Antennas are placed all over Lodi by a research group whose goal is to broadly control thought patterns of people using the antennas. However, when the system is powered on it causes John (who is driving) to have a stroke. When he wakes, his mother is dead and he blames himself.
However a new ability is unlocked in John: He's able to 'hear' objects. See, everything is made up of atoms, and all of those atoms are moving, reacting to the world around them. Doesn't matter if it's a glass, or a ball, or water - all objects are made up of these. Well, John is able to listen to these objects. Because, when someone speaks or moves, what happens is 'recorded' in items all around us. We simply lack the ability to hear. "If these walls could talk" - well, they can, but we lack the ability to listen. John however doesn't.
So, after John's Mom passes away, John helps his Dad solve a murder case by going into the space and listening. People called him a physic, or ghost whisperer, but really, John's brain has just been 'tuned' to hear frequencies in which we cannot.
John tells his Dad how he's able to do this, but their relationship becomes strained when John's Father who initially vehemently pursues what happened to John's Mom, he eventually accepts that she's just gone. Maybe she left them? [this is a result of a soothing type control from the researchers]. John (who is unaffected by the antennas) becomes disillusioned with his Dad, and leaves town rebelling in the best way he can: he decides to become a lawyer.
But of course this ability comes at a cost -every time john listens to the past, he gets terrible headaches, and sometimes passes out.
The Researchers are chiefly interested in John - They need to study him, so they can replicate him for some (perhaps the elite), and avoid it happening to others.
They setup a scenario in which The Sheriff cannot figure out (they block his reasoning), then apply pressure to him from the Mayor - who tells him to get the boy back here.