The death of a stockbroker leads the detectives to his girlfriend whose mother is a cosmetics mogul who has a long standing friendship with Branch, and will stop at nothing to protect her corporate image by using hormone replacement therapy withdrawal as the basis for her defense.

The murder of an admissions director of a private school leads the detectives to investigate a pair of angry parents whose children were denied admission, but then set their sights on the headmaster when they discover that the victim was about to go public with the denied admissions.