Cal, Harlan, and Buddy grow up together in a small Virginia town in
the years before the second World War. United by age, proximity, and
temperament, they get into — and out of — all the trouble that boys manage
to find. They even earn a nickname from a local restaurateur who gives
the boys their first jobs and plenty of friendly advice. “Uncle” Vic
calls them the Mulligans, because they always seem to find a way through
a thicket of trouble — family problems, girls, college, war — to success.
Cal and Harlan and Buddy have been blessed with second chances.
Now it’s 1959, and police lieutenant Buddy receives an early-morning
phone call: his friend Harlan, a store owner, has been shot in a
break-in. Cal, now a preacher, meets Buddy at the hospital, and
together, as professionals and as friends, they begin to unravel what
might have happened to Harlan.