My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 58

“So… you’re saying she was really abandoned?”

“That’s not it. I told you, she didn’t run away. This is a disappearance.”

“Why is that?”

“You can tell by the drawers and the general state of things. Elopements are usually planned.”

“But aren’t elopements supposed to be sudden?”

“How could they be? That’s how it looks from the victim’s perspective. The person doing it has to plan. You can’t just dump your luggage on the street, can you?”

“Ah!”

When eloping, the first thing you need to do is decide where you’re going.

You need to find a room, or at least a motel if you can’t find a room.

That’s the only way to bring your luggage. And you need a car to move your luggage.

You can’t just call and expect them to come right away.

“Naturally, you have to book everything in advance.”

“I see.”

“But look at these traces.”

The drawers are wide open, and the inside is a mess. There’s a bed, a refrigerator, and other appliances.

“Is this a fully furnished room?”

“No.”

“Then it’s even less likely to be an elopement. If she didn’t have money, she would have sold these things, even as used items, and run away.”

Furniture might not be worth much, but these appliances are still worth something.

“But leaving them behind doesn’t make sense. And look here.”

Park Do-joon reached out and opened the top cabinet. There were various dishes inside.

“The dishes are still here too. Elopement is basically a story about when you’ve failed. That means you’ll try to take anything you can with you.”

But looking around, there are signs everywhere that she packed in a hurry.

“So, we just need to check what’s missing.”

“Missing items?”

“Yes.”

Park Do-joon looked around. And he was sure.

“Only clothes are missing. Towels and toiletries are all here. Even the kitchenware.”

Park Do-joon frowned and said.

“So, she didn’t run away?”

“For now… I think we need to bring the landlord here.”

Park Do-joon frowned and said.

***

“You’re saying the owner of this place didn’t run away?”

“Yes, do you happen to know anything?”

Joo Do-cheon, the owner of the boarding house where Park Do-joon was, and the owner of this building, scratched his head at Park Do-joon’s words. He is commonly known as ‘Landlord’.

“Well, I don’t know her personally, but I know her as the tenant.”

“But you said she works in the nightlife industry? Did you meet her at a bar or something?”

Landlords usually don’t know what their tenants do. Moreover, Joo Do-cheon is quite wealthy and owns several buildings, so he doesn’t manage them all himself. So, it’s quite difficult to know what a woman’s job is.

“Don’t say scary things. My wife will kill me.”

“But how did you know? Honestly, women who work at bars don’t usually come to places like this.”

There are office buildings all over Seoul.

And if you work in the nightlife industry, you earn a considerable amount of money.

And judging by the situation, she must be quite pretty.

‘Otherwise, Pil-joong wouldn’t be interested.’

Regardless of their profession, it’s a man’s instinct to be interested in pretty women.

“Ah, that? I got a few reports.”

“Reports?”

“Yeah, what did they say? Those guys who drive people around.”

“You mean designated drivers?”

“No, no, not designated drivers. Those who do illegal transportation, you know? I don’t know what to call them.”

Joo Do-cheon scratched his head.

Park Do-joon was confused at first, but he quickly understood.

“You mean private taxis.”

“Is that what you call them? Those who drive people around in their own cars?”

“Yes, that’s usually what we call them.”

“Anyway, there was some trouble between those people and the residents.”

Private taxis.

Ordinary people don’t know much about them. Because there’s no place for private taxis in Korea.

Private taxis operate without a taxi license, and because of the possibility of crime, almost no one in Korea uses them.

There was a brief attempt by a foreign company to match drivers and passengers, but even that was blocked by law, so there are no private taxis now.

But there’s still a place that uses them: the entertainment industry.

“I guess they use private taxis a lot.”

It’s not because private taxis are cheaper.

The entertainment district is mostly in very expensive neighborhoods, and the biggest problem when going to work in such places is parking.

There’s no place for customers to park, so employees can’t bring their cars.

“Yeah, that’s what I heard. But why do they use them? I don’t understand. They can just take a taxi, right?”

“There are quite a few taxi drivers who are not very good.”

Taxi drivers have a lot of experience. By looking at their clothes, appearance, and the time, they can easily tell whether the women going to work are from the entertainment industry or ordinary office workers.

“And in those cases, there are often cases where bad guys sexually harass or assault passengers. They take advantage of the fact that they can’t report it.”

Even if they report it, they can’t say their profession, and if they say their profession, their past will be recorded, so women don’t like it.

“But private taxis are more expensive, but they’re cleaner in that respect.”

Their livelihood depends on it.

“And private taxis are often used for other purposes.”

The entertainment district is so expensive that each customer is precious. But drunk driving is dangerous, so most customers don’t want to bring their own cars.

First of all, the parking problem is also a pain.

You can’t tell customers to take a taxi.

So, the entertainment district provides a pick-up service, which is those private taxis.

From the outside, it’s a normal car, and usually a luxury sedan, so it can give the impression of treating customers well.

“So, they use private taxis. But why did the trouble happen? They usually don’t cause trouble.”

“Isn’t this a narrow alley? So, there was a minor collision.”

“Ah, I see.”

But that guy ran away, so they had to check the CCTV, and they found out she worked in the nightlife industry when they saw her leaving late at night.

“And after that?”

“After that, well… nothing much, it just ended there.”

In the meantime, he didn’t say anything to the tenant, and there was no reason to say anything.

There was no reason to shout at her to leave, saying she had to be morally clean.

“Why did you think she ran away?”

“She disappeared without paying the rent, so I thought it was obvious.”

“Hmm.”

Park Do-joon nodded at those words.

Circumstantially, it seems that the woman does work in the entertainment industry.

“But you said she didn’t run away?”

“Yes, judging by the traces, I think she was forcibly taken away rather than running away.”

“Forcibly taken away? Why?”

“I don’t know. But looking at the current situation, we can know several things.”

Park Do-joon turned his head and looked inside the room.

Almost an empty space.

But a profiler has to read the records even in this space.

‘If it were Han Sung-gi, he would have just concluded it was an elopement.’

But Park Do-joon, who has a lot of experience, didn’t think so.

“First of all, the problem is that this is a studio apartment.”

At those words, Joo Do-cheon made a strange expression.

“This wasn’t built carelessly. I spent my own money to build it so sturdily. I put in a lot of concrete, and the supervision was thorough. There’s also an underground parking lot. Who puts an underground parking lot in a studio apartment building these days?”

“No, I’m not talking about the condition of the building. Anyway, the important thing is not that, but as I said before, women who work in the entertainment industry are surprisingly concerned about security. So, most of them prefer officetels [a type of multi-purpose building with both office and residential units].”

Officetels have security guards at the entrance and separate security keys. In fact, they are more secure than these studio apartments.

“Besides, the parking lot is spacious and it’s comfortable to live in. The entertainment industry has a good income. It’s not difficult to earn enough to live in an officetel.”

So, it’s common to live in an apartment if you have better conditions than an officetel.

If you earn 20 million won a month, it’s natural to live in an officetel or an apartment.

“But it’s strange that she lived in a studio apartment.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, I’ve never seen the victim, but is she pretty?”

“She’s pretty.”

“Yes, she’s really pretty.”

That’s right.

“Then she must have been popular. Then she wouldn’t have had a small income. She must have been a nice person too. She must have been a good person.”

“How do you know that? You’ve never even seen her?”

Go Pil-joong asked Park Do-joon as if he was amazed.

Park Do-joon smiled at Go Pil-joong and said.

“She talked to you and left a good impression.”

“Ugh, are you hitting me for being ugly and matching me? It hurts my heart.”

“No, that’s not it. Usually, people who work in those places often have feelings of hatred towards men.”

To be honest, a bar is not a place to have a good time. There are plenty of men who play dirty. So, women who work in those places tend to have hostile feelings towards men.

“Of course, not all of them are like that, but usually they’re not friendly enough to talk to a strange man.”

“I guess, I understand.”

Go Pil-joong was just talking without thinking, but from a woman’s point of view, he’s just one of the many men.

“So, usually they ignore you, even if they don’t hate you.”

But if she didn’t ignore him, talked to him for a long time, and even showed him the dog she was raising, she must have been a very nice person.

“How do you know that? I’ve seen a lot of police officers, but I’ve never seen someone like you.”

“I’m a profiler.”

“A pro… what?”

“You can think of me as a psychological expert.”

“But what does personality have to do with the current situation?”

“It’s simple. She’s probably in a situation where she needs to sacrifice herself financially.”

The entertainment industry costs a lot of money. Some people say that people who come to the entertainment industry are unconditionally victims, but in fact, there are many cases where they come voluntarily.

“But judging from her income, she lives in a house like this and her furniture isn’t very good, so there’s probably a part where money is constantly going in.”

Just looking at the things she left behind, the dishes the victim used and the bowl the dog’s food was in are all cheap models sold at a local discount store.

“Of course, there are people who save for the future.”

But looking at the situation here, it’s closer to poverty than saving.

“But what does that have to do with not running away?”

“Looking at the situation, I think it’s more like an advance payment.”

“Advance payment?”

“Yes, they often talk to the company and get money in advance.”

This advance payment is a kind of means to tie women to the store. Especially if she’s a popular hostess, they tend to tie her down even more.