Page 13 of So Twisted

Michael shook his head. “How does someone end up like that? I mean… how do you live in a house with a bunch ofanimals that you’re treating poorly and not…” He shook his head. “I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

“I knew a lady when I was a kid,” Cuthbert said. “Real nice lady. Used to give us full-size candy bars at Halloween. Her name was Mrs. Lester. Mrs. Lester had a lot of cats. Alotof cats. Her place always smelled like piss. Being a kid, I didn't think anything of it. She just loved cats. And she did. Whenever I saw her, she was petting a cat, feeding a cat, holding a cat. And the cats looked fine, too. Healthy, good fur, content, calm… nothing out of the ordinary. That was until one year when I went to her house for a candy bar and caught sight of her carefully flaying a cat that she had staked to a wooden pole in her backyard."

“Christ,” Michael swore.

"Probably the other guy," Cuthbert replied. "The point is, you never know the kind of darkness people hide inside them. Mrs. Lester loved her cats. I know she did. I have an eye for emotion, and she really loved her cats. But she also felt a need to sacrifice them to Satan every now and then. I don't know how those two things exist in the same person, but sometimes people can be good in most ways but just have one big bad flaw that poisons the rest of them." He grimaced. "Bad choice of words."

Faith's phone buzzed. "Lisa's back," she told Michael. She looked at Detective Cuthbert and said, "Talk to Chen's neighbors. Friends and family, too, with priority on people who live in the area and saw her frequently. I want a list of people who might have wanted to hurt her. We're going to go talk to the owner of the animal sanctuary and ask the same questions about Marcus Reeves."

Cuthbert nodded. “Works for me. I’ll keep you posted.”

As the agents left the house, Faith wondered what Chen was like. How would an interaction with her somewhere outside of her house be? Would she seem generally nice and normal butmaybe a little awkward? Would she be so confident and outgoing that no one could tell there was anything wrong at all?

And what about their killer? Would he also seem like just a regular person as West had? Or would she sense the killer in him right away like she had with Jethro Trammell, the original Donkey Killer?

Not knowing the answer to that question worried Faith the most. Whoever this killer was, he was doing a poor job of masquerading as an animal.

But if he was an expert at masquerading as a normal person, it wouldn’t matter how convincing he was as an animal.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lisa Hartley was a tired-looking woman in her fifties who greeted the agents with a weary smile. To be fair, it might not be typical of her to look so exhausted. It wasn’t every day that one of her employees was viciously murdered after all.

“Can I offer you guys some coffee?” she asked when they took their seats in her office. “Maybe some vitamin water for the big guy?”

Turk wagged his tail eagerly, and Lisa smiled—a little less wearily—and filled a water bowl with a jug of purple liquid. As she filled his bowl, she said, “the coffee’s good stuff. I get it delivered from a nonprofit place that only serves Rainforest Alliance certified Fair Trade organic coffees.”

Faith wasn’t sure what any of that had to do with the flavor of the coffee, but she had a feeling they would be working on this case well into the night, so she said, “I’ll take some, thank you.”

Lisa started the coffee, and Faith took a moment to look around the office. The room was fairly sparse but at the same time very full. The only furniture was a desk made of rough carved wood with three chairs of the same wood, one behind the desk and two in front. There was a little bamboo table which contained the jug of vitamin water and the coffeemaker. There were two floor lamps on either corner of the wall behind them and a single desk lamp. All three were switched off right now, the light provided by the wall-length polarized glass window behind the desk.

What made the room feel full were the plants. There were two potted trees with thin, gnarled trunks and broad, flat leaves placed midway down the side walls, and two plants with similar trunks but long, thin bladed leaves on either corner of the window. The bamboo table had a brilliant violet orchid andvines curled around the legs of the desks fed by pots on either side. Another plant Faith didn’t recognize sat on the desk. It had twisted folds of fuzzy pink flowers that looked like an exotic species of coral

Or brain matter.

Faith looked away from the flowers with a grimace. Turk had finished drinking and was now sitting next to her, staring affectionately up at Lisa. Lisa set steaming mugs of coffee in front of the agents and returned to the desk with her own mug.

Faith lifted her mug. It showed a cartoon drawing of the globe above the phrase ONE WORLD, ONE VOICE. The coffee was very good, rich and dark and smooth. Evidently, the certifications meant something after all. "Mrs. Hartley,"

“Lisa, please. No offense to my ex-husband—we split amicably—but I don’t like being a Mrs.”

“Lisa. First, let me extend my condolences. I can imagine this is incredibly difficult for you.”

Lisa scoffed and sipped her own coffee. Her mug read WE ARE ALL CHILDREN OF THE EARTH. “It’s not the best day I’ve ever had, that’s for sure.”

“Can you tell us in your own words what happened?”

Lisa sighed. “Well, I was at a conference in Omaha speaking to the executives of a bunch of different zoos around the country and urging them to consider supporting the Four R initiative, and I got a call from Sean just before my keynote speech.”

“The Four R initiative?”

“Rescue, Rehabilitate, Return, Respect. We want to be responsible stewards with our wildlife by rescuing animals impacted by humans in a negative way and rescuing their natural ranges from encroachment, rehabilitating both animal and land and returning them to their natural environments. Then we want to respect that we share this world with them and find ways to coexist without destroying the ecosystem.”

“You’re very passionate about animal rights, aren’t you?”

“It’s not about animal rights, really. It’s about stewardship. People benefit from rich, healthy ecosystems, not just animals. The Four R Initiative is designed to convince people that respecting the natural world will improve our quality of life. There’s an abundance of evidence that healthy flora and fauna in healthy environments coexisting with people leads to healthier people. I could talk for hours about it, but I have a feeling that’s not what you’re here for.”

“No,” Faith admitted. She didn’t say it aloud, but she also wanted a sense for justhowprotective Lisa was of animals. Their killer could be seeking revenge on behalf of animals, and while Lisa would likely have an ironclad alibi, it was worth figuring out how far someone with similar values might go to address animal cruelty.

---