“Curiosity killed the cat.” The little boy kept chanting and
Harry was exactly seven seconds close to breaking his skull when Bob took him
aside. “What is wrong with you? He’s just a little boy. Can’t you stay a little
patient?” “I have tried being patient with this crackhead. We need to try a
different way to extract information out of him. He is the only witness to the
murder. And here he is, looking at me, repeating this meaningless line with a
smirk on his face, as if threatening me to chicken out. The mayor is getting
impatient by the minute. That loner’s life revolved around that bloody cat.
What are we even doing here? What did I join the police for? To find a random cat’s
murderer?” Bob was more calm. “It’s not a random cat. It was the mayor’s cat.” He spoke, still looking
into the distance. He was thinking things through, trying to join the dots
patiently. “Curiosity killed the cat.” There seemed to be something beyond
the scope of what looked obvious. This little child couldn’t possibly be
threatening us, he thought. “Curiosity killed the cat.” Bob’s instincts told him to look at this boy’s
statement beyond the surface. He brainstormed too hard. He loved puzzles, and
this was very interesting. He also loved kids, and he knew something was off
with that kid. Kids aren’t evil. They’re supposed to be pure, right? He went
home and tried to look at the case from different angles. Got tired, slept,
ate, and thought again.
Six days later the effort finally paid off. The universe
gave him a signal and he was vigilant enough to not miss it. Three blocks away,
A girl named Curiosity lived on room 212 of building B. She came to meet her
friend here, the neighbor of the kid. All her attention concentrated towards
her phone, her heel pierced into the cat and she winced with pain before dying
a painful death. Curiosity didn’t even try to save her. She was too scared to
stay. After all, everyone knew this collar-strap with ‘Mayor’s property’
written all over it. She thought it was best to run away. But Johnny happened
to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And he got scarred by what he saw.
Over coffee, that evening, the team was being congratulated
for having solved such a weirdly twisted case. At the first opportunity, Harry
came to Bob and smiled. “Curiosity killed the cat at various levels. The girl
killed the animal, mine killed my sense of rationality and patience, and yours killed the conventional way of thinking.” They
both gave each other a long hard look, and broke out laughing.
