Page 23 of So Silent

He nodded slowly. “But, come on, Faith. Dogs bark everywhere.”

“Yeah, they do,” she agreed, “but nobody notices. At least, if you live somewhere with dogs, you don’t notice. The dogs who just barked, the ones I asked you about, they’re just normal barks. Nobody on this street noticed really or gave the dogs more than a passing thought. You don’t. If you have a dog or your neighbor has a dog, you hear barks now and then.”

“Exactly. That’s my point. Dogs barking isn’t unique.”

“But that isn’t your point,” Faith said, “because if you live in the neighborhood, those sounds become inaudible the same way scratched paint on your car or a loose fixture becomes invisible. You see it every day. You hear it every day. It’s nothing special.”

“Okay? I’m not following.”

“Think, Michael,” she said. She felt the familiar excitement building. “Because all of the witnesses hear it every day. There’s no reason they would have pointed it out as something special and unusual. We certainly wouldn’t hear about it happening at more than one scene.”

“Okay, but we already knew the killer was affecting dogs. So how does that help us?”

“I don’t know yet,” Faith said, “but I don’t think it’s as simple as using a dog whistle.”

“Why not? Occam’s razor and all that.”

Occam’s razor was a philosophical principle that stated that the simplest answer to a problem was usually the correct answer. The problem was that Occam’s razor, like most philosophical constructs, was just a construct. It worked well in theory, but the real world—much to Mr. Occam’s frustration, no doubt—was not simple.

Still, Michael had a point. It was too soon to assume that a dog whistle was the lure of choice, but it was too soon to dismiss that too.

“I’m only saying that we’ve gotten nowhere by focusing on the victims,” she said. “Maybe we should start focusing on the killer instead.”

“Well, that’s what I was trying to do by asking the superhero question, but then you pulled us down this rabbit hole, and—”

“Can my CSIs start examining the scene yet, or do you still need to take a look?”

Michael and Faith turned to Wanda. Faith’s cheeks flushed a little at Wanda’s disapproving expression. It wasn’t a good look for them to be caught arguing.

Faith turned to Turk. He sat glumly in between them and didn't sniff around for any more clues. He had come up empty, too.

“Go ahead,” Faith replied. “Have the M.E. call us if he picks up anything unusual, but I think we’ve got everything we can from here.”

Wanda nodded. “All right.” Her expression softened, at least as much as it was possible for her features to soften. “Not that anything’s jumping out at us either.”

Indeed, other than the semi-public location, the scene was the same as the other two. Emily had been stabbed once through the neck, severing her windpipe and her carotid arteries. She had collapsed almost immediately and died just as immediately. One single blow.

Faith’s frown deepened as an uncomfortable thought occurred to her. The semi-public location did mean something. Maria had been killed on her porch, just outside of her home. Rebecca had been killed in her business. Emily had been killed on her neighborhood street.

The killer was escalating. He was doing so cautiously. The victims were all murdered late at night and lured into distraction by a high-frequency sound device. But he was escalating.

So they knew a little more than they did before. It just wasn’t helpful knowledge. All it told Faith was that they had to move faster, or their killer would strike again, maybe even sooner.

This kind of pattern was typical of the more prolific serial killers. Typically, they started by killing animals, then escalated to lesser violence against humans, usually some form of sexual aggression or assault. When they finally killed someone, it was usually a single killing. Then they often went years before killing again, waiting to see if the authorities would catch them. Once the cases went cold, though, they would be emboldened, and they would start killing more and more frequently. Usually, that pace was what got them caught eventually. The problem was that eventually meant more victims. Faith didn’t want eventually, she wanted now.

She didn’t need to express that sentiment to Michael as he drove them back to the hotel. He felt the same way she did. “I’m fine ixnaying sleep for the rest of the night,” he told Faith. “I think we should follow your plan and start focusing on the killer instead of the victims.”

“I agree.”

“So we know this person’s targeting women in their late twenties and early thirties who have enhanced hearing. He—or she, I suppose—isn’t assaulting them sexually. In fact, he’s not touching them at all. He’s luring them with a high-pitched sound device and stabbing them once in the neck. There might be some significance to the fact that their windpipes are severed. Silencing them somehow. I know it’s their hearing that’s got him up in arms, not their speech, but it might be related.”

“Might be,” Faith allowed.

“So what’s the motive?” Michael asked. “Is he trying to be a supervillain? A superhero? Is he afraid of them? Is he deaf and jealous?”

“That’s the part that frustrates me,” Faith said. “There’s no connection that I can see. We don’t know what’s motivating these killings. My fear is that it’s going to turn out to be something random like the last guy who was killing different artists because of a tangential connection to veterans’ causes.”

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of, too," Michael said. "We got lucky last time. If we don't get lucky this time…"

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