Doctor Demon

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....

A rookie officer jumped in fright when the door to the IT room burst open and Jina barged in with Hobin in tow.

"Where is the CCTV footage we collected from the Song mansion?" she demanded.

"I'll open the file," the officer replied and turned to the monitor. He opened a file and it began to play. 

"We'll take it from here," Jina said and sat on a chair to control the monitor. Hobin sat next to her. He was still wearing his coat and was gazing at the monitor.

The video of a large party appeared on the screen. "There's Song Yohan," Hobin said, pointing at Yohan's tall frame. "And there's Seohyun."

"That's Hana, the maid who is Seohyun's lackey," Jina said. "But Sera claimed that the killer is a man."

"The household staff are wearing black uniforms while the caterers hired from outside are in white," Hobin said. "I'll keep an eye on the white ones and you on the black ones. But I doubt it was a caterer. They'd have to know the house well."

"True," Jina muttered. "But we'll have to try."

They watched the whole tape with intense concentration. The party started at 6 PM but Song Yohan stayed only for one hour. His alibi was already confirmed by the PI who worked with him to stalk Seohyun.

"Hana didn't leave either," Jina said after five hours of watching the tape. "But she's gonna leave now with Seohyun. It's almost 11 PM on the tape."

"And Rachel was kidnapped around 8:30," Hobin yawned. They had been watching the tape for a long time, taking occasional breaks but now both of them were dead tired. It was almost 10 AM on his watch and no one had slept a wink that night. 

"Go back to the 7 PM mark," Jina instructed. "The time when Song Yohan left."

Hobin rewinded the video and played the video again. Jina was watching it, trying to concentrate hard. Her eyes were red due to lack of sleep but she was determined to catch the murderer. 

"I still don't get it!" she exclaimed in frustration. "How do we know which servant it was? There are hundreds of them!"

"It must be one which Rachel was particularly mean to," Hobin sighed. "But if we question the staff, he'll be alert. It has to be someone who knows the mansion well. How many male staff do they have?"

"Around twenty," Jina replied, checking the list of household staff on her phone which was given to them by Hana. "They've been working there for a long time…"

Then she frowned and leaned forward. "Wait a minute…"

She pointed at one part of the screen. "Zoom in on this guy!" she quickly said. "And take a screenshot of him. I need to figure something out."

Hobin zoomed in on one of the servants and took a screenshot of it before printing the picture out.

"Who's this?" he asked.

"You'll see," Jina shrugged. "I just hope my theory is right. For that, I need to confirm something." 

She dialed a number on her phone and waited for someone to answer.

"Hi, this is Detective Hwang," she told someone over the phone. "Listen, can you please stop by at the precinct in an hour to identify someone for us? We really need your help."

Hobin watched as Jina crossed her fingers as if praying that the person would agree. She let out a silent cheer when the person agreed.

"Great! I'll see you then," she said and hung up.

"Who was that?" Hobin frowned.

"Someone who knows the murderer," Jina replied in a cryptic way. Within the next five minutes, she revealed her theory to Hobin who was surprised and to some extent, impressed.

"You know, I think you're not far off," he said slowly. "If your suspicions are correct, then maybe we have our guy."

"All we need is the confirmation from our one and only lead," Jina added.

…..

*An hour later*

Hyojin was nervous, fidgeting in his seat. The officers did not take him to the interrogation room but put him in what looked like a meeting room and even though he was not arrested, he was still scared. What if they arrested him again? But the detective told him that it was just a routine procedure because they found something and they needed his help in confirming it.

Jina entered the room while Hobin followed her in. She had a couple of smoothies in her hands and handed one to him.

"My treat," she said with a smile. "Thanks for coming here on such short notice."

"Detective, am I in trouble?" Hyojin blurted out. "I swear, I really don't have anything to do with Rachel or her murder-"

"Hyojin, your sister's testimony saved you," Jina said. "The timing of the murder and Sera's statement match perfectly. Moreover, your alibi has been confirmed by the vet already. You and Tommy, both are out of our radar. But…"

Jina sat next to him. "But we think that you may have seen the murderer."

"What?" Hyojin asked, feeling surprised. "But I didn't see anyone that night in the basement! I swear! I left before any of that happened-"

"Not on the day of the murder," Hobin said. "Before that."

He put forward the picture they had printed out. Hyojin frowned and picked it up to take a good look at the image. He instantly recognized the tall, thin servant boy who worked in the Song mansion.

"Do you know who he is?" Jina asked.

"Yes!" Hyojin exclaimed. "I do! This is one of the servants at Rachel's mansion! In fact, on the day Rachel and I made up, I saw Rachel shouting at him on the way to her room."

"What was he doing there?" Hobin questioned him.

"I guess he was working there…" Hyojin trailed off but was thinking hard. "Now that I think about it, Rachel was always complaining about this guy. Apparently, he used to lurk around her room a lot. She hated it whenever any staff did that and they were clearly instructed not to go near her room much but this boy used to roam around there a lot. She even demanded Hana to fire him. I don't know if he's still there."

Jina and Hobin looked at each other and nodded. They finally got a lead.