The mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in an abandoned tobacco barn on Galatia Road in Seaboard, North Carolina. The beautiful stranger is identified as Nicey Parsons, investigative reporter for a Philadelphia tabloid paper. Dillon, Seaboards's only full-time policeman, requests assistance from the U. S. Marshal Service in Raleigh. Marshals Jeff Sands and Buddy Turner are dispatched to assist in the investigation. As they probe the crime, they realize nothing is as it seemed. Evidence is bogus, and they can find no link between the Philadelphia tabloid reporter and Seaboard. Then events from the past surface. The bombshell leaves the citizens of Seaboard stunned and causes an abrupt change in the investigation of the murder on Galatia Road.