When reporter Franklin Moore interviews Chihani about the possibility that the girl was raped, Chihani wins no friends by arguing that the rapist is as much a victim of capitalist society as the girl. Thus begins the creeping suspicion that Chihani and his student leftists are somehow involved in the crime. People will talk. The fact that gossip is the lifeblood of entire television networks these days merely indicates its importance in people's lives. The most convoluted and wounding gossip outside of innuendoes about TV sportscasters' private lives can be found in small towns, and Dobyns understands this.
People get excited.
Suspicions increase as more girls disappear, and we witness the town tear itself apart from within. Citizen watch patrols are formed. Their overexcited participants become vigilantes, attacking their neighbors with an energetic vengeance and a complete absence of evidence. Yet, as the ugly focus of everyone's suspicion inevitably falls on him, his own secrets are revealed. It was like a revolving searchlight.