What Happened That Night- A Murder Mystery In Two Parts- Part II

Pritika waited in the café solving the days crossword. That’s when her phone rang and she knew who it would be. She rolled her eyes and picked up. “Hi maa. I’m busy.” “No I have too much work this week. I’ll drop by this weekend.” “No maa this is the hundredth time I’m telling you I am not interested in getting married right now so stop secretly finding people for me. Bye.” She slammed the phone down in anger. She was sick of her mother wanting to control her life. She was 26 goddammit.

The café door opened and a young woman came in. “Mr Sen has sent this. He apologizes for the delay.” She said in her sugar sweet voice and sauntered out, her heels click clacking against the floor of the café.

Pritika went home and spent the rest of the day on her sofa with a cup of coffee, studying the time sheets. No one seemed to have been doing anything out of the ordinary. Everything seemed normal. Pritika was very  frustrated. She knew she was this close to figuring it out. She was just missing something extremely obvious.

Wait why was Siddharth on leave for two days? He was a model employee who never took leaves according to the record. She called the company’s HR from the numbers given and asked about it.

“Oh yes ma’am Mr Negi is very regular. This two day leave was ony because his mother died. He has never taken a leave before.”

“Ok thank you.”

“Nothing weird here either. God why. Please please give me something. Something!” Pritika sighed and collapsed onto the sofa and promptly fell asleep.

Suddenly, an hour later she woke up. I’ve got it! She thought to herself and quickly called Inspector Narayan.

“Sir I think I know what to do. Let me talk to the wife and I’ll get back to you.” She hurriedly said and cut the phone without waiting for a reply.

She called Nikita, and said, “Hello. This is Pritika. Listen to me very carefully…

*

The next evening Pritika donned her prettiest dress and left for the Sharma residence. She met up with Inspector Narayan at the gate, he looked very dapper in his fancy suit, and he smiled at her as they walked in together. “This is the first time I’m attending this kind of a party.” The Inspector laughed as Pritika shook her head. 

When they entered, Nikita’s friends Shilpa and Taara with their respective spouses Amit and Karan were already there. They were surprised to see the policeman and the detective but they said nothing. Then came Amit with a bottle of chardonnay for Nikita followed by Siddharth who apologized for being late and seated himself.

Nikita signalled to Pritika that everyone was there, so Pritika cleared her throat and got up. “So you all must be wondering why the policeman and the detective were invited to this gathering. Before I say anything, let me tell you a little something about myself. I absolutely love reading murder mysteries and I literally jumped at this opportunity to act out my favorite part of it. The murder reveal party!” she said, throwing her hands to her sides as she let out a laugh. She looked at everyones faces and smiled. “Ok so let me just warn our shooter here that they better not escape because we have armed guards surrounding the house and  they are the only ones other than me who know the killer. So just sit back and relax and enjoy the show.” She was really enjoying this.

“Okay so at first I was kind of confused. Everything pointed to Mr Sen obviously, but the only thing that made me doubt myself was the fact that Mr Sharma was as important to the company as he was and even though they hated each others guts, Mr Sen would not want to destroy his own company. So then, when I heard that Siddharth’s mother had died, I found the missing piece of the puzzle.”

She turned to Siddharth. “You really really needed that loan from Mr Sharma didn’t you. And that jerk refused. He knew your mother was dying and he still didn’t give you the money. It’s not like he was low on funds even, of course you knew that. Your mother died because you couldn’t pay for the expensive treatment. It was his fault. If he’d just given you the money you could have saved her. So you decided you had had enough. You knew Nikita would be out partying that night because he was complaining like always, wasn’t he? So you decided you had to kill him.”

Siddharth said nothing, only looked down, his face buried in his palms.

“If your house is searched right now we will find the gun that killed Mr Sharma right?” Pritika said, angrily now. “Tell me! Yes? Or No?”

“Okay fine. I did it. But that bastard deserved to die. Mother could be with me today.” He said, his body shaking as he sobbed angrily. Inspector Narayan walked up to him and cuffed him.

Nikita started screaming angrily and crying, “You! How could you! How dare you!” and Pritika had to hold her back lest she went and tore him apart.

“But wait!” Pritika said, with a secretive smile on her face. “That is not all. Unknown to everyone but Nikita and Ajay, Mr Sharma was already dead before he was shot.” Pritika paused for dramatic effect and there were audible gasps from the fellow attendees of the party.

“Yes. He had overdosed on his stress medication. Now the thing is, I had known it was not suicide from the very first night but I did not want to spoil the drama. Nikita.” she turned to face her. “You are smarter than I thought. You used to put his medicine out for him every night, right? You had decided that you had had enough. He was always fighting with you and complaining about how you lived your life. Why should he complain? He never had any time for you. Why couldn’t you have the freedom to enjoy your life? Why should he begrudge you that? Right? So you filled one capsule with the powder from the others and hid the empty ones in the fancy bowl over there. You did not consider that someone as clumsy as me would come and tip it over and find them did you? It was all a very clever plan. When I told Mr Sen that Mr Sharma had killed himself, the surprise on his face told me that Mr Sharma was not someone who would commit suicide. So I figured what I had thought must be correct. Isn’t it right?”

Everyone was silent. They all looked from Pritika to Nikita and back.

“No!” She screamed. “You’re wrong. You can’t come in and accuse me like this. Do you have proof? No! Get out of my house this instant!”

“Nikita we all already know the truth and just like I found this out, I will find a way to catch you. So it is best if you tell us now.”Pritika said.

“He tortured me! He always had something nasty to say about everything I did. He would never leave me alone!”

The lady constable came and cuffed her.

“Mrs Sharma you are arrested for the murder of your husband, and Mr Negi, you are arrested for the attempted murder of Mr Sharma. Please follow us out.” Pritika said.

After everything was over Inspector Narayan said, “Well Pritika, it turns out your being a klutz was very helpful for us. Thank you.” He let out a laugh, his face happy again today, and Pritika smiled.

I know most of you guessed Siddharth, but well technically it’s not him. Shoutout to my Akhila and my friend Simran for guessing the right person 🙂