“Is that..” Smruti was pointing at the phone, “Is that blood???” She had turned a shade of green. She turned around. “I swear! I swear I don’t know how that phone got here! It was not here yesterday. I cleaned this room yesterday!”
I believed her. It was so painfully obvious that the phone was placed here by someone. It was perfectly positioned to be the first thing someone would see when they walked into that room.
Prerna tried to relax Smruti, “It’s ok.. We believe you.” She soothed her. Prerna too didn’t believe that Smruti was involved in any way.
“Did Rajat have a key to your apartment?” Shammi asked Smruti. Smruti nodded, she suddenly looked afraid.
“You think the killer got Rajat’s key and came here????” She looked around nervously, as though the killer was still around.
“That’s what I’m thinking. Who knows what all he might have left. We should take a look.” Shammi was already thinking like a good detective.
We split up and searched the house, carefully not to disturb anything. Later, Prerna’s team would descend upon Smruti’s house and look for fingerprints, fibers and more.
“Uhh.. Chetan? You might want to take a look at this..” I could hear Prerna’s voice calling me..
She was calling us from the bedroom. She was standing near the bed. I looked around. I couldn’t see anything out of place.
Silently, she pointed under the bed. I got down on my hands and knees and peeked under the bed.. I stretched my hand and touched it, some kind of a cloth. I pulled it out and gasped.
Blood.
Smruti was shivering, her voice barely audible, “That’s.. that’s mine..”
She was looking at the blood soaked t-shirt I held in hand.
