The Avenger (15 page)

"Then tell me," she urged, nestling closer. "Tell me now."

Although indecision crossed his face, he answered with a tone of firmness and a voice full of regret. "No. I have to wait until this DLK thing is finished."

His lips against her forehead were feathery soft. He pushed off the bed, still wearing his sweats, his erection outlined clearly beneath the fabric. He'd pleasured her, but not taken care of his own needs.
Why?

"Why didn't you ... I know you want to."

His face darkened and turned hard. "Getting close to me is lethal, Olivia. I may not be able to control myself. It's dangerous for you, me ... for both of us."

She remembered the barely contained aggression he'd shown their first time together. This time had been skillful, but ardent with an underlying intensity she'd come to associate with him. Was she responsible? Did she bring out something dark in him? Was that why Jack fought being with her?

With a crooked smile he looked back for a second, then closed the door firmly behind him, and left her alone. She heard the firm click of the lock that signaled he'd closed her out. His withdrawal was a cramp deep in her very center. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared a long time at the spot where Jack's head had dented the pillow beside her.
He'd called her Squirt and then left. She had an aching sense of déjà vu.

#

At 7:45 the next morning Jack walked into the hall and knocked on Olivia's door. After last night the connecting passage between their rooms seemed too intimate to use. He needed to put their relationship back on a professional level. He rapped again while balancing several coffees in one hand.

When Olivia opened the door, she was dressed, packed and ready to leave. "Thanks," she said, her gazed aimed at a spot on his shirt.

"I thought we'd get an early start," he explained.

"Sure, no problem. I have an afternoon class anyway."

"No," he said, "actually you don't."

"What do you mean?"

"I've arranged for someone to fill in for you."

The brilliant eyes he admired flashed like green fire. "You got someone to fill in for me?" Her lips thinned and a tiny muscle in her jaw tightened. "How thoughtful. Is there any other rearrangement of my life you'd like to make?"

Good, he thought. He liked her anger better than her disappointment. "I know you don't like it – "

"Hate it," she interrupted.

"Hate it," he corrected, "but it's not practical for you to carry on with your full teaching load while you assist with the case." He eyed her stiff back as she sat at the desk sipping her coffee. "If you want to back out ... "

"Not on your life," she said between clenched teeth.

She finished the coffee, left a few bills for house cleaning, and wheeled her luggage out the door. She waited for him by the elevator. "I've already checked out."

"Good. Let's get going then."

They traveled down to the parking garage in silence. "A deputy delivered the car early this morning." Jack unlocked the trunk and stowed their luggage.

For the first hour on the drive back to Sacramento they seldom spoke and when they did, they tap danced around the real issue. He didn't blame her for being angry. He'd opened a door for her and then slammed it in her face. She had every right to be furious with him. He hadn't explained a damn thing about his life during the past seventeen years. Given her no inkling of his true nature. Of the violence he'd committed. Or the blood on his hands.

The call from Slater came just as Jack dropped Olivia off at the university to retrieve her car. After a short exchange, Jack disconnected. "There's been a new development."

Olivia flung a startled glance his way as if she'd been deep in thought on another matter. "What? What development?"

"Another death. Get your stuff settled here and at home and meet us at the court house," he instructed. "I'll get there as soon as I can. ADA Torres and I are interviewing Diego Vargas this morning." He hesitated. "A woman's body was found in the lions' habitat at Samuel Brannan Zoo."

"My God," she whispered.

He took in her shocked expression and pale face. "You know the place?"

"It's around the corner from my house."

Chapter Sixteen

Jack’s federal badge easily got him into the Bigler County District Attorney's Offices, a brand-new building where he took the elevator to the fourth floor. He stood at the entrance to a conference room where Isabella Torres sat in one of several cushy chairs around the table, waiting for the meet with Councilman Diego Vargas.

"Got a minute?" Jack asked, standing in the doorway. He quickly filled her in on the death of the young woman at the zoo, the latest one in the DLK case.

Shock registered in Torres' dark eyes. "So soon?"

He nodded.

"Still, it could've been an accident," she suggested after a moment. "The girl slipped and fell over the railing?"

"You don't believe that."

He watched her cover her eyes with her hand as he stepped into the room. "Another thing."

She looked up, checked her watch. "You’ll have to make it quick, Agent Holt."

"Jackson," he corrected, smiling. "Here's the deal. When you interview Vargas, I don't want you to mention the hookers from Maidu."

After a long pause she said, "What do you know about my interviewee and why shouldn’t I ask him about the prostitutes?"

"Vargas could be involved in my case, and if he is, I don’t want to give him a heads up." "That’s ridiculous. I'm looking at Vargas for domestic violence."

"Ah, but Sac County's investigating for campaign fraud and there's some other stuff, right, some of it pretty kinky? Wouldn't you like to get a wire tap on him?"

She frowned in disapproval. "You like playing loose with Fourth Amendment rights, don’t you, Agent Holt?"

"I don’t mind getting my hands dirty when it’s necessary. One of those hookers was nearly beaten to death with the metal end of a golf club."

Torres rose, shoving back from her chair. "Vargas may have beaten a prostitute, but that doesn’t tie him to your Dead Language Killer." She angled her head at him. "Are you suggesting that Vargas is your killer?"

He didn't answer her question. "Doesn't it intrigue you that Diego Vargas’ reach is so extensive and so uncontrollable?"

"It's impossible."

He gripped the chair back and leaned forward. "Wouldn't you like to nail him for every illegal act he's ever committed?"

Jack knew Torres wanted Vargas badly. During the tape of her single interview with the councilman, he'd been suavely polite, acting the perfect gentleman, revealing absolutely nothing. "Come on, drugs, gangs, and violence. Why not murder hiding behind that slick mask?"

He watched her face as she gave in. "All right." She held up a finger like an instructor. "But
I
ask the questions."

Vargas was late, and from the beginning, the interview was rocky. The city councilman sat stiffly across the table from them. A behemoth identified only as Santos leaned against the wall near the door, his arms folded across a massive chest, one foot crossed over the other at the ankles. A bodyguard, Jack suspected. For a man like Santos hands alone were enough.

Torres introduced Jack as her assistant. Vargas bowed his head in an old-world gesture. An American-born Mexican of migrant farm workers, he had the distinction of being the first in his family to attend college. According to his campaign advertisements, he was a true man of the Latin community.

Around five-ten, with a burly girth, he carried his size solidly. On his meaty hands, he wore a wedding band studded with baguette diamonds and a stunning emerald ring. He dressed nattily in a three-piece light-weight wool suit and a white dress shirt with cuff links that matched the stone in his ring.

Vargas brushed a manicured hand through a mass of thick black hair and then tugged at his mustache. He had the broad, flat nose of a Mexican peasant coupled with the high forehead and cheeks of a Castilian descendant, but underneath it all Jack recognized a civilized
bandido,
a thug beneath the fancy clothes and manners.

"Su desear ser mi commando."
Vargas spread his hands broadly. "Your wish is my command, Ms. Torres. I want to cooperate in every possible way with the authorities."

"Of course." Torres fiddled with her pencil for a moment, and after a few benign questions, said, "Tell me about your childhood, Councilman."

"Mi familia?"

"Yes, your family. Tell me about life growing up the youngest son of alien workers."

Jack noted the negative connotation of the term "alien."

The ruddy flesh of Vargas' neck deepened and he made a circular gesture with his head, as if to release the tight collar of his shirt. "My parents were migrant farm workers, hardly alien."

She'd touched on a sore spot, Jack thought. Now she was getting somewhere. He glanced at the bodyguard who stared back flatly, but otherwise hadn’t moved.

"And did you work with your parents in the fields?" Torres continued.

"They wanted me to be educated. They did not wish for me to do menial labor."

"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.