The Bluff City Butcher

by Steve Bradshaw

  Losing daylight, Pilsner tripped down the slope into the ravine and stood in the place where they said they had found Hank Breslin’s rake and glove.

  How did his things get down here? he wondered as he scanned the area. People don’t lose a rake and one glove. They lose one glove. They misplace a rake. What is that? Cellar doors?

  Pilsner lit a cigarette, staring. He got closer. Then he saw the tip of a branch broken. Now how does that happen? It’s in there. Protected from the wind . . .

  Pilsner lifted a juniper limb opening a wide path under the sprawling growth. He noticed other broken branches on his way to the cellar doors. When he got there, he had one match left and had to make it count. As he lit a cigarette, his eyes found the bowed, green branch pinched in the cellar doors. And he saw the rusted padlock. Holding the match closer, he saw the shiny gouges around the keyhole.

  As the match burned to his fingers, Pilsner moved it down the center of the old, wood doors to the stone footing. Before the match went out, he saw something that would change his plans for the evening.

  * * *

  “Hello, Mr. Anderson, I’m Deputy Marty Pilsner with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office calling from the north substation.”

  “Good to hear from you. Did ya locate Hank Breslin and Mr. Jones?”

  “No, sir. I am sorry to say we’ve got more work to do.”

  “Now I’m really worried. Been a long time. Mostly worried about Hank. I know him. He’s a damn good man. Wouldn’t just run off like that. Somethin’ bad’s happened. I feel it in my bones.”

  “I understand, Mr. Anderson. We’re gonna get to the bottom of this.”

  “Didn’t know Mr. Jones. He was one of them guys come and go.”

  “What time of day did these men disappear, Mr. Anderson? It’s not on my report. Can you help me with that?” Pilsner asked.

  “Hank disappeared an hour after sunup. The men didn’t know until the end of the day though. Sunup was the last time anyone saw him. I remember. Same day that radio guy got hung off the Harahan Bridge, damn terrible thing goin’ on in our city.”

  “That’s helpful. And Winston Jones?”

  “End of work day . . . after dark. Crew gettin’ ready to leave. We had five trucks out there that day. Busy. He said he was gonna go relieve himself, piss somewhere.”

  “Where did he go to do that?”

  “Back of the mansion where everyone goes. No windows. Lots of bushes.”

  “He went alone?”

  “Yep. Guess each truck thought he had gotten on another. All of ’em pulled out without ’im.”

  “Do you store equipment or supplies in the cellar of the Brent mansion? Do you or your people use those cellar doors in the back?”

  “First, we keep everything on GreenWay trailers. Second, my people have strict orders to stay outside. They are not permitted to enter any structures, ever.”

  “How can you be sure they follow those instructions?”

  “Violation is cause for immediate termination without pay. They all sign off on the rules day one. I have never had to fire one of my guys for going in a building.”

  “Maybe they see a cellar differently.”

  Anderson laughed. “Deputy, I am sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. But I can guarantee you, nobody goes anywhere near those cellar doors in the back of the Brent mansion, I mean north substation.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “One night my men were finishin’ up. Was after sundown. A day laborer came runnin’ from the back of that old mansion with his eyes big as saucers. He was talkin’ Spanish a hundred miles an hour. The translator told me the guy just saw a monster.”

  “Saw a monster? What happened?” Pilsner asked.

  “He said a gran hombre in a black cape floated out those cellar doors.”

  “He saw a big man in a black cape?”

  “He saw this gran hombre put a lock on the doors and run into the woods—tan rápido como un caballoas.”

  “As fast as a horse?”

  “Ever since, all my men believe the ghost of ‘Old Man Brent’ is in that cellar.”

  “The man who saw the ghost, can I talk with him tonight?”

  “He’s dead,” Anderson said. “Day after the ghost, he was killed in a bar fight.”

  “Shot?”

  “Knife. Throat cut. Memphis police said he bled to death.”

  “Did they catch the man who did that in the bar?”

  “My man was killed in the alley behind the bar.”

  “Okay. They took the fight to the alley.”

  “I don’t think so,” Anderson said.

  “Why?”

  “It was his brother. He never left the bar. They found my man in the alley. He went out there for a smoke and to cool off. Someone else killed him, Deputy Pilsner.”

  “Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch.”

  Pilsner hit speed dial thinking about the cellar doors, the pinched branch, and what he had seen on the stone footing. “Gerald. North substation now. Bring a flashlight and load your gun. Don’t talk to anybody. Park out front. Meet me north side. Gonna teach you how to pick a lock.”

  Pilsner took out his gun, opened the roller, and inserted six, thirty-eight hollow points. As a rule he only loaded his gun for the range of something bad. Before his match went out at the base of the cellar doors, he saw fresh drops of blood.

  Fifty-Three

  He made all the lights on Third. He sped north on an empty and dark Island Drive. A hundred yards out, he turned off his lights. Fifty yards out, he turned off the car and coasted to a stop in the weed infested, abandoned lot south of the old boat launch. Elliott popped the trunk. He climbed out the driver’s window and skirted the moonlight, staying in the darkest shadows. He remembered every detail. 440 days ago Elliott had met the Bluff City Butcher for the first time on Mud Island.

  Passing the crippled NO BOAT LAUNCH sign, Elliott found the hidden trail and stayed low. He got to the edge of the clearing seven minutes after his phone call. He might have a five minute advantage. Leaning out of the tall grass, he thought at first the clearing looked exactly like it did the first time. But then he saw something new.

  No! Please no . . .

  She was on her back, the same mound of sand by the river’s edge where Sabina Weatherford laid a year ago. Tonight the long blond hair draped over her face and down her shoulders. And the long, white dress captured the moonlight illuminating her lifeless body lying in the macabre setting. Then he saw her hands. They gripped the handle of a butcher knife protruding from her chest—she was dead, and she was Carol!

  Elliott gasped as his eyes filled with tears. Shattered beyond words, he stood up giving his presence and location to the Butcher. But now, nothing mattered.

  Elliott bolted across the clearing, eyes locked on his only reason to live. When he got to her, he dropped to his knees and he touched her. His trembling hand felt the cold, rigid arm. Instantly he knew Carol had died six hours before the phone call from Adam.

  Elliott’s demons were kicking down the door, and he did not care. The rising waters of pain and carnage would drown him in minutes. As Dr. Gilmore explained in Dallas, one more significant tragedy would stop Elliott’s heart for the last time. The man with so many gifts had one fatal flaw. He could not forget the gruesome details of every evil event he experienced in life. He felt the pain of each victim, and he suppressed the terror spewed from each monster he hunted. The cage in his brain that held them could no longer withstand the size of the evil.

  This is illogical, Elliott thought. I’m confused. You needed Carol to control me. Is this what you want? Am I where you want me? Are you just going to appear and do your thing with your knife? What is the pleasure you gain from such a brief kill moment after decades of hate? There’s more.

  Elliott broke Carol’s stiff hands from the handle of the butcher knife. When you come for me, I will use this on you. Come now. Come before my demons kill me. He patted her cold hand on her bloo
dy chest. Carol never wore rings . . .

  Had Elliott made a rookie mistake? Had he been fooled? Had he allowed staged misery to fill in the illogical spaces? Elliott did not want to move her hair. He did not want to see her face in death—and the Bluff City Butcher knew it.

  With one finger he moved her hair and winced when he saw Carol’s familiar chin and lips. Why did I do this to me? Why have any hope?

  Then he saw. The nose and the eyes were not Carol’s. The dead girl had been carefully selected—a double. The dead girl Elliott touched was not Carol Mason.

  I feel your eyes, Adam. I know you enjoyed my breakdown.

  His demons were quiet. Elliott retook control. You went to great lengths to hurt me, Adam. Why do you hate me? What have I done to you but hunt you, a monster?

  When Elliott looked up from the dead girl, it was too late. The large, silent shadow leaned over him and the tip of the knife pressed into Elliott’s ribs. He looked into the Butcher’s face for the last time. Elliott saw gloom and obscurity. He saw the moon in the Butcher’s glassy, black eyes beneath thick brows. The emptiness and the desolation on the monster’s face revealed but one emotion—rage. Then the corners of his lips lifted.

  Is that hideous pleasure? You think you’re going to kill the one man to ever challenge you, your nemesis . . .

  The tip of the Butcher’s knife penetrated Elliott’s coat and shirt and broke his skin. First the sting and then the warm blood turned cold as it filled his shirt.

  “I need you now, Wilcox!” Elliott yelled.

  The Butcher would think it was a delirious moment. He had seen confusion and fear many times before. Next he would think it a feeble attempt by a desperate man. Then he would process it. The third was what Elliott counted on, the slight distraction that would last a fraction of a second. The easing of pressure on the knife. It would be the sliver of time Elliott wanted, the window of opportunity he had to have.

  When Wilcox landed on the Butcher’s back and pounded the head of the monster, Elliott turned the knife and plunged it deep into the Butcher’s belly. The blade sunk up to the handle. Hot blood gushed from the wound—he found a major artery.

  It flowed down their legs. For two seconds the Butcher’s thoughts had left Elliott and returned to Wilcox—and his death. From the attic, the Butcher had witnessed a failed attempt to save the Memphis homicide detective. He had seen the body taken away in a bag. He had watched the ambulance crawl away with no sirens or lights. And he had watched the funeral procession and burial at Elmwood Cemetery.

  * * *

  For the plan to have any chance, everyone had to believe Wilcox had died in his condo. That night, heads stayed down as the ambulance pulled away. Only four knew the paramedic with the bodies had already unzipped one bag and hung another unit of O-neg. Wilcox had lost more blood than his body carried, but Elliott had replaced all of it and more.

  The ambulance had proceeded to the Shelby County morgue, but only to deliver one corpse. Elliott’s paramedic had another stop to make with Wilcox. Twenty minutes later their ambulance was waved onto the Millington Naval Base, and they were escorted to an area known to only a few—a private military medical facility, Sumner’s secret.

  Back at the county morgue, Medical Examiner Bates had unzipped the body bag loaded with blood-soaked towels from Wilcox’s condo operating room. He had thrown it all into the incinerator and opened a secret file, removing a completed set of autopsy documents with Tony Wilcox’s name written across the top. Bates initialed and dated each page and placed the official documents into the work-transfer folders for entry into the forensic system. He had propped his feet and visualized each wound as he dictated the fictional autopsy. He then borrowed samples of tissue and body fluid from the surplus racks of the day. He relabeled enough. Wilcox had to have a specimen rack for toxicology, anything less would have raised suspicion. Bates weighted down and sealed the wood cremation casket, signed and attached the legal verification/certification documents, and called the funeral home for immediate pickup. In accordance with the written wishes of the deceased, the remains were to be cremated before the next sunset. Some were surprised to learn Wilcox was a non-practicing, Orthodox Jew.

  At the Millington base, they had checked in Tony under an assumed name. The base commander had the paperwork ready when they pulled up. Alias “John Trent” was a retired Navy man and unfortunate victim of a one-car accident, stabilized at a small hospital in Mississippi. Only the commander knew the true identity, but he did not know which one would arrive on his doorstep if at all—Tony or Elliott.

  They hoped for sixteen weeks. They got six. The Butcher made his move when he took Carol Mason. Against recommendations of the medical team, Tony released himself. The window of opportunity had arrived. He would work around his medical limitations.

  Tony had checked into the Peabody with his fake mustache and wig. He had a pager. The plan was that when Elliott got a meeting site, Tony got in his trunk. Five minutes after arrival at the meeting location, Tony moved into position. When the Butcher closed in on Elliott, Tony surprised the Butcher from behind. Darkness and close proximity restricted use of a gun. Tony would go for a headlock and Elliott would turn the knife on the Butcher. They both knew even with perfect timing, their opportunity for success was small. They had nothing else.

  The Butcher peeled Wilcox off his back with one hand and threw him across the clearing. He then picked up Sumner and threw him at Wilcox like a toy. They lay there. The Butcher looked down at his wound. As Elliott and Tony got to their feet, they watched the Butcher pull the knife from his gut. He leveled his eyes on the next two he would kill, and he smiled as the blood flowing from his gut slowed to a trickle.

  What are you going to do? Elliott thought, as Tony pulled his gun and pointed it at the monster of urban legend. Tony, you can’t shoot. I need to find Carol. I need to tell him he can have me if he releases Carol. The Butcher shifted his weight to his back foot. His knees flexed. His shoulders dipped. He would charge them.

  “Wait!” Elliott yelled. But nothing else came out of his mouth. The Butcher will cover the ten feet to me before Tony can pull the trigger, Elliott thought. Then he will use me as a shield. Tony will fire as the Butcher pushes him to the ground under me. We will die together and Carol will never be found.

  “Where is Carol?” Elliott asked. He moved closer. “Please. Tell me. She’s not who you want. You can have me.” He looked back at Tony. “Lower the gun. Do as I say. Let me do this.”

  But Elliott did not know the Butcher only saw two men trying to hurt him, two men he could kill, even wounded and up against a gun. For a decade, Elliott’s calculations had been all wrong. He never understood why Adam Duncan killed. He did not know what really connected victims. He did not know Adam had no favorites, only enemies.

  The Butcher would not negotiate; he was on a mission. The time to eliminate Elliott Sumner had come. Wilcox had always been a secondary target, a way to Sumner when the right time arrived. The Butcher raised his knife in a ferocious blur and bolted forward like a wild animal. Elliott and Tony froze.

  The explosion came from nowhere and everywhere. The Butcher stopped in flight and dropped to the ground. Elliott and Tony stood silent and confused. The world slowed. They looked at each other, and then looked to the tall brush behind. The moonlight had captured the cloud of smoke leaving the long barrel of Sheriff Taft’s gun.

  The Butcher jumped to his feet with a single burst of wild energy bringing him toward Elliott. But the second blast knocked the Butcher back to the river’s edge where he stood, a giant, dark shadow on gray water. His head was down, arms hanging at his sides, the butcher knife pointed to the ground.

  “Don’t move,” G.E. yelled.

  Maybe he is confused. Maybe he has never felt pain, or experienced defeat. Is Adam dying, or is he weighing options? Elliott wondered. If the Butcher died, Elliott would never find Carol. In desperation, he walked toward the monster.

  The third explosion echoed o
ver the river forever. The Butcher’s third attack failed. He fell back into the dark water.

  The surface held his body up, as he floated in macabre stillness with his arms outstretched and eyes locked on the night sky. The Butcher eased out into the stronger current that slid by the island. Then he was swallowed by the river.

  G.E. walked onto the sandy clearing holding his gun in two hands pointing to the sky. Before Elliott could speak G.E. put a hand on his shoulder. “Son, we have her.”

  “Carol’s alive?” Elliott asked.

  “And she’s a whole lotta pissed off, son.”

  “She’s alive,” Elliott muttered.

  “Yes. And she’s demandin’ to see you,” G.E. said looking over the water for the Butcher’s corpse.

  Elliott stood speechless. The emotional swing crippled him. The demons started to move when the Butcher slid under the water. When Elliott heard Carol was alive, again the dark door in his head slammed closed, his demons silenced.

  “And we got Michael Bell, too. He’s alive, barely.” Taft leaned into Wilcox’s face. “What in the Sam Hill are you doin’ here? Are you one of them angels I’ve been hearin’ about?”

  “No sir. I do believe you are.”

  Tony held his stomach with both hands. His bandages were soaked in blood. He had risked serious damage jumping on the back of the Butcher. But it was a ride he’d do again.

  Elliott checked Tony, lifting the bandage. “You’ll live. Popped a few stitches.”

  The three stood at the water’s edge, G.E. looking back at the dead girl on the sandy mound. “You know the Butcher had plans to kill you boys. I had to shoot when he started after you. The man just wasn’t gonna stop. Don’t think he knew how. No second guessing. We were out of options. Tonight we won. Justice has been served, gentlemen.”