Monaghan asks Quincy to push the autopsy of a young car thief to the top of his priority list. The boys' friend is claiming that a police officer chased him down and killed him after they were stopped in their stolen car. When the autopsy is completed it can only confirm that the boy, Billy Harris, died to a bone broken in his neck, and not how it could have occurred. This information is enough to get the press printing stories of police brutality and a Californians for Constitutional Rights lawyer rushing in to defend Billy's friend Steve.

An evangelist whose church is being investigated by the government is found dead in a motel room., drugs and alcohol at his bedside table. Quincy is told to come up with the mode of death quickly, everyone wants to know how, and why, he died. The scientific results are borderline so Quincy asks Asten to authorize a psychological autopsy.