Chapter 1
I knew that day was going to be different.
It’s a feeling you get, sitting in that same old leather chair, day after day, waiting for the next case to come. And just as you teeter on the edge of despair, something falls in your lap, just like that.
The worn-out sign on the rickety door said ‘Thomas Stone, Private Investigator’. It was raining hard outside. But however hard it rains, the sound can’t block out the creaking door opening. I never oiled it, so it acted like my own alarm system. But a creaking door can’t block a bullet.
As I sat on my chair, my feet propped up on the table, reading the afternoon paper, she walked in. I’d heard the sound of the heels on the dirty floor but I didn’t look up, even though the whiff of her perfume had my heart beating a tad faster.
She cleared her throat and said in a syrupy voice: “Mr. Stone”? I looked up from my paper and felt the air go out of my pillow of a façade. To say she was pretty was an understatement. Her short blonde hair failed to hide a chiseled face. The eyes were large and blue, the nose small and the lips full and red. A pair of never-ending legs in stiletto heels peeked out of the short, black mini skirt she was wearing with a bright red blouse. Yessir, a vision had walked into my drab office.
I must have been staring with my mouth open. She repeated herself, this time in a voice colder than my iced bourbon. I regained control, took my feet off the table and asked her in my best business-like voice: “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“Mr Stone, my name is Mrs Shirley Sharma and I need your help. I think my husband is trying to kill me”. Her eyes were wide with fear, or panic, or both. “I am scared to even go back home,” she said.
“Whoa, Mrs Sharma. Calm down. Why don’t you take a seat and let’s start from the beginning.” I wanted her to sit. She looked so fragile, I felt she would fall and break into pieces any minute. But there was something childlike about her. An alarm bell was ringing in some cabinet at the back of my head. After 20 years as a private investigator, you learn to listen to your instincts and this damsel had trouble written all over her. But when the male brain comes face to face with a dame, and that too a good-looking one, most compartments often go on strike.
She began her story. “Mr Stone, for days now my husband has been receiving phone calls from some mysterious woman. Whenever she calls, he gets all tense and worried, and goes into his study to take the call.
“My husband is Anil Sharma, the CEO ….”
“Of Zag-Tech systems, the multi-billion dollar software company,” I interrupted.
“Precisely,” she said. She took a cigarette from a gold-plated cigarette box and lit it, without asking me for permission. “Do you have a light Mr Stone,” she asked in that same syrupy voice.
“Tom, please call me Tom. And I don’t smoke Mrs Sharma, never have. But please continue.
She smiled then. It was a shy, nervous smile, but it showed a set of even, pearly teeth. “And you can call me Shirley, Tom. You come highly recommended. I’ve read about you in the papers too, all those high-profile cases that you solved…”
“Thank you Shirley, one does what one can. Now let’s get back to those phone calls,” I said.
“Oh yes. As I was saying, he keeps getting these phone calls, sometimes in the middle of the night. Ever since these calls started, he has become irritable and angry. He has also increased his drinking. We’ve been married for three years now and he’s never behaved like this.
“And then one night, I overheard him say ‘Just kill her. If you don’t do it, I’ll do it myself. It’s been three years and I am just fed up’.”
Her voice had started cracking up, and she burst into tears. “I don’t know what to do Tom. I haven’t slept for two days. I keep looking over my shoulder. And I’ve been avoiding my husband. I just want to run away”.
The alarm bells were ringing in my head louder than ever. “Stay away, stay away,” was the constant refrain of my brain. But the lure of a damsel was too much to resist, and Thomas Stone, private investigator, took the plunge.
I knew that day was going to be different.
It’s a feeling you get, sitting in that same old leather chair, day after day, waiting for the next case to come. And just as you teeter on the edge of despair, something falls in your lap, just like that.
The worn-out sign on the rickety door said ‘Thomas Stone, Private Investigator’. It was raining hard outside. But however hard it rains, the sound can’t block out the creaking door opening. I never oiled it, so it acted like my own alarm system. But a creaking door can’t block a bullet.
As I sat on my chair, my feet propped up on the table, reading the afternoon paper, she walked in. I’d heard the sound of the heels on the dirty floor but I didn’t look up, even though the whiff of her perfume had my heart beating a tad faster.
She cleared her throat and said in a syrupy voice: “Mr. Stone”? I looked up from my paper and felt the air go out of my pillow of a façade. To say she was pretty was an understatement. Her short blonde hair failed to hide a chiseled face. The eyes were large and blue, the nose small and the lips full and red. A pair of never-ending legs in stiletto heels peeked out of the short, black mini skirt she was wearing with a bright red blouse. Yessir, a vision had walked into my drab office.
I must have been staring with my mouth open. She repeated herself, this time in a voice colder than my iced bourbon. I regained control, took my feet off the table and asked her in my best business-like voice: “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“Mr Stone, my name is Mrs Shirley Sharma and I need your help. I think my husband is trying to kill me”. Her eyes were wide with fear, or panic, or both. “I am scared to even go back home,” she said.
“Whoa, Mrs Sharma. Calm down. Why don’t you take a seat and let’s start from the beginning.” I wanted her to sit. She looked so fragile, I felt she would fall and break into pieces any minute. But there was something childlike about her. An alarm bell was ringing in some cabinet at the back of my head. After 20 years as a private investigator, you learn to listen to your instincts and this damsel had trouble written all over her. But when the male brain comes face to face with a dame, and that too a good-looking one, most compartments often go on strike.
She began her story. “Mr Stone, for days now my husband has been receiving phone calls from some mysterious woman. Whenever she calls, he gets all tense and worried, and goes into his study to take the call.
“My husband is Anil Sharma, the CEO ….”
“Of Zag-Tech systems, the multi-billion dollar software company,” I interrupted.
“Precisely,” she said. She took a cigarette from a gold-plated cigarette box and lit it, without asking me for permission. “Do you have a light Mr Stone,” she asked in that same syrupy voice.
“Tom, please call me Tom. And I don’t smoke Mrs Sharma, never have. But please continue.
She smiled then. It was a shy, nervous smile, but it showed a set of even, pearly teeth. “And you can call me Shirley, Tom. You come highly recommended. I’ve read about you in the papers too, all those high-profile cases that you solved…”
“Thank you Shirley, one does what one can. Now let’s get back to those phone calls,” I said.
“Oh yes. As I was saying, he keeps getting these phone calls, sometimes in the middle of the night. Ever since these calls started, he has become irritable and angry. He has also increased his drinking. We’ve been married for three years now and he’s never behaved like this.
“And then one night, I overheard him say ‘Just kill her. If you don’t do it, I’ll do it myself. It’s been three years and I am just fed up’.”
Her voice had started cracking up, and she burst into tears. “I don’t know what to do Tom. I haven’t slept for two days. I keep looking over my shoulder. And I’ve been avoiding my husband. I just want to run away”.
The alarm bells were ringing in my head louder than ever. “Stay away, stay away,” was the constant refrain of my brain. But the lure of a damsel was too much to resist, and Thomas Stone, private investigator, took the plunge.
©Manas Gupta
