August Nightmares #5
After coming out of the investigation room, I was talking with Jeff about the details as we recorded all the notes into his phone.
“SIR!” Faiyaaz was running towards us with his side bag with his iPad grasped in his hand.
“Sangeet?” Jeff looked at me while I signaled him to go into the office which was next to the Investigation room. We went inside as he was connecting the iPad to the inspector’s computer.
Inspector Ramasamy — “Please have a seat, detectives. You too, Faiyaaz!” and he looked at the other two policemen inside the room and said, “Folks! Take a 30 minutes break. We have a pretty private thing to discuss.”
I kept my phone on the table while I asked — ‘Faiyaaz..! We may have a breakthrough from our investigation. Deephi..’
Faiyaaz abruptly interrupted — “Sir! I think I may have to be briefed about the entirety of this case. I don’t know what happened today. I may be wrong but on looking at the case files, I was a bit confused. Then I understood the actual connection between the victim and her accused wife.”
Jeff — “Are you really sure that Deephika is the murderer of Kabini?”
Ramasamy — “Mr. Wilson. Please allow me to explain the investigation outcome” and he explained the whole case to Faiyaaz.
And Ramasamy continued — “Faiyaaz! What we had in our investigation here is with Deephika and Revathi — the neighborhood woman who claims that Deephika’s car never left their house.”
I barged in with a question — ‘She has gone on many bike trips. What if she had gone in a motorcycle and lied to us in the first place that she was in her car and wanted to maintain the same thing till now, so she isn’t being framed for the wrong reason.’
Faiyaaz stood up and explained while turning the monitor towards the 3 of us.
“Sangeet sir! I remembered Kabini’s Interior designing story earlier at our lab. But I already felt a bit odd about the details of that story. But before that, we need to gather prints from Mr. and Mrs. Pravin as well. They should be well aware of this because as per the story, Kabini had met them before reaching the home on the day they were murdered.”
Jeff — “Well, Kabini always preferred SHE/HER”
Faiyaaz — “Thank you Mr. Wilson! ..on the day, she was murdered. I ran some tests on the knife for foreign particles. In fact, there’s more than prints.” and he swiped right for a graphical report.
I read out the points in the image — ‘Silicon oils, PVA resins.. Wait! Those are acrylic paint ingredients. What are you saying Faiyaaz?’
Faiyaaz — “The killer is a painter! Not only a chef if that’s Deephika. But then, my intention was not just the knife. But the whiskey glass. As per your report, Deephika was not working because her hotel was closed due to the I-T raid. And game recognizes game. As an artist myself, I started digging into social media for some artworks done by either of these people. I happened to come across Kabini’s amazing work in her Instagram profile — ‘Kaydraws’ where she posts only that.”
I began to connect several dots inside my head that are now leading to nowhere and I questioned Faiyaaz — ‘So, you’re saying that Kabini killed herself? The reports clearly say that she stopped breathing a few seconds before she was stabbed.’
Faiyaaz — “That’s out of the question, sir! Artists are dedicated to their line of work and never get drunk before work. Maybe afterward, they do. This is why the same chemicals from the knife handle match the whiskey glass. Which means Kabini was drunk before she died.”
Inspector Ramasamy — “Okay, let’s go the other way. Did you test the glass prints for Deephika’s? And if so, is there a drug test report of Deephika with you now? Wow! Now, I’d not be surprised even if Kabini is alive. And sorry for the dead joke, please proceed!”
Faiyaaz — “Well! This is where everything started to make no sense. The DNA from the person sitting in the next room is totally mismatching the reports provided by you, sir! So, I took blood samples, DNA tests and cross-verified them with a medical database. What I’m trying to say is… the person sitting in the Investigation room is the murderer. And all the stories that she has told until now are true except for one thing.”
He swiped right and there was a black question mark on a white background.
I covered my face and inhaled. Exhaled to ask — ‘What thing, Faiyaaz?’
He cleared his throat and looked at each of us briefly for a moment and asked — “And I don’t care what Revathi said. That’s some bullshit as per my reports. Okay, the thing is… she’s not Deephika. She’s an impostor” and my phone started ringing from a new number.
~to be continued
