Page 19 of So Twisted

“A mountain bike suspension?”

“Yes. The more serious bikes have coil spring suspension in the rear to take the shocks of hard landings. The springs themselves are powerful and compact. You could fit one to a hinge mechanism and attach that to a trigger on a pole. Squeeze the trigger, and boom.”

“That wouldn’t shatter the blades on impact?”

“Not if you rig it so the jaws don’t close completely. I hate to talk admiringly of a murderer, but this weapon was more sophisticated than it sounds. If only he’d used something that was a little more like jaguar teeth, he might have actually gotten away with it.”

Faith and Michael shared a sober look. “What about the other weapon?” she asked Dr. Yun.

“I just got Alison Chen’s body, so I need to dig a little more into her before I can answer that.” She winced. “Ouch. I did not intend that pun.”

“No offense taken,” Faith said. “Any guesses?”

“On record, it would be irresponsible of me to guess. Off the record, a hot dog stick.”

Faith blinked. “A hot dog stick?”

“Yes, a hot dog stick. They sell them at sporting goods stores. It’s a stick with two long prongs on the end of it, kind of like a barbecue fork but bigger. You put the hot dogs on the prongs and spin them over the fire. Or, in our killer’s case, you dip it in snake venom and plunge it into someone’s neck.”

Faith shook her head. “Wow. Clever.”

“Yes. Your killer, whoever he is, isn’t just a person disguised as an animal. He’s a brilliant person disguised as an idiot.”

Faith sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“I don’t envy you your job,” Yun said, “and I wish you two luck. Considering what I’ve seen so far, we’reallgoing to need it.”

Faith pondered Yun’s words as they left the building. A brilliant person disguised as an idiot. That might actually be helpful to know eventually. Faith had suspected him of being disguised as a well-adjusted person, but his disguise would be even more believable if they didn’t suspect him of being smart enough to carry out the crime.

Now it was up to Faith to outsmart the killer before he left them with the remains of another hunt.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Faith’s phone buzzed just as she stepped into the car. She put it on speaker and said, “Go ahead, Cuthbert.”

“Knights of Nature,” Cuthbert said. “Little group from the University of Nebraska in Omaha. Led by a senior named Alex Forrester. They got into the news last year for wearing uncured animal pelts to a demonstration to show people how development was harming animals.”

Faith grimaced. “How attractive.”

“Oh yes, very much so. They’ve got a blog too. I’ve been reading it, and this kid Alex is very out there. Advocates things like slaughtering ranchers the way they slaughter their animals, penning up women who eat dairy and gorging them on hormones to harvest human milk or giving them steroids and harvesting their breast meat.”

“Christ,” Michael whispered. “Like seriously?”

“I don’t think so. But the killing people for hurting animals thing? He seems really serious about that. Wrote an essay about a woman who was mauled to death by her pit bulls. Said the dogs should be hailed as heroes.”

“Okay, you’ve got me interested,” Faith said. “Send me an address and a picture.”

“I’ll give you the address to his house. That’s where the group meets. Oh, and if you need another reason to hate him, it really ishishouse. He’s a trust fund baby.”

“Weirdly enough, most of them don’t turn into psychopathic killers,” Faith said.

“They do turn into snobby, ignorant assholes.” He chuckled. “Don’t mind me. Ex had a trust fund. It was really fun until she decided that being rich meant she could sleep with whoever she wanted.”

“The address, Cuthbert.”

“Right. On its way.”

He hung up, and Faith took a deep breath. “Thank God. We finally have a suspect.”

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