Ray of good hope
4 years later.
Andrew was reading the previous day's newspaper, sitting in his office, sipping a cup of coffee. It was midnight. The building was silent, there were only two sentries for protection and they too were sleeping in standing posture. His phone ringed, piercing the silence of the midnight. Confused who is ringing at this hour, he looked at his phone's display. It was a private number.
"Andrew Sullivan speaking."
“Hello Mr. Andrew. This is Doctor Cruz, from good hope hospitals. We have met before, remember me?”
Doctor Cruz was a famous psychiatrist aged 55. He was the most expensive doctor in Chennai. He knew almost all the secrets of Tamil Film stars, as most of them gets depressed at a point of time and comes to him for counseling. Not only film stars, also famous business magnates, politicians come to him. And he was a close friend of Andrew’s father in law.
“Doctor Cruz!!What a surprise. How do you do doctor?”
“I am doing well, thanks. Can you come over to my hospital now? If you are free.”
“Any problem doctor?”
“Not a problem. But, I have someone who may interest you.”
“Would you mind telling me what is it about?”
“You remember the vampire case? Which was closed years back. I think I could give you a lead over that case.”
“I will start at once doctor.”
Andrew informed the sentries and left the station, in his bike. He had a Royal Enfield desert Storm, his wife’s gift. He loved riding it. While riding towards the good hope hospital, memories flashed in his mind about the vampire case.
It was his engagement day. He noticed a tension and nervousness in the inspector’s face who came to attend the function. Once the ceremony was over, he informed Andrew about the murder in ECR. Andrew left the hall at once, apologizing to his fiancée and her family. It was a harsh scene to see right after his engagement. The sight of a dead woman, pale and bitten by stray dogs, totally distorted his mood.
It was uncommon in a place like Chennai for such murders. But murders do happen once in a while, which become more popular among the media. People always love weird stuff. Andrew had seen so many crime scenes, but not anything like this one.
The next day he had a conversation with the doctor who did the post mortem.
“Did you find out anything doctor?”
“Yes Mr. Andrew, please sit down.” The doctor took a deep breath and continued. “The woman had been bitten in her neck and most of her blood had been sucked out, not all of her blood, but most of her blood. I can confirm they are human teeth marks. The murderer must be some psycho, for sure. There are no hand prints, you might have received the forensics report I hope. The body must have been lying there unnoticed at least for a week, we can say that from the state of decomposition. The rotting smell should have attracted the stray dogs.”
“Is there any signs of physical abuse?”
“No, there were no signs of rape. But, I can say one thing for sure. She must be having physical intercourse with different men. More like a prostitute.”
“How do you say that doctor?”
“It’s easy to differentiate the private parts of a normal woman and that of a slut…Pardon me, for my language.”
Andrew shrugged, “So she did not have any intercourse or any kind of abuse during the time of death. Am I right?”
“Yes you are.”
“All right…you mentioned that her blood had been sucked out right?”
“Yes...”
“How can a person drink blood? It’s very abnormal. You know there was no blood spill noticed around the scene. So the killer had sucked all the blood without spilling we assume. How strange is to drink raw human blood? What kind of mental illness does causes such act?”
“It is little difficult to explain. Normal people get repelled by blood smell…but certain people, you may have heard of drinking raw blood of hens or goats in temples…I am no specialist in psychiatry…but I have heard of mental illness which pushes the person to drink blood…we call it clinical vampirism…a psychiatrist may explain you more in detail…”
“Even I have heard…I did a case study of such vampire style murders…but nowhere I could find details of sucking blood out like this…”
“This is a little weird…The murderer used his teeth to pierce holes on her neck. You should note that there were only two teeth marks, that too with a gap of 50 mm in between. Can you guess what it means?”
“Yeah, I get it. He had sharp fangs, longer than other teeth.”
“Exactly. Then the murderer had sucked the blood out. The woman’s body was squeezed vigorously in an attempt to drain till the last drop of blood. That’s the reason why the corpse looked abnormally pale.”
“That’s so horrible. Is it possible to identify the person with the teeth marks?”
“Generally yes, but not in this case.”
“Why is that doctor?”
“The killer must have had artificial teeth. It is not common for a human to have long canine teeth like animals. So, the killer must have used some sharp artificial teeth, probably made of steel.”
“So there is possibility that the killer may have got rid of his artificial teeth after murder, making him untraceable....”
“Yes…Moreover, further traces were also destroyed by dog bites...”
“But Doctor…there should be something…some small detail…anything…which can give some clue about the killer…”
“The victim had a name tattooed in her right arm, “Sasha”. Might be someone close to her. However” Later it was found that Sasha is her sister, who died years back.
“I will keep in mind doctor.” Saying that, Andrew left the place.
After that, investigation was done in several perspectives but to no avail. The smuggler’s area in ECR was shut down and sealed. Several leads were traced, but no clue of the killer was found. And one fine day, the Inspector general summoned Andrew to his office. He informed that the chief minister needs to talk about the case. He was expecting the call by 10 AM.
The phone rang. The IG responded, wished the CM and continued. The phone was on loud speaker.
“Mr. Riyaz. It’s been almost a week since the ECR murder. As you know, media is giving too much importance to the case. So far you have not made any arrests. Who is in charge of the case?”
“Mr. Andrew Sullivan is investigating the case Madam.”
“Whatever. I need the case closed within 48 hours.”
“Yes madam. For sure madam.”
The phone clicked on the other side.
“Did you hear that Mr. Sullivan?”
“Yes Sir”
“Two days. That’s all you got. You may go now.”
Two days passed, but no clues evolved. The case was shifted to Andrew’s colleague, more of a rival. The new officer arrested many people who were in contact with the victim, but no one was proved to be guilty. He too failed to crack the case. After a month, the case was shifted to CBI and the aftermath is known to us. Security and patrolling was enhanced in ECR. Youths started avoiding the place.
Dirty Danny - The Bizarre Experiences of Andrew Sullivan - Case 2 Page 3