Table Of ContentCrime Zero (1999)
(Aka The Crime Code)
Michael Cordy
*
PROLOGUE:
San Quentin Penitentiary, California. Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 3:11
A.M.
It wasn't his pain that denied him sleep. It wasn't his fear that filmed his
skin in clammy sweat and made him rise from drenched sheets to piss for the
tenth time that night. And it wasn't his suffering that urged him to take his
own life after seven years on death row.
It was their pain that made him do these things, their fear, their suffering.
Something had changed deep within him. He didn't know what it was or
why it had happened, only that it was somehow fundamental, irrevocable.
Karl Axelman had taken many lives in his fifty-six years but had never once
considered taking his own. He had always been untroubled by his past,
savoring his conquests, using his photographic memory to summon up some
exquisite detail of the girls he had raped, tortured, and murdered for his
pleasure. But now their faces came unbidden, tormenting him day and night.
For the first time in his life he could hear their pain, smell their fear, and
understand their suffering.
After returning to the bed in his five-foot-by-ten-foot cell in San Quentin's
East Block, he stared up through the bars at the faulty lamp in the corridor
outside. But he found no comfort in the light. The beacon only exacerbated his
distress, intensifying the gloom that surrounded him.
Sitting up, he looked around the cell that was his universe: the stainless
steel basin and toilet in the corner; the shelf above the sheet metal bed stacked
high with neatly ordered newspapers. He turned to check his pillow again.
Strands of silver flecked the yellowed linen. His thick hair, although silvered
with age, had always symbolized his strength. But now it fell in clumps from
his scalp. His handsome face, once bait for his prey, was pitted with weeping
acne more acute than any teenager's. Yet as he clasped his clammy palms
together and his pounding heart drowned out the sounds of despair from the
neighboring cells, he ignored these physical indignities.
He was aware only of dry-mouthed, heart-palpitating anxiety, an emotion
he had never experienced before. Unwanted images of vulnerable flesh
intruded on his mind, arousing the familiar desire to control and humiliate.
Yet even as his erection hardened, his whole body crawled with revulsion. And
the bile of acid guilt rose in his throat.
Reaching up to the narrow shelf above his bed, Axelman's hands shook as
he selected a copy of the San Francisco Examiner. Except for a shoebox at
one end, the shelf was bowed beneath the weight of crisply folded newspapers.
Knowing what was happening in the outside world had always given Axelman
a sense of control, allowing him to imagine he was influencing events. But no
more.
Carefully unfolding the paper, he ignored the warmongering headlines
about Iraq and the latest polls on the first ever female presidential candidate
running for office in a week's time. These issues no longer concerned him. He
would be gone by then. There was only one issue to resolve.
He turned to page three of the paper and studied the flash photograph of a
man carrying a naked girl wrapped in his jacket out of a cemetery late at
night. The headline said: FBI MIND HUNTER SAVES VICTIM NUMBER
FOUR. Axelman stared at the man. Then he reached for the shoebox
containing all the personal belongings he was allowed to keep with him. The
old faded color photograph was on the top of the letters and other
paraphernalia. Squinting in the flickering light, he compared the faded
photograph with the newspaper picture, as he had done countless times before.
Finally he reread the text in the article, noting once again the age and the
surname.
Axelman sighed. He was sure he was right. But even if he was wrong, he
would still confess all the details to this FBI agent for the first time. He had
once savored frustrating the police and prolonging the mourning and pain of
the relatives by keeping the location of the bodies to himself. But now their
pain was his pain, and he could no longer keep the information secret. This
man could do something with the knowledge.
Listening for the footsteps of approaching guards, Axelman carefully
replaced the photo and newspaper. He then knelt on the floor and lifted one
corner of the bed. After slipping two long fingers into the hollow base of the
tubular leg, he extracted a steel belt buckle from the chewing gum wedging it
in place. The pin had been removed from the large biker's buckle, leaving a
squared-off figure of eight about two inches wide and three inches long.
The buckle had cost six packs of cigarettes eighteen months ago, and the
con who had sold it to him had smiled while pocketing the Marlboros. With no
pin the buckle was useless and harmless. But over time he had chamfered one
beveled outer edge against the concrete floor, the iron bed, and even the bars
of his cell, filing the end into a crude but keen blade. At first, sharpening the
steel buckle was something to do, a small act of rebellion, but now it had taken
on a new significance.
Sitting on the bed, he passed his thumb over the nicked edge of the blade
and drew blood. His atrophied testicles involuntarily retreated into his body,
and for a moment Axelman wished he could wait for the executioner. Release
would be so much easier if administered by a different hand. But this wasn't
just about release; it was about punishment. He himself must remove the
source of the dark urges.
Rocking back and forth on the edge of the bed, Axelman didn't bother to lie
down. Sleep wouldn't come, and if it did, he would gain no sanctuary there. He
touched the buckle blade again, strangely reassured by its presence. Soon it
would be dawn, and later he would unburden his soul to the FBI agent. He
could do no more to find peace. After that he would play out the final act. And
then, redemption or no redemption, at least the torture would end.
*
Part 1
Project Conscience
Chapter 1.
His head aches, and he wants to go home, but he still waits in the cemetery
under cover of the short fir tree. The damp bark smells as strong as any
perfume. It is 1:57 A.M. The two San Francisco Police Department officers
left an hour ago. After three days of staking out the area, they and their
replacements have been recalled to follow up other leads. The police say they
will return in the morning, but he knows they have lost the faith. Fourteen-
year-old Tammy Lewis is missing, and they are concerned she will end up like
the other three. Special Agent Luke Decker should leave too; he has only
adviser status here, and other cases are piling up on his desk at Quantico.
But Decker can't go yet. He knows deep in his gut that the killer will return
here at night and bring the girl with him-- perhaps even alive.
The night air is cool on his face, and above him through the branches of
the fir a crescent moon gazes down. Seventeen miles from San Francisco and
nine miles from Oakland, the Gates of Heaven Catholic Cemetery is still.
Nothing moves, and even nearby Interstate 80 is silent.
He retrieves a pair of night vision glasses from his coat and rereads the
inscription on the headstone twenty yards away:
Sally Anne Jennings Taken August 3, 2008 Aged 15 years You were taken
from us too soon. But we shall meet again in a better place.
Decker grinds his jaw, remembering the crime scene photos of Sally Anne's
violated body. The killer's most recent victim must also be his last.
Car tires on gravel break the silence. He turns to his right and sees a
Domino's pizza van pull into the cemetery's deserted parking lot. Sweat breaks
out on his forehead. Decker knows the psychological profile of the killer
because he wrote it. And the pizza van fits. His heart is beating fast now, but
he feels no triumph about being right again, no excitement of the chase, just
weary sorrow and a vague disquiet that he should know the mind of a killer so
well.
A sudden scream from the van rips through the night. It is short and
quickly muffled, but Decker crumples inside, feeling her pain and terror
himself. He reaches for his cell phone and calls the incident number.
He whispers urgently that the suspect is here. He needs backup.
A sleepy detective snaps awake. "Two squad cars will be there in ten
minutes--max," he promises.
The van's rear doors open, and a muscular young man with red hair and a
black T-shirt drags something white out of the back and drops it on the gravel.
Decker realizes then that ten minutes will not be soon enough. The silent white
bundle is moving, and even before he puts the night vision glasses to his eyes,
Decker knows it's a naked girl. Tammy Lewis is gagged and bound, her eyes
round with terror. The young man is strong because he easily lifts her over his
shoulder and carries her toward the cemetery.
Decker reaches for his gun and releases the safety. He has won the FBI
shooting competition at Quantico with the SIG semiautomatic every year for
the last five years. But he dislikes using the gun for real. It means he's failed.
But he has no choice now. If he does nothing, the man will carry Tammy
Lewis to Sally Anne's grave, where he will lay her down, torture, and rape her.
Then, when he is satisfied, he will kill her and defile her body. Decker knows
this with a gut-wrenching certainty as absolutely as if he'd already witnessed
the crime.
He waits for the man to lay Tammy down on the grave and start to untie her
ankles before coming up behind him. Decker is ten feet away when he sees a
knife flash in the man's hand.
"FBI," he shouts. His voice sounds alien in the stillness of the night.
"Drop the knife, put your hands up, and back away from her."
Crouching over his victim, the red-haired man looks over his shoulder, his
long face surprised and uncertain. He hesitates.
"Now," orders Decker. But the man doesn't drop the knife. He turns and
raises it high into the air. The curved blade mirrors the white sickle of the
moon as a bellow of rage cuts through the darkness. Then in one furious
movement he brings it scything down toward the girl with the force of a
guillotine....
"The defense calls Dr. Kathryn Kerr."
It was her name that jolted Luke Decker from the events in the graveyard
nine weeks ago and back to the warm, stuffy chamber of the San Francisco
Court of Appeals. Above the judge's bench the clock showed 10:07 A.M., and
the calendar below it the date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008. The hushed oak-
paneled courtroom carried every sound, but when the woman's name was
called, Decker couldn't believe he'd heard it right.
What the hell was Kathy Kerr doing here?
Reorienting himself, Decker blinked his green eyes and ran a hand through
his cropped blond hair. Shifting in his chair, he looked around the paneled
court. The judge, a bald man with a permanent pained frown, sat at the front
of the chamber with both the prosecution and defense teams arranged facing
him on either side. Decker sat with the prosecution behind the district attorney.
This wasn't a full trial, and there were few people in the public gallery behind
him, except some junior press. No relatives of the dead girls had come, but
Decker gained some satisfaction from noting that Tammy Lewis's family
wouldn't have been among them. At least she had been saved.
Turning to his right, the first person he noticed was Wayne Tice, sitting
