Trudy Roundtree, the only woman on the Ogeechee police force, is not exactly excited about Hen Huckabee's request that she investigate Tanner Whitcomb's report that "he's run over somebody" given that Whitcomb is one of the town's odder oddballs: he doesn't have a car or a driver's license, he simply walks/putt-putt's around town holding his hands at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock on a hubcap.

But when Trudy finally interprets Tanner's rambling, and the man leads her to a dead body with tire tracks on his shirt, Trudy has to think twice about the ability of a car-less weirdo to do someone in. Tanner's also "driving" with a brand-new hubcap, has the dead guy's watch and cell phone in his ever-present plastic bag, and he swears he "bumped" the dead guy when he was "driving" the night before.

Could it be that Tanner was actually the killer?

Thinking it highly unlikely, Trudy widens her search for the dead man's killer, which leads her to a junkyard, an art gallery in Atlanta, connects her with an ex-prison inmate, reunites her with an old flame, and then finally brings her back to Ogeechee, where once again she has to remind herself that small towns are not that different from large cities -- love, hate, jealousy and greed are universal emotions.