Chapter 5: In which Inspector Vinod Discerns that Dick Carr is Really, Really Dead

But there was no way Inspector Vinod could be sure that Dick Carr had departed to an afterworld where the angels sang, the harps played even outside elevators and subprime mortgages never depreciated in value. He had to make sure that Dick Carr was dead - and not just clinically dead, but really, really dead. Brain dead.

Just a few weeks ago, Inspector Vinod was involved in a shootout with the dreaded Karim Lala, notorious gangster and right hand man of the Intenrational Terrorist, Dawood Ibrahim. Outnumbered heavily by a ratio of at least a hundred to one, Lala had been unable to convert his vastly superior ammunition to any discerible advantage. The AK 47 had bowed before the collective might of a hundred revolvers.

At the end of the shootout, Lala had lapsed into a coma. The policeman on the scene were comfortable in pronouncing him dead. Karim Lala had shown no visible signs of apnea. There wasn't even a discernible pulse that beat in his veins. But Inspector Vinod had resusticated the patient with CPR, after which Karim Lala had showed signs of coming back to life. A pragmatic Bombay policeman had then put a bullet through his head. He claimed that he had shot the gangster in self defence. Inspector Vinod had played along. After all, as the policeman had said, Not one of this man's breaths has gone towards a good deed.

Inspector Vinod pushed at the door with the toes of his hobnailed boots. As the door opened slowly with a drawn out creaking sound with a drawn out sound, it seemed to be reminding him about the five rules of investigating a crime scene.

Don't touch anything.

Don't touch anything.

Don't touch anything.

Don't touch anything.

Don't touch anything.

He stepped into the hallway carefully avoiding the banner of the Roanoke Falcons that hung from the wall. He stared into the eyes of the eagle without an accompanying emotion that he would have experienced looking at an All Blacks T shirt or a maroon cap from the West Indian team of the 1980s. Inspector Vinod could never be into a game that required quite so many nets.

Dick Carr had died from a bullet to the side of his head. All indicators pointed to his death being a suicide. The bullet had taken a large portion of the skull along with it, but there was a clear star shaped pattern along the surface of the skull. Inspector Vinod knew that such a clear and distinctive pattern could only be created when the muzzle of the gun was in direct contact with the body at the time of fire.

What's more, Dick Carr was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of Khaki shorts. Inspector Vinod didn't like the cut of his jib. Inspector Vinod liked to say things like 'cut of his his jib'. And he liked how he could say these things, now that he was in America.

Inspector Vinod thought that if he could choose the moment he had to go, he would take care to be dressed in a neatly ironed shirt. He would leave the world with a bottle of Famous Grouse, a copy of Anna Karenina and a CD of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band next to him. You could fly around the world like Suerpman and break pole vault records like Sergei Bubka. But the world would remember you for what you looked at your final moment. Saddam Hussain would be remembered by many as a dishevelled and badly shaven man. Dick Carr would go down as the banker who made so much money that he could afford an Ermenegildo Zegna suit.

He touched Dick Carr's neck. It was cold to the touch, and any doubts that Inspector Vinod had about Dick Carr being alive melted away. Dick Carr had been dead for a while. The muscles on his neck and lower jaw had become rigid. Rigor mortis had set in. Dick Carr had been dead for at least four hours.

Inspector Vinod had been involved in too many investigations to know that rigor mortis was a most unreliable inidcator of death. Dick Carr could have been involved in a violent struggle in the moments leading up to his final Goodbye. The adenosine triphosphate in his muscles could have been depleted from his body causing his body to stiffen within a few minutes of his death.

Inspector Vinod pressed gently on the back of Dick Carr's forearm. The skin blanched pale, but returned right back to its purplish hue as soon he removed the pressure. Dick Carr had been dead for at least four hours but no longer than six.

Inspector Vinod called Detective James Crisafi on his cellphone.

-Anybody been spitting at you lately? he asked.

-I wish, said, Detective Crisafi. You know what they say about sticks and stones.

-Plenty of harsh words, huh?

-Harsh doesn't begin to describe it. My poor mother. She worked all her life at The Royal Crown Bakery in Brooklyn. She baked muffins for a living. She wouldn't even be aware of the things these people have accused her of.

-Talking of bankers and their sins, said Inspector Vinod. I think you should come over here to 75 Wall Street, Apt 7 D.

-Why? asked Detective Crisafi. Is there something that needs my attention?

-Yes, agreed Inspector Vinod. There's a dead body here. And I would definitely say that it needs your attention.