Let's End Your FEAR

Chapter 6

Inspector Sameer Rai had reached that point in life when you stopped hoping the next year would be better than the last, and just hoped that it wouldn't be as bad.

That's what happen when you hit middle age. Old people you loved got sick and died, young people you hated got promoted over you, the market crashed and took your retirement funds with it, and your body started to look like your father's did when you used to think you would never ever let yourself go like that.

If anyone told the five-year olds the truth of life, he thought, there'd be a rash of kindergarten suicides.

So far the job had gotten him through the worst of it. Even though his mom had been dying of Alzheimer's, even when his 401(k) had run off to Canada with his financial planner, the job had  been his refuge, the one part of his life where the line between good and evil was clean and sharp, where he knew exactly what to do.

Murder was evil. Catching murderers was good. Simple.

Or atleast it had been, before the secret. Now the line he had walked for his whole life was horribly blurred, he barely knew where to step. What he needed most was good , clear-cut case of senseless homicide that would perversely make sense of the world again, and at last, it looked like he had one.

"Rai, would you quit smiling? You're giving me the creeps."

He looked at his partner horrified.

"I was smiling??"

Rajan Sharma grinned at him, " Sort of. Not really, I mean your teeth weren't showing or anything. Besides, I know how you feel. After four months of nothing to do I almost went out and killed somebody myself. "

Rai closed his eyes, desperate to justify almost smiling in a bloody room where some poor soul had certainly died.

"It isn't that Rajan", he said sadly, and then looked away, because he couldn't say anything more.

Most of the carnage in Ashish Puri's house was in an otherwise pristine living room- specifically , on a once-ivory sofa that looked like it had spent a good deal of time on a slaughter house floor. Jimmy Shah, star crime scene tech of the Bureau walked in, took one look at the blood patterns in the sofa, and said

"That's an artery hit, guys. It should have dropped him. He was what? 52?

"Unless the old guy was the shooter," Sharma suggested. " Maybe it's somebody else's blood , and Puri's out there right now burying him in the woods."

"God, I love a mystery." Shah put his hand on his hips and looked around in white disposable coveralls and slippers.

Sameer Rai thought he looked a lot like the Michelin man.

"WOW, This is interesting."

"What is?" asked Rai but Jimmy was already lost in another world.

Suraj Thakkar, one of the patrol man who had secured the scene, approached the living room entrance and stopped.

"You guys remember how to do this, or do you need a little refresher course from the boys in the trenches?"

Rai looked over at him and grinned.
Suraj was the oldest officer on the force, a patrol by choice, he had trained more recruits than he could count. Rajan Sharma and Sameer Rai among them.

"This is our refresher course, old man," he cracked.

"Homicide Light- nobody. How the hell are you Suraj?"

"I was a whole lot better before the radio caught fire this morning. Damn near broke my heart to hear about Vivaan Singh."

Sharma's grin faded.

"That one's going to break a lot of hearts."

"Hell of a way to end a dry spell, losing a good man like that."

"Well, Your partner said you did the walk-through from the front, Suraj. That's right?"

"Yes. Tony covered the back. We started out looking for a shooter, ended up looking for a body. Still couldn't find one. "

Rai' s eyes were sweeping the room while Suraj talked, noticing the Little things, the high gloss on the hardwood floor, the framed magazines on the polished side table, the careful allignment of classics in a book case. Nothing was disturbed; nothing seemed out of place except for bloody sofa.

"What was the scene like when you got here, Suraj?"

"Well , the neighbour-  her name's Gina Rabbani- was standing on the front steps, totally hysterical , out of control, flapping her arms, wailing....hate to see what she'd been like if there'd been an actual body. Anyhow I got her to calm down and brought her out to the squad. You should talk to her before she goes comatose."

"Did she move anything in here?"

"I doubt it. She walked in , saw the blood and went nuts. I don't think she even made it past the front door."

"Thanks Suraj. Tell the neighbour we'll be right out."

"You got it."

Rai walked over and looked down at his reflection in the surface of the coffee table.

"This isn't right."

Sharma joined him and studied the table for a long moment, frowning.

"Okay, I'll bite. I see a nice shiny coffee table, no gouges, no blood no big smeary fingerprints. So what am I missing?"

"The books on the floor. They're supposed to be on the coffee table."

"So? Are you telling me that every little thing in your house is exactly where it belongs all the time?"'

"God no, not in my house. But in this one? I think so. Take a look around this room. They're the only things out of place."

Sharma gave the room once-over, considering

"Gotta admit, the damn place looks like a magazine picture, doesn't it?

"Yes, it does."

"Except for the sofa."

"And the books on the floor."

Sharma sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets

"Okay, then maybe they got knocked off the table during the struggle."

Rai looked his head, " If that happened they'd be scattered , atleast a little. Look at them. Those things are in an almost perfect stack. Someone lifted them off the table and put them there."

"Someone being the killer."

"That's what I'm thinking."

Jimmy Shah's head popped from behind the sofa, startling Rai and putting a lie to the general consensus that Shah never heard a thing when he was working on a crime scene.

"Shit,Jimmy, I forgot you were even here. What the hell are you doing hiding back there?"

"I got an exit hole in the fabric, lasering it up with the entrance in that front cushion. Looks like we're going to find a slug in that bookcase somewhere.Nice call on the books, Rai. I'll bag them up as soon as I finish this."

"Thanks Jimmy."

Rai stratched at the white haze of whiskers sprouting along his unshaven jaw.

"Still doesn't make sense. You walk into this place, kill a guy sitting on the couch, then turn around and take a stack of books off the coffee table and set them on the floor. Now why the hell would you do that?"

"Good question!"

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My head and neck hurts with all the thinking and typing. Make my efforts worth it you lovely people.

Just in case you guys are lost here, This relates back to Chapter 1 where Viraj tells Nakuul about another case in neighbourhood where there's a body missing and someone did a little interior in that room. I hope you'll got the reference

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Love,

Simran