They were out on the street, heading up NE Sandy Boulevard, wheels sluicing the wet streets of the gray Portland morning, before Hank delivered his verdict.
“You want to know how it drives? Like a bumper car at a carnival. This thing is a diss, man.” He swore colorfully for awhile.
“You interested in our first call?” Nick asked.
“Another diss, from what I heard. Now they got us investigating donut shop robberies!”
“You are in a bad mood, Hank. You went to that new club last night... You hungover?”
“Hungover? Me? No!” He put on a pair of sunglasses with one hand, driving with the other. “Not much.”
“Renard asked us to take the donut shop. There’s a connection with that possible homicide in Precinct Three. The guy found burned to a crisp. Renard seemed to think we might have something to bring to this one...” He looked at Hank. “You and me particularly.”
“Wesen connection?”
“Must be. Take a left here...”
Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of Wicked Donuts at NE Halsey and 57th. A teen skateboarder drifted by, his wheels clacking. He stared at their car.
“Yeah, kid, that’s my ride,” Hank muttered, grunting as he eased himself out of the enclosed space.
They went into the donut shop. There was no one behind the counter, and the only customer was a big-bellied middle-aged hippie guy finishing a jelly donut. He was wearing a fading T-shirt that said “Set Cannabis Free.” Passing the hefty, bearded guy, Nick could smell marijuana.
“Serious munchies?” Nick asked, looking at the remains of the donut.
The bearded guy stared at him and then got up, and walked hastily out the door.
“Skittish, isn’t he?” Nick said, looking around the shop. There were old-timey pictures of flappers and Roaring Twenties showgirls, some of them dressed in dancing donut costumes; above a juice cooler was a framed slogan, “Wicked Donuts, Wicked Good!”
“The donuts do taste damned good,” Hank said. “But how come they got to look like that?”
Some of the pastries under the display’s glass were shaped like coiled vipers; some were like flotation devices with SS Titanic written on them, others resembled opened mouths, or sharks. There was a bearclaw shaped like a bear trap. Others were baked in peculiar, abstract shapes and wild colors. Flavors included Licorice Goat Milk and Acai Berry Cactus.
“That’s just Portland,” Nick said. “You know: ‘Keep Portland Weird.’”
“Long as you and your shape-changing pals live in this town, Nick,” Hank said, his voice low, “not much chance it’ll be anything else.”
“Anybody working?” Nick called. “Or are the donuts free?”
Almost instantly a man in a smudged white apron sped from a back room, dusting powdered sugar off his hands. Nick could see the clerk was anxious, and his emotional state immediately exposed his Wesen nature. For a moment Nick saw the Wesen’s true form shimmer into visibility: a gray-furred rat-like face, protruding front teeth, no real chin, red eyes. A Reinigen.
Then the Wesen visage disappeared, and he seemed an ordinary man with a weak chin, small brown eyes set closely together, an overbite, and a receding hairline.
But he’d somehow sensed that his true Wesen nature had been seen. He turned to Nick, eyes narrowing.
“You! You’re that Grimm with the cops!” he snapped.
Hank snorted. “There any of these guys who don’t know about you, Nick?”
“Fewer and fewer,” Nick said. It bothered him how many Wesen knew about him. It was dangerous. “I’m Detective Burkhardt, this is Detective Griffin.” Nick glanced at the name on a sheet of paper Sergeant Wu had given him. “Are you Mr. Popatlus?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m Fritz Popatlus. Wait—they sent detectives out here over some stolen donuts?” He sniggered. “Figures. Cops. Donuts. Priorities, right guys?”
Hank sighed. “There’s a connection to another case, here. Maybe. Tell us about the big donut heist.”
“Hey, it was just about every pastry in the shop. Whoever it was broke in the back door, took a lot of catering boxes, filled ’em up, and about cleaned the place outta pastry. Several hundred dollars worth, retail price. Bastard snagged five bottles of Healthjuicer too, from the cooler over there.”
Nick glanced at the door to make sure no customers were coming in. He didn’t want his next question overheard.
“You know any Drang-zorn?” he asked.
“Drang-zorn?” He glanced at Hank. “Can I talk in front of this guy? He a Grimm too?”
“Hell no, I’m not a Grimm,” Hank said.
“‘Hell no’, he’s not a Grimm,” Nick said, amused. “But you can talk freely in front of him.”
Popatlus shrugged. “Sure, I know a Drang-zorn. Regular in here. Sorta pal of mine. Haven’t seen him for a while. Used to bowl with him, but you know how they are—those badger guys. Ill-tempered bunch. Can’t stand losing. So we stuck to watching football games together.”
“What’s his name?”
“Clement. Buddy Clement.”
“Big fan of your donuts, was he?”
“Yeah, practically lived on ’em. Well, you couldn’t live on ’em but you know what I mean.”
“And you had a falling out over bowling?”
“Nah—’cause I wouldn’t loan him money. He wanted to get out of town. Said he had to do it in a hurry. Said they’d done something to his bank account—couldn’t get any cash.”
“He wanted to get out of town? Why?”
“Don’t know. Seemed kinda scared. Tell you the truth, I felt guilty saying no, went to his place later, to try to see if I could help him and his wife out. But they’d moved out already. Landlady said he just split overnight, owing two weeks’ rent.”
“You know his wife too?”
“Yeah. Ruby.”
“A Drang-zorn?”
“Who else would marry a Drang-zorn but a badger babe?”
“What was his address, before he moved?” Nick asked.
Popatlus wrote it down on the back of a receipt and handed it to Nick.
“So you think Buddy stole my goods?” he asked.
“Seems like it.”
“You guys gonna get my pastries back?”
“You wouldn’t sell stale pastries pawed over by some badger guy, now would you?” Hank asked, looking at him innocently.
“Well...”
“Never mind. You got anything more here, Nick?”
Nick shook his head. “Someplace else I want to have a look at.”
“You officers like a dozen donuts on the house?”
“Yeah!” Hank said.
“No,” Nick said.
“Oh, come on, Nick, Jeez, sure it’s technically illegal for us to take ’em but...”
“I’ll buy you a dozen of your choice, Hank.”
“I’m totally taking you up on that. I’ll have six of those jelly fire hydrants and half a dozen coiled vipers, the ones with sprinkles.”
CHAPTER TWO
“You going to tell me why I’m standing in a vacant lot staring down into a hole?” Hank asked.
Nick nodded. “This morning Renard left the report on my desk about the guy they found burned up down in this hole. Body was likely a Drang-zorn, holding part of a Wicked Donuts box. Drang-zorn like to hide in burrows if they get stressed out.”
“The report said Drang-zorn? No way.”
“No, of course not, but Renard had circled the place they found the body—and something on the coroner’s report. Unusual features on the stiff’s hand. Couple of fingernails like a sloth’s claws. Only I figure it wasn’t a sloth. They were more like badger’s claws. Sometimes a Wesen will woge under traumatic circumstances—and some part of the woge stays after they’re dead. Just a little telltale.”
“Renard and his sneaky little ways of talking about stuff we’re not supposed to talk about...”
“Yeah. And this lot is just two blocks from the last address
for Buddy Clement.”
Hank glanced up at the sky and Nick followed the look.
“Starting to rain,” Nick said.
“Never worth mentioning in this town.”
“It didn’t rain for several weeks in August.”
Nick hunkered down, peering into the hole. It was about a yard wide, at the top, narrowing as it slanted down into darkness. A rich smell of mud, minerals, and animal rose from the shaft.
“You got a flashlight?” he asked Hank.
“Little one.”
As a thin rain fell, Hank reached into his suit pocket, pulled out the small flashlight he always carried, handed it to Nick.
Aiming the light into the hole, Nick could make out the packed mud and clay walls of the circular shaft. There were regular marks down the walls where it had been dug out—claw marks.
“That little hidey-hole,” Nick remarked, “is probably snugger than it looks, you go down far enough. Drang-zorn pack the walls tight, work out some drainage, make a nice little apartment down there.”
“That hole is snug? You been watching that kids movie, what is it—The Wind in the Willows?”
“Not my brand of fairy tale.” Nick glanced around, saw that no one was watching. The lot was enclosed on three sides by a wooden fence. He leaned closer to the hole, and called down it, “Mrs. Clement! Ruby Clement! We want to help you! It’s Nick Burkhardt, from Portland Police! Could you come up and talk to us? I promise no one’s going to hurt you!”
There was no response—except, very faintly, Nick heard a scrabbling sound. And he had a Grimm intuition: he could often sense Wesen around. She was down there.
“Mrs. Clement! They will excavate this hole! You may as well come out!”
He aimed the flashlight as deeply as the beam would reach...
After a few moments, two red eyes reflected back at him. He glimpsed a wedge-shaped head, the fur striped white on black. Then the Wesen appearance melted away—and it was a human woman’s face. She looked frightened.
Nick waved his badge. “Detective Burkhardt, ma’am! We want to help—we’ll protect you. I know about Drang-zorn—it’s all right!”
“I... can’t get up there, like this!”
“Go ahead and woge,” he called. “We’ll move back. You come on up and shift back and we’ll talk.”
It took her a couple of minutes to make up her mind, and work her way up the shaft and out of the hole. Back in her human form she was a stocky little woman with a wide face, just faintly badger shaped; there was a white streak in her black hair. She wore a dirty raincoat, jeans, sneakers. Her hands were mucky from clawing at the dirt walls, fingernails caked in mud. A brown leather purse dangled from a strap over one shoulder. She was almost hyperventilating with fear as, wide-eyed, she looked back and forth between Nick and Hank.
Her voice quavered as she asked, “You’re both really police?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hank said gently, showing her his badge.
“How do I know you’re not... not bad cops. Bought out by those people?”
“Which people, Mrs. Clement?” Nick asked.
She hesitated, and gnawed on a soiled knuckle.
“Those men from the organization,” she said eventually.
“You know what the organization was called, ma’am?”
“I don’t know—Buddy said something about ice.”
“Ice?”
She nodded, and her lips quivered. “Buddy...”
“You know how he died?” Nick asked. “What caused the burns?”
She pursed her lips, as if she was afraid to say it.
At last she whispered, “Daemonfeuer.”
“What’s that?” Hank asked.
“You remember that fire-dancing case?”
“Yeah. I knew there was something hinky in that one. It was a Wesen?”
Nick nodded. “Fire breather.” He looked at Mrs. Clement. “How’d your husband run afoul of a Daemonfeuer?”
“It wasn’t exactly like that. The Daemonfeuer was working for someone else. The organization.”
“Some kind of... enforcer?”
Ruby Clement glanced past him at the place where the wooden enclosure became a hurricane-fence gate. Maybe worried someone might be out there on the street, watching and listening.
“Yes. Buddy and me, we always stayed on the right side of the law. Always! One of these people asked Buddy to do some special underground engineering, at a construction site. Well, that’s what Buddy does, so he thought it was just another job. But when he got there they wanted him to tunnel up under a warehouse of some kind. They want to put a hidden underground entrance, like a trapdoor, too, so they could go into this warehouse without anyone knowing. And—they wanted him to join their organization and... They said he had no choice.”
She began wordlessly crying, shaking her head, covering her eyes as if that would blot out the memory of her husband’s face melting in dragon fire.
“And he said no,” Nick said, softly. “And they sent the Daemonfeuer—to make an example of him.”
“Please. I can’t stay here. They’ll come for me next.”
“Did he mention any names?” Hank asked, putting a reassuring hand on her arm. “Anything that can help us?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t tell me anything else. He said we had to hide and... he dug this place out till we could think of something else...”
“Where was this warehouse?” Hank asked.
“Gresham Industrial Park, he said. A drug warehouse. You know—pharmaceutical drugs.” She looked toward the gate again, lips compressed thin with fear. “I don’t like to be out in the open like this. They could be looking for me. Oh God, I don’t want to die like that. It was so awful. It breathed fire on him and burned him and he screamed and his eyes...”
“I don’t think they’re looking for you,” Nick said, “or they’d have been back by now. You have any relatives you can stay with?”
“Yes. I have a sister in Woodburn.”
“I’ll have a policewoman come and give you a ride down there. You’ll be all right, Mrs. Clement. I’m sorry about your husband. We’ll do what we can to... bring them to justice.”
“How can you? Without telling people? I mean— without telling them about... Wesen?”
“We have ways, Mrs. Clement...”
* * *
As Nick and Hank walked into Portland Police headquarters, Hank asked, “You and Juliette wanna do a double date thing, this weekend? I can get free tickets to Princess.”
“What’s Princess?”
“Prince cover band, man. Girl singers. Maya Rudolph. It’s awesome.”
“Prince? You’re old school! I’m up for it if Juliette is.”
I’m up for it if Juliette is. Nick smiled. That covered a lot of territory. Nick would be up for marriage, if Juliette was. Only, since she found out about the Grimm thing— and how he’d kept it from her—there was still some distance between them. Be awhile before she’d trust him enough to consider it.
Maybe stupid to get married anyway, being a Grimm. Tough enough to marry a homicide detective. Always a high risk that the next time she sees him after that last kiss goodbye, he’ll be in a body bag. But a Grimm? The risk was even higher. And it was risking Juliette’s life, too. She’d already almost gotten killed because of her association with Nick.
As they rode the elevator up, Hank asked, “What’s this damon thing Mrs. Clement was talking about?”
“Daemonfeuer—a Wesen that’s kind of a dragon man. They can incinerate their own fat, inside, breath flames out. Tough and nasty. You wouldn’t like ’em.”
Hank did a short leg squat, grimacing, as the elevator door opened.
“My legs are cramped from that damned car. They want to discipline me, they can talk to the police union. But I’m not getting inside that thing again.”
Nick chuckled, leading the way down the hall.
“I hear you. You know, Renard could’ve picked a lot of guys to dr
ive that thing. But he picked us. Like he was trying to kind of... send us a message.”
“Yeah? That we’re clowns?”
“That we shouldn’t get too big for our boots, maybe. That he’s still got his thumb on us. He’s always had a Napoleon complex. Even looks like Napoleon some.”
“You’re right, he does! Remember that press conference, the way he was talking as if he was going to conquer the town to bring order? He had a whole megalomaniacal thing going on, man.”
“Yeah. About that...” But they’d just reached the door of Renard’s corner office. Through the office windows Nick could see Renard at his desk. “Tell you later.” Nick hadn’t briefed Hank on the Coins of Zakynthos—and Renard’s period of being under their influence.
Nick knocked on the captain’s door.
“Come in,” came Renard’s voice. They entered but Renard didn’t even glance up from the report he was scanning on his computer. “Shut the door and sit down.”
“Yes sir,” Hank said, a hint of rancor in his voice, as they sat.
“About that car you wedged us into, Captain,” Nick began. “Message received, but we—”
“Not going to argue about your vehicle assignments,” Renard interrupted snappishly. “I want to know what you found out this morning.”
“You mean at the donut shop?” Hank asked. “Found out the price has gone up on the jellied fire hydrants.”
Captain Renard looked coldly up at him. His face looked distinctly Napoleonic in that moment.
“You have any Bonaparte blood, Captain?” Nick asked, to head off more friction between the two men.
Renard looked at him in mild surprise.
“Some. How’d you know that?”
“Just wondered. What we found out this morning—if you were hinting at Drang-zorn in that report, you were right. Burned body in the morgue is probably a Drang-zorn named Buddy Clement—same guy who broke into the donut shop. He was hiding in that hole from some organized crime outfit. His wife says they tried to strong-arm him into tunneling up under a pharm warehouse in Gresham. She says he was killed by a Daemonfeuer.”
Grimm - The Icy Touch Page 3