My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 17

“Cough, cough, cough. What are you doing!”

The police officer spat out the water he had inadvertently swallowed and glared, understandably annoyed at being told to lie down and then suddenly being pushed under.

“Were you able to resist?”

“How could I possibly resist!”

He thrashed in the shallow water, but it hardly constituted resistance. It was only waist-deep; he could easily touch the bottom with his feet. Yet, he felt helpless.

“I hardly used any force,” Park Do-joon said.

“So?”

He had literally just pressed down lightly, using just enough force to overcome the buoyancy.

“And?”

“Lee Hyung-woo probably died like this.”

“Hmm……”

At those words, everyone fell silent, their gazes fixed on the detective in the water. The detective, who had been coughing and sputtering just moments before, seemed to notice the attention and nodded.

“I couldn’t move at all.”

“Not at all?”

“Not at all. My mind went blank.”

He explained that in many murder cases involving drowning, the water isn’t deep. Once someone falls into the water during a struggle, they’ve essentially lost because resistance becomes nearly impossible.

“But who would do this?”

Lee Hyung-woo had no known enemies, no one who would want to kill him.

According to Park Do-joon, he and Kwon Mi-joo had come to Ganghwa Island for their honeymoon, not to meet someone they had a conflict with.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Park Do-joon said, walking out of the water.

“The victims’ behavior pattern revolves around marriage and honeymoon, right?”

“Let’s assume that’s the case for now.”

“What do you mean, ‘let’s assume’? We have a witness here,” Kim Woo-sun interjected.

One of the police officers who had been subtly dissenting shrunk back, silenced by Kim Woo-sun’s words.

“Then there’s something we can’t overlook.”

“Something we can’t overlook?”

“Yes. The ring. More specifically, the proposal.”

“Proposal? What does a proposal have to do with a fatal accident?”

“Are there any married people here? You all proposed when you got married, right? How did you do it?”

“Huh? Um, I didn’t……”

“I did it with balloons.”

“I just did it quietly……”

“Quietly, my foot! You played a serenade with speakers in your apartment and got reported for noise pollution. I was the one who responded that day!”

“Shh, shh,” others hushed him.

Amidst the recollections, an important point emerged.

“So, it’s the proposal.”

“Yes. The proposal comes before the marriage registration, of course.”

The method varies. Some couples simply proceed without a formal proposal, while others plan something elaborate.

“But the estimated time of death is roughly between 4 AM and 8 AM.”

The autopsy report indicated a similar time of death for both victims, unfortunately impossible to narrow down further.

“And?”

“Drowning at dawn. And a proposal. What does that suggest to you?”

“Hmm……”

Everyone was puzzled, but Chief Kim Woo-sun seemed to grasp the connection more quickly, likely due to his experience working with a profiler.

“Proposing while watching the sunrise?”

“Isn’t it romantic?”

How romantic would it be to propose on the sea as the sun rises?

“They didn’t take their luggage out of the hotel, which means they planned to return.”

“What does that have to do with the sea?”

“If you push someone into the water at sea, can they resist?”

“Well, yeah, but who would push them?”

“It’s not difficult to do.”

Ships usually have poles for emergencies, for rescuing people or retrieving items that have fallen overboard.

“So, you’re saying this is murder?”

“Yes. Something probably happened on that boat.”

Borrowing a boat and proposing on the sea while watching the beautiful sunrise is a wonderful plan. But something went wrong, and someone pushed Lee Hyung-woo into the water and drowned him.

“And then they realized there shouldn’t be any witnesses.”

“Then……”

“They probably drowned Kwon Mi-joo in the same way.”

Since both died in the same location, the currents carried them together, and eventually, their bodies washed ashore.

“That’s……”

Everyone’s faces grew grim at the unexpected possibility. There was no concrete evidence, but the possibility was definitely there.

“But there’s no way to identify the culprit, is there?”

Identifying the culprit seemed impossible. There were countless ships, and it was a beach with frequent boat traffic.

“Since we can’t know which boat they took, damn it……”

Park Do-joon inwardly clicked his tongue at the officers’ words.

‘They expect everything to be handed to them.’

With this much information, they should be able to investigate independently. But it was always like this. The police officers, reluctant to collaborate with profilers and often disliking them, expected the profiler to provide every detail, including the culprit’s address.

‘Well, this isn’t a new problem.’

Having experienced this countless times even before his regression [referring to a plot point where the character has relived events], he wasn’t particularly bothered. It was something he already knew and couldn’t change.

“The culprit is probably someone who owns a yacht.”

“A yacht?”

“Yes. There are many ships, but…”

Incheon and Ganghwa Island were port cities with numerous registered vessels.

“No matter how beautiful the sunrise, no one would propose on a fishing boat that reeks of fish.”

“That’s true.”

“Furthermore, if it’s a fishing boat, they wouldn’t be able to fish that day, so I doubt they would rent it.”

They couldn’t propose, return, drop off the couple, and then go back out to fish. Large ships were beyond Lee Hyung-woo’s means, so they were also unlikely.

“The most likely option is a yacht.”

Yachts were rare in Korea, but not entirely absent. Surprisingly, Korea had a considerable number of yachts.

They were simply not kept in areas frequented by ordinary people.

“Someone probably went out with them. The two of them wouldn’t know how to operate a yacht.”

And that person was likely the culprit.

“Okay. That makes sense.”

Kim Woo-sun, after hearing the profiling, smiled as if reminiscing about the past.

“What are you doing, you guys! Why aren’t you moving? How much more do I have to spoon-feed you?”

Urged by Kim Woo-sun, the investigators suddenly became eager to produce results.

# Finding the Culprit

Finding a yacht wasn’t easy, but that didn’t mean finding the culprit was impossible. Despite the number of yachts in Korea, they were still expensive, costing billions of won per unit, and storage options were limited.

Furthermore, would the victims leave their luggage behind and rent a yacht from a distant location? That was unlikely.

That left the yacht marina in Incheon.

“I’m getting fired up after coming out here for the first time in a while,” Kim Woo-sun said with a grin, causing the investigator accompanying him to freeze.

“Chief, there’s no need for you to come out personally……”

“No, no. It reminds me of the old days. Besides, the other party has a yacht, right? Do you think the investigator’s words will carry enough weight?”

Park Do-joon nodded, acknowledging the point.

“That’s right. We need to find a private yacht.”

“A private yacht?”

“This kind of incident wouldn’t happen on a tourist yacht, would it?”

Tourist yachts operated by companies had fixed schedules.

And dawn wasn’t included in those hours.

“And those tourist yachts have multiple operators.”

Even if someone managed to push someone into the water, the others wouldn’t simply stand by and watch.

“So, they probably rented a private yacht and went out.”

With private yachts, the owner typically operated it alone.

“But there are many private yachts.”

“We can check the ship departure records.”

All ships were required to maintain departure records for accident prevention and, given their high value, for crime prevention.

“Unless they have their own private yacht mooring, they would naturally use the yacht marina, and a dawn departure would definitely be recorded.”

Park Do-joon was heading to Yeongjong Island with the others. There were several marinas in Incheon, and checking their records would make it relatively easy to identify the ship that departed that morning.

“But the real problem is something else,” Park Do-joon said, looking at the sea outside the window.

“Will they show it to us?”

***

“Ah, bring a warrant. Absolutely not! No way!”

The marina manager was defiant. But his stance wasn’t unreasonable, leaving Kim Woo-sun and the other police officers at a loss.

“We’re just trying to check.”

“Ah, I don’t know. Bring a warrant, a warrant!”

“This isn’t a situation where a warrant would be issued……”

“Then leave. We can’t show you anything without a warrant.”

The three exited, the manager’s words ringing in their ears. Kim Woo-sun frowned and said,

“This is a real bind. We need evidence to get a warrant, but we need a warrant to find evidence.”

“It’s a chicken-and-egg situation,” Park Do-joon said with a wry smile.

“If we could just get a warrant, I think we could identify them for sure.”

The marina had more than just entry and exit logs. With yachts worth tens of billions of won docked there, CCTV cameras captured everyone entering and exiting from all angles.

“If we secure that footage, we can probably see them leaving that morning.”

Going out together and returning alone? What could be more conclusive evidence?

“Would the prosecution grant it if we applied?”

“It’ll be difficult. It’s all circumstantial evidence.”

Currently, the entire line of reasoning was based solely on Park Do-joon’s profiling analysis. There were no scientific investigation records.

Of course, there was testimony, but it only confirmed that the deaths weren’t suicides, not that they departed from the marina.

“The court doesn’t fully trust profiler analyses either.”

A profiler’s analysis was just a reference, not solid evidence in court.

Profilers were human and prone to errors. Moreover, Korean profilers weren’t highly regarded and were often wrong.

‘This situation is a prime example.’

Park Do-joon wasn’t blaming anyone. A profiler’s role wasn’t to identify the culprit but to provide direction.

“If you request a warrant based solely on profiling, it will naturally be rejected.”