Title: SM-5 The Perfect Mystery 

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Mystery, Angst, Action 

Ratings: All ages 

Case #02: M e m o r i e s

Part 9

  ~~~

  “I know he wouldn’t kill any of them.”

  Yoona found herself sounding firm and confident as she and Minho stood in the backroom, whilst Victoria and Kyuhyun sat in the questioning room, waiting for Park Chanyeol to come in. Both Kyuhyun and Victoria heard Yoona’s words through the connected earpieces, and they fell silent as well, for it was Yoona who knew their current main suspect the best.

  “Yoona, I know he’s your colleague, but he’s under our suspect list and now he’s confessed-“ Minho was about to start.

  She shook her head as she focused her eyes on the empty seat, which awaited Chanyeol’s arrival. “I’m not being biased, or anything. I mean, he’s irritating, he’s strange and sometimes overly-friendly… But he’s not the type to kill people, you know?”

  “But did you know anything about his background, Yoona?” Kyuhyun said, over the earpiece. “In a sense that what you know, or probably, what you know about him, affects the overall suspicion?”

  Yoona bit her lip. “I don’t, I really don’t, but… it’s just a feeling and I-“

  She was interrupted as the door creaked open to reveal a tall, muscular, red-haired guy wearing a dark brown jumper and a pair of long jeans, his expression solemn as he approached the seat. She stared deeply at him, trying to recall a single moment of which she might have found him suspicious, or if he had actually acted in a suspicious manner.

  It was Victoria who was startled as she caught the sight of Park Chanyeol’s face, actually, correction that, not his face, but rather, his hair.

  The red-haired guy climbing into the gangsters’ car, the one on the security tape.

  She was definitely boggled by this all, but as she exchanged looks with Kyuhyun, she knew that whether the person sitting across them was the true murderer or not, she would have to question him. “Park Chanyeol-shi, you are Im Yoona and Krystal Jung’s colleague, working in the same café as them, am I right?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “You were also in the same school as Park Jiyeon, Bae Suzy, Kang Jiyoung, Krystal Jung, Choi Sulli and Choi Minho, in the same year as Park Jiyeon, am I right?” Victoria deliberately said her words slowly, to see if he had a reaction to any one of the names.

  But no, he nodded once more. “Yes.”

  “And you admit to the murder of Park Jiyeon and Bae Suzy?”

  “Yes.”

  His one-syllable answers startled Victoria, and there was something in his words, something in between surety and insecurity. But at the last answer he had given, he sounded firm, not confident, but firm, as if it was to convince himself once more that he had given the right answers. Victoria herself could not prove anything, not just yet, but she knew there were many more things she had to ask.

  “Park Chanyeol-shi, are you familiar with Kris Wu?”

  “Yes, I am.” He answered immediately, in a robot-like tone. “He is my boss, no, he was my boss. I worked for him as a loan shark.”

  “And what is your connection between the debts of Krystal Jung and Park Jiyeon to your side of the mafia?”

  “I knew both Krystal and Jiyeon, and when I heard they had debts, I convinced them into borrowing from us, because I thought it was a way for them to sink deeper into depression.” Chanyeol’s tone was monotonous. “So they borrowed from us, and Kris did not know it was me who planned it.”

  “How about Bae Suzy, did you want to kill her as well?”

  “She came back early and my planned backfired.”

  No. Victoria was alarmed.

  Kyuhyun raised an eyebrow. “…Park Jiyeon had filed a stalker report before her death, is it possible that it was you who was the stalker? And were you the one who sent in these photographs?” He slid the photographs towards Chanyeol.

  “I did. I stalked Jiyeon only.”

  “Motive for stalking?”

  “I liked her and I stalked her.” Chanyeol’s tone did not change.

  “Motive for killing Krystal Jung?”

  “I lied about only joining the café the day after Jiyeon’s death. I joined a few days before and when the girls met, I was the one who gave the potassium cyanide to Jiyeon and I killed Jiyeon soon after. Krystal suspected me after finding out about Jiyeon’s death and I killed her as well.”

  Wrong. Victoria shook her head as she thought to herself. All wrong.

  “Motive for attempted murder of Bae Suzy?”

  “She suspected me as well.”

  Kyuhyun continued. “How did you enter their apartments?”

  “I knocked on their doors and entered. They knew me so they let me in. Jiyeon was drowsy and I gave Krystal the coffee with potassium cyanide when we were inside her apartment. And Suzy… Suzy had blindly forgotten to lock her door.”

  Still wrong. Victoria became serious.

  “…And you sent us the photographs to pin the blame on Minho?”

  “I did.”

  “You sent the message to Minho’s handphone with the message hacker to frame him for Krystal’s death as well?”

  “I did.”

  “You used Kris Wu’s used vitamin bottles to put in the potassium cyanide, and you used Kris Wu’s computer for the message hacker to try to pin the blame on him as well, didn’t you?”

  “I did.”

  Kyuhyun leaned forward. “…It was you who created the message hacker?”

  “I am an I.T graduate.” Chanyeol did not waver.

  “How about Park Jiyeon’s suicide note?”

  “I tore it from her diary and burned the rest of it.”

  “So… you admit to being the murderer of Park Jiyeon and Krystal Jung, and you admit that you tried to kill Bae Suzy?”

  “Yes.”

  By this time, Victoria was deep in thought. There were many parts of his testimony that didn’t match whatever the team had discovered, and though she knew there was a high chance he was the murderer, she had this strange feeling that told her there was a lot more to it all. She was sure, she was sure that it wasn’t the rock-bottom end.

  Yoona, despite being in the backroom, she was thinking it out as well. In the first place, she had listened to his testimony with the mindset that Park Chanyeol was not the murderer, the more she listened, the more she felt that there was no way he could kill them. There were too much, just too many reasons, evidential and not evidential, why Park Chanyeol was not the murderer.

  “Park Chanyeol-shi, if you admit yourself to be the murderer, it might seem like an end to the case, but let me break it down for you – it’s not the end. A confession does not equal to the end. In many police stations, it might work that way, but here at the Seoul Metropolitan Police – it does not work that way.” Victoria started.

  He looked up at her. “Huh?”

  “It seems strange to me, Park Chanyeol-shi, that you stalked Park Jiyeon, however the only photos you took of her were the few photos of when she and Minho had incidentally met… If you, like you have claimed to be, are a possessive stalker… Why had you not taken singular photos of her?” Victoria posed her question cleverly.

  “I-“

  “And it also kind of boggles me to why you changed your routine with your attack on Suzy, by hanging the noose first, instead of doing that only after you could have given her tea.”

  “That was-“

  Victoria did not stop. “There’s one more detail – you mentioned that you gave Krystal Jung coffee, but after an autopsy was done, no traces of coffee was found in her stomach. It could not possibly have been digested within the hour… Instead, tea was found.”

  “I am the murderer.” Chanyeol insisted firmly. “It was a slip of a detail and it does not change anything.”

  “A slip of a detail changes everything, Park Chanyeol-shi. The only thing that doesn’t change, at this moment, is the fact that you’re hiding something and you’ve been hiding things from us from the start.” Victoria cut straight to the point.

  “I … have nothing more to hide.” Chanyeol’s tone wavered slightly, but he came back on track. “… I refuse to answer another question. I’m a murderer and you can put me on trial for it.”

  Kyuhyun saw Victoria about to continue her insistence, but Kyuhyun did not see a point in continuing. He, as a police officer, had never thrown random suspicions around, but he knew that if they didn’t reach a rock-hard conclusion, this case would not close. He also knew that Park Chanyeol was not going to get them to any conclusion if they mulled the whole case on him.

  “The questioning ends here.”

~~~

  “You’ve got to keep him in custody. You can’t put him on trial yet.”

  Yoona’s decision was immediate as all five entered the meeting room. In fact, her thoughts and her final decision had not changed since she was inside the interrogating room. Minho fixed himself near the projector, pressing the buttons furiously, so deep in his thoughts that he could barely realize what he was doing. The other three had taken their seats, still unsure as well.

  “…He’s confessed to the murder, Yoona. It’s not like someone forced him to do it, nor is there any chance that he’s being framed. If he is framed, he’s framing himself and he probably has a reason-“ Changmin was about to say.

  “Who we want to catch is not someone who claims himself as the murderer, but someone who is the murderer.” Yoona stated her point. “Victoria, you know it as well, don’t you? I’d bet you profiled him already and you know he’s not the murderer. Kyuhyun, none of the statistics fit, right? And Minho…” She turned around to look at Minho. “…He was from your school. Do you think that it’s possible for him to be so crazy, so possessive that he’d kill Jiyeon and Krystal?”

  Minho bit his lip. “Yoona, I never knew him well, and it’s just-“

  “There’s no concrete evidence that he’s not the murderer.” Changmin said briskly. “He knows most of the details which have not been said.”

  Yoona stared at him incredulously. “What do you mean there’s no concrete evidence? He said ‘coffee’ instead of ‘tea’, isn’t that concrete enough for you?”

  “I looked up his background, and indeed, he studied I.T abroad for a year.” Kyuhyun piped up, looking through the folder. “He passed the course with flying colors, and if he’s that advanced, there’s a possibility he might have been able to create a mobile hacking system.”

  “But-“

  “I think we should end it here, Yoona.” Changmin stopped her. “We’ve went through so much-“

  “Don’t you think there’s a possibility that he’s protecting someone?” Yoona burst out. “Someone he previously collaborated with, and now he finds a need to protect someone else? You’re all just…” Yoona hesitated for a moment as she stood up. “You’re all pushing him forward as the murderer because you want to get Sulli out of suspicion.”

  Victoria’s eyes widened. “Yoona…”

  “Maybe all of you might be against me for this right now… But I know he’s not the killer. Park Chanyeol isn’t the killer and I’m going to prove this.” Yoona gripped her bag tightly. “This murder… this murder wasn’t committed singularly and all of you know it.”

  Victoria saw the need to calm Yoona down, especially since Changmin was seething. “Yoona, it’s true that a bit of Park Chanyeol’s testimony doesn’t match, and it’s true we want to protect Sulli because she’s Minho’s sister…It’s also true that I know this murder wasn’t just one person’s doing, but even if there are two people, it’s definite that Park Chanyeol is one of them, and there’s a possibility-“

  “No, no.” Yoona headed towards the door. “He didn’t kill anyone and never intended to.”

~~~

/ Hello? /

/ Who is this speaking? /

/ Im Yoona. /

/ … You decided to call. /

/ I need your help. /

~~~

  “So let me get this straight – you want me to drive you to all the crime scenes, gather data and help you find out who’s the real murderer of Park Jiyeon and Krystal Jung?”

  Kris Wu’s tone was of surprise as he stared at Yoona quizzically. They sat in his car, which was parked nearby the first crime scene, after she had asked to meet him there. She herself had no idea what she was doing and why she was doing such a thing, but for some reason, she knew it was the right thing to do.

  “I know I’ve been terrible to you, and it’s true that I still hate you to the bone but now… Everyone else thinks Chanyeol’s the murderer and I looked through my contact list and the only person I know who’s going to… I mean, the only person I know who