At Mercy Hospital Emergency Room, (ER) in
Milwaukee, USA, Dr. Maxine Cassidy attempts to
save Nanette, wife of Dr. Hank Myer who was taken
ill in a rough neighbourhood, wearing a bizarre
disguise.
Aaron, the pathologist at Marquette University,
finds that Nanette was poisoned by a nerve agent,
tetrodotoxin, a substance which Maxine had been
researching at Marquette University biochemistry
laboratory.
Detective Grabowski discovers that the lab is the only
place where the poison could have come from. Charlie,
a research assistant, and Dr. Virginia Gaust, head of
department work there.
Meanwhile, Maxine treats a patient at ER, Lavelle,
who knows Nanette as Mae West. Maxine has
arranged a late game of tennis with Virginia but she is
attacked in the changing rooms before Virginia arrives.
Maxine talks to Lavelle again; Lavelle reveals that two
men stopped to speak to Nanette on the night of her
death. Nanette drove away with the second one, who
Lavelle identifies as Aaron. He is now a suspect.
Grabowski’s fears over Maxine’s safety are confirmed
when she is attacked again outside an all-night
grocery.
Meanwhile, Lavelle has mysteriously come into money
and is leaving town. Maxine is curious about the white
spots on Lavelle’s arm. Lavelle says Nanette met a
third person that night, someone who is in Maxine’s
photo. She tells Maxine to investigate at North Avenue
and 24th Street, where the taxi picked up Nanette.
Maxine talks to Charlie and discovers he picked
Nanette up from her home and drove her back to
North Avenue.
Maxine visits the exact location where the taxi driver
picked up Nanette – a grocery store. A woman who
knows Lavelle indicates the empty room above the
store is significant and tells Maxine to call her. Virginia
asks Maxine to come to her house to talk. When she
arrives, she hears a car engine running in the garage.
She rushes in, only to be attacked again.
Later, Hank talks to Grabowski and Maxine – Hank
knew that Aaron and Nanette were having an affair.
Grabowski arrests Aaron.
Soon the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Maxine
calls the woman she met on North Avenue, who
gives her the number connected with the room above
the grocery – it is the biochemistry lab number. She
also calls Dr. Kareena Singh at the North Avenue
Health Clinic, who confirms that she has seen cases
of leprosy. Maxine remembers the white spots on
Lavelle’s arm. Everything points to the lab.
Maxine rushes to the lab and confronts Virginia with
the truth – that she had been using the room on North
Avenue as a clinic, where she paid people so she could
infect them with leprosy. Then she experimented with
her untested leprosy cure. Virginia admits everything
and Grabowski charges her with murder.