“So why would you think that one is related to another?” Bill asked. “He could have written that on the mirror himself. For all you know he may have hooked up with the wrong man’s girl and got himself killed. That used to happen from time to time when I was sheriff. A man would bed down with the wrong man’s wife and wake up dead.”
“The words were written in his own blood,” Sam declared. “Whoever killed Andy used his blood for the ink to write those words.”
An awkward silence fell upon the pair as Bill processed what he had just heard. Something about the former sheriff’s actions wasn’t sitting right with Sam. He just couldn’t put his finger on it.
“And you’re sure you don’t know anything that could help us out on this case?” Sam asked.
“Like I told you, it was a bad place,” Bill snapped as he took a big swallow of his beer. “Who knows what he got into there.”
Considering his next words carefully given Bill’s earlier reaction, Sam reluctantly had to ask.
“You don’t mind if I talk to Bart and see if he remembers anything about it do you?” Sam requested.
“Do what you want! He’s a grown man!” Bill said in a loud voice as he stood up from the table. “He doesn’t know anything anyhow. Now if you don’t mind I’ve got an appointment in town I need to be getting to.”
Sam knew the conversation was over given his host’s demeanor. His sixth sense told him the former sheriff had been less than forthcoming during his visit. He had certainly hit on a sore spot when it came to his son Bart, but perhaps it was just a case of Bill being an overprotective father. Sure, Bill’s son was a forty-four-year-old businessman but Sam realized, as a father of two young adults himself, that they’re always your kids no matter how old they are. Still, Sam had to admit to himself that Bill’s reaction was suspicious. One thing for sure, he was going to have a conversation with Bart and he was going to have it right now.
Sam wasted no time heading straight to Foster Motors. He pulled into the sales lot and immediately spotted Bart’s bright yellow Corvette sitting next to the building. Sam parked beside the sports car and walked into the sales office.
“Hey, I need to see Mr. Foster,” Sam announced to the woman at the reception desk.
“I’m sorry but Mr. Foster isn’t in today,” the woman responded, not looking up from her paper work.
“He’s not? That’s his car parked out there isn’t it?” Sam retorted
He stopped just short of questioning the woman’s honesty. He knew the Corvette was Bart’s latest project which he had been showing around town for the past month. He kind of doubted Bart would be tooling around in some broken down, second-hand model off his lot when he could be driving the magnificently restored vintage hot rod. The chances were that Bart was there - somewhere.
“He must have taken another car off the lot,” the woman shot back as she looked up from her desk obviously not thrilled with the lawman’s inference. “This is a car lot you realize.”
Suspecting he was being put off for unknown reasons, Sam played along knowing Bart couldn’t avoid him forever.
“So any idea when your boss will be back?” Sam asked. “Or better yet, any idea where I might find him right now?”
“I believe he’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day,” the receptionist answered. “I’ll tell him you came by if you'd like.”
“Sure. You do that,” Sam said as he left the office.
However, instead of leaving straightaway, an idea hit him. Returning to his car he paused for a moment to scribble out a note before placing it under Bart’s windshield wiper.
“Maybe that will get his attention,” Sam chuckled to himself.
The note contained just two words – Red Dog.
GOODTIME EDDIE
Eddie Young didn’t heed the advice of his old friend as he continued his assault on the bottle of bourbon, killing it off by the end of the day only to open a new one. Drink as he would, Eddie couldn’t erase the horrific sight burned into his brain of the ax buried deep into his friend’s skull. He couldn’t forget looking into his friend’s dead eyes, Andy's dark brown eyes still opened in terror when he found him lying in a pool of blood.
Even worse was that the bourbon couldn’t dull the fear - a fear that was sitting like a knot in the pit of his stomach - that the same fate may be awaiting him. After all, they were all equally guilty for what happened, no matter how many years had passed. The message was not open for interpretation. Eddie knew exactly what it meant.
Why hadn’t Bart called back? He promised to “check into things” and get back with him yet the day had passed and the sun set without his old friend telling him anything. His calls to Bart’s cellphone would simply roll over to voice mail which would announce his mailbox was full thanks to the scores of frantic messages Eddie had left as the day went on without any word from the old ringleader.
Given his intoxication, Eddie was in no condition to go to work prompting him to call in “sick” for his night shift. His slurred speech likely gave him away despite his best attempts to sound sober and use his sick voice when he made the call. But then Eddie had never been the consistent one like Andy. Often called Good Time Eddie by his friends, Eddie was always looking for fun. He lost many jobs over the years when he chose entertainment over responsibility. He also lost a couple of wives the same way. Eddie, now in his forties, had never grown up. His maturity level was that of an adolescent, explaining why he was still spinning his wheels when it came to the game of life.
Full of liquor and frustration, he decided to disregard even more of Bart’s advice as he sat alone in his trailer. He would call Stevie Grissom, one of their old gang. Stevie was the one member of their old group who had gotten his life together. Married with a couple of children, a dog and a cat, Stevie would rarely make appearances at their various gatherings anymore. Stevie’s wife kept close reins on her husband. She didn't want him to mix with his old running buddies since their gatherings generally meant he would come back at sunrise smelling of liquor and cheap perfume. Slowly but surely she had weaned Stevie off his partying ways, turning him ever so grudgingly into a family man. In Eddie’s eyes Stevie’s wife was the worst kind of woman. She was a real soul-sucker who kept her husband’s family jewels with her anytime he went out.
Eddie realized it was almost nine o’clock at night and likely past Stevie’s curfew. However, he had just enough buzz to go ahead and dial his number, all the time hoping it would be Stevie who answered the phone. Even in his intoxicated state Eddie wasn’t sure he was quite drunk enough to endure her condescending voice, let alone have to ask for permission to talk to her husband. They were in the forties for crying out loud.
“Answer, Answer,” Eddie urged. He listened nervously to the phone ring until Stevie picked it up on the fifth ring.
“Stevie!” Eddie yelled in an excited voice when his old friend answered the phone.
“Eddie?” he responded. A child was crying in the background letting him know all Hell was probably about to break loose at Stevie's house. “What are you doing calling this late?”
Eddie didn’t waste any time getting to his main point. His tact was already drunk away by his day hitting the bottle.
“Did you hear about Andy?” Eddie asked.
Just as he had done when he called in sick a little while earlier, Eddie tried not to sound drunk but his words were still slurred despite his attempts.
“Yeah, that was horrible,” Stevie responded as his wife could be heard in the background asking who was on the phone.
“It’s Eddie, dear," Stevie called back to his wife. His revelation was not taken well by Stevie's better half.
“You tell Good Time Eddie not to be calling this phone so late!” Stevie’s wife yelled.
Her shrill voice was like fingernails on a chalk board to Eddie’s already ringing ears.
“Some of us get to sleep at a decent hour," she screamed. "Regular people don’t stay up partying every nigh
t.”
Eddie continued his conversation despite the annoying droning of Stevie’s wife in the background.
“Did you hear what else they found?” Eddie asked.
“No, I just heard he got hit in the head and they found him there,” Stevie responded.
He cupped the receiver with his hand so his wife couldn’t overhear the conversation. “Isn’t that what happened?”
“Hit? He had an ax buried in his brain!” Eddie responded incredulously. “But that’s not all. Are you ready for this? Whoever did it wrote the words Red Dog on a mirror in Andy’s blood.”
Stevie went silent on his end after hearing Eddie’s news.
“Hello, Hello, you still there?” Eddie asked.
He suspected Stevie’s wife had hung up the phone on him. It was something he wouldn’t put past the domineering woman since she wore the pants in the family.
“Are you sure?” Stevie asked sheepishly. “It was written in his own blood?”
“Positive, I’m the person who found him. I saw it all with my own eyes,” Eddie responded as he could hear Stevie swallow hard on the other end of the line. “You know what this means don’t you?”
“Someone knows, someone remembers,” Stevie declared in a low voice with his wife still yelling in the background. “I knew we were doing wrong. I knew it’d come back to get us.”
Stevie couldn’t be more right in Eddie’s mind.
“We need to meet, all of us,” Eddie said. “We need to figure this out.”
Stevie went quiet again as he was obviously shocked and disturbed by what Eddie told him. The news hit him from out of nowhere. His comfortable existence was suddenly threatened.
“I’ve got to go,” Stevie said, not knowing how to deal with the problem that now confronted them.
“You can’t just ignore this!” Eddie said in a loud voice. “We’re all in it!”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Stevie responded before hanging up.
Eddie knew he couldn’t just trust Bart to take care of things since he had kept him in the dark all day. Still emboldened with liquor, he decided he would take the lead. Bart had gotten them into this anyway so why trust him to get them out? Eddie was going to call every member of the gang. Together they could figure something out and perhaps come up with an answer about what was going on. He would call Glenn Satterfield next, or at least he planned to before he heard the movement outside his trailer.
Eddie strained his ears and hit the mute button on his television trying to hear if the noise repeated itself. Seconds passed but he heard only the slight breeze outside.
He was about to hit the button on his remote to turn the television back on, dismissing his scare as alcohol induced paranoia, when he nearly jumped from his seat. There was a loud bump outside his living room window. Something hit the side of his trailer! This wasn’t paranoia. Something or someone was outside!
Eddie scrambled to his bedroom. He tripped over a chair and cursed as he stubbed his toe. He then headed straight to his nightstand and pulled out his thirty-eight caliber pistol from the bedside drawer. He checked the clip to ensure it was loaded, jamming the clip back into the gun before chambering a round.
“They’re messing with the wrong man,” Eddie mumbled to himself as he stumbled out of his bedroom and headed back to the living room. His arrival was greeted by another loud thump outside the trailer.
“You hear me! You’re messing with the wrong man!” Eddie yelled as he clutched his gun, pointing it randomly around the room. “Come in here and I’ll blow your head off!”
The gun shook in his hand as he tried to clear his vision. He rubbed his eyes as if that would wipe away the day of drinking. Then the noises returned, an unmistakable beating, a rapping outside, the sounds circling around his trailer. Eddie followed the sound of the pounding with his gun.
“Get out of here! I’m warning you!” Eddie yelled.
The fear was now telling in his voice. “Whoever you are, whatever you are, go away!”
His threat was answered by an even more intense pounding as the sound continued moving around the outside of his double wide. The impact of the rapping reverberated through Eddie’s body as the whole trailer shook.
His threats of being armed had no effect on the intruder. Actually, his shouts only served to embolden whatever was outside. He had to try another tactic.
“Okay, I’m calling the police!” he yelled as he reached for his phone.
The knocking suddenly stopped after his announcement. Had his threat worked?
“I’m calling them right now," Eddie shouted. "You’d better get out of here!”
Eddie was about to dial 911 to make good on his threat but was stopped by a bright flash outside his back window. A moment later his trailer was plunged into total darkness. Unable to even see his hand before his face, Eddie felt in the pitch black for his phone. His hand fumbled across the receiver. He snatched it up and put it to his ear anticipating a dial tone. However, his hopes of calling for help were dashed. The line was dead.
He would have to do this on his own, he and his gun anyway. He wasn’t about to be caught by surprise like Andy had been the night before. He knew someone was there and they were coming for him. The difference between him and Andy was that Eddie was forewarned. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Eddie caught his breath as something slammed against the kitchen window. Instinctively throwing up his gun, Eddie squeezed off a round. The deafening shot shattered the window from where the sound came.
“I’m serious!” Eddie screamed as his eyes tried to pierce through the darkness which had engulfed his trailer. “I’m not scared of you!”
The banging continued again seconds later. This time the sound came from the direction of his living room window. Eddie whirled and fired in the darkness toward the sound of the noise. Flame erupted from the barrel of his thirty-eight momentarily illuminating the interior of the small trailer. His ears rang from the second concussion of his firearm.
“Get out of here!” Eddie yelled again. “I will shoot you!”
Then came the rocking of his trailer. The double-wide swayed as it was being pushed from outside. The rapping became ever louder on the trailer’s siding.
Eddie moved toward the front door and peered outside trying to catch a glimpse of the intruder by the pale moonlight. He had to have a light, something to illuminate the darkness. Feeling his way back to the drawer in his bedroom, Eddie fumbled around until put his hand on the plastic cylinder of his flashlight. He turned it on hoping for safety the light would provide. However, Eddie was again disappointed. The batteries were dead. It was his only flashlight. How had he let the batteries in his only flashlight go dead? It had sat there for years doing nothing and now when he needed it, the batteries were dead.
He walked through the darkness back to the front door. His eyes were now adjusting to the dim light provided outside by the moon. Eddie wondered what to do. How would he get out of the situation alive? While Andy was a close friend, he wasn’t too keen on joining him in the realm of the dead so soon.
Eddie realized he had three options as the rapping and rocking of his trailer continued. First, he could stay inside his dark trailer and wait for whatever was outside to come inside. Second, he could go outside and try to hunt down whatever was terrorizing him. And third, he could make a run for his truck and get away. Eddie decided to go with door number three. He would run to his truck, careful not to get ambushed as he rushed out the door. Then he would drive like a bat out of Hell, leaving his unwelcome visitor in his dust. It was a perfect plan, but then there are very few bad plans when you’re drunk.
He grabbed his keys off the peg by the door and prepared himself for his dash. He could see his truck in the moonlight parked about ten yards from his front door. He could cover that ground, even drunk, in no time. Plus, he had a loaded gun. What could go wrong?
Counting to three, Eddie sprung from his front door. He pushed the flimsy trailer door
wide open as he stumbled down the steps, rolling onto the ground at the bottom of the short flight. Eddie didn’t waste time standing up as he scrambled on his hands and knees. He crawled toward his vehicle before righting himself as he reached his truck.
The keys! Eddie looked back as he held his gun in front of him like a shield. He strained his eyes back toward his trailer.
“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.
Red Dog Saloon Page 4