Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner) is an upstanding business owner and family man, recently honored as the Portland, Oregon Chamber of Commerces Man of the Year (the movie itself was filmed in Shreveport, Louisiana). In his secret life, Brooks is a serial killer, encouraged by his id, manifested as a gleefully sadistic alter ego he refers to as "Marshall" (William Hurt) whom only Brooks can see or hear (conversely, no one can hear him talk to Marshall). While he has refrained from killing for the last two years, Brooks feels the urge rising once again and, spurred on by Marshall, murders a couple in their home. Despite killing them before noticing that their curtains are open, Brooks follows his meticulous modus operandi, cleaning up the crime scene (and later cleaning the car he drove to the murder scene and burning his clothes and pictures he took of the victims) before departing. As part of his pathology, he leaves each of the victims' bloody thumbprints on a lampshade.