Faith frowned.“Then why wouldn’t he kill the dogs or hurt them in some way?”
“Maybe he thinks of them as dumb animals.If some guy walks his pit bull without a leash, and the pit bull mauls you, do you get mad at the pit bull, or the idiot not holding the leash.”
Faith nodded slowly.“Okay.I could see that.So maybe a dog bite victim or something?”
“I don’t know, but all of our victims had a reputation of advocating strongly for adoption.Maybe the guy we’re looking for disagreed with that.”
Faith leaned back in her chair.“No offense, but that seems like a stretch.”
“A lot of our killers turn out to be murderers based on the thinnest of justifications.I think it’s worth looking into, at least.”
She had a point.“All right.Let’s look for anyone who might have disagreed with their generosity toward dogs.Maybe dog bite victims or their family members or colleagues who disagreed with their methods.”
“I’d start with dog bite victims.The murders were all very violent.This doesn’t strike me as the kind of spree spawned by simple disagreement.I’m thinking these guys might have advocated for the adoption of aggressive dogs.”
Faith had seen equally violent murders for less, but she was inclined to agree with Jessica.Sarah Garrett was definitely working with aggressive dogs.The dog present when she was killed was a former fighting dog.
But he didn’t bite the killer.
That gave Faith pause, but not all dogs who bit would bite everyone.If the killer was intimidating enough, Max might not have been brave enough to bit him, especially with past trauma from intimidating men.
She looked up a list of dog bite victims in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex within the past year and whistled when she saw the substantial results.“Damn.”
“It’s a big metropolitan area,” Jessica said.“Over eight million people, over one million dogs.Honestly, having only a thousand or so results is a pretty low number.”
“When you put it that way, I guess it makes sense,” Faith replied.“I’m just not used to thinking of dogs as violent.Not unless they have good reason to be.”
“A lot of them probably did,” Jessica pointed out.“Let’s see if we can filter by dogs that interacted with our victims’ animal shelters.It might be more difficult to determine if the dogs actually interacted with our victims, but we can figure out if they interacted with the shelters and go from there.”
They spent the next hour putting together a list of dogs that were taken to the three shelters listed.Predictably, a sizable number were taken to the Tarrant County shelter since two animal control offices were headquartered there.However, very few dogs spent time at all three shelters.When they weeded through everything, they had a list of sixteen dogs that spent time at all three shelters.Most of them arrived at the Plano shelter and were transferred to the Tarrant County facility because the larger shelter was better equipped to handle violent dogs.From there, they were sent to the Dallas Doghouse as part of a rehabilitation exchange program.A few followed a reverse pattern where they started at the Doghouse but were transferred to Plano or Tarrant County when their rehabilitation failed.
Faith noted that both of the government doghouses were kill shelters.Dallas wasn’t, but was it really different if they just sent dogs somewhere else to die?She kept that thought in the back of her head in case the hypothesis about a vengeful dog bite victim or family member of one didn’t pan out.
They looked through each dog one at a time.That took another two hours of following up on each family member and victim, determining whether they still lived in the area and then listing them in order based on their level of anger.None of the victims had been explicitly violent, but several family members, particularly parents of children who had been bitten, were very belligerent over the phone.
No one appeared to have visited the shelters in person.That was concerning.People didn’t tend to progress from phone calls to murder, but physical encounters often simmered in people’s minds long enough to push them over the edge.
Then again, it wasn’t unheard of.Many killers were shy and unassuming.Some even had a crippling fear of human interaction.Their repressed anxiety, loneliness, and resentment eventually boiled over, and they lashed out at targets that were usually substitutes for authority figures or unrequited objects of affection in their own lives.
Faith sighed and rubbed her face.She was wandering.She didn’t like this.She was usually focused to a fault.In most cases, she had to force herself to let her mind wander lest her fixations blind her to a crucial clue.This time, she was ruminating over criminal theory when she should be focusing on which of these victims could potentially have wanted their victims dead.
“I’m only coming up with three people,” Jessica said.“Two victims and the father of one victim.Everyone else moved out years ago.”
Thank God for Faith’s partner.“Who are they?”
“Gavin Faulkner, Yana Montgomery and Jed Oakley.Oakley’s the father.The victim was his twelve-year-old son.”
“Okay.I’ll call the father.You call Faulkner, and whoever finishes first gets to talk to Montgomery.”
“Works for me.You mind starting some more coffee?I’m beat.”
Faith looked at her fresh-faced, bright-eyed partner and smirked.“You meanI’mbeat, but you don’t want to sound rude.”
“If you want, I can just say you look like you’re still dreaming, and it would be nice for you to wake up.”
Jessica smiled as she said that, but it still stung.“I take it back.I like the tactful request better.”
Jessica patted Faith’s arm affectionately.She didn’t seem angry at all that Faith was off her game.Faith imagined that was partly because Jessica was on top of things and partly understanding that Faith was dealing with some serious problems at home.
