When San Francisco P.I. Jeri Howard's new client, Rob Lawter, takes a header through his living room window soon after he's hired her, Jeri is in a quandary. Lawter, a paralegal at a food-processing firm, had received a threatening anonymous note, sent because he was about to blow the whistle on some serious corporate cover-up. Since Jeri has already cashed the check, she feels she owes her dead, probably murdered, client his money's worth. So she goes undercover in the firm's legal department, determined to expose Lawter's killer. What Jeri finds is that murder tops this corporation's agenda, as employees pay the ultimate price to keep a deadly health scare out of the media. . . .