3 and a Half Murders: An Inspector Saralkar Mystery

by Salil Desai

  “Oh, I see! And now you are afraid it’s your turn?” Saralkar needled him.

  “No, no,” Rangdev Baba said, trying to sound unfazed. “I haven’t tried to run away, have I?” He tried to give a light smile, which only served to highlight how nervous he seemed.

  “No, but then you tried all kinds of stunts to avoid being questioned by us today,” Saralkar said nastily. “Why?”

  Rangdev Baba shifted uneasily. “I’m . . . I’m really not feeling well, Inspector. Can’t that happen?”

  “Yes, we see it happening all the time when we summon important people. Overnight they become unwell. Somebody ought to give a medical name to this unique condition. Khakhiphobia or something,” Saralkar sniggered. “So has Akhandanath tried to get in touch with you?”

  “No, absolutely not. Trust me I’ll immediately let you know if he does. I’ll also advise him to surrender,” Rangdev Baba said hastily.

  Saralkar subjected him to a cynical look for a few seconds, then asked, “Was Akhandanath one of the two disciples who partnered with Sanjay Doshi in those illegal activities?”

  Clearly Rangdev Baba had been expecting the question and had prepared an answer for it after consultation. “I-I have also now started wondering if he was involved . . . after he ran away. Maybe he was hand in glove with those two, although I never suspected it.”

  It was a cleverly thought out reply. Any involvement of Akhandanath would imply Rangdev Baba himself knew. By claiming to suspect Akhandanath now, the baba could claim he had been in the dark earlier and thus not culpable.

  Saralkar gave a knowing smirk. “Ah, so you now think your aide could have been committing irregularities behind your back?”

  Rangdev Baba resorted to histrionics, suddenly closing his eyes, shaking his head as if overwhelmed by the wickedness in the world. “Greed . . . greed, Saralkar sahib, can waylay the best of people any time. I have seen it happen. Maybe Akhandanath was also not immune to it . . . even after all these years with me. I blame myself for not turning Sanjay Doshi away from my ashram even when I knew he was a dodgy character. But we men of God can’t shun a human being just because he was a sinner in the past.”

  Motkar, who had been watching his performance, now spoke. “What exactly did you know about Sanjay Doshi?”

  Rangdev Baba’s eyes darted in his direction. “Not much except that he had committed some crimes earlier. He said he’d duped innocent people and then run away with their money.”

  “That’s all you knew?” Saralkar queried sarcastically. “I thought you conducted special sessions with devotees to elicit a full confession of their sins and cleanse their souls.”

  Rangdev Baba paled a bit. “I-I don’t force anyone to tell more than they want to. That’s all Sanjay Doshi said. It’s entirely up to the devotee to decide how to embrace spiritual cleansing.”

  Motkar asked, “We’ve heard you make video recordings of the confessions of your devotees. Do you have recordings of Sanjay Doshi’s?”

  Rangdev Baba’s reaction was animated. “No, no, that’s absolutely untrue! We don’t do any video recordings.” He was now visibly rattled, suddenly behaving like a mere mortal. Saralkar and Motkar exchanged a glance. It was time to take it up a notch.

  “Did you know of Akhandanath’s criminal past?” Saralkar asked.

  Rangdev blinked, sighed, and tried reverting to his world-wise self. “You know, Inspector Saralkar, they say every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. I knew Akhandanath had served prison time, but in the last five years he’s been with me I have hardly seen a more transformed individual,” he paused and looked pained, “unless, of course, Doshi managed to undo it.”

  “What crime had he been to jail for?” Motkar asked curtly.

  Rangdev Baba cleared his throat. “I think he told me grievous assault; he’d lost his temper and beaten a man badly, but attempted murder charges were framed against him. He’d been found guilty of assault and sentenced for a year.”

  “Where?”

  “He hails from a village in Karnataka. I think he was in Bangalore jail,” Rangdev Baba said carefully.

  Bangalore jail! Saralkar could have punched his fist into his palm. “What was his real name? Surely Akhandanath is the name you gave him.”

  “Yes, I gave him the name Akhandanath, but I really don’t recollect his original name.”

  Saralkar reached out into his shirt pocket and took out a photograph. He showed it to Rangdev Baba. “When he first came to you, did Akhandanath look like that?”

  Rangdev Baba peered at the photograph, then at Saralkar. “Well, it does appear like him at that time but . . . but I can’t be absolutely sure.”

  It was an unsatisfactory response and Saralkar clicked his tongue. No one knew more than him how difficult it actually was to identify people from old photographs, especially if their appearances were completely different now. Policemen, of course, developed an eye for identification, although they too made mistakes. “Was his name Shaunak Sodhi by any chance?” he asked irritably.

  There was a nearly imperceptible flash in Rangdev Baba’s eyes for a fraction of a second, but he was already shaking his head. “No, that wasn’t the name he told me. I faintly recollect it was Shivappa or some such thing.”

  Saralkar’s face darkened and his tone became menacing, “Rangdev Baba, I hope you are not bluffing. I thought you recognized the name Shaunak Sodhi. Don’t forget you don’t enjoy immunity for withholding information or lying! It’s a murder case, so you better volunteer any information you have or we’re not going to remain as gentlemanly and respectful as we have been in our conduct so far.”

  Probably no one had spoken to Rangdev Baba like this before, for he almost seemed to lose his voice for a few seconds. When he spoke, it was a bleat. “All I know, Saralkar sahib, is that Akhandanath knew Sanjay Doshi. Nothing more.”

  “How?”

  Rangdev Baba shook his head. “He didn’t tell.”

  “You didn’t ask him, especially when you knew both had criminal backgrounds?”

  “I did but Akhandanath said it’s okay, so I trusted him despite my misgivings about Sanjay Doshi.”

  Saralkar’s tone became harsher. “Don’t tell me, even when you got to know about the illegalities your two disciples indulged in with Sanjay Doshi, you didn’t suspect Akhandanath’s involvement? And just who are those two disciples? Name them.”

  Rangdev Baba’s eyes dropped to the floor. His body had begun shaking. Clearly he was now on the edge—the point at which many people subjected to sustained questioning begin to realize it might be better to lay down the burden of lies.

  “Quick, Rangdev, or we might have to take you into custody for more intense interrogation,” Saralkar said with frightening softness, almost like a teacher nudging a student to admit to wrongdoing to avoid corporal punishment.

  The god-man looked up, his sly aplomb in complete tatters. “Saralkar sahib, there were no two other disciples. It was Akhandanath all along who was working with Sanjay Doshi. When I discovered what was going on, I confronted Akhandanath. He promised to stop at once and return all the money he had made from siphoning and betting. So I-I expelled Doshi but forgave Akhandanath. I-I didn’t want a scandal . . . but it’s not got anything to do with the Doshi murder.”

  “If that is so why didn’t you simply throw Akhandanath out after you found out what he was up to?” Motkar asked. “You are still hiding something.”

  Rangdev Baba looked at him helplessly. “I needed him . . . for the ashram’s activities,” he replied lamely.

  Saralkar chuckled. “That’s nonsense. There can be only two explanations. Either you and Akhandanath both utilized Sanjay Doshi’s services to put the ashram donations into betting and other illegal activities or if Akhandanath was doing it behind your back, you couldn’t simply throw him out because he knew too much about other questionable aspects of the ashram, which he could have spilled if you’d expelled him. Which one is it?”

  Rang
dev Baba knew the hole he was in was getting deeper. He cursed the day he’d allowed Akhandanath to bring Sanjay Doshi into the picture for multiplying his ill-gotten wealth. If only he had followed his own sermon on greed. But then he wasn’t the only god-man with a wide gap between word and deed.

  It took Constable Shewale a surprisingly short time to find the auto driver who had ferried Meenakshi Rao to Kothrud from her residence on Aundh Road on the day she had made an early morning call to Anushka Doshi. Just one inquiry at the auto stand nearest to Meenakshi Rao’s house had led him to Bhau Zore—fifty-year-old, puffed up face and belly, dressed quite unlike an auto driver in a grey safari dress. There was no sign of the regulation khaki uniform and brass badge that auto drivers were obliged to wear, but the insufferable insouciance of the typical Pune rickshawallah was on full display.

  Bhau Zore had kept scratching his grey stubble as if it gave him special pleasure. One look at Meenakshi Rao’s photo and he had nodded. “Yes, I remember she was my first fare of the day, early morning about two weeks ago.”

  “Sure?” Shewale asked sceptically. “Why would you remember?”

  Bhau Zore winked and grinned. “Yes, not much to look at but pretty stupid. She thought she knew the address but didn’t; kept making me turn into the wrong lanes. Finally she made a call to the folks she was visiting, who explained to me where to come.”

  “Who did you speak to?”

  “It was another lady, but a sensible one.”

  “Did you get her name? Did your passenger mention it while talking to her?”

  Bhau Zore stopped scratching his stubble for a few moments as if thinking, then resumed scratching. “No. The lady just told me the name of the society and the way there since we were going round and round those by-lanes.”

  “What was the name of the society?”

  “Don’t remember that but I can take you there,” Bhau Zore offered. He described the vicinity perfectly.

  “So then you dropped Meenakshi Rao at the right address?” Shewale asked.

  “Yes, the other woman was standing by the gate.”

  “Did you see her? Can you describe her?” Shewale urged.

  “It was still dark. I could hardly make out the features well. She was about twenty feet away,” Zore replied, then after a moment’s thought, he added tentatively, “They, sort of, did look like sisters.”

  “Sisters? Why do you say that?’ Shewale asked.

  Zore shrugged. “You know how people from the same family have a similar frame or gait or similar hair style, that way.”

  “Okay. What time do you think you dropped her there?”

  “Can’t be sure, but it was around five or quarter past five, quite early actually. I even wondered why the woman was commuting so early since generally at that time we get customers who want to catch buses or trains or flights.”

  “Okay, one last question, Zore. Was the woman in the auto carrying anything? And did she sound normal?”

  “That’s two questions,” Bhau Zore said, as if the constable needed to pay for the extra query. “Anyway, the woman was carrying a purse and a small skybag. Don’t remember the colour but I think it had the logo of some mobile company on it.”

  A skybag had indeed been found in the Doshi flat, Shewale remembered. “Sure?”

  “Yes, I don’t have a habit of opening my mouth just like that.”

  “Any other information you can think of about her or what was spoken?’ Shewale asked.

  Bhau Zore’s brow puckered for a second. He looked at Shewale slyly and said, “Well, I remember the fare amount I collected from her, if that’s of any help.”

  Pleased at his own joke, Zore started guffawing and Constable Shewale reflected that the average Pune rickshawallah really worked hard to earn the reputation of being pretty annoying.

  Constable Shirke also got his break finally. His hunch that the impersonators of Shaunak Sodhi for the land deals were petty criminals from adjoining states was proved right when the Karnataka Police confirmed the thumbprints and photos of the deal documents, matched with those of four petty criminals of the Belgaum-Hubli area of Karnataka state, which was just a few hours drive from the Maharashtra border. At least three of the four could be rounded up for questioning if Shirke came over with an official request.

  By evening, just as Constable Shirke had boarded the overnight bus to Belgaum, he got another call, this time from the Karjat Railway Police. “You had sent out an alert for Mobin Ghatwai, right?”

  “Yes. Is he in your custody?” Shirke asked.

  “No. We found an unidentified dead body on the railway tracks. The man was probably drunk, strayed on to the tracks, and got run over by a fast local. Happens all the time. He could be your man, Mobin Ghatwai, although his body is so badly mangled that it wasn’t possible to visually identify. But we got your alert and had fortunately taken the prints of his right hand which was intact. It seems to be a match.”

  “Is the body in the mortuary?”

  “No. We had to promptly cremate him after the post-mortem. His belongings are here—some cash and stuff, including a damaged sim card, though his mobile was crushed.”

  “Any possibility of foul play? Did the post-mortem indicate death before being crushed under the train?”

  “No, nothing like that. It could be suicide but sounds unlikely. There’s a bar and gambling den nearby, where he had been seen earlier in the evening. He lost cash heavily, had a brawl with one or two guys, then walked out completely sozzled. We’ve questioned some regulars but haven’t been able to find out who he brawled with. The likelihood of them attacking and throwing him on the train tracks looks remote.”

  Constable Shirke sighed. He had to make a decision whether to postpone his Belgaum trip, where he could question impersonators who were alive, or go to Karjat first to dig around the unnatural mishap of a dead impersonator. What promised to provide a better lead?

  “Okay, thanks. One of us will be there tomorrow,” he said to the Karjat man, then hung up and called PSI Motkar’s number. The rings went unanswered. PSI Motkar was busy in the dress rehearsal in preparation for the final performance the following evening.

  Constable Shirke pondered whether it would be okay to call up Senior Inspector Saralkar but decided it was better to try PSI Motkar again the next morning. He settled down for the overnight journey to Belgaum.

  “Sir!”

  Saralkar looked up. PSI Motkar was standing across the desk, looking subdued and awkward as if about to make a confession.

  “Yes, Motkar?”

  Motkar hesitated for a couple of seconds and seemed to become stiffer. His voice was almost a whisper when the words emerged from his mouth. “Sir, I hope you are coming to watch the Police Cultural Society’s play tonight?” he asked, turning red and apprehensive, as if he’d just invited his superior to some orgy.

  Saralkar managed not to grimace but couldn’t stop a disapproving expression from fleeting across his face. “Tonight, is it? I, uhh, I forgot to order my passes,” he replied, then added as an afterthought, “All the best, for your performance.”

  Motkar nodded nervously, then reached into his upper pocket, removed two passes from it and held them out in front of the senior inspector. “I’d kept two passes for you and Mrs. Saralkar, sir, in case you wanted to come.”

  A look of annoyance that was hard to hide momentarily clouded Saralkar’s face, as if Motkar had played some dirty trick on him. “Nice of you, Motkar, but you shouldn’t have bothered,” he said, making no effort to accept the passes. Instead he began rummaging through the papers on his table, as if engrossed in looking for something.

  Motkar, who had been leaning forward with the passes in his hand, waited for a few more seconds, and then drew himself back. His awkwardness was now replaced by acute embarrassment. “It’s all right, sir, if you don’t want to come . . .”

  Saralkar was torn between a sense of vexation and the feeling of being incredibly mean. He stopped the act of looking f
or papers and made eye contact with Motkar again. “No, no. I meant . . . you should use the passes for other friends or relatives who may want to watch. You don’t have to spare them for me,” Saralkar said lamely.

  “No, sir, I had kept these for you only,” Motkar replied. This time he made no move to offer the passes but looked at his boss expectantly.

  “Okay . . .” Saralkar said grudgingly and held out his hand to take the passes from Motkar. “All the best . . .”

  “Thank you, sir,” Motkar said diffidently and turned to leave.

  But Saralkar couldn’t resist one parting shot. “Hope you’ll get the acting bug out of your system and get back to being a cop from tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Motkar murmured and left.

  Saralkar stared at the two passes in his hand with hostility, then thrust them into his pocket. The few Police Cultural Society programmes he had been forced to attend in the past gave him no confidence that this one was worth looking forward to.

  He grunted and bridled at the thought of the imminent wastage of two to three hours of his life. But there was nothing he could do about it now. He sat listlessly for a while then looked at his watch. It was 3.30 p.m. Motkar’s play was at 6 p.m., which meant that he would have to leave office at 4.30 p.m. to get back home by around 5 p.m., pick up his wife and go to the auditorium in time for the show.

  He had an hour to spare, not quite enough to do anything substantial. Then it struck him. Perhaps he could use the time to flick through Kalicharan and try to put his finger on what connection his mind had made. He’d procured a DVD copy of the movie and brought it along. Yes, that might cheer him up and who knew, maybe unearth a subconscious perspective on the crime, which might help crack the case.

  Saralkar inserted the DVD on his computer. Right from the title sequence itself, the film transported him back in time to the mid-1970s, when films were crafted as family entertainers that included a little bit of everything—romance, action, emotion, song and dance sequences, and good clearly triumphing over evil. He watched as Shatrughan Sinha, playing the brave police officer Prabhakar, confronts the villain, businessman Dharamdas alias LION, who also happens to be his father’s best friend. On his way back to report to his father, the IG of Police, and unmask Dharamdas, LION’s men mow down Prabhakar with a truck. On his hospital deathbed, Prabhakar gains consciousness briefly and manages to scribble a clue to the identity of the villain on a piece of paper, just before he dies.