Sherlock: Lover Mine [Book II]

The Petnapper

John and Sherlock got out of the taxi and strode up to the Faerie Tails Animal Shelter, the latter taking quick stock of the area as they approached. The retrofitted building was two stories tall and was once a small department store, it appeared. The perimeter was well monitored with an array of cameras.

They entered and were greeted by Vera and a few other staff before being led to the clinic which, as the team lamented, had seen each and every animal that had been dropped outside, dead. Sherlock had them lay out five of the victims for him to examine while inquiring further about the shelter.

They were a no-kill establishment that worked with their sister shelters to house and care for as many animals as they could. They were becoming a popular destination for pet owners, and so had seen increased adoptions in the past three months. They mainly rescued cats and dogs, but also cared for birds, rodents and even a few reptiles.

Sherlock absorbed the information and gleaned everything he could from the animals before him before requesting a tour, highlighting where the victims had been housed. As Vera had explained before and as Sherlock could now confirm, their checks against an animal jailbreak would prevent such an escape of this magnitude. Someone has been deliberately removing the animals from the shelter.

"Has anyone recently been let go or quit, around the time your animals started disappearing?"

"A few volunteers have transferred to our new sister shelter to help get it running but no one has been fired or quit."

"Has the shelter received any threats or messages recently?"

"Since we started up we've gotten a number of messages criticizing our no-kill, all medical care provided policies. Most of the complaints are about how we take in almost every animal that comes our way, including the strays and feral cats."

"The victims, were they all strays?" Sherlock questioned.

"A couple were, but most of them were surrendered pets- many of which weren't the normal shelter fare, you might say."

"Elaborate."

Vera inhaled, "Surrendered pets are the only animals that we do not spay or neuter upon arrival. Many of them would go for a lot because of their particular breed or species." Sherlock nodded and fell silent, entering his mind palace.

From what he had gathered, the suspect wanted to prove a point to the shelter by kidnapping and killing the shelter's population of surrendered pets. Or suspects. The staff would have noticed the sane person coming in so often before an animal disappeared. There was the possibility that it was an inside job, but that wouldn't have allowed for the abduction of twenty two animals in total. Miss Langer would have figured out who was behind it all; she was acceptably attentive.

He then asked how long each animal was gone before being dumped at the shelter again. On average, two days. That was consistent with the wounds on the bodies, "Have any animals gone missing in the past few days?"

"Yes. One of the surrendered Pugs went missing a day ago."

"Security footage, please," They led him to their small security room and he and John sat down at their computer. After acquiring information about where the Pug had been kept as well as when he might have been kidnapped, Sherlock dove into the saved security footage, "They're rather clever, aren't they?"

"Hm, Sherlock?"

"Look at these, John," He enlarged freezeframes from three cameras, "The suspect is quite skilled at avoiding the cameras. But he can't avoid them completely, so in each of these you can see shadows and a blurry movement."

"Oh, now I see. So the suspect knows where the cameras are, then?"

"Yes, and he's exploiting their weaknesses to avoid being seen. However, I can approximate their physical characteristics using their shadows."

"Oh. Okay then."

Sherlock had John go around to the different camera monitors so that the detective could get an accurate aspect ratio and scale. After that he set to calculating the possible measurements for their suspect.

After two hours spent at the shelter, Sherlock and John had a theory about the serial petnapper and decided to wait her out. From what the detective had solved, the suspect was female and light on her feet. So they exited the shelter and split up to catch the woman.

Around four in the afternoon, John saw the woman fitting their approximate measurements creeping around to the shelter with a huge shopping tote on her arm. He jumped out and confronted her first. When she turned to run, Sherlock cut off her escape routes and relieved her of her cargo.

The woman was Nellie Kirby, a local woman who declared that it was unethical to allow surrendered pets into shelters where they would be picked over the ones who truly deserved adoption, among other rants against no kill shelters. The police arrived and arrested her shortly thereafter.

Once the Yard had left, the entire staff gathered to express their gratitude. Vera took them back to her office to pay their fee, which she'd researched on the website, and bestow them with a fleece blanket that had the shelter logo and several adorable pictures of the residents on it. Before she could pay them, however, Sherlock put his hand up, "There is no need to pay us."

"But you've helped us more than you know, Mister Holmes." John looked over at Sherlock and smiled knowingly.

"I have another proposition for you."

Thank you for reading!