Kelkar walked out of his cabin towards his team, "I just got off the phone with forensics." He paused for a second to make sure he had their attention, "We have a crime on our hands," he said in a serious tone, "Our victim died of blunt force trauma to the back of his head."

Lobo groaned hearing this.

Kelkar shot him a pointed look. "We don't know if the blow was deliberate. He also has a break in his lumbar vertebrae that would have paralyzed him. Forensics think he fell down backwards and hit his head against something. So, suicide is clearly out."

"So, he was thrown into the water after being killed," Mohit said.

"It could be an accident," Lobo quickly pointed out.

"Did he die of drowning or did something happening to him on land?" Vir asked.

"When did he die?" Vinay asked.

"Quiet," Kelkar bellowed in a firm loud voice, "Yes, Lobo. It could be an accident. That is the problem. Forensics don't have enough evidence to rule out either accident or homicide."

Kelkar turned to Vir, "There was water in his lungs. Normal for a body submerged in water for this long," he said waving it off, "But the wound at the back of his head is difficult to have been caused by drowning, according to forensics."

"So someone dumped his body after his death?" Vinay asked looking at others for confirmation.

Kelkar nodded, "We need to focus our attention on the time is between 3PM to 10PM, the day before. That was the time when our victim died," Kelkar raised his hand seeing Lobo open his mouth to cut in, "I know it is too wide. Forensics is trying to narrow it down. What we do know for sure is that that he died two hours after having his meal. Whether that was lunch or dinner ...." Kelkar shrugged his shoulder, frowning.

"Is that normal?" Maria asked

"Happens sometimes," Lobo explained. He was slouching, looking drained already,

"Temperature plays havoc on the body. They don't know what he was exposed to. And let's not forget if he died in the afternoon, it would have been difficult for someone to dispose the body off in broad daylight," Kelkar agreed.

"He was probably refrigerated as well," Lobo groaned.

"What do you want us to do, Sir?" Vir asked

Kelkar picked up the hotel key card lying on the table in evidence bag. "Pawar, I want you and Rajput to take this card to Grand Regal hotels. Find out which one it belongs to and if they have records of the owner of this card. Find out if they are missing any guests."

Mohit and Vinay looked at each other and then nodded back at Kelkar.

"Now, boys!" Kelkar roared, when he saw them still standing there.

Kelkar picked up the stone. He looked up at Vir who was observing him closely. "Lobo," he turned to look at his deputy, "You and Agnihotri head to the Gems Institute. Find out what we have here. If it is costly enough, we might find out who the owner is."

Lobo looked at Vir and made a face. "Lobo, don't forget we are part of the same team," Kelkar warned quietly just for him to hear.

When they left, Kelkar turned to the final member of his team and the one who threatened to derail the team the most. She was already glaring at him, arms crossed in front of her chest.

"I want you to look take over the missing persons' search. Expand your search to the entire state," Kelkar ordered.

"Why am I the one doing the paper work? Why are you not asking one of those boys? I am much better at fieldwork."

"Are you trying to say you are not good at research?"

"This is piece of cake. I can handle this. Are you sure they can handle fieldwork?" Maria countered.

"Are you trying to prove you should be in my chair?" Kelkar asked plainly.

She moved her head back looking at him a bit startled.

"Or are you trying to prove that you deserve to be here?" Kelkar watched her closely.

Her jaw clenched at the comment.

So, this was it. "Do you think you don't deserve to be here?"

"I have every right to be here!" Maria glared at him, "I am much better than any of those boys!"

"If you feel you deserve to be here, then what is the need to prove it?"

She looked at him confused.

"Pereira, you can only do one thing at a time. Either you can focus on being a good police officer or trying to keep proving that you deserve to be here."

"There is no difference in the two."

"There is," Kelkar looked her in the eye, "A good officer is focused on only one thing: solving the crime. She isn't bothered about displaying her skills. It is about using each teammate's skills to this one end. Nothing else matters. This is a team focused profession, Pereira."

Maria listened to him quietly. Really listened.

"If you have so many concerns and doubts that you feel the need to prove you deserve to be here, you probably shouldn't be here." Kelkar let her absorb that, "Now it is up to you to figure out what it is that you want to focus."

Maria looked at him intently, "I will get on to the missing persons' search."

Kelkar gave her a small nod.

Maria walked a few steps, before turning around to look at Kelkar. "Why are we looking at the missing persons' records within the city? Why would they need a hotel?"

Kelkar smiled. At least now she was thinking, "You would be surprised at the number of people who book hotel rooms–despite staying in the same city–trying to make deals that they want kept out of public eye. Deals that can easily involve such accidents."

***

"I knew he would hand me on such crap tasks," Lobo muttered, "Fake stone. Huh!"

"Synthetic stone," Vir corrected

"Does that make it real?" Lobo scowled.

Vir opened his mouth, a few times, before settling with, "At least we have the list of manufacturers of this type stone."

"Do not you dare share this list with Kelkar," Lobo warned as they reached their police SUV.

Vir narrowed his eyes, "You are asking me to withhold information from Kelkar sir? The head of our team?"

"Head of the team," Lobo mimicked in a high pitch voice before shaking his head, "He shouldn't be in this department much less head it."

Vir furrowed his eyebrows, "What?"

"You are new to the division. You will know the truth soon enough. And if you are really lucky ...," Lobo smirked, "you could even find yourself at receiving end of it ...just like his old team."

***

"Sir, we are back," Mohit panted as he and Vinay walked in.

"Congratulations," Maria shot

Kelkar threw her a point look before turning to Mohit, "And?"

"Nothing," Vinay frowned.

"What do you mean nothing?" Kelkar crossed his arms and scrutinized his two team members. This was the most important evidence they had-to trace the victim.

"The card was unreadable," Mohit explained, "We checked all three hotels. None of them are missing a guest."

"What about the number printed on the card? It should have come from a batch. Which hotel was assigned that card?" Kelkar asked.

"They don't track those numbers," Vinay said.

"What about old guests? Those who checked out in the last two to three days?" Kelkar asked.

Mohit and Vinay shared a glance before turning to Kelkar. Vinay's face had twisted comically as he tried to speak, "Umm ...well ..."

"Let me guess. You didn't bother finding this out," Kelkar's voice was stern.

"We didn't know­–"

"You didn't tell us–"

"So you expect me to tell you everything, is that it?" Kelkar asked, "Maybe you should join the kindergarten class if you need this basic instruction instead of being here."

Maria chucked.

Kelkar threw her a warning look before turning to the two boys, "We are going to go back and do it right this time. Is that clear?"

Mohit and Vinay gave a quick nod.

"Pereira, you go with Rajput to the Bandra hotel. I will go with Pawar to Colaba," Kelkar said, "Lobo and Agnihotri can check out the Worli one."

***

Mrs Kohli, the woman at the front desk of Grand Regal, Colaba, led Kelkar and Vinay to a room at the very back. "I have already explained to your colleague here, we are not missing any guests," she said the minute the door closed.

"And we are taking your word for it," Kelkar's tone was sharp, "For now, at least"

The woman's shoulders relaxed slightly, "Then what is this about?"

"We need the records of all the guests who checked out in the past 2-3 days. I want the copies of every single guest's identity proofs."

"We cannot share guest details with you. That is against our policy," she sprung back.

"I don't know about your policy, but withholding information, relating to an active criminal investigation, is obstruction of justice as per the law that we follow in this country."

"Criminal investigation?" she pulled her head back slightly. "I ...I am sure it has nothing to do with our hotel. None of our guest are missing. Whatever this investigation is, it has nothing to do with our hotel."

"Unless you can prove that this keycard," Kelkar pulled the card from his pocket, "doesn't belong to your hotel, your hotel is going to be very much a part of our investigation."

"How do I know this is even a real investigation? We have had–"

Kelkar got out of his chair, "Tell your manager we will be back soon. This time with uniformed police and a warrant."

"What?" she squealed.

"I told you we didn't have time to waste," Kelkar gave a side tilt to Vinay and walked towards the door.

"I will get him. I will get the manager."

***

"I cannot believe it is taking them so long to get their records collated. They have some weird thing going here. Maybe income tax needs to do a raid here," Maria complained as they waited in the Grand Regal, Bandra staff area for the front desk to get the documents.

The door opened and the attractive girl from the front desk, Carol, walked in. She frowned slightly at Maria before handling the papers to Mohit with a bright smile.

Mohit passed them to Maria, "You are amazing," he said turning to Carol, winking at her, "But you know that already. When does your shift end?"

Maria cleared her throat loudly. Carol looked at her and rushed away.

"Did you need to do that?" Mohit complained.

Maria split the papers handing him a bunch, "If you hadn't wasted so much time in flirting we would have had the papers by now."

"If you hadn't made a ruckus and threatened so much, I wouldn't need to fix he situation by flirting my ass off!"

"Don't pass your flirting off on me. You would have done it either way. I had to be the one keeping you from wasting more time."

"Simple thanks would have done," Mohit reasoned, "I was the one who cleaned up your mess, even if you are above admitting it."

"There was no mess to clean up," Maria said, glaring at Mohit, "and if there was, I am more than capable of cleaning it myself. You didn't need to butt in."

"Are you bothered that I flirted with Carol and not you?" Mohit asked with a cheeky smile.

Maria let out a loud groan.

***

It was close to 5pm when Vijay and Kelkar were finally able to start scanning through the identify proof documents. All 138 of them. A task made harder by the poor quality of photocopies that the hotel provided.

"They charge so much for the rooms, why cannot they buy a better photocopier?" Vinay asked.

Kelkar's phone rang before he had a chance to respond.

"Sir, it's me. Vir," said the voice on the other end, "We might have something here."

Thanks for reading. The team does seem to have some tensions going doesn't it? Hopefully the case will keep them too busy too soon enough.

Do drop a line of your thoughts if you think I can do something better, or even if you liked some part of this. And if you like the chapter, do consider voting.