CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The two human agents continued to be silent while they ate their lunch—sandwiches and fruit ordered from room service. Turk tried to engage with both of them, but when it became clear that his humans weren’t going to be cheered up, he retreated between the beds and sat, resting his head on his hands with a glum look.
Michael finally broke the silence when he finished his lunch. “We need to look into our victims’ backgrounds.”
“We have been,” Faith protested. “That’s all we’ve been doing.”
“Okay, good point. Let me clarify. We’re approaching this case like it’s an animal rights case, like our killer is getting revenge on behalf of the animals.”
“Well, yeah. The evidence for that is overwhelming.”
“And yet all of our leads evaporate,” Michael countered. “Forrester was all bark and no bite and Hawkins was more irritated about being fired than that the victims got away with their crimes.”
“That’s only two leads, Michael.”
“Well, that’s another thing. We’re not finding much. We’ve been narrowing our search to one specific thread and hoping that it will lead us to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Have you heard anything from Cuthbert about the other Knights of Nature?”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t mean he won’t find anything, though.”
“There were only a dozen people in that group, Faith. All college kids. That’s not a lot of life for a team of investigators to dig through. If there was something to find, he would have found it already.”
Faith frowned. She hated to admit it, but Michael was right about that. The Knights of Nature were a dead end. “What about Global Wildlife, though? It could be one of their colleagues from there.”
“Maybe, but if it is, I don’t think the animal rights thing is the angle we should be looking at.”
“What else could it be? What other possible reason could someone have to fabricate tools to look like animal bites?”
“The answer to the first question is that they didn’t like the victims. The answer to the second question is the part that really bugs me. James Hawkins was an animal trainer. If he was going to fabricate a tool to look like an animal bite, it would be a good tool. It would look like a real panther bite, not box cutters. A real mamba bite, not a hot dog fork. And he would have at least rubbed some blood on the wolverine’s muzzle. We should have thought about all of that before we even went to talk to him, but we didn’t. We just decided that we knew it was him.”
“We didn’t decide that we knew it was him,” Faith said. “He had a connection with all three victims, and he had a motive.”
“He had a connection with two victims and happened to be in the vicinity of the third victim.”
Faith pressed her lips together. She was getting frustrated. “Okay, so the lead didn’t work out. The lead to Forrester was stronger, but that didn’t work out either. Why are you suddenly getting pissy? I mean, yeah, it sucks, we haven’t caught the guy. But you tell me all the time that’s just how cases are.”
"Yes, but I'm telling you now that we wasted time because this was a thread that should never have been pulled. We're smarter than that."
Faith narrowed her eyes. “It was my deduction that this was related to animal cruelty. Are you saying I was foolish?”
Michael sighed and rubbed his temples. “No. Sorry. That came out wrong. I do think you were wrong, though. I don’t think the animals are the central issue in this case, I think the people are. I think our killer’s trying to make it look like it’s about the animals, but frankly, he’s doing too poor a job for me to believe it.”
“But what else is connecting our three victims?”
“I don’t know, but we need to find out. The animal thing was the killer’s way of distracting us, and we’ve fallen for it.”
Faith crossed her arms and thought a moment. Michael had a point, but there was more to consider here than the killer’s moments of incompetence. She shook her head. “I don’t believe that. It’s too much of a coincidence that all three of them happened to have a history of abusing animals either through greed, negligence or some sort of mental illness. It just makes more sense for them to be targeted because of that. And they have the workplace association too.”
“If it’ll make you happy, then have the police scour Global Wildlife’s employee records, but I’m telling you, Faith, this is a dead end. We need to find another reason why someone wanted these people dead, because it’s too much of a coincidence that the killer sucks at making these look like animal attacks each time and each lead we find on that end turns out to be a dead end.”
“That’s putting us back to square one, Michael.”
“I hate to break it to you, Faith, but we’re at square one. This is square flipping one right now. No suspects, no leads, no idea what the motive is.”
“The motive is taking revenge on them for animal cruelty,” Faith insisted. “I will take that to court.”
“And you’ll get the case dismissed because we have nothing solid to back that up.”
“We have nothing solid to back up the idea that there’s another reason,” she countered.
“Because we haven’t looked at any other reason!” Michael thundered. “If we looked, we’d find one!”
“So you think.”
“Yeah! So I very much think. I’m sorry, does my opinion not matter? Should I bow down to the almighty intelligence of Faith Bold and stop trying to offer an alternative to all of the ideas you have that aren’t working?”
She glared at him and resisted the urge to fire back. From in between the beds, Turk moaned forlornly.
“Why don’t we take ten minutes to cool off,” she said thinly, “before we say anything else we might regret?”
They didn’t get their ten minutes. Faith’s phone buzzed before Michael could respond. It was the Boss.
She took a deep breath and put the phone on speaker. “Hello, Boss.”
“Bold, we have a problem.”
“What is it?”
"We had reporters here this morning asking for you. They wouldn't take no for an answer. I forced them to take no for an answer and had security pull them out of the building, but they ran into Chavez, and Chavez spilled the beans about you being assigned cases away from Philadelphia to keep your name out of the news. Now the news is coming up with a bunch of wild theories about why you might be hiding from them."
Faith sighed and pressed her palms to her forehead. “Shit. Why was Chavez talking to them?”
“I don’t know. The kid’s… Well, she’s still a kid. Half the time, she’s shrewd and sharp and half the time she does stuff that’s so stupid it boggles the mind. This is one of the latter. Either way, the news media has your face all over tvs talking about how you’re dodging questions about the West case that could suggest West might be innocent or might have come to justice through illegal means.”
Michael swore softly. Faith paled. “And if people out here recognize me, they might tip the media off.”
“Yes. We’re pulling you out of the field for a while. Sorry, Faith. I know you didn’t want things to get this far, but we’ve got no choice. I need you on the next flight to Philadelphia. Prince, are you there?”
Michael cleared his throat. “Here, sir.”
“Prince, I’m sending Ralston out to finish this case with you.”
Faith flinched. “What?”
"You heard me, Bold. You're coming home, Ralston's flying out. His K9 will join him, so you're not down a team member, Prince."
“That’s bullshit, sir! You can’t take me off of an active case!”
“I can. I have to. I did. I’m sorry, Faith. We tried.”
“That’s…” she pursed her lips. “Sir, I’m sorry. I think there’s a connection issue. I’ll call you back when I have an update on the case.”
“Bold, don’t be a child. I’m no happier about this than you are, but I’ve got my hands tied behind my back.”
“I’ll talk to you later, sir.”
“Bold, don’t you dare hang up! Prince, did you understand my instructions?”
Michael looked at Faith. He hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Sorry, sir. You’re breaking up.”
“Bold! Prince! God damn it, I—”
Faith ended the call and looked at Michael. Her partner met her eyes and said, “If you get me fired for this, I will move into your place in Allentown and be the loudest, most annoying, most obnoxious roommate you’ve ever had.”
She smiled softly. “Thank you, Michael.”
“Fuck you. Sincerely.” He sighed. “All right. So what’s it gonna be? Are we looking into their personal lives, or—”
Faith’s phone buzzed again. Cuthbert this time. She lifted an eyebrow and answered. “Hello, Detective.”
“Got something for you. Not sure how much yet, but it’s the only angle from this Knights of Nature thing that might turn into something.”
“Give it to me.”
“One of the kids we talked to tipped us to a man they had a run-in with last year. I guess he thought they were kicking their dog. The kid managed to stop the fight before anything happened by showing him the ball, but he said the rage in the man’s face scared the hell out of him.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “Did the kid give you a name?”
“Yes. A former Animal Control officer named Nathan Reed. He shows up in our records as being fired for assaulting a dog owner when he got a call to her residence and found the animals in a severely malnourished state. Guess who the dog owner was?”
Faith’s eyes widened. “Alison Chen.”
“Yep. Split her lip and gave her a black eye. Better yet, security cameras at a convenience store a mile away from the Big Wilderness Zoo picked him up ten minutes after Dr. Vasquez was murdered. There are visible stains on his coat that could be blood. He lives across town from Big Wilderness Zoo.”
“Well, that’s interesting.”
“It gets better. Marcus Reeves trespassed him from the Wild World Adventure Park years ago because he was being, quote, ‘abusive to the zookeepers.’”
Faith grabbed a notebook and pen. “We’re on our way. What’s the address?”
Cuthbert provided it, and Faith said. “Thank you, Detective. We’ll keep you posted.”
“Should I send units?”
“Have a couple in the area, but don’t send them to the house until our call.”
“You got it.”
He hung up, and Faith grinned at Michael. “Oh, would you look at that? A thread.”
“It’s a damned thin one,” Michael said softly.
“But it’s there. And it’s tangible. So we’ll follow it.”
He sighed. “Okay. Let’s go check it out.”
The three of them cleared up their lunch and headed to their car. They drove in silence again, each brooding over their own private demons. Faith was excited at the latest development in the case, but she was on borrowed time now. Hanging up on the Boss wouldn’t delay anything.
This lead needed to pan out. They needed an answer now, or Faith would be shipped back home in a box and kept in a storage closet until the West case calmed down again.
On the other side of that coin, the longer she was out here, the more likely her name and face would show up on everyone’s television set. That would raise a whole host of issues Faith wasn’t prepared to deal with.
So focus on the one you are prepared to deal with. Find this killer.
Faith took a deep breath and looked through the windshield. She thought of the wolves at the Hawkins place, silently padding closer, their eyes boring into Faith’s soul.
Faith was coming for a wolf now, but that was all right. She’d encountered many dangerous creatures during her career and survived all of them. Besides, wolves were most dangerous in packs. This killer was a lone wolf, but Faith had her pack to help her, and despite her argument with Michael, he was clearly still on her side.
So let the wolf fight. Faith was ready for him.