Red Dog Saloon

by R. D. Sherrill

“I have a wife and kids, sheriff,” Stevie began. “I can’t ... I mean she would leave me if she ever found out.”

  Stevie’s words had confirmed his suspicions. He also knew Stevie would likely be in the crosshairs of the killer if his theory was right and the killings were payback for what happened to the teenager many years ago.

  “We can protect you,” Sam declared. “You just need to tell me what happened back then so we can figure out who’s behind this. And better yet, who may be next.”

  Stevie refused his offer, shaking his head frantically.

  “I can’t sheriff,” Stevie said. “If my family ever found out, well, let’s just say I’d rather be dead. And what makes you think it’s a who anyway?”

  “You very well may be next if you don’t let me help you,” Sam said in a foreboding voice. “And I assure you, whoever is doing this is very much flesh and blood. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “I’m sorry but I just can’t,” Stevie said as he pulled on his jacket and walked out the door. “I’ve got to pick up the kids.”

  The sheriff followed Stevie as he quickly walked to his car and started the engine. He leaned down into his window to offer one last plea.

  “You’re making the wrong decision,” Sam argued. “Let me help you.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” Stevie responded as he backed out of the drive barely missing the sheriff’s foot. “The decision is out of my hands.”

  Sam watched as Stevie sped out of sight leaving him standing in his driveway worrying that may be the last time he would see him alive.

  Meanwhile, eyeing the sheriff from his rear-view mirror, Stevie reached for his cellphone, nervously dialing as he rounded the corner leaving the sheriff’s sight.

  “Bart we got big trouble,” Stevie began in a panicked tone as his call was answered. “The sheriff just came to see me and he was asking all sorts of questions. He was asking about the Red Dog. He knows, Bart, he knows!”

  “Calm down Stevie,” Bart urged his old friend, caught off-guard by Stevie’s frantic call. “He doesn’t know anything. He’s just fishing.”

  Stevie disagreed as he believed the sheriff knew more than he revealed during the short meeting.

  “He’s says whoever is doing this is out to get everyone who was involved back then,” Stevie continued. “I thought this was all over. How can it come back after all this time? Is it him? Has he come back to get revenge?”

  Bart was worried Stevie was going to crumble under pressure. He decided the best course of action was to reassure his nervous friend rather than demean him. Stevie, if left to be consumed by his fears, could become a weak link.

  “The sheriff was just trying to scare you,” Bart said in a calm voice. “It’s an old cop’s trick. Trust me. My father did the same thing when he was sheriff when he wanted to get people to talk.”

  “But Andy and Eddie ... someone killed them,” Stevie said in a worried voice as he navigated his car through the streets of Easton. “I was probably the last to talk to Eddie last night and he was scared. He knew something was out there to get him.”

  No longer able to hold his tongue given Stevie’s wild talk, Bart tried to set him straight.

  “Someone, you mean,” Bart corrected. “It’s not a something, it’s a someone.”

  “Regardless, what are we going to do?” Stevie asked. “Any one of us could be next.”

  “We just have to be careful,” Bart said as he returned to his calm voice. “Eddie and Andy, they weren’t like us. We're from the other side of the tracks. We just have to hang together and be careful. Give him time and he’ll slip up. When he does, we’ll take care of him just like we took care of the problem twenty years ago.”

  “Did we, Bart? Did we really take care of the problem twenty years ago?” Stevie wondered aloud. “Because to me it doesn’t look like the problem was taken care of. It looks to me like the problem is back.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Bart said with confidence. “All we have to do is stick together. Let’s not turn on one another after all this time. By the way, you didn’t tell the sheriff anything did you?”

  Stevie’s silence on the other end of the line was worrisome to Bart. What had he told the sheriff?

  “Well, did you tell him anything?” Bart asked. “Tell me you kept your mouth shut.”

  “I didn’t tell him anything,” Stevie answered in a quiet tone.

  His assurance was not fully convincing. Bart knew Stevie quite well and knew he wasn't the type to cope well with adversity.

  “See you keep it that way,” Bart warned. “One loose word and we’re all sunk.”

  “I’m scared, Bart,” Stevie confessed. “Not only is there someone hunting us like animals but the law is closing in. I’ve got too much to lose. I can’t deal with this now.”

  “Keep it together!” Bart yelled as he finally lost patience with his scared friend. “Give me some time. I’ll figure it all out. Just leave it to me. I got us out of it before. I’ll do it again.”

  “You promise?” Stevie asked. “I don’t know if I can take this. It’s too much pressure. I’m still shaking.”

  “You got it old buddy,” Bart assured. “I’ve got your back.”

  “If you say so, Bart,” Stevie said meekly.

  “You just sit tight and keep your mouth shut, okay?” Bart said. “I’ll take care of the problem.”

  JAILHOUSE RAT

  Standing in the driveway plotting his next move, Sam realized his only play was with Bart Foster. He also knew it wasn’t much of a play at all since the street-wise car salesman wasn’t keen on speaking with him in the first place. Despite being the son of a former lawman, Bart didn’t have the best reputation. The slick car dealer was rumored to be involved in dealing in more than used cars.

  If he hadn’t been able to break the weakest link, the chances of getting the shady businessman to reveal anything were slim to none. Had he reached a dead end, left to wait until the killer struck again?

  His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his cellphone. The sheriff had doggedly hung on to his clam-shell flip phone rather than give in to technology and upgrade to the so-called smart phones.

  “Yeah,” Sam answered in a short tone.

  “Hey sheriff, it’s Cliff,” came the voice from the other end of the line.

  “Did you remember the girl’s name?” Sam asked with a tone of excitement.

  “No, sorry sheriff, but I’ll keep working on it,” Cliff apologized. “It’ll come back to me at some point.”

  “I hope it’s within the next couple of years,” Sam quipped. “Not to put pressure on you or anything like that.”

  Cliff chuckled at his own weak memory and offered his latest recollections, one that would prove to be fascinating to the sheriff.

  “I didn’t remember her name but I did recall another one of the group that was supposed to be involved that night,” Cliff revealed. “Actually it was quite by accident. I was going through some old dockets here doing some winter cleaning and I came across a name and the bells started ringing. I mean it was quite a twist of …”

  “Just tell me the name,” Sam interrupted, putting Cliff back on topic.

  “Rhody Turner,” Cliff responded.

  “Our Rhody Turner?” Sam asked.

  “Yep, the one and the same,” Cliff confirmed. “There’s only one Rhody Turner. They broke the mold after they made him.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Sam responded; given the fact Rhody was a regular in his jail. “That changes things quite a bit I’d say.”

  “Glad I could help,” Cliff said. “Now remember, I get the exclusive once this thing breaks.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you got it but I need that girl’s name,” Sam urged the newsman. “Go to a hypnotist, do some chanting around the fire or anything you have to do. Just get me that name.”

  “It’ll come sheriff, it’ll come,” Cliff guaranteed before hanging up.

  Sam called his wife immedi
ately after hanging up with Cliff, dispensing with the niceties.

  “Hey baby, do we have Rhody Turner in jail?” Sam asked in an excited voice.

  “Um, who is this?” Carly replied. “My husband doesn’t like me to talk to strangers.”

  “How many guys call you baby?” Sam countered. “So do we have Rhody or not?”

  “Yes we do,” Carly announced.

  Her response was what he was looking for. Sam pumped his fist. Finally he'd caught a break.

  "And, he’s not going anywhere soon," Carly added. "The feds have a hold on him. He’s facing meth charges for that last meth lab they caught him with.”

  “What’s he looking at?” Sam asked. "Is this going to be a long term?"

  “Given his long record, his file is one of the thickest in the drawer by the way, he could get upwards of fifteen years this time,” Carly answered.

  “Great!” Sam responded.

  “Well, I don’t know if that’s how he sees it,” Carly quipped.

  “It gives me some bargaining room,” Sam clarified. “Make sure he sits tight, I’ll be back in a few minutes. I may even take my favorite clerk out for dinner tonight.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell her,” Carly laughed as she always enjoyed when her husband loved her for her brain as well as her body.

  Sam called Bo on his cellphone, opting not to broadcast what he had to say to his detective on the police scanners across Castle County.

  “We may have gotten a break in the Red Dog cases,” Sam told his chief investigator.

  The sheriff outlined what he had found out so far to his detective.

  “I say we get Rhody out and work him,” Sam recommended. "Maybe we can offer him a deal he can't refuse."

  Joining up at headquarters, which was connected through a walkway to the county jail, the lawmen set their game plan. They would work on the assumption Rhody already knew about the deaths of his former running buddies since news traveled fast in the small town. Even inside the jail the communication network was second to none.

  Sam directed a jailer to escort Rhody from his cell to the interview room. The officers waited his arrival with eager anticipation realizing the inmate was their best chance of determining who was behind the pair of grisly slayings. The officers also realized they were dealing with a professional criminal who was wise to the ways of law enforcement. Rhody had been in the system since he was a juvenile. He began his walk on the wrong side of the law as a petty thief and shoplifter before graduating to more serious crimes as an adult. His rap sheet was several pages long, full of burglaries, larcenies and drug convictions. As such, Rhody had spent much of his life behind bars, his education coming from the jails and penitentiaries in which he served his time. In layman’s terms, Rhody was institutionalized and somewhat of a jail house lawyer in his own right.

  Considering the other members of the old Red Dog gang, Rhody was the one who didn’t seem to belong. While being partiers and immature fun-lovers that never really grew up, both Andy and Eddie made decent lives for themselves. Their crimes were only minor and usually had to do with having too much to drink. There was even more of a contrast between Rhody and the other two members of the group, Stevie and Bart, both of whom moved on after their “wild days” to make comfortable lives for themselves. Why would they choose to associate themselves with Rhody, who, even twenty years ago, was bound for failure?

  In Sam’s estimation, the unusual pairing of bed fellows likely had to do with their desire for a tough reputation. In modern-day terms, the group wanted to be "gangster" despite not having the credentials. By including Rhody in their clique they were involving a real-life criminal while the rest of the group were simply playing the role of criminals until they returned to their normal homes after a night at the ‘Dog. In the sheriff’s opinion, the old gang was a big act, each member fulfilling his desire to be feared and respected even if it were just on the weekends at a small redneck bar.

  “Oh no, did you find where I hid the gold?” Rhody asked mockingly as he was led into the interview room in shackles.

  The thin, scraggly-haired inmate was dressed in his old-school black and white striped uniform that all inmates in Castle County Jail wore as standard costume.

  “You’re not getting nothing from me, copper," he declared with a yellow-toothed grin. "You’ll never take me alive.”

  Rhody, sporting a smirk, took a seat in the chair opposite the sheriff as Bo stood against the wall. His arms were covered with jail-house tattoos much like a steamer trunk is covered in stickers by a world traveler. Rhody rubbed his hands together, his movement restricted inside his handcuffs. The inmate glanced around curiously at the lawmen, trying to size up what they wanted.

  A single black tear drop below his right eye caught the sheriff’s attention. The veteran lawman realized that such tattoos were often used by inmates to represent a life they had taken. The sheriff also knew some inmates would get the tattoos to simply give them more credibility behind bars, hoping to intimidate other inmates. Sam wasn’t sure which was true of the inmate, although studying Rhody’s rap sheet there were only a couple of convictions for assaults. And, all of those came from drunken brawls and drug deals gone bad. Rhody didn't have the reputation of a violent criminal. He was a meth cook.

  “Okay guys, make this snappy. I need to get back to my drawing room for a game of cards by three,” Rhody quipped. “I stand to win a pack of cigarettes and a shiv if luck is with me today.”

  Sam returned the confident smile of the inmate as he started to play his hand.

  “You better smoke those cigs quick, Rhody,” the sheriff said knowingly.

  “Why’s that?” Rhody asked. "You planning to let me out early for good behavior, sheriff?"

  “Well, from what I hear, there’s a couple of federal marshals coming to take you off our hands at the first of the week,” Sam revealed.

  The sheriff's declaration wiped the smug smile off Rhody’s face.

  “Looks like you’ll be leaving good old Castle County for quite a while.” Sam noted.

  Rhody swallowed hard as he looked at both of the officers, trying to get a feel for what they were after. This wasn't his first rodeo.

  “So what? Did you call me here to give me a going away party?” Rhody asked with a nervous laugh. “Where’s the cake and the strippers?”

  “No Rhody, this is the feds,” Sam began. “I’m afraid you’ll be going away for a long, long time. They’ve been giving meth cookers fifteen, twenty years in prison lately. They’re really cracking down on you guys.”

  Rhody played the threat off as no big deal.

  “Ain’t nothing,” Rhody claimed. “I can do it standing on my head.”

  Sitting back in his chair, sizing up the inmate with the neck tattoo sitting across from him, the sheriff questioned Rhody’s resolve.

  “How old a man are you now?” Sam asked. “What, forty, forty-one, forty-two?”

  “What’s it to you?” Rhody countered. “You ain’t never got me no birthday present.”

  “Well, I’m just sitting here doing some figuring,” Sam continued. “Now math was never my long suit, did real bad at it in school, but it seems to me that if they put fifteen years on you at this point then you’re going to be an old man before you get out.”

  Staring across the table at the lawman, his fingers now rapping nervously on the table, Rhody remained silent. The sheriff’s words had obviously hit their mark.

  “I mean before, you’d be in and out,” Sam said. “The longest stint you’ve done, according to my records, is three years. Now fifteen years, that’s going to be a long row to hoe. You say you can do it standing on your head, well, I say that’s a long time to be standing on your head. And, by the time you get out, that head you’ll be standing on will be long since gray, that is if you ever get out. They say meth shortens your life and we all know you’ve had your share of the crank.”

  Rhody narrowed his eyes, his fists clenched in his cuffs. The once cool a
nd cocky inmate was now showing his anger. The sheriff had gotten in his head.

  “Again sheriff, what’s it to you?” Rhody asked. “You obviously have something on your mind so spit it out.”

  Sam looked at Bo and gave him a nod. The investigator then threw down a pair of photos on the table in front of the prisoner. The photos had instant effect. The hardened criminal’s eyes were wide with shock. Before him were crime scene photos from the murders of Andy and Eddie.

  “The one on the left is Eddie,” Sam explained as he watched the inmate’s reaction. “He doesn’t have his head so I didn’t know if you’d recognize him.”

  Staring at the pictures then looking up at the sheriff, Rhody cocked his head.

  “What does it have to do with me?” Rhody asked. “I didn’t do it. I’ve been in jail for days. You can’t pin it on me!”

  “For once, Rhody, you’re not a suspect in a crime here,” Sam agreed. “What you are, however, is a potential witness.”

  “A witness?” Rhody asked. “I don’t know who did it and even if I did, why should I tell you pigs?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask,” the sheriff said. “What if I told you I might be able to help you out in your federal case? Would that interest you?”

  “Well, of course,” Rhody responded. “But I’m not a snitch. I’m not wearing a wire and I’m not rolling on anybody.”

  “I respect your loyalty,” Sam countered as he looked the inmate in the eye. “The question is does your loyalty have a statute of limitations? Does it go back, let’s say, twenty years?”

  “What do you mean?” Rhody asked.

  “The Red Dog,” Sam said. “I have reason to believe something happened at the Red Dog years ago, before it burned down, and whatever that was is leading to your old friends being killed one by one. It’s a good thing for you that you’ve got around the clock police protection.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rhody responded as he slipped the sheriff’s gaze. “I just went out there to drink once in a while, flirt with the ladies, you know, that kind of thing.”

  Studying the inmate, Sam was sure he was hiding something and he also suspected a little prodding might cause the hardened criminal to bare his soul, especially if the price was right.