Page 11 of So Twisted

Turk snorted in frustration and trotted back to her side. She kept her tone cheerful when she said, “That’s all right, Turk. We’ll find something.” She gave Saul a card. “Call us when Mrs. Hartley gets back. We’ll want to talk to her right away.”

“I will. She wants to talk to you too. She takes this really personal, you know. This was one of her employees.”

“Yes, I imagine. Thank you for your time.”

The three agents walked back toward their car. “I want to talk to the coroner,” Faith said. “I want to see if I can get some more details on whatever weapon killed Marcus Reeves.”

Michael didn’t answer. Faith frowned and turned to him to see him on the phone.

“Yes, Detective. We’ll meet you there.” He hung up and gave Faith a grim look. “That was Detective Cuthbert. He apologizesfor not meeting us at the airport. He was busy investigating a murder. He thinks it might be related to this one.”

Faith’s heart dropped like a stone. Their first morning on the job, and already their killer had struck again.

“Well,” Michael offered with a thin smile. “At least we know for sure it’s not an animal.”

That wasn’t a comfort to Faith. She’d spent a lot of time around animals and a lot of time around people. She could say with absolute certainty that people were far more dangerous.

CHAPTER FOUR

This crime scene had the typical sense of controlled chaos Faith was used to at such scenes. There were six cruisers and three animal control vans on the scene, and eight officers were busy keeping the small crowd of neighbors and passersby from sneaking a peak inside. Michael parked across the street, and the three of them trotted up to the barrier. The harried sergeant waved them past. “Cuthbert’s inside.” He turned to one of the pushier onlookers and warned, “Seriously, ma’am, back off. I’m not asking.”

The three agents walked inside. The smell hit Faith like a bowling ball. Clearly this home had housed a lot of animals. Turk put his nose to the ground and began sniffing, and Faith felt a rush of relief when he kept his nose to the ground and followed the scent to the living room.

That room was the scene of even more chaos. There were six animal control officers carrying out crates filled with reptiles. Lizards ranging from tiny anoles to a six-foot monitor lizard, snakes, turtles and even a four-foot alligator-like thing.

“Is that a caiman?” Michael asked.

“Yep,” the animal control officer replied. “What would you say if I told you that this wasn’t even in the top ten most dangerous animals in this house?”

Michael shivered. “I’d say fuck reptiles and people who own them.”

Faith frowned at him, and he sighed. “Sorry. I just hate reptiles. Especially snakes.”

She looked at Turk, and her frown deepened. Once again, he appeared overwhelmed. He was shaking his head from side to side and staring intently at each animal as it was removed.

“You must be the FBI agents.”

Faith turned toward the voice to see a well-dressed man of around fifty stepping gingerly over something in the living room. He extended his hand and said, “Detective Jim Cuthbert. Sorry for not calling. Bit of a shitshow here. We’ve got it under control now, though.”

He gestured at the floor, and Faith realized that the something he had stepped over was the body of a woman in her early thirties with jet black hair and soft brown eyes behind a pair of thick glasses.

"Alison Chen, thirty-two. A neighbor heard a scream and called the police. By the time we got here, she was dead. And if not for the swift reflexes of my partner, Detective Royce"—a tall, lanky man with a somber face lifted his hand from the other side of the room—"I would also be dead, because there was a black mamba in this living room."

“A what?” Michael asked.

“A black mamba. Big damned snake. Poisonous. Supposedly the deadliest snake in Africa and number… I don’t know. Top ten worldwide. Royce here saw it and pushed me out of the way just before it struck. So we had to wait for animal control to get here. Then they go downstairs to the basement, and it’s a literal zoo down there. I’m talking about sixty animals: lizards, snakes, turtles, a fucking caiman… Those are only the ones still alive. You think it smells bad in here, wait until you go down there.” He shook his head and shivered.

“So she was bitten by a black mamba?”

“No. That’s why we called you. We think the killer wanted to make it look like that, but he picked the wrong snake. Here.”

He pointed at the body. Chen had an ugly welt on her neck, swollen purple and leaking blood and pus. Even Faith's ironclad stomach twisted a little at that. "Looks like a snakebite to me."

“And had the killer released one of the several species of rattlesnake or maybe Chen’s puff adder into the room, then I would have thought the same thing. But not a mamba.”

“Why not a mamba?”

Cuthbert pointed at the fang marks. They were spaced about three inches apart and as thick around as a roofing nail.

---