“Lemon—he said his name was Ned Lemon.”
Dane didn’t say a word. He didn’t look like he could.
“I’m guessing by the look on your face, it’s fair to say you do know him.”
“Son of a bitch,” Dane said to himself, and slapped his hat back on. “Yeah, I know him.”
“He asked for you by name. He said the two of you were close. He’s the reason I got you out here. I hope it wasn’t the wrong call.” The sheriff turned and stood where Dane could see his face. His expression had softened a bit. “Was it? The right call?”
Dane dropped his chin to his chest. “I don’t know yet, Sheriff, but maybe you and me should start over. What the hell happened out here?”
CHAPTER FOUR
“Ned.”
“Chief.”
“I’m not the Chief anymore, Ned.”
“Uh-huh. And I’m supposed to believe that dipshit over there is a sheriff? He doesn’t even look old enough to have hair around his pecker yet.”
“Yes. He’s the new sheriff of McFalls County, and he’s definitely not a dipshit. He’s a good man. I vouched for him.”
“He’s a dipshit. He’s wearing slacks in the woods.”
Dane raised an eyebrow at the dirty sheet covering Ned’s lower half. “Ned, you’re not wearing any pants in the woods.” Dane had a point. Ned let it go. “Ned, what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are your pants?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“This don’t look good, Ned.”
“That I do know.”
“Well, that’s a start.” Dane sat down in the grass in front of Ned—a man he used to call his best friend; a man he hadn’t seen in almost a decade—and helped keep the sheet gathered in the right place to make sure he stayed covered. Ned cleared a space for Dane to sit. After a long, awkward moment, Dane broached the next uncomfortable subject. “Is this yours?” He held up the gallon-size evidence bag Sheriff Ellis had handed him a few minutes ago—a bag containing an old but solid blued-steel .38 caliber revolver, a six-shooter with two empty chambers. Ned barely looked at it before he responded. “No.” He stared down at the sheet. Dane pointed back toward the group of locals by the house. “Well, those boys over there are saying that when they came upon you, you were sleeping off a drunk—right here—holding this in your hand.”
Ned looked at the hunters, and then back down at his lap. He didn’t take a second look at the gun. “I don’t doubt that.”
“Sheriff Ellis also corroborates that story. He says he took this from you before they woke you up. Do you remember any of that?”
“No.”
“No, you don’t remember having the gun, or no, you don’t remember the sheriff waking you up?”
“All I remember is that tow-headed prick poking me with a rifle. That ain’t no way to rouse a man from his sleep, Dane. He’s lucky he took that damn gun away from me before I shot his ass with it. No telling what could’ve happened. You don’t go poking at a man in his sleep, like some kind of dead dog on the side of the road. It ain’t right.”
Dane tucked the plastic bag with the antique gun into his coat pocket and took off his hat. He rubbed at his shaggy brown hair and could feel the sting of fresh sunburn on his scalp. “Well, Ned, in most cases, I’d tend to agree with you on that, but right now you gotta try and look at it from his point of view. The man gets a call that there’s been a shooting up here, and when he shows up, he finds Tom—a fella well loved around here—shot to death on his front porch. He looks around and sees you over here passed out, free-balling against a tree and holding a recently discharged firearm. All things considered, I’d say he was just being careful.”
Ned reached down under the dirty sheet and readjusted whatever was down there. “I suppose you’re right.”
“He also called me out here to talk to you like you asked him to when he could’ve just as easily arrested you and hauled you down to county lockup, so maybe you should cut him a little slack.”
“I just asked him to get someone I knew is all. Someone who knew me.”
“That’s not what he told me. He said you asked for me by name.”
“Well, maybe I did, then. I don’t know.”
“You know I don’t even work for the county anymore, right? Did you know that?”
“I heard, but you’re here, ain’t you?”
Dane tried to catch Ned’s eyes, but couldn’t. Ned seemed to be purposely avoiding Dane’s stare. “Yeah, I am—and that’s all the more reason to cooperate with the sheriff, Ned. Seeing as he did what you asked him to despite you being an asshole and all.” Dane scanned the woods and took in his surroundings. Sheriff Ellis said he could have five minutes alone with Ned before they hauled him in. “Is there anything else you want to tell me about any of this—seeing that it’s just me and you right now? It may be the last chance we get to talk—alone, I mean.”
Dane finally caught Ned’s eye for the first time. He gave the impression that he didn’t need to talk. He seemed confident, as if Dane already knew everything he needed to know. “Nothing else to tell.”
“Are you sure, Ned?”
“I’m sure, Dane. Tom is my friend. You know that. He was one of the only people that stuck by me after what happened.”
“Was,” Dane said. “He was your friend. Until somebody shot him, and I’m betting this gun in my pocket—the one you were holding—is going to match the holes in his back, which puts you in an awkward position.”
“I didn’t shoot him, Dane. You know I didn’t.”
“I didn’t say you did, Ned.” Dane kicked at an empty mason jar by his foot. “But by the looks of things, you were hitting the old man’s shine pretty hard, and sometimes when you’re drunk—”
“I didn’t shoot him,” Ned repeated. “I told you he was my friend. Why the hell did you come out here if you weren’t going to help me?”
“I am helping you, Ned, and I’m your friend, too. Tom wasn’t the only one who stuck by you back then.”
“Yeah, man. Thanks for the commissary money. It was a big help.”
“That’s not fair, man.” Dane felt a soft buzzing on his leg and reached into his pocket to grab his phone. The number on the display belonged to Charles Finnegan. Charles was Dane’s friend and immediate supervisor at the Bureau. “Hang on a minute, Ned.” He tapped ACCEPT on the phone. “Hey, Charles. Listen, I’m going to need to call you back. I’ve got a situation over here.”
“Have you fallen and you can’t get up?”
“Funny. No, but I am out here in the sticks right now. The sheriff up here caught himself a murder and things have…” Dane thought about how to put it. “Well, things have gotten a little hinky.”
“Hinky?”
“It’s complicated. I’ll have to call you back.”
“Dane, you’re supposed to be taking some time off. Time off that you need. I shouldn’t even be calling you right now, but I expected you to be fishing. You should be out by Bear Creek, not poking around meth labs up on Bull Mountain. I’m sure the sheriff up there can handle whatever he’s got going on. You work for me now.”