Red Dog Saloon

by R. D. Sherrill

  With an odd look on his face, a look Bart had never seen on Glenn’s face in all the years they knew each other, his friend walked across the room to a small coat closet.

  “He’s not missing anymore,” Glenn declared.

  The closet door swung open to reveal the lifeless body of Stevie Grissom. Their old friend hung from the coat pole like a string of fish on the river bank.

  Bart was speechless; the air going out of him like someone punched him in the gut. Both men stood silently gazing at the ghastly remains of their friend like they were looking at a piece of macabre art on a museum wall. Stevie's throat was slit from ear to ear. His skin was pasty white as if he had been drained of all his blood. He was held to the coat pole in a noose with his body encased in a see-through plastic bag.

  Bart was unable to rip his eyes away from the horrible scene.

  “I found him this morning when I opened the door to put away my coat,” Glenn revealed. “As you might guess, it was quite a surprise.”

  Swinging the door shut to hide the nightmarish sight, Bart tried to gather himself. Things were happening too fast even for the calculating businessman.

  “Any idea how he got in here?” Bart asked

  “I’m guessing he didn’t walk in,” Glenn retorted. “How should I know? I go to put up my coat and there’s a dead body in my closet. It's not exactly the way I usually start my day."

  Shaking his head, the puzzle of how Stevie’s body got into Glenn’s office baffling him, Bart tried to get his head around the mystery.

  “But I don’t understand,” Bart began. “How in the world could someone have gotten him in here without being seen?”

  “The question isn’t how he got in here. The question is how we’re going to get him out of here without someone seeing us,” Glenn pointed out. “I can’t have a dead body found in my closet. I don't think I have to tell you that he's going to start stinking pretty soon."

  “Settle it down, mayor,” Bart replied, eyeing their surroundings trying to formulate a plan on how they were going to sneak Stevie Grissom’s body out of Easton City Hall.

  MEMORY LANE

  Suffering through an hour of chilling temperatures on what had become one of the coldest winters in Castle County history, Sam watched as the crime lab team towed Bart’s Corvette to their forensics garage for a closer inspection.

  The sheriff discovered Bart must have slipped away through the back of the dealership while he and the crime team were canvassing the area. The businessman was nowhere to be found to sign the papers for the impounding of his vehicle. It didn’t matter, since the car was taken as evidence anyway but his absence did further convince Sam that his words had struck a chord with Bart.

  Sam was about to climb in his car when he saw a figure walking at a fast pace toward his location. It was Cliff Chapman. He was moving quicker than the sheriff had ever seen the old newsman move. Hopefully he wouldn't break a hip in his haste.

  “Out for a morning jog there, Cliff?” Sam joked as the old reporter bent over trying to catch his breath.

  He held up a finger to indicate he needed a second to catch his breath. Cliff took one final gulp of air before forcing out a single word.

  “Gina,” Cliff blurted between gasps.

  “Gina?” Sam repeated.

  “That’s the girl’s name … Gina,” Cliff clarified as he caught his breath. “The girl from the Red Dog you were asking about. Her name is Gina.”

  “You just now remembered that?” Sam asked.

  “It just hit me,” Cliff admitted. “I figured I’d better tell you before I forgot ... again.”

  “I don’t mean to look a gift horse in the mouth but do you have a last name?” Sam asked.

  Cliff’s memory had been stretched to its maximum. He hadn't the foggiest of the girl's last name.

  “Nope,” Cliff responded. “And to tell the truth, I may not have ever known her last name. You got to remember, this stuff was all through the grapevine. I’m sorry sheriff.”

  Sam gave Cliff a grin and reached out, patting the old reporter on the shoulder.

  “You did good Cliff, you did good,” Sam said. “We’ve got a name and we know about what age she was back then so that’s a start. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be at square-one.”

  Sam's compliment brought a smile to Cliff's wrinkled face. He was honored his information might play a role in helping solve the biggest crime in Castle County history.

  “I’m glad to help, sheriff,” Cliff said. “Now what’s the red substance all over Bart’s Corvette?”

  “No comment,” Sam replied with a wink as he climbed into his cruiser and started the engine.

  “But I’m helping you solve the case,” Cliff declared. “How about a little help here?”

  “Don’t worry Cliff, you’ll get an exclusive when this is all over,” Sam replied. “You might even write a book out of it.”

  Sam sped out of the dealership and made a beeline for his office to confer with the one person he figured could help him most in discovering the true identity of the girl named Gina.

  “I need to know everything you know about girls named Gina around your age,” Sam said as he walked into the records office to find his wife busy typing on her computer.

  “Take a number, take a seat,” Carly said, glancing up over her reading glasses not missing a key stroke. “I’m kind of busy over here, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “Seriously honey, this is important,” Sam insisted. “I need the benefit of that beautiful brain you have inside that beautiful head of yours."

  Carly rolled her eyes as she stopped typing.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” Carly smiled. “So you’re looking for a girl named Gina who's around my age? Do we know anything else about her?”

  Sam filled in his wife about the information Cliff gave him and his suspicions the Red Dog murders may have had something to do with the unreported crime from two decades ago.

  “That's so horrible to think something like that happened right here in Castle County and nothing was ever done about it,” Carly said. “But, as far as girls named Gina, you may be in luck since I don’t recall a lot of them around my age. They were like girls named Carly - few and far between. Now had it’d been a Lisa, Tammy or Sherry, you’d be out of luck. They were a dime a dozen and they were all bleached blondes.”

  “I’m looking for girls, likely a little younger than …” Sam began.

  “Watch it,” Carly warned.

  She was still a bit gun shy from all the black balloons that were delivered to her during her recent fortieth birthday celebration. Actually, in her book, turning forty was more of an observance than a celebration.

  “You know what I mean,” Sam said. “Someone who was one or two years behind you in high school that left town either right before or right after graduation. Shoot, for all I know she may have even been in your class.”

  Carly chewed on her reading glasses as she sat deep in thought for a minute. Sam could see the wheels spinning.

  “I suppose if we’re talking about high school I could dust off one of my old annuals,” Carly suggested. “There’s a good chance that if she was around my age and she was from here that she’d be in there. The annuals had the freshman through senior classes so that covers four years.”

  Sam realized he could be on the verge of finally uncovering the identity of the young victim.

  “Tell you what, I’ll dig out my annual when I get home tonight,” Carly offered as she placed her glasses back on her nose.

  “No, you’ll dig it out right now,” Sam said impatiently.

  He reached out and grabbed his wife’s arm.

  "Come on," Sam directed as he pulled her from her desk. "I'll drive.”

  It took only a few minutes for Carly to lay her hands on her senior annual once they got home. She blew dust off the hard-cover book before venturing into its long-forgotten pages. It was a walk down memory lane.

  “Boy, it’s
been a long time,” Carly lamented as she thumbed through the pages of the annual. “Can you believe those hair styles? How were mullets ever cool?”

  Carly laughed as she turned the pages, commenting about old friends, her step back into the past bittersweet.

  “Those were some good times,” Carly said as she lost focus on her mission while waxing nostalgic.

  “Honey, I’m trying to catch a killer,” Sam interjected as he pointed to the annual. “Do you mind?”

  Beginning from the senior class, Carly went page by page. She wrote down the last names and page numbers of all the girls named Gina. She eliminated most of them for one reason or another. Working on the same criteria, Carly backed up all the way through the freshman class.

  “Okay, here’s what we have,” Carly declared after about thirty minutes of meticulous study.

  She produced three possibilities from her careful scanning of her old high school classmates' pictures.

  “We have a freshman, Gina Kirby. We have a junior, Gina Porter. And, we have a junior, Gina Jones,” Carly said. “I can account for everyone else named Gina.”

  Sam carefully studied the pictures of the three girls and immediately eliminated the junior class member Gina Jones who he knew lived in Castle County for several years after high school. She had moved to California to marry a man she met on the Internet. She was a friend of a friend so Sam was confident she wasn’t the girl he was looking for.

  “So we’re down to Gina Kirby and Gina Porter,” Sam said as he rubbed his chin. “That’s a pretty good start. Now to figure out which one it is.”

  Sam gave his wife a kiss on her forehead, thanking her for a job well done as he snatched the annual and hustled her back out the door.

  Speeding back to the office like there wasn't a second to waste, Sam called in his investigators and explained what he had learned.

  “The girl you’re looking for isn’t Gina Kirby,” Bo declared as he looked at the annual over the sheriff’s shoulder.

  “Why do you say that?” Sam asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. We kind of dated back in school,” Bo said matter of factly. “She wasn’t bad looking.”

  Sam looked at the investigator, trying to decide if he was serious. He would have been a few years younger than her.

  "Hey, what can I say? I was a real cougar magnet back then," Bo grinned. “She moved out of town with her family the next year but she would have only been about seventeen then. I think her daddy took a job up north so I think you can cross her off your list.”

  “That just leaves us with Gina Porter,” Sam said.

  He looked at the picture of the cute brown-haired junior and wondered what had become of the girl.

  “That is if our Gina didn’t miss picture day,” Kendal spoke up. "I hate to rain on your parade but that's a real possibility."

  “Stop it with the negative vibes,” Sam snapped. “This is the girl we're looking for. Something in my gut tells me she's it. Regardless, we need to find this girl as soon as possible. Once we locate her we can figure out, for sure, whether she's the girl from the Red Dog.”

  The lawmen fanned on their mission to find what became of Gina Porter. In the meantime, Sam intended to work the Rhody Turner angle. He realized the con could provide the key to cracking the case.

  Sam grabbed the annual and walked over to the copying machine, printing out a grainy but large picture of Gina Porter. He then took a walk through the hall leading to the jail portion of the sheriff’s office. Sam directed the guard to open up C-block where Rhody was being held.

  Since the sheriff made few trips into the block, his progress to Rhody’s cell was delayed as inmates took the opportunity to express grievances with their accommodations ranging from cold food to the lack of recreation time. Sam finally reached his destination and found Rhody sitting on his bed staring at the wall.

  “Got that paper?” Rhody asked as he kept his eyes fixed on the wall.

  “I’m working on it,” Sam replied. “I should have it later today.”

  “I hear our boy Stevie bought it,” Rhody revealed without a hint of emotion. “That’s too bad. He was a good guy.”

  “News travels fast in here, doesn’t it?” Sam noted. “We’re not sure it's Stevie, but it could be. Of course, you could have stopped that if you’d cooperated.”

  Sam’s statement got the inmate's attention. Rhody glared at the sheriff who was leaned against his cell door bars.

  “Don’t blame me for your not being able to stop whoever it is. That’s on you, sheriff,” Rhody snapped. “As for me, I have a perfect alibi for once.”

  “Yep, this is one crime you actually didn’t commit,” Sam agreed.

  “So, what’s with the visit? The high sheriff doesn’t usually go slumming,” Rhody noted. “Like I said, until I get something in writing, we got nothing to say.”

  Pulling out the piece of paper from his pocket, Sam motioned for the inmate.

  “Hey, a deal is a deal,” Sam agreed. “You’ll get your paper. But while we’re waiting, take a look at this.”

  Rhody rose from his bunk, curious about what the sheriff was holding.

  “You bring me some porn?” the inmate asked with a wry smile on his face as he walked over to the bars.

  “You tell me,” Sam said.

  With that, the sheriff held up the picture in front of Rhody’s face. The image caught Rhody unprepared. The expression on the hardened criminal’s face told Sam all he needed to know.

  “Never saw her before in my life,” Rhody growled.

  The inmate snatched the picture out of Sam’s hands and ripped it to pieces before throwing them back in the sheriff's face.

  “Now if you don’t mind, I’m expecting a call from my old lady here in a few minutes. Come back when you got something for me," Rhody said in a dismissive tone.

  “It’s a date,” Sam grinned.

  He had gotten what he came for without the inmate having to say a single word. His eyes couldn't lie.

  Sam walked back to his office, confident he was on the right trail. Now, if they could only locate the whereabouts of the mysterious Gina Porter they would be in business.

  “There you go,” came the voice of Kendal Parks as the sheriff stepped back into his office.

  “What’s this?” Sam asked as he took the piece of paper his detective as holding.

  “It’s what you asked for,” Kendal replied. “It’s the last known address of Gina Porter, former resident of Castle County”

  “Impressive,” Sam admitted.

  The address on the paper was located only a couple of hours drive from Easton.

  “I’ve got to say that was pretty quick,” Sam said.

  Smiling with a sense of pride that the sheriff appreciated his detective work, Kendal explained.

  “Hey, it’s not that hard nowadays,” Kendal admitted. “You can find almost anyone on the Internet.”

  “Still, that’s pretty good detective work,” Sam noted.

  “She had a Facebook account, sheriff,” Kendal confessed. “Most people have them. I just did a search and it gave me about a couple of hundred Gina Porters. Then I narrowed it down and there it was under the subject heading of education. She went to school at Castle County High School. Then I simply started cross-referencing what I got there and came up with an address over in Shelby.”

  “Have you tried to make contact yet?” Sam asked.

  “Nope, I thought you’d want the honors since you’re the one who developed all of this,” Kendal replied. "I couldn’t find a phone number, just an address. As for Facebook, her page has been dormant for over a year.”

  “Well, this is more than we had half an hour ago,” Sam said. “I think I’m going to take a drive up to Shelby. While I’m gone see if you can get with our contact at the DEA and see if they’ll go along with our plans for Rhody.”

  “Will do sheriff,” Kendal replied. “Let me know what you find out up there. I’m curious.”

&nbs
p; With address in hand, Sam wasted no time getting in his car and pointing it in the direction of Shelby. He was possibly two hours away from busting the case wide open, either that or finding out he was working on a dead end. He realized he was in a race against time since he kind of doubted the killer would sportingly wait until his return to Castle County to take his next victim.

  A BIT TOO LATE

  “We can’t just walk him out of here like 'Weekend at Bernie’s',” Mayor Glenn Satterfield pointed out.

  He and Bart stood looking at their friend’s corpse as it hung nicely in the closet like a suit of clothes.

  “We’re going to have to be patient,” Bart declared. “We’re going to have to wait until tonight after city hall is closed. Then, we can sneak him out and get rid of the body.”

  Glenn questioned the feasibility of Bart’s plan. He wasn't comfortable with disposing of a body like a hit man getting rid of the evidence. However, he knew he couldn't afford the suspicion that would come with him contacting police about their grisly discovery.

  “But we’re in the middle of downtown Easton,” Glenn pointed out as he walked over to his office window which overlooked the hamlet. “What are you going to do, just throw him over your shoulder and stroll out the front door?”

  Bart gave his slender friend an irritated look, assuring him his plan was doable.

  “Trust me on this,” Bart said. “You just need to make sure the cleaning woman don’t come in here and find our friend hanging in the closet. If that happens, well, you’re on your own.”

  “Oh, thanks for the support,” Glenn retorted.

  The worried politician flopped down in his chair and ran his hands through his perfectly groomed head of hair.

  “Hey, I’m going to help you get rid of a body so don’t be giving me grief,” Bart shot back.

  His next words surprised even his longtime friend.

  “It isn’t like it’s the first time I’ve done something like this," Bart darkly revealed.

  Choosing not to pursue the meaning of Bart’s reference, Glenn moved on to the next problem on his agenda - a problem that rivaled even the body in his closet.