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 3

  ~~~

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Changmin.”

  She was completely shocked at the sudden news, as they dashed as fast as they could to his car. Hopping into the front seat next to him, she pulled the seatbelt with so much force that she swore she could have ripped the strap off, just to vent out all her emotions of disbelief, of anger. She could not believe that such a thing could happen when they had closed an eye on the situation.

  “Hold on, Yoona.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly as he zoomed off. “We’re going to go a bit fast.”

  “It’s fine, go as fast as you can, the situation’s urgent anyway.” She said as they sped off. “Tell me what’s going on, now. We turn our backs for one moment and suddenly Krystal’s dead? Does this make any sense at all?”

  He took a deep breath, livid anger in his eyes as he focused on the road. “It’s crazy, ain’t it? Victoria said she was hanging the same way Park Jiyeon was. And you know who Victoria said found Krystal Jung in her own home?” He let out a bitter chuckle. “Minho. Minho. Of all people, Minho.”

  She shook her head in bewilderment and disbelief. “No, no way. This sort of thing doesn’t happen. He won’t go knocking on Krystal Jung’s door at such a timing, and meet Park Jiyeon before her death. There’s got to be something wrong, Changmin. There’s no way he’s the murderer, he’s not that sort of person.” Her words were firm. “Someone’s framing him, I know so.”

  “And you think I don’t?” He rammed the accelerator. “Yoona, I hope you like speed.”

  She clung onto her seat as he sped through the highway, at the fastest speed he could go. “Aren’t you afraid of crossing the speed limit, officer-boy?” She found her voice coming out as a shout, as the car windows were slid open, and the wind smacked her right in the face.

  “What are the perks of being the nephew of the Superintendent of the police if you can’t speed?”

~~~

  “Yoona, Changmin, thank gawd…”

  Victoria sighed in relief as Changmin and Yoona hurried out of the car, arriving at the same time Victoria and Kyuhyun had. Kyuhyun gripped his updated case file, looking through it carefully as the four of them strode towards the apartment. Changmin was still a nervous wreck, however, Yoona, was steadying herself for what awaited them in the apartment.

  “We just need to have a quick check-up over the details, and we’ll let the forensics do the rest, we need to go over the details and start finding suspects.” Victoria’s words were rushed as they walked. “As long as the crime scene is somewhat similar, we’ll send the body for an autopsy straight away, and tomorrow we need to be the first to arrive at Park Jiyeon’s wake.”

  “Where’s Minho?” Yoona was barely listening to Victoria.

  “The police are taking Minho back to the office.” Kyuhyun replied as he looked through the case file, but immediately tried to reassure Yoona when he saw her shocked expression. “He’ll be waiting in the office, don’t worry, he’s not detained. We highly doubt that he’s killed anyone, but probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Yoona looked at him incredulously. “How could he even be here at such timing? He doesn’t go wandering around a lot, and of all places-“

  “He mentioned something about a text message from Krystal’s cellphone, so we need to get that and looked through the message list.” Victoria said, as they stood in front of the apartment. “We can question him that later…are you ready?” She was concerned as she gazed over at Yoona.

  She nodded in response. “I’ll be fine.”

  “The only difference that was spotted so far was that the door wasn’t locked, and Krystal returned home to find the door ajar.” Kyuhyun leafed through the case file. “One of her neighbors was watering flowers when she heard Krystal return and exclaim that the door was open. But there were no sounds of scuffling or anything when Krystal went into the apartment itself.”

  “But the door’s different from Park Jiyeon’s door…” Yoona observed carefully. “This one requires a key to enter…” She pushed the door as she looked at it. “It’s definitely different.”

  “Possible entry from the front door this time…” Kyuhyun noted.

  The four of them were silent as they entered the apartment, to find a girl hanging from a noose from the ceiling, the noose around her neck. Her pearl white skin was pale, like the blood had been drained out her, her eyes closed, the whole scene giving off a very eerie feeling. As she looked at the person she once was friends with, now hanging dead, Yoona froze at the spot, immediately bowing her head in prayer.

  “Windows locked, no back door…” It was Kyuhyun’s turn to make an observation, seeing Yoona could barely move from where she stood. “The place doesn’t look very thrashed, and things still look like it’s still in place. I think it’s the entry from the door.”

  “It seems to be serial murder, yet the murderer is changing his or her course in the process?” Victoria questioned as she thought about it slowly. “Why was the door unlocked when the murderer had locked it in Park Jiyeon’s case?”

  “We can’t confirm it as serial until we check that there’s potassium cyanide in Krystal’s body.” Changmin added as he stepped over. “Yoona…check it for us.”

  Yoona could not focus as she kept her eyes on Krystal’s body. She felt guilt overwhelm her, especially since she had last seen Krystal in the morning, talking cheerfully and working together like they usually did. It wasn’t guilt, she couldn’t fully say it was guilt since it wasn’t her fault Krystal had died, but yet, at the same time, it seemed to her as if she, was partially at fault. If she was earlier, or if she knew, she could have prevented it all. It didn’t have to happen, and Krystal didn’t have to die.

  Yoona closed her eyes and sighed slowly. “I…I can’t do this.”

  “I’ll do it.” Kyuhyun volunteered, as he stepped forward, patting Yoona on the back as he made his way to the corpse. He knew how she felt, or at least, he could understand that there was this lone feeling probably enveloping her, and he, for the first time had the sensitivity to help her. He leaned towards the corpse’s mouth, slowly trying to sniff out the scent…

  “Is it potassium cyanide, Kyu?”

  Kyuhyun inhaled slowly. “Bitter almonds… yes. I think it’s potassium cyanide, but I think my sense of smell is stronger so I smell bitter almonds instead of apricot.”

  “We need to do an autopsy to know about how she was killed, by the potassium cyanide or by suffocation…” Victoria said quickly, reminding Changmin. “The murderer changed the course of the murder by unlocking the door, I just want to be sure that nothing else is changed, and for both cases, we know we can link it up and get the murderer before there’s another victim.”

  “Are you so positive that it’s serial murder?” Changmin asked, shaking his head.

  Victoria was determined. “Yes, I think it’s serial. If it was suicide, or just by suffocation, there would be no smell of potassium cyanide, like Kyuhyun smelled. Like I said, more results from the forensics and also the autopsy results will enable us to confirm more things.” She stepped over to Kyuhyun. “If we don’t make an assumption that it’s serial, we won’t make haste, and someone else is going to be killed, we can’t risk that.”

  “But I have to agree with one of Changmin’s points, Vic.” Kyuhyun interrupted as he thought over it. “If it’s serial, what connects them all? I know serial murder doesn’t require connections, but the only connection we have about them both is that they’re friends, that’s all.”

  “Kyu, don’t be daft, come on. Friendship is a major link already, and what if someone is after the rest of the friends as well. As long as the killing method is similar and just as eccentric, it’s already enough to say it’s serial murder.” Victoria did not retaliate.  “And besides that, not all serial murders have links, I’ve studied and in some serial murders, the murderer’s a psycho and kills random people.”

  Kyuhyun had to agree. “I think it’s best we agree…I don’t think this one’s a total psycho, or even if this murderer’s a total psycho, there has to be a deeper connection between the friends. The murder is well-planned.” He closed his notebook.

  Changmin took a deep breath. “Well, I think this is it for now then, we’ll let the forensics examine the rest of the scene even further, and we’ll return to the office and look through the-“

  “Krystal was in debt.”

  Yoona, who had not been saying a word, had been thinking to herself throughout their entire discussion, trying to recall some form of connection between it all. She had thought over all the past conversations she had with Krystal, and that was it, the one thing she remembered that would be able to link Park Jiyeon and Krystal together.

  Victoria turned sharply. “Yoona, what do you mean?”

  “Krystal once told me, during one of the days that the café wasn’t really busy, that she was working to support her sick mother, and to pay for her rent. She said she had borrowed some money, and she was in debt…and she didn’t…” Yoona bit her lip.

  “She didn’t…” Victoria was curious.

  “She didn’t want the gangsters to go after her.”

  Victoria could barely say anything, calming herself as she thought of a way to start. Overwhelmed by the information she was getting, she tried her best to organize her thoughts. She was the profiler of the team, and she knew she wasn’t the one who was supposed to be giving orders, but she knew she could find at least, a direction for the team to start with.

  “Changmin, tomorrow at 6am sharp we need to get to the wake. Kyuhyun, run the license plate number on your laptop, find the owner and we’re going to track him down.” Victoria emphasized on her words, going on full speed as she made her plans. “And Yoona…?”

  “…Yeah?”

  “I need you to handle Minho.”

~~~

  “Yoona…Victoria, Kyuhyun…”

  Minho murmured, standing up as he saw his four teammates walk into the office with severe expressions, all deeply affected by what they had just seen, and had discussed about. One by one they made their way to their desks, except Yoona, who just stood there in front of him, still fazed by everything.

  “Where’s Changmin…?” Minho broke the silence.

  Victoria looked up, startled from her thoughts. “Oh? He’s…off to the forensics institute to get observe the autopsy and collect back the results. Then we can start getting some conclusions.”

  “I see…” Minho nodded slowly, then turned back to Yoona. “Yoona, you’re okay?”

  She did not reply, nor did she look at him. Krystal’s death affected her deeply, in a sense that, once again, she thought she could prevent it if she had known. Not that she had ever been affected by deaths before, since she was pretty much alone her whole life, thus, this one death made a big impact on her.

  “Yoona, what’s this?” Minho picked up a random piece of paper from her table, trying to distract her from her deep thoughts, just in case, he knew, she would blame the death on herself again.

  Yoona stirred, gazing at him forlornly. “Oh, that? It’s just a cheque I got from my orphanage.”

  “Why do you get cheques from your orphanage when you’ve already left it?” He chuckled, trying to start a brighter conversation with her. “They must be really generous, and oh look…that’s quite a sum of money, Yoona.”

  “That’s why I didn’t accept it.” She sighed deeply as she sat down. “Each month they send me cheques, and I never accept it, I just cancel it. I don’t need money from them, and they probably should just use the money to improve the orphanage conditions instead of supporting me. I’ve never accepted a single cent, not at all. It doesn’t make sense for me to accept it…” She said slowly, but then snapped out of it and glared at him. “…Anyway, can we stop talking about my orphanage stuff?”

  “Yeah, right.” He quickly placed the cheque down, though he had already gotten a glimpse of it. “I… Yoona, I’m sorry.”

  “You didn’t tell me anything, did you? You knew Park Jiyeon, you knew Krystal Jung, you even bumped into Park Jiyeon the night you said you were ‘stalking’ me?” She was flabbergasted. “…And now, what’s this with Krystal? Why were you the one to discover that she was dead?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, but for Krystal Jung, she’s the one who texted me.” He took out his phone and showed her the text messages, seeing her expression change as she read through it. “…She tol