CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Damn,” Jessica opined. “Would it be terrible of me to say that I actually understand the killer?”
“Yes,” Faith replied, “but I think I understand the point you’re really trying to make.”
In the past two years, there had been no fewer than twenty-seven thousand one hundred fifteen dog attacks in the Boston Metropolitan Area.
While the vast majority of these attacks were reported by owners bitten by their pets, three hundred twelve cases involved dogs incorrectly identified as service animals.
Sixty-nine of those attacks were fatal. Rather than finding a single possible suspect, they had found dozens.
“We should get Jenkins working on this,” Jessica suggested. “This is too much for us to handle alone.”
“Agreed,” Faith said. “Have him first identify which of the possible suspects still live in the area. We’ll prioritize loved ones of fatally wounded victims first and move onto non-fatal injuries later.”
“Yeah, that works,” Jessica said. “Damn. I didn’t realize this was such a big deal.”
Apparently, it was. Among the information they had come across was a recent newspaper article describing the problem and claiming that the lack of enforcement of these laws was to blame.
The article’s writer had concluded with a pointed rant that claimed they might as well not have the law at all if no one was allowed to enforce it.
Faith looked at Turk, who was watching the tv and swishing his tail back and forth, blissfully unaware that out there were hundreds of people traumatized by dog attacks who would take one look at him and probably be afraid for their lives.
Faith never really thought about the potential for violence from dogs.
To her, dogs were puppies, lovable creatures who existed to bring joy to people.
Even when she was using Turk to take down a suspect, she didn’t think of him as violent or scary.
He was just doing a job. And that’s how he behaved.
He wasn’t excessively violent. He wasn’t trying to hurt them.
He obtained compliance, then released the suspects to Faith.
Because he’s been trained. He’s been taught to trust that he doesn’t need to kill a threat to subdue it. Instinctively, the only solution to a threat in the wild is to kill it.
That could explain why the killer didn’t harm Hayes’ dog.
Faith had assumed the killer just didn’t want the dog to hurt them, and that could be part of it, but it could also be the killer understood the dogs were only acting on instinct.
The fault lay with the owners who portrayed their dogs as trained and lulled others into a false sense of security believing the dogs would be harmless to them.
Faith didn’t condone the killer’s actions, but if she had a loved one killed by a fake service dog, she would be very angry with that dog’s owner too. So, in that sense, she could understand where the killer was coming from.
Still, they had taken it too far. Advocating for stricter enforcement was good. Cutting people to ribbons was not good.
“Agents,” Detective Jenkins’ voice said over the phone. “Good to hear from you.” His tone suggested that wasn’t entirely the case.
“I wanted to let you know that we executed the search warrant at the Mitchell residence. There’s nothing there.
The boxcutter blades, but no ponchos, no manifestos, no blood, no muddy boots, nothing that can prove she’s the killer.
We’re currently trying to figure out how hard we’re going to need to kiss her ass to keep her from suing us.
I know you guys are just doing your job, and I’m not trying to be an asshole, but we really screwed the pooch on that one. Oy. Pardon that turn of phrase.”
Jessica sighed. “I told you that the FBI is officially taking the case. Your department doesn’t have to accept liability. Neither do we, frankly, and I’ll be happy to defend that point of view in court, but—”
“That’s not important right now,” Faith said. “Sahar’s clean. Fine. Let’s focus on finding this killer. We have a new lead now.”
“Yeah, let’s just slow it down a little, is all I’m saying,” Jenkins said. “Get the case built first before we confront people.”
Faith understood where Jenkins was coming from, but she wasn’t about to argue over investigative methods that had worked well for her for fifteen years.
She just wanted progress made on this case.
“We’re going to send you a list of names.
These are victims of dog attacks from fake service dogs in the Greater Boston area over the past two years.
The highlighted names are fatalities. We need you to help us make a list of suspects out of this information.
Loved ones of the fatalities, and surviving victims who still live in the Boston area. ”
“Okay,” Jenkins said. “How many names is that?”
“Three hundred twelve. Sixty-nine fatal.”
“Holy Mother of God,” Jenkins swore. He sighed. “All right. I’ll recruit some interns, and we’ll start refining. You think this is personal?”
“It has to be,” Faith said. “Even if the violence is just how this killer gets their kicks, the fact that both victims worked together to fake licensing for untrained dogs tells me this is also punishment. The killer is selecting victims they feel contribute to this problem.”
“All right. Well, like I said, we struck out against Mitchell. I’ll get this info back as soon as I can. Sorry if I came across a little miffed. I’m just not used to dealing with crap like this.”
“I hope you spend the rest of your career never dealing with crap like this again,” Faith said.
“May God hear your prayer. Talk to you soon.”
He hung up, and Jessica leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “You think we’ll get shit about Mitchell?”
“No, we’re fine,” Faith said. “We had probable cause. It didn’t work out, but we also didn’t charge her with anything.”
“Yeah, but we caught shit over what happened with one of our suspects in Baltimore during the last case.”
“That was a different situation,” Faith said. “In that case, the media showed up and screwed us over.”
“Well, the media’s going to hear about this one soon, if they haven’t already. I highly doubt you’ll be able to intimidate them away the way you intimidated Bridgette.”
Bridgette Thurston was a reporter for Channel Six News in D.C.
Faith had made the ill-advised choice to use her to infiltrate an art school while following up on a lead in a case where former chaplains were being killed.
She’d actually come very much in handy in that case, but on their next case, she’d harassed Faith and Jessica, apparently believing she was entitled to exclusive information on all future cases.
When Faith and Jessica shut her down, she got vindictive, arranging to become a thorn in their side to blackmail them into giving her what she wanted.
Faith had played along long enough to solve the case, then turned the tables on Bridgette, threatening to expose her blackmailing two innocent people to get information.
Still, it was understandable that Jessica was jumpy over that.
And while Faith was confident, they wouldn’t suffer serious consequences because Sahar Mitchell turned out not to be the killer, she could also understand how nerve wracking it was to know that there was a possibility Mitchell could raise hell about it.
“We just won’t talk to the media anymore,” Faith said. “Not until the case is solved, and only with permission and coaching from our PR department.”
Jessica nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I just hate this shit. Like, I get that people don’t like being investigated by us, but just cooperate. Let us conduct our searches, answer our questions, and deal with it.”
Faith decided it was best to let Jessica vent. She wasn’t really upset at Sahar, just irritated that they were in a rut. Faith felt the same way. Faith smiled, thinking that a few years ago, she would be the one ranting, and her former partner, Michael would be the one trying to calm her down.
Her smile faded when she recalled Red’s words before she took this case.
Faith had far too much going on with this case and David’s situation to think about the future, but sooner or later, she’d have to make that choice.
Would she leave the K9 School and return to the field full time, or leave the field once more and stay with the K9 school?
Or would she pursue a leadership role, maybe an ASAC position?
Smythe had broached the idea of grooming her for leadership in the past.
She sighed and rubbed her temples. Too much to think about right now. She needed to focus on the case.
“While PD is working on the list we sent, I think we should expand the list to include people whose dogs were attacked by service dogs.”
“You think someone’s avenging their dog maybe?”
“Maybe. I’ve been batting around the thought that these killings are violent because the attacks were violent.
Maybe the killer witnessed an attack like this.
That could be a loved one of a human victim or the loved one of an animal victim.
If I saw Turk get torn to shreds…” She shivered.
“Jeez, I don’t even want to think about that. ”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Jessica said. “Okay, I’ll do some digging.”
Another hour of searching pulled up a second list of names.
Once more, the numbers were staggering. Eight thousand six hundred ninety cases of dogs attacking other dogs.
Probably there were far more, but those were the attacks that were reported by owners.
Three hundred fifty-nine fatal attacks on dogs, and seventy-two cases where the attacks were perpetrated by fake service dogs.
“We’ll need to get Jenkins to look at these too,” Jessica said. “He’s not going to be happy.”
“He’ll be fine. Detectives grumble about busywork, but every investigator knows that’s a big part of every case.”
“Yeah, fair enough. I guess we can help too.”
“I guess so,” Faith said.
Jessica rolled her eyes and started organizing the names. One of them jumped out at Faith. “Hold on. Who’s this girl, the one who lives in Newton?”
“Who? Jennifer Suleiman?”
“Yeah. Is she the only one who lives in Newton?”
Jessica performed a quick search. “Yeah, looks that way.”
“What’s her story?’
Jessica pulled up the link to the news story.
"'Local woman's dog mauled to death by fake service dog,'" she read.
"Jennifer Suleiman, thirty-two, yadda yadda, and so forth…
Okay, here it is. 'Suleiman's dog, a five-year-old Boston Terrier named Princess, was mauled to death by a Rottweiler sporting a service dog vest. The Rottweiler was determined not to be an actual service dog but was wearing the vest because the owner disliked being told she couldn't bring her pet into a restaurant.
The owner was charged with animal abuse and criminal damage to property. '"
“What’s the owner’s name?”
“Alisa O’Hara.” Jessica’s fingers flew over the keys. “It looks like… She moved. Yep. Alaska. A week after the legal case was concluded.”
“Out of reach of the killer, in other words.”
Jessica leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. She pursed her lips and chewed on the bottom one.
“What is it?” Faith asked.
“I think we should be looking for a male suspect.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”
“The violent nature of the crimes. Women do kill people, but not usually like this. If the victims were poisoned or even shot, I’d say it’s possible, but this is animalistic. This kind of rage is almost exclusive to males.”
“Almost is not completely,” Faith reminded her, “and I’ve encountered several female killers just as violent and rage-filled as men. The woman who nearly killed my husband was one of them.”
Jessica winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”
“No reason to be sorry. I brought it up. But I’m using the example to make a point. I think ruling women out is dangerous.”
“True, but—”
Jessica’s phone rang before they could continue the argument. “This is Jenkins.”
“That fast?” Faith replied. “Impressive.”
Jessica answered and put the phone on speaker. “Jenkins, you’ve got both of us. Go ahead.”
Jenkins sounded exhausted when he replied. “Guys, we’ve got another one.”
Faith leaned back in her chair and heaved a sigh. Jessica swore and kicked the desk chair, sending it sliding into the nearest bed and causing Turk to jump to his feet.
“Sorry,” Jessica said, shaking her head. “Where at?”
“Brookline. It’s just east of Newton. I’ll send you the address. We might get lucky on this one. The guy’s still alive.”
Faith leaped from her chair. “What? Really?”
“Really. For now, anyway. No clue how; I just got the call too. Paramedics are with him right now. They didn’t want to tell me if he could talk yet or anything, but maybe when they stitch him up, he can give us an ID.
Not the most ideal way to find a break in the case, but as long as we’re staring at the clouds, we might as well look for silver, right? ”
Faith was already pulling on her boots and grabbing her vest. “Send us the address. We’ll meet you there.”
The trio rushed from the hotel room, excitement outweighing their disappointment. Their investigation might have bogged down, but Faith wasn't too proud to get the answer she needed directly from the mouth of a victim, especially one who had thwarted the odds and survived.
Hang on, she pleaded with the unnamed victim. Just hold on a little longer for us.