Let's End Your FEAR

Chapter 8

Shetty watched them load Vivaan Singh's body into the wagon, wincing when the bag bounced hard as the gurney wheels folded. He'd seen a lot of bodies go into that wagon over the years, but he never got used to that final bounce as they all left home for the last time.

It was a relief when the wagon's door slammed shut and the children masquerading as Medical Examiner assistants climbed in and drove away.

"Who are those KIDS?"

"Just a sec," Viraj said into his phone, then held it against his chest.

"Those are not kids, those are grown-ups with medical degrees. They're starting to look like kids' cause you're starting to get so damn old."

"I'm in the prime of my life. 40's so far away I can't even see it from here. How come we got assistants anyway? Where the hell's Anant?"

Viraj sighed. "Doing the old guy tied to the train tracks, that's where. And the kids did just fine. I watched them. They wore gloves and everything. Can I finish my call now?"

"Are you on a sex call with Anjali?"

"No. With Sameer. And you interrupted at a critical point. Do you mind?"

He put the phone to his ear again. "Sorry about that, Sameer. Nakuul's having a midlife moment."

Nakuul kept silent for exactly five seconds.

"The train track guy was old, too?"

"God, Hang on Sameer.....Yeah, Nakuul, he was old. Way old."

"That's three in one night ,Viraj. Vivaan Singh, one in that blood house who is missing, and the train track guy "

"Actually, it looks like it's only two, and if you'd give me few seconds to finish this call, I'll find out everything you ever wanted to know about old dead people. Jeez. You are a little kid, tugging at my pants leg."

"You don't have a pants leg."

Yadav gave him a nasty look and stomped away across the parking lot, phone pressed to his ear.

Shetty found a bench in the shade at the front of the greenhouse and sat down next to a stack of bulging plastic bags that smelled like chocolates.
Sunday morning traffic was picking up on the park-way, but he could barely hear it through the dense hedge that blocked all but driveway from the street.

It made for a nice quiet piece of re estate in middle of the city, nice for shopping or killing an old man in the dead of night without fear of being seen.

A couple of crime scene techs were still inside, processing the area around the table where Anushka Singh had laid her husband. Two more around the side of the building, trying to find a scene where the body was actually found while being swarmed by reporters, but as far as Nakuul was concerned, they were all just going through the motions. Intentionally or not, Anushka Singh had washed away any evidence that ever existed.

He hated this case already, because he knew where it was going. Nobody just popped geriatrics for the fun of it. Unless robbery was involved, the suspect list was always short, and almost always family. He'd take a drug-crazed psycho any day over relatives murdering each other. There wasn't a monster in a closet any bigger than that.

Yadav was heading back toward him across the lot, his broad face already pinking from the sun, his holstered 9-mm bouncing little against the plaid Bermuda shorts. He slumped down on the bench and wiped the gathering sweat from his forehead.

"Can you believe it was raining two days back? Man it's hotter than hell out here. Gotta be 45 degrees already and it's not even noon. Wish the son would get here so we could blow this pop stand."

"What's Sameer got?"

Viraj leaned forward and rubbed his hands together.

"Now that one's really interested. He and Rajan have this bloody house and no body, and Aditya and Rohit out at the train tracks have this body and not enough blood. Thanks to the miracle of Mobile phones they communicate and Voilá, turns out thr old guy that owns the bloody house is probably the guy tied to the tracks. They're going to get an ID from the neighbour, but it looks good."

Shetty straightened a little on the bench, frowning. "Well that's a puzzler."

"No shit. From what they can put together so far, someone shot this old man in his house, hit an artery in his arms, then get this, they put a tourniquet on him so he wouldn't bleed to death before they could get him to the train tracks. Spooky, huh? They wanted him alive to see the train coming. Anant's got him on the table now, but he's thinking heart attack."

"God!" Nakuul thought about that for a long time, didn't like anything his brain came up with.

"They scared him to death."

"Looks that way. Anyhow he was shot with a .4 5, our guy was beheaded, and the m.o. sure as hell does tie Knots.

"So only connection between ours and theirs are the Knots?"

"That, yeah, arms stretched, legs positioned carefully and tied with wire so he couldn't move and they were both old man, living in same neighborhood."

Shetty rubbed his eyes, felt the sweat collecting on his lids.

"I don't even like that much."

"Yeah. Me either. But it seems like we are looking for the same killer."

"Some ritualistic shit. The pattern suggests so with the arms and legs."

"So you think she could have moved the body."

"As much as she had too. But something bothers me, too. I don't think that she killed him, but there's something else here we're not seeing."

"Like what?"

"Don't know. It's just a feeling. And why do those bags smell like chocolate?"

"Cocoa bean mulch. You put it around your plants, on garden paths, like that. Smells like Hershey bars everytime it rains. Great, huh?,"

"I don't know. How do you keep neighbourhood kids from eating it?"

"You gotta shoot them!"

They both looked up as a brand new Mercedes-Benz swerved into the driveway and screeched to a stop less than an inch away from the squad that was blocking it.

"I think the son is here." Yadav said.