"A fisherman found him this morning. He was heading towards the creek." Mark Echols squatted down next to the dead body and examined it with latex-covered gloves. The victim was face first in the dirt with half of their head blown off. Danny walked in concentric circles with a camera. He snapped off shots of the crime scene while Mark looked up at Scott Andrews. As head of the sheriff's CID, Andrews was officially Mark and Danny's boss. He handled the occasional case, but nothing too strenuous. If he couldn't get a pay off from it, he didn't want it. Mark knew that Andrews hated his guts. He was jealous of Mark's intellect, how Mark could read a crime scene like an open book while Andrews stumbled through them like a blind man. He was also envious of how Mark could interrogate a suspect without having to resort to violence like Andrews often did. "Did you catch the call?" Danny asked Andrews as he took shots of the victim's body. "Yeah," Andrews said. "I was at the sheriff's department when the call came in. You two were busy, so I took it." Mark and Danny were busy with another murder. A kid got shot in the aftermath of the high school basketball game last night. They worked the scene like they always did. Mark went back to the sheriff's department when the murderer turned himself in while Danny went to the hospital to get statements from eyewitnesses. He spent all night with the murderer, DeSean Hamilton, getting his statement. Mark didn't need to apply pressure to get him to tell it. He told willingly about a feud with Antwan Dixon and how the boy he killed died protecting Antwan. DeSean cried after telling his story. Mark tried best to comfort him, but he found he couldn't muster up any sorrow for a kid who killed someone over a fucking basketball game. Mark searched the dirty blue jeans of the dead man and came out with his wallet. "Howard Beggs." Mark stood and looked over at Danny. Andrews raised an eyebrow as the two shared a look. "What?" "We spent all last week looking for a Howard Beggs," Danny said. "Sheriff Parker himself wanted him for something." Mark saw Andrews' jaw tighten a bit as he looked down at his boots. Mark's eyes drifted back to Danny. Years as partners, working interrogations and crimes and dealing in the duplicitous nature of people, gave them a sixth sense between the two of them. They could sometimes communicate whole conversations with just eye contact. "Well, I got some intel that may be a lead," Andrews said with both hands on his hips. "A CI of mine mentioned Beggs just a few days ago. John Norman had been asking around about him, apparently Beggs owed him some money." This time Mark did even look up at Danny. He knew exactly what he was thinking, and he didn't want to tip Andrews off to anything. While he and Danny looked for Beggs, they also tailed John Norman. Their surveillance turned up a small pot farm out on Trask Road. Like with Beggs, they acted on Sheriff Parker's orders. They handed the pictures over to Parker and that was the last they heard of the matter until now. John Norman and Howard Beggs with a too eager Scott Andrews smack dab in the middle. Mark stood up and caught a look from Danny as they went back to work on the scene. He knew from the way Danny was looking that they would have a long discussion as soon as Andrews was gone. -- It was nearly eleven in the morning when John woke up. He had that momentary flash of panic that goes with waking up in a strange place. It took a second before he remembered what happened last night and where he was. They made it back into town at about four in the morning. Mike said something about going out to Ray's to pick his truck up, but John told him it didn't seem like a good idea. His truck wouldn't be the only one left at Ray's overnight, but if Jed's police officer buddy had gotten back to him that John couldn't be found then someone could be watching the parking lot at Ray's. Same with his trailer or Mike's for that matter. Everyone in town knew that there was no love lost between the two of them, but he was still someone who John might run to in a pinch. And seeing as how he actually ran to him in a pinch, it made sense not to go to his house. They instead went to Bettie Jo's. Bettie Jo was Mike's girlfriend of nearly ten years, three years longer than the longest of his marriages. Whoever was looking for John might come calling to Bettie Jo eventually, but it'd probably be awhile. He spent the morning on the old plaid couch in her living room. He had a pillow down between two cushions to protect his back from the metal spring that poked through the fabric and would jab at him anytime he moved. His face felt swollen and hot to the touch. There was pain, but it was more like soreness than anything. His nose didn't shoot stabbing pains through his face any time he breathed, so that was a plus. John finally sat up and looked around. Like the Johnson house, Bettie Jo's tan colored walls were covered with photos of kids and grandchildren. Unlike John's family and a good part of Pickett County, Bettie Jo's children managed to get the hell out of here and not look back. Downside of that was that they never came to visit. John guessed that was why she was with Mike, there nobody else around for her. John went to church with Bettie Jo back when his momma thought she could pray his stepfather out of their lives. Bettie had always been kind and caring to him. Her with Mike didn't make sense, but around here kind women and abusive assholes went together like peanut butter and jelly. There was a clattering noise from the kitchen. John stood up and looked down as he worked the kinks from his back. He was still dressed in his clothes from the day before but that wasn't too big of a deal. If he brushed mhis teeth and freshened up the hot spots, he'd be good to go. John padded across the carpet in his socks and walked towards the kitchen. Sitting around the kitchen table were Mike and Bettie Jo. They were both drinking coffee, Bettie Jo reading a copy of the [i]Index-Journal[/i], a regional daily paper that operated a few counties over. Both were dressed in what they had been wearing when John and Mike showed up. For Mike it was his flannel shirt and jeans, for Bettie Jo it was the bathrobe she wore to cover her nightgown. "Morning," Mike said after taking a sip of his coffee. Bettie Jo looked up from her paper and at John. She was in her sixties with shoulder-length gray hair and was short and on the chubby side. Her face was as chubby as her body with a double-chin. "You need anything for your face?" She asked in a concerned voice. "I'm fine," he said. He stood just on the threshold of the kitchen, not wanting to go further inside. He knew if I did that would be an open invitation for Bettie Jo to make a fuss over him. "You want some coffee? Want me to make you anything?" "I'm fine," he repeated. "You change your mind," she said with a frown. "You let me know. Oh," Bettie Jo leaned forward "I forgot to ask what with all the excitement last night, but how's your momma?" "She's fine. Living in Georgia now with her new husband." "He a good man?" "Jury's still out," he said with a shrug. "But from what little I been around, he seems okay. Can't be no worse than the last one." "Or the one before that." "Ready to go?" Mike asked with his eyebrows raised. John nodded and he stood while Bettie Jo stayed seated. "Good luck," she said with a squeeze to Mike's hand. "Hope they can help you find those fellas." The story they gave Bettie Jo last night was that John had been jumped coming out of Ray's. John said he was half-drunk and running his mouth and pissed some people off. He called Mike and they went over to Bettie Jo's just because his house might not be safe that night. While not a total lie, it left out the minor details like a dead body and me being framed for killing said dead body. John followed Mike out the house and into the leave covered front yard. Bettie Jo lived in one of the old mill houses that was set up on a grid around the Simpson Mill. Her yard had three magnolias in it that were always shedding leaves. The leaves covered the grass year round and created big patches of dirt where the covered leaves killed the grass. The space between the branches on the trees showed an overcast sky with dark gray rain clouds rolling in. They got into Mike's Cadillac and rode through the streets until a red light stopped them. The red light in question was the only one in Pickett, and it sat the crossroad of the two major highways the town was planted on. One ran through the heart of the town and took you west to east, from Athens in Georgia to Columbia in the middle part of the state. The other one, which just touched the outskirts of the city, ran north to south, stopping at I-85 on the north half while the southern end petered out somewhere in Augusta. The two highways were near carbon copies of the two rail lines that ran through the town. The intersection of two major railways were why the cotton mills had come calling to Pickett County a hundred years ago, bringing the county and its citizens kicking and screaming into the 20th century. The light turned green and Mike headed west towards the state line. He kept going past Ray's, keeping his eyes on the road while John looked at the parking lot. His truck was still there, along with two or three others that had been left behind by folks too drunk to make it home on their own power. He didn't see Jed's Tahoe, Ray's pickup, or anything looking like a police car, marked or unmarked. Mike kept going and turned around just short of the bridge that marked the beginning of Georgia. He drove back to Ray's and kept going. "Where we headed?" Mike asked. "I thought we were gonna get my truck?" "I'll drive you where you need to go," he said as they headed back to town. "I got a bad feeling about your truck. Just... bear with me, boy, and let me take you where you want to go." "Beggs lived out somewhere near the McCormick county line," John said as they went back through the red light. "Head that way." Mike said softly, "Remember what we talked about earlier. This is serious shit you stepped in. I don't know who all is behind it, but if it's Billy then your best bet is getting the hell away from Pickett as fast as you can." "I have to do something," John said. "I want to find Carol at least. Help her out, if only for her sake." "When you gonna stop trying to get that girl to fall in love with you?" John balled his hands and stared straight ahead at the slow, steady rain pattering the windshield. "About the time you get over Billy kicking your ass." "You godda--," he started to go into his usual cussing spree, but stopped and sighed. "This ain't getting us nowhere. You do what you gotta do, okay? My offer still stands. You got rid of your gun, and that'll buy you a few days. Get that girl to safety, or whatever it is you planning on doing, and then get out of here. This town, this county, these people, are goddamn poison, son. You know and I know it. Now, we've never seen eye to eye on anything. Hell, I think the last few hours have been the longest we've gone without cussing each other out, but at least let me try to do something for you just this once." "I appreciate it," John mumbled. It was the truth, John realized. His theory about staying away from John was always bullshit, but there was truth to Mike's statement that this town was poison. If you didn't get out early, you never did. You'd drink yourself to death while pining on days gone by, just like your parents and their parents. "Let me do some legwork today and we'll talk about it tonight. If it looks bad, I'll be headed to where the fuck ever I can afford to run to regardless of what happens, okay?" He nodded with a small look of relief on his face. It disappeared once he realized he was making it and then said, "Like I said earlier, do what you gotta do." Mike reached across the car and opened the glove compartment. Sitting inside on top of all hiss old insurance cards and receipts was Smith & Wesson .38 Special. The black revolver clashed with the bright white papers and the beige dash. "How many people you killed with that?" John asked. "None," he said defensively. "It's got the files number scratched off. It ain't registered to me, either. I bought it from Mel Davis damn near twenty years ago, back when he was still alive and selling hot guns. Haven't used it for anything but target practice since." Jon reached out and picked the gun up. He checked the chamber and counted six shots. Sitting in the car, holding an illegal and untraceable hammered the point home to John that there was more than likely no going back. He realized that there are moments in everybody's life when they make a decision that closes off a door to them. After that choice, there's no going back. Despite his delusions on a happy ending, he knew that whatever played out over the next few days would be the end of his life as he knew it, no more growing weed and no uneasy truce with Billy Brown. For John, picking up that gun was his crossing the Rubicon moment. Now he would have to let the dice fell where they may. "What are odds on Parker's involvement?" He asked Mike while tucking the gun into his jacket. "Even odds at best," he said. "He was the one that hired you and got you asking 'round town about that Beggs man. Hell, for all we know, he was that sumbitch out in the woods last night." "I didn't think Parker was that dirty." Mike shrugged. "He was never one of my guys, sure, and he was one of the few deputies that didn't get fucked in the ass by that SLED investigation in the 90's, but that don't make him clean. Then or now. Regardless, I would trust him about as far as I could throw his fat ass." John stewed on those words as Mike drove towards the county line. His arrest sheet had Beggs' address on Dixon Road. It was right on the border with McCormick county. Lots of houses along the winding road would end up in Pickett or McCormick based on what direction the road took. You'd go through both counties at least three times going this way. It always made jurisdiction a nightmare for the sheriff's departments whenever some shit went down out here. Mike turned off the highway and onto Dixon. Most of the houses out here were of the white trash variety, old cars and car parts scattered among high grass and dog houses. Fittingly, the old Norman homestead was somewhere out here. Amidst the white trash scenery is where Eli Norman and his wife settled down to raise their brood of bastards. After a few minutes of driving, Mike came to Beggs' house. The grass in the yard was high and yellowing from the change in season, but no car parts anywhere to be seen. The house itself was a one-story home that looked from the outside like it only had four rooms total in it. It was one of those cheap houses people in the country built back in the 30's. Peasoup green with white shutters and trim. Both colors needed a fresh coat of paint pretty badly. The dirt driveway had an older model navy blue Honda Civic sitting in it. Mike kept driving a bit further and pulled off to the side of the road a few hundred yards away. John got out and walked through the rain back towards the house. He kept his hands on the .38 as he walked across the front yard towards the Honda. Beggs' arrest report had him being stopped in a Jeep Cherokee. The sheriff's towed the car to the impound lot after they found drugs on him. John looked at the Honda and then towards the door. If somebody was waiting to spring a trap, they were either dumb or looking to ambush him from somewhere besides the house. He pulled the .38 out and slowly walked towards the front door. The knob moved after the first test of it. John gingerly opened the door and stepped into the house. The smell of must and stale piss hit him like a freight train. John blinked a few times and pinched his nose with his left hand to block the smell. His watering eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light in the house. The place reminded him a lot of Strange's trailer in general clutter. Drink cans mingled with beer cans on the hardwood floors. Ice cream wrappers and candy papers along with plastic baggies that had to be for meth. The furniture and electronics that should have been here were gone. Either someone robbed Beggs, or he pawned it. John was betting on the latter. Whereas Strange, a high-functioning addict with a stable source of income and supply, could afford to keep his TV and couch, someone like Beggs would have to resort to the pawn shop a lot quicker. He slowly walked through the garbage towards the next room. The kitchen's fridge was gone, but the table was still in place. That was because it had precious cargo on it. A series of vials, beakers, and tubes ran across the table. Like a twisted Rube Goldberg machine, all the tubes connected to a single spout where a lone flask sat collecting shit brown liquid. The flask was overflowing, each drop sending more liquid onto the linoleum floor. John didn't need to get any closer to know what all this shit did, and what the liquid in the flask was. Beggs was making Meth on his own. A huge no-no here in Billy Land. John turned away from the kitchen and back across a scuffed hallway. He went into what was the bedroom leading with the .38. The bedroom was covered in old and musty clothes, used hypo needles, and a lone mattress beside a hotplate. He noticed all that, and more importantly, noticed the person on the mattress. Leaned against the mattress, drooling and doing the nod that only Oxycontin could give, was Carol Johnson.