P- Arjun 3-S: The Proof! *(Cmpted)*

The Proof!

He knew it was Prarthana!

He ran toward her as the tension building up in his brain plunged toward his heart fast.

Once reached her, his hands seemed hesitating a moment.

The way she was lying there alarmed him suddenly.

His fingers touched her shoulder. He did not know if he was ready for the shock as he rolled her toward him.

Her left hand fell limply aside her as she was turned.

He saw her eyes- dead eyes- were open, wide.

He backed away and stood there motionless like his dead wife.

Her eyes were staring the ceiling and his eyes were staring at her face.

The numb legs under him were begging him to move, but their pleadings fell in deaf ears.

He was not going to lend his ears for anything that was not important anymore.

Something moved in him. Something heavy pressed his heart suddenly. He was not going to lend... His body tried, in reflex, to shake the tension out... He was not definitely going to- his mind freaked out... All of a sudden, he started feeling the irritation in his chest... Something from inside him was trying to come out fast. Oh, he was going to burst... His eyes narrowed sharply to focus. Slowly, very slowly a tear drop escaped his eyes...

Once came out, it found its way down easily.

Then one more, then one more...

When one met another, they shared the news with each other.

Soon they held their hands together reassuringly then jumped one by one down from there.

He felt the moisture near his chest. His eyes looked down at him and sent the message to the brain that his shirt was turning dark as the tears wet it.

He started feeling the things around him.

His eyes moved to the cot, which was empty except a pair of white pillows. He heard the sound of an alarm's tick-tick and his eyes found an alarm clock near the bed on a small stool.

His eyes started moving with the alarm's second's hand, unknowingly.

Every time that hand touched the '12' the other hand moved, but he could not understand it, clearly.

Moments passed. Minutes arrived.

He was standing there.

At one point one hand of the clock hid itself behind the other once it reached '12'.

That made him blink and that dragged him to the present.

It was six O'clock.

He had to do something, he remembered.

He had to say - to inform, he corrected- someone about this.

He remembered his neighbors' pleasant wish when he reached the house that evening.

He did not know if he was still in the house.

Suddenly he came to life and took his mobile.

He dialed '100'.

#

As the commissioner insisted that that was the second incident in that area lately and sent ETF there, Arjun and I went to the spot.

When we entered, the police were working there and Pranesh was sitting on a sofa, staring the floor.

The inspector came forward and saluted Arjun.

He was explaining the scenario, "The cause of death is poison-"

Pranesh murmured something, we could hear, 'Mobile/Her mobile',

We looked at him.

He was talking to himself, "She called me, she was trying to reach me, "He saw us, "But I didn't-"

A new trail of tears shed from his eyes.

Arjun went near him.

"Mr. Pranesh," he called him.

Pranesh looked at him, wearily.

"I know, what you are undergoing, but still, we need your help to solve the case. Will you help us?" he asked softly.

Pranesh nodded once.

"Tell me, when did you see her last?"

"This morning sir," he replied a moment later, in a hoarse voice, "When I went to the office."

"Was she all right?"

./

./

./

"We've to put the mobile in silent mode, when signing a document and meeting a client. And when she called this afternoon, I didn't notice it, sir. If only I -"he started crying helplessly.

Arjun put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Control yourself,"

Pranesh sniffed and started again, "Then she has called the office and asked for me. They've informed her that I was out to meet a client. When I called her she didn't pick it up."

A lone tear ball escaped his eyes.

#

The poison:

The poison she consumed had been in a juice she had taken that afternoon.

"God, we bought a juice bottle two days back and we had a glass that evening, sir,"

Pranesh informed us excitedly once heard the news.

We checked the juice bottle and found the poison in it too. S'ome one has added the poison on the day of incident!'

#

The door:

The door had been locked inside when Pranesh entered in.

Meaning: Prarthana was the one who locked the door herself. And she had drunk the juice from the bottle itself. There was no trace of using a glass. Hence, no clue about whether someone else was with her then.

#

The mobile:

The mobile we found near her body was hers and we checked the call details. As Pranesh claimed, she had called him continuously that afternoon.

A call had gone to his company reception too.

The interesting thing arrived, when we checked the inbox.

A message had come for her that afternoon from a number and it said, "Baby, I can't wait anymore. Come here or I'll come there in half an hour.'

There was no reply that had gone from her mobile to that message. We tried every way to trace it, but got nothing.

She had not replied back to that message, we concluded.

And we could not trace that number too. Since, it was not in use then.

When we inquired, we got that, it had been bought with duplicate id-s, two months back.

Pranesh did not know that number.

We checked her back ground and the husband- wife relationship- 'Good,' that was what the answer we got.

Perhaps she met this fellow, lately.

"She could have told me- oh, she must have called to tell about this. Oh, God, I didn't attend it. I'm the reason for her death, at last! She didn't hint anything about this. I thought she was happy with me. She could have told me at least once. I -"he sat on the floor suddenly.

#

Our conversation in private:

"Poisoning is a woman thing-"I started.

"Really?"

"Generally,"

"This person could be a woman, see, like a woman calls another woman; this one is calling Prarthana as, 'Baby'"

"Likewise a man too will call his lady as, ''Baby',"

"Except this message she was as pure as dew, right?"

I nodded fast.

#

The finger prints:

We could not get any finger print except Pranesh, Prarthana and the maid, who was coming twice a week and whose turn was the next day.

Particularly, her prints were not on the juice bottle.

"Her work is just mobbing the floor," Pranesh informed us, "She would come in the mornings after I left."

#

His alibi:

As he claimed, the office manager confirmed that he'd been scheduled to meet a client and was out at the time the call from his wife came to the reception that day.

The receptionist said, Mrs. Pranesh just asked about her husband and her voice was tired. The call was short. Once she got that her husband was not there, she cut the call without a word.

Slowly, eventually, the case was closed as suicide, with no clue of murder. We had to leave that message she got the day of her death as a wrongly forwarded message.

Pranesh again started to go to the office.

Now, the sympathetic looks around were changing, he thought.

He had stopped the maid too who was after her death was coming in the evenings.

He could not tolerate her constant talk of tragedies happened around her.

With the case closed and he had to start a new life, he did not know if he was ready still, though.

a lil confused... pls update soon

Awesome start dear

Awwwsssmmm Update
Very Interesting
Continue Soon
Waiting for next part
Thanks for the PM

fabulous start...

pls do pm me for the updates of this story..😊

Nice start

interesting case but did missed rest of the team specially sakshi 😊

Part-2:

It was a cloudy evening.

Arjun and I were standing behind a lay figure of a boutique opposite to the Carel Inn restaurant.

As the clock stuck 06:55, I could feel that I was a bit tense as we were watching the road.

An unexpected Flash back intruded----~>

Arjun was reading a file of a homicide. As he thumbed the pages, he felt something was nagging him in the corner of his mind that was trying to come to the front row.

The case's hearing was on last Monday. The defense lawyer did his job well. His opening statement was like, for the judge to dismiss the case there itself.

In spite of the evidences against the accused, the lawyer tried to prove his client's innocence.

Arjun stopped turning the next page. He looked up from the paper.

He found the thing what was nagging him for some time now.

It was the lawyer's statement to exhibit the defense's innocence that, he said, 'Although there were fingerprints of the accused on the weapon used for the murder, my client was the one who informed the police. If he had done that crime, why should he call the police, first?' the lawyer asked the spectators.

Arjun s mind was now doing some links and changes then announced-

'Can we leave him, just for the fact that he called the police?'

'If someone didn't call the police from the crime spot, can we accuse him with that crime?'

'If we couldn't get evidence against one still, is he not guilty then?'

'If one called the police first-

'Even Pranesh did call the police first-

He was shocked to know the way his thoughts were leading him to.

'No, we've checked everything in that case.'

He reasoned with himself.

He went to the next page.

After reading a paragraph, he saw that he could not actually concentrate on the file.

He closed the file and his eyes.

'Pranesh!'

He touched the sides of his temple with both thumbs and pressed.

The pensive face of Pranesh came to his mind.

He pressed his eyebrows from the corners and moved toward the centre.

He thought of the things happened in the scene of crime.

He was not sure if he really wanted to believe him guilty.

He touched the point where his eyebrows met and pressed.

Just for an assumption, he said to himself, what if he was guilty?

He and his wife were doing well with each other, why and how would he be in this?

Would a happy wife kill herself?

There was no clue that she was murdered.

The tears in the husband's eyes-

Once again the scenes moved before his eyes.

He called the police and informed about the death of his wife.

Then he informed that his wife called him that afternoon.

Wait, he said, The mobile, as though he was talking to himself, when the inspector was informing about the cause of death.'

Arjun stopped at this point and rewound the scene.

'Pranesh was the one who informed the police.'

Arjun tried to retrace the scenes in another version. He did not know if this one was an improved one or not. But he wanted to go more.

'He was the one who said to see her phone, that she had a mobile and not to forget to check it.'

Arjun tried a step forward.

'Then he said about the bottle they bought and drank a glass of juice from it together the previous evening.'

That might be true enough. His finger prints were on the bottle, all right.

His alibi!

'That was the wonderful thing; Pranesh said voluntarily that his wife called him when he was out to meet a client.'

After an hour she was dead.

Pranesh entered in with his keys, saw his wife's dead body after two hours.

His tears!

Anybody can... Arjun was not sure, if it was his curious mind which was imagining things cruelly.

Pranesh's social relationship was normal. His friends were supporting him in and out of the office. He was happy- with his wife? Was his wife with him?

They were, at the surface, to others, even to the maid who was coming twice a week.

Arjun started keeping an eye on Pranesh.

#

"He's too easily settled with the point that his wife was mixing with someone else."

"Perhaps, he's already read the message before the police arrived, "I said a point.

"Perhaps," he admitted, quietly.

"So, he may know that number, right?"- He asked a moment later.

"Perhaps, as it's a fancy number and his wife has mixed with in this matter."

"Right, instead of thinking it's a mere message, why should he to think, it's from a man mixed with his wife?"

"May be they were not that much good terms as husband and wife."

He smiled at me.

"My question is whether the wife opened that message first or she didn't at all. Right, even if we take it that she was with another guy why didn't this fellow contact her before?"

"They could have met in person every time."

"Then why didn't that fellow use that number before or after sending that message?"

"Perhaps, the SIM card's lost after the message and the buyer of it just forgot that he or she has bought it, before sending the message."

"Just remembered it to use to send a message to her at the right time and didn't forget to recharge it for two months?"

"Well, he could have thought to use it after that wrongly sent message, but lost it-"

"It's a long shot, Shree."

"Yours too, sir."

#

We checked his alibi once again from different angle now.

We started asking the questions that we did not before.

The manager who confirmed his alibi was before us now.

"Tell me about his schedules from that morning," Arjun asked him for a start.

The manager asked the computer before him and informed that from that morning he had been in the office. Then he was sent to meet this client, Mr. Kristen in his office,"

"Did Pranesh ask you for that meet?"

"No, sir. I was the one who sent him there. In fact, I gave him a co-worker's job to finish after he finished this one, since that fellow was on leave and Pranesh went there straight from there. You know, if he didn't go there, he could have gone to the house and seen his wife."

The manager was silent a moment.

"When did you inform him about this change of work?"

"Before he left for the meet with Mr. Kristen. It was the next building, so that I asked him to finish that job too."

Mr. Kristen had already confirmed Pranesh's alibi. We could not get anything new from him now.

Mr. Sastri, who was the one Pranesh met after he met Mr. Kristen, too confirmed his alibi.

#

"See, he didn't drink that juice after that first glass he drank with her the previous day."

"The previous evening,"

"Right, still he didn't!"

"He could have, if he didn't meet her dead body on his way in, the next day evening."

"He wouldn't have drunk it even if he didn't see her body."

"If there was no dead body that day in his house, then the couple would have enjoyed the remaining juice together."

I thought I'd consoled him, but he thought how Pranesh stopped crying, even worrying after we found the mobile and its message. It was so sudden, he thought. And he knew well that if he voiced out his doubts I would even give him a reply like, 'Yes, his initial shocks had gone then slowly, not suddenly and he stopped crying and tried to reason with her death. You know, he needed to know he was not guilty in her death.'

Arjun was silent.

#

"What's he doing, Shree?"

Arjun asked me once I entered in.

"Sir, he is going to the office, smiling a little, working sincerely and returning back to the house straight- is living quietly-sleeping alone. He is not behind a horse or a Napoleon," I grinned a bit.

[Horse= race and Napoleon= Drinks (Brand Name)]

"You know he's sent off the maid too," I informed.

"For her work?"

"For her mouth," I smiled.

"Phone?"

"His call records are clean. He is in the clear sir, I think," I suggested.

"He is in it, Shree," he insisted.

'I can take whatever you say, but the readers will ask for proof,' my mind muttered.

"Shree,"

He reminded me as I was silent.

"We've to prove it, sir," I said aloud.

"I need your help in this," he said quietly.

"Sir!"

Then he said what he wanted.

Awesome update