Dallas PI Ed Earl Burch is two-legged train wreck, tormented by nightmares from his last case, self-medicating with whisky and Percodan. He's only right when he's working, but a divorce case in West Texas reminds him of how far he's fallen since he lost his gold shield and status as a homicide detective. What he needs is a murder case. When a rancher, war hero and civic leader gets killed in a suspicious barn fire, that's just what he gets. And it almost gets him killed.