Eliminating Suspects #AtoZChallenge

Read previous parts here: One | Two

He hadn’t slept a single second since the news of the homicide has come in late hours of night. After thoroughly checking the house for the clues, he was unable to find anything concrete. All the jewelry and the valuables were very much intact. So the possibility of murder for theft was also ruled out.
Dr. Karan’s, her husband, phone was found switched off but later revealed no clues. Reeti’s phone showed only two outgoing calls to him on the night of the murder, which he had obviously not picked up. But this has also made him one of the suspects for the murder. All this while, one phone was missing and that was Alia’s. He was thinking hard about the case when his phone buzzed.
“Sir, people are here. Police has taken their statement. You can ask anything if you want to”, said the voice on the other side of the phone.
“Anything peculiar?”
“Sir, they said they didn’t hear anything last night.”
“Not even the banging on the door by the guard or police barging into the house?”
“They deny everything. They claim to have come to know about this only when police contacted them in the morning. Of course the only exception is of Rohan and his parents, who knew something was up.”
“Send this Rohan in and rest of them back!”
“Yes, sir!”
“And what did the CCTV footage reveal?”
“No leads there. It showed Rohan walking across the corridor and knocking persistently at Mr. Singh’s door. Later it’s the same story what the guard has told us previously.”
“OK!”
Few seconds later, a sixteen years old boy of lean figure clad in red T-shirt and blue denim appeared at his cabin’s door.
“Come in and have a seat Mr. Rohan”, David spoke loudly even before Rohan could knock.
He walked in confidently, hiding traces of fear that his eyes were giving away.
“How were you related to Mr. Singh’s family?” Was David’s first question for Rohan. He wanted to know why was he knocking at their door at night.
“Sir, Alia and I are.. Were childhood best friends.”
“Okay, so tell me what happened that night?”
His confidence flew out of the window and he started stammering. “Sir, Alia was very upset from the last few days. And why wouldn’t she? She was the sole spectator of the breakdown of a wonderful marriage of her parents. Since, the day her father had started facing problems from the trustees of the hospital, the things weren’t going on too well in the house also.”
“And she confided you in with all her secrets?”
“Not all, but yes most of them. She never said what they fought about or to which extent their fight went on to, but it was a regular sight for her. Until last night.” He paused.
“What happened last night? What did she tell you?” David asked, handing Rohan a glass of water.
He gulped the water in a go and taking a deep breath he spoke again, ” Around 11pm last night, she texted me that her dad was back home, drunk again. She said it was the same story going on again. After a few minutes of chat, I slept off. When I woke up suddenly an hour later, I saw her last message to me and a missed call. It was timed at 11:45pm and it was already 12:17am by then.”
“What did she say in the message?” David was growing impatient each second.
“It said just one word. ‘HELP’.” Rohan pulled out his phone and showed him the message.
“Then what did you do?”
“I felt something was terribly wrong. It wasn’t any of her regular messages. I ran out of my house to hers but in vain. After a few minutes of persistent knocks, I went to call the security guard of the building and you know what happened later”, he could say no further. Tears choked his voice. David didn’t push him further. After noting the key points, he let him go.

Rohan’s story gave a new light to the story. The only thing that was stuck in David’s mind was Alia’s word – HELP. That could mean she had seen who was murderer. She knew what had happened. But her phone had been found formatted below her pillow. Did she herself do it or someone else?
He picked up his phone and desperately dialled a number.
“I want all the calls and messages that were done through Ms. Alia’s phone.”

…to be continued here

Written for A to Z Challenge 2016

Theme this month: A story A week