Memphis Legend Read online

  MEMPHIS LEGEND

  BRIAN CRAWFORD

  Maverick BookWorks

  MEMPHIS LEGEND

  Copyright © 2016 by Brian Crawford.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact:

  [email protected]

  First Edition: December 2016

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  MEMPHIS LEGEND

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to Miranda. If I listed all the ways you help me, this dedication would be longer than the book itself. So I'll just say: Thank you for your patience, support, belief and inspiration.

  Acknowledgments

  I almost skipped writing this page for fear of overlooking one of the many people that deserve thanks in helping me bring my story to life. I could not have done it without the help of supportive friends and family.

  First, I’d like to thank my wife, Miranda, for putting up with me through the entire process. You never seemed to get tired of me despite reading each draft and being my tireless sounding board. Thanks to my Mom. Your support has been truly immeasurable. David Crawford, I thank you for being the best darn beta reader a big brother could ask for. You took the task to heart, and your input was invaluable. It would not have been the same book without you. Thank you to Jay Salmon. Your early constructive criticism and advice are much appreciated. (Now let’s get your books out there, buddy). Lee Witte, thank you for making me rewrite the first scene with Dr. Lowe so many times. You successfully drove home the point that writing is rewriting. Amy Zilko, if not for your help with the editing process, I might still be working on my final draft. Thanks.

  I know I forget someone, so let me say thanks to all of you that had to listen to me go on and on about my book, for telling me you can’t wait to read it, and then being forced to wait as I went through the lengthy process. (It took longer than I expected as well).

  Finally, I want to thank YOU, the reader, for taking a chance on my endeavor. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this story, and I hope that L.T. and Boyd and the rest of the crew have managed to entertain you as much as creating them did me. If so, I hope you will consider returning to Amazon and leaving a review. I am an indie author, so I rely on reviews and word-of-mouth. Thank you in advance for your consideration.

  If you would like to be notified of new book releases or want to send me a message, you can contact me at [email protected]. I also have a website, briancrawfordauthor.wordpress.com. However, I will admit in advance that I am a happily married man, father of four daughters, and still practicing chiropractor, so please set your expectations low on the website. (I know I have).

  "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

  – Edmund Burke, 1770.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was 6:55 a.m. on a hot Tuesday in July when the man furtively entered Memphis Memorial Hospital through a seldom-used side entrance. His crisp, clean, dark blue denim jeans looked as though they had never been worn and were a strong contrast to the worn work boots and dirty windbreaker. The man was sweating, yet his discomfort appeared to be more than just physical; he looked uncomfortable in his surroundings.

  Thousands of people come into the hospital each day, from all walks of life, yet instinctively I was transfixed by this man’s peculiar behavior and appearance. His cold, hard stare was unnerving, and I was confident he was using the jacket to disguise something underneath. He was secretively gripping a formless mass through the jacket, not in the pocket, but something on the inside of the jacket. My inner voice, usually more subtle in its urging, was yelling at me to stay vigilant.

  The man continued down the long hallway, stopping to look at the directory on the wall. It was obvious he didn’t know where he was going, but he did know where to look. He read the names on the board, tracing the names on the board with his fingers, and stopped at Dr. Witmer’s information while tapping the board affirmatively. His heavily tanned hands and wrists, absent of any noticeable tan lines, were evidence of a considerable amount of time spent outdoors without wearing a jacket or long sleeves.

  I glanced at my watch. 6:57 a.m. My respiration increased as the first stirring of adrenaline entered my body; it was mildly unsettling. I was unsure if my suspicions were the cause, or that my shift started in three minutes and I hated to be late. It was not my style.

  The man lingered in front of the directory for another 30 seconds, nearly immobile, staring, then abruptly turned and headed down the hall towards the elevator. Dirt fell from his work boots onto the clean, white tile floor. A result of the man’s quick, determined gait. He was a Caucasian male, 5’10”, 170, maybe 175 pounds, yet other people in the hallway gave the man a wide berth. Maybe they also felt something was amiss with the stranger, even if it was subconscious.

  Reluctantly, I trailed him to the elevator, which the stranger entered with three other passengers, all women. One was a middle-aged woman, pretty, with a teenage girl who was obviously her daughter. It was easy to see she would be a real heart breaker when the teenage complexion cleared up. The other was a nurse I recognized from podiatry but did not know personally.

  “Second floor please,” he said in a pleasant Southern accent to the pretty middle-aged woman standing near the elevator buttons. When he made eye contact with me in the elevator, he gave a salutatory nod and smiled.

  I relaxed my clenched fists as a feeling of relief encompassed me. Maybe my instincts had gotten rusty with disuse. Maybe I had been too quick to judge. The stranger was probably a courier clutching at papers under his jacket. Maybe even a process server feeling nervous about his current job. Feeling foolish, I decided to get off the elevator on the second floor and take the stairs back to my previous destination on the first floor. 6:59 a.m. I would be a little late. No one would even notice, although I would know.

  The elevator door opened. The scent of sour, vinegary acetic acid mixed with dirt and toothpaste remained as an echo as the man exited the elevator in front of me. He furtively glanced around before walking to the directory near the elevator as I headed for the stairway. He was studyi
ng the directory, reading it with his fingers again. Even at the increased distance, it was obvious the man had stopped on Dr. Witmer’s name again.

  Pausing at the stairway door, I contemplated the suspicious odor of the stranger, reminiscent of a frat boy trying to disguise his smell after a long night of drinking. He was talking to himself and bouncing up and down feverishly.

  The stranger abruptly turned and nearly jumped into a different open elevator.

  Great, not again.

  My heart rate quickened as the unmistakable surge of adrenaline entered my body. I welcomed the familiar rush while quickly formulating that my previous assertion was correct. The stranger was up to no good. He seemed to be psyching himself up to do something horrible, something so horrible that he needed to be psyched up to continue, and he was planning on doing it at Dr. Witmer’s office.

  The increase in strength and speed caused by the adrenaline had its advantages on stairs as I went up them three at a time, burst through the stairwell door two floors up and looked down the hall to the right. The stranger had exited the elevator and already turned to his right. I was looking at his back. He was walking at a vigorous pace, leaning forward in an effort to walk faster.

  The first thread of indecision entered my mind. I was not entirely sure my hunch, my inner voice, was right. But it usually was, and that worried me. My internal mental struggle created a pause in my action while I decided whether to run or walk.

  The stranger reached the end of the hallway and turned to his left, his profile revealing he was again gripping the formless mass under his jacket. Then he was out of sight.

  My inner voice yelled at me to run. I had ground to make up.

  I did not work in this part of the hospital, but I had been at the hospital for over three years and was reasonably sure I knew the floor plan. Dr. Witmer was a pediatrician, and her office was just around the corner. She shared a waiting area with Dr. Trueblood, an ear, nose and throat guy. Her reception area was on the left; Dr. Trueblood’s was on the right. A person had to walk through the waiting room to reach the reception counter. To the left of the counter was the entrance to the treatment rooms. I also remembered a children’s play area with a little Lego table and a fish tank.

  The screams reached my ears before I turned left at the end of the hallway. Female screams. Worried mothers’ screams. Scared screams. I slowed my pace as I reached the waiting room and was met with a tide of frightened mothers running my direction, pulling, or pushing, or dragging their children out of the area, out of danger. They were all scared. They were also all unhurt.

  There was little time to mentally register my relief that no one was hurt before spotting the man standing just inside the door of the reception area. A young, small blonde receptionist fearfully sat a few feet from the stranger. He was menacingly pointing a gun in her direction.

  “I said where the hell is Dr. Witmer?” He was waving the gun around erratically.

  “She’s in one of the treatment rooms.” The girl was almost in tears.

  “Then get her the hell out here right now!”

  She was nearly paralyzed with fear, cowering, not wanting to make eye contact with the adversary. The tears started to flow.

  “Get the hell over here and show me where the damn doctor is. Now!”

  He grabbed the small woman by the arm, pulling her to her feet. He pushed her towards the entrance to the treatment rooms as the other receptionist was staring intently at the man, frozen in place, yet she looked more angry than frightened. One mother remained in the waiting room, prone on the floor behind the row of waiting room chairs, covering her small son. He looked about eight, and the wide-eyed look of excitement on his face made it obvious he did not share his mother’s fear.

  Observe. Orient. Decide. Act.

  Slowing my stride without actually stopping my forward movement allowed me the split second I needed to assess the situation fully. The man was no longer simply a stranger. He was there to harm Dr. Witmer. Which meant he was now an adversary; he just did not know it yet. He would soon. He would not be allowed to reach Dr. Witmer.

  The adversary finally spotted me, his eyes growing big as I approached, running and stopping within a few feet.

  The adversary drew back and raised his gun towards me. “Back up! Who the hell are you?”

  “I work here. I need you to let the girl go and put down your weapon.”

  “The hell you say.”

  His gaze remained fixated on me, yet the gun no longer remained aimed at anyone in particular. He was holding the gun out in front, unable to decide if he should aim it at the girl or the large man in front of him. His other hand remained locked on the girl’s arm while she twisted her body away from the man. Her scared, pleading eyes locked onto me.

  I recognized the gun, an inexpensive semiautomatic 9 mm pistol based on an M1911 design. I didn’t like the gun, it had a tendency to jam during rapid fire drills, and it didn’t fit my large hands well. I had never shot that model myself, but I knew its features and workings. It was a single action pistol, requiring that the hammer is cocked by hand or by operating the slide mechanism before the first round could be fired. The hammer was not cocked, and the safety was still on.

  Thank God, I am dealing with an amateur.

  Realizing the gun was not currently a viable threat, I reached out and wrapped my left hand around the barrel to redirect its aim to the side. The adversary responded as expected. He turned his head towards the gun as his other hand also moved in that direction. Grasping the opportunity, I stepped in closer, twisted my body to the left, and delivered a crippling blow with my right elbow to the adversary’s left temple. It was so fast the girl would later tell the police she never even saw the blow that leveled the man who was now lying in an immobile heap on the floor.

  7:01 a.m. I was late for my shift downstairs. The man was no longer an adversary.

  CHAPTER 2

  I had not spoken more than ten words to my mother in nearly 14 years, yet while standing over the man lying on the floor I could hear her voice inside my head. Something about evil and good men doing nothing. Who was I kidding, I knew the quote word for word. Just another example of the lies parents feed their children. It was one that I had bought into as a child, and now because of my mother’s influence in my life, I could not help thinking my current situation was partially her fault and with that realization I felt the familiar resentment creeping into my conscious mind.

  The weight of the gun in my left hand snapped me back to the present. I quickly removed the magazine making sure nothing was in the chamber and tucked the cheap firearm into my waistband in the small of my back before focusing, once again, on the unconscious man lying on the floor.

  Time to employ the familiar mnemonic, ABCDE - Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure. My training told me that any person with a decreased level of consciousness has a compromised airway due to the tongue and epiglottis blocking it. This man was completely unconscious. The jaw thrust maneuver was carefully employed to guarantee a patent airway. His breathing was irregular. His pulse rate was slow. Not surprising.

  Next was determining his level of disability or consciousness. His eyes remained closed, he was unresponsive to voice commands and pinching his nail bed revealed he was unresponsive to pain stimuli as well. That was surprising. The final step, exposure, is always performed at the end of the assessment to look for clues to explain the person’s condition. That was easy. My elbow, his head. The distinct smell of alcohol hit my nostrils while leaning over the man, indicating I needed to watch him until an emergency room doctor arrived to ensure he didn’t drown on his own vomit.

  The poor man’s condition looked dire. A doctor was needed on the scene, ASAP.

  The small blonde receptionist was hysterical; she wasn’t going to be useful. The other receptionist was still staring, still mentally processing. It appeared she had not caught up with the events yet in her mind.

  “Oh my God. What…what ha
ppened here?”It was Dr. Witmer. Good, she would save me the trouble of making the emergency call myself.

  “Call down to security. Tell them to call 911. Man with a gun. The man is no longer a threat, but he is unconscious with a GCS of three. He needs medical attention, stat, so get an ER doctor up here.”

  Dr. Witmer was a small, thin woman with a face totally devoid of wrinkles or lines, yet her hair was going slightly gray. It made her age hard to guess, probably her mid-forties. The look suited her, she looked kind and caring, like a grandmother or favorite aunt. She looked at my quizzically and started to speak, second guessed herself, then left to call security without muttering a word.

  The man remained unresponsive. Little to do but watch and wait for the cavalry to arrive. I directed the second receptionist to help the small crying woman over to a chair. The mother with the small child was standing, watching with her mouth open. She was obviously still processing as well. The son was still wide-eyed and definitely looked entertained; he was going to have one heck of a story to tell his friends.

  Dr. Witmer returned. “I called security. They are on their way, and the ER is sending someone up. Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you might know. He was looking for you. He had a gun and was demanding to see you.”

  “Oh my God. A gun? Me? But why?”

  “I have no idea. I disarmed him. Didn’t have a chance to ask him why first.”

  Security was first to arrive, interrupting my conversation with Dr. Witmer. The security officer was a short, lean young man in his earlier twenties, wide-eyed and out of breath. I attempted to get the security officer caught up on the situation, but he had trouble processing as well. Confusion seemed to be contagious. Obviously, he was a civilian security officer and not an off-duty police officer.

  Within minutes, Dr. Zimmerman rounded the corner in a huff and walked straight towards us, a warm smile on his lips and a confused look on the rest of his face. Ms. Rhodes, an ER nurse, accompanied him. Dr. Zimmerman said, “I would have been here sooner, but you know I’m really used to the EMTs bringing the patients to me, not me walking through the hospital to the patient. You could have saved me the trouble of running, Dr. McCain, if someone had told me you were already on scene.”