The Police Do a Better Job than Heroes - Chapter 3

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ The Police Do a Better Job Than Heroes

Chapter 3

──────

Becoming a Rookie Officer (3)

Inside the café marked Doochwit's Original Beans, when Park Eun-yeong and Kang Jin-ho arrived, a hulking Black police officer stood there rubbing his chin like a man stuck with a headache. It was Raphael, the precinct chief from East Precinct 7.

"Chief?"

Officer Park Eun-yeong stepped forward first and spoke to him.

"Oh, you're here? The rookie too. Rough first day, huh."

"Is this the owner?"

"Yeah. I've been listening to the story, and it's a real headache. Doesn't look like there's much we can do about it."

Behind Chief Raphael, a middle-aged woman in an apron stood trembling with nerves. Between her outfit and her expression, there was no mistaking her for anyone but the owner.

"What do you mean, not much we can do?"

"Pretty much certain this is a superpower crime. I just got here myself and was in the middle of getting briefed. Want to hear it together? Go ahead, Officer Kim."

"Yes, Chief."

At Chief Raphael's signal, Officer Kim, who'd been first on scene, slowly started running through it.

Last night, the café's entire counter had vanished. The cash inside the register came to exactly 987,000 won.

"Hold on, I thought most cafés these days run mostly on card payments, so there shouldn't be much cash sitting in the register."

"We only take cash here..."

"...ah, I see."

With an awkward little cough from Chief Raphael, Officer Kim kept going with the briefing.

"The CCTV inside the store has been broken for about three weeks, so we couldn't confirm what happened at the time of the crime."

"What about outside? You checked the cameras covering the front street and the back alley too, right?"

"Yes, we got the outdoor footage and went through it carefully. After the store closed yesterday afternoon, only one person came in or out, front door or back."

"One person, meaning?"

The café owner answered in a shaky voice.

"I, I remembered I'd left something behind at the store... so I stopped by around 7 p.m. The register was still there then, I swear. But when I came in this morning, it was just gone. Like it never existed."

"Hmm..."

Chief Raphael rubbed his chin, piecing the information together.

Sometime between 7 p.m. last night and this morning, nobody had entered the store, and yet the register that had been inside had disappeared. A textbook locked-room theft.

By ordinary common sense, it would look like something out of a ghost story, but this wasn't just anywhere. This was Light City, a place where no type of superpower, however strange, would raise an eyebrow.

"Invisibility... probably not."

"Right, if it were that, we'd have seen the door open and close."

"A teleporter could pull it off... but it doesn't add up."

Teleportation users were some of the rarest and strongest ability users out there. Would someone like that really break into a café like this just to make off with a million won? That didn't add up either.

This was the trouble with superpower crimes. The list of abilities that could somehow make a crime like this possible was endless, and there was almost no way to narrow it down except by matching it to the exact same ability.

"Ma'am. I'll be straight with you."

Having sorted his thoughts, Chief Raphael turned to the café owner, whose face had gone dark with worry.

"If we bring in an information-type hero to take the case, they'll probably be able to catch whoever did this."

"B-but aren't those people already swamped with work?"

"They are. And in this case, the damages aren't that big, and nobody got hurt, so it won't draw much attention. The odds of a hero taking the request are low. We'll do everything we can on our end, but catching the culprit is probably..."

"Um, Chief? Come here a second."

At that point, Officer Park Eun-yeong, who'd been listening with visible interest, cut in.

"Huh? Officer Park? What's up?"

"So, about that."

Once she'd confirmed they were far enough from the café owner, Park Eun-yeong spoke in a cool voice.

"Doesn't this look a lot like a staged theft?"

"Staged?"

"Yes. The whole thing's just too convenient."

Park Eun-yeong went through the strange points in the case one by one.

"The indoor CCTV just happens to be broken, and it just happens to be a superpower user, and what gets stolen just happens to be a million won, not exactly a huge sum. It's too much coincidence stacked on coincidence. Too awkward to call in a hero for, too awkward for the police to investigate properly either."

"...couldn't it be someone who knows the café's situation well who stole it? I'll admit the timing is suspicious."

"Who knows this café better than the owner herself? She's got crime insurance. Feels pretty likely she's the one staging this."

"Hm..."

Chief Raphael tilted his head but kept the questions coming.

"It's not impossible, but say that's true. Could the owner actually hide the register herself? If she'd carried it outside, it would've shown up on CCTV, and Officer Kim would've mentioned it."

"Yes, the owner's hands were definitely empty."

"The register could just be hidden somewhere inside the café. Or it could've been smashed into small pieces and carried out under her clothes. What bothers me most is that the whole register disappeared in one piece. What thief in the world hauls off an entire register? Taking just the cash would be far less likely to get noticed, and way more efficient. Even a teleporter wouldn't bother taking the whole register."

"Hmm."

Chief Raphael found himself nodding along despite himself. Officer Park Eun-yeong's reasoning held up. A random teleporter popping out of nowhere with nothing better to do than steal pocket change made a lot less sense than the café owner staging her own theft.

But convincing didn't mean there was anything they could actually do right now.

"I'll admit Officer Park's theory sounds plausible. But we don't have anything close to clear enough evidence to arrest anyone on the spot. You get that too, right, Officer Park?"

"...yes, of course."

"Then let's stop guessing and get back to what we're actually supposed to do. Finish up the scene photos, wrap the owner's statement, head back to the station and file the report. Let headquarters handle the detailed investigation from there. We just do our part."

"..."

Despite Chief Raphael's practical instructions, Officer Park Eun-yeong lowered her head, clearly unsatisfied. Nobody caught it properly, but somehow her shadow seemed to twitch, just slightly.

"I, it's that!"

"Huh? Rookie? What's wrong?"

Watching this unfold, Kang Jin-ho found himself lurching forward before he'd even decided to. He'd moved because he was sure Park Eun-yeong's shadow was about to take the officers' heads clean off, but now that he'd stepped up, he had nothing ready to say.

"What's wrong? You got something to say? Something look different to our genius rookie here?"

Park Eun-yeong asked, eyes gleaming. Kang Jin-ho tried hard to dodge her gaze, and then made up his mind.

'Alright, since I've already jumped in, might as well commit. If I'm doing this, I'm doing it all the way. Too late to stop now.'

Once he'd steadied himself, Kang Jin-ho spoke in a calm, serious voice.

"I'm hungry, so... would it be alright if I got some cake to go from here?"

"...huh?"

Park Eun-yeong blinked, thrown by the unexpected request. Chief Raphael waved a hand, as if to say go ahead.

"Uh, sure. That's fine. Ma'am, could we get a slice of cake packed up?"

"R-right now? Sure, I guess..."

The café owner opened the display case with a strained look.

"Not that one. Give me the squashed one over there in the corner."

"Oh, this one? This one's shape came out wrong, I was going to throw it out..."

"You must be pretty shaken up right now, so I should buy something like that, right? Heh."

"Then I'll knock a bit off the price. That'll be six thousand won."

"Cash only, right?"

"Yes, but bank transfer works too."

"..."

Watching him casually buy cake in the middle of an investigation, Park Eun-yeong's eyes flashed with something close to murder. Kang Jin-ho met that look for a second and nearly wet himself, but he somehow managed to keep a straight face.

'I'm a genius. I'm a genius. I'm a damn brilliant genius.'

Leaving Park Eun-yeong with a strong impression meant this relaxed attitude right now mattered more than anything.

On the way back to the precinct, Officer Park Eun-yeong didn't say a single word.

"..."

She just glanced at Kang Jin-ho now and then, sizing him up head to toe, clearly turning over exactly how she'd go about making him "quit the job."

He sat through that stretch of time like he was perched on a bed of nails, and then the two patrol cars pulled back into the precinct.

"Alright, everyone start on your reports. It's a superpower crime, so keep it fact based as much as possible. Only what we actually saw, only what's confirmed. Everyone got that?"

"Yes, Chief."

"And rookie, sit next to Officer Park and watch how she writes hers. Just get a rough feel for how it's done. Oh, and you said you were hungry, right? Go ahead and eat that cake."

"About that cake you mentioned."

Kang Jin-ho pulled the packaged cake out from where he'd been holding it and set it down on the table so everyone could see it clearly.

"Alright. Now, confess."

"?"

The officers, in the middle of taking off their jackets, all turned to stare at Kang Jin-ho at once. They'd just gotten back to the precinct, and now this, out of nowhere.

"Uh, rookie? What are you talking about all of a sudden?"

"Ah, I was talking to the culprit. We've come this far, there's no running away now, is there?"

"?"

A visible question mark hung over everyone's heads. What? Culprit? Brought here? When?

Kang Jin-ho pointed at the packaged cake and said, flat and calm.

"This cake is the one who stole the register."

"..."

A moment of silence.

"Interesting."

Right as Park Eun-yeong's eyes lit up, Chief Raphael exchanged a look with the other officers.

"I heard that right? What did you just say?"

The rookie who'd started today, what was he even saying right now?