by BS Murthy
"Thank you for being a considerate cop."
"M aybe you could've revealed more."
"How unfair to say that without giving any scope for that?" she said feigning to be offended.
"You're impossible; see you at ten in the morning."
While she waved at him amorously, perplexed at her audacity and perturbed by his attraction, he left her half-heartedly.
'Stabbed in the abdomen, as Ashok lay dead in the sofa, how it was that Dilip's medulla oblongata hit the edge of the chair opposite!' Dhruva began reviewing the murder scene on his way home. 'Won't the empty Bagpiper bottle, broken glasses and the scattered bhujiya indicate a drinking brawl, possibly over Mithya that led to their killing each other? But was it as simple as that? Was there M ithya's hidden hand behind all that? Why not take her finger prints?'
The next day as M ithya reached the mortuary, Dhruva obliged her to leave her finger prints, having which, he was lost in the elegance of her slender fingers that was not lost on her; pleased with herself she turned coquettish and said how she wished that he would let her put them for better use in time. Distracted though by her seductive ways, yet he was able to discern that her demeanor turned cold as she saw Dilip's body, and that she looked contemptuously at Ashok's corpse, which made him think that she had no love lost for either of them. M oreover, when he noticed the steadiness of her hand as she recorded her statement and the coolness in her face as she was all set to take
away Ashok's body in the ambulance, he felt that she had the nerve of a killer. When she told enticingly that she knew he would visit her again in vardi but he was welcome even in mufti, he was amazed as well as irritated by her audacity. While getting into her sedan that followed the ambulance as she winked at him invitingly, seeing in her a femme fatale of the first order, he waved her off wondering whether she was the murderess after all; and as if to chase his thoughts, leaving the chores of handling Dilip's body to Appa Rao his deputy, Dhruva headed straight to the forensic laboratory.
The post-mortem report confirmed the instantaneous deaths of both men and Mithya's fingerprints were found all over the place and that put Dhruva in the contemplative mode: 'Stabbed in the abdomen by Dilip if Ashok died instantaneously, how he could have pushed away Dilip with such a force that his medulla oblongata took the hit? Even assuming Ashok had extraordinary reflexes, still as he was pushed out, Dilip's grip on the knife would have ensured that it was pulled out of Ashok's frame, which was not the case. Were it possibly that M ithya murdered Dilip in cold blood after abetting him to stab Ashok to death? Was not the informer an anonymous woman! Was it all M ithya's handiwork?'
Soon after Ashok's obsequies were over, Dhruva called on M ithya at 9, Castle Hills.
"What brings you here man?" she greeted him heartily.
"Why can't you guess?"
"Where the need as your urgency shows?" she said winking at him.
"You are mistaken,” he said, hiding his embarrassment.
"Oh! I thought you are a game,” she said, feigning disappointment.
"You may know that custodial interrogation is a different ball game," he said assuming a grave demeanor.
"Then you have to go to hell to interrogate both of them?” she said smilingly and ushering him into her house.
"Not a bad idea if a femme fatale can lead me there."
"If you think I'm one, I would lead you to heaven instead," she said enticingly.
"Tempting though...,”
"What's the hesitation?" she said moving closer.
"Thanks to your finger prints on the murder weapon, I may be forced to lead you elsewhere," he said dramatically taking her hand.
"What a discovery!" she said without taking her hand out of his. "Why, it was I who prepared the salad besides mixing drinks for Dilip and me. Wonder how you had missed my finger prints on the Bagpiper bottle and those two glasses.”
"Where went the third glass?" he said releasing her hand.
"I haven't heard of two drinking out of three glasses, have you?"
"But Ashok's viscera showed that he too drank."
"Don't you see that scoring for me?" she said triumphantly. "Won't that prove that they brawled themselves to death after drinking to the dregs."
"When Ashok died readily, who could've killed Dilip?” he said with a probing look.
"I know Ashok has quick reflexes," she said with a poker face, "possibly he might've pushed away Dilip before he died."
"Why wouldn't have Dilip pulled out the knife when pushed?"
"It's puzzling isn't it?" she said smilingly.
"What if someone was there to ensure that both died?"
"Eminently possible, but don't you think it's too thin a thread to hang me with?" she said mockingly.
"Could the criminal and the informer be the same?"
"We could discuss all that and more if you stay on for dinner," she said invitingly, taking his hand.
"Not now, maybe some other time," he said making a move.
"You may know that you're always welcome," she said pressing his hand.
"Looks like you're a tough nut to crack," he said pressing her hand.
"Oh!' she feigned pain.
"I'm sorry,” he said releasing her hand.
"Isn't it precious to hold," she said extending her hand enticingly.
"That's what is disturbing,” he said waving her goodbye.
"That's the charm of life," she said, blowing a kiss at him.
Bowled though by her charms as her daredevilry affronted his professional ego, hellbent on pinning her down, he pored over the case for loopholes but to no avail, he thought that he should play ball with her in her own court.
That evening when Dhruva in mufti reached 9, Castle Hills, M ithya in light pink voile sari, was in the lawns with Dicey her new acquisition, and having greeted him heartily, she warmly led him into the drawing room only to flirt with him openly. Soon, as they had a binge of booze sitting together in that wide sofa, finding her at her evocative best, he realized how vulnerable he was to her peculiar persona. But as he remained tentative, teasing him at his unease, before cozying up to him by drawing closer to him, she revealed her riveting allures by degrees, and unable to resist her charms, as he conceded his erotic ground to her, she induced him to lay the foundations for an amorous edifice through necking and petting.
When she proposed dinner to let them satiate their palates as a prelude to satiating their personas, following her to the dining table, as he took to bottom pinching, she said coyly that she wouldn't be granting him an out-of-turn favor. Saying that he would wait for its turn, yet as he busied himself at her bottom, she said that he could have his way both ways but as per protocol. After a hearty meal followed by pan, she led her into the lawn to let him puff away at his cigar as she enjoyed its aroma, and as he stubbed the butt, hugging him ardently and reaching for his lips, she kissed him fervently, inducing in him the urge to surge in. Leading him indoors, she stripped him in the drawing room and pulled him into the bedroom only to push him onto her sprawling mahogany bed for their erotic exertions.
When they lay there in satisfaction, she opened her mind to him.
"I know what brought you into my bed and as quid pro quo, I'll satisfy your curiosity,” she said coyly. "It was Dilip's idea to undo Ashok and I went along with it, not to acquire a rich widow tag, but to avoid the divorcee brand. With inputs from Dilip, I worked out a plan to slow-poison Ashok, as and when he embarked on a journey by train and as I was all set, it dawned on me that in all suspicious deaths, the spouse would readily come under the scanner, so I realized that to save my skin, I should get rid of Dilip as well. M oreover, eager to step into Ashok's shoes, Dilip was getting too big for his boots, and to give a spin to Ashok's death, before arranging that fateful meeting to untangle the
love triangle, I booked a berth for him on the Godavari Express. The rest as you know is mystery."
"Isn't it a loss to the crime history?"
"Why not we toge
ther create history," she said invitingly. "It's my curiosity to measure up the cop who would turn up that made me appraise you on the sly; even as your looks surged my sexual passion, your manner induced a sense of belonging in me. Believe me; my urge to make a new beginning with you fuelled my desire to be freed of both of them even more; that way, my man, you are an abettor of the crime yourself. Whatever, breathing down my neck, you've charmed me with your mind as well, and now with your lovemaking, you've increased my craving for being your woman. You know, all this is for your ears only and not for my trial for sure; try acting funny and you stand accused - of torture and rape, why haven't you left enough evidence behind - on both counts."
"What to make of you?" he said in exasperated admiration.
"Yours if you please," she winked at him.
"What if you are let loose," he said contemplatively.
"Why not enslave me," she said as he got into the mufti in the drawing room.
"That's resisting the irresistible."
"If you can ignore my past, I won't let you regret making me your wife," she said pleadingly taking him in her embrace. "It's my promise."
"I know your value to my life but let me think it over,” he said disarmingly.
"Won't you come tomorrow?" she said reaching for his lips.
"You haven't left me yet," he said reaching for his dress after she released him
"Let this be my keepsake of our first-time," she said, pulling out the tape recorder from his pocket.
"Oh, you are impossible!" he said taking her into his arms.
We became man and wife, and hope we will live happily ever after."
Amazed at what she read, Radha thought that M ithya could have been a temptress in the Cleopatra mold and wondered what would have happened had she poisoned her men.
Chapter 16 Kavya's Quagmire
When Radha took Dhruva to cloud nine, as if to bring him back to mundane world, Dicey fell seriously ill; though he felt gratified to see her tending the pet like her own child, when it succumbed to the mysterious ailment in a week's time, he was truly downcast. While it took him quite a while to recover from his loss, courtesy Natya, Radha coverd much of Pravar's crime ground into which Kavya had ventured.
After she got him bail, Kavya was wont to spend long hours with Pravar to prepare his defense. While he was charmed by her suaveness, she was sympathetic to his rustic ways, and believed that by putting up with him, she was only atoning herself for Ranjit's foul on him. While Natya was all empathy for Kavya, for her sympathy for them, their proximity that exposed Kavya's allure to him made Pravar fantasize about the mature woman, and it was only time before he turned obsessive of possessing her, by means fair or foul. What with her empathy for him blinding her vision, Kavya mistook his
advances as manifestations of his exaggerated gratitude for her, and Natya, though quick to sense his intentions, yet failed to caution her, for the fear of losing her support, all the while pleading with him not to scandalize their benefactor. Yet he wanted her to pander to Kavya, and as she refused, he threatened to end his life, which made Natya see the merit in the adage of 'yielding to the temptation as a way of avoiding it'. Reckoning that he would get over his passion for her rival only in her possession, Natya became his accomplice to drag Kavya into his bed.
Pravar faked suicide, ostensibly to save their benefactor from his passion for her, and Natya played upon Kavya's sympathy for him to try to woo her into his arms but Kavya, disturbed at the development and embarrassed to the core, was at a loss to know how to handle her unrequited love. Were she to shun him altogether, it would amount to her rescinding his vakalat, and with Shakeel braying for his blood, wouldn't that mean throwing him to the wolves? Why abandon him after all the hard work and on the verge of success? So she thought that she would put sense into his deranged head that it was not proper to covet a woman old enough to be his elder sister. While she strived to put sense into his head to put an end the nonsense, he reiterated his resolve to end his life if she were to fail to cater to his passion that was killing him any way.
Kavya saw no way out to save her honor but by cold-shouldering him in the hope that he would get over his obsession for her, and so kept away from him but no sooner, her unrelenting lover faked suicide yet again, she was thrown into a dilemma - if she gave in to him, she would be unfaithful to Ranjit, but should Pravar take the plunge, she would be the cause of his fall. What with her empathy for Pravar tilting the scales in the end, she could hold no more, and as he began to overwhelm her with all his passion, she felt as if her life was under siege in their liaison. Soon as Pravar tended to ignore Natya, Kavya insisted parity to make it an equitable love triangle, but with his ardency for her ever on the raise, he began pestering her to leave Ranjit to make it a menage a trois for them.
While Dhruva blamed himself for Kavya's fall, as Radha felt the way to rescue her was to nab Pravar, he said that he would talk to Shakeel to lay a trap for him from which even Kavya would not be able to extricate him. Even as he reached for his mobile, Raju went up to them to tell that Shakeel, by then shifted to the Jubilee Hills police station, had come to see him.
When Dhruva, in tow with Radha, entered the study, Shakeel said that around six in the evening as Kavya informed him over phone that Ranjit lay dead in the master bedroom, he himself had rushed to Spandan to take stock of the situation. Kavya told him that Ranjit had left for his office at ten and, as was her wont, she too went out after lunch, but on her return, finding him dead in his bed in the master bedroom she felt it could be a cold-blooded murder. But he saw there was nothing amiss in the house and there were no injuries on the body, all of which pointed out to a possible heart attack, yet he had moved the body for post-mortem, and sounded his informers to pick up the grapevine.
While Dhruva became pensive, Radha said she knew it was coming; didn't Natya tell her that Pravar was hell-bent to have Kavya all for himself? Surely, Pravar, adept in the art of poisoning, would have done in Ranjit to gain Kavya's undivided affections. Dhruva told her not to jump the gun, as he could have committed suicide, unable to bear the ignominy of being a cuckold, and for that matter, he might have died of heart attack, stressed as he was by his wife's infidelity. But as Radha insisted that it could have been Pravar's way of grabbing Kavya and her property as well, Dhruva maintained that time only would tell whether there was a foul play and they better waited for the postmortem report.
Next evening, Shakeel came to tell Dhruva that the post-mortem report attributed the death to poisoning and that Kavya got an anticipatory bail for herself making him wonder whether she had a hand in the murder. Dhruva though thought that she was no fool to soil her hands with her husband's blood, as it won't be beyond her to know that she would be the prime suspect, given that she was having a paramour to boot. Radha maintained that it was apparent that Pravar, keeping Kavya in the dark, would have poisoned Ranjit, and it made sense to apprehend him forthwith for extracting his confession and be done with it.
Then Shakeel, as if as an afterthought, said that of late, whenever Kavya was away, a burka-clad woman was being seen visiting Ranjit, which made Dhruva say whether it was a woman in burka or women in burka. Shakeel said that he thought as much, but the neighbors were certain that it was only one woman that Ranjit was receiving for some time then. Radha said what if the woman in burka was Natya, Pravar's red herring to mislead the police; and Shakeel too felt that it was not a bad line of investigation. Dhruva though cautioned Shakeel not to oversimplify matters but wide-scan Ranjit's present and deep-delve into his past as his death by poisoning that pointed towards Pravar's hand raised the possibility of a hidden hand behind his murder.
Shakeel said that the foolhardiness of the criminal impulse always puzzled him but Dhruva reasoned that while the calling of the crime clouds reason, panic of the moment deserts caution, to let the culprits leave a damning clue for the law to catch up with them. What one would say about the credulity of a cuckold, who would have thrown caution to th
e winds by indulging in a drinking binge with his wife's paramour? Can any explain the stupidity of a philanderer who walks into the death trap laid for him by the man he has been cuckolding? How such dig their own graves!
While Shakeel wanted Dhruva to make it to crime scene along with him, Dhruva felt that his premature association would jeopardize their further involvement in it. While the cop saw merit in what the detective had said, as Radha insisted that their trip to Spandan might yield the keys to Pravar's tricks, Dhruva said that they better stayed on the sidelines as Shakeel kept the course. But after seeing Shakeel's back, as Radha wondered whether the cop was equal to the task, Dhruva hoped that by dawn, they might see the case in some fresh light; there could be something more than that met the eye.
Chapter 17 Murders to Mislead
After Radha left Castle Hills to meet Natya, as Dhruva was wondering how Ranjit's death might have affected Kavya's relationship with Pravar, Raju informed him that a woman came to see him; irritated though about the intrusion into his reverie, he, nevertheless, headed towards the anteroom.
Seeing Kavya seated therein, even he was immobilized at the threshold, struck by his enamored demeanor, she stuck to her seat. When he walked up to her, as if out of trance, waking up to the reality, she got up in greeting, and as he gesticulated to be seated, she reposted herself languidly. Sensing though the import of her visit and the possibilities it portended, yet he acquired a questioning look, and pulling out his call letter from her purse, she held it out to him.
Perusing it as a ruse to hide his excitement, he told her in the end that the job was hers for the asking, but she said that the purpose of her visit was to seek his assistance and not to assist him. While he feigned ignorance, outlining the circumstances that had brought her there, she sought his help in unraveling the mystery of her husband's death.
He wanted to know if she had any suspect in mind, she said that if it were so, instead of comingto 9, Castle Hills, she would have gone to thejubilee Hills police station. Bowled by her sense of humor, he said that he wished he had half her wit, and thanking him for the compliment, she returned it by adding that she knew he had enough of it to outwit Ranjit's killer.