The burial deaths were circled in black and a number one written beside them. The beatings, number two, circled in blue. He drew another line around the crucifixion deaths with a red pen and wrote number three beside them.
"And the death at the zoo." He circled the words unknown female with a green pen.
"What did the note say?" Olivia asked.
Slater handed the paper to Jack who wrote the words on the board: PONTIFEXMAGNACUMCURAVICTIMAMOBTULIT.
Olivia stared at the letters for a moment, then taking the pen from Jack, drew vertical lines, separating them into what he assumed were different words.
"Why caps on this one?" He frowned and jabbed at the letters on the board. "That's different."
"It's the correct way to write Latin. The Romans wrote in capital letters," Olivia explained. "No spaces between the words either. This note actually is more authentic than the previous ones."
"Clever bastard," Jack mused. "He's using a more sophisticated language."
"But why?" she asked.
"Hell if I know." He smarted under the question. "Because he's intelligent enough. Because he wants to toy with us. Because the son of a bitch can."
Olivia examined the letters again. "It translates to 'The priest offered the sacrifice with great care.'"
"What does this mean for the case?" Slater asked.
"He's evolving and will be harder to figure out." God damn it all to hell!
Olivia's office mate, Dr. Howard Randolph, entered the university office that afternoon with a dramatic bang, a large caffè latte, and a nod her way. Olivia looked up from her computer screen where she sifted through her email, answering the urgent messages and deleting the spam. After a cursory glance at his desk, Howard stood at his office window, sipped his coffee, and gazed out the office window where students bumped and jostled their way across the quad's concrete sidewalks to their classes.
Olivia continued to scroll her email. The university's policy of furnishing students with professors' email addresses was a good idea except when the teacher ran into a needy student who used every minor problem as an excuse to contact his teacher. She sighed and continued the task, something she noticed wryly, that Howard never bothered with.
Fifteen years Olivia's senior, Howard stood for a few minutes like a captain surveying his crew. Then he finally riffled through the stack of snail mail on his desk in the opposite corner of their shared office. The desk squatted beneath the single window in the room and offered the gorgeous view that Howard had appropriated. A lopsided smile hovered at the edge of his lips.
"Good weekend, Howard?"
"Fair to middling," he answered coyly.
She remembered his teaching assistant. "Ted Burrows dropped off some papers."
Howard grimaced. "Oh, I forgot he was coming by. Bet he wasn't happy to miss me."
A year-round tan, remarkable even in California, gave Howard's face and forearms a golden sheen. His short, blond hair spiked fashionably over a high, intelligent forehead below eyes so blue Olivia suspected tinted contact lenses.
"He seemed okay," she said. "But he did say he'd stayed up all night to finish them."
Howard rolled his eyes as Olivia glanced up to take in the vigorous look of him. Bermuda shorts, which he wore year round, showed off well-developed calves that glinted with fine, sun-bleached hairs. "More likely he got one of his minions to do it for him," he said.
She gaped at him. "What do you mean?"
"You know his reputation, don't you?"
"I've heard he's quite a ladies' man."
Howard crossed the short distance between them and planted his hip on the edge of Olivia's desk. He leaned forward confidentially. "I'd say Teddy-boy is more than a ladies' man."
"Oh?" She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, regretting her comment. She didn't want to get caught up in university gossip.
"Let's just say Theodore Burrows isn't very discriminating in whom he chooses to… ah, date."
She instinctively eased away. Sometimes Howard's familiarity made her cringe. Something smarmy lurked beneath the surface of his affability. He lived extremely well in spite of a professor's salary and had once mentioned a grandmother who lived in one of those old and very expensive homes overlooking San Francisco Bay. Olivia had the impression that he came from an old moneyed family used to living by their own rules.
Howard's smirk evolved into a wide grin. "I suspect one or two of Ted's… amours are more than willing to relieve him of his onerous paper load."
She didn't consider herself naïve, but the implication astonished her. "He wouldn't."
"He does." He examined his manicured nails. "I have it straight from the horse's mouth."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Absolutely nothing. Why should I care who scores my papers as long as the work gets done?"
Olivia tried to mask her shock. Ted Burrows exchanging sexual favors for the price of a good score on Howard's student papers? Surely not.
After he returned to his desk, she observed Howard discreetly as she looked through a stack of student essays. He threw himself into a fine-grained leather chair which he'd purchased himself. Definitely not standard university issue. The chair made an excellent complement to the cherry wood desk, also an import, and the matching bookcases that flanked the wall on either side of the window.
"Oh, by the way, Olivia," Howard said after a moment. "I heard about your missing student. What was her name, Kendra or Kennan…?"
"Keisha Johnson," Olivia supplied, keeping her eyes trained on her papers.
"That's right. Keisha. I'm very sorry about what happened to her. One of the staff told me the police were nosing around here and asking questions."
Jack had emphasized the necessity for secrecy. "Oh, not about Keisha," she lied. "Something else."
"Well, it's a tragedy, her dying like that." His eyes glinted with curiosity. "Is it true someone actually beat her to death?"
Olivia felt grief snag at her throat.
Howard rolled his chair closer. "I know you were fond of her. Is there anything I can do?"
She didn't want Howard's false sympathy. Keisha had been in the office several times while Howard was here, and he hadn't paid her the slightest attention. In fact, now that she remembered, he'd gone out of his way to avoid her.
"I'm fine, Howard." She scooted her chair closer to her computer. "I need to finish my mail," she said, hoping he'd take the hint.
He didn't. "Such a heinous, senseless crime. Do the police have any clue who could have done it?"
"I don't know," she answered sharply. "The police don't keep me apprised of their cases." She offered a tiny smile to take the edge off her words. After all, Howard Randolph was her office mate and she was stuck with him for the rest of the year.
He pulled his chair back to his space and reached for a handsomely-bound leather volume. "I suppose the police won't be all that interested in finding her killer," he mused.
Olivia looked up from her desk. "What do you mean?"
"Well, considering her rather reckless reputation… " He let the words hang unspoken as he flashed a sly look.
"Keisha was a very nice girl," she protested. "Why do you think her reputation is in question?"
"Oh, come on, Olivia, a pretty girl like that. You know the rumors." A knowing expression crossed his face. "New York City girl, loose in sunny California, away from mommy and daddy for the first time."
She didn't bother to temper her tone this time. "You're presuming a great deal about a girl you know absolutely nothing about."
Randolph glanced up from flipping through the pages of his book. "I'm sorry if I've offended you, my dear. It wasn't my intention."
Without a word, Olivia snapped off her computer and removed her purse from the drawer. As she exited the office, she turned back. Howard's brows were still lifted and he had that silly pretend-surprise look on his face.