Autopsy of a Mind

The prosecutor was faster than expected. Usually, we needed to wait at least a day to get our hands on something like this, but instead, we had it within five hours of that call being made.

With the court order in place, Nash and I had to come up with a plan to take Bill Phillips aside and question him. The hardest part would be to get him inside that room and talk to him. 

Fortunately, he was situated on the top floor of the same building, so it wouldn't be suspicious to go up to him and talk. But what bait would be used to pull him down? 

"Let's use the BTS Killer case," Nash said finally. "He was the one who solidified the name in the media."

I looked at him curiously. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. No one wanted to name him because they would give him notoriety, but Bill thought it was a good move, to give something the people could pinpoint and avoid. Now I can see it would be because he wanted to be up there with the named and famed serial killers." He shook his head in disbelief.

"Let's isolate him completely and ask him, then," I injected. 

The plan was solidified. Nash would take the lead and we would hide a camera in the coat and bring it into the room where we questioned him.

The clock ticked slowly as we ascended the staircase. The floors showed who was more powerful than the other and on the top floor was Bill Phillips, almost the most powerful man in the police department at the time. 

"Ready?" Nash whispered. 

I pushed the door to the floor open. The station was an open style and the Director-General sat beyond a glass wall. He seemed busy at work but the furrow of his brow and the tension in his limps said another story.

Nash knocked on the secretary's desk and the man looked up, surprised. 

"Is the Director-General available to speak?" he asked casually. I was thankful that he had come by because I couldn't have been so suave and charming with others.

"The DG doesn't want to meet anyone today," the secretary mumbled. 

Nash clucked his tongue. "We actually needed his expert opinion on a case we are working on. Would you mind asking him if he could spare us a little time today?" Nash's tone was light but pleading. There was no urgency in it and I instantly knew that he was baiting the DG by showing that we had a lot on our plate to figure out and he was important in the process.

Being the narcissist that this man was, he would want to know everything we had against him and maybe point us in another direction. He might even have fun watching us run from one place to the other. 

We would allow him that delight if he came with us.

The phone call was made and Bill swiveled his head in our direction and looked at us critically. Nash raised his hand in acknowledgment and gave a small bow. The man looked slightly relieved before he hurriedly spoke into the phone. 

"The Director-General will see you now," he said. 

Nash nodded. He went into the room and said something to the man, making him come out of the room instantly.

He followed us and the whole way, Nash spoke about the trivial matters while announcing that they should go to a restaurant. A tactic I realized was to show the DG that we wanted his help in private. 

The thing about being apprehended was that even if you have been on the other side a thousand times and knew every move written in the book by heart when you were faced with detectives and interrogators, you couldn't tell the difference.

We had created a ruse and invited Bill to advise us on a case. We had rehearsed and prepared the questions many times over the time the prosecutor took to get the court order. We had to keep the conversation as casual as possible for as long as possible and carefully wait for the key moments to initiate the confrontation. 

We actually led him to one of the rooms where the DG knew no cameras were installed.

"Let's have a seat," Nash said casually, pointing towards an old chair. We didn't follow the usual patterns of an interrogation. There was a table in the far corner of the room and the DG sat on one side while Nash and I huddled close to him without looking like we were opposing him. Even the door was hidden from his view unlike when interrogators would intentionally sit between the suspect and the door to show power. 

We were simply humble people who wanted to chat with the almighty Director-General. 

"I know it's strange that we brought you aside but it felt awkward talking to you about the case in front of so many watchful eyes."

"That's okay," Bill assured. 

The first step for us was to set a compatible tone with Bill the moment he stepped foot inside the room. We had to negate the implications of being in a tight-packed space with two investigators who were on his tail. 

"So, we came across your name in one of the cases we are handling and wanted to talk to you about it," I began. "Do you know of a Lee Yunxi?" I asked, my brows scrunching even though my voice was polite. 

I could imagine what he was thinking. Over two decades ago, he murdered a woman in cold blood and got away with it. Suddenly after so many years, you were brought into a room with two investigators and you heard their name once again. 

I had intentionally mispronounced her name, wanting to see his reaction. 

"Uh… Lee Yunxi?" he said, changing the pronunciation to the correct one. It was a simple strategy to see how Bill would react. Setting aside the fact that he had murdered this woman, it was also the woman whose identity card we had been sent by his son, Benny Phillips.

This pause was already deceptive. Usually, if one knows a name, they would immediately reply… but this man waited a total of twelve to fourteen seconds to respond, showing that he clearly knew that name but wanted to show us that he had to think a lot to recall if he knew someone by that name. 

In reality, the name was engraved in his memory. Even when mispronounced a little, it must have taken a few milliseconds for him to realize who I was talking about.

"Do you know her?" I asked. 

"Um… It sounds familiar… wasn't it someone who died a long time ago?" he asked.

"Mmhmm," I agreed, allowing him to speak further. 

He left out the fact that he had attended numerous calls to her house when neighbors called the police because she was making noise. Or the fact that he met her outside work a few times as well. This fact was revealed to us later on, of course.

Why no one had looked into this matter remained unknown.

"What is this all about?" The Director-General asked. He shifted the chair so that he was closer and he leaned in. The expression on his face only showed curiosity. He didn't suspect us one bit. 

"Well, it's regarding a case we are working on and it involves Lee Yunxi. There were some statements we reviewed on the matter and we found that you knew each other for a short period of time?" I prompted.

"It was a million years ago," he whispered. "Uh… was I assigned to a case she was part of?" he asked. He was completely avoiding the question. 

A million years ago, he said. Like he would never remember a person he cold-bloodedly murdered. What a joke.

But I understood what he was doing. He was using exaggerate verbal expressions to show that he hadn't thought about this woman in a long time. So long that he didn't even know for sure who it was. So he was probing us to see how much of their connection we knew about. 

"Oh, we thought you saw her on some calls and briefly became friends with her… are we wrong about that?" 

The Director-General snapped his fingers as if it had come back to him. "Ah, yes. I think I knew her. I met her about her neighborhood people a few times. I wouldn't consider her a friend though. I fellow Samaritan I knew?" he corrected our assumption. "What is this all about?" he asked waving his hands. 

"Well, it's about her murder. Did you know she was murdered?" He had already confessed to knowing she was dead. Now we needed to know if he could acknowledge that Lee Yunxi was murdered.

I could see the influence those words had on him immediately. One part of him wondered if he should stay and deal with what was coming, and the other beckoned him to leave this situation immediately.

Bill, chose to fight. 

"Okay," he said, his voice edging on ridicule. 

"Do you remember her now?" Nash asked from the side. 

"Not really," Bill said, sounding affronted by the notion. "I know that she died. That's all."

"Did you meet her before her death?" I questioned, keeping my tone light and imploring, making no threats or saying words that would make him suspicious of my motives. 

"God, I don't know… It was such a long time ago," he said. He looked around the room, trying to find the answer that would absolve him of what he had done. He leaned away and his back thumped against the back of the chair. "I may have met her."

I knew right then that he would make exclamatory comments throughout this discussion. He was trying to show that he had a vague memory due to a lack of interest in the subject matter. He is trying to emit the impression that he would have no reason to think about Lee Yunxi or anything related to her.