The Window

3 Hours Before...

"Why do you keep looking out that window?" Liam asked, as he stood up from the bed and wore his boxers.

My skin prickled slightly as I heard his question. 

"No reason. I just keep watch on the main road to see if any cars have been parked there. They usually end up blocking the traffic, you know..." I said, elusively.

"Right." Liam replied as he put on the rest of his clothes, even though he didn't sound even a tad convinced.

What was I supposed to tell him, anyway? There was no way I could answer his question truthfully! I couldn't tell him that my mysterious neighbor, Manik Malhotra, had disappeared four days earlier, on the night of the murder. I couldn't tell him how uneasy it made me feel that Manik still hadn't turned up. I couldn't tell him that I'd seen Manik at the Broadway show the other night. And, I definitely couldn't tell him of my suspicions regarding Manik being the killer!

"You sure you don't want me to stay? I mean, it's been a rough couple of days, you know..."Liam asked, eagerly.

Well, he wasn't wrong about that. It had been difficult, ever since that night at the theatre. A renowned businessman had been murdered, and consequently, the police were leaving no stone unturned in order to catch the perpetrator as soon as possible. The investigations and interviews were in full swing, and the cops had spoken to nearly all the guests who were present at the event, including me.

According to the autopsy report, Eric Wang had been shot in the head at point black range, in the washroom itself. Mr. Wang's height was around six feet, and the bullet had been fired, such that its projectile remained mostly flat. It meant that the attacker was at least six feet tall. This little detail immediately eliminated almost all the women who'd attended the show as suspects, including myself.

The killer was suspected to be a male with a height of greater than six feet. In India, that might have been a distinctive enough quality to narrow down the suspect pool, but here in the U.S, a height of six feet was extremely commonplace.

So, when the police found out from the security guard who'd caught me trespassing in the green room that I'd been wandering around in the theatre, close to the victim's time of death, the police wanted to speak to me immediately.

They came to the office three days ago to ask me questions about that night. I was already a little bit on edge after the incident, and the atmosphere in the office was quite grim as well because a number of employees had been called in for questioning.

To top it all off, the fact that Manik hadn't returned in two days just made me doubt him even more...

I could still replay the conversation that I'd had with the police in my head, verbatim.

"Ms. Nandini Murthy, I'm Detective Gary Davis from the homicide division in the N.Y.P.D. We'd like to ask you a few questions about the night of Eric Wang's murder?" The middle aged officer standing before me, asked politely.

I replied in a slightly nervous voice. "Of course."

"So, can you please retrace your activities from that night? A security guard told us he found you wandering around in the greenroom. Anything you saw could be of serious help to the investigation." He asked, as his subordinate opened a notepad so as to jot down my statement.

I gulped at his words. I couldn't decide as to how much to tell the police. I knew that withholding information from the police was a crime in itself. But, what if I was completely mistaken about Manik? What if he'd just gone on a holiday or something? What if I told the police that I'd seen him there, only to get him arrested and later find out that he'd been wrongly accused? What if he went to prison because of my statement but was actually innocent?