Grimm: The Chopping Block

by John Passarella

  So Nick’s job description had changed. In addition to apprehending human murderers, he was, as a Grimm, uniquely qualified to find and stop Wesen killers. The only difference was that not all Wesen killers received due process. Sometimes off-book solutions were necessary.

  Staring at the severed bones, Nick had to consider the possibility that the killer—and he had no doubt the victim had been murdered and buried here in a shallow grave—was not human, that the perpetrator was Wesen. He recalled the Fuchsteufelwild, a goblin-like Wesen who had slaughtered employees at the Spinner Corporation with bone blade hands that dripped acid. He’d sliced their bodies in half, cutting easily through flesh and organs and bones. Dissatisfied with his speculation, Nick shook his head. This MO was clearly different. The cuts were cleaner here, artificial, not natural or supernatural. And the flesh and blood and organs were absent, leaving only the bones.

  He snapped a few photos with his cell phone, then scanned the immediate area for clothing or personal effects that might have been dumped with the remains. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Wu approaching, and stood.

  “What’ve we got so far?”

  “Father and son geocaching,” Wu said, glancing down at his notes. “Brian and Tyler Mathis. Tyler finds the bones of the vic. Not the sort of father-son outing dad had in mind.”

  “Geocaching,” Nick said. “That some kind of sport?”

  “Mash-up of scavenger hunt with hide and seek,” Wu said. “You find the item with GPS coordinates posted online.”

  “Somebody put human remains in a geocache and posted the location online?” Nick said.

  Hank swung forward on his crutches and took up a position facing Nick and Wu, his expression one of relief at having arrived at the crime scene without incident.

  “Bad coincidence apparently,” Wu said. “They found the real cache over there—the little red tin box on the tree stump.”

  Nick said, “Don’t suppose it’s been dusted for prints.”

  Wu nodded. “But we’re not optimistic,” he said. “Son had his hands all over it. Father let him have it to draw his attention away from the human skeleton. Speaking of which, Doc Candelas—”

  Ah, Candelas, Nick thought.

  “—was none too happy the kid had been poking the bones with a stick.”

  “Anything she can tell us?” Hank asked.

  “Looks like one vic.” Wu glanced at his notes again. “Adult, female, approximately five-foot-six, possibly under twenty-five years of age. Skull features consistent with Asian ancestry.” He looked up at them. “Won’t know if all the bones are present until they’re sorted at the lab.”

  “No ID?”

  “No personal effects at all,” Wu said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get a match off the dental records.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “We’ve got uniforms canvassing the area, nearby homes, structures. Maybe somebody saw something. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”

  “COD?” Hank asked.

  “No definitive cause of death indicated. But, judging by the lack of, well, the rest of her body, she was probably killed off-site and dumped here.”

  “What about these breaks?” Nick asked, indicating a femur that had been removed from the pile. “They’re clean. Almost precise.”

  Wu nodded. “Doc ruled out animal attack. Something with a fine edge, lots of force. Could be man or machine. Wounds could be pre- or post-mortem.”

  “Meaning our vic could have been chopped up while she was still alive,” Hank said somberly.

  “No matter how bad you think your day is,” Wu said, shaking his head as his voice trailed off.

  “Thanks, Wu.” Nick turned to Hank. “Let’s talk to the father and son.”

  When Tyler saw the detectives approaching, he unconsciously took a half step behind his father. Nick noticed something yellow, green and rubbery propped on the boy’s thumb like a mutated thimble. He smiled briefly to put the boy at ease.

  “What have you got there?” he asked.

  “It’s an alien,” Tyler said, waggling his thumb from side to side so the alien’s tiny rubbery hands shook up and down. “I swapped it for my soldier.”

  “A toy from the geocache,” Brian Mathis explained with a glance toward the red tin box on the rotted tree stump. “The reason why we came here. For the geocache.”

  “Don’t imagine you anticipated a murd—an investigation,” Hank said.

  “Of course not,” Brian said, wrapping an arm protectively over his son’s shoulders. “Geocaching… it’s like a scavenger hunt. Harmless. I never thought something like this would happen.”

  “How did you come to this exact location?” Nick asked.

  “GPS coordinates.”

  “From which direction? The service road?” He pointed toward the line of first responder vehicles. “Or the park?”

  “The park,” Brian replied. “Thought the cache would be closer to the picnic areas.”

  “Mr. Mathis, is it okay if I ask your son a few questions?”

  After a moment of hesitation, the father nodded.

  “Okay, thank you.” Nick turned his attention to Tyler, flashed another brief smile to put him at ease. “Tyler, how did you locate the bones?”

  “We were looking for the geocache.”

  “Both of you?”

  “Yes,” Tyler said. “My dad’s GPS got us close, but not to the exact spot, so we… poked around. I searched over there. My dad was over here.”

  “Nothing led you to the bones?”

  “No,” Tyler said. “Well, it looked like an animal might have dug up some dirt, near those bushes. I pushed the bushes back, saw the white—the bone, I mean. The first one, that big one”—he pointed to the isolated femur—“and I pulled it out. That’s when I saw there was more of them.”

  Nick wondered how much poking around the kid had done after he discovered the cache of bones.

  “Anything unusual about the arrangement?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Was anything odd about the bones? A pattern maybe?”

  The boy pressed the rubber alien to the underside of his chin for a couple moments then shook his head.

  “Except…”

  “Except what?” Hank asked, leaning forward as much as his crutches allowed.

  “They were all jumbled in a pile,” he said. “In pieces. Not like how you see in movies and stuff. Like the person fell asleep before they died.”

  Nick looked at the father and pointed at the geocache tin.

  “Do you know who put the geocache here?”

  “I don’t recall,” Brian Mathis said. “The person’s username is on the site. She left it over a year ago. It’s been found almost a dozen times.”

  “How do you know?” Hank asked.

  “On the site,” Brian said, with a shrug, as if the information was obvious. “And there’s a logbook in there.”

  “In the box,” Nick asked.

  “Yeah,” the boy said. “We added our names.”

  Nick reached into the pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, slipped them on with practiced ease and picked up the geocache tin. If father and son had both handled the box while waiting for emergency personnel to arrive, they’d probably destroyed any useful prints, and—according to Wu—the box had already been dusted for prints, but until he talked to the crime scene techs personally, he’d rather not compound any errors.

  Inside the box, a plastic toy soldier bearing several juvenile tooth-etched scars sat atop a thin notebook, with a preprinted list of geocache etiquette rules. The logbook had been signed by ten people, but most had signed a first name and an initial or a nickname, “Spelunkid” scrawled in red marker stood out. One person had stamped the book with a cartoon image of an owl. A few people had written dates next to their names or aliases, the most recent “find” occurring three months ago. Finally, two stubby pencils had been provided for those without the foresight to bri
ng a red marker. Between the logbook and the website, they might ID several suspects.

  Nick glanced toward the bones, then turned to Brian Mathis.

  “Where exactly did you find this?”

  Brian dropped to one knee and pointed to a sheltered spot between the rotted stump and the fallen tree trunk.

  “Under there,” he said. “Might have missed it, if not for the bright red color.”

  Nick looked at Hank and gave a brief shake of his head. If the geocache and the bones were meant to be found together as some sort of macabre scavenger hunt, why not put them in the same place. More likely, the killer had no idea the geocache existed.

  Nick returned to the buried pile of anonymous bones.

  Unless the canvass turned up a witness to the burial or the crime scene techs discovered something not readily apparent, their best lead remained the victim herself. If she knew her killer, her identity might lead them to his doorstep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  If Monroe hadn’t returned to Shemanski Park Market after his morning grocery shopping run—to pick up some artisanal wine and cheeses for a planned romantic evening at home with Rosalee—he probably would have missed Decker.

  Reusable grocery bags once again full, Monroe turned his attention away from the outdoor farm stands sheltered under white canopies and navigated his way through the milling crowd, retracing his steps to where he’d parked his Volkswagen Super Beetle. As he stepped around a mother with her young daughter looking at a plastic container of filet beans and a wicker basket overflowing with red bell peppers, Monroe spotted a familiar face in the crowd, heading in the opposite direction, and pulled up short.

  “Decker?” he called. “Is that you?”

  “Monroe?” the other man said. He stopped and shook Monroe’s hand in a powerful two-handed grip. Physically imposing whether in full woge or not, Decker had two inches and forty pounds on Monroe. Wearing a black knit watch cap over a riot of curly brown hair, a distressed black leather jacket, ripped jeans and scuffed work boots, he seemed a bit out of his element among the aisles of organic produce. “How the holy hell are you, brother?”

  The young mother gave them both a wary and disapproving glance as she quietly steered her daughter away from the red bell peppers to the next farmer’s display. Monroe gave her a little friendly wave, hoping to convey a reassuring message: Don’t worry, ma’am. I’m harmless. Mostly.

  “Actually, I’m doing well, you know,” Monroe said to Decker. “Things have been sane for me. Calm. Living the straight and narrow. No complaints.”

  Decker looked around and seemed to realize for the first time where he was.

  “Oh, man, that’s right. So it is true, what I heard. You’re living in denial.”

  “I guess you could say that, in a manner of speaking,” Monroe said, taking Decker’s arm and leading him a little farther away from any potential eavesdroppers.

  Decker had never embraced the concept of discretion. He’d been a fixture in Monroe’s past, before he’d reformed, before he’d given up his savage lifestyle and become a Wieder Blutbad. And just as it wasn’t safe for a reformed addict to hang out with those currently using, Monroe had had to separate himself from his more fearsome brethren, lest he backslide into the old ways.

  “I’m convinced—denying some things opens you up to experiencing other things,” Monroe explained. “For instance, a healthier lifestyle. Less rage, bloodshed and blackouts. You should try it.”

  “Ha!” Decker exclaimed boisterously. “Where’s the fun in that, brother? I remember when you used to run. We used to run. Back when you hung out with—what’s her name?—Angelina! That’s it. And her brother, Hap. You see them much?”

  “No. Not anymore. Not for a while,” Monroe said, feeling a pang of guilt over Hap’s death. “That didn’t end well.”

  “No worries, brother,” Decker said, clapping Monroe’s shoulder. “Eyes forward, right? Full bore, no regrets.”

  “Hey, man, if that works for you,” Monroe said. “No judgments here. Live and let run, I always say.”

  Decker took in his surroundings again. “It is peaceful.”

  “What brings you here?”

  “To Portland?”

  “Yes, okay, that too, but, well, here,” Monroe said. “This market.”

  “Passing through,” Decker said. “Rolling stone, you know? Figured I’d spend a week or two and move on.”

  “And this market?” Monroe pressed, sensing something his old friend wasn’t telling him, at least not in so many words. Decker had always talked a lot while saying little, a stream of conscious rambling that Monroe had learned to tune out now and then.

  “Meeting someone.”

  “Someone? Really? What kind of someone?”

  Decker looked at him blankly for a moment, then chuckled.

  “Just someone, okay. Casual. It’s not a thing.”

  “Do you want it to be a thing?”

  “I don’t know, man,” Decker said. “It’s always a short shelf life for me. No time to commit.”

  “Right,” Monroe said. “Mr. Rolling Stone.”

  A few moments passed, and a companionable silence stretched into awkwardness, reminding Monroe that he’d taken the road less traveled and that set him apart from old friends. Most of that had been by design, to avoid temptation and opportunities to backslide into the old ways. He had no regrets about the trade-off. Besides, he had new friends now—one of them a Grimm, of all things! And Rosalee. He led a calm yet interesting life, with enough romance to keep things spicy. The call of his old life, and the friends who filled those wild days, had become little more than an indistinct echo, words in a language that no longer made sense to him. As long as he kept to his regimen of self-discipline, he could keep his eyes forward.

  He clapped Decker on the shoulder and said, “Good seeing you, man. Next time you’re in town, give me a call.”

  As he turned away—wondering if he had meant either statement, or if his own words had been rote sentiments plucked from another time and dusted off for one last insincere farewell—Decker caught his arm.

  Monroe glanced back, surprised.

  “Are you for real?” Decker asked.

  Briefly, Monroe wondered if his old friend had sensed the insincerity in his parting words and was calling him out. He almost had to shake off the impression to see the real issue. Monroe’s lifestyle.

  “Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “So it’s not a ‘go along to get along’ situation?”

  “It’s for me,” Monroe said. “My choice.”

  “You gave up—meat? And running?” When Monroe nodded, Decker added, “Huh! This whole time, I had a different impression. Figured it was for show, you know, an act to fool the natives or something. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

  “Well, I’m still a—” Monroe scanned the area to make sure they were as alone as one could be in an outdoor farmer’s market, then spoke in a softer voice “—Blutbad. But I’ve cast aside the—let’s say—more extreme facets of our nature.”

  “Wow,” Decker said, walking a few paces while shaking his head. He dropped down on a bench as if the thought of giving up the wild lifestyle was too difficult to comprehend while standing. “How? How do you change? How do you stay changed? I’d crawl out of my skin.”

  Monroe sat down on the bench, setting his bags down between his feet.

  “Do you—Decker, are you thinking about reforming?”

  “Don’t see how that’s possible, brother.”

  “It’s possible,” Monroe said. “I’m proof of that, right? But you can’t do this for someone else.” Monroe nodded in the general direction of the market stalls to indicate the “someone” with “thing” potential that Decker planned to meet here. “You have to want this for yourself.”

  “Okay. What if I did?” Decker said. “Then what?”

  “Listen, I only know what works for me,” Monroe said.

  He ran his thumb and index finger
down the sides of his mustache and light beard, considering whether or not he should jeopardize his own reformed status to help a friend. Spending extended time with an unreformed Blutbad presented inherent risks. His last mistake may have cost Hap his life. But Monroe had to believe in the strength of his own convictions, that he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  “If you want to try, Decker, I’ll help. Anything you need. I’ll be your support system.”

  “You mean, like an AA sponsor or something?”

  “Okay, let’s go with that.”

  “So, if I do this, what’s the first step?”

  “Cold turkey,” Monroe said.

  “Okay, I can do turkey,” Decker said, grinning. “Hot or cold.”

  “No meat,” Monroe said.

  “Brother, meat is my only food group,” Decker said. “No meat is basically a hunger strike for me.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Monroe said, then frowned. “Someday.” No sense making the transition seem easier than it was. “I’ve had lots of luck with veggie steaks.”

  “Oh, man, that ain’t natural. I’m getting ill at the thought.”

  “It takes a lot of self-discipline.”

  “Not to hurl?” Decker said. “I can believe it, brother.”

  “Pilates works for me,” Monroe said. “Every morning. Helps focus the mind. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. You’ll thank me. Well, not right away. First, there’ll be cursing. Yeah, lots of swearing. And breakage. You’ll definitely want to break things for a while. But… someday.”

  “I have doubts about that, brother,” Decker said. “Serious doubts. And if you say the word ‘tofu,’ I may have to kill you.” He stood and offered his hand again. “But, I’m in.”

  Monroe stood to shake his hand, nodding and smiling encouragingly.

  “What say we start tomorrow?” Decker said.

  “Sounds good,” Monroe said.

  But his smile faltered a moment later. Monroe wanted to help his old friend join the admittedly meager ranks of the Wieder Blutbad. He’d meant what he said: he’d help Decker, as much as possible. And yet, he had his doubts. Self-restraint was as unfamiliar a concept as discretion for the Decker he remembered. How strong was the man’s motivation to change his behavior and entire lifestyle? For someone accustomed to indulging every bloody whim, adapting to a reformed life would be pure hell.