we do n't know everything yet , but we know three important things : first , that french landing is a town in terrible distress ; second , that a few people ( judy marshall , for one ; charles burnside , for another ) understand on some deep level that the town 's ills go far beyond the depredations of a single sick pedophile-murderer ; third , that we have met no one capable of consciously recognizing the force the slippage that has now come to bear on this quiet town hard by tom and huck 's river .