Unintended Consequences

In a small Mid-Michigan town, a group of thirteen year old boys gather to play baseball. It’s the first day of summer break and the next three months will be filled with baseball, bikes, and swimming at Howell Lake. The day goes as planned until a strange occurrence takes place late in the afternoon. A train, the Illinois Central, is due to pass by the ballfield sometime around 4:10. Rather than passing noisily by, the train comes to an abrupt stop. This is a first and the boys are naturally curious. So they investigate and before long find themselves on board the train, having hopped on as the train began to move forward. What happens next is horrifying. One of the boys falls off and is crushed by the weight of the locomotive. Why was the train stopped? Why did they jump on? And why did one boy die? What comes from this devastating incident is a story so raw in its complexity, so brutally frank in its human misbehavior that what transpires might just be considered stretching the bounds of credulity. Enter Elizabeth Huber, mother of the young man killed by the train. Her secrets are about to be revealed, secrets that led to the death of her son, yet go far beyond the realm of believability. She is desperate and in her desperation, conceives a plan that not only attempts to cover-up her misdeeds but ultimately destroys what remains of her family. In the end, Sheriff Rod Taylor will sift through the many contradictory facts to find the truth. Taylor is cunning, experienced and above all else, beyond reproach. He is a no-nonsense, tell it like it is law man, intent on truth-finding and guilt-assigning, a trait that has earned him state-wide acclaim.