Wild things go on in Moundsville, the normally quiet seat of Chippewa County. Newborn fraternal twins are abandoned in the basement of an apartment building, but survive without nourishment for eight days, a medical record. Their teenage mother is shot to death shortly after delivery. Two decades later, detective A.G. Reynard not only locates the untraceable murder weapon, but also unravels the mysterious motive. A persistent reporter discovers a diary that could jeopardize the lives of promiment people, including the now grown twin girl. The police chief drops dead in the arms of his nurse wife in a local hospital, where other strange events take place. A city police car chase results in a bizarre court trial. The judge, who is blind, also presides over the trial of a black teenage youth who is convicted of killing a white elderly woman he was trying to rape. There are more twists and turns than on San Francisco's famed Lombard Street.