The Long Wait

A man is brought into the hospital, he a victim in a car accident. His injuries include a severely burned hand which has erased his fingerprints, and a case of amnesia, his only identification burned in car. Two years after the accident, he recovered from his physical injuries, and now using the name William Smith in his amnesia, he is tricked by a colleague to go to the town of Lyncastle where there are indications that it is his hometown. What he learns upon arriving in Lyncastle is that he, Johnny McBride, is wanted for murder. Johnny apparently worked as a bank teller and is also suspected of robbing the bank of $250,000. The murder victim was the DA, Minnow, the evidence against Johnny being his fingerprints on the gun that killed Minnow, it the gun issued to him by the bank and kept at his wicket. The police can no longer hold him with his fingerprints no longer existing identifying him as Johnny McBride. Regardless, he is certain in it inherent to his being that he is not a murderer. What strengthens his opinion is that someone or some people are trying to kill him for what he represents in the story, Johnny who may be able to identify the actual murderer if he ever recovered his memory. Who seems to be behind what is happening to him is a man named Servo, a gangster who now controls the town. What Johnny also learns is that a person who may be able to fill in some of the blanks of his life and thus this story is his old girlfriend Vera West, who also worked at the bank but who left town following the murder. Indications are that Vera has returned to town, but finding her will be difficult as she has altered her appearance so as not to be recognizable as Vera West. Indication is also that Vera is one of several women that he has met upon his return to town, the common thread between all of them being working for Servo, she hiding her true identity to protect both herself and him.