Murder At The Old Temple

A man in a white shirt pointed toward the sanctum. “Advocate Prakash Joshi is lying in there. You will let his family see him.”

“His family will see him after the scene is secured.”

“He was murdered in a temple.”

“I know where he was murdered.”

“Then why are you standing outside?”

Because the temple was no longer a building. It was a fuse.

Ananya looked past him. The old temple rose around the crowd in weathered stone, its walls blackened by centuries of oil lamps. A line of carved elephants ran beneath the roof, each one worn nearly smooth by rain and hands. The eastern gate had been forced open. A strip of yellow police tape hung from one hinge, useless and torn.

She wanted the inner sanctum sealed before another foot crossed the floor. She wanted every person who had entered since dawn identified, separated, and kept from touching the body or the walls. Most of all, she wanted the truth left undisturbed long enough to find it.

“Jadhav,” she said, “bring the rope barrier from the jeep. Send someone for the photographer. No one enters without my permission.”

He hesitated. “Madam, the priest is inside.”

“Bring him out.”

“He says the sanctum cannot be left unattended.”

“Tell him the dead man is already unattended.”

The priest appeared at the doorway before Jadhav could reach him. He was a narrow, elderly man with ash across his forehead and blood on the hem of his white garment - not his own, Ananya guessed. His fingers trembled around a ring of keys.

“This is a sacred place,” he said. “You cannot treat it like a roadside room.”

“And you cannot treat a murder scene like a festival.”

His eyes hardened. “Prakash Joshi was not murdered by the gods.”

“No. A person murdered him. Help me find that person.”

The priest glanced toward the courtyard. His expression changed when he saw the groups facing one another. “If you close the sanctum, people will say the police are hiding something.”

“If I leave it open, they will destroy what I need to prove anything.”

A woman near the peepal tree shouted, “They are protecting the upper-caste men!”

A man answered from the steps, “And you brought your own people to create trouble!”

The courtyard fractured along old lines with astonishing speed. Ananya had heard those accusations in petitions, at political meetings, in the corners of police stations where people spoke more freely when they believed no one important was listening. Here, surrounded by stone gods and a dead lawyer, the words became weapons.

She turned to the priest. “Unlock the inner gate.”

His hand closed around the keys.

“You heard me.”

He looked at the crowd again. “If I do this, no one will forgive me.”

“If you don’t, no one will believe the investigation.”

For a moment, neither moved. Then the priest selected a long iron key and fitted it into the lock.

The crowd roared.

Ananya stepped onto the threshold and faced them. “Stay where you are. I will not repeat myself.”

A young man pushed forward. “My uncle’s name is being dragged through the mud. Joshi fought us in court. We have a right to see - ”

“You have a right to make a statement at the station.”

“He represented the people who barred us from the temple.”

“And now you want to trample through the place where he died?”

The young man’s jaw tightened. He looked ready to answer, but an older woman caught his sleeve and pulled him back.

From somewhere beyond the gate came a new chant, rough and uneven. It began with a demand for justice and ended in the name of a community.

Ananya felt the familiar pull of home in the voices. She had grown up in this town, had walked these streets in school uniform, had watched adults lower their voices whenever the temple access dispute was mentioned. Her father still lived three lanes from the market. Her mother would already be hearing rumors by now.

She pushed the thought away.

The priest opened the gate.

The sanctum was smaller than Ananya had imagined. Oil lamps burned along the rear wall, their flames trembling in the draft. The stone floor was dark with old polish and new blood. Prakash Joshi lay on his side near the raised altar, one arm bent beneath him. His white shirt had turned red at the ribs. His spectacles rested several feet away, one lens cracked.

The air inside was cooler. It carried the sharp scent of lamp oil, iron, and crushed flowers.

Ananya entered without touching the walls.

“Where is the weapon?” she asked.

The priest stood behind her. “There was none when I found him.”

“When did you find him?”

“Just after the first bell. I came to open the sanctum.”

“Who else was here?”

“No one.”

“That is not an answer.”

The priest looked at the body. “I heard voices outside. When I came in, he was already dead.”

Ananya crouched near Prakash’s hand without touching it. The fingers were curled tightly, as if he had tried to hold on to something. A thin smear of blood marked the stone beneath his palm.

“Did you move him?”

“No.”

“Did you touch anything?”

The priest swallowed. “I checked for a pulse.”

“With which hand?”

He lifted his right hand.

Ananya studied the floor. The prints around the body were a confusion of sandal marks, bare feet, and the deep rectangular tread of work shoes. Some had been made after the blood began to dry. One set led toward the side passage and stopped at the wall.

“Jadhav,” she called.

The constable appeared at the gate.

“Keep the priest outside. No one comes in. Not even the family.”

“But - ”

“Now.”

Jadhav took the priest by the elbow. The old man resisted just long enough to whisper, “Madam, if this becomes a riot - ”

“It already is.”

Ananya moved closer to the body. She saw a bruise along Prakash’s temple and a narrow cut beneath his jaw. The fatal wound appeared to be at the ribs, but she would leave that to the medical examiner. Near his left hand, partly hidden beneath the fold of his coat, something red caught the lamplight.

Paper.

She reached for her gloves, then remembered they were still in the jeep. “Jadhav!”

He returned, breathless. “Madam?”

“Bring the evidence kit. Gloves. Camera. And keep that gate shut.”

He ran.

Outside, the shouting sharpened. Someone struck the metal gate. The sanctum door trembled in its frame.

Ananya stood guard over the body until Jadhav returned. She could not allow herself to look at Prakash as the town had known him: the lawyer who argued for families no one wanted to represent, who humiliated officers in court, who had made enemies by questioning the temple trust’s control over access. Respected, controversial, impossible to ignore.

Dead now, and still capable of dividing the town.

Jadhav brought the kit. Ananya pulled on the gloves and crouched again. With tweezers, she eased the paper from beneath Prakash’s fingers.

It was a legal docket, folded once and soaked through at one corner. The cover bore a faded court stamp and a case number. Beneath it, written in blue ink, were the words: Temple Access Petition.

Ananya’s breath caught.

She opened the docket only far enough to see the names of the parties. The first belonged to a group that had been denied entry through the eastern gate. The second belonged to the temple trust. Prakash had represented the petitioners.

A page inside was marked with a dark thumbprint.

“Photograph it,” she said.

Jadhav lifted the camera.

A fresh impact struck the outer gate. The lock rattled.

Ananya folded the docket into an evidence sleeve. “We are taking this to the station.”

The priest stared at it from beyond the threshold. “That case was to be heard next week.”

“Then someone may have wanted it stopped.”

The priest’s face drained of color.

Ananya rose and looked through the gate into the courtyard. The crowd had grown. People stood on the temple roofline, in the market lane, behind the police jeep. A man near the entrance was speaking loudly to a knot of listeners, one hand raised as if delivering a verdict.

“What is he saying?” Ananya asked.

Jadhav listened. “He says the docket proves the petitioners killed Joshi.”

“Who told him about the docket?”

Jadhav’s mouth opened, then closed.

The rumor moved faster than either of them. It crossed the courtyard in fragments.

“They found the case papers…”

“Those people did it…”

“Joshi was warned…”

“Police are hiding the name…”

Ananya stepped out and pulled the sanctum gate shut behind her. She locked it herself, sliding the iron bolt into place while the crowd watched.

For one brief moment, she had what she wanted: the body protected, the inner chamber secured, the first real lead sealed in evidence.

Then a stone flew from the far side of the courtyard and struck a police shield.

The crowd answered with a roar.

Ananya pressed the docket against her side and stared at the faces beyond the gate. The murder had begun inside the temple. The next violence was already gathering outside it.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 10,769 words in the full book.