Carl Wilcox, Depression-era sign painter and ex-con, finds himself in Podunkville where he rents a cheap room from the Widow Bower. A local "brute and bully" Basil Ecke turns up murdered next to Wilcox's Model T and the painter becomes the prime suspect. Ecke owned the local pharmacy and was a silent partner in a hotel in nearby Aquaville where he cavorted with a series of married women. Wilcox investigates "the wife beatings, the woman chasing, the tales of incest and possible murder" that suggest motives for the killing. The murder weapon, a common domestic item, turns out to be more interesting than the unsurprising revelation of who wielded it