Sociopaths are good at investigating - Ch 7 - The Puzzle Pieces in My Mind

“Ugh, what is this?”
Gyeong-su, who was in the patrol car, looked at the navigation screen and spoke with disappointment.
“I ran over here for a theft report, but it’s about that grandmother.”
“That grandmother?”
The report on the screen read, “Someone took my scrap.”
“Ah, one of the grandmothers who collects scrap around here keeps taking other people’s scrap from different areas, so it’s reported frequently.”
“Ah…”
“In cases like this, it’s hard to prove the intent of theft or even define the area, so we just mediate and close the case on-site.”
The value of the scrap would only be a few thousand won.
Legally, it could be considered theft, but for such a small amount, criminal charges would be difficult to pursue.
A little later, we arrived at the junkyard where the report was made.
“This old woman must be losing her mind. Last time, she stole all the clothes, and now she’s taking the gas stove?”
“Who are you calling senile? How old do you think I am?”
Two grandmothers were shouting at each other.
I quickly got out of the car, stepped between them, and asked the grandmother in the green outfit.
“Please stop fighting. Did this grandmother steal your gas stove?”
“She did! I reported it, didn’t I?”
She pulled out her phone and showed me the call log for the report.
“But isn’t it actually a gas stove that someone threw away, not yours?”
“Well, I told you, it’s mine! I collect scrap around that telephone pole!”
“But that area isn’t a legally designated zone.”
“What?”
“This gas stove is something that has been abandoned by its owner, and legally, it’s difficult to charge anyone with theft or unlawful possession…”
“Are you taking her side now?”
The grandmother shouted, becoming angrier, and ignored what I was saying.
I was explaining that it wasn’t a crime, but why did she think I was siding with the other grandmother?
“Ah, come on, ladies, please calm down.”
At that moment, Gyeong-su calmly walked between them and spoke to the grandmother in green.
“Ma’am, getting upset won’t help. We need to calm down and discuss why you took it.”
“I told you, she stole it!”
“Maybe she mistook it for her area and took it by accident, just like last time when you took the fan from Cheol-bok’s grandmother’s area.”
“Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?”
“Then do you want to treat the fan incident as a theft case? The statute of limitations is still active.”
“…”
“Just like last time, this grandmother might have had her reasons. Let’s hear her out, okay?”
The grandmother went silent, turning her head away.
Then Gyeong-su turned to the other grandmother and asked,
“Ma’am, why did you take the stove? You know there’s an area for each person to collect scrap.”
“I didn’t know! I took it by mistake!”
“If you didn’t know, you should apologize. Can you keep yelling like that?”
“…”
The other grandmother also became quiet.
Then Gyeong-su looked back and forth between them and said,
“Looks like there was some misunderstanding. How about you apologize, return the stove, and end it here?”
When they both remained sulking, Gyeong-su raised his voice.
“Or should I treat both the gas stove and the fan as theft cases and have you both pay a fine of tens of thousands of won?”
“…”
At the mention of the fine, the grandmother’s eyes widened, and she hesitantly spoke.
“F… Forgive me. I took it without knowing…”
“It’s alright. It could happen…”
Gyeong-su then moved the gas stove from one side of the cart to the other.
“From now on, please don’t take anything from other people’s areas. Now, go home.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the grandmothers quickly walked off toward their homes.
It was surprising.
The grandmother who had ignored me was suddenly so cooperative.
“Ah, did those grandmothers fight again?”
When the grandmothers left, the shop owner, who had been working inside, walked over to us.
She was a middle-aged woman with a bob cut and perm.
“That grandmother in green made the report, right? She makes a lot of money, so why make a fuss over a gas stove she could just give away?”
“She makes a lot of money?”
I asked, and the shop owner pointed to one side of the junkyard.
“That copper wire, she brought it all in. She makes about 100,000 won a day just from that.”
“She brought all that copper wire?”
“Yes, for the past three days, she’s been bringing in that much copper wire every day. I have no idea where she finds it…”
I stared at the copper wire carefully.
If it were loaded onto a cart, a grandmother could definitely carry it, but gathering that much wouldn’t be easy.
To bring that much copper wire three days in a row…
The puzzle pieces in my mind began to move one by one.
“Well, we should be going now.”
After Gyeong-su’s farewell, we got back into the patrol car.
“Detective Ko.”
“Yes?”
“You saw that copper wire, right?”
“Yes, I saw it. The grandmother picks up all sorts of things.”
“That copper wire, it’s air conditioner piping.”
“Air conditioner piping?”
“The copper wire that’s peeled off from the outside unit’s air conditioner.”
When I was in college, there was a lecture about air conditioner piping theft cases, and I looked up pictures out of curiosity.
Because of that, I knew exactly what peeled copper air conditioner piping looked like.
“But people don’t just throw away air conditioner piping. If they’re removing it, they usually call a professional, and even if they do remove it, it’s worth quite a bit, so they don’t just throw it out in front of their house.”
“So, where did the grandmother find this piping?”
“That’s the question.”
It seemed unlikely that the grandmother had stolen the piping.
That frail woman couldn’t have sneaked up to an outdoor unit and used an industrial cutter to steal the piping.
But something definitely felt off.
For her to bring in so much copper wire from air conditioner piping, especially for three days in a row, something wasn’t adding up.
The puzzle pieces in my mind began to soar higher, getting tangled together in confusion.
“Detective Tak, aren’t you being too sensitive? I mean, after collecting scrap for so long, maybe she got it from someone she knows. Don’t stress about it too much.”
I could’ve rushed out of the junkyard and searched for the grandmother as soon as I had my suspicions, but I didn’t.
Of course, it wasn’t because I thought, like Gyeong-su, “That could be it.”
The presumption of innocence, “If in doubt, lean in favor of the defendant.”
Since I had no physical evidence, I didn’t jump to conclusions about the grandmother being a criminal.
But once a suspicion had formed, it wouldn’t go away, and it kept gnawing at me.
As we drove in the patrol car and looked around, I noticed the grandmother was no longer in sight.
– “Aah.”

At that moment, the radio crackled.
– “Maechun Two, patrol car. Noise complaint at location two.”
There was a noise complaint for the Maechun Two patrol car.
I touched the navigation to check, and the report read, “There’s a constant ‘grrrr’ sound coming from the upstairs.”
Gyeong-su looked at the report and said,
“We’ve been getting a lot of noise complaints today.”
“A lot?”
“I went through the reports from this morning when I came in, and there have been several complaints over the past few days about hearing ‘swish swish’ or ‘grrr grrr’ sounds. But when we got to the scene, the sound was always gone, so we just closed the cases.”
“…!”
As soon as I heard that, the puzzle pieces in my mind started to fall into place.
“Gyeong-su, the grandmother in the green clothes, you said you’ve seen her often, right?”
“Yes, I’ve seen her a few times.”
“Do you know her family situation?”
“I only know she lives with her husband.”
“Then we need to head to that noise complaint scene immediately.”
“…What?”
Gyeong-su looked at me, confused, then continued,
“Noise complaints are under the district office’s jurisdiction, so there’s no need for us to rush in. Maechun Two patrol car can handle it.”
“That complaint isn’t just about noise.”
I was frustrated.
Why hadn’t Gyeong-su noticed anything yet?
“There’s a thief who’s been stealing air conditioner piping at that location!”
The puzzle was already pointing to the culprit!

Proof isn’t only obtained through CCTV.