The Hunt for Truth

by Sury Patru Viswam

  “Can you email me both their pictures?” Arya asked Ashton, referring to Omar and the other Samir.

  “Sure.” Ashton collected Arya’s email address. It had been only a couple of years since everyone in her department was assigned an email address. It was optional before. She had always been comfortable with technical gadgets, but the same could not be said for her partner. To her, Edgar was a hunter-gatherer in the digital world.

  “Thanks.” Arya extended her hands and thanked Ashton for his help in the investigation.

  As she walked out of the building, she had more questions than answers. The information she had learned about Samir was soul-crushing. The last thing she wanted to tell her friend was that her husband was a liar and lived a life of deceit.

  15

  It was five minutes to eleven when Arya finally made it to her precinct.

  She stopped her stride as she crossed the cafeteria; it was surprisingly empty. She turned to her right and peeked inside; the coffee machines were enjoying their time off, and there was no commotion around the foosball table. Forget the commotion; there were only two people in the entire cafeteria.

  “Hey,” Arya signaled towards a Uni who was sitting closer to the refrigerator, enjoying his donut and getting his sports update from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

  As the Uni turned towards her, Arya asked, “Where is everyone?”

  “Upstairs. They are all huddled in the conference room,” he answered.

  “Damn it,” Arya reproached herself. She couldn’t believe that she had forgotten about her conversation with Edgar this morning.

  “FBI,” she silently whispered to herself as she hurried upstairs.

  As Arya reached the top of the stairs, she could see the squad room to her right. There was a reason why the squad room was often called the ‘Long Room.’ Yes, it was atypically long, but that was not the reason why they started calling it the ‘Long Room.’ When she first joined here, she met an old copper who was turning in his badge after forty years of service. In his retirement party at Joe’s dive bar down the street, he had one too many Jack’s. As everyone in the force knows, one of the side effects of Jack’s is nostalgia. He began to spin tales about his German ancestry and how his family played a crucial role in establishing this German settlement. He claimed that his great-great-great-great-grandfather chaired the history slavery meeting among the Quakers to discuss their opposition to slavery. He went on to say that the meeting took place in the same room where he had worked for the last forty years. The folklore was that the room was referred to as ‘Long Room’ because of the shape of the room. No one knew if the old copper’s story was true, but the term ‘Long Room’ stayed on. Everyone in the squad just referred to it as the ‘Long Room.’

  Arya’s gaze shifted towards the far-right corner, where she noticed her fellow officers sprinkling out of the meeting room. She saw her partner, Edgar James, walking towards his desk. As usual, he was dressed impeccably. He had a classic navy suit tailored to fit him perfectly that showed off his muscular physique.

  Arya walked across the room and sat across the table from Edgar. The Long Room is arranged like most of the other precincts with tables arranged orderly like in a school. A table is shared by two detectives who are partners.

  Edgar glanced at his watch and slowly lifted his gaze towards Arya. “Well, what do I owe to be graced with your presence,” he said sarcastically with a smile.

  “Thank your good looks,” Arya said playfully.

  “Jeez! You never change,” Edgar chuckled, leaning forward to high five Arya.

  The relationship between fellow officers is always a special type of bond. The camaraderie is ripe with elements like respect, trust, and friendship. With the amount of time the partners end up spending together, they become family to each other.

  Given Edgar and Arya’s friendship blossomed right from the Academy, their friendship has an added dimension to it. The training period for the Academy was quite long. It was thirty weeks, and, somewhere during those thirty weeks, they had become partners, not just professionally at the Academy, but also at the bars. They became each other’s wingman, helping each other out with the dating scene. In fact, Arya was the reason Edgar got married to his wife, Simone James. Back in the day, Arya was known for the fanciest parties she threw, and, for one of those parties, Arya invited her friends from the country club. Simone was one of them. As the night went on, the party got thinner, and, by two in the morning, there were only three people – Arya, Simone, and Edgar. They ended up playing truth or dare, and one thing led to another, and Edgar ended up kissing Simone. The kiss lingered longer than the game warranted. The next day, Edgar and Simone ended up going on a proper date, and the rest was history.

  “Okay, coming back to you. What the heck where you doing in Center City? A late-night date or an early morning booty call?” Edgar playfully smiled.

  “I wish!” Arya let out a deep breath as she rolled her eyes in a jovial way and said, “I do really need it.”

  Both of them cracked up, enjoying their playful banter.

  “Okay, in all seriousness, what the heck were you doing that was so important you missed the briefing?” Edgar brought the conversation back to Arya’s morning.

  “Do you remember the name Sania?” Arya asked.

  “Hmmm….” Edgar shifted his gaze upwards, trying to place the name ‘Sania.’

  “Is this Sania, the one you were close with in college?”

  Arya nodded approvingly. “Yup, from high school onwards. The same Sania.”

  “What’s up with her? Did you meet her this morning?”

  Arya slightly shook her head. “I saw her yesterday.” Arya paused briefly and pointed her fingers downwards and gently tapped at the table as she said, “In fact, I ran into her right here – in our building.”

  “That must be a nice surprise. I know how much you liked Sania.” Edgar and Arya, being close, got to know about each other’s past well. In Arya’s past, Sania featured prominently, and she had shared many stories about her friend.

  “How did she find you?”

  “She didn’t.” Arya held her gaze at Edgar and continued, “Sania was here to file a complaint, and we kind of bumped into each other.”

  Edgar leaned forward, expressing interest in hearing more. “What complaint?”

  “About her husband, Samir Tariq. He has been missing.”

  “What?” Edgar expressed surprise.

  “Yes. He has been missing from 9/11,” Arya said evenly.

  “9/11!” Edgar looked dismayed. “Was he in the towers?”

  Arya shook her head.

  “New York?”

  “Nope. He left for Los Angeles from Philly the previous night, and no one has heard from him since then.”

  “Oh. For business or pleasure?” Edgar asked, getting into the case.

  “That is where it gets tricky,” Arya said, leaning back in her chair. “As per Sania, he went to LA for business.”

  “I see a but coming,” Edgar chimed in.

  Arya slightly shook her head. “He didn’t; I checked with his employer.”

  “I guess that’s where you went this morning.” Edgar connected the dots between the story and Arya being in Center City this morning.

  “Yes and no,” Arya said.

  Edgar’s eyes widened, expressing confusion with Arya’s answer. “I get the yes, but not the no.”

  “Yes, I went to Center City to confirm Samir’s business trip to LA, and Aries Financials confirmed that he didn’t go there for business.”

  “I assume Aries Financials is Samir’s employer?”

  Arya nodded and continued, “That is where it gets trickier. Sania, last night, told me that her husband is working for Aries Financials.”

  “Don’t tell me that Samir is not working for them?” Edgar realized that was the curveball.

  Arya sighed as she said, “Samir did work for Aries, but he resigned in June.”

  “So, he d
idn’t tell his wife. Sneaky,” Edgar thought aloud.

  “Not just that. Sania told me that Samir has been working for Aries for the last two to three years.” Arya paused, raising Edgar’s anticipation before continuing, “But I found out that was not the case. Samir joined only in February of this year. He hardly worked there for six months.”

  “Shit. That is some lying,” Edgar said. “I know husbands lie, but this is in a whole different stratosphere.”

  “No kidding,” Arya said, agreeing with Edgar.

  “Did you tell your friend?”

  “Not yet. I came here right after with the hope of making the briefing.”

  “They moved it up.” Edgar went on to explain that the suits rolled into the office and pushed the briefing earlier.

  “What did the FBI say?” Everyone in the force knows ‘suits’ stand for the FBI, even though detectives across the country also wear suits.

  “JTTF,” Edgar corrected. JTTF stood for Joint Terrorism Task Force and was first set up in 1980 by the FBI in conjunction with New York state authorities to combat terrorism in the country. FBI’s JTTF was formed to build a real partnership between many federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. The goal was to cut through turf warfare between the agencies by having representation from all of them work hand-in-hand. By 2001, the number of JTTFs grew to a total of thirty-six across the nation. After 9/11, the importance and number of JTTFs grew tremendously.

  “We had people from the FBI, Secret Service, USCIS, CBP, and our top brass.”

  “Here?” Arya was stunned, learning the level of presence that descended on her precinct that day.

  “There seems to be some unconfirmed intelligence that some of the hijackers visited our town in July.”

  “What? Here?” Arya was stunned.

  “I couldn’t believe it too.” Edgar leaned in.

  “What did they say?” Arya was eager to hear more about this shocking revelation.

  “They didn’t really share much about the source or overall investigation. The suits were playing it close to their vest. However, they did say that they will be sharing pictures of those two hijackers who might have visited our town.”

  “They want us to knock on doors and find out more about them?”

  “Mosques….” Edgar stopped his sentence abruptly when he heard Lieutenant Cooper’s voice boom across the room.

  “Arya.” Arya turned in the direction of the voice and found LT Cooper standing at the doorstep of his office with the firm gaze directed towards her.

  The stern gaze and firm tone meant only thing; LT Cooper was not in a good mood. Given Arya missed the critical briefing, she knew immediately that she would be getting her ass handed out to her.

  “Pray for me,” Arya whispered to Edgar as she walked towards LT Cooper’s office.

  16

  Arya hesitantly walked through the open doors to find LT Cooper sitting on his desk, peering at a report. Without looking up, he motioned his hand to signal Arya to close the door.

  “LT….” Arya didn’t get far with her opening as LT Cooper motioned his hand to signal her to hold her thoughts.

  An uncomfortable silence descended on Arya. LT Cooper had his gaze firmly on the report, studying and marking notes on it.

  Based on her experience, Arya knew that LT was known to ice difficult situations with uncomfortable silence. It was kind of similar to the interrogative techniques they employ with suspects. When a suspect gets to the can or is brought in for questioning, seasoned interrogators typically ice them for hours. The studies have shown that suspects eventually break down and confess to things which they might not have admitted to if they were confronted without the prickly wait. From a psychological perspective, humans are social animals, and nothing makes them more uncomfortable than excruciating silence, especially when they are hiding something or have done something wrong.

  Arya shifted her gaze from LT to his desk; it was squeaky clean except the report in front of LT and a framed picture of his family. In the photo, he was standing next to his wife and his son in front of Harvard University. Arya remembers the day very well. It was one of the rare moments when LT had tears in his eyes; his only son was graduating from Harvard. The entire squad later had gone out to Terry’s dive to celebrate the moment.

  The silence continued to grow with no end in sight. Arya cleared her throat with the hope of catching LT’s attention, but it bared no success. LT continued to ice Arya.

  Arya pulled a chair and made herself comfortable across from LT. There was no reason why she had to fight the inevitable. LT was going to break the silence when he intended to do it. Arya started to drum her fingers on the table, which made LT look up to give a staredown. Arya caught herself in the act and stopped drumming.

  “LT,” Arya began, but LT shifted his gaze back down at the report.

  LT Mike Cooper is a large man; he weighs around 250 pounds and stood tall at an inch over six feet. His family could be described as a modern American family. It is interracial - he is black, his wife is white, and their son is multi-racial. LT Cooper had a deep voice to go with his imposing figure, and that made everyone around him take him seriously, even before he held any title.

  It was time to fess up.

  “I know I messed up. It’s my bad.” Arya dragged the difficult words from her mouth.

  LT Cooper slowly raised his head. “Go on.”

  “I should have been here for the briefing. I screwed up. No two ways about it.” Arya raised her hands, gesturing her apology.

  “Why didn’t you come?” LT glared.

  “I was doing a favor for an old friend,” Arya started.

  “Would that friend be Sania, your old college mate?”

  “Jeez. How the fuck did you find out?” Arya lost her language in a moment of surprise.

  “Language, kiddo.” LT expressed his displeasure with Arya’s foul-mouthed language in both an authoritative and paternal manner.

  “Did the blabbermouth Edgar rat me out?”

  LT shook his head. “He tried to cover for you.”

  “What did he say?” Arya asked inquisitively, knowing Edgar must be the one who messed it.

  “Your papa had a fall, and you had to take him to the hospital.”

  “Shithead!” Arya cursed loudly at Edgar for royally screwing the pooch.

  * * *

  LT Cooper and Arya’s dad, James Martins, go way back; they have been drinking buddies for almost thirty years. When Cooper met Arya’s dad, he was a young copper, and James was an ambitious broker in one of the finest NY investment firms. The night they met was August 12th, 1971, a day that Arya or her family would never forget. It was Arya’s birthday, literally the day and year she was born.

  Arya’s dad, James Martins, had just moved to the Big Apple the previous year. Like most young stockbrokers, he was hungry, ambitious, and wanted to make a name for himself. He literally worked day and night, crunching the numbers, reading the charts, following the trades, and literally anything under the sun that would give him a leg up. He strived hard to make himself visible to one of the partners. On the evening of August 12th, James finally got a break, a chance that he had been sweating for the last year. He had foreseen a merger between two airlines, which ended up making a massive windfall for the firm and their big-money clients. This gave him a lucky break, a dinner meeting with managing partners of the firm. Arya’s mom, Angela Martins, knew that very well. That evening, when James had called to say about the dinner meeting with the big shots, Angela’s water just broke. But, knowing how much her husband craved the meeting, she didn’t want him to miss it. Like a wife who loved her husband to death, Angela just wished him well from her heart and hid her condition from him. After she hung up with him, she hurried to her car and tried to drive herself to the nearby hospital. But fate had other plans.

  Just as she took an exit from Grand Central Parkway, she felt a painful cramp that made her lose control of the car. A young copper, Mike Co
oper, was watching the tail end of the exit for speeding cars when he noticed a car weaving out of control on the street. Cooper rushed with his sirens flashing to the side of the out-of-control vehicle. When he saw the driver was a young woman struggling with unbearable pain and losing control of the car. He tried to desperately signal the young woman to stop the vehicle. Angela, catching the cop’s signal, on her side view, tried with all her might and pressed the brakes to bring the car to a stop.

  When Cooper hurried to Angela’s side, it was then he realized Angela was pregnant. Angela was screaming with unbearable pain, and there was significant water discharge around her. At that point, Cooper knew there was no time to get to the hospital, and the baby was coming out anytime soon. Every cop in the force undergoes training to deliver a baby in case of an emergency. However, in reality, most of them never had to put that training to use in their lifetime. Cooper had no reason to believe he would be any different. However, at that moment, he didn’t panic, and the training kicked in. He rushed back from his car with a pair of latex gloves and a sterile blanket. From that moment on, it was a haze for both Angela and Cooper for the next five minutes. At the end of five minutes, Cooper was holding a beautiful girl in his hands. The whole moment was surreal for Cooper. It would be another nine years before he would hold his own baby. In a way, Arya was his first.

  When James heard the news, he rushed to the Queens Hospital to see Angela nursing an angel. James had tears in his eyes, and when he later learned about Cooper, he rushed to Cooper’s precinct and found him. From that point on, they remained best friends. They might not agree on politics or social causes, but they always remained close.

  In the corner of his heart, James even knew Arya decided to be a cop because of Cooper. A lesser man might have been bothered that his angel didn’t follow in his footsteps to take over the family business. Instead, she followed his friend’s footsteps and became a cop. But James was not a lesser man. He was proud of Arya, and with all his heart, he supported her decision.