Red Dog Saloon (5 page)

“There
they are,” Eddie said to himself as he found the keys where he had fallen at
the foot of his stairs. He looked back and forth and then dashed back toward
his steps. He quickly retrieved his keys from the
ground and ran back to his truck.

He
jumped into the driver’s side and immediately locked his doors to prevent
his visitor from crawling in the truck with him. He looked out through his
windshield but saw no movement. Perhaps he had made the run without being seen.

Momentarily
satisfied no one was charging at him, Eddie concentrated on getting out of
there as he plunged his key into the ignition. Nothing! His truck wouldn’t
start! Turn the key as he might, the ignition wouldn’t answer. The engine
refused to turn over despite his cursing. Eddie suspected his truck had been
sabotaged. Someone had intentionally disabled his vehicle to leave him trapped.

Now
his options were down to two. He could either go inside and wait for the
intruder to come inside or go hunting himself. This time Eddie would go with
option two. He would turn the hunter into the hunted.

Eddie
stepped out of his truck and realized for the first time he was still in his
short sleeve work shirt. He had neglected to change out of his work clothes in
all the excitement. Plus, in formulating his foolproof plan to evade his
unwelcome guest, he had neglected in his inebriated state to put on shoes when
he dashed out the door. 

Even
as his toes began to tingle from the cold, a thought occurred to him. His
camping equipment, which included a lantern and emergency matches, were inside
his shed behind the trailer. He would go there first and retrieve them. Light
would even the playing field. If he could only see what he was hunting he could
kill it.

Moving
slowly his gun at arm’s length, Eddie made his way toward his shed. Even the
slightest noise caused him to jump and take aim. Had the intruder gone? Or, was
the interloper hiding in his shed waiting for him? If the prowler was in the
building, Eddie resolved, he would shoot him dead.

Eddie
stood outside the shed trying to detect any movement through its small front
window. The darkness inside the building kept him from catching a glimpse
inside. Turning the knob, Eddie kicked open the door hoping to surprise
anything that might be inside. He hesitated for just a moment before bursting
inside like a gangbuster ready to open fire. He soon realized he was alone in
the small shed. The only sound he could hear was his own breathing
and the beating of his heart.

He
wasted no time. The cold was quickly sobering him. He found his lantern and
shook it, the sloshing telling him it was partially filled with kerosene. He
reached deeper into the bag and found the matches. He would have light.

Exposed
in the small building and quickly feeling the bite of hypothermia, Eddie
decided to dash back into his house where he would have cover to light the
lantern. Cautiously looking around before emerging from the building, Eddie
bolted for his front door. This time he remained upright as he
cleared the steps in one jump. He then ran through his front door, taking time
to close and lock the door behind him.

Eddie
placed the lantern down on the kitchen table and blew on his hands trying
to get feeling back in his fingertips. His short misadventure outside the house
chilled him to the bone. He went to work pumping the light, the hissing sound
of kerosene soon becoming audible. He laid down his gun to lift up the glass so
he could light the mantel. Striking his match, the light flickered to life in
the otherwise dark trailer. The light gave him a sense of relative
calm. The flickering of the match soon grew as the light of the lantern bathed
the kitchen in its soft white glow.

It
was just as he felt the jubilation after restoring light that he felt the
presence behind him. It had approached him from the darkness as he was
concentrating on the lantern. Whatever had been outside was now inside with
him!

Eddie
turned to face the presence. His body was stricken with fear, his heart in his
throat as he looked at a figure with no face standing inches behind him. It was
the form of a man, a dark man, standing like a statue, no movement, not even
the sound of breathing.

Eddie
was afraid to speak or to even scream as he stared in horror at the
faceless figure. It was then he recalled his gun on the table by the lantern.
It was just inches away. He would make a move. He knew it was his only chance
to avoid joining Andy.

Without
delay Eddie made a lunge for his gun, reaching out with his half-frozen right
hand. He felt the cold steel for an instant. The gun, however, fell from his
hand as a jolt of pain raced up his arm. He could no longer feel the cold steel.

Stunned
by the sudden sensation, Eddie looked at the table where the gun still lay.
Beside it was his severed hand!

Pulling
the stub of his arm into the light, Eddie saw his blood
pumping into the air like a fountain with each beat of his
heart.  He opened his mouth to scream but another blow from the
machete silenced his horrified cry. His head fell from his shoulders, hitting
the floor before the rest of his body could fall.

Sam
reached for his phone. The incessant ringing ripped him from his sound sleep.
His wife rousted just long enough to shoot him an annoyed look before turning
over and pushing her head deep into her pillow.

“Sorry
sheriff but Faulkner was afraid to call you two mornings in a row so he talked
me into doing it,” came the voice of Bo Davis as Sam looked at his clock.

The
red digits revealed it was just after six in the morning.

“You
better get on out here," Bo said in a serious tone. "We got
another.”

Still
not fully awake, Sam rubbed his eyes as he tried to force himself into full
consciousness.

“Another
what?” Sam asked as he sat up in bed.

“Another
body,” Bo responded. “It’s Eddie Young.”

Sam
slammed down his phone in frustration. Eddie’s reluctance to cooperate the day
before had likely cost him his life.

Sam
played back his conversation with Eddie in his mind as he drove to the scene of
the most recent slaying. Why had Eddie been less than forthcoming when they
talked the day before - a day that would prove to be the last day of his life?
What was he hiding? Did the secret he kept lead to his death?

One
thing Sam knew for sure, sight unseen, the murders were related. They were likely
the work of the same killer. There was something that Eddie and Andy had been
into, perhaps much earlier in their lives, that led to their demise. Had it
dated all the way back to the Red Dog days or was he way off the mark?

It
was like déjà vu all over again as Sam rolled up to Eddie’s trailer. Yellow
tape surrounded the scene of the crime. The driveway this time had three patrol
cars already waiting in it. From the looks of things Sam was a late-comer.

“Crime
lab boys are just a few minutes out,” Bo announced as he came out to meet his
boss in the driveway. “They’re going to ask for their own office space here if
we keep calling them every morning like this.”

“I
guess I’d just be wasting my breath asking if it’s a homicide,” Sam said.

He
already knew the answer since he didn't figure Eddie for the type who
would eat the barrel of his own gun or take a handful of pills.

“Oh
yeah,” Bo responded with a slight chuckle. “This is murder and then some.”

Bo
motioned the sheriff toward the door and followed as his boss walked up the
same steps he climbed the day before when he questioned Eddie.

Sam’s
senses were immediately bombarded by the spectacle of a slaughterhouse. The
room looked like something or someone had been put through a meat grinder. The
veteran lawman actually gagged at the sight of the butchery.

Sam,
from just inside the door, could see the severed hand on the blood-covered
kitchen table. A gun was lying beside the pale appendage. Scanning the
rest of the room, he realized something was missing.

“Where’s
his head?” Sam asked, eyeing the rest of Eddie’s body.

Sam
noticed Eddie was still dressed in the same clothes he was wearing the day
before when he talked to him.

“You
tell me,” Bo replied. “We looked everywhere. It’s not here.”

Sam
looked his investigator in the eye realizing the lawman was being serious.

“Who
takes a head? What am I going to tell his mother?” Sam posed.

The
sheriff always dreaded notifying the next of kin. “You sure it’s not
here?”

“Positive,”
Bo said with assurance. “We’ve swept the entire property, even into the woods
out back. No head.”

Sam
shook his head in disbelief. He rubbed his own neck in light of the
macabre scene before him. It was then he realized something was missing besides
Eddie’s head.

“I
wonder why he didn’t leave a message this time,” Sam declared, surprised the
words weren’t spelled out again given the fact there was plenty of blood
available.

Bo
calmly pointed toward the other side of the kitchen counter. Sam took the
silent hint and walked around the counter. There on the tile floor of the
kitchen were written the words in bright red letters – Red Dog.

“We
definitely have a problem,” Sam said.

 Bo
nodded in agreement as he looked at the carnage. “The question is who's next?”

With
the
smell
of death starting to become overwhelming, the sheriff decided it was a good
time to do a walk-around outside the trailer. Sam immediately noticed the
broken windows, glass lying on the ground suggesting the windows had been
broken from the inside.

“Looks
like our victim shot them out,” Bo declared as he ran his finger into what
appeared to be a bullet hole in the molding around the kitchen window.
“Whatever came to get him was outside first and he knew it. It looks like he
was trying to shoot whatever it was before it got inside.”

“Why
do you keep saying whatever it is?” Sam asked. “We aren’t dealing with a what;
we’re dealing with a who.”

“If
you say so, sheriff,” Bo said as he shoved a dip between his cheek and
gum. “If this is a who then he sure has some unresolved issues. Oh, and by the
way, there was a passerby who lives about a quarter-mile down the road who said
he thought he saw something, um, I mean someone, standing outside the trailer
last evening. Our passerby said the guy was dressed all in black but it was
dark out except for the moonlight so our witness couldn’t provide a useful
description of him. He didn’t put any significance with it until today when he
drove by and saw all this going on.”

The
fact the passerby would be no help in figuring out the identity of their killer
meant the sheriff had to take a different tact in figuring out what led to
Eddie’s demise.

“Oh,
by the way, the paper has already been nosing around,” Bo noted. “I saw that
Cliff had our passerby cornered across the road so the press probably
knows what we know about the guy he saw here last night. I’ve not told them
nothing. Told him had to talk to you if he wanted any information.”

The
sheriff ignored Bo’s mini-briefing as he was deep in thought recalling his
conversation with Eddie the day before. Sam shared his suspicions with Bo
concerning Eddie’s strange behavior during his interview. Perhaps the sheriff
wasn’t the only person Eddie spoke with that day.

“He
certainly was hiding something,” Sam declared. “Maybe he made some calls. Have
Kendal subpoena his phone records. Let’s see who he talked to on his last day.
It’s worth a shot. Maybe he even talked with his killer.”

If
Bo was Sam’s right hand man then Kendal Parks was his left hand. The two
sheriff’s investigators were like night and day. Bo, the pickup-driving, deer-hunting,
outdoor-loving country boy was the complete opposite of the prim and proper
Kendal Parks who was always immaculately dressed with never a hair out of
place. Moving to Castle County from a large city where he was a codes enforcer,
Kendal was the brain trust for the department. He could recall every
nuance of the law and was a stickler to detail. He was meticulous with all the
cases crossing his desk. His progress was often slower than Sam liked but the
outcome was always rock solid with all his cases ending in convictions.

His
by-the-book approach to policing often left him and Bo at odds. The pair
fought like cats and dogs, both too stubborn to compromise with one
another as Bo would often adhere to the seat of his pants philosophy of police
work. Their differences, however, were by design as Sam used the strengths of
both their approaches to law enforcement to his advantage. The end result was that
very few crimes went unsolved in Castle County - up until now.

“Who
found him?” Sam asked as they completed their walk around the house.

“The
electric company actually,” Bo said. “They got a trouble call from a blocked
number just before dawn and seeing how cold it is they sent a crew right out.
When they got here they found what you saw.”

“So
our killer wanted to make sure Eddie was found this morning,” Sam surmised. “It
seems like our murderer is calling the shots so far. We need to change that.”

Sam
realized they still needed the Red Dog connection kept from the general public,
leaving it only something the killer would know.

“Who
knows about the writing on the kitchen floor?” Sam asked.

“Just
me, you, and Faulkner,” Bo responded. “The electric crew took off when they
found what was left of Eddie and called us from the road. I don’t blame them
for getting out of here.”

“Well,
like last time, we keep this our secret,” Sam insisted. “The less people know
the better. We don’t want the press to get wind of it yet.”

“So
what’s your next step?” Bo asked as he pledged to keep the Red Dog angle
quiet.

“I’m
going to meet the press,” Sam retorted, his response getting a strange look
from Bo. “Sometimes the best news never makes it to the newspaper. I think I’m
going to pay a visit to our old friend Cliff Chapman at the Castle Herald and
talk about the old days.”

Cliff
Chapman was the Castle Herald. He had served as their crime writer for over
forty years. When it came to Castle County, the veteran reporter knew it all,
only a small percentage of which made it into the pages of the small town
publication. Chapman had been with the company since the day of linotype and
typewriters. He saw the paper business evolve to modern computers and
digital cameras in recent years.

Despite
being retirement age, the short gray-haired newsman refused to call it quits as
he doggedly changed with the times. His old-school brand of news writing was
still apparent in his stories. Even his appearance was old-school, a pipe
always in his mouth as he looked out from under the brim of his green visor
like he was about to deal cards at a Saturday night poker game. Sam wasn’t sure
if he ever saw Cliff smoke the pipe in the all the years he’d known him and
wasn’t sure why the old reporter would wear the visor even on cloudy days. One
thing Sam did know, however, was if it happened in Castle County then Cliff
knew about it. He was about to put his faith in Cliff to the test - the subject
of that test being the Red Dog Saloon.

“Well,
hey sheriff. I was just about to call you,” Cliff said as Sam walked into his office.

The
reporter didn't hesitate for the normal pleasantries. “I hear you found
another dead one this morning. Are we looking at a serial killer or what? Bo
wasn’t too forthcoming today. He told me I had to talk to you.”

Taking
a seat across the desk from the senior writer, Sam gave him a grin. He was entertained
by the newsman’s eagerness to get the scoop.

“It’s
good to see you too, Cliff,” Sam said as he settled into the old steel
chair which Cliff no doubt used for visitors to keep their visits short and to
the point. “As for your question, I can’t really say we have a serial killer
but I can say for the record we think the crimes are related.”

Cliff
puffed on his unlit pipe, jotting down notes on his reporter’s pad before
shooting the sheriff a glance across the desk.

“I
hear our boy is missing his head,” Cliff said without segue. “I also hear
someone who passed by that night reported seeing a man dressed all in black - a
dark man they called him - lurking outside his trailer.”

His
question provided the sheriff with a bargaining chip, presenting an exchange
which could benefit both of them.

“Tell
you what Cliff, you help me and I’ll help you. How does that sound?” Sam
proposed. “I need your help on these cases but I need you to keep the subject
of what we’re about to talk about off the record.”

“Off
the record huh? Well, I suppose I could do that so long as once this is over
I’m the first to get the whole skinny,” Cliff responded. “What about the head?”

“Tell
you what Cliff, you help me out and before I leave I’ll tell you all about the
head,” Sam offered.

His
bargain was readily accepted by the small-town journalist. Cliff was intrigued
since he was rarely called upon to help solve a case.

“Deal,”
Cliff answered as he leaned forward interested in what was on the sheriff’s
mind. “So what’s this matter that you need my help on? I’m all ears.”

“What
do you know about the old Red Dog?” Sam asked.

His
question obviously set the wheels rolling in the reporter’s mind. Cliff sucked
his empty pipe and furled his brow.

“Wow,
the old Red Dog,” Cliff repeated as he reclined in his chair, lacing his
hands behind his head. “Funny how that place won’t die after all these years.
So do you think there’s a connection between these killings and the old
saloon?”

“Hey,
you’re supposed to be providing the answers right now, remember?” Sam pointed
out. “I’ll return the favor in a few minutes.”

Cliff
nodded in agreement. He squinted almost like he was trying look back in
time and access the long forgotten drawer where he had deposited the Red Dog
file.

“Let's
see," Cliff began. "The Red Dog was built sometime back during
the 1950s off East Ridge Highway. It started out as just a little package
store, not really much more than a shack. Over the years the owners kept adding
a little here and a little there until it grew into a regular bar. Actually, it
was quite a popular little hang out during the sixties and seventies. There
were a lot of folks who would head out there on Saturday nights for dancing and
drinking. They even had a Bingo game out there on Tuesdays. Back then it wasn’t
that bad. Sure you’d get a fight here and there, but it wasn’t anything your
regular bar doesn’t see. It was one of those places you’d go with sawdust on
the floor, peanut shells crunching under your feet, thick with cigarette
smoke.”