Read Online Red Dog Saloon by R.D. Sherrill - Free Book Online Page B

by the newsman.
    “Eddie
Young?” Cliff asked. “As strange as it sounds, that rings a bell.”
    “It
should. He’s lived here all his life,” Sam responded. “You probably had him on
a couple of your court dockets.”
    “No,
I mean it rings a bell with what you were talking about,” Cliff clarified.
“Eddie and our last victim, Andy Crouch, was old running buddies and frequented
the Red Dog.”
    “Yeah
I knew that,” Sam said. “I went there a couple of times back in the day
myself.”
    “It’s
more than that sheriff,” Cliff continued. “They were part of a little clique
that kind of ruled the roost out there just before the fire closed the doors
permanently.”
    “Ah,
okay. So I suppose they made some enemies then,” Sam said. “Anyone in particular
you can recall?”
    “Actually,
now that you put the two together, yes, there was something,” Cliff said, his
comment causing the sheriff to raise an eyebrow. “It was really little more
than rumor. Nothing was ever proven but there was a lot of talk and this was
right before the fire.”
    “Well,
don’t keep a man waiting,” Sam said with a tone of excitement in his voice.
    “Word
was that not long before the fire there was an incident that happened out at
the club involving the group your two recent victims were in,” Cliff began.
“They hung out with three or four tough guy wannabes pretty well every Saturday
night.”
    “Any
recollection who these other guys were?” Sam asked.
    Sitting
silently in deep thought, it was apparent Cliff was trying to rip the memory
from the back of his mind.
    “One
of them was none other than the sheriff’s own son,” Cliff began, referring
to Bart Foster.
    C liff's recollection
confirmed Sam’s suspicion that Bart was connected with the first two victims.
Something in the sheriff's gut told him Bart was deeply involved in whatever
was going on.
    "I
think another was Stevie Grissom.” Cliff added after another moment of thought.
    Cliff
paused again in an attempt to recall the other names, his face pained as he
pushed himself to remember. He reluctantly gave up, hopelessly stuck.
    “I
can’t remember the other two, or maybe there were three,” Cliff admitted. “I
may not have even known them anyway, I just know there was a gang of six or
seven and they were real hellions.”
    “Okay,
so you say there was something happened involving their group,” Sam
interjected.
    “Yes,
well the rumor was that one night there were some girls went out there, young
girls, teenagers,” Cliff said.
    The
old newsman leaned forward as one often would when repeating a rumor.
    “At
some point the other girl, or girls, went home and left one of them
alone there with that drunken group of thugs. Well, one thing led to another
and the girl was raped by them, gang raped from what I heard.”
    “Why
didn’t I ever hear about this?” Sam asked. “This is the first time I’ve heard
anything like that.”
    Sam
had lived in Castle County all his life with the exception of his time in the
military. He figured he would have heard about something as heinous as a young
girl being raped at the shady night spot.
    “Well,
first off, there were never any charges brought so that’s why you didn’t see it
in the pages of the newspaper,” Cliff began. “And second there never was an
investigation since the sheriff’s son was right in the middle of it. Word was
the girl was either run off or paid off and the whole thing was dropped. It
wasn’t long after that the bar burned down and their old gang broke up.”
    “Do
you remember the girl’s name?” Sam inquired. “Any idea where she went or who
her family was or even who she was with that night?”
    “I’m
sorry sheriff but I’ve slept since then,” Cliff responded, obviously irritated
with his own memory. “But if it comes to me I’ll call you.”
    “You
do that if you would,” Sam requested.
    The
sheriff was encouraged by Cliff's recollections despite the obvious