Page 10 of So Twisted

"Ah, yes. Well, the jaguar trotted right up to me and started licking my fingers. That's a sign that she's hungry. And another sign that she didn't kill him. Hell, the dead body was there all night, and she never once approached it to try to eat it. Anyway, I led her back to her enclosure and fed her. She licked my face to say thank you, then ate her food."

Faith raised an eyebrow. “Jaguar or panther?”

“Jaguar. People call the black ones panthers. It’s not incorrect, but we also have a black leopard. We call him a panther and her a black jaguar. Just helps us tell ‘em apart in conversation.”

“Do you always buddy up to big cats like that? Michael asked.

"Oh yeah. I love cats. I grew up in San Diego, and my mom worked with the big cats at the zoo there. I was around them my whole childhood. They never once attacked me. I know they're wild animals, and they can do something at any minute, but it's not like they're out there just waiting to tear someone's throat out."

“I get the sense you’re worried for your cat.”

Saul shook his head. “Not really. Lisa agrees with me that she couldn’t have had anything to do with this. We’re both worried for Marcus. Or rather that the killer who did this will get away with it.”

Faith looked over at Turk. He was still trotting back and forth, shaking his head in confusion. She crossed her arms and bit her lip softly.

It’s just the animals. Like Saul said. There’s just a lot going on right now. Hell, even I can smell them.

“That’s not the only reason we’re sure it was a person.”

Faith realized that Saul was still talking. She turned to him and said, “What’s the other reason?”

“The wounds in Marcus’s neck weren’t caused by teeth.”

“I thought his throat was ripped out.”

Saul shivered. “It was, but not by teeth.”

“And you’re sure of this because?”

"Because teeth cut differently than other things. Different teeth cut differently than other teeth. That's how we perform bite analyses. Like with sharks. When people get bit by a shark, they take pictures of the bite and examine the wound so they can figure out what kind of teeth made the bite. Conical, triangular, serrated, smooth, barbed… Then, they match the bite to the shark to determine what species. We can do the same thing with cats. We can also check bite size to determine the size of the jaw, the dentition pattern, the distance between teeth, and so forth."

“Kind of hard to determine all of that when half of a man’s neck is missing,” Michael suggested.

Saul sighed. “That’s what the police department said. I’ll tell you the same thing we told them. Teeth tear the skin differently than other things. Look.” He pulled his upper lip back and pointed at his front teeth. “Incisors are flat. They’re good at chopping through things. A bite from an incisor is going to look sort of like a stab wound from a knife. A blunt one, but you get the picture. Back here, we have molars, which are for crushing, and that’s what a molar bite is going to look like. The skin will look crushed.”

He pointed at the pointy teeth in between his incisors and molars. “These are canine teeth. They’re used for ripping and tearing food. Cats have huge canine teeth. If a cat but into Marcus’s flesh, it would look like the skin was ripped off.”

“Or like his throat was torn out.”

“No! It’s…” Saul took a deep breath. “I know it’s hard to explain. I’m sorry for being frustrated.”

“You’re doing great,” Faith said. “Are you saying it looks like his throat was cut out instead of torn out?”

“Yes! Kind of.”

Michael dropped his chin to his chest and sighed.

“I mean, the throat was torn out,” Saul said, “but it looked like it was torn out by incisors, not by canines. The tears were all wrong. They were too broad, and they were squarish when they should have been round. I’m telling you, agents, Marcus was killed by a human being with some kind of weapon, not by a cat.”

“Any idea what kind of weapon that might be?” Faith asked.

Saul's shoulders slumped. "That's the issue. We don't know. PD wanted to make this an open-and-shut animal attack, but that's just not right. Aside from the fact that it would be immoral to euthanize the jaguar for something she didn't do, it would be immoral and dangerous to let this killer—whoever he is—keep wandering out there."

“I agree,” Faith said. “Do you have any idea who might want to hurt Marcus?”

Saul shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. Like I said, we didn’t talk much. He seemed fine, and I never heard complaints about him.”

Faith nodded. “Got anything, boy?”

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