But then he just let them fall where they fell.No staging the body, no moving it, no cleanup afterwards.He didn’t even catch them to lower them gently to the ground, nor did he rough up or mutilate the bodies afterwards.Were it not for the dogs, he probably would have been on his way out of the area before the victims even hit the ground.
Speaking of the dogs, he had stopped them but he hadn’t killed them even though he definitely could have.That was notable.
Okay, so he cared about dogs.Both Iris Caldwell and Mark Patterson cared about their dogs.So why did the killer want them dead?He didn’t steal the dogs, so it wasn’t some misguided rescue.
She was missing something.That was normal for the start of a case, but it never made it any easier to handle.
She sighed and rubbed her temples, smiling ruefully at Turk.“Any thoughts, boy?”
Turk sighed and looked at the wall.Faith knelt down and gave him a hug.“I know, boy.It’s tough. I’m not having fun either.”
Jessica returned, and Faith got to her feet.“So?”
“CSI didn’t have anything,” Jessica replied.“I spoke to a very sheepish investigator who admitted that they hadn’t thought to check for anything that might have distracted the dogs.”
Faith rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t get too angry.Turk hadn’t noticed any unusual scents at the crime scene either.It was worth a look, but it wasn’t the end of the world that they hadn’t found anything.
Tell that to Beau and Luna.Not to mention Aaron and Katie Caldwell.
“Okay.Then we need to start digging deeper into the victims.Nothing showed up on social media, so let’s check other sources.I’ll take Iris, you take Mark Patterson.”
“Sure.Any idea what other sources I should look at?”
“Everything.”
Jessica smiled slightly.“Fair enough.”
Faith began by calling Katie, Aaron’s sister and the only other Caldwell sibling who still lived in the area.She checked with Meyers first to make sure she had been notified of her mother’s death.She didn’t want this phone call to be the first Katie had heard.
It wasn’t.Meyers had called Katie earlier that morning.When Faith called her, she had just left the coroner’s office.
“Who did this?”she demanded, sobbing over the phone.“Why would anyone want to kill my mom?”
“That’s what we’re hoping to find out,” Faith replied.“I know this is an uncomfortable question to ask, but—”
“No.I don’t know anyone who would want tokillmy mother,” Katie snapped.As with her brother the day before, anger was quickly replacing denial.“She was kind to everyone she met.Everyone liked her.Hell, I’ve had a dozen phone calls from her old coworkers and managers offering their condolences.She volunteered at a soup kitchen every Thanksgiving.Someone killed a literal saint, and it’s just…”
Her voice trailed off for a moment as fresh sobs took over.Faith looked across the room at Jessica, who wore a similarly downcast expression as she talked to Mark Patterson’s family.This was always the hardest part of the job.
“Are you aware of any complaints at all against your mother?It could be as simple as leaving her garbage cans out a day too long, not cutting her grass…”
Katie laughed.“Do you hear yourself?You’re saying someone might have killed my mother because she didn’t cut her grass?”
“It’s possible,” Faith said and meant it.“Right now, we’re in the fact-finding stage.We need to gather every bit of data that might have anything to do with this case.Then we’ll go through those bits and figure out which ones are important and which ones aren’t.Oftentimes, seemingly meaningless things can become crucial to solving a case.”
“Well, no one complained about her grass.Or her trash cans.No one complained aboutanything.That’s why this makes no sense.I just don’t get why anyone would have killed her.”
Faith sighed.“If you think of anything, please give me a call.Thank you for your time.”
Katie hung up without replying.Faith didn’t blame her for the rudeness.She wasn’t in a frame of mind to have to consider other people’s feelings right now.
“I take it you also got nothing from the family,” Jessica said.
“Yep,” Faith agreed.She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand.“Check police records.No one’s perfectly saintly.There’s something out there.”
“We already confirmed they have no criminal records.”
“Not criminal records.Complaints.I was shooting in the dark with the grass-cutting question, but it’s not unheard of for neighbors to kill each other over simple disputes like that.”
