The Innocent

I had received a job promotion from sub inspector to inspector. I was so excited and so nervous at the same time. On Maghsir 8^th , I received a phone call from an unknown number saying he had seen a body in park. I immediately  called out my team. I had 3 constables and 1 head constable working under me. Back then on my team Ram Thapa was head constable and Hari Darji, Shyam Pandey and Bishnu Sunar were all constables.

 

With them I went to the crime scene, people were already gathered. I saw one of the guy trying to turn the body. I yelled at him. He suddenly went backward .  I asked Ram to secure the crime scene. It was muddy . I went near to the dead body. It was a female around 30 years old. Her head was cut by some sharp object and her foot was tied by a rope, her clothes were torn. There was piece of colth stuffed in her mouth. I couldn’t bare looking at her corpse. I searched the area but couldn’t find any relevant objects except a pack of cigarette.

 

Her family arrived at the scene. Her husband, mother in law and her 5 years old son. Her son was crying, his husband was still on shock. Her mother in law was just standing  there without showing any emotions on her face. I looked at her and felt something wrong about her. 

I sent the body for postmortem and asked  my team to collect information from her family members and went to my office.

I was thinking about the case and Thapa came into my office with some information he had gathered of the corpse.

Her name was Sunita Kumal, age 30 years old and was a housewife. She was a mother to a 2 year old boy. Her husband was a local businessman. Sunita was good housewife and a decent daughter in law. Her house was about 7km far from where her body was found. Her husband told that she was acting unusual since weeks ago and went missing on Manghisr 7^th  at 7:00. They had filed a missing complaint that night and had also searched in every possible places.

Thapa and his constables couldn’t find any  evidences except a pack of cigarette. I asked them to bring me the evidence. It was going to be hard to catch a criminal without any evidences.

At 4:00 P.M, I called her family to interrogate them.  Her husband was in grief but her mother in law was just like earlier when I had seen her. I was suspecting her of this heinous crime.

I called her inside the interrogation room. I was confused about greeting him so, I asked him directly,” what is your relation with the victim?’’

“I am her husband .”

“Can you please tell me more about her?”

“well, she was a decent wife and I loved her very much. She never complained about anything .She was a very kind woman .”

“ Was there any recent unusual activities she had shown?”

“ Yes, she was acting unusual from some weeks.”

“Do you know the reason?”

“ No, I don’t know why she was behaving like that.”

“ What do you mean by unusual ? What kind of activities did she show?”

“ She used to feel irritated when I talked. She was going out of the house more than usual and before she used to stay inside the house most of the time. She used to hit our son without any reason. Something was bothering her but she wouldn’t tell me.”

Nothing valuable came from his interrogation. I asked him to leave. While he was leaving, something hit my mind.

“ Did she smoke?”

“No, She wasn’t that type of woman.”

There were many questions and that I wanted to ask him but I felt sad for that poor man and let him go. However, I ordered him to visit me tomorrow for more interrogation. He shook his head and went out. That day I didn’t asked any questions to her mother-in-law.

 

That day in the evening after I reached home and took a cold shower, something came up on my mind. It was about Sunita’s mother in law. I should’ve interrogate her that day and I realized I did a mistake. If she was to be the murderer, she might create a fake alibi or come up with any other excuses. It was my first murder case and I didn’t want to mess it.

Soon after taking shower, I had my dinner. My wife was talking about her day and asked me how my day was. I told her about the new case that had arrived and she was shocked to hear.

My wife asked me, “Who is the murderer?’’

I didn’t had any answer so I said, “I don’t know exactly and investigation is going on. But If you ask me who is my prime suspect then  my answer will be her mother in law.”

“ Why do you think that?”

“ When anyone in  family dies people suffer and they show their grief through expressions. She was not showing any kind of expressions, not at the scene nor at the station.”

“Well, I don’t want to divert your mind from anything.  I will just leave it to you.” Saying that she went to kitchen to do dishes.

My phone rang. It was from Thapa. He said the postmortem report had arrived .

I was waiting for the report.

I went to the station to check the report. It was already 9. When I read the report, I was shocked. Sunita was killed and the cause of death was the overflow of blood due  to the cut at her head. Her head was smashed. The report didn’t bring anything notable for the investigation. There were no eyewitnesses and there were no identified suspects. We were clueless.

 

I looked at the clock and it was 10 PM. I called my wife to check if she and our daughter have slept. She didn’t pick up the phone so, I texted her that I would stay over at the station for the case. My brain asked for smoke. I took out a cigarette and smoked looking out of the window, thinking about the person who had done it. I couldn’t sleep well that night properly.

 

Next day, I called in her mother-in-law to ask some questions. She arrived at the station with sore eyes and sad face. I took her to the interrogation room and tried to start a conversation with her by asking her name and her relation with the victim. She answered with a soft voice. I was done with questioning her about her details and decided to ask about her daughter-in-law.

“She was a beautiful woman. My son and she were married in 2019. It was love marriage. Their marriage was done with out her parents blessing. They didn’t accept them and they even came to our house to threaten my son. It was hard at the beginning but they disregarded them.”

“What were you doing when your daughter in law went missing? At 7:00? ‘’

‘’ I prepared dinner and went to play with my grandson.  We were all sitting there in hall and she said she needed cerlac. I asked her to look in the kitchen. She did and there weren’t any so, she went to the departmental store to get some. I asked her to bring me a pack of cigarettes and that is all before she went missing.”

 

 I recorded her statement and let her go. It was turn for her son. Although I had questioned him already, I wanted their statement to be even. Their statement was matching. 

“Tell me about your marriage.”

“We were in relationship for 3 years. We decided to get married despite of our caste. She was Newar and I am Brahmin because of our unmatched caste her family were against our marriage. We ran away for 3-4 months and came back because she didn’t want to run away from her parents. She wanted to face them and cope with any decisions they would take. After we came back to my home, we both decided to go to hers and face her parents. One day we went there, her family humiliated us. They said they would never accept us. Her brothers came to my house and threatened me. After sometime, she confronted her family and we were living our life as we had planned.”

 

“ You said her brother came to threaten you. What did they tell you?”

“They would say that they will destroy our lives. They even came had me beaten by some boys.”

 

“ Are you sure they were them?”

 

“Sir, I am an honest man and I don’t have any enemies. I have always tried to avoid conflict with any person. They were the only one who were angry with me. They even called me and mocked me for getting beaten and no one knew about that incident.”

 

“Did your wife had enemies or someone who would try to take her life?”

“No, sir.”

 

“ tell me about the day when she went missing?”

“My mother  prepared dinner and came to play with my son.  We were all sitting there in hall and Sunita said she needed cerlac . My mom asked her to look in the kitchen. She did and there weren’t any so, she went to the departmental store to get some. My mother had  asked her to bring me a pack of cigarettes and that is all before she went missing. She took our scooter.”

 

“Did your wife had any close friend?”

“Yes, her best friend.”

“Whats her name? Can you provide her details?”

“Her name is Maya and she lives in our neighborhood.”

“ Okay, Suman. I will call your in-laws and Maya for questioning. Don’t leave the city without my permission.”

 

I had questioned all the related person except Maya and Sunita’s parents. I was hoping something would come up from them. I called her parents for questioning and asked them about their dead daughter. The questioning didn’t bring anything significant. They accepted they were upset with their daughter and their sons had beaten Suman. They all had alibi so it was sure they weren’t killer.

Sunita was brutally murdered by someone. It was the park where her body was found but her family confirmed about her going to departmental store. The whole point was that she had went to buy cereal for her son but she didn’t buy any. She had only bought a pack of cigarette. The thing that troubled me was why she went to the park. The scooter was missing and the last person to see her was the shopkeeper.

Before Maya, I called in the shopkeeper for questioning.

His name was Hari. He entered inside the room and sat there. I knowingly delayed the time and went in with some fake documents that would seem like evidence.

 

“ How are you doing Hari?”

“ I am doing fine sir. What about you?”

“I am doing just good but something’s been troubling me, you know. Lets just focus on questions and the answers you give to me.”

“I will try to be helpful sir.”

“why did sunita come to your store hari?”

“ She came to buy cigarettes sir.”

“didn’t she asked buy anything else except that cigarette?”

“No,sir. She only bought cigarettes.”

“ Okay. You are doing good hari. How was she behaving at that time?”

“ I didn’t notice anything weird sir. She talked fine.”

“Can I have CCTV footage of that night?”

“ Sure sir. I can send them anytime you want.”

“ I want them know so i want you to go with Thapa sir and send them with him.”

 

 

 

After questioning him, I called Maya to the station. She came with her husband. Her husband asked  to be with her during questioning. I didn’t approve of that. His presence could affect her answers and I didn’t want that.

 

I called Maya into my office. I thought of asking her in my cabin so that she wouldn’t feel like she is being interrogated. I wanted to extract something from her. Maya came into my cabin. I asked Thapa to bring something for her. I wanted the questioning to be informal, like a casual interaction so that she would feel free to talk.

 

“ It must have been hard on you and I can understand that Maya. Losing your bestfriend leaves a scar that cant be erased. I know its hard for you but I hope you will cooperate with me. Can you tell me about your relationship with Sunita?”

Maya took a deep breath and started to talk, “ Sunita and I were bestfriend since college days. We would meet everyday after we both had finished our daily chores. Sometimes she used to come over to my house and sometimes I used to go over her house. We would talk for hours.”

“ What did you use to talk about?”

“ we used to talk about lot of things like our children, husbands and how our in-laws treat us.”

“ Did she ever said anything about her parents?”

“No, sir. She had accepted their decision. Sometimes she would talk about her mother-in-law, things her in-law used to say to her.”

“What things?”

“Like how she was of other caste and had deceived his son into marrying her. But things took turn after she gave a birth to a son. Her mother-in-law started to care her.”

Maya was being helpful but I could tell she was hiding something. Something like a secret, a dark deep secret and I wanted to get that out from her.

 

“Let me tell you about my story. I  lost my closest friend when I was 18 years old. He was a good student of our college. He was friendly to all. He had all the characters of a good person but like everyone else he had some secrets and I knew those secrets. He had done a horrific crime. A good person would never do that, he had tried to rape a girl. He told me this when we were drunk and he asked me to keep this a secret and I did. I never told this to anyone but eventually truth came out. He committed suicide. I feel guilty whenever I think about him not because I couldn’t save him but because of the fact that I had always kept that thing a secret. I had lost the sense of justice , I never thought of my bestfreind as a culprit. I thought him as a good man he was and never even tried to look at the other way.”

 

Maya seemed tensed after I told her my fake story of losing a bestfriend. She trembled with fear and guilt. Her face turned pale and she began to sweat.

“Just like every best friend I think you also know some of her secrets, don’t you?”

This question made her nervous. She turned her head down with closed eyes. I was finally about to get something out from her but she didn’t fell for my story.

Maya left in a hurry. Mr thapa brought the cctv footage form the departmental store.

 

Sunita was there with her phone in her hand. Just like Hari had told me she never bought cereal. It looked all fine at first but there was something missing in the footage. Hari wasn’t there in the whole footage but his statement were so clear just like he had seen her that day. When asked he even told me her way of behaving wasn’t unusual.

 

 

 

Hari seemed like he was keeping himself out from the footage. I just continued to watch the footage hoping I would find something more and I was lucky I spotted something unusual. The guy from the counter handed her a bill and he wrote something in the back of the bill. The footage wasn’t clear enough to see what he wrote.

 

I called in Hari for further questioning and he showed up.

“A woman was killed and she was last seen in your store. You told me everything about seeing her behaving normal and thins she bought from your store but you never told me that you weren’t even there.”

He calmly replied my question,” I had gone to bathroom sir and you can see that in the footage too.”

I didn’t know if he was lying or not but one thing I was sure was that his involvement in the case.

 

“Tell me hari, what do you know about your boy from the counter writing in the back of the bill?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

 

The case was getting more and more strangled with every statement. There was an innocent dead woman, her missing scooter and cellphone  and the motive wasn’t still clear to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maya called me on 10^th. She sounded worried and sounded like she wanted to tell me something. Before I could speak she said something that would be the breakthrough in the case.

“ There is something you need to know about Sunita. She indeed was a very good woman but just like your friend she also had some secrets. Secrets only known to her , and that person.”

She mentioned another person who knew about that secret of hers.

“What and who is that other person?”

“I don’t know about the person sir nor I know her secret but she did tell me about confessing it to the man. I asked her many time but she never told me.”

Her statement shocked me. What secret would she have?

“Do you know anything else Maya?”

“No,sir.”

 

 

I cut the call. According to her, Sunita had told her that she would confess her sins to Suman. If she had done that then that could have led to the incident. Suman had a motive, a motive which was justifiable. I decided to call Suman again for the questioning. I asked Thapa to look out for the missing scooter and her cell phone.

 

Suman arrived at the station and without wasting any time I called him in to the room.

 

“ Are you hiding something from me Suman?”

“ No, sir. I am not hiding anything from you.”

 “Okay, let me get straight to the point. Did She ever told you anything about her confession?”

Suman was just sitting there answering my questions. He was calm and just saying no as an answer for every question.

 

 

 

It was 11^th of Manghsir. I had just woke up. My wife was just laying there half asleep. After I had been promoted to inspector, she hadn’t talked to me properly. She was angry at me because I didn’t celebrate with her at that special occasion. I was just looking at her and realized my mistake so, I decided to take her out that night for dinner. I told her that I would meet her at our regular hotel at 8PM.

I left to office and picked up Thapa from his house.

“ who do you think did this and what could be her secret?”

Thapa replied,” I don’t know sir, the case seemed to be murder but recent information suggest otherwise. It might be anyone from that neighborhood and there are a lot of people. Its hard for me to tell but the murder of Sunita has to have link with her family.”

“It seems like,Maya told us the truth but we don’t know the person. It can be anyone. Did you find out about the scooter and her phone?

“ we found the scooter but we couldn’t find her phone.”

“okay, tell me about the scooter.”

“ her scooter was found outside the park. A guy stole it from there.”

We reached the station. The guy who had stolen the scooter was already there.

“What’s your name boy?”

“ My name is Sahil.”

“Where did you find the scooter and why did you steal it?”

“I found the scooter outside of the park on 7. I just took it from where it was parked.”

“A woman was found murdered there. You are the only one person that is the eye witness and you are also a suspect. So tell me about the things you saw that night nice and clear.”

“ I wont lie sir. I did steal that scooter but I didn’t murder anyone.”

“This doesn’t answer my question.”

“ I was just sitting there. A woman came in a scooter and went inside without taking the keys out. I waited there for some minutes but she didn’t show up. After sometime a man came on a bike. I hid behind a tree. He went straight to the place where she was sitting. I took that chance and stole the scooter.”

“Who was the man and what bike?”

“I didn’t recognize the man but I sure remember the bike, it was a red pulsar 150 CC. “

“ do you remember the bike number?”

“ it was dark sir. I didn’t see his bike number.”

“ Do you remember anything specific about that person?”

“He was tall about 5 ft 8 inch. I dont remember anything specific about him but there was a sticker on his headlight.”

While I was interrogating him, I remembered a bike that fit his claims. I asked him to look at the cctv footage of the store and it was bingo. It was Hari’s bike. There was the same sticker the boy mentioned. I sent Thapa to bring Hari. I asked him not to tell him the reason.

 

 

“ I have found an interesting thing about you Hari. You said you were at the store but you weren’t and an eyewitness saw you coming to the park after Sunita and also saw you together.Now, tell me what were you doing there Hari?”

Hari became nervous and said,” I went there to give her the exchange.”

This answer of him made me again suspicious of him.”you weren’t even at the f*****g store but you tell me you went down to the park just to return her the changes.You really think you can fool me huh , Hari?”

 

Hari’s voice trembled and looked down to come up with another excuse but before he could say anything I gave him a false evidence of his fingerprint being found at the crime scene.

Hari seemed tensed and afraid. His tone of voice changed and looked away time to time. He started to cry and began to confess. My lie worked.

 

“Why did you kill her Hari?”

“ I didn’t mean to kill her but she was torturing me for months and months.”

“ Why was she torturing you?”

“It all began on Maya’s birthday. It was after she got married to Suman. We met in Maya’s birthday party. We were just sitting there , drinking wine and celebrating Maya’s birthday. After we had finished drinking, we sat down to have dinner and Sunita came near to me. She sat beside me and she was drunk. I avoided her as much I could but she was approaching me again and again. She started to give me mixed signals. After finishing the dinner I went outside to smoke and she followed me there. We were alone outside in the garden. All of sudden, she said something. She said that her husband was out of town. She began to talk about her husband and how their sex relationship was. She was all over me and she said herself she wanted to have sex with me. I was drunk and she was too. Alcohol kicked out my morals and I agreed with her. She herself told me the place to go and she called her in-law saying she would stay over at Maya’s. She then told Maya that she will return home as her in-law kept calling her. I took her to the place she had said and we fucked.

We did it several times and once I asked her about her husband finding out about us and she told me that his husband didn’t f**k her well. He never satisfied her so, she wanted to have sex with me.

One day she called me and said that she was pregnant. I was shocked . I asked her to do the abortion but she didn’t agree rather she suggested that she would have this child and will continue living her life. She said she wont bother me with any of that and she didn’t. But after the child became 9 months old she changed her mind. I had just got married with a beautiful girl and I didn’t want my past to affect my present. One day she called me and said that she would confess to suman. I was going to be fucked up. I convinced her many times not to do so but she never listened to me. She ignored my calls.

One day , she came to my store. I wanted to talk to her about the situation. I told the cashier to write “meet me in the park”. Sunita went to the park as instructed and I went there after some minutes.

Sunita was sitting there and was crying. I approached her and started to talk to her. I tried to convince her no to tell anybody about anything. I even told her that I would take care of the child anonymously. I asked her why she was doing all of this. She said that she didn’t want to lie to her husband and she cheated her despite she was married. She wanted to be free from the guilt. After minutes of arguing, she was ready to leave. At that very moment something came up in my mind. I wasn’t myself, it felt like somebody else took control over my body. I picked up a rod and hit her on her back of the head. I don’t know what made me do that. I panicked and left her there. She was still alive when I left . And that’s all.”

 

 

The case was solved. Hari was the killer, now I had to do something to confirm what Hari had said. I sent the child’s dna and hari’s to confirm . After two days, the report arrived and the report proved the child was Hari’s.

A decent wife  who cheated on her husband . Sunita wasn’t how she looked from outside. Just like everyone Sunita also had someone else inside of her. Something darker and out of morals. People aren’t how they look form outside. We never know what goes on inside of a peron.

 

 

 

Author's Note

This is my first writing. I have made lots of mistakes. Feel free to review and provide feedback.