Bankerupt (Ravi Subramanian) (32 page)

‘This gentleman wants to meet with you.’ One of the officers had his hand on his gun, while the other was talking to Aditya.

‘Let him in.’ Aditya turned and walked into the living room. Shivinder followed him. ‘I hope you don’t think I murdered Cirisha. If I were involved, I wouldn’t be here, Aditya.’

‘I don’t know if you did. But you made some serious threats to kill her.’

‘It was something that I said in the heat of the moment. She was the cause of all my problems. That’s what I told Lieutenant Windle when he asked me.’

So Windle had interrogated him. For a moment, Aditya was glad that Windle was pursuing the leads seriously. ‘Anyway, that’s for the cops to figure out. What brings you here?’

‘I may be a criminal, Aditya. I stole from a well-off corporate. But I helped them make money. What is wrong if I made some money on the side too? Does that mean I am a murderer?’

Aditya walked to the other corner of the room and looked out of the glass door into the woods that extended for a hundred feet from his backyard. He had no interest in talking to Shivinder.

‘Look at me, Aditya. Didn’t you make money in the deals that you struck? You took your cut, right? You were as much a part of what I did, but do you see yourself killing anyone? Can you slash someone’s throat in cold blood? You will have to trust me, Aditya. In any case, I am here for another week at best. It all depends on how soon the Mumbai Police files charges against me in response to the FIR. Once they do that, I will be put on the first flight back to Mumbai. Extradited. I came to tell you that. I did not murder Cirisha. My conscience is clear. At least in the case of Cirisha, it is.’ And he got up. Aditya continued looking out of the window. ‘If there is anything I can do for you, let me know. You know how to reach me. Take care.’ And he walked towards the door. The detectives were standing at a distance as a precautionary measure.

He had covered half the distance to the door when Aditya spoke. ‘Stay.’ After a long pause, he turned around. ‘I believe you. Come back in.’ Many thoughts churned within his mind at the same time, but he had no option but to trust Shivinder. The only other choice was to fight the battle alone, which was going to be difficult, considering he was a prime suspect. He took a calculated punt.

Cardoza was meeting some people in his room when Windle, accompanied by an officer from MIT Police, walked in. Antonio had already called and briefed him.

‘Good afternoon, Dr Cardoza. Sorry to have barged in like this. Would you prefer that I wait outside till you finish?’

‘It’s all right, lieutenant. Juan had just called to tell me that you might be coming. If you could wait, I will join you in a minute.’ He opened the door adjoining the small meeting room. ‘Please,’ he said, ushering Windle into the room and slowly shutting the door behind him.

After a couple of minutes, Cardoza joined Windle in the meeting room.

‘Yes, lieutenant. How can I help you?’

‘Here we meet again, not in fortunate circumstances.’

‘Cirisha was much loved, lieutenant. Isn’t it tragic that we have to sit here and ponder over what could have killed her?’

‘Yes, Dr Cardoza. In my brief interactions with her, I always thought she was bubbling with energy.’

‘Her murder is a real mystery to everyone here.’

‘I met her husband.’

‘Who? Aditya?’

‘Yes. He feels that she was involved in some sleuthing. On
Staring Down the Barrel
. Aditya feels that this could have resulted in her death.’

‘There may be some truth there, lieutenant. She had stumbled upon some inconsistencies in the data. Actually, she had access to the raw data which formed the basis of the book. And that apparently had severe contradictions. She shared some of it with me; it had largely to do with data regarding the inmates in your prison, which was fudged. She felt that with the data she had, she could recreate and validate critical parts of
Staring Down the Barrel
and was sure that she could expose the inconsistencies.’

‘She had met me with the names of twenty-three inmates who had apparently been interviewed for the research. But many of them were either dead or had been released. She felt that the story in the other prisons could be the same.’

‘How did she get hold of this data? If what she said is true, then it could be extremely damaging to the university and James Deahl.’

‘Did you ask her?’

‘Yes, I did. But she didn’t tell me. I was confident that she’d share it with me at a more appropriate time. All she told me was that she wanted to go to Phoenix to investigate this further. But she died before she could go.’

Windle also queried Cardoza on Lucier and his proposal. Cardoza confirmed his interaction with Lucier and his suspicion that Deahl’s research was NRA-backed. But there was no concrete evidence to prove this.

Windle spoke to Cardoza for a few more minutes and handed over to him a laundry list of information that he wanted from him.

Cardoza glanced at the piece of paper. The list was long but uncomplicated: attendance records, time of arrival and departure from office along with dates, schedule of meetings, list of people she had met on work in the last week, call records from her office phone, swipe-card records indicating access to the building and a lot more.

‘Most of these are in the system. If you give me ten minutes, I’ll have someone pull this out for you.’

‘Wouldn’t mind if I get a cappuccino to go with it.’ Windle smiled.

In the next twenty minutes, Cardoza gave Windle almost all the information that he wanted. ‘I just need to confirm the list of official meetings that she had. I’ll email it to you by the end of the day. The rest of the information that you asked for is here in this folder,’ Cardoza said, handing Windle the documents.

‘Thanks, Dr Cardoza.’ Windle got up to leave. Cardoza gave him his visiting card. ‘In case you need anything else, please give me a call, or send me an email.’

‘Appreciate that. But before I leave, I wanted to check why you do not have CCTV monitoring in the Academic Block.’

‘Not sure. But I think it had something to do with privacy for the faculty. It was a decision made by the provost about four years ago. And no one questioned it.’

‘Thanks. Now if you will tell me how to get to Dr Deahl’s room …’

‘The floor above this. Last room on the left.’

‘Oh yes. I have been there. One last question, Dr Cardoza.’ Cardoza nodded. ‘What is your view on gun control?’

‘Unequivocally, my answer would be YES. Guns must be banned. Had guns not been available, my colleagues would still be alive. Richard Avendon too would be very much in our midst. I have seen the devastation that guns can cause. I fought in the Vietnam War and have seen with my own eyes the terrible, terrible damage that guns can inflict. We live in a civilized world, lieutenant. Guns have no place here.’

‘Do you own a gun yourself?’

‘I can’t be a Liberal and own a gun, lieutenant,’ Cardoza smiled.

‘Thank you, Dr Cardoza, have a great day.’ On his way to Deahl’s room, Windle glanced through the sheets of paper that Cardoza had given him. He skimmed through Cirisha’s record. The last time she had entered the facility was on 4th June—the same day that she had met Windle to discuss the Boston prison inmate data. She was murdered a day later.

A desperate Aditya told Shivinder everything he knew about the case. ‘I do not know what to do. David Windle knows everything about me. And even you. I think he knows why I went to Mexico with Dad.’

‘Our only hope, Aditya, is to find the set of papers that you pulled out from Richard’s locker and hand it over to David. Let him see for himself and then make up his mind.’

‘He has seen part of it. Cirisha showed him the data pertaining to his prison. But that was only one of the hundreds of other aberrations that she suspected.’

‘Where are the papers now?’

61

9th June 2008

Boston

Deahl got up from his chair, walked around his desk to the small round table at the right-hand corner of the room, and picked up a bottle of Dasani water. He cracked open the top and poured half a litre of it down his parched throat. Turning towards Windle, who was patiently watching his antics, he asked, ‘So, Lieutenant Windle, you want to know how well I knew the deceased?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘There are a number of deceased around here. I presume you are referring to Ms Narayanan.’

Lieutenant Windle was trying hard to control his annoyance at Deahl’s cockiness. ‘Cirisha Narayanan. This meeting is about her.’

‘Very good research faculty, she was truly committed to her work.’

‘Then why would anyone kill her?’

‘It’s tragic. But who am I to say? Everyone around is speculating. Someone says that she didn’t have a good relationship with her husband. Which Indian wife would stay away from her husband for this long? It’s only recently that he joined her in Boston. Some even speculate that maybe there was a Richard angle to it. She was close to him, which probably didn’t go down well with her husband. Everyone will have their own interpretation.’

‘Yes. I know. Some even say that she was killed because she had stumbled upon some irregularities in your research, and that spooked the NRA, and together, you eliminated her.’

‘Rubbish!’ Deahl’s face went red. ‘There is nothing in the research which is fabricated. You are wrong, lieutenant, and quite frankly, your allegation is very insulting.’ Deahl’s voice was beginning to shake. He was furious but was trying to control his anger.

‘I can understand. People do gossip about these things. It’s very easy to rubbish and attribute motives to certain actions. By the way, just to let you know,
Staring Down the Barrel
claims that during the research process, you interviewed twenty-three inmates from my prison. This never happened.’

‘Is that so?’ Deahl looked concerned. ‘I need to investigate this internally. Richard was handling that leg of the research. I am not sure how he managed it or how his team put together that data. I can’t validate everything that my team puts together, you see, lieutenant. Now that you say it, I will get it verified.’

Windle moved on. ‘When was the last time you met Cirisha?’

‘A few days ago. Can’t remember the exact date. I had forgotten something in my room and had returned to pick it up. I met her at the elevator. It was late at night and she was the only one there on the second floor. She didn’t have any reason to be there and she seemed nervous. That was the last I spoke to her, I think.’

‘Did you ever get the feeling that she was trying to accuse you of deliberately misleading the public into believing in your philosophy of gun rights for all?’

‘Half the country says that my research is reassuring, while the other half claims that the research is rubbish. Who do you believe? Take your pick, lieutenant.’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘No. I didn’t think so,’ he replied curtly.

‘What is your role in Cambridge Partners, the Boston-based hedge fund?’

‘Is this some kind of interrogation? If it is, I would appreciate it if you could give me sufficient notice, so that I can request my lawyer to join me in these discussions. It’s better to be prepared. You never know what will get misinterpreted. Thank you, Lieutenant Windle.’ And Deahl got up from his chair.

On the way back, a not-so-happy Windle made a phone call. ‘Is this the
New York Times
? May I speak to Christopher Jenkins?’ The call went on for fifteen minutes, after which Windle hung up.

62

10th June 2008

Boston

Aditya was at home that evening. Shivinder was worried about the money in his GB2 account in Geneva. Aditya used his Mexican connections and transferred all the cash lying in GB2 Geneva to Enrique Nieto’s account in GB2 Mexico. A corresponding credit appeared in the San Diego account of Enrique, which was controlled by Aditya. The money was now safe. They still did not have full control over the money—the collections from the franchisee security deposits—lying in GB2 in Mumbai.