Crime Zero (14 page)

"Don't worry, I'll handle it."

A note of panic appeared in Alice's voice. "You aren't going to hurt her, are you?"

"No, of course not," said Naylor. "I'll just make sure she's put somewhere safe until after the election. It's nothing for you to worry about." She looked around the parking lot, searching for Jackson. He should have arrived by now. "It'll look like she's gone away for a short vacation. It's all arranged."

There was a pause. "If it's the only way." Alice looked unhappy but resigned.

"It is, Ali. Trust me, it is. Anyway, we'd better get ready for our meeting with Pamela. I'll see you there."

As Naylor walked back to her official car, two agents, classic G-men in their dark suits and short haircuts, stepped out. The taller agent opened the door for her. But before she stepped in, she watched two other cars enter the lot and park next to each other a short distance away. The first was a gray Chrysler. A powerful black man with a handsome face and fierce eyes sat in the passenger seat, a weasel-faced agent at the wheel. The second car was identical and contained three men.

That was one of the things she most liked about Associate Director William Jackson; he was always exactly where she wanted him to be. Jackson had been with her for years. His team were all highly motivated agents who had faced disciplinary charges in the past that, if pursued, would have landed them in jail for a long time. Naylor had used her influence to lose the charges, and they were now unquestioningly loyal to her. Through the buffer of Jackson they kept her informed of what was happening within the bureau and sorted out any local difficulties without there being any trace back to her.

Jackson and his men didn't leave the cars.

"Banion, get me a phone," she said to the agent holding the car door open for her.

As soon as Naylor was seated in the car and the door closed behind her, a handset was passed to her. She dialed a number. Across the lot she saw William Jackson pick up his cell phone.

"Jackson," he said in a deep, distinctive nasal voice.

"I want you personally to handle this," she said. "Don't forget, only Dr. Peters is to know about it. Don't involve anyone else there." She paused, leveling her gaze at the fierce eyes across the lot. "And, Jackson, don't disappoint me."

Chapter 11.

FBI Field Office, Downtown San Francisco. Thursday, October 30, 1:56 P.M.

Sitting at one of the desks provided for visiting agents, Luke Decker tried to keep his mind off Kathy Kerr's test. Instead he placed his laptop computer into the docking station provided and proceeded to check out the thirteenth victim mentioned in Axelman's letter.

First of all he reread part of the relevant section:

. . . This last girl, the thirteenth, recognized the place I left all the girls. She told me her parents took her to play near there. The tree that covers the entrance to my tunnels was just one of many, but she called it a name. She told me she and her mom called it the Snake Tree. It's in a large forest near their home. Contact the girl's parents; they will know the place. That's where you will find the bodies--all thirteen. That's where I kept them safe.

I don't want you to go straight to the bodies. I want you to approach the parents of this last victim. Please make my peace with them. I will die soon, and only now do I realize what I have done. The knowledge is killing me, but the one thing I cling to is that my evil produced something good. I produced you. Perhaps as my son you can help me find peace by helping me make amends for my crimes....

Decker dropped the letter, an unclean thing, onto the desk. He hated the very notion of somehow helping Axel-man find redemption. Going back to his computer, Decker used slow movements of the mouse to run a search on the FBI case files database, entering the victim's name and abduction date given in the letter. As the files were retrieved, he printed them out on the printer by his desk, favoring the lowest-tech option available.

He pulled the four-page document from the printer and scanned the text. It confirmed that a girl of the same name had been abducted at the time given in Axelman's letter and that her body had never been found. But her disappearance would almost certainly have been reported in the newspapers, so that proved nothing. Decker could visit the girl's family and ask about the tree. But if this was a hoax by Axelman, a clever, cruel attempt to inflict more pain after his death, then Decker wanted no part of it. Instead he read all the available details about the victim and her family and studied the photographic images in the case file. One of the saddest consequences of Decker's work was that whenever he walked down a street and saw a young girl or woman, he unconsciously graded her for risk, instinctively knowing signs of vulnerability. Clothing, age, looks, makeup, bearing, and personality all played their part. Knowing the victim was as important as knowing the killer. The girl in the file photographs was high risk for a person like Axelman. She looked young, pretty, and innocent. It was possible Axelman was telling the truth about his thirteenth victim. But why weren't her personal effects in one of the boxes found in his house?

Decker now used the mouse to move the cursor over the Internet icon and clicked twice. After keying in his America Online password, he used a search engine to enter the area where the thirteenth victim's family still lived. In seconds he was looking at a list of possible data sources. He clicked on one: the Los Altos Verdes Community website. The home page was decorated with a stunning picture of soaring trees in a forest. A forest not unlike the one described in Axel-man's letter.

Los Altos Verdes, San Bruno Mountains,San Francisco Bay Area.One Hour Later

Eight miles from Palo Alto, Luke Decker stood by the rental Ford in a clearing overlooking one of several multimillion-dollar houses that studded the wooded estate of Los Altos Verdes.

From the website he had learned that some thirty years ago these luxury houses had been built over what was once a vast private zoo. Despite the beautiful natural setting, the zoo had fallen on hard times, and eventually the owners had sold out to a real estate company that built ten prime properties on the site, using the existing terrain and replanting new trees. It was a magical place, but the prospect of visiting the house below gave Decker no pleasure. It belonged to the family of the thirteenth victim.

Taking a deep breath, he looked up the hill to the towering trees that lined the denim blue sky. The website had made no mention of any Snake Tree, and if it did exist, then it had to be a name known only to the victim's family. Scanning the oaks, firs, and bay trees, Decker knew he would never find it without their help--if Axelman had been telling the truth.

Telling the truth.

Just the notion that Axelman was telling the truth about anything in his letter was chilling.

Checking his watch, he wandered back to the car and picked his cell phone off the driver seat. He punched in Kathy's number and waited for her to pick up. His heart was pumping so hard he was sure the whispering forest could hear it.

The phone rang five times before it was picked up. With each ring he braced himself for the news.

"Kathy Kerr." Her voice sounded strained.

"Kathy, hi, it's Luke. I was wondering if you had the results yet." There was a pause. "Kathy? Are you there?"

"Sorry, Luke. Yes, I'm here." But she sounded distant as if her mind were elsewhere. "Yes, yes, the samples. I'll just get them. I'm sure they're ready by now."

Her apparent diffidence only made him feel worse. She sounded more focused when she came back on the line. He could hear her fingers tapping on a keyboard. "Luke, hi, I'm now in front of the Genescope. I'm scanning for the top line results and--"

"Yes? What is it?"

"Hang on, let me just double-check something."

He could hear surprise in her voice. If his heart had been beating fast before, it was racing now, a gallop of anticipation. "Well?"

"Luke, is this official?" She sounded guarded.

"What do you mean?"

"The samples in one of the bags you gave me have thrown up a virtual match with a subject on the FBI DNA database. A killer on death row. What's going on here, Luke?"

"Kathy, trust me. You don't want to know. Just tell me. Is there a relationship between the samples?"

"Luke, there's something very weird here--"

"I know that," he almost shouted down the phone. "Is there a goddamn relationship or not?"

A heavy sigh was followed by a long pause. For a heart-wrenching second he thought she was going to hang up. When she spoke again, her voice was calm but strained. "Yes." She seemed unwilling to reveal the results. "According to the Genescope, the samples are from the same family. Father and son."

Decker's knees buckled, and he leaned against the car. On the phone he could hear her fingers tapping on a keyboard. "But, Luke," she was saying, her voice insistent, "there's something really strange here. We need to talk urgently."

He was no longer listening. He had hung up, turned the phone off, and thrown it in the car as if it were somehow contaminated. But the phone wasn't contaminated. He was. His stomach contracted, and he dry-heaved. The words on the letter in his hand swam before his eyes, taunting him.

I asked to see you, because for some reason I suddenly feel real bad about all the things I've done. I thought if I told you--my son--you could help me put things right. But when I saw you today, I couldn't tell you to your face. You looked just like my father. He was a strict man, a religious man, and I felt kind of ashamed.

I've guessed you were my son for months. Ever since I saw your picture in the Examiner after saving some girl in a graveyard. Your face in the picture looked exactly like one of my father when he was about your age. And I remem bered the name. I've got a good memory, too good a memory. I wish I could forget all the things I've done. I raped a woman once near Union Square in San Francisco at about the time that fits with your age. I know her name because her husband tried to help her. He was the only man I've ever killed. According to the papers, he was a Captain Decker in the U.S. Navy, but they never said anything about the woman being raped....

Decker sat on the ground, his back against the car, taking deep breaths. When he looked up, the tall treetops seemed to dance around him, a giddying carousel in the clear sky. Not only was he Axelman's son, but Axelman had killed the man Decker had worshiped as his father all his life. Decker felt his very being called into question. Every constant on which he had based his assumptions of who he was, what he did, and his place in the wider world had been irrevocably destroyed. Even the validity of his work was suddenly doubtful. If Kathy Kerr and Director Naylor were right and humans were little more than their genes, then what did that make him?

Standing up, he replaced the letter in his inside pocket and looked down at the house below. A chill formed in his gut and then spread throughout his body. He got in the car and glanced at the brand-new spade and flashlight he had bought on his way out here, sitting ominously on the rear seat.

He gunned the engine into life and turned the Ford around. Looking into the rearview mirror, he saw two green eyes staring back at him, judging him. And for a second those eyes weren't his at all, but Karl Axelman's.

Chapter 12.

Stanford University, Stanford. Thursday, October 30, 3:12 P.M.

In her laboratory at Stanford University Kathy Kerr sat staring at the Genescope monitor in a state of shock. What the hell was Luke Decker up to?

After her meeting with Madeline Naylor, Kathy had been so furious she'd been unable to concentrate on anything else. But when she calmed down a little, she'd tried to think through the consequences. What would she really achieve by exposing the unauthorized criminal trials? Apart from undermining the credibility of the Version 9 serum she had gained approval for. Not to mention the personal damage she would cause herself. However hard she protested her innocence, she would undoubtedly be tarnished solely by her involvement with Project Conscience. She could kiss good-bye any dreams she might have of fulfilling her ambition of treating violent crime.

But what she saw on-screen in front of her eclipsed these concerns, making them seem academic by comparison. As she studied the DNA profile from the blood flake samples Luke had brought in the first evidence bag and compared it with the matching profile on the FBI DNA database, her anger turned to ice.

The genome of the convicted killer called Karl Axelman had subtly changed.

Switching to voice control, she instructed the Genescope to search Axelman's DNA in chromosome 1. As the lights blinked on the neck of the black swan, there was a grumbling noise, and then its mellifluous male voice said, "Sub-ject's 5-HT1Da receptor gene is instructing boosted serotonin production. Three hundred percent higher than normal levels."