by UD Yasha
When I finished, Rathod’s phone began ringing. He was surprised to see it was Dr. Sonia Joshi. Both of us looked at the clock. It was forty past ten.
Rathod answered the call. He said nothing and then got up suddenly a few seconds later.
‘Sonia, are you there?’ Rathod said, his voice stricken by panic. He called out her name again, and it appeared like he wasn’t getting a response. He tried again but got nothing. Then the line went dead.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said, realizing that something was very wrong.
‘M31222,’ Rathod said out loud to us. ‘Note that down.’
Radha typed it into her phone. ‘What happened?’ she said.
‘Sonia said the bullet is a match and then gave me that number, which looks like a case file number. That’s all she said’ Rathod said and then got up, picking up his keys from the dining table. He pulled out his phone and I saw him call Sonia again. ‘She’s not reachable,’ Rathod said and tried again. He ran to his car.
‘I’m coming with you,’ I said, following him outside.
‘Don’t right now. I don't know how long I’ll take at the CID office,’ Rathod said as he opened the door of his car.
‘You’re not driving alone right now. I can come back on my own,’ I said. ‘If Sonia’s not reachable, then try the CID Lab landline,’ I said.
Rathod had it saved on speed dial. He tapped the number and put the phone on speaker.
‘Get in the car, I’m driving,’ I said.
Rathod got in on the side seat. I put the car in gear and zoomed forward. Rathod swore under his breath because the call wasn’t being answered. Even if it was late, there had to be someone at the lab because of the triple homicide investigation. The call almost rang out before being answered.
Rathod said, ‘This is Senior Inspector Kapil Rathod. This is a potential code red situation. Check Dr. Joshi’s office and see if she’s okay.’
A woman’s voice said, ‘I will. I’m heading to her lab.’ We heard her loud footsteps as she dashed towards it.
I had been to the CID basement twice. So, I knew its basic layout. The Medical Examiner’s office was at the start of the corridor, away from the morgue, staff desks and the lab.
‘CODE RED! CODE RED! I repeat CODE RED!!!’ the trainee yelled out. ‘Officer down. I have to attend to her. She has been shot,’ the trainee said and the line went dead.
I drove as fast as I could, tearing past other cars and bikes. Rathod made a series of phone calls to the CID security desk and the Night Shift Incharge, a man named Kaushik Dabri. He asked them to close all exit and entry points, alert the CID officers who were outside the premises when the shooting happened to come to the office right away and register their entry at the gate. Dabri told him that he was gathering all the officers in the building in holding rooms on the second floor. Rathod also asked a Rapid Response Team to secure the CID building and search it, in case the killer was hiding inside.
We reached the CID building in eight minutes. I pulled over on the opposite side of the road.
‘This is going to take a while,’ Rathod said, stepping out. He ducked in through the window. ‘Head home. I’ll call you in some time once things calm down. Keep your phone with you. Don’t trust anyone but me,’
I watched him cross the road and enter the CID premises after showing his ID at the gate. I wondered how anyone could have slipped past security and the other measures and killed a CID officer inside their own building. Just a few months back, a client I was representing while finding a missing girl, had been taken out by a sniper through a small window in the interrogation room. I knew Dr. Sonia’s office had a small window at the ceiling to get sunlight. But that was too small for a sniper and the angles wouldn’t work out. To kill her, someone would have had to go to her office and then shoot her.
I heard an ambulance in the distance. Its sound grew louder with each passing second. Within the next minute, I could see it propel forward on the wrong side of the road. The security guards at the gate of the CID building probably had been told the ambulance’s number plate because as soon they saw it, the door opened and the ambulance swerved sharply into the CID premises.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rathod ran inside. Other CID officers were running in all directions. A loud chatter of conversation resounded. Amid all the chaos, Rathod saw Bhalerao speaking on the phone, asking the security guards if they had sealed all exits. He was off the phone by the time Rathod reached him.
‘What’s the news on Dr. Sonia?’ Rathod said.
‘It looks bad but I’ve been told she’s hanging in,’ Bhalerao said. ‘They have started an emergency-surgery on her in the forensic department itself. A senior doctor is on the way. An ambulance should be here any moment to take her to a bigger hospital once the operation gets done.’
‘How many people were present in the building when it happened?’ Rathod asked.
‘About thirty. The night staff, and three members of our team,’ Bhalerao said.
‘Can I tell you something quickly?’ Rathod said.
‘Yeah. What is it?’ Bhalerao said.
‘Not here,’ Rathod said and dragged Bhalerao into a small waiting room.
The door behind them sucked close, drowning out most of the noise. Rathod pulled a string to close the blinds. Just as he was closing it, he saw the members of the Rapid Response Team enter the building. They would search it from top to bottom for the shooter. They would also look for any clues the shooter had left behind that could reveal his identity or entry and exit plans.
‘I think I got Sonia shot,’ Rathod said.
Bhalerao’s eyes were almost going to pop out. ‘What? You? What are you talking about?’
Rathod told Bhalerao a condensed version of what had happened since morning.
‘She found something fishy, didn’t she?’ Bhalerao said after Rathod finished telling him.
‘I don’t know. She said the bullet is a match and then gave me a case number. I think just knowing that got her killed. Maybe the plan was to kill her if she found something. And Sonia is good. She did find something, she was always going to, if there was anything to be found.’
Bhalerao said, ‘You were right about someone high up the ranks in the police being involved. How else would they have got access to the building, let alone the information?’
‘I’m sure something is wrong with the CCTV tapes,’ Rathod said.
‘Yes, they are blacked out,’ Bhalerao said, shaking his head. ‘Somebody knew what they were doing. They also knew where to find Sonia.’
‘The timing was crazy. From the way she called me, it was as if she had just found out seconds before she was shot.’
‘One of the thirty people in the building has to be behind this.’
Rathod moved around in the room, feeling restless. He said, ‘Unless the killer found a way to get in and out. You said she called you soon after being shot. That gives the killer about a minute to get outside. Probably seventy seconds. Too short a time to go from the basement to outside the CID premises.’
‘The guards at the gate said that they didn’t see anyone go out for at least five minutes before the code red was issued and all exits were sealed.’
‘I have to tell the ACP,’ Rathod said. ‘There’s no other way. Without the information I have, this murder investigation will go nowhere for the CID. It will aid their investigation if they get to know how the evidence was obtained.’
‘You will be suspended. An inquiry into your actions will be set up. It can take months or even years to settle. You will be off duty till then. Even once you’re back, there’ll be a stigma. You would not get cases as you do right now. Your work will be restricted to filing reports and filling forms. Don’t do it, my friend,’ Bhalerao said and put a hand on Rathod’s shoulder.
‘But, Sonia wouldn’t get justice,’ Rathod said.
‘She will. You can still get to the bottom of all this. Didn’t you save the little girl six months back with Siya?’
>
‘I don’t know, Bhalerao,’ Rathod said. ‘I feel damn guilty. I put Sonia in that spot.’
‘I’ll look up the case number she gave you. Stay here,’ Bhalerao said, thinking a change of topic would do his friend a world of good.
Bhalerao walked out briskly to his computer and looked up the case. He came back to the waiting room five minutes later with a bunch of papers in his hand. He said, ‘The hit on Sonia indicates that someone very powerful is involved. So, I have taken a print out of all the documents associated with the case just in case they go missing.’
‘That’s great. Thanks. Do you have a soft copy as well?’ Rathod said, looking at the case summary.
‘Yes, here it is,’ Bhalerao said, handing him a sleek pen drive.
Rathod decided he would read the case summary later. His mind was preoccupied with what had happened to Sonia.
‘I know it sucks,’ Bhalerao said. ‘But there’s a chance that Dr. Sonia may live. You didn’t force her to help you out. She believed in what you told her. And that’s why she even made that call as she was dying. Have you thought about why she didn’t call her husband to tell him she loved him? Wouldn’t she have liked that? Obviously yes. But then, she called you. Because she knew that information would be useful to you.’
‘Thanks for that. The only way to right this is to find out who was behind the attack on Sonia. That might also lead us to the people responsible for Aniruddha Rajput’s disappearance. It’s all fucking connected,’ Rathod said and paused. ‘I need to see what happened downstairs. Are they letting us check the crime scene?’
‘I spoke to the ACP just before you came in. He told me the officers outside the premises at the time of the attack will be allowed to pursue this case. So, both of us will be investigating it.’
‘Where was the ACP?’
‘He was at his house when Sonia was shot. He was on his way when I spoke to him. He said he could not reach you.’
‘Even if I don’t tell him or anyone else that I had tasked Sonia with doing some other work, how am I going to explain the other things? They’ll find out that Sonia called me just after being shot. They’ll also know that I was the one who issued the code red by speaking to the trainee in the lab.’
‘Just tell them she called you regarding the triple homicide. You were getting worked up about it and had asked for a status report at the end of the night.’
Rathod shook his head. ‘Let’s go to the basement.’
The two of them walked down to the basement. The CID forensics department was eerily quiet. It had become a crime scene. Yellow tapes had been plastered all over the place. Surprisingly, apart from them, there were just two other people.
A young trainee named Kriti Patil was one of them. She appeared to be calm. She walked up to Rathod and Bhalerao on seeing them. She realized they were wondering where the rest of the people were. ‘The staff that was present when Dr. Sonia was shot has been taken upstairs. Five from the forensic staff are operating Dr. Sonia. Kaushik Dabri is with them.’
Rathod was glad that his instructions had been followed so fast. He made a mental note to speak to Kaushik Dabri about it. Even Dabri was a suspect. Everyone was. But every floor of the CID building had special access cards that had to be punched in each time any officer entered or exited it.
‘Has the access card system been tampered?’ Rathod asked.
‘All systems at the forensics department, including the access card setup and CCTV cameras, were disabled remotely,’ Kriti said.
‘And what’s the status of Dr. Sonia’s operation?’
‘They’re trying to stop the blood flow. The ambulance and two other surgeons who specialize in bullet related trauma have just arrived. They will gauge her condition and decide if she can take the ride to another hospital. Simultaneously, they are also preparing for a situation where she can’t be moved. Another ambulance is already on its way here with more medical equipment, medicines and doctors.’
‘Give us the overalls. We'd like to see her office,’ Rathod said.
‘Of course,’ Kirti said and got two pairs of white plastic overalls for Rathod and Bhalerao.
They put it on and ducked under a yellow tape to enter the hallway that led to Sonia’s office.
The first thing they saw was the large pool of blood next to Sonia’s table. It was smudged in places as Sonia had been pulled out of it. Rathod guessed the shooter would have hit her on entering the office. There was no chance for Sonia to get away or alert anyone. A silencer had to be used as no one knew she was shot until he had called.
Rathod looked at the two examination tables next to her desk. One had a microscope. It told Rathod that she had looked at the bullets. The other table had nothing on it. His eyes searched for the bullets. But he could not spot them.
‘You said you gave her an anonymous letter, right?’ Bhalerao asked.
‘Yes, it was in a brown envelope,’ Rathod said.
‘I can’t see it,’ Bhalerao said, stopping by every corner of the office.
‘The killer must have taken it. The bullets she examined are missing too,’ Rathod said. ‘I don’t know how they got to know.’
‘I think what you said upstairs made sense. The plan was not to kill her. Just observe her and then execute her if she finds something.’
‘Why not just take the bullets?’ Rathod said, but then he answered the question himself. ‘By taking the evidence and killing Sonia, they were closing any possibility of what Sonia found being admissible in court. The DFSS database would have the entry but without physical evidence and the Medical Examiner’s opinion, it was going to be a hard point to prove. The defence could claim evidence tampering.’
Rathod stopped by the microscope. He knew it recorded everything that was seen under its lens. He also knew that bullet striations were no longer examined by eyes alone. The computer had to certify that it was a match.
‘Even if the evidence has been taken, the machine still knows the truth,’ Rathod said, pointing at the microscope.
First, Rathod needed to know which bullets were a match. Using Sonia’s computer and her account as it was already open, he opened the DFSS database. Sonia had made two entries. The bullets from the triple homicide and the two bullets that they had found at Stan Mills. Lodged in the walls. The bullets from Stan Mills had been fired from the same gun that had been used in case number M-31222. The two were connected by the shooter. Rathod wanted to check what the case was as soon as possible. But first, he needed to handle some other stuff.
Rathod paused, thinking about how the recording from the microscope could be first retrieved and then secured. One person came to his mind. Jay Parikh, the computer whizz kid, whom Siya and he had met during their last case. With half the CID staff now being suspects in the murders, it would be possible to get an external consultant on board. Before working with him the last time around, Rathod had himself conducted a background check on Jay, so he knew Jay would pass the CID scrutiny test.
As Rathod picked up his phone to call Siya, his phone began ringing in his hand. It was an unknown number. His eyes narrowed as he answered the call.
‘Is this Senior Inspector Kapil Rathod from the CID?’ a man said.
‘This is him. Who is this?’ Rathod said, uttering each word distinctly.
‘I am Gandhar Deshpande. I am a researcher at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory in Pune. I was tasked by Dr. Sonia Joshi earlier in the day to analyse some gunshot residue. She gave me your number in case I couldn’t reach her. I have been trying her number for the past fifteen minutes but I cannot get through. That’s why I called you.’
Rathod was suspicious but at the same time alert. He knew that if this was indeed someone who was helping Sonia, then even they were in danger if they had found something. Rathod said, ‘Where are you now?’
‘I am the CFS Lab.’
Rathod ran to the admin area of the forensics lab. He wanted to make sure Gandhar was who he was claiming to be. Bhalerao c
onnected the dots and helped Rathod setting up the call tracking software and handing him a wire to connect his phone to it. All floors of the CID had the tracing software ready to get going in a matter of seconds.
‘When did Dr. Sonia contact you?’ Rathod asked to stall as the software traced the call.
‘She called me earlier in the evening today. I sent someone to get the samples. Then she told me how I should go about testing it. The required equipment wasn’t available at CID so she wanted to use something here at CFS,’ Gandhar said and paused. ‘I’m finding this odd. Is everything alright?’
Rathod took a deep breath as the software showed the location of the caller as the CFS Lab in Kharadi, a place forty minutes from the CID office. There was no way he was going to reach there quick enough if there was a threat to Gandhar’s life.
Rathod said, ‘Everything is not okay. Gandhar, listen to me carefully. Don’t panic but there’s a high chance that your life could be in danger. I am alerting someone I know at the Kharadi Police Station. Two officers will come to take you. Only go with them and no one else. Ask them for IDs.’
Bhalerao knew Rathod was referring to a member of his SWAT team. He lived a few minutes from Kharadi and was the closest to the CFS amongst their trusted team. He pulled out his phone, beckoned to Rathod if he should make the call. Rathod nodded and saw Bhalerao walk away as he put the phone to his ear.
‘What’s going on?’ Gandhar said, confused and afraid.
Rathod said, ‘Someone just shot Dr. Sonia because of what she discovered. They don’t want anyone to know. If she had brought you in the loop too, then there’s a high chance that they will try to hurt you as well.’
‘In that case, I’ll tell you what I found,’ Gandhar said, his voice trembling now.
As Rathod heard what Gandhar had to say, his eyes were almost going to pop out. What Gandhar had found was invaluable. It changed everything that had happened since morning. And it was also worth killing for.
Chapter Twenty-Three
