Whiskey Rain: A Rose City Thriller: The Rose City Thriller Series, #1

PROLOGUE

THE RAIN WAS COMING down hard and being blown around in different directions like the world was stuck inside a carwash. It had been the wettest March in thirty years. And it didn’t look like it was going to let up anytime soon.

The woman blinked and squinted up into the deluge before dropping her head and pulling on her hood.

For a moment she thought about hunkering under a doorway and calling an Uber but then blew it off. It was twelve blocks. She could do twelve blocks. Even in a little rain. Okay, in a lot of rain.

She began walking toward the bridge and then remembered something. The bridge hadn’t factored in to her estimate. Twelve blocks plus the Ross Island Bridge. She had done a story on it last year. The numbers came back to her... 3700 feet long, 123 feet high.

Taxi!

The word exploded in her head like a wet firecracker. But as she reached the corner of First and Arthur she realized she was already thoroughly soaked. Soaked and committed. Somewhere along the way her pride had taken an interest and it was going to see her through this.

She did her best to avoid the puddles and the watery potholes when she got to the crosswalks. Not that it mattered. Her shoes and socks were wet and spongy now.

She shivered as she passed the creepy entrance to the Arthur Street Tunnel and tried to think of other things.

She thought about a hot shower, an episode of House Hunters International—somewhere tropical—a drink, and those Trader Joe’s taquitos she had become addicted to. Maybe there was even some guacamole left. She hated when the guacamole turned brown, but on a night like this she might even go with brown guacamole. She thought of the drink again and wondered what kind of condition her bar was in. Yeah, a hot shower and a double of something or other.

She thought about the story she was working on. It was big news, the break she had been waiting for, a stepping stone to a better job on a major newspaper. She smiled at the possibility.

She thought about the man she had met recently. He was obviously dark and troubled, but there was something about him, something that called to her in a way no one had in a long time. Lately, she caught herself thinking about him more and more.

As she stepped onto the bridge’s narrow walkway, a gust hit her from the side, blowing off the hood and shooting water into her ear. She tilted her head and shook it several times, trying to get her hearing back.

Damn this rain.

At some point she began to get the feeling that someone was following her. She turned back a few times but didn’t see anyone. Still, she began to walk faster.

She was halfway across the bridge now, more than halfway home. The rain was cold but she didn’t feel it, having settled into a comfortable pace, fast enough to get her blood flowing, fast enough to get the job done.

Yeah, there was someone back there all right. She stopped and turned around again, waiting for a passing car to light up the walkway behind her. A few cars sped by but, again, she didn’t see anyone.

Go to hell, she said at the cold, wet night. Whoever you are.

She stared down at the river for a moment, black and whipped up. It was sad, she thought, that people got to the point where their lives felt so beyond repair, so beyond rescue, that they sometimes used this bridge to end it all. She looked down a moment longer. The empty darkness stared back and the rain kept on falling. She shivered again and turned back toward her route.

But when she looked out in front of her someone was in her way.

Do you... a snot-filled voice said.

She couldn’t make out all the words.

I’m sorry, she said, instantly feeling stupid and mad at herself for apologizing.

The time, the man repeated. Do you have the time?

No, I’m sorry.

Damn if she didn’t do it again. She started to step around him, trying to make up for the weakness of her words with a steely bridge-like determination in her body language.

Yes, I believe you, he said.

Believe whatever the hell you want, she thought but said nothing.

Suddenly, in a flash, he had his hands around her waist. After the initial shock she began to kick and scream. But he was too strong and there was no one else around to hear.

She felt herself spinning.

I’m sorry, the man said.

Why? she yelled. Why are you doing this?

You know why.

Her face formed a question mark.

No! her mind screamed. No, I don’t.

A second later she felt the man’s powerful arms swing her back and then up and forward. And then her world went upside down and began to fall away.

A few moments later there was a lonely and terrible splash down in the river below.

And then nothing.

CHAPTER 1

TWO WEEKS EARLIER...

I poured myself another sloppy shot of Maker’s Mark and stood in front of the window watching the rain streak the glass, wishing for things that once had been, wishing I could have found a way to hold on to them.

Ben was dead. Almost seven months now. But that didn’t stop him from coming back every single night, didn’t stop him from crawling out of his grave and into my living room.

He never said anything. He just sat there looking sad. Sometimes the drinking helped. Sometimes it made it worse.

I had gotten used to it, but on this night I didn’t feel like dealing with him. I held the glass to my cheek and stared outside, refusing to turn around. After the third drink the lights of the city lost their focus as my mind loosened from my skull. I could see his blurry reflection in the window pane.

Benjamin Mortimer was just a memory, like the scent of his aftershave that still lingered in my closet or his voice on old phone messages I refused to delete. I knew he wasn’t real. I didn’t see ghosts. It was the whiskey and the loneliness and the anger and the grief that brought him back each night.

I finally turned around.

He looked the same. Black hair, pale face, hollow and haunted eyes. I held his gaze, searching for an answer, looking for the missing piece. But as always, I came up empty.

Why, Ben? I whispered. Why did you throw us away?

He didn’t answer. He never did.

I poured another drink and watched him disappear.

And then I got to work.

For some reason my editor at the Portland Free Press wanted a story on education finance. It was the kind of thing that had always tested my sanity, sitting through a dull-as-fuck budget meeting and coming away with a thick binder full of numbers and a pain behind the eyes.

I had three other stories I was working on at the moment, all of them more interesting, but I wouldn’t be able to get to them until this one was out of the way. I knew what I had to do. I just had to plow through the material and get it done.

I put on some Mingus and got down to it.

I read through my notes and highlighted some possible quotes, then leafed through the binder, slapping Post-its on the pages that I would need to analyze better by the light of day. I made a short list of district personnel to follow up with and wrote down a few questions. Maybe I would talk to some art teachers and librarians, the ones scheduled for the slaughterhouse if the proposed budget was approved.

School cuts and lost jobs were commonplace, but I still needed to find a way to humanize the story. It wasn’t going to be anything original, but at least talking to the victims would put a face on the numbers.

An hour later I closed my laptop, stacked the binder and my notes on top of the table by the door, and set the alarm on my phone. I still had four hours before I had to get up. Maybe I could get some sleep.

Before getting to bed I wandered back over to the window. It was raining harder. Through the downpour I stared at the rusty metal table with the one matching chair on the small porch across the street. I had never seen anyone sit out there. I wondered what it said about a person with a table and one chair. Did it say they had given up any and all hope that there would ever be a need for a second chair?

Maybe I should get rid of some of my own chairs.

CHAPTER 2

THE DOG HAD RUN UP to him and he stroked its head, savoring the moment, a mix of anticipation and tightness in his chest.

Spring was on its way, but not yet. It had rained all day and now the chill of twilight closed in all around as more dark clouds rolled in from the west. His knee was giving him grief, but he refused to think about it.

Bailey, come back here, the owner said. Bad dog. I’m sorry.

He saw her holding the leash, the leash that should have been hooked onto Bailey’s collar.

He wondered how many times a day she called to it and how often it actually listened. He knew it wasn’t the dog’s fault.

He thought about those words: I’m sorry.

How many times did people use that phrase? And how many times did they mean it? Most of the time what they really meant was that they were sorry you showed up and got in the way. They weren’t sorry for anything they had done. Not really.

But that was all right. That was about to change.

No need to be sorry, he said, squeezing the needle into the dog’s neck. Good dog.

Bailey never felt a thing, running off down the wooded path before stumbling and then slumping down to the ground next to a tree.

He smiled at the woman and reached inside his pocket, feeling the latex gloves. She was rather attractive for someone her age.

But this wasn’t about that.

CHAPTER 3

I STARED DOWN AT MY mug of Earl Grey, the steam billowing up like a nuclear reactor, and made the call.

Hello, this is Kate Craig, I said.

"Kate who?"

"Craig. Kate Craig. I’m a reporter at the Portland Free Press. Is Mr. Dumars in?"

Wait, let me see, the woman at the other end of the line said. I waited. No, I’m afraid he stepped out. Would you like to leave a message?

I left my name and number and hung up.

Nice work on that budget story, Jackson, Dan Porter said.

The city editor at the Free Press had gotten into the habit of calling me Jackson after watching a documentary on the history of the Eagles a few months earlier.

When they were just starting out, Jackson Browne lived in a basement below Glenn Frey, Dan had told me one day. "Frey said that he would hear the whistle from Browne’s tea pot every morning and listen to him sing and play the piano, working on the same verse over and over and over until he felt he had it just right. And then he would have some more tea. And then he would work on the next verse twenty times. And so on.

When I heard that story I immediately thought of you, Kate. Tea by your side, always trying to write the perfect story.

I appreciated that he noticed how hard I worked and I didn’t mind the nickname. I was into jazz, but Jackson Browne was all right. You could be called a lot worse. What I didn’t like was the idea