Crime Zero (18 page)

But it was Madeline who had taken the project to the next level. She had been even more excited about it than Alice. In fact her initial reaction was that Conscience didn't go far enough. Over the following months she slowly convinced Alice of the controversial but shockingly logical next step of Crime Zero.

Turning back to the clearing, Alice saw Decker standing motionless in the slanting sunlight, staring at the Snake Tree. No doubt he would call his colleagues soon, and then they would conduct the search. She felt compelled to stay, even though she knew he wouldn't allow her to. She was desperate to find the body. The nightmare of "not knowing" had poisoned the past ten years.

After strolling farther on, she paused behind a bank of bushes and watched Decker walk back to his car. To her surprise he didn't get in and drive off or reach for a phone. Instead he opened the back door and pulled out a spade and a flashlight.

She watched Decker carry the spade on his broad shoulders and switch on the flashlight. Wielding the flashlight like a sword, he cut through the encroaching shadows and moved toward the Snake Tree, its massive trunk silhouetted against the sun.

Chapter 15.

The Snake Tree.Thursday, October 30, 5:47 P.M.

Luke Decker was embarked on a course of action from which he could not deviate. Yet as he approached the looming tree with its serpentine roots, he couldn't remember such fear. A band of steel tightened around his chest, and a film of sweat covered his skin. In his time he had faced all manner of killers, but physical danger had never affected him-- not in the way psychological danger could. Not like now, when he couldn't escape the bizarre notion that somehow he was returning to the scene of his own crimes.

After Decker's breakdown, Sarah Quirke, the FBI shrink at the Sanctuary, had warned him not to inhabit the minds of the killers he hunted so completely, particularly when working simultaneously on a number of traumatic cases. "If you play with too many fires, one of them's bound to burn you," she'd said. He'd always believed he could handle it. Entering a killer's mind didn't mean he had to bring something of him back with him.

Now as he sat down on the roots of the large tree and tried to think the way the killer might have done, he wasn't so convinced. This time the killer had been his own flesh and blood. He was walking in his father's shoes, and he shuddered at the thought of how snug the fit might be.

He began to compile a mental profile from what he remembered out of Karl Axelman's files. The teenage girls had been abducted over a twenty-year period, with at least eighteen months between each one. This meant that the abductions had been planned in meticulous detail, with the stalking and anticipation giving Axelman as much excitement as the eventual act itself. It also told Luke that Axel-man had done something with the bodies that allowed him to visit them again and again, thus enabling him to stave off his need to kill for long periods. It was likely therefore that the bodies had somehow been preserved. Since Axelman was a hoarder, he would have wanted to keep all the bodies intact, not just the most recent kills. That required space, a lot of space.

Decker looked around him and then studied the huge Snake Tree. He stood up and moved around the trunk, tapping the bark for clues, testing for any hollow sounds. Nothing.

It was unlikely that Axelman would have squirreled the bodies in the trunk of the tree; they would have rotted too fast, and wild animals and insects would have eaten them. But in his time Decker had seen stranger hoarding sites.

It was far more likely that Axelman had buried the bodies, perhaps in protective wrapping to prevent the ingress of worms and other predators. But he needed access to them. This place was remote, but people did come here. Axelman would have had to have some means of viewing the corpses without fear of being disturbed. Just the thought of discovery would have seriously inhibited his fantasies and curtailed his enjoyment.

But then Axelman had been a builder. He would have known how to construct some kind of storage facility that he could easily enter and exit without the entrance's being discovered. Decker could only guess at why Axelman had chosen this particular site.

Stepping over the gnarled roots, Decker moved closer into the base of the tree and studied the vast trunk. It was at least eight feet in diameter. From one angle the base of the tree resembled an upside-down Y, as if the tree stood on two squat legs. Walking farther around the trunk, to the side that still caught the last rays of sun, he noticed an area of earth, three feet square, partially sheltered under the low crotch of the two legs. He jabbed the earth with his spade, and the impact jarred his shoulder.

Moving in closer, he scraped away the scrubby grass, leaf litter, and topsoil, revealing dark wood. More roots, he thought, before scraping away a wider area. Gradually he uncovered more wood, until there was a flat platform a yard square. His heart beat faster; the wood was too regular to be natural. Then his spade hit something metallic, and in the dying sunlight he saw a glint of dulled brass. Throwing the spade to the ground, he dropped to his knees and began to brush away the damp dirt from the center of the panel, revealing a brass hand ring lying flat in a brass well. He gripped the ring and pulled it upright, forming a handle. Then he stood and tugged the ring as hard as he could. There was a groan and a creak from the damp wood, and then the panel hinged upward, a trapdoor opening to the underworld.

Grimacing at the stale air that emanated from the hole, Decker reached for the flashlight and shone it down into the dank darkness. To his surprise there was a timber-lined hole that went down about ten feet; an iron ladder was attached to one side. The timber was green with damp, but there was no sign of rot, and the workmanship was impressive.

He found a stick to wedge the trapdoor open, took the flashlight in one hand, and eased himself into the hole. He tested the ladder with his right foot and, when he was convinced it was firm, made his way down into the darkness. At the bottom of the ladder a tunnel gently sloped away from him and away from the tree. The ceiling and walls were made from interlocking beams, and the floor had a matted surface that stopped him from slipping. Every ten yards or so there were perforated panels in the ceiling that looked like ventilation ducts. There was a smell of damp earth and decay.

Tentatively he walked forward into the blackness, his feet testing each step before he trusted his full weight to it. All the time he sought out telltale cracks in the ceiling with his flashlight. But aside from the occasional creak and groan the tunnel appeared robust. Then, after some twenty yards, he turned a bend and came to an abrupt dead end. Using the flashlight, he saw that to his right there were broad concrete steps, leading deeper down. To his left the wall was a square plug of cement, as if the passage to an earlier entrance had been filled in. The wall on each side of the concrete steps was no longer timber but brown tiles caked with mold.

Decker suddenly understood why Axelman had chosen this place. It was part of the old zoo, which had been bulldozed over thirty years ago to make the exclusive estate where Alice Prince lived. Evidently not all of the zoo had been destroyed. The underground sections that didn't interfere with the foundations of the new houses were simply sealed and returned to nature, with new trees planted on top. Axelman had built the wooden tunnel to gain unauthorized access to the sealed area.

The smell coming from the base of the concrete steps was different, no longer earth but something else, a chemical smell Decker recognized but couldn't place. He had encountered it only recently but couldn't remember exactly where. The flashlight shook in his hand as he gradually walked down the steps. He tried to tell himself it was the damp and the cold, but it wasn't.

The beam of the flashlight reflected off a rusting steel sign screwed onto the tiles: REPTILE HOUSE AND AQUARIUM. At the base of the stairs, discarded on the floor, was another sign. Dented and buckled, it was barely legible. CAROLAN CONSTRUCTION was painted in black letters. Axelman must have worked on this area thirty years ago and earmarked it for his own private use. It couldn't have been that difficult to seal the area, as he was contracted to do by his employers, while at the same time making plans for his secret tunnel.

Decker came to a junction in the brown tiled maze. A faded arrow marked AQUARIUM pointed right, and a virtually invisible arrow with illegible markings pointed left. The chemical smell, now so strong it made his eyes water and stung the back of his throat, was coming from the right, from the aquarium. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it over his nose and mouth. Suddenly he remembered where he had last encountered that smell: the morgue of San Quentin. With leaden legs he began to walk toward its source.

A few yards into the aquarium section he realized that the flashlight beam in front of him had narrowed. He must have twisted the end of the Maglite when tying the handkerchief around his face. He quickly adjusted the flashlight, and as the beam broadened, he realized that the corridor had narrowed dramatically, each wall now less than an arm's length away. He also realized that the claustrophobic walls were no longer tiled but smooth.

As smooth as glass.

A chill ran down his spine, and the skin prickled on the back of his neck.

As if chancing upon some slumbering beast, he slowly lowered the beam onto the floor in front of his feet, highlighting the mold-stained tiles. Then, gripping the Maglite white knuckle-tight, he carefully inched the flashlight to his right. Where the floor met the wall there was a strip of chrome and above that a thick black band of rubber. The rubber was a seal, and the smooth reflective material making up the rest of the wall was a plate of thick glass. Moving along the base of the glass, he saw a typed label. It didn't identify the species of some rare fish or carry notes on its preferred diet and geographical origin. There was simply a name, a date, and a location.

"Mandy James. April 7, 1979. Sausalito."

Decker could hardly breathe, his chest was so tight and the smell so noxious. He remembered the girl's name from the Axelman case files. She had been one of his earliest victims, and her belongings had been found in a box at his house in San Jose. On autopilot Decker moved the flashlight upward, its beam shining through the glass into the greenish, clear liquid beyond.

The first thing he saw in the ghostly green light was Mandy James's foot, a rope attached to her right ankle, anchoring her to a heavy rock on the base of the tank. Moving the light farther upward, he saw the rest of her naked body, floating perfectly preserved in the formaldehyde.

Pressing a hand to his mouth, he switched the light off; he couldn't bear to see the girl's face. He turned away and stood in the dark, leaning with his forehead pressed against the opposite wall, forcing down the rising bile in his throat. Gradually he regained control and straightened up. Not daring to turn around, he switched the flashlight back on.

In that instant his blood ran cold. Staring out at him was a face so heartbreakingly beautiful and so wide-eyed with terror that he could only scream and run. Disoriented in his panic, he ran as fast as he could down the dark corridor. As he ran, the beam of his flashlight flailed wildly, cutting through the darkness, to reveal the horrific tableaux on both sides of him. An avenue of glass formaldehyde tanks, each containing the perfectly preserved body of a young woman. Typed names and contorted faces, names and faces he remembered from the files, were intermittently thrown up in the beams of light.

Only when he reached a tiled wall on his left did he realize that he had run the wrong way. Standing panting in the dark, focusing on the tiles, he capped a hand over his mouth and took deep breaths of his own exhaled carbon dioxide. Gradually his heart slowed. To find the exit, he would again have to run the grisly gauntlet of bodies in the dark. He looked around for an alternative.

Turning slowly to the opposite wall of the corridor, he saw that it was also tiled. A red kerosene can sat on the floor, and halfway up the wall he noticed a box with a red button and lever protruding from the front. Calming himself, he steadied the flashlight and read the bold red letters above the top. FUEL-POWERED GENERATOR. TO START: PUSH BUTTON AND HOLD FOR TEN SECONDS BEFORE PULLING LEVER. Taking a deep breath, he followed the instructions and after two attempts heard a motor starting up. Suddenly the protective darkness was gone, and the full horror of his surroundings was illuminated by a row of lamps along the ceiling of the corridor, a light shining out from each tank. But at least in the light he could prepare himself for the sights around him.

He was in the middle of Axelman's horrific collection. To his right, toward the exit, there were ten tanks, five on each side. Each contained one of the abducted girls, in chronological order of abduction. To his left there were a further ten tanks, but only three were full. The other seven were no doubt reserved for subsequent acquisitions. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he walked past the last pair of victims to the final occupied tank. On the tiled floor in front of it was a cardboard box similar to those found in Axelman's house, and in it were a set of moldy clothes, some sneakers, and a pair of thick eyeglasses. There was also an audiotape with a name scribbled on it. He now knew why Karl Axelman had never been a suspect for Libby Prince's abduction. All her personal effects were here.