Chuck Hausman returns with his wife Rebecca to his birthplace Deerfield, where he left 20 years ago, joining the Marine corps just to get away from his father, the then generally revered reverend Leo Hausman, who didn't spare him the belt; to her shock she learns he faked psychosis to get interred and then released but never told her. Leo's will names him the main heir, while admitting the capital of an investment fund three locals entrusted Leo is completely lost; Pete Gromek and his partners however think it might just be hidden for Chuck, knowing they would shy away from a police investigation which would also bring in the IRS. The lawyer also gives Chuck Leo's diary, which he hopes contains the answers, but is stolen by Leo's housekeeper, Mrs. Ford, who claims to have earned the money by her loyal service all those decades. She is found dead, head fatally smashed on a stone, Chuck says she must have fallen, but had opportunity to do it. Jeanine Blaylock, his teenage first love, is missing, later found stabbed to dead, after she secretly asked Chuck for money to get out of town as he once did, having kept silence about the dead of Mary Hausman...—KGF Vissers