Noise is Good – Part 2

Today, we are posting the second part of the 8-part murder mystery – Noise is Good. You can refer to the first part here.

Part 2

The police were called in and the dead body was sent for postmortem. Police Sub-Inspector Chandrakant Jadhav spoke to everybody in the building about Vageshwari and Pramesh. The police took everybody’s statements and fingerprints and searched the flat for clues.

Vageshwari would always find fault with Pooja and her parents, for small issues. Pooja and her parents had long time ago begun to ignore her. Initially, Vageshwari wanted Pooja to tutor her children, for free. She was not interested in Pooja’s mother taking up the task. Then, she wanted to leave her kids in Pooja’s care all through the day. In short, the woman wanted to live in Pooja’s house herself the whole day and run the younger woman’s life for her. But, Pooja categorically refused to oblige because her family’s privacy was important. She wanted to continue her studies and work as a work-from-home journalist.

Vageshwari began to damage Pooja’s clean reputation. It appeared that some man visited Pooja’s place at night for her. The woman was a control freak and had got her husband, children and others in the building dancing to her tune. She wanted Pooja and her family to leave their home to hide her crimes against them. Pooja and her parents were stubborn and did not want to leave the flat just because of that woman. The situation had often gone bad and Pooja’s family had to visit the nearest police station for complaining about the woman. Instead of that helping them, things had turned worse. The police advised them to file a court case against her because this was one of the rarest cases. That was the time Pooja’s family decided to hire a lawyer.

The woman’s children returned from school to a sealed flat, with some relatives waiting for them. The relatives whisked off the confused kids to their own home.

The next day, PSI Jadhav came to meet Pooja, with a female constable. They insisted that they speak to her in privacy. On being prompted, Pooja repeated what she knew. Once she had heard the man crying and saying, “Vageshwari, no. Don’t do it.” After that outburst, she would hear someone jumping and running about the house. These sounds were heard often. Pooja would work on her laptop sitting in the hall, partly watching the news with her parents. The sounds from her neighbors’ flat would sometimes distract her.

Jadhav’s voice became a little harder and he began to insist, “Tell us what did you see yesterday.”

Pooja began to realize that he was doubting her statements. She asked, alarmed, “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“How can I when you are known to have said that you would prefer to kill the woman but never compromise with her? And you are the one, who discovered her dead body.”

To be continued…