Chapter 3:

11:16 AM Friday, December 15

A good detective never rests until their case is solved. And two cups of coffee later, I’m still stuck.

The only progress I’ve made is attempting to create an approximate timeline for the night of the murder. According to the autopsy, Seokjin died at around 6:30 PM Wednesday night, and his body was about five long blocks away from the supermarket and two long blocks from his apartment building. He would probably take around 20 minutes to walk to his position, meaning he had to have left the market around 6:10 PM.  Jungkook says he left the house at around 5:00 PM, and probably reached the bottom floor before 5:10 PM. Since he had to walk 7 long blocks instead of 5, he probably took about 25 minutes to reach the market, putting his arrival time at 5:35 PM, and he spent around 35 minutes shopping before leaving.  I circle 5:10 PM, 5:35 PM, and 6:10 PM on my board. CCTV of the street block can confirm Seokjin leaving the building at the first time, and CCTV of the supermarket can confirm his entrance and exit times.  These times are only estimates until I get my hands on the CCTV footage for exact times.

Meanwhile, I had requested background information on Seokjin’s roommates and Lee Taemin. There was nothing of particular interest in the roommates; all of them have clean records and are in some sort of arts profession, attending university, or both. It is confirmed that Lee Taemin is a medical assistant who works at a hospital and works until around 5 PM, which means he could have been free to commit the crime.

The street camera footage is exactly what I need to prove Lee Taemin is the murderer, I think excitedly, my blood rushing with adrenaline.

“Detective, I have the CCTV footage you requested.”

My head snaps towards the room door, Officer Yang standing there with another manila envelope. “Is everything okay, Detective?” he asks, genuine concern spreading across his round face as he places the envelope on my desk.

“Yes, I’m fine, just a bit stuck is all,” I answer, capping the marker he caught me chewing on. “Thank you for getting this to me quickly.  It’s the last piece I need to make an arrest.”

A gummy smile appears on his face. “So that means this case will be over soon?” he questions perkily.

I chuckle at his cuteness. “Hopefully, yes.”  I walk towards the manila envelope, but I pause when I’m about to open it. I’m suddenly afraid of what I may find in here.  Taemin being the murderer just doesn’t sit well with me for some reason. I shake the brief thought away and open it up, frowning at its contents.  “There’s only one CD in here,” I state, not bothering to hide the disappointment in my voice.

Officer Yang scratches behind his neck. “That’s the the thing, Detective.  It seems that there weren’t any cameras installed on that street.”

I almost kick myself for not checking the street in the first place. “What an unfortunate coincidence,” I retort dryly.  The one solid piece of evidence I need has slipped through my fingers. “Fine then, I’ll just have to make do with this.  Thank you anyway.”

Yoseob bows and makes his exit.

I take my seat at my desk, making a point to slump. How could I have been so stupid to not check the street if there were cameras in the first place? Now I’ll have to depend on circumstantial evidence.  Pushing my disappointment aside, I take out the supermarket camera CD. At least I have this. I pull up the camera footage, scrolling through to Wednesday evening. Since Seokjin left his apartment building at around 5:10 PM, I start watching the front entrance of the store from that time, fast forwarding through each minute. I spot a tall figure with a navy blue parka walk through at about 5:37 PM.  A glance at the man’s face reveals itself to be Seokjin, so I note down the time in my notepad and follow his next actions, slowly turning the dial to advance the video. He pauses at the door to peel off his gloves and tuck them in each of his jacket pockets before grabbing a cart and strolling towards the produce section.  Seeing this man with the light in his eyes makes me realize why his roommates love him; he practically exudes a calm exterior, and judging by the amount of groceries he has, he must really care about feeding his roommates as much as he can. I dart my eyes to the other cameras briefly, searching for suspicious figures.

Of all the people in the supermarket, my eyes immediately find the platinum blond hair of the prime suspect, his swaggering figure entering and scanning the space before walking in the opposite direction as Seokjin. I note the time stamp: 5:39 PM.

What’s he doing? I wonder, following him through the views of each camera he appears in. He’s wearing a grey hoodie   He walks to the far back of the store to the freezer aisles, towards the...alcohol section? I almost put my pen down to observe him.  He saunters over to one of the doors purposefully, as if he already knows which drink he wants. He tears a six pack of beer cans out of the fridge, rips one out of the pack, and slumps down in the corner near the back door of the store.

I stare on, my mouth agape in disbelief as he just sits there, wallowing in his apparent self-pity as he slowly gulps down each can of beer, crushes it, and throws it onto the floor around him. Some shoppers throw him a disgusted glance, but he frankly can’t care less.  He almost looks like a homeless person or a druggie, hood thrown over his head messily, his joggers half rolled up one leg. It almost makes me laugh, then I remember alcoholism is nothing to laugh about.  I wonder what kind of trauma could have pushed him this far.

I fast forward through his miserable drinking scene until he finishes his sixth and final can of beer. After a brief respite leaning against the door, he stumbles to his knees and starts picking up all the cans strewn across the floor, crawling on all fours like a drunken elephant. At least he bothered to clean up after himself, I think, almost laughing at his unbalanced behavior as he throws all the empty cans into the box. He stumbles to his feet with the box in his hands, almost falling over more than once, and continues to the front of the store. He seems to drunkenly explain to the lady that he drank all the beer at the store and passes her his card to pay for it.  The cashier doesn’t even bat an eye or shake his head in disappointment, he just rings Taemin up for the beer without any questions. Taemin thanks the man and swaggers toward the back of the store and exits through the back doors of the supermarket, disposing of his trash in the dumpster.

Well at least he’s not a messy drunk. And he had the decency to pay for all the beer he drank. Somehow that made me almost smile.

I realize that I’ve been so intently staring at him that I forgot to keep track of Seokjin. I shake my head quickly and do a quick scan of the other cameras for Seokjin.  The time stamp says 6:24 PM, so I make a note of the time and rewind a bit until I see my subject again at the checkout counter. By the time Seokjin finishes checking out his groceries and sharing a lovely conversation with the elderly cashier lady, the time stamp on the camera says 6:12 PM.  Seokjin bows to the elderly cashier woman and leaves, his hands full of grocery bags.

I pause the footage and lay back in my seat incredulously as I come to a startling conclusion.

Taemin couldn’t have commit this murder.

I make a list of things disqualifying him: He wasn’t wearing Seokjin’s jacket. Actually, he wasn’t wearing any jacket at all other than his hoodie.  He was drunk to the point of losing his coordination, so he couldn’t have pulled off the murder as cleanly as he did. Unless he was faking, which is unlikely since he drank six whole cans of beer in less than an hour.  He wasn’t even aware of Seokjin’s presence in the supermarket.  And even if he left and found Seokjin in the street, he couldn’t have pulled off the murder since it was too meticulously planned. And finally, Taemin left the supermarket a whole 12 minutes after Seokjin.  He would’ve had to run to catch up to Seokjin.

I told him that the evidence will judge him, and it’s judged him in favor of his innocence.

And he’s the prime suspect. Which means I need to go back to the drawing board.

I slam my head on the desk and let out a frustrated groan.

Not two seconds later, I hear the most annoying sound in the world.

"Oh my gosh, there's an animal in here!"

The figure pokes his body through the door - uninvited, I must add - and hurriedly looks around before laying his eyes on me. "Oh, it's just you, Hee Chan," he smirks before barging in and closing the door behind him.

My blood boils and I clench my fingers so hard that I almost break the top of my pen off. "What are you doing here, Kibum?" I grit through my teeth.

"I just came to check on you, that's all," he answers casually, looking around my office at like the busybody he is. "I saw you come back into your office after being holed up for most of the morning.  I thought you were dead or something." He fingers the pictures on my wall of evidence.

"Well, I'm still alive, thank you for your concern," I respond, trying to be as professional as possible.

"Yes, sadly," he sighs before s