CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The inside of James’s house was sparse. His money clearly went to maintaining his animals. He led them through the nearly bare interior to a backyard where several chest freezers sat, their cables snaking underground.
There was a slab near one of the chests where several thick cuts of beef sat. "This is for the tigers and bears," he explained.
Michael put a hand on his shoulder. “I think this is where we stop,” he told the suspect. “I’m not looking for a fight with a five-hundred-pound cat.”
"I don't enter the enclosures with food," James replied. "There are pullout drawers in each enclosure. I put the food in there and push it through for the animals." When Michael was still wary, James said, "You can do it yourself if you don't believe me."
Turk barked, and James frowned and looked at Faith. "Is he going to attack me?"
“If you behave yourself, then he’ll behave himself,” Faith said. “Although I’ll be honest, I do find it interesting that he’s reacting this way around you. He typically only does that when he recognizes a smell he’s picked up at a crime scene before.”
“Well, I’m working with a lot of animals,” James replied. “Considering the careers your victims chose, I imagine your dog is smelling something similar on me.”
Faith frowned. That was actually a logical explanation. It still didn’t absolve James of suspicion.
The animal trainer was pushing a pallet jack underneath a pallet piled high with sides of beef. He lifted the pallet and pushed the meat toward the enclosures. Faith heard growling as the animals rushed to their feeding troughs anticipating the meal.
“Can you explain to us your association with the victims?” Faith asked as they walked.
“Sure,” James said, pointedly ignoring the still-growling Turk. “I reported Dr. Vasquez and Marcus Reeves for animal abuse. I don’t know who Alison Chen is.”
“She worked at the Reptile House in Henry Doorly when you reported Dr. Vasquez.”
“I see. Well, I deal with large carnivores and occasionally large herbivores, not reptiles.”
“So you didn’t report her for stealing exotic animals from the zoo?”
“I didn’t. Did someone say I did?”
“No,” Faith admitted.
“Then why are you asking me about it?”
“Because she was murdered two days ago. Someone jabbed a two-pronged roasting needle into her neck but dipped it in snake venom first. A couple nights before that, someone tore Marcus Reeves’ throat out. And last night, someone gouged pieces of Dr. Vasquez’s flesh from her body until she bled to death.”
James grimaced. "Sounds brutal." He pulled to a stop in front of an enclosure housing two beautiful Bengal tigers and unloaded some of the meat into a large metal trough that extended outward from the enclosure. The tigers growled and clawed at the cage, waiting for their meal.
“All right, all right, calm down,” James said. “You know you’re going to get the meat in a second.”
He pushed the trough closed, and the tigers fell on the meat savagely. Faith was grateful to be separated from the animals by thick steel bars.
James pushed the forklift ahead and said, “Okay, so I’m clearly a suspect. Am I correct in assuming that?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“I think you know,” Michael replied.
James chuckled and pulled to a stop in front of an enclosure housing two enormous brown bears. The bears were more well-behaved than the tigers, but the heavy, open-mouthed breathing of the carnivores was somehow more disconcerting to Faith than the growling of the cats. James unloaded most of the rest of the meat onto the pullout trough and pushed it through. The bears remained calmer than the tigers, but there was something frightening about how easily they tore the beef apart. One of the animals fixed its gaze on Turk and gave the dog an expression that looked a little like amused contempt. Faith was glad when they moved on.
“Last stop is the wolves,” James informed them. “Make sure your dog doesn’t freak out. Dogs have problems with wolves sometimes. To answer your question… Prince, right?”
“That’s right.”
“To answer your question, Special Agent Prince, if you think I decided to murder three people years later for actions other people took, then I would respectfully suggest that the two of you need to reconsider your approach to this case.”
“Can you expand on that?” Faith asked.
“Sure. I’m bitter about losing my job at Global Wildlife Experiences. I was a good trainer. They told me all the time how much they liked my work and appreciated my expertise.”
“They?”
“The executives. I was held in high regard. Then the whistleblowing happens, and all of a sudden, I’m a disease. They fired me for ‘not upholding the standards expected by Global Wildlife Experiences.’ What really happened is they changed their expectations several times until they found demands I couldn’t or wouldn't meet. Then, they used that as an excuse to retaliate for the fact that I reported severe ethical violations that endangered the lives of animals and people. And yeah, I was pissed off about it."
They reached the wolf enclosure. Turk stopped growling. His ears perked up, and he tensed and looked warily at the wolves.
If the bears and tigers were frightening, the wolves were like something out of a nightmare. They were beautiful animals, sleek and powerful and glistening in the sun.
They were also silent. That was what really unnerved Faith. The tigers had growled and the bears had huffed, but the wolves didn’t make a sound as they padded over to wait patiently for their meat. They held the eyes of the three visitors and stared without fear—without identifiable emotion of any kind—as James loaded the trough and pushed it closed. Even with the meat in front of them, they held the strangers’ gaze until Faith and Michael looked away.
Only then did she hear the soft sound of their teeth tearing into flesh. She shivered and looked at James. “Why don’t we continue this conversation inside?”
James gave her a half-smile. “Wolves got you feeling the heebie-jeebies, huh?”
She narrowed her eyes. “The wolves, yes. You? Not so much.”
James chuckled. “Loud and clear. Sorry if I’m not the most personable guy right now. I wasn’t expecting to be accused of murder today.”
“As long as we keep this conversation friendly, you have nothing to worry about from us,” Michael said.
Turk’s growl seemed to belie that statement, but James didn’t seem worried. “All right. Let’s go back inside.”
The sound of the wolves’ meal followed Faith as they headed for the house. She wasn’t sure why it disturbed her so much. Dogs came from wolves. Turk looked a lot like a smaller, darker-furred version of a wolf.
But wolves weren’t dogs. That was what really disturbed her. When Turk was ready to eat, he would get visibly excited, whining, barking and wagging his tail. The wolves seemed devoid of emotion, only possessing the cold stare of a predator.
They looked like dogs, but they weren’t. They were far more dangerous. Just like killers. They looked like people, but they operated on a far more brutal set of instincts.
Once they were inside, Michael resumed the questioning. “All right, so you hate the executives of Global Wildlife. They’re alive, so clearly you didn’t kill them. Let’s talk about the people who are dead. What are your thoughts on them?”
James raised an eyebrow. “My thoughts?”
“Yes.”
“They were pieces of shit. Again, I don’t know about this Alison Chen girl, but Dr. Vasquez was a snobby, arrogant bitch who thought she deserved some sort of pampered, spoiled life and Marcus Reeves was a greedy little coin-counter who treated animals like furniture.”
“And yet you were made a pariah when you reported them,” Faith said.
“Yes. But that wasn’t their fault. That was Global’s fault.”
"Still," Michael pressed. "Kind of sucks that Vasquez and Reeves never faced justice. Vasquez kept her license, and Reeves avoided jail time. All of those dead animals, and they got the equivalent of a slap on the wrist."
“Yeah, it’s pretty shitty,” James agreed.
“It almost makes you think that someone ought to take justice into their own hands,” Michael suggested.
James laughed. “Boy, you really like me for this. Look, I’m not crazy. I believe that animals should have rights, but I’m not one of those kooks who thinks if you hit a deer with your car it should be treated like manslaughter. It’s possible to use animals to meet our needs in a responsible way. I train animals for film sets and stage shows. You won’t find wild bears balancing beach balls on their noses.
"I say this to point out that I don't see anything morally wrong with training animals to do what we want them to do. But drinking while working with large predators is dangerous for a lot of reasons, in addition to the animal cruelty problem. Running a zoo full of starving lions stuffed into cages that couldn't hold a sufficiently dedicated bobcat is a problem for reasons beyond the fact that the lions are starving and going crazy."
“Are you saying that you reported their violations because they endangered people?” Faith asked.
“Both people and animals. They were disasters waiting to happen. What I did was the equivalent of warning someone that they were driving on a flat tire, and I was treated like the guy tossing nails onto the road. But I didn’t kill anyone. That wouldn’t accomplish anything.”
“Take the wheels off of a car, and it’s not going to blow a tire out on the freeway,” Michael pointed out.
“Fair enough. Can’t say I’m all that upset that they’re dead. But I wasn’t the one who took the wheels off.”
“Can you prove that?”
James sighed. “You said Reeves was killed when? Four days ago?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, I have an alibi for that one. I was giving a presentation in Hollywood for the Animal Trainers Guild.”
“Can you confirm that?”
“Sure can. Pictures, blog articles, and if you call my representative at the guild, she’ll confirm my attendance. I was one of the speakers for day four.”
Faith looked at Michael. Michael nodded and asked James, “Do you have a phone number I can call?”
“Sure. There’s a business card in the small drawer to the left of the refrigerator in the kitchen. It’ll say ATG on the front of it and have a number for Valerie Collier.”
Michael stood and headed to the kitchen.
“While he’s following up on your alibi,” Faith said, “Tell me honestly. Do you think the world is a better place without Marcus Reeves, Elena Vasquez and Alison Chen?”
“Honestly? I think the world is a better place without a lot of people.”
Faith didn’t know how to respond to that. From the kitchen, she heard Michael talking to Valerie Collier. “I see. Thank you for confirming that, ma’am.”
He hung up and returned to the living room. “All right, Mr. Hawkins. Your alibi has been confirmed. It looks like you were out of town not only for Marcus Reeves’ murder but for Alison Chen’s. We’re certain that Dr. Vasquez was killed by the same murderer, so you’re off the hook.”
James nodded. With the threat of arrest no longer looming, he relaxed a little, and his tone was gentler when he said, “For what it’s worth, I do hope you find this guy. At the end of the day, humans are animals too. When we give into our lowest instincts, we quickly reach a point where it becomes impossible to stop. Eventually, this guy will stop worrying whether the people he targets are guilty or not. That’s when this will become a problem.”
Faith stood. “I guess that’s the difference between you and me, James. From where I’m standing, this is already a problem.”
The three of them left James and began the drive back to their hotel in Council Bluffs. They remained silent for the journey, both of them irritated and discouraged by their lack of progress.
And James was right about one thing. Killers like this one couldn’t stop. Like the wolves, they were wired differently than others. The only way to stop them was to lock them away where they couldn’t hurt anyone else.
At the moment, their wolf still roamed free, silently prowling through the darkness looking for his next kill.