Page 83 of Perfect Happiness
Jane knew that she could delay her visit to the police station by a few days if she wanted to, but she didn’t.If she had to pull off a Band-Aid, might as well get it over with quickly.Plus, Jane had already prepared herself mentally for the pain.
Jane knew she could get a lawyer, but she didn’t want to because, at least for now, she wasn’t a suspect.Jane put her materials on the desk: a piece of paper waiving her right to counsel, a notepad, a pen, and her cellphone, which was switched to airplane mode and ready to record the conversation.And at the front of her brain, ready to be summoned at a moment’s notice, were the answers that she had been rehearsing all last week in anticipation of this.Jane went over these answers one last time to calm her nerves and kill time.
But it didn’t help.When the middle-aged detective came into the room followed by his young sidekick, Jane’s heart started racing like a horse.She lifted her body out of the chair.Afraid that her voice might shake if she greeted them verbally, she just looked at them in silence.
The middle-aged detective came over and stood across from her on the other side of the table.Putting both hands in his pants pockets, he met her eyes head on, as if to push back her gaze.He looked like he wasn’t interested in introducing himself.Instead, the young detective who followed him in gave her a naïve smile.
“Sorry to make you wait.Something came up.Please, sit.”
Jane sat down, but the middle-aged detective didn’t.Standing there, he turned his chin sideways and inspected the things she had placed on the table, as though he had never seen someone come to an interrogation so prepared.Jane felt the fire in her reignite.Not only was he twenty-five minutes late, but now he was wasting even more of her time by acting needlessly tough.
“Thank you for so willingly coming down to the station like this,” the young detective said as he sat down.
According to him, the middle-aged detective was the one she talked on the phone with earlier: Detective Gibeom Kim.With his introduction out of the way, they went right into checking her personal information.They asked her for her identification number, her name, her occupation, etc.After that, they informed her that she had the right to a lawyer and could refuse to answer questions at any time.Then, in a perfunctory tone of voice, he asked her if she would be exercising these rights.As far as Jane knew, they didn’t do this for just any witness.Their asking these questions meant that she was actually a suspect.
“I’ll exercise my rights as necessary.”
The young detective looked back and forth between Jane and Detective Kim.
“Oh, yes, of course—” he said with his mouth half-open like an idiot.
“Also, can I record this?”
Jane picked up her cellphone and showed it to them.This time, it was Detective Kim who responded.
“Like a true journalist, always recording everything.”
Although he didn’t give her permission, he also hadn’t said no.Jane pressed the button to start recording.Detective Kim’s eyes followed her finger as she did this.It felt like his gaze would burn a hole through her fingernail if it lingered for too long.But Jane didn’t sense any hostility in his eyes.His demeanor was simply informing her that he wasn’t her friend, that it was his job to prove people guilty.
Jane felt the gears in her head starting to move.And like magic her shaking stopped.
“Jane, do you know why you’re here?”the young detective asked.His tone made him sound like a missionary for some pseudo religion:Do you know the Dao?Missionaries like that always came in twos.If he was the cute one meant to make you drop your guard, Detective Kim was the tough one who started pressing you to join.
“No.”
The young detective summarized what they knew about Joon-young’s disappearance.He was last seen leaving his house in the early morning on November 16; they found his car parked at a public parking lot near Ju-an station in Incheon; they confirmed that the car had been parked there around 8 a.m.on the morning he was last seen; and they were treating this like a criminal investigation.Jane waited for them to continue.
“We want to hear where you were and what you were doing the morning of his disappearance,” Detective Kim said.
“I left the house at around 8 a.m.That morning I went to Chungju to do research for an article.”
Jane continued explaining what happened that day.But despite having practiced this many times before, the testimony coming out of her mouth wasn’t at all organized.As a precaution, she wrote down everything she said on her notepad.Her rate of speech was half its normal speed, and her sentences sounded more like written language than spoken speech.
“So let me see if I got everything.You left the house around 8 a.m.Twenty minutes later you met Joon-young at Ju-an station.You then drove him to Chungju, and while you were gone from the car for a minute, he disappeared without a word.So you called him, but he didn’t answer.Is that right?”
After writing down Detective Kim’s summary on her notepad, she checked the information before correcting him.
“No.I said I was gone for four hours.He left me a message saying something came up.After that, I didn’t try contacting him.So, I don’t know if he would have picked up or not.”
Detective Kim pulled the corners of his mouth into a wide grin.Crooked lion’s teeth poked out between the gap in his lips.
“Isn’t that what I said?”
She didn’t answer this.
“What’s your relationship to each other.You must be close to go to Chungju with him and let him take a nap in your car.”
“I told you he’s a friend from college.”
