After twenty minutes of careful, slow, downhill hiking, made even trickier by the slippery leaves and pine needles blanketing the steep slope, we came to a large fallen oak piled with leaves, branches, and other detritus. It was easy to see that a heavy rainfall would sweep debris downslope, to lodge against the tree.
"This is where Dell was found," Paul Edwards said. He pointed to the downslope side of the fallen oak. I wasn't surprised it had taken two days to find Dell Teague's body, even in the spring; but I was startled at the location of the corpse. I was glad I'd put on the dark glasses.
"On that side of the log?" I asked, pointing to make sure I had it right.
"Yes," Edwards said.
"And he had a gun? It was by his body?"
"Well, no."
"But the theory was that he'd shot himself?"
"Yeah, that's what the sheriff's office said."
"Obvious problem there."
"The sheriff thought maybe the gun could've been grabbed by a hunter who didn't report what he found. Or maybe one of the guys who actually did find Dell lifted the gun. After all, guns are expensive and almost everyone here uses firearms of some kind." Edwards shrugged. "Or, if Dell shot himself on the upslope side of the log and fell over it, the gun could have slid down the hill quite a distance, gotten hidden like that."
"So the wounds—how many were there?"
"Two. One, a graze to the side of his head, was counted as a... sort of a first try. Then, through the eye."
"So the two wounds were counted as suicide wounds, one unsuccessful and one not, and no gun was found. And he was on the downslope side of the log."
"Yes, ma'am." The lawyer took off his hat, slapped it against his leg.
This was all wrong.