A Murder Mystery

[rajnish manga]

I stay with my uncle’s family here in Bangalore and studying engineering”.

She felt proud and happily said, “I am the first person to study engineering in my entire family”.

He awed her and said, “Excellent, I appreciate your effort to have come this far and all the best of your future”.

“Now, it is your turn. Please share your family details”, she leaned a bit towards his chair to listen care-fully.

He smiled and said, “My father is a retired military cornel and my mom is a wonderful home maker. We stay in Yaswant Pura … I had an elder brother, he was also a police officer but he passed away in a naxalite attack.”

She observed his shaky voice, understood the pain and emotions when he mentioned about his brother’s death. She didn’t expect a Police officer to be so frank about his feeling and sharing it with a person he met only few times, but still even she couldn’t bare his pain and she knew death may end life but not the feelings and memories that one felt for another.

“You know, I have never spoken to any police officer before. You are the first”, she deliberately tried to divert the topic.

He chuckled and said, “Yes, it’s the same here. I have never spoken with any girl this much”.

“What? Don’t tell me lies… a handsome guy like you should be having many girlfriends?” she had thrown a stone in dark.

He blushed hearing “handsome guy….”, and caught off guard when she knew that he felt shy about her comments.
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[rajnish manga]

“I had been busy with my work and have strived hard to get to the position where I am now and earning a good name is hard these days… It’s hard being an honest cop! … So, I missed the opportunity to engage with girlfriends and do parties… also not impressed by anyone till a few days before …” saying that he left the sentence unfinished and left it to induce her curiosity.

But she was more careful than he had thought and so she flooded him with questions and asked “how did you become a police officer? I hope you won’t mind to tell me”.

“It’s my pleasure to tell you. When my brother passed away it was a big shock to my family. After that incident, my mother forced me to do either engineering or medicine she didn’t want to lose me like my brother at such a young age… Since childhood, my father and brother inspired me in lot of ways and I respected them for what they are and what they have become and what they did to serve the people… Though my mother refused, my father encouraged me a lot and convinced my mother and …” he stopped and smiled at her trying to guess her expression.

“Great!!!” he thought as she is not giving away anything from her expression. She is difficult to read.

“Was I boring you with my auto-biography?”

“No way it’s so awesome to hear, please continue”, her voice seemed firm.

“I respect this job and more than anything I love what am doing. It presents so many challenges and I love solving it… Even my mother wanted me to become software engineer with its 5 to 6 figure salary… I have wondered if anyone of them dreamed becoming a software engineer or just joined the job for its salary and status symbol”, he said.
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[rajnish manga]

“It is very nice to know about you. I wish that I am bit determined like you are”, she said.

He had opened up to her more than he never had to anyone in his life. “This is not correct”, He chided himself.

“OK, Abhignya, I’ve to go now. I think, you will get dis-charged after some time, take care”, he said and was ready to leave the room.
She got up from her bed and said, “Once again thank you very much for your help. Sometime later when you free please come home, I will introduce you to my uncle. He is fond of police officers”.

“Sure, I’ll come. Bye”, he almost asked her phone number but controlled himself and left her room.

“What is happening to me? Why I need her phone number? I should keep myself busy, otherwise, I’m getting distracted” he mumbled himself.
He knew that these feelings have become usual when she is around or when he thought about her.

He thought, “I don’t have the control but the heart of mine wants to control that which doesn’t belong. It’s just that the feeling of wanting to have everything to oneself.”

He looked at the watch after coming-out of the hospital, and said “Great!!!”

It was almost evening and it would be too late to attend the shop opening, so he decided to go to station.
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[rajnish manga]

On entering the police station, Vijay saw Sunil and Veeraya in a serious discussion.

Sunil informed him that the function went well and managed when CI enquired about Vijay.

Through the corner of his eye Vijay was able to notice the excitement of Sunil and he knew what was coming next.

Sunil asked, “How is madam sir?”.

He said, “She is fine”

He avoided Sunil’s over enthusiastic question by saying, “Can you bring Meghana’s case file”

He said “Ok, sir”, and handed-over the file to him.

Vijay noticed Sunil’s disappointed and just smiled to himself. He informed Veeraya and Sunil that he is leaving early to home with the file. Vijay’s mother was surprised to see him as he rarely comes home early. He changed to casual clothes and went to his room with the file.
He began to inspect the details of the case. He took a pen and wrote down the events.

Friday 11:30 PM – She Left the pub

Around 12:00 AM – She took the parcel

Around 12:30 AM – she dropped her friend

Around 12:40 AM – She met Vikas

Around 1:30 AM – She reached her home

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[rajnish manga]

“As per Vikas, he had put an Arsenic poison in raitha that was packed along with the main parcel. Arsenic is a rat poison; the same thing was mentioned in the autopsy report, so it deduces that Vikas was the murderer… But my heart was saying, he was not a criminal……….what I’m missing here”, Vijay went into deep thinking.

He took the autopsy report to verify the details again. While going-through the report… suddenly a thought sparked in his mind. He took the case file and opened the page where the crime scene photos were attached. He closely verified those photos and then he smirked … because he got a proof to say Vikas didn’t kill her.

The next morning, he went straight to Vikas and asked,”How did you kill her”?

Vikas was clearly annoyed by the question and simply said,” How many times do I have to tell? … I killed her with rat poison, that’s it”, he exclaimed.

“No, you didn’t”, Vijay yelled at top voice.

“Are you crazy? I’m confessing myself, how can you say that I didn’t kill her? I don’t want anybody’s sympathy here. “, Vikas grumbled.

“Ok, here is the fact. That night Meghana didn’t eat the parcel food at all. She ate some other poisoned food, which caused her death. We didn’t know exactly what was that? But we would find that”, Vijay said.

Vikas was gazing at him unbelievably.

“No… no… you are lying… I’m the murderer… I’m the murderer … don’t try to save me”, he shouted.

“Vikas… calm down…, don’t behave like a surd. Here are the photos that we took that night. You can see in these photos that she didn’t even open her parcel. And here is the autopsy report which shows that there are no traces of the parcel food. She indeed ate some other poison food”, Vijay finished it in a soothing voice.
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He continued after some time – “What are trying to achieve by confessing that you killed her… you are actually making the killer to escape and make him do some more crimes. If she is alive, she would never have appreciated this.”

Vikas eyes become moist… he clenched his face with his hands and sat on the floor.

He cried a lot then said, “I tortured her, I harassed her. I know she might have spent many sleepless nights because of me. I never thought about that when she was alive, now I am realizing.

How cruelly I behaved. When she is no more, I don’t have right to live, I should also die. But please don’t leave me… kill me…kill me…” he fell on the floor.

Vijay tried to comfort him for some time then he called his parents and sent him with them. Later he called the CI and told him that Vikas didn’t kill her, so he would continue the investigation to find the true murderer.

“Now the case has come where it started, who is the murderer?” Vijay was thinking.

“What should we do now Sir?” Sunil asked with disappointment in his voice.

Vijay smiled and said, “There are several unanswered questions here Sunil, first, she ate some poisoned food that caused her death. However, that was not part of the parcel that she bought that night. But where did it come from? Why she ate that food instead of the parcel that she bought? Had someone given that food to her? If that would be the case, how come she ate it? The person might be a well-wisher or close friend of her, whom she believed blindly. It is really hard to predict who that was”, Vijay sighed.
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“Hmmmm…. So many unanswered questions and I need to find the murderer soon before he strikes again!”, Vijay thought.

“I have not investigated her past yet. Need to concentrate on that”, Vijay muttered.

“We have to find more about Meghana’s past life, I vaguely remember that her colleague in InfoMind said that she had joined the company two years back, we don’t know about her previous workplace. If we can find those details, we may find few clues”, he said.

Sunil always wanted to prove his intelligence and wanted to do investigation without any help from Vijay.

So, he said, “Sir please gives me a chance to investigate and provide the details”.

Vijay said, “Alright Sunil, you can go ahead and any information or clue just give me a call immediately”

“And we have two more things to do, 1) Get her cellphone call log and sms details for past ten days until the day she was murdered. 2) Visit her PG room one more time to see if we can find anything”, Vijay said and instructed two constables to get her cellphone details and report him ASAP.

Vijay went to PG to inspect it and he was standing before it. This time no corpse and no crowd surrounding the building. Everyone had forgotten what had happened and they continued on with their life.

He thought, “Sometimes something’s happens without our control… we can’t do anything about it… but time will heal all the hurts and wounds”…
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[rajnish manga]

Thinking so he went to her PG room to inspect it. Her room was left unoccupied as per his instructions. He opened the room door and entered inside. There was a body shape mark on the floor to indicate that her body was lying there before. He went further inside and started observing the premises carefully. His team had searched the room thoroughly and taken few items, whatever they felt was useful for the investigation, so it was almost hopeless to search again. But his instinct told that there was something left unnoticed in that room.
There was no separate bedroom as everything was arranged in single spacious hall. He went close to TV stand; he thought there was something wrong with the way the LCD TV was arranged. He lifted the TV up, and he noticed a small paper sticking on the bottom of the TV. He removed it and put the TV back. He found that there was a nude drawing on paper. When he closely observed it, he surprised as it was Meghana’s picture. There was a note on the bottom saying, “WITH LOVE”. He kept that paper in his pocket and spent some more time and left the room after that.

From there he directly went to his home. He had no clue about who might have drawn that picture, but he decided to keep it safe as it might come handy later.

He slipped into sleep thinking about it. He got a dream; it was his wedding reception with Abhignya…

Meghana attended the reception; but she was naked, whereas all attendees were properly dressed. She was standing far from him and was talking with someone. He didn’t recognize the person with whom she was talking. He wanted to see him closely, so he walked towards that person. Abhignya and his mother were opposing and pulling him back. But he didn’t listen; he went and pulled that person towards him. It was Vijay’s father; He was stunned seeing him …
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[rajnish manga]

He suddenly woke up from sleep… his whole body was sweating and his head was aching from the startled dream … it took some time for him to realize that it was just a dream. He had no idea why he got a dream like that.

Why was his father talking to her? And why she was nude? Did my father know her? And why was she in his wedding reception.

He finished his daily routines and sat on a chair and began reading newspaper. His father came after finishing his usual morning jog and wished him good morning. For a second, he felt like discussing his dream with him, but he didn’t.

“Did you sleep well? You don’t look fresh and fit for the day?” he asked Vijay by looking at him. Though he asked casually, it sounded as like a military command to depict the fact that he worked in military.

“I had bad dreams. That’s it”, Vijay smiled.

“How is your work? I read that you are investigating a murder case, so how is it going?” He asked while sipping his filter coffee.

“No much progress. We are still investigating the case”, Vijay sighed.

“I didn’t remember the victim's name. Who was it? “, he asked by putting his coffee cup on the table and ready to take the newspaper on this hand.

“Her name is Meghana”, Vijay said.
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[rajnish manga]

“Meghana”, he mumbled the name, “What is her full name?”, he put the paper on the table as he dismissed the idea of reading it.
“Pagadala Meghana Naidu”, Vijay said by looking at his father carefully.

“Pagadala Meghana”, he again mumbled the name. Vijay grasped some change in his face after hearing her full name.

“What is it dad? Do you know her by any chance?” he asked.

“No..No… It sounded familiar, that’s it. Ok carry on”.

It’s his way of saying that the meeting is over and end of conversation.

Vijay didn’t understand why he had reacted that way after hearing name.

“Is dad trying to hide something from me?”, Vijay thought.

Later he got ready and hurried to the police station as it was late and he needs to read the reports that were awaiting for him.

Reports regarding Meghana’s call details were ready and he started checking it. Constables said they mapped the numbers with the names by checking her cell-phone. He looked at the last page where the call and sms details were given on her last day.

He opened the book where he had noted down the sequence of the events earlier and started inserting the call details with the names from whom she got call or sms.
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