Roy Hardin

Sheriff Roy Hardin runs the Larkville County Sheriff's Department, keeping the peace in a quiet stretch of rural Ohio where nothing much is supposed to happen. That changes when a shootout at the local Tides Motel lands three strangers in his cells: a wounded woman, a battered drifter calling himself Pete Castiglione, and a teenage girl who gives a different name and age every time she is asked. Hardin works the puzzle like the methodical lawman he is, checking stories against records and trusting none of them, and when outsiders arrive at his station pressing him to hand the prisoners over, he plants himself on the oath he swore and refuses to budge.