by Terry Hayden
The newspaper editor in Charlotte seemed to have a sixth sense about the new series of murders. Somewhere in the deepest reaches of his soul, a voice told him that the very same man who was responsible for the killings in Charleston, was also the Waterfront Killer, and the killer from the train that left from Burlington. He had always followed his hunches and they were usually right on the money. He decided that the best thing for him to do was to go to Charleston and do some digging around for himself.
Unlike the Charleston police, he would have a head start on finding the illusive killer. He had all of the background information from Wilmington, plus profile data from the best psychiatrist in Charlotte. The doctor told him that the killer would strongly resemble his victims. He would be some type of laborer or blue collar worker, and more than likely, he worked not far from the area where the murders always took place. He would likely pose the biggest threat when he was on familiar ground, otherwise he would be shy and insecure. The killer would be convinced that he was not doing anything wrong. In fact, he would feel like he was performing a service to society. He would think that he was weeding out the bad to make way for the good. The only aspect of the murders that had the doctor confused was the reason why the killer had changed from using a gun to using his hands to murder the men. It was not that unusual for a killer to move from one city to another, but it was highly unusual for him to change his methods. The doctor warned the editor that he was dealing with a very dangerous man who felt like he had nothing to lose. He warned the editor to let the police do their job because the killer was obviously very deranged.
The editor was a tough old bird who was headstrong and stubborn to a fault. He felt responsible for his reporter’s death, and he wanted to find some closure not only for himself, but for his reporter’s family. He had been in the newspaper business for many years and he had the scars toprove it, but before he went out to pasture, he had to finish his job. He wished that he had gotten out of the business five years earlier when he turned sixty-five, but now he would not rest until the killer was captured either dead or alive.
How was a seventy year old man with the rugged looks of a mountain man, and the disposition of a mountain goat, supposed to go about finding a killer on the coast of South Carolina? Instead of looking for a needle in a haystack, he was going to be in search of a grain of sand in the great sandbox called Charleston. He could narrow the search area to the waterfront, and more specifically the Battery section, and he had a general description of what the killer would look like. But the possibilities would still be endless, and his chance for success would be slim at best. But still he had to try before he could ever enjoy the years that were left in his life. He would always even if he lived to be a hundred, hear the sad cries of the children who lost their father to the sick man who was still on the loose in a genteel southern city.
The reporter in him naturally wanted to know the answers to many questions. Where did the killer come from? How did he ever grow up to be such a cruel and sadistic man? Was his childhood so bad that he grew up thinking that life was cheap and meaningless? Did he come from a family who did not love him, or did he grow up alone and friendless? Something devastating had to have occurred in his life to create the monster who preyed upon his own kind. Whether the newsman inside of him found out the answers to all or even any of the questions or not, the hard headed detective in him would do his damndist to put an end to the nightmare of the Waterfront Killer.
The editor placed a phone call to the railway station in Charlotte.
“I need a one way ticket to Charleston please, as soon as possible.”
The voice on the other end of the telephone line made him wait until the ticket was processed. In less than three minutes the voice came back on the line.
“Yes sir. The name on the ticket is Wilson, Jack Wilson. Tomorrow, nine a.m. to Charleston. Yes sir, I’ll be there by eight. Yes. No, thank you. Goodbye.”
All that he had to do now was to pack his bag for the trip. He would not be back in Charlotte until something wasresolved one way or the other with the killer.
**********
William woke up that same Friday morning well before daybreak, and with a terrible headache. It used to be very unusual for him to wake up like that, but in the last several months he had been waking up at least once a week with a grinding pain behind his eyes. It had gotten so bad and they were coming so frequently, that he bought the largest bottle of aspirin that the local drug store carried. He kept them on his bedside table with a glass of water close by. Thank goodness he could take three or four of them and then go back to sleep. Hopefully by the time that he had to get up to go to work, he would be feeling better.
For no good reason, he remembered Eunice talking about how dangerous that people used to think that aspirin were. When her family was so deathly sick with the flu back in 1918, the doctor warned them not to take an aspirin unless it was absolutely necessary. It would not have really mattered how many aspirin that they did or did not take, the results would have surely been the same. Aspirin would not have kept them from dying.
William wondered what it felt like to die? Did it feel like a great weight had been lifted? Did the spirit just float in the air? Or did the body simply go to sleep and never wake up again? He had watched people die from close up and it seemed like some of them just relaxed and stopped breathing. It was as if their struggle was over and they could rest in peace. He was glad that he could help them rest, even if they did not even know at first that they were tired of living. He watched other people’s faces and they gasped and struggled for their very last breath. He wanted to tell them to stop struggling and let the peaceful feelings just come over them. He was good at his craft, and he seemedto be able to pick out the people who needed to find peace through his magical touch. He hoped that it would be easy for him when the time came for him to go. He thought that surely it would be since he had helped so many others.
His biggest concern about dying was the old man who he had presumed in the last few years to be the Devil. Even though it had been a long time since he had dreamed about him, he was sure that he saw him on that last Sunday night that he was in Wilmington. Come to think of it, that was about the same time that the headaches started to become so severe and so frequently. He hoped that it was only a coincidence. He finally drifted back to sleep with an uneasy feeling in his gut, but he woke up several hours later feeling much better.
************
The nine o’clock train was fifteen minutes late that morning because of a cow, rather a large bull that was on the tracks. Every railroad employee on the train had to tug and pull in unison to finally drag the old dead beast off of the tracks. Jack Wilson hoped that it was not a bad omen because he was nervous and upset enough already.
Since he was a well respected and important member of the press, the newspaper wanted to send an assistant with him to Charleston. One of the younger editors suggested that if Jack was going to be undercover to try and catch the killer, the paper should send someone much younger to serve as bait. Jack would have none of that. One reporter had already lost his life to the madman. He was never going to risk another life besides his own, and his life did not count for much anymore.
After the sluggish start, the rest of the trip was uneventful. It was a glorious day in the South. Jack would have enjoyed the trip tremendously under any other circumstances. Now however, he was deep in thought about Charleston. He asked the Porter if he could order a drink before he remembered that he had packed his flask.
“Never mind.” he said just as the Porter was about to exit the car.
He sipped scotch from the sterling silver flask that he was awarded somewhere for something that he did. It happened a long time ago. Lots of liquid had passed through his lips from the shiny container with his name engraved on the side.
He thought about his plans for the immediate future while he sippe
d from the flask. The first part of his plan was simple. He would find a room close to the waterfront. He would rest during the day and prowl the Battery and the waterfront at night. If he was very lucky, and if fate was anywhere close to being on his side, he would eventually come face to face with the killer. If his hunches were right, the killer would not even give him a second glance. He was too old, too weathered, and too much of the very opposite of what the killer was looking for.
The second part of the plan was a little more complicated than the first. Once he found the killer and he was sure that he had the right man, he was going to place his shiny new derringer behind the madman’s ear, and send him to his eternal damnation. No further investigation, no arrest, no trial, only judgment would finally prevail.
It might get complicated after that. The last part of his plan was still open. He would either wait for the police to arrive and turn himself in, or he would walk away from the scene of his vigilante justice, and go back to Charlotte. Or he might even turn the gun on himself and the story would come to an end, or at least his chapter of it. Everything depended upon his state of mind at the time. He just wanted to make damned sure that the killer was stopped once and for all.
***********
Now it was Friday night and the work week was over. He had money in his pocket and the whole weekend was ahead of him. He had slept so long that morning to finally get rid of the headache, that he was still full of energy even after working his shift. And he had worked his ass off too. There had been a constant movement of ships in and out of the harbor. His entire shift had been spent loading and unloading ships, and when his shift was over there was still a lot of work to do. He would have worked some more overtime if they had asked him to, but since they did not ask, he decided to visit the Battery. He was so keyed up that it would be hours before he would need to sleep.
It was a warm and windy night and the Battery was alive with activity. Even the food vendors were still busy in the carnival type atmosphere. William was not hungry but a Coca-Cola would surely hit the spot. What he really had a taste for was a Friday night adventure. It would be a perfect night to have one just as soon as the crowds thinned out. He thought that it would be nice to choose from the smorgasbord of people that were milling around, but with crowds came witnesses, and witnesses added to the risk of getting caught. He could never allow himself to be caught.
Not very far from the park bench where William was enjoying his soft drink and watching the sea of bodies that were walking passed him, the new man in town was making his way from his tiny hotel room to the waterfront. He had every intention of getting there earlier but an upset stomach had kept him in the bathroom for hours. He thought that it was probably just a bad case of nerves, along with a little too much scotch. He would never admit to himself that he should have gone to the doctor many months ago with his stomach. He made a promise to himself that he would when he returned to Charlotte, if he returned to Charlotte. If not it would not matter anyway.
Jack could not understand why there were so many people milling around at that hour of the night. Did they not realize how dangerous it was to be on the waterfront with a killer on the loose? Obviously he had gotten too old to remember that young people had no sense of danger about them. They were invincible to danger and they had no real fear of strangers. That was probably what each of the killer’s victims thought just hours before they died horrible deaths.
Jack knew just what it was like to see and feel andhear danger and fear when it was all around him. He was a correspondent during the Great War. He saw fear and felt it first hand in Europe. He saw the fear of death in people’s eyes when he returned from Europe and they were dying all around him like flies, from the dreaded flu. And he saw fear when his best reporter’s wife did not know how she was going to feed and clothe and take care of their three small children. And he did not know how he was going to do it, but he wanted the killer to know and feel and see fear before he died.
Jack made sure that the three small children would be provided for. They were the beneficiaries of his last will and testament, and their mother would be provided for as well. She would receive the life insurance money that had been building in Jack’s account for years and years. He had planned on cashing in the policy and using the money for his retirement. But the way that he had been feeling lately, his retirement needs would not be an issue. The problem that he had with his stomach was identical to the problem that his father had, and his father’s father before that. Jack had already lived to be ten years older than either of them were when they died.
“Oh the miracles of modern medicine.” he said tohimself. Of course he had not been to the doctor but one time in his entire life.
***********
The clock in the town square struck three times before the crowd finally dispersed. The vendors packed up their wares and were gone even more quickly than they came. The seagulls were busy cleaning up the leftover scraps that were scattered all around the Battery section of Charleston proper. There were still a few people milling around, but most of them were keeping a low profile. Some of the people were there for one reason or another, but several of the lone men had much of the same idea on their minds.
William waited behind the pier that was just beyondthe glow of the city lights. He had already been lucky there one time before, and he did not really want to scout out another place because of the time factor. He soon spotted a likely prospect all alone and with that all too familiar gait in his step. As the stranger got closer William rehearsed his pickup line that almost always seemed to work. He stepped out of the shadows and had uttered the first two syllables of the catchy phrase when he noticed another movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned just in time to see the old man approaching from behind the stranger. The sounds that came from William’s mouth changed to those of a very fearful man, and before the stranger even realized what was going on, William was racing off in the opposite direction.
He did not stop running until he saw the lights of the boarding house. He hurried upstairs to his room, bolted and rebolted the door at least twenty times before he turned off the light and jumped into bed with all of his clothes still on. He shivered and sobbed just as he did when he was a scared child. He realized that the old man had found him again, and he was more scared than ever before in his life.
The stranger on the now deserted pier was puzzled and disappointed when the handsome man ran away. He turned and gave the old man a go to Hell stare, never realizing that the old man had just saved his life. Everything had happened so fast that Jack almost lost his breath. He wondered if he had just captured a fleeting glimpse of the man that he was looking for, or if had just interrupted a late night rendezvous. He was quite sure that time would tell.
After all, this was only his first night on stakeout.
***********
William never even left his room on Saturday. He had much thinking to do and things to sort out in his head. And he was angry, not only at the old man but himself as well. He had run like a scared puppy dog when he saw the old man coming toward him. Why was he even still scared of the old fart? After all, he was a grown man now. The old man used to intimidate the Hell right out of him when he was younger, but that was a long time ago. It had to be some kind of a force of habit that made him continue to be afraid. He finally made up his mind that the next time that old demon from Hell got anywhere close to him, that one of the two of them was not going to be walking away. Enough was enough.
All of a sudden he felt like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. The dull headache that had plagued him since he got home from the pier, vanished as if my magic. He got out of bed, immaculately cleaned his room, and took his treasure chest out of the closet to reminisce for a while. With each trinket that he touched came a fond memory that brought the past crashing into the present. He could almost feel the ocean mist spraying into his face, just like the nig
hts that his first victims in Wilmington were thrashing about in the water. He could see the blood spraying on the sailor’s hat, and he could hear the slapping sounds of the bullets as they slammed into each of the mens naked bodies. Anytime that he was sad or scared or upset about anything at all, all that he had to do was pull his treasure chest out of the closet, and he would start to feel better. He felt a little silly about leaving the poor bastard on the pier with a puzzled look on his face. He could still see the look of surprise and disappointment on that man’s face when he reacted so suddenly to the appearance of the old man. The stranger was not nearly as disappointed then as he was now. He had special plans for that man. Maybe he would have to have two strangers the next time to make up for the one that got away. That would serve the old man right. He slipped off his pants, grabbed the sailor’s hat, closed his eyes, and drifted back to that dark night on the boardwalk. He was breathing heavily by the time that his fantasy was over.
**********
On Sunday afternoon William finally got bored enough to see the movie, Gone With the Wind. Even though the movie got rave reviews, and was considered controversial enough to be picketed in a few Southern cities, he had a tough time sitting still through the long movie. Healmost walked out during the intermission at the halfway point, but he decided that it was not quite dark enough outside yet. He figured that he might as well sit it out in the theater, rather than take a chance on running into that old son of a bitch who might be wandering around in the Battery. He had made plans for that old man, but only at the right time and the right place.
While William was dealing with his short attention span at the Realto Theater three blocks from the Battery, Jack Wilson was facing his very own dilemma at the Southern Belle Motel, that was located just one block away. His condition had worsened since his arrival from Charlotte. It had gotten to the point that he was spending more time in the bathroom than anywhere else. He never made it to the Battery at all on Saturday night, and he was relieved that no one was killed, at least as far as he knew. He had dozed off while he was on the toilet on Sunday, and almost fell off of the seat. His bleeding finally stopped as darkness was falling, but he did not feel any better. When he looked into the mirror he saw a ghostly and ghastly figure looking back at him. He almost scared himself. He had not eaten a bite since Friday, and he was not hungry at all. He realized that if he did not eat something soon, that he would have to go to the hospital. His strength was at an all time low. Deep down he knew that if he did not find the killer soon, that it would be too late for Jack Wilson. He was running on borrowed time.