CHAPTER FOUR
What if it was Turk?
Faith’s eyes opened. She stared at the ceiling of their hotel room and blinked the cobwebs away. Her heart pounded and sweat beaded on her forehead. Had she actually had a nightmare and forgotten it, or had she woken before the nightmare could take hold?
Doesn’t matter. My real life is a nightmare right now.
A furry head popped into view, carefully licking her cheek. She grimaced and pushed it away. The head barked and resumed its attentions until Faith straightened. She gave Turk an exasperated smile, and Turk returned a parental look. You were having a nightmare, and I woke you up. You’re welcome.
She chuckled and pulled him into a hug. Not all of her life was a nightmare.
What if it was Turk?
She got to her feet with an irritated sigh. It wasn’t Turk, and it was her husband, and he was wonderful and sweet and brave, but he was also clumsy and sometimes annoyingly stupid and so far out of his depth right now, that if he swam downwards for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t reach bottom.
And there was that little thing about how the rest of his life might not be that damned long. She supported his desire to help, but he was surrounded by people who could help better than he could. Why did he have to be the one to do this?
The door to the hotel room opened, and Jessica entered carrying two plates with biscuits, gravy, eggs, and cottage cheese.
“Oh Good. You’re up. I just got a call from Wilma Pruitt at the animal shelter.
They’re keeping the facility closed for the day so they can install a new security system.
They’re available to talk whenever we want to show up. ”
Faith checked the clock. Six a.m. She felt a flash of irritation that Jessica was already up and cheerful when she was foggy, sweaty, and in desperate need of coffee. God, am I that old already?
She took the plate with a muttered, “Thank you,” and accepted the cup of coffee that followed with a much more heartfelt “Thank you.”
She smiled at her partner and noted that not only was Jessica up and cheerful, but she looked like she was ready for a dinner date. Faith didn’t really care about being pretty aside from looking nice for David, but being the older partner of her investigative team was sometimes tough to adjust to.
You’re just grumpy. Drink your coffee.
She sipped the brew and admitted—to herself, not to Jessica—that she wasn’t just grumpy.
She was worried about David, and she was trying to find something else to be upset about so she didn’t have to think about her husband who was currently in the crosshairs of a fighting force that Faith knew from experience was among the most dangerous in the world.
She checked her phone. Nothing new from Michael.
She sighed and tucked into her breakfast. There was nothing she could do about the situation back home, so she needed to focus on the investigation here.
If only it was that easy.
***
The mood at the animal shelter was one of subdued tension.
The staff clustered in groups and whispered to each other, glancing fearfully at the still-empty cage where Sarah Garrett had been murdered the night before.
They regarded the FBI agents with similar wariness.
Faith was used to that reaction. With the FBI here, they couldn’t turn a blind eye to what had happened.
Some freak had come into their workplace and murdered a coworker. None of them were safe.
Turk trotted into the holding facility, glancing morosely at the dogs in their cages as he investigated the room again, looking for signs of the killer. Faith kept an eye on him, noting his reactions to the staff. Nothing so far screamed killer.
“Good morning, agents,” a commanding female voice said.
Faith turned to see a short, heavyset woman approaching. Despite her firm voice and demeanor, her eyes projected grief tinged with fear. She extended a hand toward Faith. “Wilma Pruitt, facility director.”
“Special Agent Faith Bold,” Faith replied. “This is my partner, Special Agent Jessica Torres. My K9 unit, Turk, is currently looking for clues.”
Wilma gave a short, brisk nod. “Thank you for coming down to look at this. I know one murder’s not FBI business, but I also know you’re an expert on dog-related murders, and I wanted the best.”
Ah. So, she was the reason they were on this case. “I’m happy to be here,” Faith replied, which wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t Wilma’s problem that David had decided to be the world’s least intelligent hero. “Who would you say was closest with Sarah?”
Wilma looked at a young woman with dark hair and excessive amounts of eyeliner, most of which had streaked across her cheeks.
She was sitting in a corner next to a middle-aged man with a bristly mustache who had a fatherly hand laid on her shoulder.
“That’s Jenny. Sarah was like an older sister to her.
The man standing next to her is my husband, Luke.
He’s been helping tutor Jenny at our house after hours.
Which I guess doesn’t matter.” She sighed. “God, this sucks.”
“Yeah,” Faith agreed. “You can say that again. Jessica, why don’t you talk with the Pruitts while I talk to Jenny? We’ll touch base after that.”
Jessica nodded. “Works for me.”
Wilma called for her husband, and the three of them headed to Wilma’s office. Faith approached Jenny, a compassionate smile on her face. “Hey.”
Jenny sniffed. “Hey.”
Her voice was as thin as a ghost’s. She looked very young. “How old are you, sweetheart?” Faith asked.
“Nineteen.”
Christ. Poor kid. “Wow. Thanks for making me feel old.”
The ghost of a smile crossed Jenny’s lips, but it disappeared quickly. Faith sat next to her and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Jenny laughed bitterly. “Thank you.”
“I have to ask you a couple of questions. Is that okay?”
Jenny shrugged. “Sure.”
She wiped a hand across her face, smearing more of her eyeliner. Faith resisted the urge to put a comforting arm around her. She probably wouldn’t welcome that kind of attention from a stranger. “What did Sarah do here?”
Jenny sniffed again. “Um. She was the person in charge of problem dogs.”
“Problem dogs?”
“You know, like, dogs that had a lot of trouble. They were aggressive or resistant to treatment, stuff like that.”
“Do you guys counsel animals here?”
“Yeah, we try. I mean, we have barely enough budget to afford these little boxes for each dog, but we do our best.”
Faith felt a touch of guilt for her earlier judgment of the place. Animal shelters were government entities, and like most local government entities, they were constantly underfunded. The staff here was doing their best with very poor tools.
“I imagine it’s difficult to help traumatized animals when they have to spend most of their time in cages.”
“Yeah, and then when you ask people to adopt instead of buying from breeders, they curl their lips like these dogs are just pieces of crap. Like… so many dogs need good homes, but they can’t get them because people are selfish.
” A few of the others looked their way, and Jenny reddened.
“Sorry. I’m really passionate about dogs. ”
“Me too,” Faith replied. “Sarah too, I guess.”
Jenny nodded. “She was a superhero. She’d help dogs that everyone else gave up on.
She saved so many dogs from being put down because she’d help them become well-behaved and then she’d find them owners.
I don’t know how she did that, but she could talk people into adopting better than anyone. I just get angry.”
Faith raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when people are being pieces of shit, I tell them.” She smiled sheepishly. “They don’t really let me talk to people anymore.”
“Got it,” Faith replied with a wry smile of her own.
“But Sarah could make people want to adopt dogs. She was really good at talking to people.”
That didn’t quite jive with the method of her murder, but just because one person hated Sarah didn’t mean that everyone did. If anything, it might make the people who didn’t like her more memorable.
“Was there anyone who didn’t like Sarah?”
Jenny scoffed. “I mean, sometimes.”
“Like who?”
She shrugged. “Sarah was part of the adoption board. It was her and the Pruitts. They evaluated prospective adopters to make sure they could handle the dogs they were thinking about. Not everyone passes.”
“How many people don’t pass?”
“Not many, but the people who don’t pass really don’t pass.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It can vary, but usually it’s people with criminal backgrounds.
Violent felons can’t adopt certain breeds.
Well, they can, but we usually don’t approve them.
Sometimes we give them smaller dogs, though.
You’d be surprised how many former gangsters leave her cradling a two-pound Yorkie like it’s the most precious thing on Earth. ”
Faith smiled at the image of a giant, heavily tattooed individual cooing at a tiny puppy.
Her smile faded as she imagined a similar individual jamming a six-inch nail into Sarah Garrett’s brain.
“Was there anyone particularly upset about being denied an adoption? Someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer? ”
Jenny smiled bitterly. “You mean did anyone hate Sarah enough to kill her?”
“Just anyone who might have been angry with her.”
She took a deep breath and looked at the empty cage where Turk was once again carefully sniffing the ground. “There was a guy about a month ago. His name was Trevor. He adopted a Chow guys. Do you know what those are?”
“Yeah, I know them,” Faith replied. “Big, fluffy Chinese dogs, right?”
“Yeah. A lot of people see that they’re fluffy and think they’re gentle, but they can be really aggressive if they’re not raised properly.
This Chow guys wasn’t, so the shelter was looking for an experienced handler to rehome him.
Trevor lied about being a former dog trainer to get her, and it didn’t work out well.
He brought her back when she bit him on the hand, and demanded that we replace her with a gentler dog. ”
“And Sarah didn’t take that well.”
“It wasn’t that. I mean, she was upset, but it was because he lied. They found out about it after he adopted Cammie, so when he came back wanting another dog, they denied him.”
“All three of them or just Sarah?”
“All three of them, but the Pruitts weren’t in when Trevor returned Cammie, so Sarah talked to him.
I heard him yelling from the backroom. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but he was really pissed.
He slammed the door on the way out and broke the little thing that closes it softly, so we had to replace it. ”
Faith nodded. “Thank you, Jenny. This has been very helpful.”
Jenny released another bitter laugh. “Sure. I mean, Sarah’s dead, so it doesn’t really make a difference.”
“It does,” Faith insisted. “Justice is always worth the effort.”
What if it was Turk?
She pushed that thought away and got to her feet. She squeezed Jenny’s shoulder and said, “You’ll get through this. You all will. For Sarah’s sake.”
Jenny nearly rolled her eyes but caught herself and said, “Thank you.”
Faith left her then. She understood Jenny’s anger and wasn’t offended by the young woman’s attitude. She’d just lost someone close to her. It was hard to think clearly when you lost someone close.
As for Faith, she was thinking very clearly. They had their first lead, and an aggressive man who blamed Sarah for his aggressive dog might very well be aggressive enough to take his frustration out on her in the worst possible way.
“Turk?” she called. “Come on, boy. Let’s go get Jess. We have our first lead.”