AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Has the coroner been notified?” Faith asked.
“Yeah, he’s on his way. Goddammit!”
Tom took his hat off and threw it on the ground. Faith could see an almost perfect bald spot in the shape of the hat. He took several deep breaths, hands clenching and unclenching. Then he took a final breath and released it slowly, relaxing his hands and shoulders as he did.
He picked up his hat, dusted it off calmly, and set it carefully back on his head. "Well," he said, his tone now calm as well, though still clearly moody, “Let’s get to work.”
His outburst over, Tom proved to be very efficient, quickly directing his officers to cordon off the scene and begin cataloguing evidence. Turk sniffed the scene, barking whenever he found a sign of the attackers. Faith and Michael floated among the different CSI teams on the scene but allowed the professionals to do their work uninterrupted, asking questions only when the CSIs indicated they were ready to answer.
The victim had died of asphyxiation when his throat was ripped out. The dog that had bit his throat off had somehow managed to miss both carotid arteries and both jugular veins, meaning the man could have lasted as long as seven minutes before finally passing, although the CSI believed it was likely over much sooner than that.
It was dogs, obviously. Turk found footprints belonging to several different breeds, in line with the previous victims. One set of footprints looked disturbingly like Turk’s: a German Shepherd.
Turk looked at Faith and whined softly. She wondered if he could recognize the similarity between his footprints and those of the killer. She knelt down and hugged him. “You’re a good boy, Turk. That’s not you.”
She had no idea if Turk understood what she was saying, but he seemed comforted by her words.
They worked through the night, but it wasn’t until after midnight that the most critical piece of evidence was found. Once more, it was Turk’s nose that led them to the find. He barked enthusiastically until Faith, Michael, Tom, and a few unoccupied CSIs rushed over.
“Well, there it is,” Tom said when he arrived. “Now we know for sure.”
In the mud, clearly impressed next to prints from a large dog and a much smaller one, was a clear set of bootprints. Men’s size twelve, Faith guessed.
“If these are the killer’s prints, then why didn’t we see them at the other crime scenes?” Michael asked. “If coyotes and dogs could leave footprints, then a full-grown man should have left prints too.”
“He’s probably covering his prints up,” Faith replied, “but leaving the dog’s footprints because they support the narrative he’s trying to create that these deaths were accidents.”
“So he just slipped here?” Tom asked. “Forgot some prints?”
"Probably," Faith said. "It's also possible that since this is a more heavily trafficked location ,he was more anxious and rushed to leave without taking care to cover his tracks."
“Either way,” Michael said, “we know for sure that these killings aren’t an act of God.”
“Depends on the God you worship, I guess,” Tom said.
***
“I hate to be morbid,” Dr. Jansen said, “but Mr. Merrill might be our most important victim to date.”
“How’s that?” Faith asked.
“Well, he’s proof,” the coroner said, “that I’m right and that it’s dogs of various sizes and breeds that are killing these people, not coyotes.”
He lifted a small cone-shaped incisor and held it up for the two agents to see. “See this? Too slender and fragile to be a coyote’s tooth. I believe one of the narrow-jawed terrier species, perhaps a whippet.”
“How do you know so much about dogs?” Faith asked.
"My father used to judge dog shows," he said, "A peculiar passion, but one he found very rewarding. I assisted him at many of the shows when I was in high school. I never developed a taste for the profession myself, but it was nice to spend time with him. He could be a terribly aloof man.”
“So how many dogs?” Michael interrupted, turning the subject back to the matter at hand.
“Ah, yes,” Dr. Jensen replied. “Six. The terrier, a medium-sized breed with a strong bite, perhaps a bulldog or a bull terrier, three large dogs, a Shepherd, a Rottweiler, and a Doberman, and a sixth dog I don’t recognize but that is certainly not a coyote.
“You’re that certain on the breed?”
“I am,” he assured her, “but I’ll still have canine experts verify my findings.”
“Would dogs of these breeds normally cooperate on a hunt like this?” Michael asked.
