of sexually motivated murders. Shortly after World War II, violent Army veteran Sonny Butts is appointed to the post of assistant police chief in Delano because he is a war hero. When the serving chief dies of a heart attack, the city council appoints Butts to fill the vacancy. Butts figures out Funderburke's guilt, just as town father Holmes tells Butts he is about to take his badge due to a series of depredations culminating in Butts's murder of a black mechanic. Sure that solving the decades-long mystery will save his job, Butts goes to Funderburke's land and catches him in the very act of burying his latest victim. But as Butts chortles over his victory, letting down his guard, Funderburke strikes Butts with the shovel in his hands, shoots Butts with his own police revolver, and buries his body on the spot—along with his police motorcycle. No one makes the connection between the disappearance of Butts and the long-unsolved murders. Running parallel to the story of the continual investigation is that of Chief Lee's son, Billy. A young boy at the time of his father's death, Billy Lee comes home from World War II an officer and war hero. He becomes a lawyer and, boldly for the time and place, a liberal. He enters politics and becomes first a state senator, then lieutenant governor, and there is talk of his elevation to national office. Around that time, Tyler Watts, a retired, decorated military officer and experienced criminal investigator, takes the bold step for a black man in 1962 of applying for the vacant position of police chief in a southern town. With the support of Billy Lee and Mayor Holmes, Watts is appointed police chief of Delano, however much to the silent disapproval of the all-white council whose members were not initially aware of Watts's ethnic background when Billy Lee read out Watts's résumé to them. In these respects, Chief Lee's son, Billy, is acting in a manner similar to that of Jimmy Carter, who was from Plains, Georgia, and who also served in the state senate and as Governor of Georgia, and who then ran for, and was elected to, the office of President of the United States. Like everyone else, Billy Lee assumes that Watts is a genuine newcomer in town. He does not recognize Watts as his boyhood friend Joshua Cole, son of the man who