A man stops by his reclusive younger sister's apartment and finds the door unlocked and no one there. Stepping out onto the balcony, he sees her, dead on the ground. Coroner Higa arrives and is told that this is a suicide, with no need for an investigation. She looks at the body and finds one of the victim's fingers is stiff with Rigor Mortis. Later, on the apartment building rooftop, she finds a cut and meticulously finished tree twig; but there are no trees around. She conspires with the surviving brother to order an autopsy, but is denied by disinterested senior officials. Detective Ishikawa has been taking a few days off to rest before attending the autopsy with a senior detective. Coroner Higa shows Det. Ishikawa the woman's head/neck x-ray, where he finds a broken vertebra. The next night, Coroner Higa is called to another "suicide" and finds another cut twig on the roof the of the apartment building. Det. Ishikawa asks to see the deceased, and he "goes fuzzy." He later meets the spirit of the second victim in the corridor outside of Pathology and finds out that she was indeed murdered, but does not know the first victim. Who is this serial killer, preying upon depressed college-age women? What is Coroner Higa's agenda? And why is Detective Ishikawa much more interested in this case than usual?