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Yay! I think most of you enjoyed Whodunit.. Though I must admit, it wasn't easy to write it. Made me think a lot.. 
I'm at a loss as to what write next.. Right now I'm toying with a college story or some mush-stuff (It's the weather I tell you).
What do you think I should write next? Poll's on the right as usual.. :)
Any other suggestions are welcome.


New story begins Sunday.. 

Whodunit - Chapter 26 - The End

I hung up and walked to the holding cell. I saw Aarti and Krupa sitting in the waiting room. I let them be. I would need Aarti later, but for now, I wanted to focus on Shvetank and Dhruv. Could they be in it together? I asked myself. I pushed the thought out of my head almost immediately. That didn’t make any sense.

Dhruv was pacing impatiently.

“You can go now.” I held the door open for him.

“My alibi checked out, didn’t it? I told you, I was at the club.” He picked up his jacket and started walking out.

“How’d you come?”

“My bike. Why?”

“Do your friends borrow your bike sometimes?”

“No.. Why?” His wariness was back.

“Would you be able to explain why your bike was seen speeding up the mountains, the day your father died?” He looked stumped.

“My bike? Surely, there must be some mistake. I didn’t even take my bike that day. I knew I was going to drink. I left it at home.”

“Anybody else in your family knows how to ride your bike?”

“Inspector, if you are suggesting that my mom or my sister had anything to with Rajat’s murder you are crazy!!”

“You haven’t answered my question.” I said calmly.

“Yes! But the bike was there at home when I got up the next morning!” I smiled. Things were beginning to make sense. I just needed to ask a couple of questions to Shvetank.

I walked out with Dhruv. Krupa and Aarti were gone.

What I had to ask Shvetank didn’t take much time. What he said froze my blood. I sprinted out of the room as fast as I could.

I called Shammi and told him to meet me as soon as possible in Smruti’s place.

I called Prerna and prayed that she was safe. I called a million times but she didn’t answer. I could only hope that I wasn’t too late.

I reached Smruti’s apartment. I could see Prerna’s car parked outside and saw Shammi race up the stairs. I followed suite.

We opened the door, careful not to make a sound. We both pulled out our revolvers and started to move around the house silently when we heard a loud crash and then Prerna’s voice.

“You!!! What are you….. No!!!”

Shammi ran like a possessed man. He saw a hooded figure looming over Prerna’s petite frame with one hand clutching a heavy metal rod raised. The floor was littered with clothes.

A shot was fired and the hooded figure collapsed to the floor.

Shammi rushed towards Prerna and I ran towards the fallen figure. I didn’t need to remove the hood. I put her hands behind her back and handcuffed her.

“Aarti Mitwe.” I said “You’re under arrest for the murder of Rajat Sinha and for the attempted assault on Prerna Batra.”

I put her in the back seat. Shammi and Prerna would follow in her car.

“How’d you know it was me?” She had finished crying.

“You were very smart Aarti. Very smart. Almost had me fooled. And that blaming Shvetank act. Brilliant.” I said scornfully.

She didn’t say anything. Just looked out of the window.

“How did he know, that you were at the church?” I asked. Some pieces of the puzzle still did not fit.

“He followed me, obviously. He always liked to keep an eye on where I was, what I was doing.”

“You were trying to hide?”

“Obviously. I had already smoked a joint. And he just made me so angry. So much money! And he always made me beg.”

“So you killed him.” It wasn’t a question.

“It wasn’t like that.” Her sobbing started again, “ I wasn’t in control. I wasn’t thinking straight. Shvetank didn’t even use enough chloroform to make Rajat unconscious. He grabbed my foot while I was going. I got so freaked, I just dabbed a lot of chloroform on my handkerchief and held it against his mouth while Shvetank went to see if my father had got anyone else.”

“But why did you go back?”

“By the time I was normal, I got worried. I thought, what if he gets hurt or something, so I went back. I took Dhruv’s bike and went. I put on his jacket so that anyone who saw me would think I’m a guy. ”

That would explain the animal hair on the wallet.

“But when I got there, his body..” She gulped. “His body was already cold. And then to make it look like a random attack, I picked up the knife which Shvetank had dropped while packing his stuff and stabbed him.” Tears were flowing down her cheeks. She wiped it against her shoulder, her hands firmly clasped in the handcuffs behind her back.

“Then when I came to the church, I saw his car. I left the bike there and drove back to Tara’s house, parked the car. I saw a bag lying in it. I opened it, and I found Smruti’s things in it. He was cheating on Tara too. First he cheated on my mum, now Tara. I picked up a t-shirt. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it then. ”

“I came back home, slept for a couple of hours when I remembered the bike. I had to get it back before Dhruv got up. I took the first bus which went up the mountain. I couldn’t resist taking a peek at him. I realized that he could be traced because of his cell phone. To avoid getting the blood on me, I covered him with the t-shirt before I started patting his pockets. I turned him over, to pull out the cell phone but I decided to take everything. His cash would come in handy. And then I left. I was going to dump all his stuff but then the investigation started and I panicked. I decided to dump everything at Smruti’s place while she was at the morgue. But she returned very quickly. I had a narrow escape.”

We had reached the station. I opened the door for her.

“But of course,” she said, “you have to prove all of that. Everything I said, will be counted as hearsay. You have no proof.” She smiled confidently.

I held out my cell phone. “Cell phones can record too. At least mine can.” I replayed her voice to her. She stared unbelievably. I wasn’t done yet.

“And I have this..” I held out a crumpled handkerchief which I had picked up from the floor in Smruti’s house. The thing for which Aarti had kept the house key, the thing for which Aarti had gone back to Smruti's house today, the thing for which Aarti was going to attack Prerna.
 “Yours isn’t it?” I smiled. “I’m sure when we run some tests on it, we’ll find Rajat’s saliva on it. That should be enough.”


 I saw the constables rushing towards my car.
“Take her inside. She’s going to be here for a long time.” 

I watched her leave with the head bowed down.

“How’d you know it was her?” Shammi and Prerna had reached minutes after we had.

“Got obvious after a while. Of course, if she’d had a little more time to plan it, she might have gotten away with it.” I turned as Aarti went out of sight.

“You okay Prerna?” I asked.

She smiled, “Yes, I’m okay.” I noticed she held on to Shammi’s arm.

“So let’s head back buddy, lots of paper work to be done.” I punched Shammi jokingly and nodded towards our trusty jeep.

Shammi cleared his throat. “You see.. Chetan.. We, I mean.. Prerna and I.. We..”

“We thought we’ll catch up over dinner..” Prerna finished the sentence for Shammi.

I smiled, “Great. Have fun you two.” I turned around and got into the jeep to start the long journey back to my sleepy little town.

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.”