”

“Don’t stress yourself, Tae. Whenever you need me, just call. Okay?”

“Of course, Baek.”

“The meeting will start soon, babe. Call you later.”

“Yeah, bye-bye.”

After finishing her caffeine on her stainless steel tumbler, she drove her car onto her next destination, which was Cho Kyuhyun’s office.

∞

“It’s terrible what happened to Mrs. Cho,” Cho Kyuhyun’s secretary had said. “Mr. Cho has been in United States since last week, but he told me to offer any cooperation to the police. You can go in his office if you like.”

The secretary excused herself and Taeyeon was left alone in the spacious office of Cho Kyuhyun’s. Taeyeon looked around for any suspicious evidences, and she did. She opened a box, and inside, she found two cufflinks that had pictures of daisies and dragons.

The symbol is very odd. Maybe these have something to do with the secret society? I’d better take these with me. Sorry, Mr. Cho!

Taeyeon was still looking around when her eyes darted to the glass cabinet on the corner of the room. It contained of Cho Kyuhyun’s personal needs. Taeyeon thanked the heavens for bringing the blood sample kit Sunkyu had given to her, because she spotted some droplets of blood on his razor.

After placing the blood sample back inside her bag, Taeyeon went to his working desk and opened its drawer. Bingo! She found his agenda. She flipped the pages onto the most recent agendas, and found one entry that was scratched.

November 11^th, that was the date. Taeyeon ripped the entry and took it along with her to the office.

“Sunkyu-ah,” Taeyeon called. “You at the lab? I’ve got a blood sample from one of the suspects. I’ll drop it by.”

“That’s great. I’ll be waiting,” the girl across the line said with a cheerful tone.

∞

“Wat’cha doin’?”

Taeyeon looked up and the sight of Joonmyun greeted her. “Oh, Joonmyun-ssi. As you can see, I’m trying to read the words behind these scratches. You think you can help me with this?”

Joonmyun took the paper and saw that it was quite hard to guess the letters behind the mindless patterns of incoherent lines. “’Lunch with’,” Joonmyun said, narrowing his eyes. “’Lunch with Kris Wu, 12:30 P.M.’, it says that, Taeyeon-ssi.”

Taeyeon, on the other hand, was in awe. “You seriously could read that? I spent more than 5 minutes to even figure out what the second word was!”

“It’s easy, to be frankly saying,” Joonmyun shrugged and placed the paper on Taeyeon’s desk. “Maybe you’re just too tired, Taeyeon-ssi.”

“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, thanks for the help!”

“My plea—”

Joonmyun’s words were cut with the ringing of Taeyeon’s phone.

“Sorry,” Taeyeon whispered before answering the call from Sunkyu. “Any good news, Sun?”

“The blood from Cho Kyuhyun is typed B+, it doesn’t match with the blood on Cho Joohyun’s pants. Should we say he’s crossed from our suspects list?”

“Thanks, I’m not surprised, he was out for the States when Cho Joohyun was murdered. But not yet, Sunkyu-ah, he probably hired someone else to do it.”

“You’re right. I’ll keep it in my records then.”

“Good idea. Gotta run, Sun. Jessica’s on the other line,” Taeyeon cut the phone, and quickly answered the call from Jessica.

“Jessica! Glad that you called. Can you find anything about Kris Wu? Cho Joohyun’s husband had lunch with him just before his departure to the States.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa calm down there Detective! I was going to ask you for a treat at The King’s but you seemed so excited about this. I’m on it then!” Jessica squeaked.

“Sorry, Jess. Maybe next time!”

∞

Jessica was busy with her computer that night. She was in the midst of searching any articles regarding Kris Wu. After gazillion clicking of mouse, the blonde finally found an old article about him, being a billionaire real estate.

“’Billionaire Real Estate Developer Sticks to His Roots, Kris Wu’,” she said. “’Kris Wu keeps a low profile, despite the fact that he owns some of the most lucrative land in Seoul, and builds office buildings like a man playing Monopoly, you won’t see him at the city’s socialites parties or in the newspaper’s pages.’ Wow, he is a really humble man, I suppose,” she told herself and clicked on the print button.

When she’s done printing the article, she read it again, and thought to herself, Call me crazy, but this sounds like the kind of guy who’d be involved in a secret society.

Jessica jumped from her chair onto the coffee table in her living room and took her phone.

“Kai, can we meet?”

helllo! back with an update. i know it's still early to demand subscribers and comments but please? ;A; so yeah, who's thrilled for the next story!? /raises hand/ lol omg. hey there upvoters! thank you, HanieBaek, Iamyourcake, and blahblahxoxo :D so i guess, see ya in the future updates? loveya!