Anatomy of a Death: 3

Dr. Edwin Wiltse and his wife, Lucy Wiltse, reside in a small village in the hotel they built in post-American Civil War Iowa. He has an office in a corner of Hotel Wiltse, which she manages. In 1887, his life began to spin out of control due to alcohol and drug addiction. As the story unfolds, Dr. Wiltse attends a town council meeting, wherein he becomes angry and threatens to kill several councilmen. Later that evening, a man of unknown origin is found bludgeoned at the railroad depot, rendered unconscious, and later dies. The town constable seeks to question Dr. Wiltse as a suspect, but the physician disappears. That same day, a Missouri outlaw, Frank James, shows up at the hotel. He and his brother, Jesse James, were part of the notorious James-Younger gang that emerged from the war. Most of the Younger members were killed or arrested during an 1876 attempted bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. Frank and Jesse survived, but Jesse was killed several years later at the hands of a member of his own gang. The James-Younger gang terminated, Frank returned to Missouri to take a lawful job as a shoe salesman. His travels take him to Midwestern towns he had stalked during his years as a bank robber, and in 1887, he finds himself passing through the Iowa village. When he shows up at Hotel Wiltse and learns the Yankee, Dr. Wiltse, has threatened to kill his lovely wife, old habits come back into play. It's a story of love, addiction, sacrifice, and murder.