the music box killer | bang chan

7. flirting

JIYEON'S POV:

"Alright, let's check the facts," I say, setting down some files on the table in the meeting room and taking a seat. We got the green light to work the case together, which was why Minho was also present in this discussion with me and Chan.

"As we all know, our prime suspect is Han Jisung," Minho says, walking up to the drawing board which was filled with newspaper clippings and whatnot related to the case. "He is somewhere in his early to mid twenties, and we have reason to believe that he is not of Korean citizenship due to his absence in our information systems." We nod for him to continue.

"Han has over thirteen counts of murder, two dozen counts of physical assault and approximately ten cases of arson under his name, that we know of. We don't know a lot about his identity, and some of these are purely speculations based on his signature style of leaving music boxes at every crime scene," Minho finishes. Chan and I look at each other apprehensively.

"I didn't know he was this bad," I say shaking my head.

"Right? And I had no idea about the arson too," Chan agrees with me. Minho looks surprised.

"You didn't know about the arson? I thought you had that in your files," he says.

"I don't think so. Anything else we know?" I ask.

"Yeah. Rumor has it that he had a difficult childhood and was adopted at a very young age."

"Really? That's interesting. How'd you find out?" Chan asks, curiosity piqued.

"People who formerly worked with him," Minho explains, taking a seat next to me. "This is just word of mouth from other officers where those perpetrators were arrested. Han's acquaintances always get caught cleaning up his dirty work, never him."

"Do you think they'd be able to give us any sort of useful information if we requested a visit?" I ask. I needed to know how to reach this guy, and if his colleagues were still within our reach then we had to use it to our full advantage.

"No point, it's already been done," he sighs dispiritedly, sipping on his coffee. It seemed like he was taking a moment to relive the exhaustion of that whole ordeal. "I found it strange that none of them had ever met Jisung."

"None of them? Did they have some sort of middleman that relayed their work to them?" Chan asks.

"Precisely. They said that they'd receive orders occasionally through a correspondent, and got paid handsomely once the work was done. That's what kept them loyal to him. God, it was so difficult to get them to open their mouths a crack," Minho shakes his head. "But like I said, they never actually saw him in person. I guess they didn't really care because the pay was good."

"Mhm, that does make sense," I nod in understanding. It seemed like Han Jisung was like some sort of god to them. I could only imagine the different backgrounds these people came from to succumb to a life of crime.

"Right," he suddenly claps, grabbing our attention. "That's about everything I have. What about you two?"

"Nothing near what you've got," Chan says. "All we have right now is that Changbin is a drug supplier to who is presumably Han Jisung, seeing how skittish he was when we mentioned him."

"Yeah. My guess is that Jisung is some sort of drug lord that carries out the distribution of Changbin's drugs. If we're lucky, I believe we may even stumble upon a drug cartel. I'm sure that that there was some sort of misconduct in maintaining Changbin's record because it's way too clean," I say. They both nod.

"But why did he carry out what was most likely a drug deal in such a conspicuous place such as a night club?" Minho questions, putting a finger to his chin in thought.