THE PERFECT MURDER

THE PERFECT MURDER

 Alwin walked down the   corridor, pushing the house keeper’s cart, the sole of his shoes just gliding along the satin rug and opened the door of the room number 1245 using the automatic door card. Alwin slide in with the cart and whistling a tune started his work of cleaning in right earnest. He saw a confident rough, muscular youth about 25 years old in the big mirror and flexed his biceps muscle to notice it’s bulge and smiled. The guests were expected in no time. The guest was a notorious VVIP staying in this best Five-star hotel in the city. He stopped the tune after hearing a loud tap and scrambled to open the door.  Two bouncers like persons barged in with their guns drawn, and quickly checked all the rooms, verified his identification and led him out. He stood aside to allow the guest to enter. As he left the room, he saw a tall rugged man with a cap covering half his scared face with staring eye and a cigar dangling in his lips with a gruff commanding voice ordering the bouncers to call reception and serve liquor to his room from the bar.

 Alwin always made it a point sometimes to memorize the list of people and their rooms to impress his manager; as per his expectation. But now he was in no mood to do it. More-over, the manager was his guardian, who brought him up after he was orphaned at the age of five years, educated him and after a stint in the army as a jawan, got him this job under his very nose. The manager was a bachelor and like him an orphan, staying with his sister.  At home, he was like a father, but at the hotel he was his manager and Alwin stayed that way, obedient and hard working. 

Alwin had a grouse against his mentor. He still did not know for sure how he became an orphan. Every time his guardian gave different reasons and laughed it off. But something gnawed at him and he had nightmares of people restraining his family and then saw splash of blood as he was hiding in a cupboard to escape from it all. It was fragmented and frightening and he sought an explanation from his guardian and it never came.

As Alwin trudged the housing keeping cart in front filled with all these thoughts, he literally barged with a short stout muscular man with a balding head, round like an egg. His henchmen pushed him and the cart aside and made their way to room number 1240, to which in fact Alwin was rushing to clean. Room no 1240 closed and opened again with expletives spoken loudly which made him cover his ears and eyes.  When he opened his eyes, the manager stood near him apologizing and prodding him at the same time to clean the room. Alwin slid inside and started his work in right earnest and in a jiffy finished it and welcomed them all in, apologizing for their discomfiture.

He went home and found his guardian sitting on a table and pouring over newspaper clippings and on seeing him, he grabbed them all and stuffed it into a card board box and shoved them into a corner. Alwin just ignored it and went to the kitchen, opened the fridge and poured himself a jug full of sweetened milk and gulped it. He sat in the dining hall and could not make head or tail of his guardian’s bizarre behavior.  He heard the front door close and through the window saw his mentor drive away. He tiptoed towards the hall and saw his aunt sitting on the armchair and sewing her crochet. When he saw her engrossed on her workmanship, he carried the box to his room.  He placed all the clippings on his table and skimmed them over. It was the news of a shoot out in a house almost 20 years before and the news of the accused and the resultant exoneration for want of a witness and the alibi created, stared at him. Why would his guardian pour over it now? He dismissed it as a whimsical desire on his part and placed it all inside and shoved it in the same place.

The next day he was up and about in the 5-star hotel and donning his uniform tiptoed to the desk to get any special instruction. Rooms 1240 to 1245 reserved by them, needed daily change of bedsheets and towels and cleaning of the restroom. He was in charge of their floors.  Further in the afternoon there was a meeting of the inmates of these rooms in the nearby Mini Hall and he was put in charge of it, which entitled keeping everything spick and span. After a light lunch in the kitchen utility area .Alwin sauntered to the Mini hall to furnish it with table clothes,  and arrange the chairs facing each other with a table in between for nearly twenty persons. He was told that it was a conclave of the top Dons in the city and should be a much-guarded secret.  Alwin knew very well when to clam shut.

The meeting started and, on his charge, a few of the house keepers were allowed to serve then liquor and food. Alwin noticed the tall gangster with the cap and a perpetual cigar dangling on his lips and the short stout one sitting opposite each other and fuzzy other goons sitting around them clamoring for more liquor and food. The discussions later became more heated each accusing the other and charging that they both entered others territories and hindered their operation. They then warned that they would not hesitate to shoot, if it happened again and the tall one retorted that he would take preventive actions if it suited him, for which the stout one gave a cynical smile. It was like two kids fighting for the ownership of a precious toy; but they really meant what they said and it was for all to hear and recall. Alwin noticed among them one of the recent staff engaged by the hotel temporarily and knew him to be a police mole.

Alwin, at home noticed that his guardian had rummaged the box again by its change in position. He verified that none was in the house and took the box to find out why his mentor was obsessed with it. He laid all the clippings neatly on the table and there were two small ones that made him focus his attention on. One was the photo of a couple with two children. He remembered to have seen it in the aunt’s room. He pocketed it to verify and looked at the other clipping .it was also a photo of a couple with a boy in the lap of the women.  He opened the cupboard when he had kept his belongings which he had never searched till now. In a small box there were a few photos and he delved into it and removed one. It was a replica of the clippings. The couple were his parents and the boy was himself. He was pensive for some time, with a flood of memories overcoming him. He went to Aunt’s room and found a replica of the first clipping and he knew it was his mentor and Aunt’s photo, when they were small.  He then returned to his room and went through all the news that happened twenty years ago. He was now ready to accost his mentor with it.

On a full moon day when it was still at night he carried the box to his mentor’s room, laid the clippings on the table with the photos and asked for an explanation. He was dilly -dallying, but Alwin’s persistence paid off.  What he heard send a shiver and shock through his spine.

The tall gangster 20 years ago had killed his parents as Alwin’s father was a witness to a murder committed on a rival goon and the mentor who was a driver to the tall gangster had hidden him in the cupboard. After they left, he had picked up Alwin to return to his house.  The police on information caught his mentor and he became the star witness to the murder. He turned hostile at the end and the case was closed all together, due to lack of proof.   The rival victim’s gang, held him responsible and   killed his parents and he had to flee with his siter and Alwin. Finally, after twenty years struggling by doing odd jobs he had returned back after all the cases were settled and joined as a manager in the hotel and kept Alwin with him and secured a job in the same hotel. The rival gang’s leader was the short stout one who had killed his mentor’s family.

          Both stayed together discussing till the wee hours of the morning and went to sleep. Alwin then went to the gangsters’ rooms as usual and in their absence collected all their small belongings to leave at the site of the crime which he was going to commit.  At night both left to the bar where the gangsters usually met, give instructions to the shout man’s goons imitating his voice using a phone outside, to carry out the nefarious activities in the tall gangster’s territory. The ruse worked; the imitation was attributed to the shout gangsters’ machinations. Later they went to that territory to leave the stout goon’s calling cards, dressed like one of them for others to recall latter.  Two days later when the heated accusation was simmering, he opened the tall gangster’s room and snatched his pistol which he had already observed was stored in the top self of the cupboard. He dressed like the tall gangster, donned a cap and with a cigar dangling in his lips, went to the shout goon room, knocked the door and entered it. He was aware that the CCTV camera in the corridor would have filmed him. He entered and shot the stout goon point blank, wiped off all his fingerprints, dropped the cigar and left. Next, he went to the tall gangster’s room and hid the pistol and the door card which he had taken from the shout gangster’s room. He phoned up the reception to inform that he heard a gun firing. The receptionist told the manager and the police mole already planted to keep an eye on all the gang members, informed the police. All the other goons after hearing it, left for the bar and their hide out and following heated arguments and in the impulsive exchange of fire, several goons were shot.  The tall gangster tried to leave the hotel with his gun, leaving his finger prints in it and he was caught by the police at the entrance. The police arrested the tall gangster with the murder weapon and the door card of the other room was retrieved from his room with the CCTV camera proof of him entering the room, at the time the murder was committed. The bullet retrieved matched with the tall goon’s pistol. He had also expressed his motive as a veiled threat during the A meeting of the gangsters, which was recorded by the police mole. The police wrapped up the case as the rival gang’s enmity and shoot out, and many did not bait an eye lid as they were wary of them and wanted to eliminate them.

 It was a perfect murder planned by Alwin and his mentor and further executed by the other gangsters themselves based on the evidence and narrative planted by Alwin. Both had vindicated their suppressed vengeance for the murder of their parents, and felt relieved.  A perfect murder with evidence planted with no loopholes.