The call arrived to dispatch at 6:55 AM Sunday in what, by all other means, was the unfolding of a lovely Coastal Georgia morning. Dawning sunlight glistened off of the Sapelo River, awakening the day to the applause of an estuarine paradise. A snappy fall wind blew northward across the outer banks, yielding a tender reminder the seasons had begun to change, bidding summer’s welcomed farewell with the tropical humidity soon to pass.
Effervescent grass danced on a nearby sandbar, softly swaying with each salinous breath arriving from the Atlantic seashore, only a few miles away. A solitary brown pelican peered for breakfast eagerly holding a mannequin-like stance, noting with amusement the tiny minnows playfully surfacing on the sandbar’s crest.
Deputies cordoned off a 25- yard vicinity with yellow ribbon emblazoned with large black letters “CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS.” Sheriff Ritz Johnson pointed his cruiser southbound down Georgia Hwy 99 in full emergency mode, his siren crying loudly, blue lights flashing violently, knowing all too well the gruesome sight he would soon encounter…again. What he dreaded at the moment, though, was the realization that it was time to make...the call.
“Special Agent Howard, how may I help you?” answered the startled man without screening the ID on his office cellphone, not expecting an interruption on visitation day with his only son.
“Hank, we have another one. I’m almost at the scene,” the beleaguered sheriff lamented with hesitation, inhaling and exhaling deeply as if a wind gust burst through the receiver.
Howard looked at the ground in obvious irritation then cut his eyes over to Jonathan, the eight-year-old light of his life.
“Damn it. Where?” he growled.
“North McIntosh County,” the Sheriff offered, “just outside of Crescent. Some fisherman discovered a Caucasian male, nineteen, maybe twenty-years-old.”
“10-4,” he replied with resignation, mumbling expletives to shield the boy’s ears, followed by, “Give me a few minutes…”
“What’s wrong, daddy?” Jonathan inquired, in a voice of discerning experience, knowing quite well what happens next; a keen awareness emerging from a young life enveloped in disappointments: his parents’ divorce only two years earlier, the untimely death of his beloved papa, his mother’s hurried second marriage to a man she met online but barely knew, not to mention his dad’s unceasing obsession with work and limited emotional availability.
Taken altogether, the lad’s thoughts burst into overload, earning him frequent visitations with his school’s assistant principal, ADHD meds, and the moniker “sped kid” from his classmates.
“Son, something bad happened. I’ve got to go to work,” his father lamented, placing his right hand on Jonathan’s head and bustling through the boy’s curly brown hair. “We’re going back to your mom’s, but I promise to pick you up for dinner in a few hours.”
Jonathan’s eyes glanced sorrowfully at his freshly cast rod and reel, his bobber just percolating with flirtations from playful whiting only moments away from becoming the morning trophy and afternoon feast. This wouldn’t be the first time a father-son fishing trip was cut short and somehow his puerile mind predicted neither would it be the last. Without another word, the lad also knew his dad would not return for dinner.
Reeling in the rod the boy placed his grandfather’s treasured Zebco 404 on the fishing dock, avoiding direct eye contact with his father. “Oh, dad…” he remarked with polysyllabic emphasis on his paternal term of endearment, donning his University of Georgia camouflage cap to disguise the tears welling up in his eyes, pulling down the bill and looking one last time into the pond, the pungent scent of nearby catfish permeating from the mud bottom, offering an unwelcome reminder to what might have been but somehow never seemed to be.
The boy’s denim coveralls ran low to the ground leaving the tarnish of grass stains and river muck below his knees, tainting his light brown hiking boots. He wore a denim jacket his papa gifted him for Christmas and a light grey sweatshirt to help keep the wind at bay. Hanging his head low, shoulders dropped, and sullen, Jonathan heeded his father’s directive and ventured back to their truck.
It was Hank’s turn now to make an unwanted call and his son’s mother, Lynn, was livid. Pausing momentarily to process the moment, he delivered the news to his ex-wife that Jonathan was returning home earlier than expected.
“Little boys don’t hold cherished moments until it’s more convenient. Every second that passes by is another notch in time you cannot recreate for him, Hank,” her voice raising an octave for emphasis on each word, the rage reaching through the cellular signal, as if slapping her ex-husband across the breadth of his cheekbones.
Hank didn’t need anything else to make him feel worse. The prolonged yet unsolved investigation of Coastal Georgia homicides had already cost him his marriage and custody of the boy.
“Lynn, please listen. This looks like our killer. I have to assess the crime scene.”
“Listen to me, you sonofa…” she demanded as he abruptly ended the call.
“That went well…” he uttered skyward as he turned to find Jonathan already stationed in the Black Toyota Tundra, seat belt fastened, having readily accepted the inevitable. The momentary pain of another lost father-son experience accentuated Hank’s distracting recollection of what had brought him to this point in life.
Five years earlier Hank was enjoying a well-deserved promotion from field investigator to regional supervisor when he was initiated at his Savannah based GBI field office into the pathology of a serial killer. He could not and did not know that humid July morning how his entire life was about to change. How personal and professional torment would lead to his drinking too much, to fits of rage, and even to moments of disorientation. How his wife would file for divorce and terrorize his soul by taking custody of their only child. Or the helplessness he would feel at the surmounting pressure of a raging serial killer gallivanting about in Coastal Georgia, one for which he nor the GBI had been able to do a damn thing to stop.
The first victim was discovered at 3 AM by an onlooker enjoying a festive evening, upon exiting a pub in Savannah. Having had far too much to drink and needing to vomit the wares of his exploits into the Savannah River, the party-goer made the ghastly discovery just as he leaned over the River Street balcony, only to stare directly into the distended lifeless eyes of a man floating face up, as if stargazing in bewilderment at the astrological circus opened to display, street lights clearly illuminating the sheer terror he felt while clinging to his final gasps for life.
With four and now presumably a fifth gunshot victim, Hank harbored the tormenting pressure in leading a lengthy, unsolved case, anxiety permeating his chest- his heart racing towards detonation. The other victims, also young men but from various walks of life, had seemingly no direct connection, except the morbid commonality of a shared death experience. That there were no substantive leads only exacerbated his feelings of incompetence and the obsessive drive to prove himself capable.
Within forty-five minutes he was southbound, quickly leaving his son with the boy’s mother and encountering her expected scolding stare of silent disapproval; her disdaining glare completing their unfinished conversation, then rushing to his nearby Savannah apartment for a quick change of clothes. Withstanding the scalding hot shower as much as he could bare, he immersed himself as if each droplet somehow sanctified the task that awaited.
At 6’2 and 195 pounds, Hank was as athletically fit as he had been since his days playing shortstop for the Georgia Southern Eagles. He brushed back his thick black hair, evenly cropped on both sides, leaving an inch of thickness on top for good measure. Cloaking himself in Khaki slacks, black penny loafers, and a heavily starched tieless white Oxford dress shirt, he grabbed his blue windbreaker with GBI embellished in fluorescent yellow letters across the back and headed for the door.
GBI crime scene technicians were also en route but would require additional time for preparation prior to leaving Savannah. An ambulance awaited the scene with an obese emergency medical technician casually chomping a honey bun, coffee stains patched across his blue uniform shirt. Four police cruisers encircled the cordoned crime arena, deputies standing nearby as spectators obviously ill at ease, having respectfully covered the victim but leaving his body virtually untouched once the part-time county coroner methodically felt for a jugular pulse and pronounced him with a baritone southern drawl, “deader than shit.”
A crowd of onlookers gathered outside the scene, curiously peering down the slope at the assemblage of officers and emergency vehicles. Rumor quickly spread in the rural close knit community that a body had surfaced from the Sapelo River. Fear and speculation as to the victim’s identification commanded most everyone’s attention. Cell phones buzzed across town from anxious loved ones calling to assure just who was alive and well, fearing who wasn’t.
Sheriff Ritz Johnson stood a few feet from the deceased, his muscular black arms crossed, his thick shaved barren head shaking in dismay as Howard crossed the crime scene ribbon.
“I would say ‘Good morning’ but…” Johnson quieted with a slight degree of sarcasm, “I was thinking kiss my ass might be more suitable.”
Howard glared momentarily into Ritz’s eyes, scoffed at the sheriff’s camouflage fatigues and muddied hunting boots, then turned towards the victim, refusing to acknowledge the sheriff accept by gesturing his middle finger upward in a universal token of disdain.
Years earlier, the two men were best friends, virtually inseparable during their high school days at McIntosh County Academy, even sharing a college major in Criminal Justice in nearby Statesboro. Most everyone who knew the two wondered how they had become such fierce enemies. Neither man chose to speak as to why, not even to their closest confidants.
Ritz Johnson was the first African American elected to office higher than the school board in McIntosh County. Respected and admired by most everyone in the community, as a first term sheriff he remained cautious of precedent yet confident in his ability. At 5’11 with beaming brown eyes, dark mocha skin and a muscular linebacker frame, his 225 pound “gentle giant” persona simultaneously presented him as a walking nightmare to criminals yet approachable and appreciated by law abiding citizens.
Placing latex gloves on both hands and an infection control mask over his face, Hank guardedly approached the young man’s body. Sidestepping several large pieces of concrete previously placed along the embankment to prevent erosion, he squatted to ground level and eased back the sheet covering the deceased.
Blonde with gentle features, raised cheekbones, soft lips paled by the recent kiss of death, the victim wore American Eagle jeans, a tight-fitted, left breast pocketed blue t-shirt, brown leather sandals fastened around the back of his feet, and an orange elastic bracelet around his left wrist italicized with the adage “Live fast. Die Young.” Looks like he got his wish, Howard noted as he took out a voice recorder to document findings at the scene.
“I’m turning this scene over to you. But my office will conduct our own investigation. Do you have a problem with that?” the Sheriff inquired. “Because I’m not looking for any interdepartmental rivalry on this one. And I would like to speak with you privately in the next day or two.”
“The more we can cooperate, the better for all,” Hank offered, now standing and facing the sheriff, offering the semblance of respect. The last thing he needed was another complaint filed against him by local law enforcement.
“We already know most of these locals aren’t going to tell my investigators anything. Your assistance is critical. I would be much obliged if your boys would keep the perimeter secure. How was the body discovered?”
The sheriff, too, shifted towards Hank, momentarily startled and bewildered at his nemesis’ change in demeanor before offering, “A shrimp boat captain spotted what he deemed an apparently lifeless individual floating face down along the embankment. He ordered two crew members to navigate the vessel’s life raft over to the victim and immediately notified the Coast Guard and my office.”
Sounds of gravel popping up under tires distracted the two men’s first civil conversation in years as GBI crime scene technicians Lloyd Hartmann and Jaylen Mulkey arrived, parking the forensic mobile lab black Ford van just above the shoreline then immediately perusing for evidence. Hartmann, a GBI legend celebrated as a top rate scientist, had supervised the forensic investigation for the other four homicide cases as well. With a grayish-red receding frontal hairline covered by parting from the side of his head much too close to his ear and his South Georgia bass-like drawl, the rotund, 5’9 Hartmann commanded attention wherever his presence demanded.
Mulkey, young and inexperienced, simply followed his mentor everywhere possible and remained a silent assistant unless directly addressed. Given his pale complexion and thin, diminutive stature, he was barely noticeable near the bulldozing Hartmann.
“Morning, Sheriff. Morning, Hank. Looks like one hell of a day ahead of me,” Hartmann lamented, swiping empty handed the sweat rolling down his forehead into his eyes, positioning himself at the foot of the victim and directing Mulkey to take photos from every angle within a 10-yard perimeter.
An Action News crew from Savannah arrived and began unloading equipment, much to the dismay of the GBI team. “By the time they finish reporting, the Loch Ness Monster will have been seen leaving the area after police arrested Bigfoot in a racially charged incident,” Hank scoffed, reflecting in wonderment the extent to which local media would stir controversy to spike their declining ratings.
Strangely enough, the national media blitz had yet to ignite, though a fifth murder was certain to spark the flame of attention. “What do you think has taken so long for wide-scale media coverage?” Mulkey inquired of his superior, as they both placed on gloves and masks. “Well, son,” Lloyd Hartmann surmised, coughing several times into his newly retrieved handkerchief, ‘the general public’s interest is just not as enamored with the loss of several deceased boys, as would they be for young women or children.”
“Identification in the victim’s wallet states his name as Morris Allen Davidson,” Hartmann bellowed. The Sheriff had already determined that conclusion for himself upon arrival, easily recognizing the deceased as the child of Dr. Richard Davidson, a prominent dentist and member of the McIntosh County Commission. Dr. Richardson was alarmed at the news of a discovery given the absence of his son that morning and continued placing several unanswered calls to the Sheriff’s cell phone while news spread of the yet to be identified body.
A troubled youngster only 22-years old, Morris’ previous run-ins with the law included misdemeanor charges for minor possession of alcohol, possession of marijuana, battery, and one close call felony investigation involving the considerably unhappy parents of a fourteen- year-old female for whom he was suspected of having had sexual relations. The girl denied her parents’ accusations in spite of obvious evidence to the contrary, and Dr. Davidson employed his powerful influence with Judge Ranchett, a close friend and regular golf companion, when the charges conveniently vanished.
Hartmann continued his on-site investigation, even as he ordered the body transported to the closest morgue in Brunswick, then onto the forensics lab in Augusta.
“I will personally speak with Dr. and Mrs. Davidson. Then, I want a deputy and a chaplain to pick them up,” the Sheriff commanded the team of deputies. “Take them to Brunswick, so they can formally identify their son.” More than any other part of his job, he regretted being the bearer of bad news to families about to discover the untimely death of a loved one.
Hank and the other GBI investigators forfeited their Sunday afternoon and early evening to surveying the vicinity of the crime scene. No conclusive evidence was discovered, particularly given the Sapelo River’s murky coloration and constantly changing tidal flow from the Atlantic Ocean.
“As a preliminary analysis, the victim was most certainly dead before dawn, probably between 4:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. We’ll have to check his lungs, but I am guessing he was shot in close proximity to the river, then thrown or pushed into the water,” Hartmann suggested, pausing between phrases for emphasis and effect. “He presumably died from the gunshot wound to the chest. Never had a chance to run or swim away.”
“If he is a fifth victim, as I suspect, he is the second one found floating in water,” Hank reminded Hartmann, “not to mention, along with victim number three, the second discovered in McIntosh County. Given the scope of the river and its varying tides pulling from the Atlantic, the point of entry was likely anywhere within a half mile, easily allowing the body to drift downstream from any number of bridges, docks, or embankments. Determining precisely where he fell or was discarded into the river is a lottery play with the odds distinctly in favor of the house.”
The remainder of the morning and afternoon was spent gathering evidence and interviewing potential witnesses from the gathering of curious onlookers. With the November dawn bidding the sun adieu and darkness gradually blanketing the sky, Hartmann and Hank agreed the day’s work was completed, briefly surveying the digital photos documenting the victim and his immediate surroundings, including multiple close ups of the spectators gathering at the scene throughout the day.
The Sheriff’s cruiser returned just as Mulkey closed the back double doors on the mobile forensics lab. Clearing his throat, Ritz swatted at the sand gnats hovering around his face and addressed Hartmann directly, “We have positive identification from the boy’s parents. Morris was last seen around midnight buying a beer at the Friendly Express. We have video surveillance. The clerk states he was alone, apparently walking.”
“Interview every person,” Hank interrupted, “anyone you can identify from the video footage who entered that store from 11:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M. Someone saw something,” Hank demanded as he shut his truck door, not waiting for a response.
Ritz kicked at a small pebble while glancing over at Hartmann and rhetorically questioned, “Who’s he talking to?” pointing at his own chest for emphasis. “I don’t believe I heard his royal highness. That man has more moods and personalities than all my ex-wives combined.”
On the way back to his apartment, Hank, dismayed at his well-intentioned yet once again broken promise, phoned Jonathan. The boy was already asleep at 8:30 P.M., having spent the remainder of the day at the park with his mom and new stepfather. “Don’t worry,” his mother offered, sarcastically feigning comfort, “He had such a great time he didn’t remember you lied about returning for dinner.” Hank was surprised his cell phone screen’s resistance lacked pliability upon its sudden impact onto his truck’s dashboard.
Arriving home exhausted, Hank kicked off his muddied once black loafers at the door, grabbed a Bud Light from the refrigerator and sifted through several remote control devices until finally scoring the correct combination to access 120 channels of mostly infomercials, wasted reality TV reruns, and the news team broadcast.
“Good evening. This is Stacey Bryant with Savannah’s Action News at 10. A body was discovered today in McIntosh County this morning and is possibly linked to a Coastal Georgia serial killer.”
He reached for the remote, thankful only one click immediately silenced the media circus about to implode. A quick survey of his refrigerator yielded no hope for the gain of another cold beer. Rummaging through the pantry, his find of an opened bottle of Jack Daniels was comparable to discovering gold while mining for coal. Normally diluted with a diet coke and ice, tonight was cause for unadulterated gulps of hell’s nectar. Hank’s nostrils flared in delight with his tongue and throat flooded by Tennessee's finest whiskey. A miniscule flame sparked his esophagus, igniting in his abdomen until sending a pyrogenic sensation upward into a headrush of intoxicated elation.
The 750ml bottle emptied in what seemed a matter of minutes leaving Hank unaware his conscious day had concluded until the alarm on his shattered cell sounded at 5:30 the next morning.
