The Art of Hanging Yourself Just Right

To Beth's surprise, Daryl was a pretty decent liar.

Well—it wasn't exactly lying. More like weaving a slightly different truth from the threads of a much more complicated story, with little excuses thrown in here and there. But then she reckoned she shouldn't be so surprised. He'd probably had years of practice due to Merle's habit of getting arrested.

He didn't seem terribly pleased about fibbing to his good friend, Rick Grimes, as she could see from the tense set of his jaw and the stiffness in his spine. But he kept shooting her sidelong glances, wordlessly seeking her reassurance. She nodded along and agreed intermittently, throwing in her own little details whenever she was sure they'd be a help and not a hindrance.

Rick appeared less than convinced for a long few moments. But his expression gradually softened, and by the time he was finished with the 3-piece fried chicken meal sitting before him—which he'd been eating out of a styrofoam box while Daryl and Beth talked—he mostly looked concerned. Maybe a little skeptical, and definitely more than bewildered. His blue eyes were narrowed, constantly shifting from Daryl to Beth and back again. But whatever questions might've been forming in his head were being withheld until Daryl was finished.

Rick wiped a dab of mashed potatoes from his lips and wadded up the napkin, dropping it into the empty box and pushing the whole thing aside. He set his elbows on the desk and leaned forward a bit, listening intently and then mulling it over for a long moment. He hummed thoughtfully, picking food from his teeth with his tongue behind tightly pursed lips.

Then he raised his eyebrows and frowned at Daryl.

"So, lemme get this straight," Rick said in his thick Southern drawl. "You think Merle was… murdered. And whoever killed him might be comin' after you fer… some reason y'ain't figured out yet?"

Daryl shrugged, nodding awkwardly. He'd already begun chewing on his thumbnail.

Rick blinked and widened his eyes. "The case is already closed, Daryl. You had 'im cremated, sold the cabin—ain't nothin' left ta go off of. Even if yer right, there's no way ta prove it."

"Don't care about provin' it," Daryl said, putting his hands in his lap and leaning forward in his seat. "I jus' wanna know who killed my brother. 'Cause he sure as shit didn't kill himself."

Rick furrowed his brow, frowning. "I don't understand—you found him. I offered ta look into it an' you said no. We didn't even try ta start puttin' together a list of possible suspects, 'cause you said there weren't any. Two weeks ago, you were certain beyond a doubt that Merle hung himself. What changed? What'd you really find out? 'Cause I ain't really buyin' this—" he made air quotes with his fingers "—'gut feeling' nonsense yer tryin' ta sell me."

Daryl shifted in his seat uncomfortably and Beth could tell that he was trying to come up with a believable lie on the spot. But he wasn't very good at it. He clearly hadn't learned quite as much from Merle as he probably should have.

She quickly chimed in, "We got a tip. Anonymously."

Rick turned his attention to Beth, eyebrows raised in curiosity. "A tip?"

She nodded. "Yeah, like—a note. Sayin' Merle was murdered and Daryl could be next."

Rick looked baffled. "What—a note? So where is it?"

"Where's what?" Daryl asked.

Rick turned to Daryl. "The note!"

"Threw it away," Daryl quickly lied.

Rick sighed, blinking incredulously. "You threw it away?"

"More like, lost it," Beth added, attempting to help. Jeez, Daryl really wasn't good at lying. "But it's gone. Sorry."

Daryl grunted in agreement.

Rick shook his head and lowered it, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Okay," he muttered, slowly raising his head to look at Daryl again. "I don't think you'd lie ta me, Daryl. And I can't really figure out why you'd lie about this anyhow, so… whatever. I'ono what's got this wild hair up yer ass all'a sudden, but if it's got somethin' ta do with grief and… I dunno—closure, as my therapist puts it—then I'll help. 'Slong as I ain't gotta try ta open up some brand new case an' fill out a buncha damn paperwork, I don't really care."

"That's fine," Daryl said, perking up a bit. "'M not askin' fer much. Just a little help—files an' whatnot. Ain't askin' ya to go on a manhunt or nothin'."

Rick huffed out a breath. "Hell, I'd sure hope not. I got enough on my plate as it is, 'tween the divorce an' the custody case an' whatever the fuck Shane's gettin' up to." He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I know." Daryl's voice softened and he was slowly relaxing. "Sorry, man. You know I ain't tryin' ta be a pain in the ass. Wouldn't be buggin' ya with it if I didn't think it was legit."

"Nah, I'm sorry. I understand. It's yer brother an' all." Rick shrugged. "I jus' hope you can get it figured out without gettin' the department involved. We already got one murder case on our hands, we don't need anymore."

Beth couldn't help but grow curious. "A murder case? In Senoia?"

Rick furrowed his brow and turned his attention to Beth. "Yeah—what're you doin' here anyhow? With Daryl?" He gestured to the living Dixon sitting beside her.

She quickly shrugged, willing the heat rising in her cheeks to go away. "Just… hangin' out."

Rick blinked. "Just hangin' out, huh?" He repeated suspiciously. "Does yer daddy know yer here?"

Beth scoffed. "Yeah, 'course. Why?"

Rick looked to Daryl with the same expression of suspicion. "How'd y'all even meet? Y'know she babysits Judith for me sometimes. You been friends this whole time an' never even mentioned it?"

The tips of Daryl's ears were turning red and he shifted in his seat, letting out a choked grunt of surprise. "Maybe."

Rick's mouth curved into a baffled half-smile and he looked at Beth again. "Does yer dad know yer friends with Daryl Dixon?"

Beth frowned, becoming a little more defensive than she intended. "What's my dad gotta do with it? I'm twenty-four, he doesn't need ta constantly keep tabs on me."

Suddenly, Rick's half-smile turned into a full-blown grin and his eyes lit up like he'd just solved a riddle. He chuckled and leaned back in his chair, arms tightening over his chest as he looked from Beth to Daryl slowly. "Oh, I see what's goin' on here."

"What?" Daryl asked cluelessly.

Aw, crap, Beth thought. She could feel her face turning red and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Rick chuckled again, all too confidently. He nodded. "Maggie called me yesterday askin' about ya. Now I see why she thought you was babysittin'... Y'all are datin', huh?"

Please don't let Merle show up right now, Beth silently prayed. He'd disappeared after pantsing Shane, presumably wreaking havoc on the rest of the department—or maybe just harassing Shane some more. Nonetheless, she knew he could reappear at any moment. Please don't let Merle show up right now. Please please please.

Daryl reflexively barked out a laugh, "hah!"—a little too loudly for Beth's liking. She frowned and shot him a sidelong glare, pursing her lips and trying to withhold any immediate retorts that might want to escape.

Rick laughed and rapped his knuckles on the surface of his desk. "'S okay, I won't tell nobody… Yer little secret's safe with me." He winked at Beth and she knew her face was beet red, but all she could do was roll her eyes and glance away awkwardly. Then Rick turned his gaze on Daryl, still grinning, and said, "Best be careful try'na sneak around, though. You don't wanna get on Ol' Man Greene's bad side. Trust me."

"We're not dating," Beth said sharply, ignoring the way Daryl turned his head to give her a disapproving look. She stared back at Rick with determination, desperately wishing her face weren't so hot. "We're just friends. He needs help—support."

"Mmhmm," Rick hummed knowingly, smirking. He chuckled again, eyeing Beth and Daryl up and down as though he were seeing them in a different light.

"So you gonna pull all the files an' help me figure this out or what?" Daryl asked, an impatient edge in his voice.

Rick shrugged, sighing and crossing his arms over his chest once more. "Yeah, I'll show ya everythin' I got. But it probably ain't gonna do ya much good. Walsh did most'a the paperwork, so it's a little sloppy."

"Figures," Daryl grumbled unhappily.

"You have like—the autopsy an' stuff?" Beth asked.

Rick glanced at her. "'Course I do. Ain't pretty, though."

"Why would it be?" Beth quipped.

Rick gave her a crooked smile and shrugged once more. "Don't go tellin' yer daddy I showed you this stuff now."

"We won't," Daryl cut in. "So long 's you don't go tellin' 'im we're datin'."

Beth's jaw dropped and she looked over at Daryl with shock, but Rick didn't seem to notice. He simply chuckled and nodded.

"You got yerself a deal, Dixon. Now let's get things movin'—my lunch break's almost over an' I got a goddamn mountain of paperwork ta finish."


The files pertaining to Merle Dixon's death were fairly thin compared to the multiple heavy folders that contained his arrest records. There were crime scene reports and detailed descriptions of his post-mortem state, documents leftover from a briefly opened "suspicious fatality" case, as well as an autopsy—just as Rick had promised.

The glossy photos inside Merle's file were… gruesome, to say the least. Beth stared at one photo and then another. She saw his pale bluish skin, his bloated belly, his cold dead fingers, the thick purple ring around his neck. And then a third and a fourth photo, all of them from different angles. She saw the abnormal way his eyes bulged from his skull, the odd angle of his neck, the prominent veins on his eyelids, the yellow tint to his grisly fingernails. A fifth and sixth and seventh photo that focused on specific parts of his anatomy. There were veins in places where veins shouldn't be, bruises and puncture marks and long pink scars, tattoos that looked shriveled and faded and sad. An eighth, ninth, tenth nauseating picture. More scars. More blue and purple skin. More veins, more bruises, more scabs and marks left by needles and lighters and blades and fingernails.

By the time she'd watched Rick and Daryl pull nineteen photos out and lay them upon the surface of the desk, she could taste bacon and stomach acid on her tongue. She had to look away and swallow back the bile.

Luckily, neither man seemed to notice her repulsion. They were too wrapped up in staring at the photos, shuffling through the papers, and identifying tiny details. They skimmed over the toxicology report, with Rick pointing out each percentage and explaining to Daryl what it meant. Daryl nodded along, staring down at the paper in his hands, frowning.

Beth could tell that he wasn't finding what he'd expected. Admittedly, she'd hoped the answer would be easy to find, as well. But if she were being realistic, she knew it wouldn't be. They would have to look deeper than autopsies and toxicology reports. They would have to visit the crime scene, as Morgan foretold. Though she also knew that this—going to Rick, consulting the "computers" and "papers"—was undoubtedly step one. Because Morgan had foretold that part, too.

But what would they find in these files that could possibly help them? If there hadn't been enough to raise any red flags with Rick or the rest of the department, then what would change now?

Small towns can be their own kind of hell, she reminded herself. And Rick had said it himself: Shane did most of the paperwork. And he was sloppy. Clearly he'd never liked Merle, or any of the Dixon's. So who was to say he hadn't glossed over some important details in his careless haste?

She was hesitant to look at any more photos that might be presented, but when Rick opened a new folder and extracted a set of crime scene photos, her attention was piqued. She stared down at the glossy pictures he was laying before them. Daryl's narrowed eyes were darting from one to the other and back again in rapid succession, trying to observe twelve different high-definition photos at once. Beth didn't have to stare very long to figure out they were all pictures of Merle's cabin—specifically, his bedroom. Where he'd been found hanging from the ceiling.

"Christ," Daryl breathed out. He jabbed a finger down atop one of the photos, pointing to a spot on the wall behind Merle's noose. "There—that bullet hole wasn't there before. Where'd it come from?"

Beth's eyes darted over to where Daryl was pointing and she leaned down a little closer, inspecting the spot. Sure enough, there was an obvious bullet hole in the wall right above the curtained window. The noose dangled in the foreground ominously.

Rick scoffed and gestured to three other photos that depicted the living room and bathroom, as well as the other side of Merle's bedroom. "There was bullet holes all over that damn place. You know how yer brother liked his guns." He pointed to the photo of the living room, indicating a specific area in the corner. "We found a stolen bust of Robert E. Lee that Merle was usin' fer target practice. It was shattered all ta hell, left four bullet holes in the wall behind it. His bedroom weren't much different."

Daryl grunted out a half-chuckle of amusement and Beth noticed a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. But it disappeared just as quickly. He cleared his throat and jabbed his finger down on the bedroom photo again. "Nah—I knew every shot he took in that house. This wasn't one of 'em."

Rick hmphed indecisively. Then he said, "Well, y'all weren't talkin' fer a while 'fore he committed suicide. And with all the drugs—"

Beth tensed. Daryl interjected sharply, "That don't mean shit. I knew my brother, I knew every fuckin' thing 'bout his life. And he didn't kill himself. There's somethin' we're missin' here, Rick. I'd bet my fuckin' life on it."

You kinda already did, Beth thought. She pursed her lips.

Rick put up his hands in surrender. "Alright, I'm not disputin' yer claims. All I'm sayin' is it ain't somethin' we'd be able ta go off of."

"Yeah?" Daryl argued. "Ya didn't test fer gunpowder residue or whatever it is y'all do fer shit like that?"

Rick shrugged. "'Course we did. But there was lotsa shit on yer brother's corpse. Gunpowder residue all over that damn cabin. Woulda been impossible to trace it back to one specific source. He had a shit ton of guns in there, most of 'em unregistered…"

Beth reached forward and slipped out one of the autopsy photos from beneath the pile, pointing to a detail on the neck and upper shoulders of Merle's corpse. It had inexplicably stuck out to her whenever she'd first glanced it. "What about this? Those look like nail marks, an' these bruises look like fingers—like they were there before the noose."

Rick cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, leaning down a bit to examine what she was pointing out. Daryl peered down closer, too. But then Rick frowned and shook his head, meeting Beth's curious gaze for only a second before looking away bashfully.

"Uh, we kinda figured… that was, uh," Rick struggled to respond.

Daryl cut in matter-of-factly, "Merle liked the kinky shit. He always had bites an' scratches an' bruises from bein' choked. It's what got 'im off."

Beth's face turned red and she pulled her hand back awkwardly. "Oh."

Rick chuckled and ran a hand through his short brown hair. "Hell, I didn't wanna be the one ta say it, but—yeah. Merle Dixon was notorious fer gettin' injured durin'—uh, during coitus."

Daryl rolled his eyes and looked over at Beth. "Ya ever heard'a autoerotic asphyxiation?"

Beth suppressed a giggle and nodded her head. "Yeah…"

Daryl shrugged and looked back down to the photos. "Well, that was his thing fer the last decade or so. Weird fucker. If it wasn't that, it was knives or handcuffs or whatever-the-fuck else." He pointed down to an inch-long scar on the underside of Merle's corpse's jaw. "That's from the time some skank nearly knicked his jugular. I thought he was gonna bleed out on the bedroom floor."

"And this," Rick added, pointing down at a small cut on the bluish temple of Merle's corpse. "Was just as fresh as the nail marks, so we figured it was the same—uh, encounter."

"Prob'ly was," Daryl scoffed and shoved the photo back under the pile, clearly disgusted.

"I didn't… know," Beth said quietly. She kind of wished she hadn't even said anything. She definitely didn't want to learn all that.

"'S alright," Rick said. "I'll be real honest: when I firs' got the call, I thought he was gonna be another David Carradine. I mean, it was only a matter'a time, ya know?"

Daryl grunted in amusement and Rick smirked.

Then the sheriff went on more seriously, "Jus' makes all this a little harder. There really wasn't much ta find in the first place. I can't even say that I think you'll find a damned thing that's gonna help at this point." He gave Daryl an apologetic look. "I reckon y'already knew that, though."

Daryl sighed and looked back down at the photos with glazed eyes. "Yeah. I do. I just… got a real bad feelin'. Like there's somethin' we're missin'. Can't figure it out."

"Merle wouldn't have killed himself," Beth said softly.

Rick looked to her with surprise but Daryl quickly agreed. "Can't nobody kill a Dixon 'cept a Dixon. That was his goddamn life motto. But I don't care how much booze was in his system or how many drugs he was on—that stubborn fucker never woulda gone out like this."

Rick raised his eyebrows and took a step back, crossing his arms over his chest and giving Daryl an incredulous look. "Well… we ain't got a body no more, jus' these photos. If you wanna find out more, it sounds ta me like ya might have ta take a visit to the crime scene. Anythin' happens to comes up, I'm just a phone call away."

Daryl glanced over at Beth and they shared a brief look.

"I'd go with ya, but I'm kinda swamped," Rick added.

"Nah," Daryl assured him. "'S alright. Think we gotta do this on our own."

We know we have to do this on our own, Beth thought.

They'd both been waiting for this cue. They both remembered what Morgan had told them. The files and reports would only reveal so much. Now it was time to find out what the cabin was hiding.


As they left the Sheriff's Department and began to cross the parking lot, Beth spotted Merle sitting atop Daryl's bike and leisurely smoking a cigarette. Puffs of smoke rose from his mouth and dissipated into the air above him. He watched them approaching with a smug smirk.

"Walsh's pants comin' down—that was Merle, huh?" Daryl asked quietly, his arm bumping against Beth's as they walked side-by-side.

She couldn't help but chuckle at the memory. "Yeah. He kinda deserved it."

Daryl grunted with amusement. "More'an kinda."

When they reached the bike, Merle hopped off and tossed his cigarette butt to the ground. He puffed his chest out proudly and told Beth, "That was a good visit. Think I scared the ever-livin' shit outta Walsh in record time. And some crackhead in the holding cell!"

Beth rolled her eyes and brushed him off. She didn't even want to know what he'd been up to while she and Daryl had been talking to Rick.

She climbed onto the back of the motorcycle behind Daryl and he handed her the helmet. She slipped it on while Merle cackled at her side.

"What'd y'all find out from Officer Friendly?" He asked. "I know ya didn't tell 'im what's really goin' on. So what kinda half-assed lie did'ja come up with this time?"

Beth wrapped her arms around Daryl's middle and the bike's engine roared to life, drowning out Merle's voice.

He was still trying to ask her where they were going as they pulled out of the parking lot and sped away from the Sheriff's Department. Then he had no choice but to disappear until they stopped again.

to be continued...