He turned to Slater. "Can you spare Harris to check North Shore?"
"Sure."
"Let's try another attack," Jack said, straightening up. "What elements connect all these deaths?"
"The language and the culture," Olivia said promptly.
"The notes all sound like warnings," Slater added.
"One more point," Jack said, turning toward Olivia. "What about the note found in the mother lion?" He pulled the facsimile out of his briefcase and pushed it across to her, then wrote the words on the board below the other Latin phrases.
"Quam ferocissimus leo bestiarium oppugnavit. Facilis descensus averno," she read and thought a moment. "Actually, it's two sentences that translate literally, 'As fierce a lion as possible attacked the beast-fighter,' and 'easy the descent to hell.'" She paused. "Doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is different from the others. It demonstrates a working knowledge of Latin grammar. He's not just copying from a book."
Jack bulleted these characteristics in another column on the dry erase board. "Okay, so this last note shows the killer really knows Latin. Plus, he's becoming more confident. This death is close in time to the last one."
Olivia frowned. "But what does it mean? Is the beast-fighter the woman killed at the zoo? Or the killer?"
Jack contemplated the question, came up with nothing.
"And what about the second half of the message?" Olivia added. "It's ambiguous. Whose descent is it? Does he refer to himself or the victim? Does he believe the victim deserves to be in hell or is he bragging about how easy the killings are for him as a murderer?"
"Lots of questions, no answers," Jack muttered.
"This note was found inside the mother lion's stomach, right?" Olivia asked. "What about the cub?"
"You think there might've been another message at this crime scene?" Slater asked.
"Something seems left out of the message," Olivia replied.
"Like 'easy for… ' or 'easy but…?'" Jack asked.
Olivia nodded slowly, looking off into the distance. "You know, in addition to gladiatorial games, the Romans liked to watch a staged hunt. They called it a venatio, and bestiarii were beast-hunters who tracked down wild animals in the arena."
"So the killer thinks of himself, not the victim, as the beast-hunter," Jack concluded.
Olivia shook her head. "Not necessarily. In Roman times, the victim could be a political prisoner hunted for sport and punishment."
"I'll personally supervise the exam on the cub," Slater said, "and assign Harris to relook at the Lake Tahoe crime scene."
Jack glanced around. "That's it, then," he said. "Tomorrow at eight." He kept his back to Olivia while she gathered up her papers.
At the door she turned and looked back, locked eyes with him. Slater glanced back and forth between them as if he'd guessed their relationship. Shit. No keeping secrets from Slater.
Jack's blood thrummed in his veins, hot and heavy and anticipatory. Desire scrabbled his brain and lust scratched at his loins. God, he was desperate for her again.
Chapter Seventeen
Jack's aloofness had irritated Olivia all day. What had it meant? A quick release of the sexual tension that crackled between them like jolts of electricity? Part of her wanted to get in his face, confront him about last night. But another part of her was afraid of the answer.
After several restless hours, she finally slept.
Sometime later the jangle of her phone roused her. Groping for the receiver, she pressed the talk button and spoke groggily. Jack's voice from the other end of the line jerked her upright. "What's wrong?"
"Another murder."
Oh, no. "Where?"
His voice sounded strained. "A town called Grantsville in Tuolumne County. Slater just called me. Be ready in fifteen minutes. I'll pick you up."
Olivia was waiting on the porch ten minutes later. She'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail, slipped on jeans and a sweatshirt, shoes and socks, but otherwise hadn't taken time with her appearance. As they drove off, Jack's face looked drawn in the greenish light from the dashboard. He looked frazzled, like he was running on sheer adrenaline.
During the drive north to the sheriff's office, he filled her in on the details. "The victim was a male, older teenager or young adult."
"How was he killed?"
Jack slapped the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. "Like victim number two, he was hanged, crucified, but this one was hung upside down."
Olivia stared at him, feeling the horror of it. An upside down crucifixion had particular significance in theological circles. "Where?"
"I told you, Tuolumne County."
She shook her head. "No, I mean where did they find him?"
"In the basement of an unused country church."
"Was the scene like the other one, the Walker man?"
"Slater thinks so. The call came in from the sheriff down there. They called him because the man's driver's license lists an address in Elysian Hills. That's Bigler County's jurisdiction."
During the rest of the drive, an uneasy silence hung between them like the cloying weight of regret. Olivia breathed a sigh of relief when they finally pulled into the courthouse parking lot.
Slater waited for them in the conference room where they'd met previously. He'd transferred the case data onto the large white board that covered the narrow end of the room. Jack could tell from his disheveled look that he'd been up all night. His first words confirmed it.
"The Sheriff in Tuolumne County called around two this morning," he said, yawning and stretching his arms high over his head. "I just got back from Grantsville. About an hour and a half south of Sacramento." He added the latter for Jack's benefit.
He handed Jack a copy of the police report. "Victim's a twenty-year-old male student at Bigler Junior College, name of Carl Bender. Body was found at 12:45 this morning by some high school kids camping out at an abandoned church located off Highway 99. Teens go there to fool around, make out, do dope."
Slater looked from Jack to Olivia and back again, and if he wondered why Olivia had come along, he was wise enough not to ask. "The murder occurred out of my jurisdiction, and I had no way of knowing it'd be related to this case until I got there."
Jack nodded but remained silent, merely stared at the report of Carl Bender's death, thinking another dead body, another mistake.
"This incident looks a hell of a lot like the murder of the Walker man in your original case," Slater said, spreading an array of crime scene photos across the conference table and tapping one of the pictures. "The body was naked, hung upside down in the basement of the church."
Jack picked up the top photo. Although the scene wasn't anything more than he'd expected, the effect still jarred him. The macabre display showed the victim splayed and hung on a makeshift cross with ugly holes through the wrists and ankles. Only the inverted position was different.
"COD the same?" he asked routinely.
"He bled out at the scene," Slater replied. "Lots of blood evidence. Some of it could be the UNSUB's."
"If we're lucky."
He handed the photos to Olivia who blanched at the grisly displays before she held one close to her face, eyeing the enlarged image of the wrist piercings.
Then Slater dropped the bombshell. "The thing is Carl Bender's been dead for at least a week."
"That means he was killed before the girl at the zoo," Jack said.
"So he hasn't gone out of order in the killings," Olivia murmured. "Just added a new method."
"Something else," Slater added. "The coroner recovered a note stuffed inside the Bender kid's mouth."
Olivia looked from Jack to Slater. "That's good, isn't it?"
"Hope so," Jack mumbled, taking the dry erase pen and moving toward the board.