Jack thought he had stumbled into an easy free-lance news story for The Boston Globe. Bobby Mullaney and his wife, Melanie, are strange but amiable hippies running a marijuana legalization movement in rural Maine. Bobby's friend and sidekick Coyote is a disturbing tough-guy and, Jack suspects, a liar, yet the three of them have an interesting argument to make, so Jack begins unfolding their tale. But the story takes an ugly turn when Bobby and Coyote disappear and Melanie, unable to go to the police, turns to Jack for help. He follows a lead that takes him to Bobby's hometown, known for its murderous traffickers in the hard-core drug trade. No one has seen Bobby, but Coyote has, apparently, been asking questions. When Bobby's charred car turns up with a body burned beyond recognition inside, Jack must find out what happened between the two men, and exactly what kind of murder has taken place.