Mr. & Mrs. Estes have baby twins and with Bill Estes working all day Madeline is finding it harder and harder to look after the two boys. One night one of the twins dies suddenly in its sleep. All the medical and police personnel involved thinks that the baby died from SID (Sudden Infant Death) Syndrome, but a new, young and ambitious ME, Dr. Gauge, thinks that it was battered and calls in Lt. Monahan.

Bill, remembering how his wife was getting angry with the workload of looking after both babies begins to think that she could have killed their son.

A nineteen-year old boy, with a malignant tumor, dies in a car accident. Quincy does the autopsy and meets the family. He goes to meet Dr. Pendleton, a doctor who deals with people who are close to death, and wants to learn how to deal with people who have just identified a loved one in a more dignified way. He spends some time with the doctor and even takes his place for a while.

A doctor persuades a couple that their new baby, which was born with Down's syndrome, will not have any life outside of hospitals and institutions. The child is then allowed to starve to death, something that causes a second doctor to ask for the original one to be charged with murder. Quincy investigates and finds out more about how children with Down's syndrome are treated in the world. To do this he visits a family that look after six children on their own.