Iniquity XVI
Title: Iniquity (part 16)
Pairing: None
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Rape, murder, mentions of torture and death. Mental health issues
Genre: Crime thriller/mystery
Summary: Autumn in Seoul is beautiful, the leaves on the trees take on stunning hues of russet and gold, but not everything is beautiful in this season. With 4jib promotions coming to an end Super Junior's Lee Sungmin is suffering from exhaustion and crippling nightmares, seeing death wherever he goes. On the other side of Seoul Detective Ahn Taehyun is suffering a nightmare of his own. A sadistic serial killer is preying on young men and Taehyun will do anything within his power to stop him. Even when the price might be his own reputation, career or life.
Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, Part 7 here, Part 8 here, Part 9 here, Part 10 here, Part 11 here, Part 12 here, Part 13 here, Part 14 here, Part 15 here
Standing on the exterior steps of the police station Taehyun inhaled the last drag of his first cigarette of the day before turning and pushing open the stiff, wooden door that led inside. Soo Byul, standing in her usual spot at the desk, smiled at him and flipped her hair over her shoulder. He gave her a nod of greeting before heading up the stairs to the incident room, cursing his age and cigarette habit silently to himself when he had to stop for a breather on the 3rd floor.
“Good morning, Sir.” Solmi greeted as he slung his coat over his arm and walked through the large, swinging doors. One of the younger officers was moving pictures across the display boards, switching post-it-notes around and pinning on yet more reports. Taehyun ignored the changes for now as he strode over to his office and went to check the messages on his desk.
“Sir,” Minjun’s head poked around his office door, hair disheveled and tie askew.
“What?” Taehyun asked, his hand hovering over the phone; his mind already at his answering machine and the imminent message from the chief demanding results he knew he didn’t have.
“We’ve got a hit.” Minjin said, disappearing behind the wall and Taehyun was forced to backtrack into the incident room to watch the rather portly detective as he half climbed, half walked out around his desk with a post-it and a box of pins, and made his way over to the noticeboard on the wall. “I have no idea how to explain this.” He continued, “but one of the registration numbers your nutter gave up belongs to a Volkswagen Caddy, reported missing from its owner almost a year ago and never found.” He added the stolen car onto the time line, “and what’s interesting is the car was adapted for a wheelchair user.”
Taehyun flinched at Minjun’s reference to Sungmin, but made no complaint, for all he lacked in social niceties, he was a good cop and breaking his flow wouldn’t help.
Perhaps he’d organise a day’s “sensitivity training” when all this was over.
“A disabled access vehicle would make it easier to load and unload the bodies, maybe Lucifer isn’t as strong as we first thought.” Taehyun mused, picking up a second file from Minjun’s desk and following him to the boards. “Could it be a woman?” he pondered aloud.
“Whatever he or she is, he’s a sneaky bastard we’ll give him that.” Minjun stated, “We’ve given the plate numbers to traffic and uniform, and the CSI guys have been reviewing the CCTV tapes in the streets near to the scenes on the nights of the body-dumps, if your nutter’s right and Lucifer’s got this model of car, even if he’s changed the plates, we’ll find him.”
Taehyun nodded and allowed his eyes to roam over the notice-board, which was becoming increasingly cluttered with a vast array of information, nearly all of it leading them practically nowhere.
“SIR!” The pitch of Solmi’s voice carried over the hubbub of the office and everyone stilled, the air hanging heavy and silent, the dull trap, trap, trap of her heels the only sound as she sprinted over to where Taehyun and Minjun stood.
“Sir, I’ve just had a call from the hospital. It’s Sun....” she caught herself, “It’s our possible witness...” she pushed her hair back in the way she always did when agitated. Her next few words were soft, “He tried to kill himself last night.” She swallowed, “He’s under observation in the critical ward but he should pull through.” Taehyun appreciated her secretive delivery, especially as SM had still released no news regarding Sungmin. He took a deep breath at the news and hoped that the kid would be OK.
Taehyun frowned, something just jarred about this whole situation. Turning decisively he addressed Minjun “Do what it takes and get us a warrant for our witness’s car, apartments and work-spaces. Solmi, grab your coat and get to the hospital. I want you there when he wakes up incase he says something else. There is something going on here and I’m just not seeing it. I want to know everything, and I mean everything, about that boy.” He announced, “I’ve got a feeling that somehow he’s our connection to this and we just can’t see it.”
Minjun and Solmi dashed over to their respective phones and began making the necessary calls while Taehyun returned to his office to collect his coat. It was going to be a long day, he could feel it, but he felt a renewed determination. He was going to find something. Digging through his pockets he pulled out his mobile and flicking through the received calls folder he found the number he was looking for and called.
“Hello?” A somewhat sleepy voice answered at the other end.
“Choi Siwon?”
“Yes. Who is this? How did you get my personal number?” A defensive edge cut through the man’s voice.
“It’s DCI Ahn Taehyun.”
“Yes, I remember.” Defeated sadness hung on the line between them and Taehyun half regretted what he was about to do.
“Mr Choi, I need to inform you that we are investigating a homicide an we have reason to believe that our perpetrator is indirectly targeting your group member Lee Sungmin.” He heard a short gasp and continued, “We don’t believe he is directly in danger, but our perpetrator may well be someone who is infatuated with him. We need access to anywhere that this infatuation may have manifested. We are currently processing warrants and I was hoping that you would be able to assist us in finding any locations where correspondence, gifts or other interactions may have take place.”
“I... oh gosh, let me think. Are you sure he’s safe. I mean... you know, last night he... I can’t believe this. Hang on... Hyung! Hyung! Heechul Hyung!” A kerfuffle of voices and crackling, bumping noises echoed down Taehyun’s ear and he held the phone at arm’s length.
“Yah! DCI Ahn?” Another voice he assumed was Kim Heechul. “You’re looking for stuff Sungmin’s been sent or given?”
“Yes. During our homicide investigations we have come across evidence that that someone who is infatuated with him may have links to the crime. We’re hopeful that we may find some clues in his posession.”
“Ah.” Silence fell for a few moments and then the voice was back. “What’s your e-mail address, I’ll send it to you. We have a schedule. Text it.” And the phone went dead. Taehyun smiled and shook his head but sent his e-mail address anyway. A few seconds later the phone buzzed with a list and the message “Here’s the list. Don’t expect me to keep your number. Flat’s empty now but the cleaner might be in.”
Taehyun sent the message on to Minjun to help with the warrants and sat down at his desk finally checking his voicemail before delving into the stack of files that had accumulated overnight. He was so engrossed in his papers that he jumped at the sharp rap on his office door.
“Come in.” He called and a rather fidgety uniformed officer entered, looking all too nervous and out of place.
“What is it Constable?”
“Sir, there was a robbery at the Best Beans Coffee shop down at Myeongdong. We’ve just gone through the CCTV footage and, we think we’ve spotted your van.”
“What?!” Taehyun stood, nearly tipping all his paperwork onto the floor and having to reach over and grab it with reflexes he’d thought long-gone.
“Sarge said I should bring it up here straight away.”
“Damned right you should!” Minjun agreed, appearing from nowhere with a rather satisfied look on his face and he took the tape from the startled PC, “I’ll get this down to CSI, when did the robbery happen?”
“About 4 hours ago, we spotted the car in the background on the second run through.”
Taehyun found himself unable to stop the slow smile that had begun to spread across his face. “You know what, we’re going to get him.” He said softly, “I’ll check if any of our vic’s visited that coffee shop, or any other Best Beans. Minjun, I want an entire employment list for Best Beans and credit card numbers of every transaction for the last month, if they’ve been inside that shop, I want to know about it.”
“On it Sir.” Minjun replied in unison before disappearing out of the door. “Oh, and I’ve got the warrants, just waiting for them to be faxed now.”
“Good job.” Taehyun replied, “We’ll get him yet.”
“Yes Sir.”
The uniformed officer took his leave and fled from the grey, twilight world that was CID’s incident room. Taehyun took a moment to sit back on his chair and stretch. This afternoon was going to be busy he thought, and leaning over to one side began to decide which of the younger officers he thought could be trusted enough with information from the interior of an idol group’s apartment. He grinned at the thought, glad his daughter didn’t know. If she ever found out where he had spent his afternoon she was going to subject him through a questioning session that would put the Spanish Inquisition to shame.
He spent the rest of the morning going through crime scene photos, evidence catalogues and incident reports looking for any Best Bean receipts he could find, with some success. Three of the victims had Best Bean’s receipts in their pockets or wallets. But none were from the same store he sighed, frustrated, and checked the clock. Time for lunch and another cigarette before seeing where they were on those warrants.
At one o’clock Taehyun called Minjun over, determined to talk through their thoughts so far while they waited on those warrants. Minjun set up a small whiteboard in his office while Taehyun cleared some space on his desk. “Ok, what do we know?Somehow Lucifer knows them, he finds them and stalks them and eventually he takes them.” Taehyun began, drawing out his ideas on the whiteboard.
“He uses a disabled access vehicle, so maybe he incapacitates them in some way.”
“Possible, or does he use threat? Does he have a weapon of some kind? We know he has knives, does he have something else?” Taehyun jotted down his questions.
“He’s got to have somewhere to take them.”
“And he keeps them there, tortures them there. It’s his nest, somewhere he’s comfortable, secure. Somewhere he knows he can’t be found.”
“Unlikely to be an apartment then.” Minjun added, somewhat lightheartedly and Taehyun rolled his eyes.
“Yes, but it could be a house with some kind of modification, like that Austrian guy.”
“More likely to be some kind of disused building.” Minjun pondered, “Digging takes a lot of strength and energy, we were saying earlier, perhaps Lucifer isn’t as strong as we thought.”
Taehyun nodded. “OK, so a disused or abandoned building.”
“Probably near water.” Minjun added and Taehyun gave him a questioning look. Minjun elaborated, “All the scenes have been near water and we don’t know why, but it’s obviously important to Lucifer. Wonder if it might be important enough that it influenced his choice of nest.”
“A strong possibility. But with all the regeneration by the river, where would he find somewhere like that?”
They both turned to look at the map of Seoul, pinned on the wall of Taehyun’s office, it’s coloured dots taunting them, Lucifer’s “Look what I’ve done” message to them all.
“We’re getting close Gov’” Minjun said as he peered at the map, “I can feel it. I can’t see it yet, but I know in my bones we’re getting close.”
“Me too.” Taehyun agreed. They both lapsed into silence, hoping the answer would spring from the board.