5.
Zoya
I shampooed my hair for the third time making sure the smell of pure death had left it.
Still, I was grateful for the dumpster to exist. If not for it, we would have lost the one clue we had. Although now the question was what do we do with it?
I had placed the torn piece of shirt in a Ziploc plastic bag. We didn't want to risk washing it as it would compromise our evidence. We would just have to deal with the odor for now.
I'd wanted Jahapanah to rest a little and let himself sleep but the man simply refused.
That stubborn brat!
Tiptoeing back to his room, I pushed the door as gently as I could and closed it behind me.
It was quite dark; the only light shining from the bright night moon.
It was when I walked towards his bed, I found him fast asleep. His perfect cupid's bow slightly open, as he lightly snored.
I snickered. He was the cutest thing. Especially when he wasn't wide awake and breathing fire on everyone around him.
My eyes traced the dark circles that had formed under his and I wondered why anyone would want to hurt him. And his family.
He was resilient, brave, smart, and kind; some parts of which he showed and some he didn't.
It reminded me of a story phuphi had told me about him.
"'He was about ten years old when his Abbu had left us for good. Helpless, Loveless and Moneyless. I didn't have a grand education to my name so I did what I knew I could. Sewing was something I always enjoyed, so I turned it into my profession.
Her eyes had misted as she reminisced some more. 'I saw him one day hiding behind the door secretly watching me. When I told him to come in, he sat by my side without a word. The next day...' She held my hand as she recited the memory in sad wonder 'The next day he had found his own needle and thread and sat with me helping, learning and sewing. Ammi aapke hath dukh jayenge, main karunga, he would say'"
I never could have thought he was capable of such love and care. No, it wasn't his fault that he became steel. Refusing to feel. Renouncing intimacy.
I hated...hated his father. What he put that child through for the sake of his own selfishness was unforgivable. I liked to think I was a forgiving person but, in this case, I understood every bit of anger in his soul.
Yes, I was here to get answers from my father but deep down I knew, I hated him too. The realities of our lives would never change.
We were abandoned children. Abandoned by weak men. Marshalled by great women.
How had I never realized that he and I were so alike?
***
After racking my brain for a successful solution all night, my brain had finally given birth to a good idea. Scratch that, an amazing idea!
I had located sorts of a logo on the part that had ripped off. So naturally I was going to hack into one of the image-match softwares and get this plan going.
Such were the instincts of a computer engineer.
Mr. Khan had taken the route of going to the police. Shockingly. It was a friend of some friend who knew another friend that could guarantee an officer who was trustworthy.
I was finding it more difficult to believe that he had friends. Plural.
Nonetheless, we needed to get the shirt to a lab; and for that we needed someone involved with the law. The DNA match would end all quests.
