The Bluff City Butcher

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The Bluff City Butcher Page 35

by Steve Bradshaw


  * * *

  His presence went beyond Albert’s imagination. Is this my son, the one writing me since 1983? Why not come to me then? Now, you can cut Elliott’s throat, leap my desk, and slay me before a single drop of blood flowed. You will have number nine and ten on your list. But why?

  Adam was there to kill. Albert saw his son was more animal than man. Was there enough man for a father to touch?

  “What is it you need, son?” Albert asked. He said ‘son’ without thinking. It came naturally to him, because he had known for months Adam belonged to him.

  Adam revealed nothing. He stood rooted, his brow relaxed and eyes dancing. His index finger tapped the edge of the shining blade resting next to Elliott’s throbbing carotid artery.

  I see Jack, Albert thought. And now I see Elliott in you. The three of you are born of my seed—the Bell family seed. But you and Elliott are so different. One is an accomplished, principled protector dedicated to justice. The other is void of heart, unprincipled, and dedicated to nothing but pain and terror. One son is a willing combatant of evil, and the other a willing destroyer of what is good in this world. How can such extremes come from one man’s seed?

  Elliott felt the knife on his shoulder, but not his heart. He looked across the desk and saw his father for the first time, a man he knew and admired. He saw his jaw line, his thick brow and the penetrating, steel-blue eyes.

  How could I miss the similarities? Elliott wondered. The slight tilt of your head and squint of your eye, it is the same Carol sees in me when I’m in thought, solving a problem. I see a good man, a gentle man, a giving man at a time of great personal discovery, risk, and nearing death. These will be my final thoughts.

  Adam put his right hand on Elliott’s shoulder and moved the knife to his neck. The blade nicked the skin. Elliott bled.

  After the phone call, Adam’s eyes stayed on Albert.

  What are you doing? Albert thought. Are you studying me, trying to find yourself in me, searching for your existence?

  A drop of blood left Adam’s shirt cuff. Another left his fingernail and hit Elliott’s hand. There was the odor of infection. Adam’s October wounds were untreated—the river water—and Adam was dying from sepsis.

  “Please answer me, Adam. What do you want, son?”

  “I want one day . . .” Adam stopped. He turned his head. He heard something or sensed danger. Elliott’s eyes dilated. He too sensed something. Adam turned back to Albert and finished.

  “I want one day to feel I am not a mistake.”

  How could this heinous killer, this demented soul, this monster who watched so many beg for their lives, how could he have human feelings? Albert thought. Were pain and loneliness the only emotions you ever felt in your world? Neglected by your mother, abused by your stepfather, overlooked by your schools, used by Dr. Medino, and abandoned by your father—me.

  Albert got up from his chair and walked around the desk to Adam. He stood in front of the serial killer and saw a lost boy trapped inside a monster. Albert felt his son for the first time and acknowledged Adam was sick, alone in a lifelong nightmare.

  Adam removed his hand from Elliott’s shoulder and opened his stance to face Albert. Their eyes were even, their faces close. Each saw the other. Albert looked down and then back to Adam’s eyes. They were standing in a pool of blood—Adam’s blood.

  “Son, this stops here. I learned I am your father. You are my son. I am the mistake, not you.

  “When you were confused by this world, I was not there to help you understand. I was not there to make it right for you. Your father is the only man you should be able to always trust. I made the unforgivable error of losing you, not being with you when you needed your father in a confusing world. I am sorry.”

  Albert put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. Adam winced, not from the pain. He could handle pain. He winced because it was the first time his father had touched him.

  The door to the study exploded open. Tony and G.E. rushed in and moved to opposite sides of the room, guns leveled on the killer. Adam pushed Albert toward the door and lifted Elliott from the chair with one arm. He pressed the blade of the knife to Elliott’s neck. He threw open the balcony doors with such force they broke from the jambs and flopped to the floor. Snow settled in the room. Adam backed onto the balcony with Elliott in a death grip. He left no room for a clear shot.

  From the floor Albert pleaded. “Adam, this can stop. I can help you. Please let me help. Everything I have will be used to help you with the rest of your life. Please trust your father.”

  Carol rushed into the room and to Albert’s side. She then saw Elliott in the grips of the Butcher, the monster she knew so well. She started toward them.

  “Carol, stop,” Elliott ordered. “Do not come here, please. Everyone back off. Give Adam and me room and time.”

  Confused, Carol knew to trust Elliott’s judgment. She returned to Albert. Tony and G.E. lowered their guns.

  Adam stood like a statue. The night was quiet. Cold air came into the room. His blood soaked the snow at his feet.

  Elliott felt the butcher knife ease on his neck and Adam’s weight shift to his shoulder. He felt the rhythmic shiver of septic shock. The infection was rampant in Adam’s bloodstream. His grip on the knife loosened. Elliott saw a tattoo on Adam’s skin between his thumb and forefinger. It was like the stationary. One word. “Gilgamesh.”

  They watched. Elliott turned and spoke to the Butcher. Adam’s eyes moved to his knife and back to Elliott. He spoke to Elliott. Their eyes locked. They both looked at Albert and back.

  “I do not understand feelings,” Adam said. “I must go.”

  Albert took a step forward. Carol held him back. “Adam, I can help if you let me. Please give me one more chance.”

  Adam let Elliott go. He spoke to Albert like they were alone in another place at another time. “Thank you for this day.”

  With arms up and spread Elliott blocked lines of fire.

  Adam’s face tightened, his brows merged, and his nostrils flared. He transformed into the horrific beast he knew so well, the place where he was safe. He opened his arms like a condor, revealing blood-soaked garments beneath his coat. Wounds received in October were raw, oozing with infection. He showed his unmatched strength one last time, defiantly raising his knife in a fanning blur and throwing it across the room with pinpoint accuracy. It stuck in the wall inches above Wilcox’s right shoulder. Their eyes met. Adam turned and leaped from the balcony into the winter night.

  Seconds later, the room emptied onto the balcony—the Bluff City Butcher on the run again. But Albert and Elliott knew differently. They would be the last to the balcony.

  Outside were thirty squad cars encircling the mansion, high beams lighting the grounds and guns drawn. Every cop within five miles had responded to Taft’s call for backup. The message sent was brief; “We have the Bluff City Butcher at the Bell mansion. Come help.”

  On that cold night guns were holstered without a shot fired. There would be no chase. There were no more chapters to be written about the urban legend after this night.

  Word would go out. The Bluff City Butcher was a true monster, a psychopathic killing machine without feelings or conscience. Adam Duncan was a mentally disturbed, lost, and lonely man who experienced one meaningful moment in his life—the unconditional love of a father willing to give everything he had to help right impossible wrongs, and a brother who understood his demons.

  The Bluff City Butcher had the physical ability to clear the seven-foot, razor sharp spire atop the Bell mansion. But when he left Albert’s balcony on that cold night in December, he left as Adam Duncan.

  After all the boxes in the Brent catacombs were opened, they knew they had been hunting the most prolific serial killer in American history—but they did not know his true mission.

  Some would say the monster impaled on the spire tried and failed to escape an armada of police at the Bell estate. Those in the study knew differently. The end of the Memphis
urban legend came when Adam Duncan found the strength to destroy the Bluff City Butcher. After all, he was the only one who could.

  Epilogue

  Sometime in the spring of 2010

  * * *

  Rudolph Kohl rode in the backseat of the blue and silver Bentley convertible. Sporting a handlebar mustache, he wore Teddy Roosevelt pince-nez spectacles with a single black lanyard, and parted his hair close to the middle. Rudy lived in a time long ago. He did not like to fly, never considered owning a digital watch, laughed at computers, and hated liberals even though he claimed to be a progressive democrat.

  As the Bentley pulled up to the Bell mansion, he thought about his sweet Isabel. When he saw the spire through the trees, he thought about Adam.

  Albert greeted Rudy at the car, a rare practice for a man of his stature. He held deep regard for the man he knew all his life.

  They sat in the west garden. Although the shade draped over most of the flagstone terrace, the sun found a way through the leaves and took away the morning dew. William knew the drill: hot coffee, cold juice, blueberry muffins, and real butter—Rudy’s favorite.

  “Adam let Michael live,” Rudy said. He fit his plump body into the chair and pushed a white linen napkin under his belt.

  “Yes,” Albert replied as he popped opened his newspaper.

  I remember when I first saw Michael, a shell of a man. They said he would not survive another day in the catacombs. Rudy doesn’t know we almost lost him in the hospital. Adam let Elliott live, too. Why didn’t you say Michael and Elliott? Is it because Elliott is the first-born male, the next Bell patriarch?

  “Did Michael go back to Florida to play with his toys?” Rudy asked.

  “Yes.” He stayed in his paper.

  “Albert?”

  “What?”

  “How long are you going to be upset with me?”

  I’m not playing his game. “How about forty years.” He flipped the paper and popped it again.

  “I apologize. I am sorry I did not tell you. I had no choice.” Trying to read Albert, Rudy put a dollop of butter on a warm blueberry muffin and ate half with one bite.

  “How could you manipulate my wife, and do that to me?”

  “When your father died in that damn plane crash, I had to make decisions for the good of the family. No one else knew what was at stake.”

  “You could have talked to me. You had no right to make decisions about my life. I lived fifty-six years believing my wife stopped loving me the day my father died. I was manipulated. I thought she would never trust me again. I thought she hated me.”

  “That is not all my fault. If you had been open and honest with Sheila from the start, I could have never convinced her to back away. You were twenty-four. You were forced to deal with all the weight of the Bell family name—the wealth, the power, and your new role as the patriarch. I was in a very tough position, Albert. You were not ready for any of it, especially Gilgamesh.”

  “I was falling apart in El Paso. I checked into the Plaza Hotel to kill myself.”

  “I know. But William kept an eye on you, as always. We would not let you hurt yourself, Albert. In the end, I was right. You worked through it. You knew deep down you have rare gifts. You now know you are special like your father.”

  Albert lowered his newspaper. He searched for truth in Rudy’s eyes, but could not find it. Did you hurt me or help me, old man? He thought. How many other lives have you manipulated? Is my life different from others because I inherited great wealth? No! I won’t let it be! I’m like everyone else. My interpretation of my existence is based on collections of truths and lies and new beginnings.

  “All this time I thought my wife left me—I was not worthy. I had not been with another woman for a decade. Then I meet Betty Duncan, my miracle. She is beautiful in a way I cannot resist. She was perfect. And she wanted me like I wanted her. Forty years later, I learn Betty worked for Gilgamesh and is dead.”

  “Betty Duncan did want you, Albert. She loved you like you loved her. The profiling worked. You were an ideal couple.”

  “I guess Gilgamesh thinks of everything.”

  Rudy stopped chewing. “How can I fix this?”

  “After I impregnated Betty, they split us up fast. She disappears, and I come home from El Paso confused. Sheila is waiting for me. I should have known then something was not right. I had not spoken to her for ten years, Rudy. I fall in love with another woman and the day after I have sex my ex-wife wants to reconcile our marriage.”

  “We are very good, Elliott.”

  “You made me believe Sheila wanted me. I thought I wanted her back. But soon I came to realize I only wanted the memory. Our love died, Rudy. You killed it.”

  Rudy popped another muffin in his mouth. William refreshed coffees and again left the two alone on the patio. “She had triplets. Betty had three boys, and you still didn’t tell me anything. She gave two away and kept one, the damaged one. I don’t believe you have told me the whole story yet. Adam killed so many people.”

  “You won’t believe me, Alfred.”

  “You mean the Mexican drug cartel, the reason Betty vanished in 1969. Right! That had to be the most elaborate lie I’ve ever heard.”

  “I agree it was a bit over the top, but it held up a long time—even fooled Max Gregory and his people last year. I still can’t believe he found the trail and did not see through it.” Rudy pulled his napkin out of his belt and shook the crumbs on the patio. A cluster of sparrows descended.

  “Albert, I’m sorry for the lies. Transition to patriarch is a complex process. At the time, you were not ready for the whole story. Time got away from me. I’ve been running around the world watching from afar, and you’ve been busy.”

  “Why Betty Duncan? Why not Sheila?” Albert asked.

  “Genetics,” Rudy shot back. “Betty Duncan was the approved vessel.”

  “The approved vessel,” Albert repeated shaking his head.

  “Betty Duncan’s genetic makeup complimented yours perfectly. It’s all about the next generation patriarch, Albert.”

  “Did you look at Sheila’s genetics?”

  “Of course. And without her knowledge. We determined she was not suited to carry your seed. We found Betty Duncan after years of searching, the ideal vessel by far. She was so special that we actually felt good about the surprise, triplets.”

  “I had three sons unknown to me for forty years.”

  “Honestly, I’m surprised you did not see the similarities. Elliott, Jack, and Adam were you in so many ways. Granted, Adam had an animal-thing going, but all three men had your stature, athletic proportions, and chiseled facial features. They had your eyes, Albert. They carried themselves like no other men I’ve seen in my life . . .”

  “You never asked me. I don’t think you wanted to see, Albert. You had a life with Sheila and your children. Then, the tragedies that took them away. Each time I wanted to talk, it seemed to be the wrong time.”

  Albert stared into the distant woods. “After I knew they were mine, I could see. You may be right, Rudy.” Maybe I knew but did not want to go there.

  “They were as we anticipated, Albert. It worked. Each had an unmeasurable IQ. Each had a photographic memory with total recall. They had a wide array of skills like no other living human. We know Elliott has the most advanced sensory systems of all. He may have gifts even he has yet to discover.

  “Jack Bellow was the perfect visionary. He could see the future. He also had the skill sets to take people there. We could not have imagined that.

  “And Adam Duncan, he could have been a world-class athlete. His physical attributes were closer to a wild animal than a man. But he had the problem.”

  “I guess Gilgamesh didn’t have all the bugs worked out, did they Rudy?” Albert said with his coffee cup under his nose.

  “We were late in identifying the recessive trait in Betty’s genetic profile.”

  “When did you know you had a problem?”

  “Thi
rd trimester. Since there were three embryos, we decided to wait and see. After delivery we ran tests. Elliott and Jack did not carry the trait. Adam did.

  “Knowing early, you could have helped him.”

  “It was the 1960’s, all new territory. We didn’t know how to address negative genetic factors. Protocol was rigid—postpartum euthanasia. We could not risk the whole genetic engineering program by producing a Frankenstein monster.”

  “Kill a baby?”

  “Betty was very convincing. She felt she could control Adam, make him a functional psychopath. We were all hopeful—we did not want to kill a baby.

  “Turns out, it was a mistake.” He downed his juice. “I think you know the rest, the mess in Texas. Betty gets raped and has a mental breakdown. She is a broken woman. She abandons Adam. He snaps and kills her and a lot of people. And here we are. He kills Jack and comes for you and Elliott. The whole thing got way out of control. We could not stop him. God knows we tried.”

  “I could have helped Adam. I was everything he needed but never got. All those innocent people would be alive today, Rudy.” Albert dropped his head. “Those people, all of them are on us.”

  Rudy pretended not to hear. He always avoided the blame topic.

  “Adam’s life is a great tragedy. But now you have a son, and I have been looking forward to this day. Tell me, how are you two doing?”

  “We get together when schedules permit.”

  “Albert, it’s been five months since he learned. How much time is it gonna take?”

  Albert set down his coffee cup. “Enough time.”

  “There is much he needs to know, preparations. He should be living here.” Rudy fidgeted with his silverware.

  “Elliott is a world-class forensic pathologist in great demand. He is an international traveler working on numerous cases. One day he stops the Bluff City Butcher, and the next day he is the Bell family patriarch.

 

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