Ray Valentine never dreamed of being a cop. Much less a homicide detective. It started with a palm reading on the porch of the neighborhood mystic at the base of Mount Tabor Park. She spoke of a darkness Ray would confront— one that would shock the world. Her words were the first tendrils of destiny that locked him onto the path he was on. Una, the woman, had told him this with a kind smile. she told him to keep a tender heart in the face of terrible horrors. It would be with love, not anger, that Valentine would save the world.

He remembered that sunny afternoon with a coppery tang in his mouth. He spit out a wad of congealed blood as he pulled himself off the rain stained cement. Fucking meth heads— must have brained me with a metal pipe… again, Ray thought. He had been chasing a scrap metal ring for weeks now. They were connected to three murders and Ray suspected half a dozen more unconfirmed crimes. They hid in the roaming homeless camps along bike paths. You had to wade through a sea of used syringes and broken couches to question the dirt covered faces. Before the recession hit, Ray had regularly tried to get his regular informants off the street and into safe apartments, but the offers were seldom accepted. The mandatory sobriety proved an near impossible task for the campers. He gave up— leaving his energies for solving the aftermaths and occasionally, miraculously heading it off before it happened.

The doughnut jokes were a cheap shot, Ray thought. There were few foods that could sit in a Crown Vic for hours as well as an old fashioned. Even other pastries, like danishes, had a tendency to wilt— giving it that sweaty glaze that makes you regret picking it up and unable to put down without a bite— as you’ve already soiled your heart with sugar slime.

Ray ate his chocolate round with impeccable form before staggering out of the shop. He was hazy on the past couple of hours— but the pocket receipt from a Zoomcare and the bandage around his head let him know he was semi-operational. He should have headed to the St. Vincent’s for a proper check-up, but he knew Carter McMurrary had to be nearby. Ray had combed through the entire Powell-Foster neighborhood, and that buck-tooth menace could clean the whole assault up for him and set him on the path for the Springwater Slasher. The vicious fucker, whoever this slasher was, sprang out of the bushes and attacked unsuspecting cyclists. Their spandex did little to protect them from his sharpened box cutter. It even had notches in the razor— mangling what should have been simple slashes. This was a statement piece. A declaration of malice. And one that the scrap metal ring should have a name for.

This piece of shit was two steps off of being the next “Tall Paul.” Paul had been a rampant rapist ignored by the rest of the east Portland precinct. Rent boys and male travelers alike had suffered for years because of the abnormally tall, gangly bastard. Ray wouldn’t have a repeat of that. No one had batted an eye when Paul turned up strangled in a back alley off of Division. Neither had Ray. He just wished it had happened sooner. Enough bouncers in the lower east side had asked him to arrest Paul. And Ray had. But there was never enough to hold him. The broken glass of justice kept slicing his hands and Paul left a bloody trail.

The brief flash of mainstream prosperity turned Portland’s quirks into parody as it leaned into the inane dribble until the world had moved onto a new media darling.

The lasting effects on the city were obvious—artisan pancake houses sat next to tent cities. A Michelin star restaurant could have an unhinged vagrant pissing on the its windows— knowing the police weren’t going to respond for forty five minutes— if ever. Not that Ray minded much. As long as they stayed away from the schools, people could piss on all the fancy restaurants they wanted.

Ray was grateful the riff raff had mostly avoided his usual haunts. His spot for fried chicken was safe. R&M stood as a blue collar haven in an increasingly gentrified city. It felt difficult to reconcile the contrasting identities and looked like a hob nob version of a Gotham city if it cared about clarified butter and Doc Marten boots.

Ray didn’t have any solutions or illusions that the city would return to any of it’s previous iterations. Forward— always forward. He took his own musing and applied it. Ray padded down the Spring Water trail with all the grace of a dowdy bloodhound. He knew the answers would be off in the wooded paths. He snapped on a pair of white forensic gloves and kicked away some empty PBR cans from the first trailed head. Time to find his perp before the evening came nipping at his heels.