Whodunit - Chapter 25 - Still Clueless

“Wait a minute,” Dhruv looked nervous now. “There must be hundreds of people around who interact with animals!”
“Yes, that’s true.” I said, Dhruv relaxed a little, “But none of them were to profit from Rajat’s death. Neither did they all know where Rajat parked his car or where Smruti stayed. What I am confused about is, how did you know he was going to abandoned church?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about. The day my father died, I was at a party with my friends. You can check.” Dhruv said confidently.
“Fine, I will.” I took the number of the club that Dhruv was talking about. I passed the number to Shammi and asked him to check it out.




I walked into Shvetank’s holding cell.
“Are you ready to tell the truth?” I asked him coldly.
“Please. You have to believe me, I didn’t stab him!” Shvetank pleaded.
“What did you do after you used the chloroform on Rajat?” I wanted to hear Shvetank’s side of the story. He winced.
“I’m a biology student. I know how much choloform is harmful to humans, I was very careful! I didn’t use too much for him. He was alive when I left him.”
“Just one hour back, you admitted that it was an accident, now you are saying it wasn’t an accident and someone deliberately killed him?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know! But if I killed him, it was an accident!”
“I believe you.” That seemed to calm him down a little.
“I just threw the bottle and got the hell out of there.” my ears pricked. Dropped the bottle?
“Shvetank, think carefully, you left the bottle there? Near the body? And the handkerchief?” I asked.
“Yes, I just threw the bottle. The handkerchief I think I stuffed inside my bag and got out of there. I dropped Aarti home and prayed that Rajat Sinha gets home safe and sound.”


I looked down at my phone. Shammi had been calling me frantically for the past ten minutes.
“Yeah, tell me.” I answered.
“Okay.. I have some news.”
“Shoot.”
“I bumped into our pal Jagdish and turns out, he supplied the weed to Shvetank. And Shvetank paid him back, full in cash. The day after Rajat Sinha died.”
“Oh. Really? Anything else?” I asked.
“Yeah, Prerna called, she’s going back to Smruti’s apartment, she thinks we’re missing something obvious.”
“Ok. That’s good. I hope she finds something. I’m going around in circles here.”
“Well..” I could sense the hesitation in Shammi’s voice.
“What is it?”
“I checked out that club. Dhruv was there till wee hours of the morning. He was so smashed, he couldn’t walk. They had to call him a cab.”
“So, he’s not our guy?” I asked disappointed. I had bet my money on Dhruv.
“Umm, here’s the weird part. I also spoke to a couple of my buddies in the highway patrol. They recall a speeding bike on Thursday night, heading towards the mountains. They noted down the number but didn’t send a speeding ticket. Guess who the bike belongs to?”
I didn’t want to guess.
“Dhruv?” I asked.
“Yep.”

Whodunit - Chapter 24 - New Suspects

Aarti was sitting nervously, holding her mother’s hand. Dhruv stood outside the interrogation room, glaring at us.

“Inspector, you have the murderer. Why put my sister through this?” He said to me.

“I’m sorry Dhruv, but if your sister was with Shvetank when your father was murdered, she’s likely to be slapped with some charges too. It’s a crime to keep information hidden from the police.” I told him gravely.

“Serious charges?” Dhruv asked, concerned.

I smiled. “That depends on how good your lawyer is. Hey..” A thought occurred to me, “Do you mind sticking around? I would like to ask you some questions.”

Dhruv nodded, “Sure, anything I can do to help.”

I started walking inside the room when Shammi pulled me aside, “I’m going back to the college. I feel like something’s missing.”

I nodded. “While you are at it, check him out too.” I indicated towards Dhruv.

Aarti stiffened as I walked inside the room.

I looked down at some papers in my hand, “What is it that you wanted to tell us?”

Aarti looked at her mum, who nodded encouragingly, “Tell him the truth honey.”

Aarti took a deep breath, “I called him, Rajat. The day he died.”

“What for?” I already knew, but it was always better to cross verify.

“I needed money. Shvetank forced me to ask him for money.” Aarti dabbed her eyes.

“And then?”

“He followed me.. To the church..” Aarti was trembling now.

“Go on..” I said encouragingly.

“And then Shvetank.. he..” She clutched her mother’s hand a little tighter. “He put some chloroform on something and put it around my father’s mouth. I remember telling him that my father will press charges of assault against him. He had just laughed and said ‘I’ll take care of it’ And then he dropped me back home. I didn’t know what he was planning to do...”

I stayed silent, absorbing all that Aarti had told me.

“And then he asked me for Smruti’s and Tara’s address.”

I pulled out the pictures of the knife we had recovered from the crime site.

“Recognize this?” I asked her.

“Yes, it’s Shvetank’s. He always carries it around in his bag pack.”

“I think that’s all for now..” I showed her the way out and beckoned Dhruv in.

“Anything you can tell me?” I didn’t really have any questions for him.

“Not really, I hardly met the man.” Dhruv said coolly.

“But he was very fond of you?”

“I was the only one in the family who was capable enough to take over his precious factory. Aarti, she.. Well, she isn’t the types who would want to run a factory.”

“So you don’t know anything?”

“Well. Aarti wanted me to talk to my dad the day he died. She thought he would give me money if I asked him. But of course I didn’t. I told her I would give her the money, if she only told me what it was for.”

“So now that Rajat’s dead, are you going to accept what his will states? Or is it against your principles to accept his money?”

“That’s a lot of money we are talking about, I’d be a fool to walk away from it.” Dhruv smiled coolly. “Now that he’s dead, I have no qualms taking it.”

Dhruv brushed his hand over his shoulder as he spoke. Animal hair.

“Any pets?” I asked him.

“No.. But I work at a animal shelter.” He smiled. “Dogs! They shed so much hair..”

“Dhruv, where were you ten days ago?” I asked suddenly.

“Why? Am I suspect now?” he laughed.

I was not amused. “Do you know what we found on your father’s belongings apart from blood?” I asked him.

He shook his head, surprised at the sudden change in my tone.

“Animal hair.”

Whodunit - Chapter 23 - Case Solved?

“What’s going on here?” I stepped between Shammi and Shvetank.

“We need to take him in for further questioning.” Shammi nodded towards Shvetank.

“No.. you can’t..” A distraught Aarti was holding on to Shvetank’s arm. “I’ll tell you everything!!” She pleaded.

“Aarti, what are you saying?!” Krupa tried to dislodge Aarti from Shvetank’s arm.

“No.. mum, I know what I’m doing.” She shrugged off Krupa’s hand.

“Everybody calm down!” I ordered.. “Shvetank, you are coming with us. Mrs. Krupa, you have to drive your daughter to the station.”

“She hasn’t done anything! She’s just saying some things to protect him.” She glared at Shvetank.

“Regardless, Aarti wants to say something, and I need a parent’s approval for that.” Krupa Mitwe turned towards Dhruv with a pleading look on her face.  Dhruv shook his head. Krupa sighed, “Fine, I’ll get her.”

We left Shvetank in a holding cell while Shammi filled me in.

“So, I went to the college like you said. And I checked up on Shvetank. Guess what his primary subject is?” He asked.

“I give up, what?”

“Biology. So not only does our boy have access to the labs and Chloroform, I made the lab assistant check, there is some concentrated chloroform missing from the storage area.” I whistled.

“Wait.. That’s not it. The rumor around college is that he was known to experiment with different kinds of substance abuse.”

“And he had the knife.” I said.

“What knife?” I quickly filled in Shammi about the knife. Forensics was going through the contents of Shvetank’s bag but I had already given then a head’s up on the knife.

“But why did he do it?”  Shammi and I were brainstorming now. Before we interrogated the suspect, we needed to have as much information out as possible.

“Didn’t you say he was seeing Aarti?” Shammi asked me.

“Yeah. You don’t think that’s why he killed Rajat right? I mean it’s a little far fetched.”

“Hear me out.” Shammi put up a hand to silence me.

“The last call Rajat received was from Krupa’s house. What if it was Aarti?” I opened my mouth to protest but then stopped. Maybe he was right.

“Lets ask him some questions before Aarti gets here.” I suggested. Shammi nodded. We walked into the holding cell, where Shvetank was looking increasingly nervous.

“What’s going on! Why am I here? I didn’t do anything!” He exclaimed.

“We know about the chloroform.” I said quietly.

All wind zapped out of Shvetank. His shoulders slumped.

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to..” he put his head in his hands and began to cry. I had to remind myself, that even though he was legally an adult, he was just 19.

“Shvetank.. why did you do it?” I still couldn’t guess a motive.

“He caught me..” He paused. “Doing weed. And he asked me where Aarti was.”

“Where was she?”

“Hiding. She didn’t want her father to find her. She had taken the money from him.” He was sobbing now.

“Money for what?”

“To buy the weed.  And when he turned around, I just dabbed a little chloroform on my handkerchief, and put it around his mouth. I never meant to kill him.”

“You’re lying.” Shammi said roughly.

“No.. no.. you have to believe me. Please! I just wanted to make him unconscious, so that Aarti and I could escape.” He was pleading with us.

“So that’s why you went back to stab him?”

“But I didn’t! He got stabbed?” Shvetank looked perplexed.

“Shvetank. We found a knife, identical to the one you have on the crime scene.” Shammi explained patiently.

“But I lost my old one. I don’t know where. That’s why I bought a replacement.”

We spent an hour with Shvetank, but he did not budge from his statement , that he didn’t stab Rajat Sinha. We were still charging him with murder. He was the murderer, I could feel it.

And Aarti’s testimony, would only confirm it. I was waiting eagerly to interrogate Aarti and be done with this case.

Whodunit - Chapter 16 - The Anonymous Caller

I shook my head. Things were not looking good for Smruti. After the blood soaked t-shirt we found the wallet, also under the bed.

“I don’t know how..” Smruti pleaded with us.

Prerna pulled out her phone and called her team “On the double!” she ordered over the phone.

“What does this mean for me?” Smruti was visibly scared now.

“What did you do after your dinner with Rajat Sinha?” I was praying she had a rock solid alibi.

“I came home and slept.” I sighed.

“It’s time you get yourself a lawyer.” I wanted to help her. I knew someone was setting her up. She didn’t seem like a fool. She could have easily disposed off Rajat’s things in the ten days period. Someone, on the other hand, had saved it. For this very purpose.

“Oh my god!” She covered her mouth with her hand.

“Is there anyone who might want to hurt you? Financially or otherwise?” I already knew the answer.

“Tara.”

I nodded. We would have to do a thorough check of Mrs. Sinha’s whereabouts that night.

Prerna’s team arrived and took over. Smruti, was extremely cooperative and signed all the documents that would permit us to search through her house.

“The key is still missing.” I suddenly remembered. “Its better you stay somewhere safer tonight.”

Smruti nodded and rushed to the phone.

“You really think the killer will come back?” Shammi asked me.

“No, but who knows. As long as the key is with him, she’s in potential danger.”

There was nothing more for us to do there. Shammi and I decided to meet the guy who had called about the stench. He was a college student who was very very reluctant to talk to us.

I was not surprised. He reeked of alcohol and substance. He seemed to be sober though. He grimaced when he saw Shammi.

“Oh man! I already told you everything!” he started walking away.

“Not quite, I have a few questions, uh..” I looked at Shammi.

“Jagdish..” Shammi helped out.

Jagdish didn’t bother. He kept walking, “I don’t have to talk to you, I know my rights.”

I sighed. “Then I’ll have to arrest you and ask you questions.” I called out after him.

That stopped him. “Oh yeah, arrest me for what?” He turned around, and started walking towards me meaningfully.

“Peddling drugs.” I said calmly. His eyes shifted towards his bag.

“That’s right, I know what’s in your bag. Now we can do this my way, and get over with the questioning or we can wait till Shammi gets an arrest warrant for you and question you at the station. What would you prefer?”

All steam went out of him. His shoulders slumped. I had dealt with drug users before.

“Make it quick.” Jagdish was trying salvage his pride. He put his arm around his bag protectively. I didn’t care. That was someone else’s problem.

“You got to the church often?”

“Yep.” Jagdish pulled out a cigarette. I frowned. Jagdish gulped and put it back inside.

“What were you doing there? The night you reported the stench?” Jagdish smiled and pointed at the bag.

“And when did you see the Scorpio?”

“Look, I don’t know.. a week ago, two weeks ago, who keeps track of these things?” He answered casually.

“This is important Jagdish.” I said seriously. He thought for a while. “I think it was last Thursday. Yep.. it was.. I remember because I had a exam the next day, so I left early.”

I calculated mentally. Exactly ten days ago.

“And you’re confident that Rajat Sinha was driving?”

“Who??” I looked at Shammi.. he shook his head and took out a picture of Rajat Sinha and showed it to Jagdish. He barely glanced at the photo.

“Yep. That’s him.”

“How can you be so sure?” I pushed the photo in his face to make him take a second glance.

“Because! He was too old to be there! I thought he’s someone’s father busting in on them!”

Dhruv or Aarti.

Whodunit - Chapter 14 - The bloody phone.

“Yes,” Smruti continued. “Rajat was going to change his will and leave most of his belongings to me. He wanted to keep a lot of money aside for his kids.. He didn’t want Tara getting anything.”

Kids??? I interrupted her,“We went to Rajat Sinha’s house Ms. Sharma, and we didn’t see any kids there.”  It was true. We hadn’t seen anything that suggested that there were children in the house. No toys, no children’s books, no pictures.

Smruti laughed. “Well, they are not really kids. And they are not really Rajat’s kid’s. ”

I frowned. This case was getting more and more messed up.

“Ummm.. What???”

“Ya.. They are Krupa Mitwe’s kid’s, from an earlier marriage. But Rajat adopted them and he loves..” She corrected herself, “Loved them. Legally, he was still their step-father. But they cut off all ties from him once he divorced Krupa.”

“How old are these kids?” Rajat Sinha had certainly led a very complicated life.

“The girl, Aarti is 17, just finishing school and the boy, Dhruv is 19, in college.”

“College in the city?” If he was studying in the city, there’s a chance he knew about the old church.

“Yes. Very smart boy. He got scholarships from universities abroad, but he wanted to stay with his mother. The girl, on the other hand, is completely out of control. Rajat was so proud of Dhruv..” She sighed. “Dhruv refused to touch even a penny of Rajat’s money. He worked after college to make up his tuition fee. The more Rajat tried to help, the more Dhruv would push him away. Dhruv always thought Rajat was trying to buy their love. Maybe it was partly true, but Rajat was desperate to get into their lives. He was incredibly possessive about them. He kept an eye on them at all times.”

“What about Aarti?” Prerna asked.

“Aarti just used Rajat. She contacted him whenever she needed money. She didn’t want anything to do with him otherwise.”

“Did they meet very often? Rajat and the kids?” I don’t know why Prerna was harping upon their relationship.

“Not if they could help it. In return for child support that Rajat was paying, Krupa let him meet the kids once a month. But once Dhruv became an adult, he refused to meet him.”

“Ms Sharma,” I decided to change the topic “When was the last time you saw Rajat Sinha?”

“About ten days ago.” She too looked glad to be off the topic of Dhruv and Aarti. “We went out for dinner.” After a pause, she continued, “But something strange happened there. Rajat got a call from someone, and he left. He said it was an emergency. He didn't call me after that.”

“And you didn’t get worried?” I found it strange that nobody had reported him missing.

“Well.. No. I thought it was a business emergency. I mean, i called him a couple of times but it went unanswered. It was normal for Rajat to be out of touch for ten fifteen days.”

Everybody we had spoken to so far had last seen Rajat Sinha ten days ago. A sudden thought occurred to me. “How did Mr. Sinha pay that night?”

“His card.”

“Ms. Sharma, when we found Mr. Sinha, we found nothing on him. No cell phone, no wallet, no cards. Is it possible, that he could have left it here?”

“No..” She was growing impatient with our questioning. “I told you, I haven’t seen him for ten days. He had his cell phone on him that night and he left after that.”  

I nodded. “Can you give us his number? We’ll check with the service provider.”

I dialed the number Smruti was calling and pressed the call button to save the number. Before I could cancel the call, a phone started ringing inside the house. 

Smruti looked stunned. "That's Rajat's ringtone!"

We followed the sound and found the phone in the store room. The phone was, covered in crusted blood.

Whodunit - Chapter 13 - Meeting the Mistress

I tried to comprehend what Shammi was telling me. He was suggesting that Rajat Sinha had driven to the church himself. Which implied that he was meeting someone there. Someone he probably knew..

I decided to pay Smruti Sharma a visit. It seemed to me that the only person Rajat Sinha would want to meet in an isolated place would be his mistress.

 Prerna offered to drop me to her place.

“Why don’t you come with me?” I wasn’t too good at handling women who were emotionally upset and I had seen Prerna control the agitated woman earlier on.

“I can’t,” She said apologetically. “Have a lot of work to do.”

I nodded and stared out of the window when Prerna spoke again.

“Is Shammi going to join you?” She tried to ask casually. I looked away, suppressing a smile.

“Yes, he is.” I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text message to Shammi, asking him to meet me near Smruti Sharma’s residence.

“I can spare an hour.” Prerna smiled to herself.

I nodded. I felt great, like cupid..

Shammi was already waiting for us when we got there. I stepped out of the car and approached him.

“Great work with the witness.” I said warmly. I knew this was Shammi’s first murder case. I wanted to be supportive.

Shammi beamed at me, “I know you told me to meet the detective, but I thought this was more important… The detective ..” His voice trailed off. He was staring right past me. I turned around.

Prerna was walking towards us. She looked a little different. She had retouched her makeup!

Prerna saw me smile and looked at me nervously. I shook my head slightly. She relaxed. She understood that even though I knew what was going on, I was not going to comment on it.

Prerna and Shammi faced each other and smiled shyly. I rolled my eyes, exasperated.

“Let’s go you two!” I had no problems helping out with their blossoming romance, but I wasn’t going to wait around when there was work to be done.

Smruti Sharma lived in luxury apartments in a very posh area of the city. I had checked up on her on our way here. Smruti Sharma was a school teacher. She made a decent enough living but not the kind which would allow her to afford that flat.

If Rajat Sinha had bought a flat for this girl in this locality, she was not some passing fancy. Their affair was serious.

 

Prerna rang the bell.

Smruti answered after a while. She saw me and her face creased into a smile.

“You came after all.. Come in.”

The apartment was decorated tastefully. The walls were adorned with pictures of Smruti Sharma’s past. You can tell a lot from someone’s photographs. Like looking at the pictures I could tell Smruti had a comfortable childhood. Her clothes seemed clean and ironed, her hair always brushed. I could also tell she was particularly close to her sister, more than half of the pictures had her in it.

“So who told you about Mr. Sinha’s murder?” I asked scanning through the pictures.

“It’s her Tara, his wife.” She replied simply.

“Didn’t look like that.. She didn’t seem too happy to see you there.” I struggled to understand why Mrs. Sinha would want to inform Rajat’s mistress.

Smruti smiled, “How little you know about her. She told her maid servant. I used to pay her maid servant to give me news about her. You know, things like when she goes out, when she comes back. So that Rajat knows when it’s safe for him to go back. So she fed her servant with some information.”

“But why tell you about his murder?”

“Inspector! Who do you think called the press?? In tomorrow’s paper’s you will have a weeping widow and an angry mistress. Who would you root for?”

“So she called you and the press to create a scene?” I said incredulously.

“She hates me. She hates me even more now that she knew Rajat was going to change his will!”

My ears pricked.. Did she say Rajat Sinha was planning to change his will?? The word motive flashed in front of my eyes.