The Avenger

by Jo Robertson

  Sunlight dappled dust motes through the wooded blinds and across the oiled tablecloth. Tension darkened Olivia's eyes to the color of primeval forests and she clenched her fists on the vinyl tablecloth, warily examining him as he sat opposite her.

  "What's wrong?" he asked after the waitress brought water and left menus.

  Olivia didn't answer immediately, but hunched her shoulders beneath the salmon-colored sweater set that complemented her dark hair. Jack noted her ringless fingers and the utilitarian watch on her left wrist.

  The waitress, a lanky, bleached blonde, whose black and white uniform strained against her breasts, returned to take their order. She pulled a pencil from behind her ear. "What can I get you folks?"

  "Just coffee and sour dough toast," Olivia said.

  "Make that two," Jack added.

  The waitress nodded and walked away to place their meager order on the metal roundel.

  Apparently Olivia wanted to make small talk before she broached the subject on her mind because after a few moments, she led with, "What made you go into government work?"

  "The condensed version is college, marines, government service."

  She glanced at his hands. "No wife? No children?"

  He shook his head, taking her meaning. "I wouldn't wear a ring anyway."

  She looked surprised. "Why not?"

  "Too revealing. I prefer to give as little information as possible about myself."

  Olivia stared at him over the rim of her water glass, reminding him of a time when keeping secrets was foreign to both of them, and they'd virtually poured out their young hearts to each other. "Tell me about the case," she said, setting down her glass.

  "First, why don't you tell me why you called?"

  A pretty flush crept up her neck into her cheeks. He waited easily while she struggled with her words. Patience had always come easy for him. Patience and a stubborn doggedness that made him a tough opponent.

  The waitress set their toast orders down and poured coffee. "Anything else?"

  Jack shook his head and kept his eyes trained on Olivia.

  She cleared her throat. "I think a student of mine is in trouble."

  He'd expected many things. Her tearing into him was high on the list, followed by anger, accusation, questions. God, lots of questions. She had the right to ask and demand answers. But the unexpected twist caught him off guard.

  "Your student?"

  "Her name is Keisha Johnson and no one's seen her since Friday." She leaned across the table, desperation in her voice. "I'm afraid something awful has happened to her."

  "Has anyone filed a missing persons report?"

  "I thought there was a waiting period."

  "Not in California."

  "Jack," she said, a hitch in her voice, "she's barely nineteen, a freshman. I don't think she'd take off like this without telling anyone."

  Olivia could see Jack's razor-sharp mind calculating the possibilities. She breathed out a sigh of relief. Jack knew what to do. He'd help.

  "You talked to her friends?" he asked. "Her family?"

  "She's from New York. She wasn't planning to go home until winter break." She stirred the coffee and ignored the toast. "I didn't want to be hasty and worry her parents." She lifted one shoulder. "You know, in case it turns out to be nothing."

  "But you don't think it's nothing."

  She shook her head. "Keisha's very responsible. Her roommate said she went out Friday night, wouldn't say where, just that she'd be back late."

  Jack narrowed his eyes. "Sometimes girls go to a party and don't come back for a few days."

  Olivia held his eyes stubbornly. "This girl's not flaky, she's fast-tracked in her department, and she's on a full-ride scholarship. She's the golden girl. She wouldn't go on some wild, unplanned trip without telling someone. I know something's happened to her."

  Jack nodded as if he believed her and took a small spiral notepad and pen from his inside jacket pocket. "Description?"

  The waitress swept by their table, poured more coffee, and slapped the check on the table.

  "Mixed race, African-American and Islander, I think," Olivia said. "She's about five-foot two, long dark hair, naturally curly, brown eyes."

  "I'll check it out, see what I can find," he said after she'd given him the rest of the particulars. He put the pen and notebook back in his jacket. "Now what are you willing to do in exchange for my help?"

  She'd expected nothing less than bartering, but Jack's words, stated so baldly, made her flinch. She leveled a hard look at him, feeling her temper rise. The chasm of the lost years and their disconnected lives widened another mile.

  "You really are a bastard, aren't you," she said evenly.

  His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Didn't you expect a quid pro quo?"

  Two could play this game, she thought, and put on her bitch face. "Of course," she said smoothly, "I wouldn't expect you to do a favor without getting something in return."

  "Good, then," he said. "You won't be sorry."

  "I doubt that," she muttered. She was sorry already. "Okay, tell me about this Invictus. A kind of government organization, right?"

  He nodded. "Of sorts."

  "You wanted to change the world," she murmured, feeling a little sad, "work for the rights of the underdog. Now you're part of the establishment."

  "Life changes a man."

  "That sounds like a bumper sticker," she chastised, frowning. "So, what exactly do you want me to do?"

  "I need your specialized help with the notes."

  "Notes?"

  "The killer left behind two notes, both written in Latin."

  "That's odd. Latin's so – "

  "Dead?"

  "No one speaks it, but English is rich in Latin references, not to mention the cultural influence." She set her lips in a serious line. "I wasn't putting Mr. Higgins off when I said the university doesn't allow outside consultations."

  "I'll take care of that."

  "How?" she scoffed "By strong arming the Catholic Church?"

  "Don't worry about it. I've got it covered."

  Exasperated by his arrogance, she caught her lower lip between her teeth. "What exactly do you think I can do for Invictus?"

  "Work with us on the translations, maybe create a profile of the writer. There's probably something we've missed from the original cases, maybe a clue in the notes. We had our own people on it, but they're profilers, not linguists."

  He paused as if weighing his words. "Four years ago, we had three… unusual murders. Recently we had a similar murder in Utah. I just came from that crime scene. Finally, we got a lead that the killer may be in California."

  A sliver of ice ran down Olivia's spine. "But no one's died, right?" Her words fell over themselves. "I didn't hear anything in the news. Could this be related to Keisha's disappearance?" She heard the raw panic in her voice and fought to control it.

  Jack examined her calmly. "Not likely, that'd be a monumental coincidence, don't you think?"

  "I never used to believe in coincidence." Olivia's mind rattled with dread, and the clutch of irrational fear grabbed at her throat. She looked into his hard, obsidian eyes.

  Until you came back here, she thought.

  Tuolumne County, California

  Chapter Eight

  Dragging the body down the basement steps was no easy task. Long and bony, the body was heavier than it looked and handling it strained the Avenger's muscles. Avenger. A self-appointed title, but an apt one. He smiled behind the Inquisitor's mask.

  Dumping his awkward load in the basement alcove, he gazed around.

  Perfect.

  He trailed his fingers over the thick, moist walls. Even if someone lived within a five-mile radius of the building – and no one did – the sounds would be muffled by these ancient, fortified barriers. The access windows high at the north end of the room were boarded up with strips of lumber criss-crossed in irregular patterns. A solitary light bulb dangled from the ceiling, casting a
dim glow over the room.

  Trudging up the rail-less, wooden steps, he retrieved his tools from the first floor rectory. By the time he returned to the basement and finished positioning his captive correctly, the young man was awake, eyes wide below the gray slash of tape covering his mouth. The Avenger removed the tape in one quick yank.

  The kid coughed and choked on his saliva as he hung in his upside-down position. Whining like a child already, even though he was at least nineteen or twenty. "Why are you doing this?" His voice was the high pitch of a girl.

  Blood coursed furiously through the captive's body in an attempt to thwart gravity as he hung in his awkward upside down position. It pooled in his cheeks and jutted his forehead into a mass of thick blue veins. The Avenger put forth a finger covered with a purple surgical glove and pushed gently on one ropey pulse at the man's temple.

  How weak and puny, thought the Avenger. A roar stormed though his head, disgust mingling with barely controlled fury.

  "Please, why are you doing this to me?" the kid whimpered.

  "Why do you think?" The Avenger released the words through the mouth cutout of the hooded mask. He wore the Inquisitor's disguise solely for the macabre effect, to terrorize the kid, who would never survive to identify his punisher. It worked beautifully.

  "Why do you think you're here… " He waved both arms around the church basement room. "Why this holy place?" He peered closely into the kid's mottled face and smirked, "Or should I say this unholy place?"

  "I don't know, man. You're talking crazy. Please let me go. I don't know why you're doing this." Snot and tears mingled as they streamed from his face and nose, downward to gather in his hairline.

  "You don't know why I'm doing this," the Avenger mimicked, voice pedantic, lecturing like a school teacher. He tapped a wooden peg against the gloved palm of his left hand. "Because I can," he continued softly, "because I'm the only one who can."

  The kid's blue eyes flashed momentarily, showing a fleeting remnant of spirit. "That's not an answer," he spat. "That's an excuse."

  "Whatever you call it doesn't matter, Carl."

  The captive's body jerked in surprise, and his freckles stood out in stark relief on his pale face. "How do you know my name? Who the hell are you?"

  "Tsk, such language. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" The hooded man laughed. "No, you've done far worse things with your mouth. Hmmm?" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter anyway, Carl," he repeated. "The only thing that matters is that your eternal soul is no longer in jeopardy. You'll be saved." He gestured broadly with both arms, a ringmaster opening the circus.

  A flicker of hope danced in the kid's eyes. "Saved? What do you mean? Saved from what?"

  The Avenger moved to the wooden table top where he'd placed his tools. He caressed the instruments, picking them up and examining them one by one, his fingers finally coming to rest on the particular tool designed to complement the wooden peg he already held.

  The hammer was crafted entirely from oak, not a single piece of metal used in the making of it. Although it was clumsy by modern standards, he liked the heft of it in his palm. The other two pegs matched the one he held. All three had been fashioned with precision for size and sturdiness and were flat at one end, wickedly pointed at the other.

  "Saved from what?" the kid screamed.

  "From your sins, of course. What else?"

  The Avenger angled the spiked end of the peg so that the overhead light caught it and cast its shadow against the eastern wall of the basement. The image loomed like a Bunyanesque peg leg. Carl's eyes jumped from the shadow to the wooden nail and back again.

  "What are you going to do?" The bright white of his eyes was illuminated by the single light bulb. "Wait a minute, you said I was saved," he screamed. "What did you mean?"

  The Avenger tested the weight of the hammer.

  "You can't do this! Help, somebody help me!" Carl's voice reverberated off the cement walls of the musty room while he struggled against his bindings. His voice finally fell to a whimper as he shrank from his attacker. "Somebody please help me."

  The Avenger bent toward the kid's face, turning his head at an awkward angle so he could stare into the boy's eyes from the upside-down position. Arms splayed straight out from his sides and feet bound with a thick strand of rope tied to the other end of the wooden beam, he hung like a perverted icon.

  "I was going to do this in the traditional manner," the Avenger explained, indicating Carl's upended position on the cross, "but the message needs to be very clear."

  "What message? What are you friggin' talking about?"

  The man appeared surprised. "Why, the message of redemption, what else? The blessed message of salvation. Are you a good Catholic, Carl? If you are, you should know all about redemption and atonement. Sinners have to pay the price for their sins."

  "What sins? What did I do?" he babbled. "For God's sake, man, I didn't do anything."

  "Shush, Carl. Calm yourself. You don't want to meet your Maker like this."

  The man reached for the wide gray electrical tape and replaced the thick strip over the kid's mouth. "Sorry I have to do this, Carl. This old church is pretty isolated, but I don't want to risk someone hearing your noise."

  The victim thrashed around, straining at the thick ropes that bound his wrists and ankles to the crude wooden cross. The man carefully placed the first wooden peg at the center of the right wrist. Two pegs left for the task ahead, one for the other wrist, the final one for the feet. He hoped the third peg, the longest and thickest, was strong enough for the crossed feet.

  Raising the hammer, the Avenger began his work.

  Chapter Nine

  Just as he reached the turnoff to Placer Hills, Sheriff Benjamin Slater's pager beeped. He flipped open his cell phone and punched in the number of his dispatcher and all-around assistant. "What's up, Connie?"

  "Barrington wants you to call him ASAP."

  "How's he sound today?"

  A snort came over the line. "Prissy as usual. And a little pissy to boot."

  Slater liked Connie Glens. She cut right through the bull crap and told it exactly like she saw it. "I'm almost at Blue Canyon Road. Be there in twenty minutes, give or take. Think he can wait that long?"

  "Why not? Give the little prick something to squawk about."

  Slater grinned as he severed the connection. Nobody much liked the recently-elected district attorney of Bigler County, but Connie was outspoken enough to voice her opinion. Slater was forced to be more circumspect. As the county's senior law-enforcement officer, Charles Barrington was his direct superior. And that was just damn bad luck.

  When Slater reached the office shortly after ten, he found Barrington seated behind the sheriff's desk. Ben leaned against the door jamb and amused himself by watching Charlie Barrington's bantam body try to fill up the space of the comfortable leather chair Ben had hauled out of storage when he took over the position as sheriff last year.

  Someone must've told Charlie that all up-and-coming district attorneys wore three-piece Brooks Brothers suits. Today the man was clad in his gray edition, complemented by a maroon striped tie and light paisley handkerchief peeking from the pocket. In the overhead glare of the fluorescent light, his bare head gleamed whitely around the pathetic strands of a sandy-haired comb over.

  Barrington crossed his legs at the knee and fiddled with the mouse on Slater's desk, glancing at the computer screen as it lighted up to reveal last year's budget report.

  "Can I help you with something, Mr. District Attorney?"

  Barrington jumped like a high-strung yapper dog and shoved the mouse away as if it were a dead rat. "Uh, Slater. I, uh, I need to talk to you immediately."

  Barrington rarely called Slater by his title, almost as if he disliked conceding the position held by former Sheriff Xavier Marconi, who'd left office suddenly before his term was over. Slater didn't mind the disrespect, but he noted it.

  The district attorney frowned, the expression making h
im look like a chubby-faced baby about to throw a temper tantrum. "Didn't you get my ASAP message?"

  "I'm here now. What do you want?" Slater eased into the room and towered over the little man. Barrington stood, but immediately sat down again when he noticed the disparity in their heights. Slater grinned and threw himself into the guest chair opposite his desk. Once he was seated, apparently Charlie felt secure enough to rise. He bounced his fingertips together several times like a professor ready to launch a lecture. Slater sighed, recognizing the signs, and not eager to waste time listening to Barrington's drivel.

  "The government wants our help in a matter," Barrington said, pacing around the office and tapping his fingertips together.

  "The federal government?"

  "Of course." Barrington frowned. "What else?"

  Slater shrugged. Nothing else, but he liked getting a rise out of the little man.

  "Whatever. The call I got came directly from Washington." He slipped a sly look Slater's way, apparently expecting him to be impressed.

  "Washington state?"

  "D.C.," Barrington snapped. "I want to be sure you understand how important cooperating with federal agencies is to Bigler County."

  Slater figured Charlie was hinting at the case last year when the sheriff's office had moved ahead to track down a serial killer without consulting the FBI. Deputy sheriff at the time, Ben had used his resources to rescue Kate Myers, their forensic psychiatrist and his lover. Kate was on assignment in LA now and he missed her like hell.

  "Sure, I get it." He nodded pleasantly at the DA, wondering mildly what Charlie was getting them into with the feds.

  "Your contact is an Agent Holt, Jackson Holt."

  "What?" Slater leaned forward, thinking Barrington wasn't smart enough to play with his mind like that. Thinking he must've heard wrong. Or at least, the name was a colossal coincidence. Except, he reminded himself, he didn't believe in coincidence. "Are you sure of the name? Jackson Holt?"