With a hangover from spending the night at his lover's house, Dan, a thirty-year-old deputy in rural Ohio, decides to take an easy morning by only pulling people over for speeding violations. But out on the country roads, Dan notices something strange: skid marks. He follows them to the edge of the road and finds a car with a dead body in it. Instead of going to his sheriff with this information, he visits his half-brother, C.T.. C.T. deals a wide variety of drugs, by Dan never turns him in for it, more so because it allows him to use C.T. for inside information than out of any fraternal love. C.T. tells him nothing about the corpse, but he does mention that their father, Lionel, is back in town. Lionel had been locked up in prison for two years because of a violent altercation with a college student in a bar, but he was released a few months ago. However, assault is but the least of Lionel's offences—even if it has so far been the only offense for which he has been tried. Dan believes Lionel killed his mother when he was a child. Lionel also abused his children and was the most powerful drug lord in their county before he went to prison. When he was little, Dan dreamed of becoming a police officer so that he could punish his father for his crimes. Now that he is back, Dan suspects his father of killing the man he found because that man is his father's main competition. Without consulting his sheriff, whom Dan knows would not be of much use, Dan goes to meet his father. Dan pretends to tip off his father to a looming drug bust. In reality, Dan is tricking his father into moving his stash so that he can catch him in the act. With the help of another police officer, whom no one thinks anything of, Dan catches his father—and keeps his own hands completely clean. Dan realizes that his father did not kill the other drug lord, but he nevertheless frames him for it, both to keep his father behind bars for a long time, and also to ensure his lover, who actually shot the man, stays safe.