Earle moves out of Chicago with his mother Dora, who is insisting that he call her his Aunt and pretend to have been taken in after her made-up brother's death. Dora bought a Chicago-style farmhouse in rural Illinois with the life insurance money from the death of her late husband, known only as the Doctor. Earle was no fan of the move, but trusted his mom. She hired different handymen and maids and orphans to help around the house all for their big, as yet unknown, plan. Soon she begins courting Nordic immigrant men in the general area, searching for one to settle down and bring their money to help out on her farm. They would bring money to prove themselves, and she would take it while killing the men, so long as they had no family in America. As the first winter came along, Earle received a letter from his friend and sometime lover back in Chicago. She informed him that the police were going to dig up the Doctor's body and perform another inquest into his death, as rumors that he was murdered by Dora were rising. Dora decides then to have Earle and his lover Winifred married at some point. Focusing on their scam in the rural community instead, things are going swimmingly until the brother of one of the murdered immigrant men appears searching for his brother. The brother was around the same size as Earle, and their cook about the size of Dora. They killed them both and placed their bodies in the home before burning it down, making it look like the work of a jealous lover from the town. The police investigation of the farm produced all of the bodies of the men who were killed as well, and the scandal brought people from all across the Midwest. Dora had Earle stay behind while she went to California, expecting his lover Winifred to come to the scene of the crime. And that she did, where she was promptly roped into joining the murder spree as an unwitting accessory.