The unsolved murders at a remote Wisconsin farmhouse half a century ago
have receded into time. But one deranged man will do anything to make
sure that all of Pepin County remembers that bloody day. When a quantity
of dangerous pesticides is stolen from the local co-op, Deputy Sheriff
Claire Watkins is called in to investigate. The thief has left one
bizarre clue: the finger bone of a child long dead. The pesticides soon
reappear with devastating effect - in flowerbeds, in animal feed, and in
a fatal concoction at a Fourth of July picnic. Each time, a tiny human
bone is left at the scene. With the help of Harold Peabody, the quirky,
aging editor of the Durand Daily, Claire unravels the secrets of the
past, leading her to a pair of young lovers, a man enraged over his
mother's death, an obsessive recluse, and the deputy who first
discovered the corpses of the Schuler family. Claire desperately races
against time to find the madman before he uses the lethal pesticide
again. But he won't be stopped. Not until he gets what he wants.