Sour Rain

On the first day of sunshine in the summer of ’67, a body bobbed to the surface of Auke Bay. Where the man came from, how he got to southeastern Alaska, and his true business there was never determined. Even his full name remained unknown.

The seagulls did not care. They abandoned their usual search for garbage in the wake of a passing ship and stayed with the body, loudly screeching their delight at the man’s resurrection from the depths. This signaled the beginning of a ten-day war between law enforcement and an incipient criminal group with powerful, invisible ties.

Coincidental with the gruesome discovery north of Juneau, a new prosecutor named Brian Thomas arrived on the afternoon flight from Seattle. Coincidental? Many crime investigators do not believe in it.

During the following days, the war bloodied the streets and hills of the city. Men died as far away as Skagway and Haines. The schedules of the autopsy doctors were overloaded. The walk-in cooler at the Burns Family Mortuary was filled, yet there was little time for funerals. After that first sunny day, it all happened under heavy gray cloudiness and through curtains of nightly rains.

Coincidentally, the strange, new lawyer always was in the middle of it all.