Trama

Walt investigates the murder of a beer distributor, where the main suspect is a bronc rider, but a stolen painting and secret affair lead to many motives for the brutal crime.

Called to a home invasion, Walt and Vic find the critically injured Chris Sublette, a rodeo sponsor who has just dropped a rider accused of mistreating his horses. As the case unfolds, multiple motives come to light. Could it be revenge, theft, jealousy, or something more sinister?—Greensteam

Vic gets a call from Henry that there is a situation at his bar. She arrives to find Walt all beered up. He requests that she give him a ride home as he has had too many to be driving himself. On the way home, another call comes in that there has been a break in at the Sublett residence. Vic and Walt arrive and find that Chris Sublett has been badly beaten by a belt with a heavy buckle. What's more, there is blank spot above the fireplace where a pointing has been removed from the wall. The immediate suspect is Levi Giggs, a rodeo cowboy whose sponsorship on the competitive circuit has just been withdrawn by Chris and his beer distributing company. Walt learns that Levi lost his sponsor when Dr. Dennis Nunn, the local rodeo veterinarian, reported him for using an electric probe to get his horses to buck harder and win more riding points. He provides Walt with photographic evidence. Chris's wife Julia returns from being out of town supposedly at meetings. Her alibi does not hold up. She was spending time with another man. When questioned about the pointing, she said it was a reproduction of a painting of Custer's Last Stand that had disappeared some years ago. The painting eventually shows up at a local pawnshop. It turn out that it is the genuine painting that the Sublett's had obtained on the black market. Its worth was in the neighborhood of $300,000. When Walt searches the Sublett bedroom, he finds that photos of Chris and Julia have been placed in a beside drawer, suggesting to him that Chris was entertaining someone himself. Dr. Nunn's wife had sent her son Zac to follow his father to the Sublett house, suspicious that he was having an affair with Julia Sublett. Instead, the son finds that his father is having a homosexual relationship with Chris. He is so upset that he was the one who beat Chris with the belt. Barlow Connally, Branch's father, learns that Walt had been drunk at the crime scene and asks Branch to use that against him in the election. Branch refuses, saying that Walt was technically off duty at the time and nevertheless solved the crime and recovered the painting.—Garon Smith