Her cell phone battery had died; her charger was stuffed into the front pocket of the backpack. She had plugged it in before getting in to the shower. Sitting down on the bed, she called her voicemail to retrieve her messages. There was one from her therapist, who had apparently seen the news broadcasts and wanted her to come in as soon as possible, to talk. Dana rolled her eyes at that one. A couple condolence calls from acquaintances at work and then a strange mumbled message and a phone number. The person had spoken so quickly that she didn't catch a name, just the number. She wrote down the number and recognized the prefix as a local cell phone. The next message after that was from her supervisor at work. She called him back and assured him that she was fine now and ready to get back to work. He asked her to come down to the office in the morning for a meeting so that he could see for himself.

Picking up the piece of paper that she had written the phone number on, she slowly dialed the number. After several rings, it went to voicemail and she left a short message, saying that she had received a call from this number, and her name and number. It was almost ten o'clock, so she turned on the television and set the channel to the early news broadcast. The first ten minutes ran through the most current crimes, more shootings and stabbings, fights at parties and car chases. Dana was calm as she waited for an update on the murder case that had stolen her best friend away. When the report was made, it was brief and uninformative. No new leads, please call Crime stoppers if you know anything.

The cell phone on the nightstand startled her as it began to ring. She picked it up and answered it. The female voice on the other end spoke rapidly, telling her that there was information to be had if she wanted it, but she had to leave now, and be willing to meet in Old Town, by the entrance to China Town.

"Get there now. I'll know who you are. Rachel showed me your picture." The woman on the other end of the phone hung up abruptly, not giving Dana a chance to say even one word. She stared at the cell phone in her hand for a few more moments, then picked her parka up off the chair and pulled it on. Tossing her fully charged cell phone into her purse, she picked up the key card for the room and slipped it into her wallet. Digging in the bottom for her keys, she left the motel, got into her car and headed downtown to Old Town.

Donald Amundsen drove east on the Sunset Highway, heading into Portland. His disability check arrived today and it was time to celebrate. He had left his grubby little cabin outside of North Plains in his Ford Ranger pick up truck. He took an exit from the highway and drove into downtown, heading for Burnside. He cruised the blocks around Second and Third staying on the north side of Burnside, where the down and out tended to congregate. He could get a quick blowjob for fifteen or twenty bucks, depending on how desperate the tweaker whores were for a fix. Unless he felt like more than just getting sucked off. Sometimes he did, if he could find a decent slut that did not look too strung out.

The heater in the truck was blasting on high, the switch or something had broken and Amundsen was forced to roll the windows down. He could still feel the sweat running down his sides, catching in the creases of his flabby obese body. The wet stains were growing on his shirt, under the arms and across the back. He shifted in the seat, the draft from the window sending a cool blast across him. His thinning greasy hair stuck to the back of his neck, and the several days' growth of and beard was itchy. At fifty-six years old, he was alone as anyone could be. His wife had left him over ten years before, not bothering with a divorce, just leaving. In his mind now, that was a good thing, he had no one nagging or bitching at him. He could do whatever he liked, whenever he felt like it.

The first couple hookers he saw looked all right until he got closer. He slowed the truck down to a crawl. Both of them wore obvious wigs, and had the telltale sores of crystal meth addiction on their faces and arms. They didn't look like the type that would have condoms on them at any rate. He preferred the cleaner whores, with real blonde hair to pull on. He remembered the blonde bitch he had taken care of a couple days ago. She wasn't a hooker, but that didn't matter. She had tried to screw him over and that just wasn't going to happen. She had a nice clean body and she was quite the fighter. A slow grin crossed his face as he remembered slapping her and the handfuls of hair he had ripped from her scalp. His arms were still scabbed over from where she had torn out her nails scratching for her life.

As he drove past the entrance of China Town, he saw a tall black prostitute talking with a shorter white woman with shoulder length black hair. The little white whore looked pretty good, even with the dark hair. The tall black woman watched his truck as he drove past, then turned hurriedly and walked into the shadows behind the huge Dragons guarding that part of the city. He might have to pay a bit more for the black haired girl, but she might be worth it. He steered the truck right to go around the corner, and then right two more times until he was back to the dragons. Both women were gone, only a few raggedy old men shuffling by dressed in layers of cast off clothes and carrying cheap liquor bottles hidden in brown paper bags.

He drove up another block and finally caught the eye of a blonde that didn't look too bad, he nodded and she walked over to the truck. After negotiating, she climbed into the seat beside him and they pulled away to park behind a building in a dark alley.

Dana watched as the rusty, primer spotted pick up drove past a second time. Pulling a pen out of her purse, she quickly wrote down the license plate number on the palm of her hand. She had stepped back behind the base to the dragon statue in the dark where he wouldn't be able to see her clearly. The phone call she had received earlier had been from Candy, someone who had known Rachel from her volunteer work. It seemed that Rachel had also been a part of a group that had been handing out condoms to the working girls on the street. After noticing a few of the girls with black eyes and bruised faces, she had patiently persisted with her questions until one of the girls finally told her about the "bad john". Rachel had been trying to get something, anything done about him, but the cops didn't want to hear about it and the pimps didn't give a shit as long as they were making money. The guy just slapped them around a little; he didn't do any major damage. Candy had told her that Rachel had confronted the guy, told him off and sent him away. She had apparently threatened him with the police, a threat that had little chance of standing, since none of the hookers would ever go to court to testify against him. He had appeared very pissed off at the time though, and the girls that he had beaten before were afraid for Rachel's safety. They tried to warn her to be careful, but she hadn't been careful enough.

Candy came back out from her hiding place with another girl who couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen. She had long blonde hair similar to Rachel's, and was about the same height and build.

"This is Roxy," Candy said, nudging the girl closer. Dana looked at her and started asking the questions, where, when and what happened. The girl answered defiantly at first, then seeming to realize that Dana wasn't a threat she told her everything she could remember about the fat, smelly man that liked to smack women around.

"I hope they catch that bastard," she said as she finished. Dana promised to give the information to the police, knowing that none of the girls on the street would be telling anything. She wasn't even sure she would tell the police. They were mostly ineffectual in cases like this, although they might be able to use some of the information to check around and compare to other cases.

She walked back toward her car, which she had parked in one of the garages four blocks down. Passing by a brightly lit Chinese restaurant, she decided to pick up something for dinner, take out that she could go back to the motel and eat. After waiting about ten minutes, the food was ready and she paid in cash. She held the bag carefully so the soup wouldn't spill and hurried back to her car. She set the bag down on the floorboard of the passenger side and drove back to the motel.

Leaving the television off, she set the food on the table and opened the bag. Her stomach rumbled, as she smelled the broccoli beef and hot and sour soup. Tearing the plastic wrappers from the fork and spoon, she started eating, thinking about the insanity of the last several days. Apparently, from what the girl Roxy had told her, this particular "john" usually showed up once a week on Thursdays. Dana knew that the government checks usually got sent out on Wednesdays, so that might be a possibility. Was he on unemployment or something else? That was something she could look into.

For tonight though, she needed sleep.

Light was shining in through the curtains in the morning. Dana woke long before the wake up call she had requested. She found the TV remote and turned it on, the early morning news was just starting. Pulling over the extra pillow, she propped herself up to find out what had been happening in the world while she slept with the dreams of the dead.

"The body of a woman between twenty and twenty five was pulled from the Willamette River this morning, found by a jogger near the East bank Esplanade. An autopsy is scheduled for later today and we'll have more details during the News at Noon. A house fire is burning near southeast Powell this morning, traffic is being rerouted at this time, Tony in Air Twelve will be on in a moment with more details"

Groaning as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, Dana went into the bathroom to get ready for work. She was due in at nine o'clock, and in the normal course of time, she was generally early. And if they had pulled a body out of the river, they would probably need her as soon as she could get over to the already.

At a quarter to nine, she was walking into her boss's office, ready to get back to work. Jeff Bateman handed her a schedule of appointments for the day. Looking down at the sheet of paper, she noticed her first stop was the city morgue. She knew it was going to be the floater. Jeff looked closely at her. Other than the circles under her eyes, it seemed she was fine. Dana caught him watching her and smiled. "Jeff, I'm fine. I really need to get back to work, I can't just sit around and mope."

He nodded. When his wife had died two years ago, he had felt the same way. Get back to work and get back to as normal as possible. He hoped the morgue being her first stop would be a little less bloody and easier to deal with.

"Okay, I'm going," she said over her shoulder as she walked out of his office. Downstairs, she opened the trunk of her Toyota and checked her equipment. Both of her thirty-five millimeter cameras were packed, both the normal and wide-angle lenses and her filters. In another bag was the close up lens and several film canisters. In a binder case were the gray card, rulers and index cards, and her spiral notebook and pens. Her tripod was shoved all the way at the front of the trunk, wedged in tightly so it wouldn't roll around. She closed the trunk lid and got into the car.

When she stepped into the room, the body was face up on a metal table, a sheet discreetly covering her torso. The medical assistant was a youngish man about thirty and fairly attractive. He showed her to the body and pulled the sheet off. Dana took out her camera. Starting from above, she took the pictures quickly and efficiently. There were several marks on the woman's face, she used both the regular and close up lenses. Next Dana set up the tripod next to the table and shortened the legs so that the camera was level with the body. Mostly pieces of bark and plant matter, bits of debris were still stuck to the skin and she made sure she took careful aim with the camera to show what it was.

Moving around the other side of the body, she noticed there was something stuck between the woman's fingers. She asked the assistant to hold the hand up so that she could get a close up. It looked like long gray hairs tangled tightly around her hand and fingers. The fingernails were torn off, but any blood that there might have been had been washed away by the water in the river where she had been found. Working slowly and methodically, she took pictures of the body from every angle and position. After using up four rolls of film, she was ready to go. Making all the notes in her spiral, she thanked the assistant and started packing up. He picked the sheet back up and covered the body again.

Dana made a mental note to stop for more film on the way to her next stop. It was nearly noon already; she had taken a lot of care to make sure there were plenty of photos for evidence, even taking more than necessary. Collecting all of her bags, she pulled the straps over her shoulders and folded the tripod, carrying it out in her hand.

Once she was outside, she took inhaled deeply the fresh rain cleansed air. Back at the car, she looked up her next stop. After stopping for some fast food, she ate in the car. She drove down to Second Avenue and parked, carrying her bags into the building. She checked in at the front desk and a uniformed officer led her down several hallways and down in the elevator to the evidence room.

She spent the next several hours taking pictures of different pieces of evidence when her cell phone started ringing. It was Jeff calling; he had just gotten a call for a car accident out on the highway. She packed up again and was escorted out.

The accident was north of downtown, on I-5. Knowing how the traffic would be backed up, she took Interstate Boulevard north to the closest cross street and drove cautiously up the emergency lane. She clipped an ID badge to her shirt; she took her camera out and walked up to the scene.

From the looks of it, a man had been changing a tire on the side of the highway and had either stepped or fallen backwards into the traffic lane. One car, a white Honda with California plates had hit the man, slammed on the brakes and had been rear-ended by a semi-trailer which had also rolled over the body. Dana went looking for the highest-ranking officer at the scene to find out where he wanted her to begin, because this was a mess.