"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."
"Four?" he scoffed.
"I've been thinking about this. You said the first note was mailed after the second body and note were discovered. But why send it through the mail instead of leaving it with the first body? What if he did leave one with Angela Buckley and the police didn't find it?"
Intrigued, Jack stared at her. He'd entertained the same thought, but had dismissed it early on. Pathologists rarely made that kind of mistake.
"All the bodies had a note with them," she continued. "Do killers change their basic – what do you call it?"
"Signature."
Olivia nodded. "Look at this latest murder. The killer forced you to find the note. It's important to him." She leaned forward in the chair. "They missed the first note."
Was it possible, Jack wondered?
"Olivia might have something," Slater said. "Let's go over each murder again and see what correlation we can find." He stood, retrieved a marker from the desk and turned to the dry erase board.
"First," Olivia said, "the girl who was buried alive in Virginia." Slater wrote the name, place and method of death on the board.
"Second, the lawyer, beaten to death in Las Vegas," Jack added.
"The crucifixion death was next," Olivia said.
Slater leaned against the wall. "Then after four years your UNSUB started over again."
Jack nodded. "The Utah woman and then the beating death of Keisha Johnson."
Olivia flinched but remained stoic as a stilted silence came over the room. Slater walked into the bullpen and poured fresh coffee for all of them.
Jack reached for his coffee. "Okay, if the killer kept his pattern, the next death should've been crucifixion."
"But it wasn't," Olivia said.
Jack's frustration crept through. "Yeah, instead we've got a new method. Death at the hands of a caged animal."
Slater glanced thoughtfully at the jottings on the chart. "That assumes you've discovered all the victims." He chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. "Maybe he didn't change his pattern. Maybe you missed someone."
Jack didn't want to imagine an infinite number of bodies spread around the country. "You think he killed someone between the Salt Lake murder and now?"
Slater shrugged. "Could be."
"That would mean he's accelerating his behavior." Jack thought a moment. "If he's as arrogant as I think, he wants credit for his work. We have to assume he left notes at all the crime scenes." He scruffed the hair back from his forehead and blew noisily through his mouth. "We'll have to look at the Johnson crime scene again."