“It seems like someone’s inside, but there’s no response.”
Jung-yoon intentionally raised his voice.
As expected, the thin curtain fluttered, and a faint silhouette appeared briefly before disappearing again.
Taking a few steps back, Jung-yoon tilted his head and looked inside, while Jeong-rok, who had been casually leaning against the wall, stretched his arms behind him.
There was no response.
The two men’s eyes met, and their expressions changed simultaneously.
Jeong-rok, who had removed his back from the wall, turned around and reached for the locked door’s handle.
However, just before Jeong-rok’s hand reached the handle, a chilling metallic squeak echoed from the door.
From the gap, someone stuck their face out.
“Who are you, standing in front of someone else’s house like that?”
The voice, thin and frail, was that of an elderly man, and it echoed through the tense alley.
Jung-yoon quickly turned around.
Jeong-rok withdrew his hand and stepped back.
The man was short, and to see the two properly, he had to twist his neck.
He stood at a distance, glaring at them with a distorted face.
“We’re the police. We need to ask a few questions.”
Before Jung-yoon could catch his breath, Jeong-rok moved first.
He took his ID from his back pocket and held it up to the man’s face with a friendly smile.
As usual, he used his polished, friendly face as a weapon to alleviate any tension.
Jung-yoon closely observed the man as he scrutinized the ID held up close to him.
His eyes widened slightly, and Jung-yoon caught a flicker of fear in his expression.
“Why are the police here? There’s no reason for you to be here…”
For some unknown reason, his voice trembled, likely out of fear. Jeong-rok, after putting away his ID, looked at Jung-yoon, who also showed his ID in front of the man and spoke up.
“We just wanted to ask about someone who went missing, Seo Jun-sim.”
“They found the body, didn’t they?”
“Excuse me?”
“They found it… why are you still calling it a missing person case?”
The man, who had been avoiding eye contact with them, suddenly raised his head sharply.
His eyes, though not calm, held no particular intent, but they quickly grew angry.
Meanwhile, his face was drained of color.
“Ah… Yes. This guy misspoke. He’s a rookie, you see.”
Rookie?
Jung-yoon frowned and looked up at Jeong-rok.
By now, Jeong-rok had moved close to him, placing his arm around Jung-yoon’s shoulder and gently patting it while smiling naturally.
Jung-yoon glared at the arm resting on him, then sharply shrugged it off.
“Anyway, we don’t know anything, so don’t come bothering us. We weren’t close to that person. If you want to talk about something from the past, we don’t know anything.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Jeong Yong-gil.”
Before the man could go back inside, Jung-yoon quickly got to the point.
“I told you, we don’t have anything to say!”
“Dammit. How many times do I have to tell you… What happened to that public official? He must’ve taken the exam and gotten in! If he had a brain, he would’ve thought about it!”
But it seemed futile to add anything to Jeong Yong-gil’s heated outburst.
“Just because someone who grows peaches sold some peaches, does that mean you’re going to keep bothering them? Is it a crime that they didn’t die? All the other wives died, but our wife didn’t die, so that’s why you’re bothering us? Is that how the law works?”
Jung-yoon was taken aback by the man’s words.
It seemed that he misunderstood their intent and thought they were here to harass him.
Jung-yoon tried to clarify.
“No, we’re not trying to harass you. We just have a few questions…”
But the man didn’t even listen to Jung-yoon’s words.
Despite being at least seventy, he suddenly found the strength to grab a large wooden club.
“That’s it!”
The man gritted his teeth and swung a wooden club at Jung-yoon and Jeong-rok.
Though it missed, the whooshing sound of the swing was threatening.
“That’s… what you’re doing to us. It’s laughable. When my mother comes, it’ll be a different story. Even two strong men like you won’t be able to beat her.”
Jung-yoon’s face contorted in confusion.
When neither he nor Jeong-rok moved closer, the man threw the club to the ground.
The club rolled across the dirt, hitting Jeong-rok’s sneaker before finally stopping.
“I won’t say it twice. It’s laughable.”
The man dusted off his hands and glared at Jeong-rok, who was standing stiffly by the gate.
Then, he shoved Jeong-rok aside and swiftly opened the gate.
Jeong-yong-gil, who barely managed to squeeze his body through the gap, didn’t even look back as he entered the house.
A heavy silence fell in the alley after the sound of his hurried footsteps faded away.
Jung-yoon sighed and placed his hand on his forehead, visibly irritated.
“That old man’s quite strong.”
Once Jeong-yong-gil had entered, Jeong-rok kicked the wooden club lying at his feet.
Jung-yoon glanced at the rolling club, brushed his bangs out of his eyes, and suppressed his anger.
“What… He didn’t even listen to us.”
“Enough. This place doesn’t seem to be the right one. Let’s move on.”
Unlike the bewildered Jung-yoon, Jeong-rok showed no signs of emotional distress as he shrugged his shoulders.
His calm resignation only added to Jung-yoon’s frustration, and he stared at the closed gate, grumbling.
“What… What did we even do to deserve this?!”
“There’s gotta be a reason. They’re the ones who almost suffered. If they’re reacting like this when we’re trying to catch the culprit, there’s no way it’s just for nothing. Let’s go meet some other people in the village.”
Jeong-rok, now closer to Jung-yoon, gave him a light tap on the back before passing him by.
Jung-yoon, irritated, roughly ruffled his hair and started walking.
After they left the alley, the sliding door, which seemed like it would never open, finally did.
However, it slammed shut again with a loud thud after a shout from inside.
Neither Jung-yoon nor Jeong-rok was aware of this.
***
“Oh dear, what a mess.”
The elderly woman, who had not blinked once, carefully observed the grandmothers sitting around her.
After a moment, she made eye contact with Jeong-rok, who was hunched over, barely fitting his large body into the small space.
“So, you’re saying Seo Jun-sim and Jeong Yong-gil had that kind of relationship?”
“Eh, no. That’s not it.”
“Not really?”
Jeong-rok, looking surprised, spoke in his usual soft tone.
As he drew attention to himself, the woman’s voice grew clearer.
“It wasn’t Yong-gil, it was his son. Right? Yong-baek.”
Jeong-rok, loudly slurping a straw from a yogurt drink, winked at Jung-yoon.
Jung-yoon cursed inwardly, wondering why the law doesn’t punish sexual harassment done with just a gaze.
He was also annoyed by Jeong-rok’s grossly exaggerated facial expressions.
If possible, he wanted to peel off that outer skin.
But Jeong-rok was his superior, and as long as they hadn’t caught the killer of Jeong-rok, he had to keep his job in the police force.
So, he endured it.
Jung-yoon gritted his teeth with all his might to avoid doing anything bad.
Jeong-rok, watching this, only smiled with his mouth.
“Before that incident, the whole village was turned upside down. Then not long after, that woman disappeared without a trace. And everything went downhill from there.”
The grandmothers’ descriptions were vivid, as though they vividly remembered the past.
But there were many contradictions between their stories, and much of the information contradicted the official investigation.
It was all based on assumptions and speculations.
Personal testimonies reliant solely on memory.
Jung-yoon stopped writing in his phone’s memo and sighed.
His head throbbed as he had to sift through all the information.
“They had two sons, and they came to the police station all the time to be questioned. The sons practically wore the floor out. They say the first son had more than half the visits. It was a nightmare back then, people talking about life and death, but after the incident, everything quieted down? The first son, after that, stayed locked up studying, and then he went straight to Seoul.”
“To Seoul?”
“Yeah. They say he passed. What was it? Ugh, I’m losing my mind. What was it again?”
“A big company. A large company.”
“Right, right. A good one.”
These people couldn’t even remember facts closer to them.
Jung-yoon, feeling frustrated, flipped his phone over to check the time.
“Hey, elders!”
Suddenly, the door to the village hall opened roughly.
The grandmothers, startled, widened their eyes, and one of them clutched her chest, panting heavily.
“What are you doing here… Ah, get inside quickly!”
“Why are they shouting? Whether we go or not, it’s up to us!”
“Do you know who they are? Good grief.”
“Why would we not know the police? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you realize how important this time is? If this becomes a big deal, it’ll end up like last time! It’ll be swept under the rug. What are you going to do to help?”
A man, standing at the door with veins bulging in his neck, yelled out angrily.
Soon, other men, likely village elders, began entering and ushering the grandmothers out.
“What’s going on? They say they’re catching the culprit, so why the fuss?”
“The culprit? What is the culprit? There’s no such thing!”
“Huh?”
“Good grief, if the village gets noisy, we won’t be able to do the redevelopment again. What is your mother doing out here? She should stay at home!”
The man with the loudest voice glared at Jung-yoon and Jeong-rok with a murderous look, scolding one of the grandmothers.