The Midnight Man (1974)

Former Chicago policeman Jim Slade is paroled from prison, where he had served time for shooting his wife's lover in their bed. He goes to live with his married friends Quartz and Judy in a small town where he has been offered a job as a night watchman at a college. A college coed is murdered and local sheriff Casey tries to pin the crime on a creepy janitor who spouts biblical revelation while hiding pornography. Slade pursues his own unauthorized investigation. Natalie, the murdered student, is the daughter of Senator Clayborne, who subsequently receives blackmail letters related to tapes of her confession to a psychiatric counselor that she had an incestuous relationship with her father. Slade questions possible suspects, including the senator, Natalie's estranged boyfriend Arthur King (who declares to Slade that the generation gap "just got a little wider"), psychology professor Dean Collins and a nerdy student whose taped psychiatric rant was also stolen. All the while, Slade is warned, by his parole officer Linda Thorpe and by Quartz, against overstepping his authority as a mere night watchman, no longer a cop. A brief affair between Slade and Thorpe begins. A family of thugs led by a Ma Barker-type mother arrives, and they are revealed to be agents paid by some corrupt members of the sheriff's department to do their dirty work. Slade realizes that the parole officer and Quartz are the perpetrators of the murder, because only Quartz could have known a certain critical clue involved in the cover-up. Sheriff Casey arrests Quartz. As they depart, Slade confronts Thorpe, who produces the stolen tapes that are hidden in her freezer. The sheriff offers Slade an apology and a job although Slade cannot hold a position with the law as a convicted felon.