3 and a Half Murders: An Inspector Saralkar Mystery

by Salil Desai

  PSI Motkar sat down for the first time, then spoke. “Sir, couldn’t it be that putting the bottle back in the cabinet was simply an involuntary, unthinking reflex action of a neat, tidy man who’d just killed his wife?”

  Saralkar rolled his eyes. “Motkar, you’ve been watching too many Hollywood films. Bloody curious if that’s what happened. But either way it’s as good or as bad a theory as any, so let’s keep it aside for the moment. What about the man Shaunak Sodhi with whom Sanjay’s wife was having an affair? Been able to trace him?”

  PSI Motkar’s face became defensive. He knew his boss was not going to be happy. “Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but there’s no lead about Sodhi yet.”

  Predictably Saralkar erupted. “Oh, come on, if this fellow was having an affair with Anushka Doshi, she’s got to have his number on her mobile or sent him texts or a photo or letters hidden somewhere.”

  “Believe me, sir, I’ve been concentrating almost entirely on getting hold of Sodhi. His name’s nowhere on her phone, no texts, no photos, no letters . . . nothing to make a connection. Neighbours have never seen any man frequently visiting the house in her husband’s absence. Neither does Sanjay Doshi seem to have left any other clue to finding him.”

  “Has it occurred to you that Anushka Doshi might have saved her lover’s number under some phony name?” Saralkar barked.

  “Yes, sir . . . but that will take a little longer to check. As I said Constable Shewale is making a list,” Motkar replied.

  “Don’t tell me a simple task like this is going to hold us up,” Saralkar said. He was irate.

  “Give me a few hours, sir.”

  Saralkar glared at his assistant, then slumped back in his seat, sullen and angry. Silence prevailed for a few minutes and Motkar resisted the urge to fidget.

  Then as if coming out of a trance, Saralkar spoke, “Why does a man throw acid on the face of his unfaithful wife, Motkar?”

  “I suppose as revenge for being unfaithful to him . . . or as a punishment of sorts,” Motkar answered.

  “You are right. As a punishment. The perverse psychology behind it being: it is this face of yours that you used to bewitch another man and to be unfaithful to me . . . and therefore I shall mutilate it so that you’ll live with these horrible consequences forever which you deserve. Correct?”

  PSI Motkar nodded slowly, trying to figure out what the senior inspector was driving at.

  Saralkar was leaning forward now, his eyes intense. “Well, if the rationale behind the act is to make his wife suffer the consequences, then why did Sanjay Doshi kill her after that? Why not let her live and lead a tortured existence? Isn’t that why all these bastards throw acid on their girlfriends or ex-lovers or women they stalk?”

  PSI Motkar, as always, experienced contrasting feelings— an intense irritation that the man before him was back to his favourite game of conjecturing and twisting that which looked straightforward; and yet what Saralkar had said made enough sense. Human actions, especially violence were surprisingly rational, even if sometimes inexplicable or tediously predictable.

  The senior inspector had not finished. “And if killing was the punishment he had in mind for Anushka, then why pour acid on her face before doing so?”

  Motkar thought he knew the answer. He shrugged briefly, then said in a tone that tried not to be too challenging, “Sir, perhaps he wanted to see her suffer. I mean isn’t it also common to see victims being tortured, before their murderers eventually kill them. Maybe that was Sanjay Doshi’s motive in throwing acid on her face. To first watch her writhe in agony and then kill.”

  He stopped and looked steadily at his boss, who seemed ready to mock his theory.

  But Saralkar looked away and said, “I suppose you are right, Motkar. Maybe I just like to complicate things.”

  It was Motkar’s turn to be surprised.

  Rangdev Baba looked at the members of his flock gathered for the morning satsang and smiled his superior, all-knowing, moronic smile, which for some reason always charmed his devout bhakts.

  The smile could be best described as a crooked smirk that sought to contrast his line of milky white teeth with the jet-black hair of his moustache and regulation saintly beard. His eyes, suitably deepened with kohl, genuinely lit up, almost as if amused at the sight of so many miserable men and women, who turned to a charlatan like him for solace.

  Rangdev Baba’s hands emerged from the folds of his robe and he raised his palms towards the congregation in a gesture that served the dual purpose of showering blessings while also calling for the devotees to hush. The gathering looked expectantly, waiting for him to mouth some gem of spiritual wisdom that would help them cope with the day ahead.

  Rangdev Baba’s earthy and soothing voice, modulated to perfection, spoke, “Happiness is a journey. Begin that journey today. No advance reservation is required for this journey. Just board the train. Don’t put it off, don’t delay, don’t cancel your ticket!” He paused, beaming profoundly in all directions, confident of his prowess in making the inane sound like the sublime. His devotees listened gratefully then rose in one voice to hail him, “Jai Rangdev Baba!”

  The morning satsang was over and people started dispersing while a few made a beeline towards the stage for Baba’s darshan. Rangdev Baba wasn’t a five-star god-man. Perhaps a two-star one at the most, operating mainly from a small ‘ashram’ in Pune. In industrial terms, Rangdev Baba’s outfit was an MSME with a following of about ten thousand faithful, who had put their spiritual wellness in Baba’s hands.

  Now, as the baba sat benignly, permitting the queue of bhakts to touch his feet, even kiss them one after the other, and make small offerings, he noticed his aide, who went by the name of Akhandanath, trying to draw his attention covertly.

  Rangdev clasped his hands together in salutation to his devotees, signalling an end to the morning darshan and got up to retreat into his air-conditioned sanctum. Akhandanath and two of his other aides followed him to his chamber.

  “Get me some tea,” Rangdev ordered one aide then turned to Akhandanath. “What’s biting you?”

  Akhandanath brought out the morning paper from his robe and drew Rangdev’s attention to a small news item. Two black and white mug shots of a couple stared back at Rangdev under the headline ‘Couple Found Dead in Kothrud Flat’. The baba quickly read through the item, his face tensing up for a moment then relaxing.

  “What do we do?” Akhandanath blurted out in impatience.

  Rangdev looked at him. “Nothing. Sit tight. Why should anyone connect him to us?”

  “Maybe his family or neighbours know he used to come here to the ashram . . .”

  “He had no family. At least not here in Pune. He had told me . . .” Rangdev said dismissively.

  “Well, other devotees must have seen him here, isn’t it?”

  “So what? He was a devotee and used to come here sometimes. That’s all there is to it,” Rangdev said quietly. “There’s no reason to believe the police would know anything more.”

  “God knows what he must’ve written in his suicide note,” Akhandanath remarked.

  “Relax. Why are you getting so paranoid? There’s nothing to worry,” Rangdev said. But Akhandanath’s panic had infected him too. “Okay, don’t we have a couple of policemen among our devotees, who can find out and tell us whether the police know about our link with Sanjay Doshi?”

  “I’m sure if you request PSI Dulange, he can get us inside information,” Akhandanath suggested.

  “Hmmm . . .” Rangdev reflected. PSI Dulange had become a devout follower of his ever since Baba’s advice and blessings seemed to have brought about some improvement in the condition of his mentally-challenged son. He was sufficiently in Baba’s debt.

  “Okay, call up PSI Dulange and tell him I have summoned him for special darshan.”

  “What’s the progress, Shewale?” PSI Motkar asked the constable checking the mobiles of the dead couple.

  “Sir, about twenty calls were made
from the dead woman’s mobile on Saturday. Almost all of them were to various contacts but none of them seem to be a fake cover name for Shaunak Sodhi.”

  “You’ve spoken to all of them?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anyone of them family or friends of the couple?”

  “No, sir. All of them seemed to be the lady’s clients with whom she was trying to fix up appointments for Sunday and Monday,” Constable Shewale replied.

  “Appointments for her interior design services?” Motkar asked.

  “Not interior designing, sir. Mrs. Anushka Doshi offered services like tarot reading and past life regression.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir. She would go to their houses for tarot reading and past life regression sessions. The clients she called included five men and seven or eight women. Out of these three had made appointments for Sunday and when she didn’t turn up, they made calls to her.”

  “I see. You’ve taken down addresses of all?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shewale assured him. “The other calls were to a pizza outlet to place an order and there’s just one more unknown number that isn’t answering although I’ve tried several times.” He read out the number to PSI Motkar.

  “When was the call made from this number?”

  “Mrs. Doshi spoke to the number twice—once on Friday late night and then again on Saturday early morning at around 5 a.m.”

  PSI Motkar scratched his chin. “You hardly call strangers at 5 a.m., do you? And yet the number does not figure under contacts.” He paused thoughtfully. It was tantalisingly easy to get excited and assume that this number belonged to the elusive, mysterious Shaunak Sodhi. But for some reason he doubted it. It made no sense for a woman not to save the number of a purported lover, at least under some fictitious name.

  “Okay, keep trying the number and make a note that we might need to get details of whom it belongs to from the service provider. What about calls to and from Sanjay Doshi’s mobile?”

  Constable Shewale flipped to another sheet of his neat notes. “Sir, Sanjay Doshi made and received just a few calls on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, none at all. Of the calls made on Friday and Saturday, one was made to a person whose classified ad had appeared in a Marathi newspaper for sale of some NA land near Mulshi. Another call was to a hospital asking for rates for different diagnostic tests—very general, nothing specific. And the third call was again in response to a classified ad of a person called Prakash Niyogi, who was looking for private investment finance for some business project. Apparently Sanjay Doshi inquired about the amount required, the purpose, and the terms. Doshi was supposed to meet Niyogi in his office on Saturday evening but didn’t turn up.”

  “Didn’t this Niyogi call Doshi back to remind him?”

  “No, sir,” Constable Shewale explained. “Niyogi said he gets calls from several such would-be investors but most of them are just making casual inquiries. He does not follow up unless he thinks it’s a serious investor and since Doshi didn’t turn up, he wasn’t sure.”

  “I see. No other calls from anyone who sounded like a creditor of Doshi?”

  “No, sir.”

  Motkar felt perplexed. How come Sanjay Doshi was looking for an investment opportunity just before he committed suicide, declaring that he was in a financial mess and his creditors were going to ruin him? Was it a last desperate bid of a man who knew he was sinking? And how come there had been no calls from creditors—something that was supposed to have pushed Sanjay Doshi over the edge to take the steps he did, alongside his wife’s affair?

  “What about Sanjay Doshi’s contacts, Shewale? Anything interesting?”

  “Very, very few contacts, sir, and not uninteresting,” Constable Shewale replied in a suggestive tone. “Two or three of the contacts were massage parlours and escort services. Looks like Doshi was a part of their regular but infrequent clientele. Other contacts included horse racing bookies, a few shady betting operators, and three to four real estate agents and land brokers. All of them didn’t sound very big dealers, but certainly shady. Three from Pune and one from Navi Mumbai. That’s the lot, sir.”

  “I see. Any calls or even missed calls from any of them?”

  Shewale consulted his sheet again. “No calls, sir, but there was a missed call to Sanjay Doshi’s mobile from one of the land agents—a fellow called Somnath Gawli. This was on Saturday evening around 9 p.m. When I called him up he reacted quite guardedly and defensively and said he’d dialled Doshi’s number by mistake while searching for another contact.”

  PSI Motkar was trying hard not to look intrigued but this was certainly getting more curious. Real estate agents, massage parlours, racing bookies, and shady betting operators were hardly the kind of contacts a normal corporate consultant would be keeping company with!

  “One more thing, sir,” Constable Shewale said. “I almost forgot. Another contact of Sanjay Doshi seems to be some acolyte of a small-time holy man called Baba Rangdev, who runs an ashram in Pune at Karvenagar.”

  PSI Motkar almost chuckled to himself. He could hardly blame Saralkar for complicating the case now. His own investigations had only thrown up more questions than answers so far!

  With his recently acquired Internet skills, Senior Inspector Saralkar had spent the last two hours browsing sites and reading all that he could about hypertension, its causes and cures. Like all human beings, he now regretted having looked the information up at all. The Internet was a curse, Saralkar now thought sourly, and within a few hours had actually managed to turn him into a bloody hypochondriac.

  Oh, how he wished he had not read all that stuff. Ignorance truly would have been bliss. Did he actually have to be reminded in black and white that high BP was related to strokes and heart disease? Did he have to know he would need to make lifestyle changes and remain on lifelong medication? Did the information that Indians were particularly susceptible do any real good to him? Did the knowledge that he would have to control his diet, cut down on salt and oily food, and start exercising, provide any solace?

  Who had told him to take an uneducated sneak about the condition? “Damn it!” he hissed, thumping his table in anger, only to be reminded by some part of his brain that he would have to stop blowing his top too!

  PSI Motkar walked in at the very moment and for a second, Saralkar was almost tempted to confide in his assistant. But of course, he didn’t.

  “Are we getting anywhere?” he asked gruffly instead.

  PSI Motkar briefed him about the facts that had been brought to light by Shewale.

  Saralkar surprisingly didn’t seem to have anything to say in response. He just sat tapping the table with the index finger of his right hand, lost in thought, as if he fancied himself to be a woodpecker.

  “You said you’d summoned the pizza boy and the maid servant of the Doshis, right?” the senior inspector asked at long last.

  “Yes, sir, the pizza boy and the cook. They are there at the Kothrud police station right now. I just got a call and was leaving,” Motkar replied.

  “I’ll come along,” Saralkar said. “And also call this Somnath Gawli fellow there.”

  “Sure, sir.”

  Kurmaiyya Raju had been delighted when he had been employed to deliver pizzas by Pizza Drop. The bright coloured uniform branded with the Pizza Drop logo, the scooter with the hot box, the fairly higher wages compared to his previous job, and the tips received, had all made him feel lucky initially.

  But the charms of the job had begun to wear thin a few weeks later. The number of deliveries was way too many to cope with, especially on weekends. Delayed pizzas exacted a cost—arguments with customers, even abuse, and of course because of those absurd company ads that promised deliveries in twenty-five minutes flat, there was the ever present danger of claims for free pizzas by aggrieved customers. The company conveniently expected the delivery boys to fend off these by playing up the sympathy factor that they would be penalized for it. There was truth in that too. Ev
ery unpaid bill would lead to a proportionate deduction from Kurmaiyya’s wages, which was the real catch.

  He had, in fact, decided to change over to a new job. And as luck would have it, he had made the delivery to the ill-fated Doshi household in the last week of his employment at Pizza Drop. Kurmaiyya Raju felt wretched at this sting in the tail by fate. Why couldn’t the damned couple have killed themselves the next week, by which time he would no longer have been delivering pizzas? The worst part was of course why at all had the suicidal couple ordered pizza in the first place if they had decided to die? Maybe they craved for pizza as their last meal.

  These hard thoughts passed through Kurmaiyya Raju’s mind as he sat restlessly in the Kothrud police station, waiting to be questioned.

  “Come along,” a constable appeared abruptly, startling him. Kurmaiyya got up and followed. His thoughts had by now become weirder still. Did the police think he had anything to do with the couple’s suicide? Had the couple killed themselves by lacing the pizza with poison? He was petrified at these alarming possibilities as he entered the small cell in which two police officers were waiting for him.

  “Sit down,” PSI Motkar said. “You are Kurmaiyya Raju?”

  Kurmaiyya remained standing and nodded.

  “You can speak, can’t you?” Saralkar asked with enough toughness to force speech.

  “Yes, sir,” Kurmaiyya replied hastily.

  “So tell us about the pizza delivery you made at the Doshi residence in Atharva Apartments, that evening.”

  Kurmaiyya made an effort to compose himself before speaking. “Sir, I delivered a Chicken Hawaiian Pizza at 9.37 p.m. at their flat on Saturday night.”

  “How can you be so sure of the time?”

  “We have to be very particular and log it in because of that free delivery offer, sir,” Kurmaiyya replied.

  “Who opened the door?” Saralkar asked.

  “It was a lady, sir. Mrs. Doshi, I guess.”

  “Describe her.”

  Kurmaiyya wet his dry lips. He didn’t know how to describe anyone. He looked with confusion at both officers.