When a young, unidentified woman is found dead by the lake - the victim of a brutal and violent crime - Walter, an aging small town police officer (Peter Stormare), is called to the scene of the town's first murder investigation in decades. Haunted by his past, and hampered by the mistrust of the community and a state police officer overseeing the investigation, he sets out to solve the murder, complicated by his ex-lover (Jill Hennessy) and his suspicion of her current boyfriend. As he delves deeper into the crime, his newly-reformed life begins to unravel threatening his relationship with Sam (Martha Plimpton) and intertwining itself within the investigation and possibly the murder itself.