Fiction. LGBTQ Studies. The judge's house contains mysteries unknown to Lawrence and Nancy Huggins, who have moved in next door. Reassigned to a small-town branch of his Chicago bank, manager Lawrence and pediatrician Nancy find themselves the sole African American professional couple in Rockvale, Illinois. They are also the only townsfolk to have befriended their reclusive next-door neighbor, old Will Turley. After Will dies accidentally, he leaves his grand brick house, with all its contents, and which has been for decades his refuge from the torments of his youth, to them.