Safely Buried

THE MYSTERY BEGINS . . .It was ten at night. I had just come off I-65, and my high beams lit her up from behind. She was walking along the road between dark, endless cornfields, and her right leg was in a cast. She wore denim shorts and a yellow tank top that didn't quite reach the shorts. Without crutches, she moved as fast as she could on the gravelly shoulder. She would take a long step with her good leg, stiffly swing the cast forward the same distance, and immediately start the next step. Tilting jerkily, she looked as if she would fall with every stride. I crossed the centerline to give her more room to fall. Just as I was about to pass her, she glanced over her shoulder and stuck out a thumb. . . .When Phil Larrison, editor of a small-town newspaper in southern Indiana, picks up the wobbling hitchhiker, this chance encounter plunges him into a deadly mystery that he struggles to solve because he wants a big story for the paper. But the story turns out to be much bigger than he expects and a lot more painful.