Chapter Eleven
Chapter
Eleven
Tejas scratched the base of his neck as he sorted through pictures of the crime scene. “Do you see how poorly lit some of these photographs are?” he fumed at his laptop screen.
Naina, who was on the video call with him, let out a loud sigh and held one picture up to the light in her room. “I think Preethi’s lucky those lawyers stepped down. They clearly didn’t know what they were doing. I—Tejas?”
Astrid had pranced over onto Tejas’s lap to stick her face into the camera, and he cursed under his breath.
“Go to bed, baby.” He picked her up and set her down on the floor, but she crawled back up on the couch again, settling in beside the photos.
Astrid could never fall asleep at night unless she was in close proximity to Tejas. He loved that about her.
Naina let out a choked laugh. “She seems to be obsessed with you. How do you get any work done at home?”
Tejas grinned at his cat, who meowed at him angrily before her eyes shut and she dozed off. “It helps that I’m obsessed with her too,” he said, looking at Astrid fondly.
“Anyway,” Naina said, biting her lip like she was trying not to smile, “the photos.”
“The photos.” He groaned, sinking back into the couch. “What now?”
Her eyes went back and forth, then she said, “I think we’re going to have to make the trip up the hills tomorrow and investigate the crime scene for ourselves. Savandurga Hills is a couple hours’ drive from the city. Shall we meet there around ten?”
Tejas laughed. This woman was unbelievable. “You live in this city, right?”
Naina blinked at him, adjusting her headphones like she thought she’d heard wrong. “Yeah? Obviously.”
He leaned forward, quirking a brow at her. “It appears that I live here too. Why don’t we just head to the crime scene together?”
Naina’s mouth parted. She looked away, her lips moving wordlessly, like she was trying to find an excuse. “I’ll be driving my dad’s car,” she said finally. “It’s old, and the seats are worn out. You’d be more comfortable driving yourself.”
“I just moved here, Naina Stark,” Tejas replied, trying not to laugh. “I don’t have a car.”
Her cheeks turned scarlet. “Naina Shetty,” she corrected him.
“Not to me.” Tejas sat back again, scratching under Astrid’s chin while she purred in her sleep. “Anyway,” he added, when Naina’s eyes narrowed, “will you give me a ride? I’m in Indiranagar, not too far from work.”
She pursed her lips, considering it, as the clock across from Tejas’s couch ticked on. Finally, Naina nodded sharply. “Text me your address. I’ll see you at eight a.m.”
“Cool, I—” The call dropped. Tejas snorted, setting his laptop aside, then bent to give Astrid a kiss on her tiny head. “What do we think of Naina, hmm?” he asked her. “Do we think she’ll ever warm up to me again?”
Astrid yawned and stretched her arms out before curling up in Tejas’s lap. He stroked her fur, smiling to himself. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Tejas stared out the window of the car, bopping his head in time to the blaring pop music on the radio as Naina pulled off of the highway.
Thanks to the morning rush hour and the slow engine of Naina’s dad’s car, they’d spent over thirty-five minutes stuck in traffic and another hour on the highway, and were only now entering Savandurga Hills, where Rohith Pai had been murdered.
The police and forensic experts had already gone through the crime scene as well as the film set and other actors’ trailers to collect evidence, but they had been ordered by the court—with some influence from Ramesh Kumble, of course—to keep everything else untouched until the case was closed.
The plan was to compare the previous lawyers’ notes and photographs, blurry as they were, with the actual crime scene to see if they’d missed anything.
So far, the drive had been a quiet one, save for Naina mouthing the words to the songs as she drove.
Guess she still loved music. Naina had engaged in most of Tejas’s attempts at small talk, though he knew she was doing it grudgingly.
She’d also rehashed the details of the case with him while she drove, but the second Tejas had run out of things to say, she’d cranked up the volume of the radio.
Tejas tapped his fingers on the dashboard as Naina slowly drove the car uphill.
The leather seats were comfortable enough, unlike what she’d told him yesterday, but her dad’s Honda City had clearly seen better days.
Tejas knew she commuted to work by auto rickshaw or the Metro.
Before the drive had started, he was going to ask her why she hadn’t just bought another car for herself—she could easily afford a decent one with how much she made—but then he heard the barrage of curse words from her mouth at twenty different traffic signals and realized he’d rather take public transport than drive in this city too.
Naina let out a wince as the car struggled through a bumpy, mud-stricken road. They hadn’t spoken in nearly an hour, so Tejas cleared his throat. “Uh, how far away are we?”
“Almost there,” she said, looking pointedly at the Google Maps navigation on the screen between both of their seats, which said they’d arrive in two minutes. “Let’s hope we find something to save Preethi.”
Finally, they parked outside the film set, close to a police van next to the yellow Do Not Cross tape blocking off the crime scene.
Tejas introduced himself to the constable-in-charge, smiling warmly and gesturing toward Naina as well, and the cop handed them gloves and masks to wear before leading them down the path to Rohith Pai’s trailer.
“Where are the other cast and crew members’ trailers?” Tejas asked as they walked.
The constable pointed to an adjacent mud road. “There are four more trailers about a minute’s walk down from there.”
Pai’s trailer was surrounded by police tape; the foreboding aura and the knowledge that someone had been killed here made the hair on Tejas’s arms stand.
He slipped on his gloves and face mask and stepped into the trailer, right behind the constable and Naina.
The first thing that greeted him was the heavy, metallic smell of iron and stained blood on the floor.
The authorities had clearly left the crime scene as it was, and though Tejas was grateful for the chance to carry out his own investigation, the stench nearly made him gag through the mask.
“I’ll be outside,” the constable said, heading back down.
Tejas thanked him and took out the photographs from his bag, and Naina held them up to compare as they walked through the trailer.
“The forensic report should be ready soon, which should help us with the defense,” Naina said, hands on her hips, as they looked from the sketched outline of Rohith’s body to the dried blood spatter.
“Maybe the force of the weapon will indicate the murderer had to have been a man, and then our job is done. Or there’ll be too many signs of struggle for Preethi to have killed him. ”
Tejas rubbed his chin, studying the trailer. “Why do you think a man did it?”
Naina scoffed, and he looked her way. “Statistically, over ninety percent of murders in India are committed by men,” she explained. “I’m trying to keep our morale high by being optimistic.”
“So, you’re still an optimist?” He smiled softly as he opened the drawer of the small cupboard in the corner. “Good to know that hasn’t changed.”
“Focus,” she retorted as she handed him half the pictures. “You take that side, I’ll take this one.”
Tejas turned to the walls, examining the surfaces and checking for any drops of blood or evidence that the pictures hadn’t captured. “Nothing,” he mumbled, sucking in his teeth.
A kitchenette sat in one corner with a small countertop, a single washbasin, and some plates. The cutlery set was intact except for the meat knife—the one used to kill Pai, Tejas guessed.
“Tejas, look at this,” Naina called out from the other end of the room. She slid her mask down and beckoned him over.
He followed her to the small window beside the bed, the curtains drawn shut.
“Do you think he had a nice view?” Naina said, and then, without a moment’s hesitation, she climbed into the bed and peeled the curtains apart.
Tejas hesitated, since he was wearing shoes, but hell, this was a dead man’s bed.
Shoes were mandatory. As the bedsprings creaked, he joined her on the mattress.
She must have been taken by surprise, because she jerked back and toppled into him, nearly pushing them both down on the bed.
The top of their noses brushed together like in all the Bollywood movies his sister watched—though those didn’t usually involve crime scene settings.
God, he’d missed Naina’s lavender perfume.
Naina let out a soft gasp that he felt on his face mask, and it brought him out of his daze.
He wound his arm around her waist, over the silky-smooth fabric of her shirt, and forced them both back to a seated position.
“Sorry about that,” he said, holding back the urge to flex his fingers as he withdrew his hand.
He shifted away from her, crossing his legs, and peered through the window.
He didn’t have to look at her flushed face to know she was as affected by that moment as he was.
Naina shifted in place before bringing one of the photographs up to the window.
“That must be the Krishnans’ trailer,” she said, her voice hushed.
“The assistant director and the lead actor.” The trailer sat right behind Pai’s trailer.
Tejas hadn’t noticed it when they first walked in, since the canopy of trees over the trailers had hid this one from view.
Tejas thought back to the conversation at Preethi’s house. “Preethi said the producer, Jagannath, found her first, and Gopal showed up after he called for help. If Gopal and his wife were so close to this trailer, why didn’t they hear Preethi’s screams right away?”
“Let’s go find out,” Naina declared.