Page 23 of So Deadly
"Very interesting.It looks like the two women were shopping at a mall in Chestnut Hill when the dog suddenly lunged and bit Miss Prowse on her left arm."
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, she had to get sixteen stitches.”
“Double ouch.”
“She also attacked Margaret Hayesandthe dog, striking the dog twice with a steam iron she was planning to purchase and scratching Margaret’s face before security intervened and separated the two women.”
Faith whistled.“That sounds promising.”
“Sure does.The criminal case and civil case both ended up being a wash when they agreed to settle.Probably both of them knew they’d go down for their part to play.”
"I could see how Prowse might hold a grudge for that, though," Faith said."After all, it was Hayes's dog that started it.I'm surprised they didn't make her take the service vest off her dog."
"I'm sure they did, but that's a rule that's very difficult to enforce.Most likely, she put the vest right back on once the court case was settled."
“Wonder how Amanda felt about that.”
Jessica grinned.“Not so wonderful.It seems Miss Prowse has a YouTube channel with some very choice words for our pooch owners.”
Faith raised an eyebrow.“Does she?Do tell.”
Jessica pulled up a short video with the tagline THEY SHOULD BE F***ING SHOT.As it turns out, that was most of the content of the video.In it, Amanda advocated the shooting of everyone who abused service dog policies.
“Now that’s intriguing,” Faith said.“Anything about Hayes in particular?”
“Nothing I could find, but a lot of videos were removed after the case was settled.I’m guessing they were taken down as part of the settlement deal.”
“Which no doubt also infuriated Miss Prowse,” Faith observed.
“Yeah,” Jessica agreed.“I looked her address up.Want to go give it a shot?”
“I’m game.Turk!”Turk looked up from the empty plate that a few minutes ago had contained a large strip steak.“Time to go, boy.”
Turk barked and jumped to his feet, then followed his humans out the door.
On the way to Prowse's address, Faith got a call from the medical examiner's office.The medical examiner was a cheery man with a slight Wisconsin accent who seemed delighted to have something to look at other than your run-of-the-mill shooting and stabbing.
“Okay, Special Agent,” he said.“You ready for this one?”
“Gee, I sure hope so,” Faith said, putting the phone on speaker so Jessica could hear.“Go ahead.”
“Boxcutter blades.”
Faith blinked.“Boxcutter blades?”
“Yep.You know those rhomboidal blades that you pop in and out of box cutters?”
“Yeah, I know what boxcutter blades are.I just don’t know how a boxcutter blade could have torn the victims apart like that.”
“That’s the thing.Notaboxcutter blade.Ten boxcutter blades.One for each finger.”
Faith blinked.“So, our killer attached ten boxcutter blades to his ginger and used them to cut our victims into strips?”
"Yep.I'm banking on gloves with specialized fittings at the fingertips.I am confident about the ten different blades after examining the wounds.There are differences between the cuts left by each blade, and since each finger is different from another in terms of strength, the glove idea could explain why some cuts are shallow, and others have partially eviscerated Miss Hayes."
Faith’s stomach turned at that reminder.“Right.Okay, so the killer put these gloves on and then just went apeshit on our victims?”
