A local boarding school pupil is found frozen in a lake. Small town cop Abel Grey (Edward Burns) is sent to investigate. The school are keen to avoid any negative publicity and attributed the boy's death to suicide. The local sheriff's office are happy to go along with the schools interpretation of the boy's death but Abel is not so sure and upsets many of his colleagues when he decides to go it alone in the investigation. Convinced that the death was a crime Abel starts a murder hunt. However, the investigation hits some nerves with Abel as he is still trying to come to terms with a family tragedy that happened some years ago.