The Bluff City Butcher

by Steve Bradshaw

  “But a puncture wound to the head is peculiar.”

  “And there are a dozen ways for it to occur. The top of the head is exposed more often than not. It is a likely location for blunt force trauma and penetration. I am sure you are a very good investigative reporter, Miss Mason. I am sorry you think I can help you, but I cannot. I have stepped away from that world for personal reasons.”

  “Teddy Morgan was killed in Hernando, Mississippi. He was found with two seven-inch butcher knives stuck in each eye. They ruled it a suicide, Dr. Sumner. I guess they thought the circular puncture wound on the top of his head was due to one of the dozen other ways. Mr. Morgan killed himself on October 17, 1997 along with the other unrelated thousands.”

  “Teddy Morgan is dead?” Elliott asked.

  Carol fanned through the stack for Morgan’s cold case file. She had already interviewed the mother. Mrs. Morgan had convinced her Teddy did not commit suicide. The signature on the suicide note was a duplicate of her husband’s, not Teddy’s. Her husband had been dead five years. Carol found the police report and scanned it while Elliott waited.

  * * *

  C O N F I D E N T I A L

  Hernando Police Department

  Case: 3554

  Date: October 21, 1997Name: Teddy Morgan

  Officer: T.O. BradfordCOD: Exsanguination

  MOD: SuicideCoroner: J.L. Benson

  DOB: October 7, 1965DOD: October 17, 1997

  Summary Report

  Teddy Morgan (32/W/M) was found dead in his apartment with seven-inch steak knives in each eye, lacerations to both wrists, and laceration to the throat. At the scene, Morgan appeared to die from loss of blood.

  Morgan was a Hernando, Mississippi resident at 2345 Beachwood Cover, Apartment 12. He was self-employed, providing a residential tree trimming service to north Mississippi. Morgan was in an automobile accident on October 7, 1997, leaving a bar where he was celebrating his birthday. Morgan received a DUI citation and was arrested. Friends of Morgan said he was depressed. He was getting married in the spring, but he found his fiancée with another man and cancelled the wedding. The day he was found, parents of Morgan were unable to reach him by phone for several days. They contacted the apartment manager and requested a check.

  Morgan was found in the bedroom October 21, 1997 at 1135. The death scene was the bloodiest in this officer’s twenty-year experience. Coroner J.L. Benson visited the scene with HPD and estimated time of death to be in the morning hours of October 17, 1997. Morgan’s wrists were cut superficially. The throat was cut, the jugular severed. Although no trauma to the head, a circular puncture wound was noted. Morgan apparently walked around the room for some time before collapsing on the bed and thrusting two seven-inch steak knives in his eyes. Morgan’s hands were still gripping the knives when found.

  Morgan had a history of depression and recent traumatic events to explain rash behavior. There was a suicide note left addressed to his mother. Manner of death was ruled suicide. Cause of death was ruled exsanguination. An autopsy was not ordered.

  SPECIAL NOTE: The Morgan mother disagreed with the ruling. She was adamant her son was not capable of killing himself. She said the suicide note was not her son’s handwriting. The mother of the deceased claimed the son’s signature was purposely made to look like his father’s signature. She believes her son was sending a message about the person who killed him and wanted it to look like a suicide.

  * * *

  When she looked up from the police report, it dawned on her Elliott Sumner was no longer fighting her. He was non-responsive, struggling with something, and somehow limited. She had said too much. She had pushed too hard.

  “Dr. Sumner, I am sorry. I am being unfair. I forced myself on you, dumped shocking pieces of information, and expected you to get involved without any regard for your personal matters. You have saved many lives by capturing or destroying serial killers over the years. I have never even seen a serial killer. Please forgive me. I don’t know you, except for your extraordinary accomplishments. I know that takes a very special man, one with depth of character, something far more than a high IQ or photographic memory. There I go again, rambling when you deserve your privacy.

  “Thank you for listening, most of the time, anyway. And please, forgive my selfish behavior. I’m really a nicer person than that. I will not bother you again.”

  “Miss Mason?” Elliott said. It was good she was gone. He could not take much more. She would blame herself for what he was about to do.

  “Thank you for taking my call. Goodnight, Elliott.” She disconnected and looked at her phone. Something new had happened to her. She had feelings for a man she never met.

  “Goodnight, Carol.”

  Did I say that? My demons left me when she was talking. I don’t understand. He lifted his pillow and tossed it across the room. He picked up his gun. He would leave the suicide note under the bed for Wilcox to find. The demons would be back soon, and he could not bear it anymore.

  Carol pulled out the 1983 clipping she found in the archives at The Memphis Tribune. Elliott didn’t intend to, he had confirmed everything. As she suspected, the Bluff City Butcher had survived the river and was active.

  The Memphis Tribune

  Three Found Dead on the Bluff;

  Suspected Killer Jumps off Harahan

  October 18, 1983

  Memphis, TN—Three people were killed last night behind a popular restaurant on the bluff. Memphis Police were called to the 200 block of Wagner Place, Captain Bilbo's Bar/Grill, at 6:10 p.m. Monday night by owner/manager, Buford T. Forester. According to Memphis Homicide, three men in their early twenties were fatally attacked on the bluff by an unidentified man on foot wielding a knife.

  According to Teddy Morgan, a Captain Bilbo’s employee and eyewitness, the victims were dining on the hospitality deck in the rear of the restaurant when they heard something in the nearby brush. Three went to investigate. At sunset, the fourth member of the party went to find his friends and returned covered in blood. The Memphis police were called.

  The three killed were found several hours later by police in a remote area of the bluff. “Identities are being held until notification of family,” said Officer R.L. Thornton, the first responder with the Memphis PD. “Details on the homicide scene and victims are proprietary.”

  Sources close to the investigation said the one who survived the attack told police he came upon a large man with long black hair in a ponytail wearing a dark coat. The man matched the description of the suspect seen the day before, when Sabina Weatherford was taken from the same restaurant and is still missing.

  Later that night, Memphis police received a call that a large man fitting the description was seen in the vicinity of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge. The suspect was carrying a sack and moving at a rapid pace along the river. R.L. Thornton said, “I can confirm that at 9:45 p.m. witnesses saw a man fitting the description of the primary suspect that fled the scene of a triple homicide behind Captain Bilbo Restaurant. The man attempted to cross the Harahan Bridge.”

  According to Memphis police, the assailant jumped off the Harahan Bridge and has not been found. Efforts to locate the assailant continue. Sources say it is unlikely the man survived the hundred-foot fall or the turbulent waters of the river. Experts say the impact would likely kill or injure a man, knocking him unconscious and breaking several bones. The injured man would be swept under water by stiff currents and undertows.

  “The most likely outcome is death upon impact. Anyone that survived the fall would drown in the swirling waters of the Mississippi River,” said Thornton. The Memphis police plan to continue their search. “His body could be in the Gulf of Mexico in a week,” said one observer.

  Fifteen

  “Where in the hell have you been, Sumner?” Tony Wilcox walked into his office. Elliott was looking out the blinds, one slat up.

  “Well, good morning to you too, detective.” He kept looking out the window.

  “Seriously,
what’s going on with you? You check yourself out of Parkland, shutdown SFI, and vanish. No cell. No cards. No letters. Are you into something you can’t talk about, or are you in trouble again with—you know—the shit that happened to you in Dallas that put you in ICU?”

  “What do you think?” Elliott asked as he dropped the slat and turned.

  “Well, I think I should whip your ass, that’s what I think.” They embraced and Tony poured coffee from the big thermos on the edge of his desk. “It’s cold but good. I got a call about you from Carol Mason at The Tribune.”

  “She called about me?”

  “Yeah—she called over the weekend. Said she talked to you and was worried.”

  “She was worried about me?”

  “Yeah, goddamn it. She was worried about you, Elliott. She said you seemed to be in a bad place. She was concerned. Thought you needed a friend.”

  She was concerned about me?

  “Anyway, you never answered your goddamn cell. I called you twenty times. GPS had you in South Carolina until you took the battery out, or flushed your cell down the commode, or crushed the damn thing. What’s going on with you?”

  “It’s not important now, Tee. I’m going to try to fix things.”

  “What does that mean? I’m sure it’s something important, but I thought the Butcher got his stinking claws on you, or you did something stupid like kill yourself.”

  “Listen to me, Tee. It’s not important now. Just leave it alone. I needed some time. There are much more important things going on.”

  “Fine, but you owe me, Elliott. Can you at least tell me you’re learning to manage your emotional trauma like Gilmore and Dodson said?”

  “I will say a few things, then no more. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “I was losing the battle, Tee. I could not escape the torment of the demons in my head, much less take on new ones. I could see all of ’em. I felt their evil, sick, twisted ways. The hundreds of victims, I lived their pain over and over. I tried hypnosis, serious drugs, and a lot of scotch to drown it out, to numb me, but nothing worked. It was like an exposed nerve. The slightest breeze produced unbearable pain. Nothing worked.

  “Tony, I was going to kill myself.”

  “Goddamn it, Elliott. No. I can’t handle that. Please don’t ever give up. You’re like my brother. It would kill me.” Tony dropped into his chair.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m struggling with a lot of pain at times.”

  “So there are times when you’re okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re okay now?”

  “Yes, at the moment.”

  “Do you know why?” Tony moved around his desk and sat next to Elliott. As usual, Elliott was staring into his coffee mug. It helped him focuses.

  “I know exactly when, but I do not know why,” Elliott said.

  “And?”

  “The last half of my phone conversation with Carol Mason, she was talking about the Bluff City Butcher. I think she knows he’s out there, but is not yet certain. That’s when the demons stopped. They went away.”

  “Have they been back?”

  “No. But a few times I felt them at the door.” Elliott got up, went back to the window, and lifted a slat. “She helped me realize it is possible to have a life again. Tony, my path to that life goes through the heart of the Butcher.”

  “I don’t know what that means, Elliott. But I will do anything I can to see you get through this. If the Butcher is the key, I am with you every step of the way.”

  “Come over here,” Elliott said. Tony joined him at the window, the fourth floor, the Memphis police headquarters downtown. “You see the white van?”

  “Yeah, the old one with the motor running?” They watched smoke trail from the tailpipe. The front wheels were aimed away from the curb for a quick departure.

  “You will not get there fast enough, so just listen. He knows we are looking at him right now. He sees your eyes and my eyes. That will be enough.” The van jerked alive and crawled away. They dropped the slat.

  “That was the Butcher. He knows I am in town and he is getting ready. He has some big thing on his mind.”

  “You can’t handle another emotional crisis. The docs said it would trigger that unique medical crap that makes your heart stop. It could be the last time.”

  “Somehow, the Butcher knew before it happened. Tony, I met him on Mud Island a few days before Dallas and my collapse.”

  “The night you disappeared? My man said you walked into the Peabody the next morning like you’d been out on a stroll. I was waiting for you to tell me what the hell you were doing all night.”

  “For now, you need to know he wanted to meet me on Mud Island. I saw Sabina Weatherford. She was mummified. I think he needed her for a reason I do not yet understand. Or he was not involved and was going to reveal something. The child doesn’t fit the Butcher kill pattern at all.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Tony said as he lifted a slat for a second look.

  “The Butcher sprang on me from the river. I was twenty feet away. He closed the gap in a second. Next thing I know, I’m on McGee’s bench in Tom Lee Park.”

  “Elliott, he could have killed you. I wonder why he didn’t.”

  “He’s more complex than that. I think he wants me for another purpose. He did something to me on Mud Island.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe a combination of drugs and hypnotic suggestions to put me on a path. I think he knew a neurological overload would hurt me. He is a genius. Now he knows I survived it. I think he is going to do something big. I need to figure him out soon.”

  “What next?”

  “It’s October 16. He will kill again after midnight. He always kills on the 17th. I need to stay in this now.”

  Sixteen

  Raymond and Martha Munson had lived on Jefferson Avenue for the last eighteen years in a modest three-bedroom ranch. It was the house with all the trees and an aluminum bass boat on a trailer stuffed under pin oaks next to the carport. Even though it broke every code, the trailer had been there so long it was now a part of the landscape.

  He was born and raised in Dallas, studied at SMU, and found his way to Memphis as an assistant English professor at Memphis State University. He and Martha Waverly married in 1968. They moved to Texas, where Raymond taught English for eight years at the new Carrollton Junior High School, and six years at North Texas State University in Denton. His dream position finally materialized. He returned to Memphis, where he became professor of English Literature at the University.

  Declining health led Munson to retire on his sixty-fifth birthday, June 12, 2001. Seven years later, his plan to write his novel was still a plan, but he had figured out how to get the bass boat out from under the pin oak. He found a fishing hole far enough away to feel like a getaway, and he could get the boat in and out of the water with his bum hip.

  It was like any other autumn day in Memphis, a bit chilly but sunny and low humidity. Raymond was set to take the boat out that afternoon. Martha was going to visit her sisters in Germantown. He had no pressure to be home. She would shop all day and planned a sleepover.

  At three in the afternoon, Martha was gone and Raymond was backing the boat out the driveway. He’d be at his fishing-hole in thirty minutes, and wet a hook in another ten. An hour would get him a sand bass to fry. His hip was not acting up, so he would enjoy himself more than usual. After a half-dozen attempts, he got the boat onto Jefferson with his car pointing in the right direction—toward Cooper Road.

  Murray Fitzberg sat on his front porch watching when Raymond clipped his mailbox. Although there was no major damage, it would need some attention. Raymond waved, but Fitzberg was waving his middle finger on his porch in baggy pants and plaid flannel shirt. But that did not stop Raymond’s fishing trip.

  Distracted watching his mirror, he almost ran into the black van at the end of the street. He pulled the wheel in time to avoid clipping the rear bumper
and then slowed as he passed. Dodge Sprinter. What the hell, I didn’t know Dodge made a van that big. Wonder what it's doing parked here? Probably looking at the Morgan place.

  Raymond pulled around the Sprinter, stopped at Cooper, and looked in his mirror one last time. The van looked empty, but the windows were dark so he couldn’t tell much. Damn tinted windows should be illegal—damn mysterious. Hope they don’t buy the Morgan’s place. I might hit the thing, he thought as he turned onto Cooper and his boat followed.

  The Dodge Sprinter started and pulled onto Cooper. Soon it was close enough to follow Raymond, but far enough not to be noticed.

  Seventeen

  “Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, blood and revenge are hammering in my head.”

  Shakespeare

  * * *

  Tony Wilcox got the call at 5:37 a.m. In ten minutes he was pulling up to 3030 Poplar Avenue. All entrances to the Memphis Central Public Library were blocked by squad cars, blue lights spinning. He was waved through.

  The scene was live. Memphis PD shut down a quarter mile of Poplar Avenue to the south and Walnut Grove to the north. The four-story glass building was surrounded. Tony hopped the curb and drove down the sidewalk to the SWAT Mobile Unit that was smoking at the east entrance. A perimeter was set—the media and gathering crowds were kept back a hundred yards, and all eyes were on the fourth floor.

  He slid to a stop, stepped out, and was met by the first responder holding a pen and clipboard with an inch of dog-ears. “Hello sir. We’ve got us a situation here,” said the officer. Without a word, Wilcox closed his door, looked at the brass nameplate, and then up at the face. He liked to see a little gray on the temples. It improved chances a scene was not screwed up.