Spring is waning, and summer is on the way. It's a beautiful day for Doris Flynn to take Rex and Buttercup, her four-hundred-and-fifty-pound lap pig, for a walk along the ridge. While Doris is admiring the flora and fauna, Buttercup is snuffling up the seedier side of things and uncovers the remains of a deceased forest brethren. Though Buttercup is quite interested, Doris is disgusted. Diverting the pig isn't easy, but when she's gone, Doris is left looking at a human skull barely half a mile from her home. A call to 911 brings the sheriff and the medicolegal death investigator. Both are new, have an agenda, and are questioning the viability of a pet pig. While Doris ponders how the remains got to a place directly above her home and how her daughter is tied into the case, the sheriff, unsure of his own staff, is trying to decipher the why. That leaves only the who and how, the medicolegal death investigator's forte. Are they going to find a way to work together and figure this out, or are the outsiders now prowling the area going to wreak more havoc?