Chapter 8. Jiyong & Suspect

“Whoa, you're early.” Kwangsoo, looking extra savvy with slicked-back hair and pressed white shirt, pokes his head into the detectives office where Taeyeon is currently in.

“She's not early.” Bambam takes off his coat and drapes it on the back his chair before sitting. “She's been here all night.”

“Yeah?”

“A bottle of water almost empty on her desk. Half-a-serving of Ttteboeki left cold on a plate. Chocolate bar wrappers, bottles of mineral waters and coffee cups in the bin. Those eye-bags, messy hair-bun, an extra button of the ruffled shirt popped open.” Bambam rises his eyebrows at Taeyeon. “And these files scattered all over her desk. You've been here all night, haven't you noona? Working.”

“Smart-.” Taeyeon yawns, rubbing her face as she lifts her head off her desk. She was half-asleep, staring at her phone as she had just texted Jiyong an hour ago, wishing him a good day. There's no reply from him and she feels worried.

“Yeah. Smart-.” Kwangsoo pouts. “You know you've disobeyed the chief, right Taeyeon? He told us to rest. This is the total opposite of resting.”

“Be a snitch and I'll make sure you'll never get promoted to senior ME.” Taeyeon makes the threat without even looking at Kwangsoo. Her focus is dead set on what Bambam is bringing to his desk. She's hungry and Bambam is well-known to have breakfast at the office. “Now scram, there are bodies waiting for you in the morgue.”

Kwangsoo leaves mumbling. Taeyeon doesn't care for Bambam is sipping his coffee then unwraps his sandwich. Their office smells like her mother's kitchen and it spurs Taeyeon to grab a sandwich from Bambam's box. She doesn't even bother to ask for permission.

“Holy mother of mayonnaise, this is heaven.” Taeyeon takes another big bite but when she tries to reach for the extra cup of coffee the junior detective keeps it away.

“What? The dark roast is for me, right?”

“Not anymore.” Bambam stands up and pour the dark liquid from the cup into the sink by the window.

“, Bambam. That's a crime punishable by death!” Taeyeon tries to stop him but he already throw the empty cup into the bin. Her following groan is one to match a dying bear. “You just killed my morning coffee fix.”

“It was an act of mercy toward your weak stomach, noona.” He glances into the bin to count, “Five! Really noona? You have had five cup of coffee?”

“I had a restless night. Couldn't get the case out of my mind.” She's not one hundred percents lying. She did have a trouble sleeping but it was because she couldn't stop thinking about Jiyong. Working is the only thing she could do to keep his image from somersaulting in her mind.

The image of her favorite neighbor, kissing her cheek, is glued to her brain and she can't shake it off.

As if on cue, her hand automatically goes up her face, trying to feel the spot where Jiyong's soft lips landed last night.

He kissed her, yet here she's working her off while waiting for him to reply her text.

“Did you even sleep at all?.” Bambam sits back, starting to eat again. “Seriously noona, you need to know when to stop.”

“I made progress.” Changing the topic, Taeyeon slaps her note on Bambam's desk. “Remember the lady from the foster home said that one of the girls, Ara, married in Jeju three years ago?”

“Yeah.” Munching at his sandwich, Bambam reads the note.

“I looked up marriage records. Forty seven marriages were legalized in Jeju that year. After nearly one hundreds phone calls and four hours of pouring over our shifty database, I narrowed the list into those three.” Devouring her share of sandwich while leaning on Bambam's desk, Taeyeon smiles triumphantly. “The three brides happen to have husbands that are way older than them.”

“Hmmmm. We just have to come for this one then, Song Ara.”

Taeyeon gets back to her chair then drinks the remaining water from her bottle in one go. “There's always probability of name changing.”

“Ah. Yes. I'll search for their addresses and send local police to question them, see if one actually spend her childhood in Gyeryong foster home.”

“Done that, alerting local police” Taeyeon smiles again, waving her phone. “I'm waiting for the officers to report now.”

A call come an hour later. Chunceon Police agency has identified one of the bride as Ara from Gyeryong foster home. Ara goes by the name Kang Seulgi now and according to her husband, it has been two days since he last saw her.

Now, Taeyeon is in Kang Seulgi's room, turning on her heels to observe the spacious bedroom. Kang Seulgi can't be find anywhere despite Taeyeon's order for local police to conduct a thorough search. The clock is ticking and Taeyeon knows she has to work fast if they want to find Kang Seulgi alive.

“Her husband accuses her of cheating.” Bambam who just finished questioning the husband comes into the room while gloving his hands. “They got into a fight and he hasn't seen her ever since.”

“Hmmm.” Taeyeon moves methodically to search the room for any clue with Bambam does the same in other direction.

“Every place the husband thinks his wife might be in, the local police has searched it with zero result.”

“Ara clearly wed the old man for the money, Bammie.” Taeyeon scrutinizes each and every picture framed on the wall by the king size bed. They are all Ara, posing in front of almost every famous landmark of the world. No picture of Ara and her husband but the one taken on their wedding day, framed and hung above the head of the bed. “I can't tell from the beginning we won't get much information from the husband.”

“If the other victims were found dead either on their houses or workplaces, why can't we find Ara on those two places too?”

“It could be because she spent more times at another place. A secret place. I don't think the husband accusation of her cheating on him is made out of imagination.” Taeyeon shifts closer to the king size bed. “This room is Ara's sanctuary. You can tell from how its stuffed with her personal belongings. If there's any secret she's keeping, she keeps it here.”

“Well, I can always dig up digital secrets.” Bambam arrives at a desk on the corner, he hunches to open the laptop on it. In the mean time, Taeyeon has reached a walk-in-closet where clothes and shoes are neatly organized in. Tucked deep in the back of a shelf, just behind an array of shoe-boxes, she finds a shoe-box not belonged to the shiny place. If the other boxes comes from famous brands and are all seem new, this one box is old and almost completely torn.

“Noona.” Bambam calls out. “I found something.”

“Me too.” Taeyeon walks out of the closet with the shoe-box in her gloved hands.

“The husband might be right.” Bambam moves aside so Taeyeon can see the laptop screen. “I found so many e-mail exchanges between her and this [email protected] account. The exchanges stop a year ago but most of them are appointments to meet at a place they called 'HH'”

“HH?” Taeyeon takes a few Polaroid pictures from the box. “These pictures of her were taken at the same place. Look at the plaque on the wall, High Haven.”

“Wait.” Bambam opens another window on the browser and types the name. “It's a bar, here in Chunceon.”

“Let's go.”

“Of course I know her.” The bartender exclaims after Bambam showed her picture of Kang Seulgi. “She used to meet her lover here every weekend.”

“Her lover?”

“Yep. A cute man.” She explains while cleaning a cocktail glass. “Childish smile, shy laugh. Tattoos. My kind of man. I used to envy this girl so much. But they broke up, I guess. None of them hit this bar anymore until two days ago.”

“Kang Seulgi came here two days ago?”

“Yep. Waiting on their favorite table by the broken jukebox for two nights in the row. But the man ditched her, I guess.” The bartender put the glass down, sighing. “The day before, she waited until 2 a.m before leaving. Last night, she stayed until the bar was almost closed. Our bouncer had to make her leave.”

“So, she left. Did you see if she went with someone? Di