CIRCLE

Part-I

..--..

J. W. Hill. Page 341. Second paragraph. Third Line.

All behavior is in some way motivated. People have reasons for doing what they do-for behaving in the manner that they do.

I read it out aloud, once to find my voice and twice to remember it. When I was done memorizing, I drew a line under it- an irregular, jagged line.

I frowned.

Some people can’t cook. Some people are never on time. Some never flush. Others can’t even admit they’ve made a mistake.

My problem?

I can’t draw straight lines. They always end up crooked or something similar to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Go, sue me.

I set the pencil down and continued reading with a deadpan expression.

Every individual has a need that motivates him towards satisfaction of that need. If the need remains unsatisfied, it causes tension… within the individual and his social web.

Again, I resisted the urge to underline.

The library was empty. Except for the woman behind the reception, there was not a soul around. It was so quiet that the silence itself was getting on my nerves. I almost felt like tipping the books off the table, just to make a noise. Any noise.

This was turning out to be a monotonous routine already. God, I was bored out of my mind. I ran my fingers through my hair, almost pulling at their roots. I wondered how many months and days Hill had spent in writing an entire book (552 pages, mind you) that did nothing but state the obvious.

“Criminal psychology?” a complaisant voice spoke up, intruding into my thought-shell.

For a minute, I thought I’d imagined it. I looked up, startled.

He was standing across my table, hands dug into the pockets of his faded jeans and a curious smile playing at his lips.

Tap.

The pencil I’d been using as a chew toy had dropped on to the table.

Little did I realize that I was gaping at him.

“Err-yeah,” I replied, sitting up awkwardly while my hands started collecting the books sprawled across the table.

“Are you leaving already or… did I disturb you?”

I shifted uneasily, shrugging in an offhand manner. Realizing that it’d be rude to leave so sudden, I sighed and slumped into my chair. He pulled one chair out and sat down across me.

“So, you’re a fresher?” he asked, flipping through my notes unasked and uninvited. “James Avery right?”

“How do you-”

He showed me the cover of my blue file where my name was written in all its naked glory. I could have hit myself on the head for being so dense. I was a disgrace to the profession. No doubt. And I bet he was thinking the same.

I stared at him. I stared at the face of my antithesis- a man I probably adored from the distance but never wanted to be.

“Oh…” he exclaimed, looking up. “But where are my manners? My name is-”

“Dan Templar. Yeah, I know,” I replied sulkily, averting my eyes.

He smiled unperturbed. “Really… I didn’t know I was that popular.”

“You should. Everyone knows the top student of the graduating class.”

He didn’t comment on that. He flipped through my file, his head resting on one hand and the other leafing through my notes. He kept at it for a long while, almost as if he had nowhere else to be. In a way, I had nowhere else to go either. Maybe that’s why.

Strangely, his eyes remained the only part of him that could emote. Even his smile was ordinarily common. You know the kind people give you when you wish them ‘hey’ but deep down they’re thinking ‘Oh God. Not him.’

People are the worst. Trust me, they are. If you could actually hear what they’re really thinking, the world would be a better place. No facades please, I’d rather have the truth. Yes, thank you.

“It was my favorite subject three years ago,” he trailed contentedly, breaking my thoughts again. “I remember I liked Maslow a lot back then. Physiological need versus Self-Actualization. The man was a genius.”

God, what was it with him? If he wanted to reminisce about the old days, why pick me?

“What do you think?” he asked pointedly, sharp eyes gazing at me.

I shifted uncomfortably on being put on the spot. The other thing about people. Never tell them you hate something they like. Otherwise, they’ll spend the next half an hour drilling you on why you hate what they love. People are narcissist. They always want to hear what they want to hear. The world doesn’t need peace, it needs talking mirrors.

Oh, mirror, mirror on the wall… Who art fairest of them all?

“I don’t particularly like Maslow,” I answered tightly. “Psychology is not really my thing,” I admitted.

Why it’s you, my fair queen.

“Is that so?” he said, letting his hands slide back into his pockets.

“Because in my opinion, there are some people to whom self actualization is more important than their physiological need,” I explained, shoving my hands into my pockets and looking at him squarely.

“Meaning you’d rather go without food than a chance at proving yourself worthy?” Dan asked back, rephrasing my answer.

“No. Not me. But I know there are people like that out there.”

Silence.

And suddenly, a smile broke out on his thin lips.

“Interesting.”

He got up and tossed me back the file.

“Good luck with your studies. Make sure you prepare yourself. I’ll be waiting.”

Again, that knowing smile. And then, he disappeared. Just as abrupt as he had come.

I’ll be waiting.

..--..

It wasn’t until four years later did I actually get to hold something other than a book in my hand. No more theories. No more conceptual knowledge. From then on, it was the real deal.

“Oh, you’re the rookie?” a man at the station asked me, eating away at one chocolate syrup covered doughnut. I guess it’s true what they say about cops. And people blame movies for being too cliché.

A woman came up behind him and elbowed him in the guts. For a moment, I was blinded by her short, fuzzy red hair and gold hoops hanging from her ears.

“Don’t call him a rookie. He’s more qualified than you, Tim. A gold-medalist at forensics and criminal psychology is more than you can ever achieve,” she turned to me with a pleasant smile and introduced herself like a professional. “I’m Sarah Mitchell. Don’t mind Tim here by the way.”

I shrugged, waving away the issue. “Oh no, he is actually right. As for now, I’m just a trainee.”

“Ya see? He’s just a trainee,” Tim told Sarah with a pointed glance. “Besides doesn’t he look too young to be on the investigation squad?”

I shifted uncomfortably, wondering whether I should have dyed my hair grey.

Sarah tipped him to be quiet. Sidling next to me, she started leading me to an office at the end of the hall.

“He’s been expecting you.”

I was flummoxed.

“I’m sorry but I haven’t had the time to familiarize myself with the handbook you sent me but who is he exactly?”

She didn’t answer me. We’d reached the door. She knocked and a strangely familiar voice rang out. “Come in.” She gave me a nod and urged me to go in.

I clasped the knob in my hand and turned. I was thinking of a billion things to say to make a good first impression. Stuff like ‘Good morning sir. Thank you for giving me the chance to be a trainee under your guidance’ and ‘Hello sir. Let’s make this city a safer place for all our innocent citizens’ but when I’d walked through the door and glanced at the man behind the desk, every line dissolved.

I gawked at him.

“It’s y-you?!”

Not the best of first impressions I’ve ever made. True.

Dan had been speaking on the phone when he spotted me. His languid legs crossed and his hands buried deep in his pockets. A smile of recognition crept its way on his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said to the person at the other end. “Can I call you back later?... Thanks,” he said, placing the receiver back in its cradle.

“Hey…” he greeted in the same old familiarity of nonchalance. “Long time no see, James.”

“Err-yeah. Was this all… your idea?”

“You don’t seem enthralled by it.”

“Well, yeah. When I got the job offer, I was hoping it’d be on account of my hard work and not for a good word that someone put for me.”

Dan got up from his seat and moved to the window where he pulled the shutters down.

“I didn’t put a good word for you. You were the best. I picked the best. Amen.”

He turned around and stared at me, almost challenging me to counter that.

In a way, that’s how it all started. Like a competition. Like a game. A game that I was hell bent on winning and not just because I was a sore loser. But because my opponent was him of all people.

“I see,” I muttered and nodded compromisingly, “Thank you.”

He turned his head sideways and smiled. “Welcome to my investigation squad. Do your best, alright?”

I looked up slowly. “Yes, chief.”

..--..

“She knew him. Probably,” Sarah said, raising the woman’s hand and checking for injuries. “No signs of force used.”

“Well, if she knew him, I feel sorry for her. Getting murdered is the worst punishment you can get for not knowing how to choose your friend circle,” Grant said, taking a sample from the moist, red carpet.

My eyes shifted to the other dead body lying in the room. Both naked and sprawled across the floor like the Vitruvian Man.

“James?”

I turned to Sarah uncomfortably.

“Here take these samples up to the lab and get them tested,” she said, handing two zip lock bags to me.

I nodded and took them from her, hesitantly. I turned to the entrance and was about to leave.

“James,” she called out again.

I turned around.

“Is this the first time you’ve-”

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a professional. Don’t forget that.”

I swept past a couple of policemen who were inspecting some cigarette burns on the ground and comparing notes on the number of nude bodies they’d seen on the job.

I left the scene of crime.

I left the run down apartment building on 2nd avenue.

And when I reached Sarah’s black sedan, I kicked the tires in protest and broke down crying.

..--..

Six months into my work, I realized that humans are the vilest creatures inhabiting our world. Sure, I had a notion about the intricacies involved in dealing with the world of crime but six cases of suicide, two of attempted murder, one rape, two child abuse and three actual murders was more than what I’d expected in just six months. Either the world was going down the drain or maybe I was already in it.

It’s easy to lose yourself after seeing all that blood, gore and naked bodies sprawled across living rooms, kitchens, swimming pools, bathrooms and whatnot. But people had their own ways of coping.

Sarah usually shut herself out for two days, spending most of her time in the Dark room. She developed case photos and handed them to Dan at the end of the day. She usually brightened up after the second day.

Randall, inspector and the other trainee with me, took some sleeping pills and slept the nightmares off. He was one strange guy. He’d arrive the next day, looking blanched but he always joked about how he spent more time with dead, naked women than his girlfriend.

Tim had a tendency to get drunk after every assignment. He’d drag me to the bar with him, telling me stories of his kids back home enjoying Thanksgiving dinner or of how his wife kept asking him to be careful everytime he left home.

I think he tried to make himself feel better. I think he wanted to keep reminding himself why he was doing all this.

Me?

I tried to be an insensitive prick. Four years of criminal study and logistics never prepares you for the real deal. For one, I found it more difficult to live alone in my two bedroom apartment. I’d find myself going at two or more packets of cigarettes these days and the ash tray was almost always full.

There was only one person in the police department, who was virtually shut off. Chief Detective Dan Templar. He hadn’t changed a bit and I had wondered more than once how he could smile in that strange, beautiful way whenever a new case popped up.

“If you aren’t careful, people might think you’ve got issues of necrophilia,” I told him one day when he invited me into his office for coffee.

His smile didn’t falter.

Was it the satisfaction of being a crusader of justice?

Was it because he could single-handedly solve each one of those cases?

Or was it because of that woman by his side?

..--..

I was surprised one day when she invited me to a local restaurant outside the station. She sat across me- dressed in a turquoise skirt and a floral off-shoulders dress, quite visibly accentuated by her pearl ear-rings and gold chain. She was obviously from a well-off family- the higher strata of society. Why she was associating herself with a man who dealt with crime and gore was something I could not comprehend. I didn’t understand at all. Yet, she sat there timidly, making me wonder why she’d singled me out for company on this bright day.

“It’s a wonderful afternoon, isn’t it,” she said in a strangely, accented English as if she’d been teleported from a world not our own.

“Uhn,” was the intelligent reply I gave.

“Dan speaks highly of you.”

Not the choice of subject I’d have expected from someone who started the conversation with the weather.

“I… see,” I observed, stirring the contents of my cup. I hadn’t slept well for days and I had bags under my eyes.

“I bet you’re wondering why I asked you to meet me all the way here.”

“Well, yeah, a little.”

She smiled at that, taking a small sip of her cappuccino. It was an excruciatingly small sip. As if she’d choke if she took more than necessary. She was delicate and elegant at the same time and she made me feel like a complete idiot sitting here, slurping on my coffee so loudly.

“I heard that you were with Dan in college. And I just wanted to know…”

I looked up attentively.

“I just wanted to know what he was like back then.”

I blinked at her before casting my eyes down.

“I’m sorry. I was a freshman when he graduated and didn’t really know him well. We met only once.”

“Is that so?” she asked in surprise.

“Yeah,” I replied truthfully, feeling more uncomfortable.

She smiled a bittersweet smile, almost of relief. “I just wanted to know him better. He never talks about himself and I just had a feeling.”

“A feeling?” I echoed.

“A feeling that you knew him better,” she concluded in a bittersweet tone.

I wanted to laugh aloud at her. Now, that I think about it, I wish I had. I wish I had told her the truth. I wish I had told her to worry about herself more.

I still can’t get rid of that image. Her sitting there across me, gazing at her little manicured fingers in admiral. She had these really pretty and red polished fingernails. It suited her. The next time I saw her, she had the same color of red on them. But this time, they weren’t from the nail polish.

..--..

(Part I/IV)