Wade Dawkins stood defiantly in the doorway to his son’s hospital room the day after Labor Day. “I’m not letting you anywhere near my son, Sheriff. Not without an attorney present anyway.”

“I understand your concern for your son, Mr. Dawkins. Truth is, I don’t believe that he killed Carl Pipkins. Someone has gone to great lengths, though, to make it appear that way.”

“Wa…wait. You’re saying that someone is trying to frame Randy?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Mr. Dawkins.”

“But who? Why?”

“I don’t know, but if you’ll let me talk with your son, I’m hoping that he can help us figure it out.”

Wade Dawkins stepped aside for Sheriff Scarpelli and Chief Carter to enter the room.

“May I?” asked Nick, resting his hand on the back of a chair next to Randy’s bed. When the boy did not answer, Wade nodded his assent.

Nick pulled the chair up beside the bed and leaned in close to Randy.

“Do you know this man?” Nick asked Randy, displaying Patty Murano’s sketch of Ned Beasley. Randy turned his head and looked away from the sketch.

“Look, son. We all know that you have used drugs. That’s something you and your father should probably work out, but as a legal matter, that’s the least of my concerns right now. There’s a killer out there, and he’s trying to finger you for the crime. The best thing you can do for yourself right now is to help me catch this person.”

Wade Dawkins reached out and squeezed his son’s hand and nodded his encouragement. Randy Dawkins turned back to the sheriff. “Beasley. Ned Beasley. He’s my supplier. He’s got a place down by Harriman.”

“Had,” the sheriff corrected him.

“Huh?”

“He had a place by Harriman. His house was blown to bits last night…with him in it.”

“Oh, my God, no! Dad, what have I gotten myself into?”

Wade squeezed his son’s hand tighter.

“The good news for you, young man,” added Sheriff Scarpelli, “is that you have an alibi. You were right here when it happened. So, let’s continue. Ned Beasley sold you illegal drugs. What kind of drugs?”

“Pot.”

“Did you ever buy meth from him?”

“No, I told you, I have never used any hard drugs.” Wade Dawkins again mustered all his strength to bite his tongue. “I was never into meth, but I know he sold it. Hell, he manufactured that shit in his garage.”

“Well, that confirms that,” muttered Chief Carter with no further explanation.

Ignoring the comment, Sheriff Scarpelli continued, “Randy, did you ever hear Carl Pipkins mention Ned Beasley?”

“Not by name, no, but I did hear Carl arguing with Eddie once…something about staying the hell away from Harriman.”

“Eddie Culver?”

“Yeah. You should ask him about it.”

“Oh, I will,” Nick assured him. “As soon as we find him.” A puzzled look overtook Randy’s face.

“I’ll fill you in later, son,” said Wade Dawkins.

“OK, Randy. You’re being very helpful. Now, I want to take you back to Thursday night. That night in the barn.”

“I told you, Sheriff, I really don’t remember what happened that night. Honest.”

Nick strained to conceal his skepticism. He had seen enough drug cases during his tenure with the St. Louis P.D. to know that certain drugs can induce short-term memory loss, but marijuana was not one of them. Yet, Dr. Singh had confirmed that Randy was indeed suffering from drug-induced memory loss.

“I know you’re having trouble remembering, but the fact is that you do know something, Randy. You just have to jar that memory of yours. Let’s try this: you were up in the hayloft. You’d been smoking pot, and you crashed, but at some point, you came down from the loft. Your dad found you on the floor next to Carl Pipkins’ body.” Sheriff Scarpelli was treading on delicate ground; he had to jar the boy’s memory, but he also had to avoid leading him.

“I don’t know,” stammered the boy, fighting back tears at that point. Wade Dawkins squeezed his son’s hand again and brushed his other hand across his son’s head.

“OK, Randy,” continued the sheriff. “Try to relax. Take a deep breath.” Wade Dawkins served his son a sip of water from a cup. “Now, I want you to close your eyes,” Nick resumed, “and imagine that you are lying up there in the loft asleep. Then, something wakes you. A light, a sound, something.”

“Voices,” said Randy. “I hear voices.”

“That’s good, Randy. That’s very good. Now, what kind of voices?”

“Men. Two of them, I think. They may be arguing…I’m not sure…and then I hear a scream.”

“And what do you do next, Randy?”

“I roll over to see what’s going on, and…oh, my God!” the boy yelled as he jerked forward in his hospital bed, practically hyperventilating.

“What is it, son?” asked his father. “What happened?”

“I leaned too close to the edge, and I fell from the loft. I’m not sure, but I think I may have hit one of the men when I fell.”

The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place for Sheriff Scarpelli. If Carl Pipkins screamed because he was being stabbed, and Randy fell on him after he was stabbed, that would explain Pipkins’ blood on Randy’s clothing.

“You’re doing great, son,” the sheriff encouraged him. “Obviously, one of the two men you heard was Carl Pipkins. Who was the other man, Randy?”

“I don’t know,” cried the boy. “I never really saw his face, and the whole thing was a blur anyway.”

Nick decided that Randy was probably telling the truth. Even if his memory was coming back, he probably never really saw who the other man was.

As he rose from the chair, Nick patted Randy Dawkins on the shoulder. “Ya done good, young man. Ya done good.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” said Wade Dawkins as he escorted Nick Scarpelli and Ben Carter to the door.

“He’s lucky to have you for a father,” replied Nick, recalling what it was like growing up without one.

Then, Nick added, “I’m going to leave one of my men here and another one at the ranch…just as a precaution. There’s a good chance that whoever killed Carl Pipkins and tried to frame your son is long gone by now, but just in case—”

“I understand, Sheriff, and I appreciate it.”

“Oh,” said Nick turning back toward Randy. “One more thing. How did you know that you could get drugs from Ned Beasley? Who told you about him?”

“I don’t wanna get anybody into trouble, Sheriff.”

“Son,” said his father sternly.

“It was one of the ranch hands,” Randy confessed.

“Which one?” asked Nick, recalling that one of the men had cast suspicion on Randy by telling him that Randy had mentioned going down to Harriman. “Was it Vernon Wooten?”

“No, Sheriff. Not Vern. It was Johnny. Johnny Duncan.”

*******

“Can I drop you off somewhere?” Chief Carter asked Sheriff Scarpelli after they had stepped out into the hallway.

“Uh, thanks, Ben, but I think I’ll stroll on over to the cafeteria and mull all this over with a cup of coffee,” replied Nick.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to my office. Enjoy your coffee.”

Nick spent the next hour or so nursing his cup of joe as he constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed the pieces of the puzzle that he had accumulated up to that point. In between, his mind flashed to images of Patty Murano and the picture he had seen on the mantle above her fireplace. He decided to go back to Randy Dawkins’ room to ask him a few clarifying questions, but he was stopped short by what he saw as he rounded the corner of the hallway. It was Patty Murano handing a vase of flowers to Wade Dawkins and planting a kiss on his cheek, the same kind of kiss he had seen her giving him in that picture on her mantle.

*******

As Jeremy and Brandon walked along the beach in the Bahamas, the sound of other men’s muffled grunts and moans interrupted their train of thought. “What was that?” asked Brandon, glancing toward a sand dune from where the sounds seemed to be coming. Though he had a pretty damned good idea what the sounds were, he asked Jeremy, “Wanna check it out?”

“No, you go ahead,” replied Jeremy, totally uninterested in the prospect.

“OK,” said Brandon, somewhat disappointed but prepared to accompany Jeremy back to the hotel room.

“No, really, Brandon. You go ahead,” Jeremy repeated. “I could use a little time to process all this shit going through my head right now. I’m gonna take my time getting back to the room, and then I’m gonna take a nice, long, hot shower.”

As Jeremy ambled back toward the hotel, Brandon turned toward the noises drawing him nearer. Peeking through the bushes, he spied two bodies rolling over the sand. He recognized them as two men he had passed earlier on the beach. At first, he had thought they were father and son, the younger one being in his late thirties or early forties and the older one appearing to be about 20 years his senior, but the way they looked at each other told Brandon that they were actually lovers, and now he could see the proof of that.

Neither man was as hunky as Jeremy, thought Brandon, but they were still a sight to behold, especially to a teenager with raging hormones. Flaming red hair adorned the younger man’s head as well as his chin, chest, abdomen, and, as Brandon could now see, his genitals. He was a ginger on fire. The older man was equally handsome, if not more so, with salt-and-pepper hair, silvery sideburns, and sketchy slivers of gray accentuating his black chest hair.

The skimpy bikini swimsuits they had worn so confidently on the beach now hung precariously over the branches of a coco plum bush.

Brandon stared at the two men as their naked, sun-baked bodies pulled toward each other. The younger of the two men gently ran his tongue over his lover’s face, tracing the beautiful Greco-Roman features. What began as affection, though, quickly turned to lust, the young ginger unable to suppress his carnal desires. “Take me,” he pleaded to his silver-haired lover. “I want you inside me.”

Their moans and groans drew the attention of other beachcombers, perhaps the same ones who had watched Brandon and Jeremy make love, and, like Brandon and Jeremy, the enthusiastic lovers did not care.

The silver stallion mounted his young consort with the fury of one half his age, alternating between slow, loving attention and hormonal rapture. When they both spewed forth their release, the voyeurs behind the bushes sighed their approval. The exhibitionists smiled their appreciation and embraced each other as they decompressed on the warm tropical sand.

*******

Mentally and emotionally processing the scene in the bushes as he ambled back to the hotel, Brandon came to the deep realization that he wanted what those two men had—not a relationship that was intergenerational per se, but a love that is ageless. Someday. Someday.

From outside the hotel room that he shared with Jeremy, Brandon fumbled for the door key, frantic to reach the phone ringing off the hook before the caller could hang up. With the water running in the shower, Jeremy evidently had not heard the incessant ringing.

When Brandon threw back the shower curtain, his face looked to Jeremy like bleached marble.

“Brandon, what’s wrong? What is it?”

“It’s Ford. He...he’s...he’s been shot!”