Chester Beatty and Tessie Weeks have been engaged for 5 years and going together for 15 years before that. Chester is reluctant to burden Tessie with marriage because of his secret problem. He is a sleepwalker. When Tessie finally does rope Chester into marriage, he can't get time off from his boss of 26 years, Mr. Frisbee. To resolve the problem, Chester sets out to impress his boss by securing a big sales contract of glass eyes. He takes Tessie and follows the rich doll company owner Horace B. Stanton to a lakeside resort and befriends him. However, his sleep-walking makes him a prime suspect in a thievery/murder case.
The eclectic residents of a small, picturesque island town must navigate a sensational murder and the discovery of a million dollars, leading to a series of increasingly bad decisions which upend the once-peaceful community.
During her wedding ceremony, Rachel notices Luce in the audience and feels instantly drawn to her. The two women become close friends, and when Rachel learns that Luce is a lesbian, she realizes that despite her happy marriage to Heck, she is falling for Luce.
A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meager skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.
Celestine has a new job as a chambermaid for the quirky M. Monteil, his wife and her father. When the father dies, Celestine decides to quit her job and leave, but when a young girl is raped and murdered, Celestine believes that the Monteils' groundskeeper, Joseph, is guilty, and stays on in order to prove it.
On the way to meet with an independent artist in the South, newlywed art dealer Madeleine is convinced by her husband, George, that they should stop to meet his family in North Carolina.
Although Larry "Buster" Crabbe earns top billing, the hero of Drift Fence is former Western star Tom Keene as Jim Travis, who, at a rodeo, meets city dweller Jim Traft, who has come west to erect a fence that will prevent Clay Jackson from continuing his cattle rustling business.
Carrie Snyder is a prostitute, who is forced out of the fictional southern town of Crebillon, after forming a friendship with a young boy named Paul, whose dying mother is unable to protest against her son visiting such a woman.