The Butcher

by Jennifer Hillier

Reaching out, he once again touched the dent on the side of the Mathushek, left there from when he’d smashed her head into it four months ago.

His grandparents had raised him after his teenage mother had died of an overdose when he was just an infant.

Sam’s theory was that her own mother, Sarah Marquez, had been a victim of the Butcher . . . which meant the Butcher wasn’t Rufus Wedge at all.

I pay her extremely well, my friend, and I pay her extremely well that so that she’ll do her fucking job extremely well.

“Nothing.” Edward shook his head. “The guy’s not in there anymore.”

“Not everyone is all bad or all good. Good people do bad things every day, and bad people do good things every day.”

“You also talked about the other serial killers from the area, like Ted Bundy, Robert Lee Yates, Ethan Wolfe, et cetera. I think you even nicknamed the Northwest ‘Butcherville.’ I always thought that’d make a cool name for a book or something.”

At first, creating the Butcher had been a strategic career move. Catch a serial killer, get famous, get promoted.

“No,” he said. “Because you’re not asking for the right reasons. When you do, I will.”

“The Butcher had another element to his signature.” Sanchez took a breath. “It wasn’t just the hands.”