WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 63: Luxury Is in the Details (12)

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Seven in the evening, long past the time everyone should have gone home.

"What's all this commotion?"

"Well, it's..."

"What happened...?"

The officers from the day shift still hadn't gone home, while the night-shift officers had arrived, leaving Precinct 7 packed with people. It was all because Kang Jin-ho had asked them to wait just a little longer.

"Chief, about the envelope. Could you tell me everything again from the beginning? As much detail as possible."

"Hmm... It was about three days ago."

Kang Jin-ho sat alone with the precinct chief, gathering clues about what had happened. No matter how he looked at it, testimony alone wasn't enough to find an answer.

"That day, so..."

It was the day they had collected money for the staff dinner. Chief Raphael had apparently been incredibly busy. The end of the month was near, and there was a mountain of paperwork to handle because of Kang Jin-ho...

"After I collected the money and came back to my office, I had three calls waiting for me. So I took the calls while looking over documents. Then it occurred to me that I should put the money somewhere, so I put it in the drawer. Once I finished the paperwork, I went straight to headquarters."

That was the last time he had seen the envelope. After that, the precinct had been turned upside down by Kang Jin-ho's growing fame, and he had been too busy to open the drawer even once.

"Did you write anything on the outside?"

"Hm? No, nothing. It was just a plain white envelope. I was the only one who'd see it, so I didn't think there was any need to write on it."

"Which drawer was it?"

"The first one. There, that one."

Kang Jin-ho opened the drawer Raphael pointed to. It contained only the usual things, a few pens, paper clips, and several envelopes holding official documents.

"For now... I'll search the other places too."

"Go ahead."

That was how the real search for clues began.

Kang Jin-ho searched every corner of the chief's office. He opened every drawer, checked behind the bookshelves, and even looked under the sofa.

"...Ptooey."

There was nothing beneath the sofa except a clump of dust and a five-hundred-won coin. Searching under a sofa after taking on a job worth tens of billions of won gave him a strange sense of emptiness, but he had made a bold promise. He needed to see this case through.

"I'm going out to talk to someone for a moment."

"Yes, take your time."

Soon after, Chief Raphael left as well. Kang Jin-ho sat on the sofa in the chief's office, rolling the coin between his fingers as he went over everything from the beginning.

What if one of the people who had come forward was lying?

Sergeant Kim, whose savings account had matured. Officer Choi, who had an unrequited crush. Officer Son, who said he had simply been there. And... Eun-yeong.

If one person's statement was false, was there anything that conflicted with another person's testimony or witness account? Any point where the CCTV footage didn't match their statement? Kang Jin-ho calmly sorted through it all, but...

"..."

There was nothing.

These were all things that could have happened. Reality wasn't a detective puzzle.

"Haa..."

So without my HiCiSi knowledge, I'm just an ordinary person after all.

Kang Jin-ho let out a hollow sigh.

"...Huh?"

Something pulled at him.

It wasn't like the intuition and gut feelings he had been throwing around as excuses until now. This was an unexplainable, strange pull. Kang Jin-ho's gaze drifted of its own accord toward a cabinet in the corner of the chief's office, packed with document files.

"..."

He slowly rose to his feet and stood before the cabinet. Dozens of files filled it, and without hesitation, Kang Jin-ho pulled out one of them.

"...Haha."

The instant he opened it, something slipped out from between its pages.

A pure white envelope with nothing written on it. When he opened it, the dinner money was still inside.

The pieces clicked together in Kang Jin-ho's mind.

The chief had said he was looking at documents while taking calls. Then he thought he should put the money away, so he put it in the drawer...

No. The chief hadn't put the envelope in the drawer.

The scene became perfectly clear in Kang Jin-ho's mind. Chief Raphael, a phone in one hand and an envelope in the other, his eyes fixed on the documents. Without thinking, he must have slipped the envelope between the pages of a file like a bookmark, then closed it.

Soon afterward, he probably did open the drawer to take out a stamp, pen, or something else. So two memories remained in his mind: holding the envelope and opening the drawer. The memories had mixed together, leading him to conclude that he had put the envelope in the drawer.

In the end, the file had gone back into the cabinet, and the envelope had been sleeping peacefully inside it.

There had been no thief at Precinct 7. There were only a man who had cashed out his savings without telling his wife, a woman with an unrequited crush, a man with a faint presence, a man who had made an ordinary mistake, and one insane supervillain.

"..."

Holding the envelope, Kang Jin-ho looked up at the ceiling for a moment.

Should he tell everyone exactly what happened?

The precinct staff had grabbed each other by the collars, and they had even put on a whole deduction show. But the truth was, "Chief, you put the envelope in a file and forgot about it"?

That would completely ruin Chief Raphael's dignity.

Then Kang Jin-ho looked down at the document in his hand.

-Special Commendation Recommendation for Officer Kang Jin-ho

"..."

The reason Chief Raphael had been so busy in the first place was Kang Jin-ho, and the place where the envelope had ended up was inside Kang Jin-ho's commendation paperwork.

"Yeah. This is right."

After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Kang Jin-ho stuffed the envelope into his pocket and casually walked out of the office.

"Jin-ho's out."

"Did you find something?"

The colleagues waiting outside brightened and rose from their seats. Kang Jin-ho nodded.

"Everyone can go home now. We've made progress."

"Huh? We can leave?"

"Who was the culprit?"

"I can't tell you yet. Sorry."

Kang Jin-ho spoke with a meaningful expression.

"Well... if you can't say it."

"You'll tell us later, right?"

Satisfied with that answer, the day-shift officers went home.

"Could the night-shift officers step back for a moment too?"

"Sure, all right."

Once the night-shift officers had stepped away as well, Kang Jin-ho called Chief Raphael into his office. When only the two of them remained inside, Kang Jin-ho carefully held out the envelope.

"...Chief, this is the full amount of the dinner money."

"Oh, rookie, you really found it! So who was the culprit?"

"About that."

Kang Jin-ho lowered his voice and carefully explained what had happened. How busy the chief had been that day, and how, in the middle of all that, he had probably gotten confused and placed the dinner money inside a file.

He couldn't explain how he had known which file to search, but he vaguely covered it by saying he had gone through files from that date. No matter what, he had found it. That part was true.

"Uh... so..."

The further the story went, the paler Chief Raphael became. Now that he heard it, it made sense.

That day, he had definitely been flipping through documents while taking calls. He thought he had put the envelope in the drawer, but looking back, he couldn't remember actually seeing it go into the drawer. He had only assumed he had put it there.

So this whole mess... The officers who had been close to each other had grabbed each other by the collars, they had written precinct members' names on a whiteboard to play detective, and they had even searched the chief's office... all because of his mistake?

"It was... my fault..."

"Yes, if we're being precise."

Chief Raphael dropped his head. Everyone had gone through needless trouble because of his mistake. He had even implied that someone else must have done it when he was the one at fault. The guilt was crushing, and he felt terribly sorry for everyone at the precinct.

"How am I supposed to fix this...?"

Chief Raphael clenched his fists and muttered in a tearful voice.

"That's why, Chief."

Kang Jin-ho cautiously made a suggestion.

"Tomorrow, tell everyone this. Say the culprit has been caught, that an unexpected person quietly turned themselves in. Say the money was returned in full, and since they're deeply remorseful, you won't reveal who it was publicly."

"...!"

"That way, no one will ever know who the culprit was. There won't be any reason to keep suspecting each other. More than anything, it protects your dignity, Chief."

"But... isn't that still a lie? We'd be making up a culprit who doesn't exist..."

"No, Chief. What are we making up?"

Kang Jin-ho shrugged.

"There is a culprit. Right here."

"...Huh?"

"The person who hid the dinner money, caused this commotion, admitted their guilt in front of me just now, and is reflecting on it. Isn't that all you, Chief? So everything you'll say tomorrow is true. The culprit was caught, they turned themselves in, the money was returned, and they're deeply remorseful... Where's the lie?"

"...!"

"And since you'll say it was an unexpected person, won't everyone imagine whoever they want? They'll think it couldn't have been someone on their shift. Maybe someone from the night shift, or support staff who stopped by briefly. People will point to someone psychologically distant from themselves. If we take it in that direction, there's less chance of conflict too."

"..."

Chief Raphael understood. Though Kang Jin-ho was speaking only the truth, this was kindness in his own way. Consideration from Kang Jin-ho, meant to protect Chief Raphael's dignity.

Not catching the culprit was amateur work.

Catching the culprit made someone competent.

Catching the culprit and cleanly resolving the situation made someone a master.

"...Thank you, rookie."

Chief Raphael's eyes grew moist with emotion.

At least to Chief Raphael, Kang Jin-ho's deduction was a masterpiece.

Footnotes:

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