Jo Robertson - The Avenger

"How do you feel about women, Mr. Councilman?"

"Women?" Vargas smoothed first his hair, and then the thick bush of his mustache in a habit Jack recognized as buying time to formulate an answer.

"Yes, Mr. Vargas, women. Your mother, your wife, your sister. How about the women in your employment?"

"My mother is a saint." His voice held a tone of near reverence. "Likewise my sister." Was the sister an afterthought? Secondary to the esteem he obviously held for the mother?

"And your wife, Magdalena? Is she a saint too?"

Vargas curled his lip. "My wife, she has… issues."

The man leaning against the wall shifted. The burning coal of his eyes revealed nothing, but it seemed the dialogue had caught his interest.

"What kind of issues does Mrs. Vargas have?"

"Let us say that Magdalena has a very fanciful imagination."

"She claims that you’re abusive toward her."

Vargas snorted. "As I said, mi esposa es muy imaginativa, very fanciful."

"Are you saying you’ve never hit your wife?"

"Dios, of course not. I do not harm women. All my life I have treated the women in my life as queens." He spread his hands in an innocent gesture . "Princesas."

Torres flipped open a file lying on the table between them. At the sudden movement, the bodyguard took a step forward and stood directly behind his boss.

Jack tensed in his chair and spoke for the first time. "Mr. Santos, please step back."

Santos’ face remained impassive as he moved to his position against the wall and Torres snapped a warning look at Jack. He shrugged. It was possible Santos had gotten a knife or a small caliber pistol past security. There were ways, and Jack knew a man like Santos wouldn’t want to be armed with only those brutish hands.

Torres pulled out the first picture and accompanying hospital emergency room record. "January 22, this year, Placer Memorial Hospital. Mrs. Vargas was treated for a broken ulna, right arm, along with contusions to her torso and legs."

She slapped another photo and hospital report on the table. "August 19, Bigler Memorial Hospital. Bruises to her forearms and back. March 29 of last year – shall I continue?"

"You bitch," Vargas spat, leaning so close the garlic on his breath wafted across the table. "You think you can intimidate a man like me? These reports mean nothing." He swept his hands disdainfully across the span of documents. "They prove nothing. Magdalena is a very clumsy woman. She frequently falls or stumbles, often when she has been drinking."

"Drinking?" Torres sounded surprised.

"Ah, you did not know about her alcoholism. That is too bad. It is well-documented." Vargas stood to leave, straightening his lapels and adjusting the knot of his tie. "You should have done your homework, ADA Torres."

Torres stared at Vargas’ retreating back, anger and disappointment on her face. Santos uncurled lazily from his position on the wall and leaned across the table to whisper in her ear before he followed his boss. When he reached the door, he turned back to appraise her with an inscrutable expression. Then his large, scarred face split into a grin, revealing strikingly beautiful white teeth.

"What was that about?" Jack asked. "What’d he say?"

Before answering, she rubbed her neck as if to warm a chill. "He said it’s not a good idea to cross a man like Mr. Vargas."

"A threat?"

"Possibly."

"Someone in your office should've caught the alcohol charge."

Torres glared at him."Yeah, if it's true."

At the court house Olivia and Jack gathered in Slater's office while Jack brought them up to date on Torres' interview with Vargas. He removed his jacket and loosened his tie while Olivia took off her sweater and draped it over the chair back. She wore jeans and a white short-sleeved top which draped softly over her breasts. Her hair was fastened in a loose knot at her nape. He ignored the fact that she looked about sixteen.

Slater had set up a small white board against a portable easel and provided dry erase pens. He explained the grisly scene that had awaited the first workers at the zoo early this morning. An unidentified young woman had been trapped in the lions' habitat and mauled by a mother lion and her cub. "Both animals ingested portions of the woman's stomach."

"That's new," Jack said calmly. He glanced at Olivia who rubbed her hands up and down her arms.

Slater continued in low tones. "After the animals were euthanized, a necropsy exam was performed on the mother lion. That's compulsory in this county when a captive animal kills a person."

"Anything?" Jack asked.

"Another note."

"Bastard wants recognition for his handiwork," Jack growled. "He made sure there'd be an autopsy of the animals. He's letting us know what idiots we are."

"Why the zoo? Why this kind of death when he hasn't used it before?" Slater asked.

"Death by wild animal?" Jack speculated, raising an eyebrow at Olivia.

"No, not a wild animal," she corrected. "A caged one."

"Makes no sense," Jack muttered. "Why so public? So immediate? A zoo, for God's sake? What the hell does that mean?"

"Is it a coincidence it happened by my home?" When no one answered, Olivia paled and bolted for the door.

Jack reached her just outside the restroom. Her drawn face and wild eyes tore at him.

"Look, I'm sorry I dragged you into this." He kept his tone cool, distant so he wouldn't haul her into his arms and try to kiss the injured look off her face.

"I just need some water."

He took her elbow and guided her inside the ladies room where she splashed cold water on her face. He handed her a towel.

"I'm fine." She batted his hand away. "I'm fine," she repeated as they returned to Slater's office. Looking more composed, she sat down and reached for the briefcase on the floor, waved a small yellow legal pad. "My research notes. I did some work this weekend."

Jack saw the color return to her face and felt relieved. He'd already decided to take off for a day or two – she'd likely consider it abandoning her again, he thought wryly – and liked knowing she'd be okay while he was gone. The vague restlessness that always meant he needed to get away by himself had started to jitter over his body. Isolated, he could let the Change take over completely – no holding back – and insinuate himself into the killer's mind.

Not just yet. But soon.

Olivia held up copies of the notes from the original case. "I've been studying these at home, and even though they're written in Latin, I don't think the writer knows that much about the language."

"What do you mean?" Jack asked.

She flipped through pages of the legal pad. "The messages are simply common phrases or portions of classical writings. For example, the first one… "

"Nunca fidelis."

"It's simplistic. Even you got it."

"Even me." Jack smiled.

She ignored him, all business now. "And the mailed note, Abyssus abyssum invocat, or 'hell calls hell,' is a common aphorism. It means loosely that one misstep can lead to another one." Olivia gestured toward a reference book she'd hauled in with her. "A person could find that phrase in any etymology book like this one with little understanding of the language itself."

"So the notes don't tell us the writer's level of Latin expertise," Jack said flatly, wondering why the first linguists hadn't suggested that.

"Not specifically," Olivia countered, "but they do show his focus – Latin. I think he has an affinity for this time period. The fact that he uses Latin at all indicates some kind of connection to the language or the world that fostered it." Olivia continued earnestly. "And, Jack, I believe there were four notes in the original case, not three."