Crime Zero (11 page)

But then over breakfast Matty had given Decker the sealed letter delivered by Axelman's lawyer, and the doubts had come flooding back. Decker had read Axelman's handwritten confession with growing horror, and Matty had sensed his shock. But when Matty asked what was wrong, Decker refused to elaborate. What Axelman had written about Decker's mother and father was so preposterous, so poisonous that he couldn't tell or indeed ask Matty about it. Not until he had to.

The letter had been clever because only half of it related to him, explaining why Axelman couldn't talk to Decker yesterday and detailing why he believed he was Decker's father. The other half contained the revelation Axelman wouldn't give yesterday--namely, the general whereabouts of the twelve girls he had abducted. To complicate matters, Axelman had also confessed to murdering a thirteenth victim and indicated that this girl's parents unwittingly knew the exact location of all the bodies.

It was these final revelations that meant Decker couldn't just crumple up the poisonous letter and throw it away. He was professionally obliged to acknowledge this information and check it out and then share it with the rest of the FBI. But Decker didn't want Axelman's sick little joke made public in the bureau yet. Not until he'd made more sense of what currently lacked any semblance of sense at all.

His first thought had been to go to the San Francisco FBI field office and use the computer to check out the facts on the thirteenth victim. But then he'd remembered that although Rosenblum had lodged yet another appeal, Axel-man's execution date was scheduled for today. So he had rushed to San Quentin.

Squinting in the bright light, Decker parked his rental car in the visitors' parking lot. As he killed the ignition, his cell phone rang. He picked up and heard the deputy director on the line. "Spook, it's Bill McCloud. I hear the Tice hearing went well yesterday."

"He's not going to be able to kill anyone else, Bill, if that's what you mean."

"That'll do for me."

Decker liked Deputy Director Bill McCloud. The laid-back Texan was a healthy foil to the chilly absolutism of Director Naylor. McCloud had once worked in the behavioral sciences unit and campaigned hard to maintain its budget and status within the bureau, which is why he couldn't afford to lose Decker and had refused to accept his resignation.

"How did your meeting with Axelman go? Her man Jackson told Director Naylor about it. And for some reason she's taken an interest in what you found out." McCloud always called Assistant Director William Jackson her man Jackson. Jackson had no real role that Decker could make out except spying for Director Naylor and carrying out her dirty work. He was universally hated and feared within the bureau. "Perhaps she values your famed psychological powers after all."

Decker hesitated, feeling the letter in his jacket.

"I assume you struck out with him, nothing new, huh?" said McCloud before Decker could say anything. McCloud threw the words at him, a rhetorical question that required no response. So Decker didn't supply one. "Don't feel bad about it, Spook. That guy was cold, one of the worst. Didn't even know the meaning of the word 'remorse.' "

"You're using the past tense, Bill. I thought he had an appeal."

"Canceled by the governor. He was executed a few hours ago. So, anyway, where are you now?"

Decker took a deep breath and sat back in the car seat. With Axelman dead there was only one way of proving what he'd claimed. Plus he had an overwhelming urge to see him again. "Look, Bill, I need to check a couple of things out for a day or two."

McCloud sighed, and when he spoke again, he sounded suspicious. "You're not still sniffing around Berkeley, are you, Spook? The bureau needs you, boy. Don't you forget that."

Decker wasn't going to be drawn on that issue now. "Bill, I'll keep in touch via our field office here," he said, and hung up. He quickly called Quantico to warn his team that he'd be away for a couple of days. He put the phone away, got out of the car, and walked toward the prison gates, mentally ticking off the little he knew.

Axelman was a classic sociopath, controlled, self-centered, and vain. He was incapable of showing any empathy for his victim's pain or remorse for his actions. He had killed twelve girls and delighted in keeping the whereabouts of their bodies a secret. Every psychological test showed that Axelman had no real fear of death or punishment.

Yet yesterday he had looked like a physical wreck. He had acted completely out of character, hysterical with guilt and shame. And last night Axelman had arranged through his lawyer to deliver a sealed letter to Decker, a letter containing personal details of why he had chosen to confess to Decker and a full confession indicating where the twelve bodies were buried--plus the existence of a thirteenth body.

Now the man was dead, and the answers died with him.

Decker felt torn as he approached the guards' window by the main door. The professional in him calmly tried to figure out how a man incapable of remorse could suddenly become so consumed by guilt that he confessed all. But on a personal level Decker ruminated on Axelman's outlandish paternity claim. It was no longer enough that Axelman was unable to prove he was Decker's father. Decker now had to disprove it.

Clarence Pitt was one of the guards manning the gate. He looked bored and smiled when he saw Decker. "Hey, Decker, what are you doing back here? This place is becoming like FBI central. Had the big boss herself in earlier."

"Director Naylor was here? Do you know why?"

"Nope. But I guess it had something to do with watching that Axelman guy meet his maker."

Decker frowned but said nothing. It was hardly usual for the FBI director to attend the execution of a killer.

"That's what I'm here for, Clarence. I need to see Axel-man's body."

Pitt checked a computer screen to his right and screwed up his face in a pained grimace. "The Axelman stiff's been flagged. That means the warden wants it left alone. You got authorization?"

"Come on, Clarence, don't make me go through all the paperwork. I just want to look at the body. I saw him yesterday when he was alive. What harm can it do if I see him today when he's dead? Five minutes is all."

Pitt scowled for a bit longer, then pulled out a form from his desk and handed it to Decker. "Sign this, and then if anyone asks questions, it's your butt that gets kicked."

Pitt handed over his post to another guard and led Decker through the entire length of the prison to the hospital building. The only sounds Decker heard as he followed Pitt down four flights of steps and walked along the white tiled corridor to the morgue were the occasional shouts of far-off human voices, the click-clack of heels on the tiled floor, and the whispered rustle of Pitt's starched uniform.

Turning through an arch, the guard pointed at a pair of swinging doors. "This is it," he said, pushing them back. As he did so, Decker was hit by a wave of cool air reeking of chemicals. Inside was a large white room. The floor and the lower two thirds of the wall were tiled. Two stainless steel autopsy tables dominated the middle of the room, and an unoccupied gurney stood on one side. Along the far wall were three basins. Part of the left wall was made up of stainless steel drawers. A skinny guy in a soiled white coat stood by the drawers mopping the floor. Walking over to him, Pitt introduced Decker. "Steve, this here is Special Agent Decker. He's from the FBI. He needs to see the Axelman stiff." Pitt left him then, telling Decker he'd be back in exactly five minutes.

With the casualness of a clerk locating frozen peas in a grocery store, Steve wandered over to the row of stainless steel drawers and pulled out number seven. Extended to its full length, the drawer acted as a table, displaying its contents. The body lay on its back, a sheet loosely draped over it.

Steve picked up a tag next to the corpse's head, then read in a bored voice, "Executed on Thursday, October thirtieth, at seven twenty-three A.M. Cause of death: asphyxiation from gas." Steve checked his watch. "I got to go clean up a few things. What else you need to know?"

Decker continued to stare at the contours of the shrouded corpse below him. "Nothing."

"OK, I'll leave you to it. But you better hurry. This one's on a fast track for cremation pretty soon."

As the sound of the man's footsteps receded, Decker tried to maintain some professional detachment. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the sheet back off the head.

Luke had seen many corpses in his life, but rarely one so white before. The man's face had the pasty bluish pallor of soft cheese. Luke examined Axelman's face more closely, trying to see any likeness in the features. The more he looked, the more he imagined his own features reflected there, the high cheekbones, the wide forehead. He reached forward to open one eyelid, revealing a cloudy iris as green as his own. Then he pulled the sheet back farther and reached for one of the hands, comparing his with the cold digits curled on the slab. There was only one way to be certain.

With careful fingers he plucked three hairs from the dead man's head, checking that each follicle was still intact. He stared at the bare patches of scalp, amazed how much hair the man had lost since his recent file photograph. Placing the hairs in a small plastic evidence bag, Decker again studied Axelman's face, this time staring at the unusually pale, acne-pitted skin. It was as white as the victims he had examined in the past who had bled to death.

Suddenly wishing his task over, he pulled the sheet off the body. At first he couldn't see the wound, because it was detectable only by what had been removed. Grimacing, he moved down the drawer and examined the jagged, torn flesh beneath the gray penis lying inert on the man's left thigh.

The scrotum was missing, severed by what must have been a dull blade. By the look of the wound Decker guessed it had been done before the execution. But it was still recent, and there were flakes of congealed blood on the hairs of Ax-elman's inner thigh. Peering more closely, he studied the angle and nature of the purple cuts and the surrounding bruises.

Decker straightened then and tried to mimic the cutting action required to make such a rough laceration. It wouldn't be the first time a convict had been castrated in jail by vindictive or vengeful inmates. But Decker couldn't see how any other inmates could have reached him on the row. He didn't believe the guards would have done this either. And however Decker tried, he couldn't get the required angle to duplicate the wound. Then, with an insight that chilled his blood, he mimed one more series of movements, and the angle of the ripped cuts tallied perfectly.

Karl Axelman had inflicted this on himself.

It was incomprehensible and went way beyond mind games. Why had a serial killer notorious for his lack of remorse castrated himself? What could have motivated Axel-man to do this?

Hearing footsteps approaching, Decker quelled his feelings of disgust and reached out to pick two small flakes of blood off Axelman's inner thigh. The hair follicles would be enough for the paternity test, but blood could tell him much more. His fingers brushed the corpse's flesh, and the cold, waxy texture sent a shudder through him. Quickly he placed the flakes of blood in the evidence bag with the hair and put the bag in his pocket.

When Steve returned, Decker asked him about the wound. The morgue attendant gave an uninterested shrug and pulled the sheet back over Axelman's face. "That's the way he was when he came down here. You'd be surprised what happens to folks before they go to the chamber. I just deal with 'em after they come out."

"How often do they come down with their balls cut off?"

"Not often enough in my opinion," said Steve, looking suspiciously at Decker. It was a look Decker had seen on the faces of countless witnesses. It said: "I'm not involved in any of this shit and don't want to be. So stop asking your fool questions." Then Steve smiled a thin "fuck you" smile. "The warden's coming down soon to authorize the body for cremation and possible autopsy. You can ask him about what happened to his balls if you like."

Decker smiled. "That's OK." The last thing he wanted now was to have to explain to the warden what he was doing here. He had got what he came for. "Thanks for your help. I've seen enough."

After a nervous Pitt had walked him back to the main entrance, Decker strolled over to his rental car and tried to collect his thoughts. Something very weird was going on, but he didn't know what it was. For the time being he would focus on the one thing that really mattered: checking the validity of Axelman's letter--particularly Axelman's claim to be his father and the revelations on the whereabouts of the bodies, including a thirteenth victim.

Holding the transparent evidence bag up to the light, Decker studied the flakes of blood and three hairs. Then he pulled another evidence bag out of his jacket pocket and plucked two hairs from his own head. Ensuring that the roots were intact, he placed them in the empty bag. Placing each bag in separate pockets, he thought of what to do next.