Page 14 of So Savage

“I’ll take Reeves.I was USMC.”

That had absolutely no bearing on their case, but she needed to make a decision for some reason, right?She set her laptop on the other side of Marcus’s desk and looked through Reeves’ files.

Master Sergeant Thomas Reeves was forty-four years old and had declined a promotion to Master Gunnery Sergeant three years prior in favor or retiring when he reached his high year of tenure.He’d listed his reason for the choice as wanting to explore opportunities in the civilian world.A fairly common reason that covered everything from wanting an easier job to wanting to change careers entirely to wanting to work as little as possible and pick up a part-time gig at a tire shop to cover whatever his pension wouldn’t.

His record was exemplary, which was pretty much a requirement if you wanted to make Master Sergeant.Her old First Sergeant used to joke that any Marine smart enough to stop eating crayons could make Staff Sergeant.If you wanted to make Gunny or above, you needed to be smart enough to have never eaten crayons.That was the Marine way of saying that if you weren’t a cut above the rest for your entire career, then you didn’t have a chance of making senior NCO.

He’d trained sixteen K9s personally and overseen the training of dozens more.He was respected enough that he often visited different branches and offered his expertise to their own training programs.He had come off of a three-week stint helping the Air Force with their training program and had a few days off before returning to his permanent post.

One thing stood out to Faith as a possible motive for their killer.One of Reeves' dogs had been lost in combat ten years ago in Syria.Reeves was a staff sergeant at the time, and his squad was clearing a building in Aleppo.An intelligence mistake led to them sending dogs into a building believed to be occupied only by lightly armed rebel stragglers when it was, in fact, occupied by an entrenched rebel force.Reeves' dog was killed, and the American presence in Aleppo was revealed, causing a minor scandal since the United States was publicly opposed to the government.

That scandal could be a motive, too, if Walsh had been involved with any clandestine operations in Syria."Hey, Marcus, was Walsh ever in Syria?"

“If he was, it wasn’t with the U.S.Army.One of his dogs died in combat, though.”

So it was option one, after all."Oh yeah?"

"Yeah.The dog he had before Rooster.He was a bomb-sniffing dog, but he missed one.Stepped on an IED masked with goat blood and got blown to smithereens.Apparently, that was something insurgents did from time to time in Afghanistan.After that incident, the Army began training their dogs to detect scents through different types of animal blood."

Faith grimaced.“Damn.That’s awful.”

“It is.Awful enough that Walsh rotated home early and missed out on a chance to promote to Sergeant First Class.”

“My guy lost a dog too,” Faith said.“Do you remember that scandal about ten years ago where the U.S.was caught secretly supporting government forces in Aleppo?”

“I remember glancing at a headline or two.”

“Well, Reeves was there.His dog went into a building that was supposed to be lightly defended and ended up running into a machine gun emplacement.”

“Ouch.That is also awful.”

“And it’s also motive.”

“You think our boy’s hunting people who lost dogs in combat?”

“It’s another connection between our victims,” Faith replied, “And it could explain why these particular handlers.”

“I like it.”

There was a knock at Marcus’s office door.His brow furrowed.“Come in.”

The door opened, and a young officer with a ponytail said, “There’s a Lieutenant Rebecca Torres here to see you, Detective.She says it has something to do with your case.”

“Perfect.Send her on up.”

The officer nodded and backed out of the doorway.Marcus grinned at Faith.“Looks like we might be getting some legwork soon.”

“That’s good,” Faith quipped.“I’ve never been a big fan of headwork.”

Turk cocked his head at the two humans for a moment, then went back to staring out the window at the traffic.Sometimes humans were just weird, but you had to love them anyway.

The ones who weren’t serial killers, anyway.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lieutenant Torres was wearing civilian clothes today, a pair of jeans and a fur coat with a wool scarf and gloves that looked exactly like the ones Marcus told Faith were too small.Torres looked perfectly comfortable in that outfit and even took the jacket off when she entered the office.Maybe Marcus knew that someone like Faith who wasn’t local wouldn’t have the same tolerance to cold as a native would.

“I was across the street at the taco place,” Torres explained, “and I saw you two pull in.It hit me that I actually did know of a reason why someone might want to kill Reeves and Torres.I figured since I was across the street, I would stop by and tell you in person instead of calling.”

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