Page 36 of So Deadly
He hung up, and Jessica leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.“You think we’ll get shit about Mitchell?”
“No, we’re fine,” Faith said.“We had probable cause.It didn’t work out, but we also didn’t charge her with anything.”
“Yeah, but we caught shit over what happened with one of our suspects in Baltimore during the last case.”
“That was a different situation,” Faith said.“In that case, the media showed up and screwed us over.”
“Well, the media’s going to hear about this one soon, if they haven’t already.I highly doubt you’ll be able to intimidate them away the way you intimidated Bridgette.”
Bridgette Thurston was a reporter for Channel Six News in D.C.Faith had made the ill-advised choice to use her to infiltrate an art school while following up on a lead in a case where former chaplains were being killed.She’d actually come very much in handy in that case, but on their next case, she’d harassed Faith and Jessica, apparently believing she was entitled to exclusive information on all future cases.When Faith and Jessica shut her down, she got vindictive, arranging to become a thorn in their side to blackmail them into giving her what she wanted.Faith had played along long enough to solve the case, then turned the tables on Bridgette, threatening to expose her blackmailing two innocent people to get information.
Still, it was understandable that Jessica was jumpy over that.And while Faith was confident, they wouldn’t suffer serious consequences because Sahar Mitchell turned out not to be the killer, she could also understand how nerve wracking it was to know that there was a possibility Mitchell could raise hell about it.
“We just won’t talk to the media anymore,” Faith said.“Not until the case is solved, and only with permission and coaching from our PR department.”
Jessica nodded.“Yeah.Yeah, you’re right.I just hate this shit.Like, I get that people don’t like being investigated by us, but just cooperate.Let us conduct our searches, answer our questions, and deal with it.”
Faith decided it was best to let Jessica vent.She wasn’t really upset at Sahar, just irritated that they were in a rut.Faith felt the same way.Faith smiled, thinking that a few years ago, she would be the one ranting, and her former partner, Michael would be the one trying to calm her down.
Her smile faded when she recalled Red’s words before she took this case.Faith had far too much going on with this case and David’s situation to think about the future, but sooner or later, she’d have to make that choice.Would she leave the K9 School and return to the field full time, or leave the field once more and stay with the K9 school?Or would she pursue a leadership role, maybe an ASAC position?Smythe had broached the idea of grooming her for leadership in the past.
She sighed and rubbed her temples.Too much to think about right now.She needed to focus on the case.
“While PD is working on the list we sent, I think we should expand the list to include people whose dogs were attacked by service dogs.”
“You think someone’s avenging their dog maybe?”
“Maybe.I’ve been batting around the thought that these killings are violent because the attacks were violent.Maybe the killer witnessed an attack like this.That could be a loved one of a human victim or the loved one of an animal victim.If I saw Turk get torn to shreds…” She shivered.“Jeez, I don’t even want to think about that.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Jessica said.“Okay, I’ll do some digging.”
Another hour of searching pulled up a second list of names.Once more, the numbers were staggering.Eight thousand six hundred ninety cases of dogs attacking other dogs.Probably there were far more, but those were the attacks that were reported by owners.Three hundred fifty-nine fatal attacks on dogs, and seventy-two cases where the attacks were perpetrated by fake service dogs.
“We’ll need to get Jenkins to look at these too,” Jessica said.“He’s not going to be happy.”
“He’ll be fine.Detectives grumble about busywork, but every investigator knows that’s a big part of every case.”
“Yeah, fair enough.I guess we can help too.”
“I guess so,” Faith said.
Jessica rolled her eyes and started organizing the names.One of them jumped out at Faith.“Hold on.Who’s this girl, the one who lives in Newton?”
“Who?Jennifer Suleiman?”
“Yeah.Is she the only one who lives in Newton?”
Jessica performed a quick search.“Yeah, looks that way.”
“What’s her story?’
Jessica pulled up the link to the news story."'Local woman's dog mauled to death by fake service dog,'" she read."Jennifer Suleiman, thirty-two, yadda yadda, and so forth… Okay, here it is.'Suleiman's dog, a five-year-old Boston Terrier named Princess, was mauled to death by a Rottweiler sporting a service dog vest.The Rottweiler was determined not to be an actual service dog but was wearing the vest because the owner disliked being told she couldn't bring her pet into a restaurant.The owner was charged with animal abuse and criminal damage to property.'"
“What’s the owner’s name?”
“Alisa O’Hara.”Jessica’s fingers flew over the keys.“It looks like… She moved.Yep.Alaska.A week after the legal case was concluded.”
“Out of reach of the killer, in other words.”
