by UD Yasha
Out of instinct, my eyes searched the ground.
‘I already checked the room for bullet casings,’ Kuhad said. ‘The shooter must have taken them with him.’
Or her, I thought.
I tried to picture the scene. The wall that had the first bullet was right next to the blood on the floor. The second wall was a foot away. I had woken up outside, but extremely close to the place where all the action had taken place. I stared at the walls, the ground and the blood. Nothing came to my mind. It seemed like the memories of those minutes were being buried deeper into a bottomless abyss.
Harshvardhan Kuhad told us he had not found anything on the upper floor so we headed to our cars. I thanked him for all his help.
He acknowledged us with a nod and a smile, and said, ‘It was my pleasure. I have been asked to make sure you get back safely so I’ll follow the two of you home in my car.’
Rahul got behind the wheel and I took the side seat.
Once we were inside Rahul broke the silence in the car by saying, ‘You need to get those scans the doctor had asked you to get.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, thinking it was a waste of time. I was certain that the dementia was induced by a stressful situation—whether it was seeing dad, realizing something traumatic or just something else entirely that riddled me up with anxiety.
‘You need to get it checked. I’m not taking no for an answer. I’ll schedule an appointment in the afternoon.’
‘They’ll ask me how and where the memory loss happened. It’ll unnecessarily become an elaborate process.
Before Rahul could retort and just as we turned into the lane of our house, my phone started ringing. Dr. Rastogi’s name flashed on the screen. I answered it right away and subconsciously pushed the phone deeper into my ear.
The next words he said filled me with excitement and apprehension.
Rahul slowed the car to a halt in front of our bungalow. His eyes were transfixed on me, wondering what I had just come to know. I put the call on speakerphone so Rahul could hear it as well.
‘I was going to conduct a basic postmortem of the unidentified woman or Jane Doe,’ Dr. Rastogi said. ‘Even before I started, I found something that will be useful to you. The woman has undergone plastic surgery.’
My eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of plastic surgery?’ I said.
‘The full deal. She changed the way she looked. Her facial structure, nose, eyebrows, cheeks and jaw bones have all been chiselled. It is clear to me that this woman wanted to look completely different than how she looked before.’
‘Can you tell when she got it done?’ I said, and started thinking about an expert I knew who could help us figure out how the woman looked before getting the plastic surgery.
‘I have no idea. But I can tell you one thing. Whoever conducted the surgery did an amazing job. Usually, when someone’s looks are altered to that extent, a physical examination of the face is enough to give it away. There are all kinds of marks next to the ears where the skin is pulled when significant changes are made to the face. The only clue that got me started on checking if she had her face altered was a very small cut behind her ear. Usually it is on the front with plastic surgeries.’
‘So, we’re looking at a skilled doctor,’ I thought out loud.
‘Yes, one who's really good. This woman would have had to go under the knife several times to achieve the look. First to get her face changed and then to make sure no one would know that she changed it that much. There would have been several surgeries, again all complex ones, to smoothen the skin around her ear.
‘Thank you,’ I said and Dr. Rastogi clicked off after he told me he would keep me in the loop with any new development.
I started thinking. Getting a full-fledged plastic surgery could have multiple reasons. It could be something drastic like an acid attack or another severe injury to her face, a major career requirement or she was running from her old self because it was now dangerous to be that person. Given the circumstances of how we had found her, the last option seemed the most likely. She must have been mighty scared of something if she changed her looks completely because of it.
I stepped out of the car and was about to call Rathod when I saw his car veer into the lane of our house. He hastily parked his car ahead of mine and walked briskly to me.
I said, ‘The woman in my boot underwent full-face plastic surgery.’
Rathod’s eyes narrowed. ‘What?’ he said under his breath. ‘I don’t know if the two are connected but in the triple homicide from today morning, the woman who was murdered was a cosmetic surgeon.’
Chapter Twelve
An eager Radha and Shadow greeted us at the door. After Shadow showed his appreciation by jumping on us one by one, we sat on the couch and told each other about what we had come to know in the past hour.
‘I don’t believe in coincidences, but this could very well be one,’ Rathod said, referring to Dr. Niyati Jathar being a cosmetic surgeon and the dead woman in my trunk having had plastic surgery.
‘We’ll have to dig more and rule it out,’ I said. ‘The timing of both events makes me suspicious. They happened too close to each other. You said that the three murders were committed between ten and twelve at night. I got the call about three and a half hours later.’
‘I think we should get Dr. Sonia Joshi, the CID’s Chief Medical Examiner on board with what’s happening. We could use her expertise to know if there’s a link,’ Rathod said.
‘But that would mean involving the police.’
‘We need to make sure we’re looking at all angles.’
‘What would she bring to the table?’
‘For starters, I was thinking she could take a look at the dead woman. She’ll also be able to tell us if there is any other forensic evidence common to both crimes. Plus, she has access to previous crime records and can tell us right away if these people are linked to any other crimes.’ Rathod paused and scratched his chin. ‘We also don’t know the identities of the woman in your car and the guy from my crime scene. She can catalyse the process of finding out who they are.’
‘I get it but I don’t know if involving the police is a good idea’ I said, my voice trailing off.
Just one look at Rathod told me what he was thinking. He said, ‘Are you worried about the repercussions of telling people about the presence of your father’s name in Mule’s journal?’
I said nothing.
‘You don’t have to be. We don’t even know if the stuff in the journal is legit. You know this better than me, but it wouldn’t ever be enforceable evidence in a court of law. We don’t know how Mule got the information and because he’s dead we can’t find out either.’
‘It’s not just that. I’m worried if involving the police would jeopardize this investigation. I was told repeatedly by the person on the phone not to involve the police. I know her motives are questionable. But we have to be cautious. Maybe the police are involved in this somehow.’
I gulped before saying the next words. ‘Then we also have to consider if my father was a corrupt cop. If he was, there’s a good chance that bringing him up will unsettle the other cops who were corrupt along with him. Cops are seldom corrupt alone. They hunt in packs.’
I turned to face Radha who was on an armchair next to me. ‘Of course, I don’t think our dad was corrupt. There has to be a reason why his name was in Mule’s register. I could very well be in denial about him and have a very rosy picture of the kind of man he was…or is. Hell, I was just sixteen years old when he disappeared, but I think I knew him well enough to be sure he was not a rotten apple. It has no other rationale or logic to it.’
I fell silent for a second. ‘But this all suddenly seems to have started when Rathod and I came across his name in the register. I don’t know how, but that must have triggered all this. No one apart from Rathod, Jay Parikh and I knew about it. I have dropped Jay a text to ask him if he thinks his search into the call’s origin could have raised a red flag.’
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‘What if we take Dr. Sonia into confidence?’ Rathod said.
‘There’s no denying that her expertise and resources will be useful.’
‘I can convince her not to tell anyone.’
‘Two points. First, are you sure you can trust her? I can’t see how, but there’s a chance she could be involved in all this. And second, when she runs, for example, the ballistics report through the system, would it still be safe?’
‘I trust her. Also, she’s just forty years old, making her twenty-four when your dad disappeared. She was still in medical school and too young to be dealing with corrupt cops. With regard to your second point, she can delete the requests and searches in the system. If she does it fast enough, then no one can find out about it. We will bring her to a remote location, possibly Dr. Rastogi’s clinic, to conduct a postmortem of the dead woman’s body. She can corroborate its findings with the triple homicide from the morning.’
‘If you think she can be trusted, then I have no issues with involving her.’
Silence resounded.
I said, ‘We need to make sure that whatever Dr. Sonia finds can be used as evidence in the court of law. I’ll draft a letter that contains an anonymous tip.’ I turned to Rahul. ‘Make sure the evidence you have is marked and labelled. We need to be as thorough as possible with both the letter and evidence to make sure a judge takes it seriously.’
We could smell the adrak from the tea that Rahul had kept on the stove. I got up and went to the kitchen to strain the tea. I poured it for us and brought it out.
‘I haven’t put milk in maa’s cup,’ I said to Radha.
‘She’ll wake up soon,’ Radha said, referring to the wall clock behind her.
‘We’ll move the proceedings to the garage after we finish tea,’ I said.
I went to the dining table and flipped open my laptop. It was better to type such letters as they could not be traced back to the sender. I finished drafting it and gave Rathod a copy of it on a pen drive.
As I took the final sips of my tea, I wondered what we were going to tell maa. She would know something was up given all the activity. But could she bear knowing that her husband could still be alive? Ever since we got her back last year, her resilience and fortitude had surprised me each time. But I knew there was a limit to everything. Radha probably sensed what I was thinking. She put a hand on my back.
‘We won’t tell her anything right now,’ she said. ‘Let’s first get to know what’s happening and then we’ll tell her what we know if there’s anything worth telling.’
Listening to Radha assured me as I was thinking along the same lines. I placed all our cups on the same tray that I had used to get them. I put them next to the sink.
‘I’ll ask my team to look up Dr. Niyati Jathar and her husband Malhar. Maybe we’ll find a direct link between them and the dead woman.’
‘That's a good idea. In the meantime, we’ll also look into them by talking to their friends and family.’
‘I’ll hand over copies of their records once we get the warrant for them,’ Rathod said. ‘We should have the warrant by noon. It will take at least another hour to get all the documents. In the meantime, my team is trying to identify the man who was murdered along with the Jathars. Dr. Sonia will give us something substantial about him through what she finds on his body and that’ll help us with a starting point in identifying him’
Radha said, ‘I can help with getting more information on the couple.’ She looked at Rathod and continued. ‘Once you hand over their papers and bank information, I’ll look at their finances and see if there’s anything odd there.
Rathod got up to leave. ‘We’ll touch base again,’ he said and referred to his wristwatch, ‘In five hours at two o’clock.’
Rahul gave Rathod the bullets he had taken from Stan Mills before Rathod left.
‘I am heading to the garage,’ I declared and stepped out.
The garage had been my investigation room for many years. It was the place where the neurons in my brain started to scuttle harder.
It held special memories. I had cracked maa’s disappearance and narrowed in on Kishore Zakkal while sitting in the garage. It was also the place where I had got to know that maa was alive. I remember how elated I had been to know that a year back.
Even though I had stopped practicing law three years ago, both Radha and I had an unsaid rule of not disturbing the garage much. It remained closed for three years except for when Radha got it cleaned every Diwali and New Year. We used to keep our car outside to keep the garage vacant.
When I pulled up its shutter, Shadow ran behind me. He liked the garage too as it gave him one more place to sniff around.
The setup inside was pretty basic. An L-shaped desk hugged the wall right in front of the shutter. There was a coffee machine at one end and then stacks of paper on the other. It had useful things like stationery. A water cooler lay in one corner. We had got it when we were investigating the kidnapping of Rucha Sinha a few months back.
The most important piece of furniture in the garage was a large Godrej closest. Next to it was a pile of boxes. Both had the papers from all known crimes that involved Kishore Zakkal, including files on maa. It also had some of dad’s papers and books.
I knew all of Zakkal’s cases very well. But I was aware that I would need to refer to them again if and when Zakkal decided to come out of hiding and do something nasty. I felt it was just a matter of time before that happened. This time around, Zakkal had the benefit of time on his side to set up an elaborate plan. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.
Thinking of the Zakkal’s old cases got me wondering about the circumstances around the time of dad’s disappearance. The cops had left no stone unturned to investigate his last movements. I had gone through them myself when I had got older to see if I could spot something that the cops had missed. But there was nothing. Dad had left the house one morning, the way he always did, and then just vanished.
No warning, no clue and no trace. Into thin air.
I had always asked myself if the cases he was working on at the time he went missing had any connection to his disappearance. At the time dad vanished, he was the Deputy Inspector General of Police, which was a high rank. Just three rungs below being the Commissioner. Which meant that he did not just have his cases to look after but also pretty much the entire state’s workload to monitor. He had other people to share the responsibility with but he was still the person who led a large team. That tremendously widened the scope of cases he was working on.
I had gone through dad’s cases multiple times. There was a bank robbery whose culprits had been arrested just before dad vanished. Then there was a case of dowry where all the family members of the groom had been arrested.
One of the bigger cases involved a spate of murders committed by an industrialist who used a hitman. By murdering some key people, he coerced a few government officials into handing him big contracts for his firm. He had literally killed his competition. But now he was serving a life term.
Another huge case was that of a stud farm owner who was laundering money for many years. Dad had spotted some suspicious dealings that had brought this person under the police radar. Dad’s investigation had revealed that the man had laundered crores of rupees and evaded tax for the past twenty years. The case had irked several people. But the hawala network, that the man had used was complex and people across the world were a part of it. They didn’t want too much attention on themselves, so that they could continue their transactions for other people. Because they wanted to stay under the radar, there was no reason to believe that the money laundering case had anything to do with dad going missing.
Then there was the case of a don named Javed Javehiri in Mumbai. Javed was the cousin of Hussian Javehiri, a big don who was known to smuggle drugs into Mumbai through the port. It was a well-known fact that Hussain lived in Karachi and that the Pakistani government gave him unofficial protection. But he had people like Javed
who ran the day-to-day operations in India. Back in the 90s, bribing port officials was as easy as buying a pack of gum.
There was once an issue with a delivery, which resulted in some gunfire that killed a Canadian tourist. Because of pressure from the Canadian Embassy, the investigation was fast-tracked. Dad’s team had found that Javed had fired the bullet. They had taken him in right away. The moment Javed was arrested, a hitman killed him to keep him from spilling the secrets of the smuggling operation. For Hussain, losing Javed wasn’t a big deal. Some investigation of my own along with insights from a few cops who worked sophisticated crimes told me such assassinations were a nuisance to bust operations, but still common.
I also knew that when any syndicated crime network was hit, the people running it wanted to send out a very public message by killing the key investigating officers. It was like making a statement. “Stay away or else you will be killed”. If they had taken or killed dad, they would have let the world know it was them. That they had not even claimed responsibility meant they were not behind dad’s disappearance.
I had gone through other cases dad had been working on or was a part of for the five years prior to his disappearance. Nothing there had indicated that any of those cases were responsible for what happened to him.
If my analysis was true, then something else altogether was behind dad’s disappearance. It had nothing to do with any known cases, but something that was being kept hidden. A discreet matter that needed to be kept away from any attention. By seeing dad’s name in Mule’s corrupt list, I thought if that was the missing link. Maybe he got himself tangled in something bad.
To know if something fishy had been happening, I decided to speak to the people who worked with dad back then. Three of them came to my mind. Even though nothing had come out of talking to these people earlier, I was now feeling hopeful. I had fresh information. There were four dead people, any of whom could trigger new connections and leads.
Any one of the three people I planned on speaking to could know them. Plus, I had one new piece of information on dad himself. I didn’t know then how much of it I would share with anyone. I decided I would play it as it came, gauge the situation and then take a call.
