Picking Up the Pieces 2000

Tex Cowley murders his unfaithful wife Candy Cowley and, after mutilating her, hides most of her body parts in the desert of New Mexico. The quiet, sunbaked town is soon unsettled by the strange remains and the rumors that swirl around them. A blind woman, wandering near the crime scene, accidentally trips over Candy’s hand, which has not been buried. When she touches the hand, her sight returns, and she declares that the hand is the Hand of the Virgin Mary.

From that moment, the hand becomes the centerpiece of a local sensation. Word spreads quickly, and people stream into the town out of curiosity and a longing for healing. The miracles attributed to the hand seem miraculous in their variety: a crippled man grows new legs, a teenager’s acne disappears, and a little person experiences an improbable change in his body. The village watches with a mix of awe and skepticism as these events unfold, and the once-hidden relic attracts healers, believers, and doubters alike. The atmosphere grows tense with the pressure of crowds, rumors, and the heavy weight of consequence that follows every claimed miracle.

Tex hears of the miraculous happenings and, driven by a desperate greed or perhaps a buried sense of justice, he sets out to reclaim the hand. He is pursued by Officer Bobo, a patrol officer who happens to be one of Candy’s former lovers. The chase moves across dusty streets and open horizons as Tex and the officer close in on the artifact that has reshaped the town’s fate. Eventually, the pursuit leads to a confrontation, and Tex’s attempt to steal the hand jeopardizes the entire string of miracles that had drawn people to the town in the first place.

Tex ends up in prison, separated from the life he once knew. While behind bars, he is visited by the spirit of his wife, Candy. The ghostly visitation reframes their marriage: despite her past life of infidelity and vice, the suffering she endured with Tex supposedly earned her a place in Heaven. She tells him that her experiences allowed him to be forgiven in a higher sense and that there is a path to redemption for him as well. In a remarkable turn of mercy, she arranges for his release, enabling him to return the hand to its rightful place in the church.

Through these events, the story explores themes of faith, guilt, and the curious power of belief in a community. It presents a stark look at how miracles can transform a town’s longing for meaning, even as they test the limits of desire, ownership, and forgiveness. The ending leaves viewers to ponder whether the hand’s miracles were ever purely divine or shaped as much by human hope and consequence as by any celestial force.