Grimm: The Chopping Block (13 page)

He brought down the right top quarter, sliced an arm free, and chopped with the cleaver to split the arm in half. With his strength, one blow—
whock!
—was sufficient to sever the bone. Farley enjoyed the decisive sound the cleaver made with each true cut.

Tossing the pieces of the severed arm to the back of the table, he switched to a smaller knife to cut the rib meat away from the bone—more detailed work. Hunched over the table, he heard a quick knock on the door—unlocked since he was alone.

A familiar voice called, “Bone pickup!”

“Fine,” he grumbled as he ran the keen knife edge along a rib, stripping away the meat. Sometimes they wanted the ribs. For this carcass, Chef had requested the meat alone.

Absorbed in his work, he kept his back to Fixer, who wheeled in the hand truck with the squeaky wheel. If Farley had to ask him to oil the damn wheel one more time, he’d part the man’s hair with the business end of his cleaver.
Show some damn pride in your work, man!
But he sighed and said nothing.
In a few days, I’ll be free of that jackass
.

The bane of his existence began whistling an annoying tune as he buckled straps around the metal bin, securing it against the hand truck. The bones tended to accumulate during the feasts and the butcher hated clutter in his slaughter room. On balance, he was glad to be rid of them.

“This the whole shebang?” Fixer asked. “Or does Chef have a few left over in his soup pots?”

“Far as I know,” Farley said, “that’s everything.”

“Guess I’ll ask him. Just to be sure.”

“You do that.”

“Looks like I’ll need to find a third dumping ground.”

Regretting his decision to speak, he asked anyway. “Why is that?”

“Haven’t you been watching the news, Butcher? Police discovered both locations. Too risky to go back.”

Farley couldn’t resist a dig. “Maybe if you had hidden the bones better…”

The man scoffed. “Why? Week from now, nobody here will give a crap.”

This time, Farley remained silent. The man excused his sloppiness as expediency. Farley hadn’t hired the poor excuse for a fixer. He certainly wouldn’t waste time arguing with him. He’d much rather spend that time gutting the man. Too bad he wasn’t human. Otherwise, Farley would ask Chef to add Fixer to his menu.

“Relax, big guy. It’s almost over.”

Farley heard the door click shut. He paused in his work, eyes squeezed shut until the grating sound of the squeaky wheel eventually faded away. With a sigh of relief, he resumed work on the rib meat.

* * *

Though Hank’s neck and shoulders ached from the grind of riding crutches all over the great outdoors of Portland, he kept the discomfort to himself. Once people in the department saw him on crutches, they cut him slack he neither requested nor wanted. Some of them probably thought he should be deskbound until the cast came off. Not that they would ever voice those opinions, at least not to his face.

On the surface, everyone was accommodating and understanding. But the last few days had made him rethink his bravado and stubbornness. Every so often, he hoped—well,
hope
was definitely too strong a word—but he certainly wouldn’t complain if the next homicide they caught had gone down in a modern office building, with smooth tiled floors and elevators.

On the plus side, his crutches had led him to discover a second set of bones at the vacant lot, something the uniforms and techs had missed. In that instance, his disabil—his temporarily reduced ability—had helped move the investigation forward. And Nick had given no indication that Hank’s mobility predicament had—

Nick?

Hank scanned the groups of uniforms and techs, looking for his partner.

The last time he’d seen Nick, he’d been bagging a piece of paper away from the others. Then he must have wandered off for some reason. Maybe something he’d seen on the paper. Following a lead, but not something that had raised any red flags.
Guess he decided to give me a breather
.

Supporting his weight on his good foot, Hank reached for his crutches and slid them under his arms. He headed in the direction where he’d last seen Nick, working his way methodically down an uneven slope. From his new vantage point, the only thing he saw was a white cinderblock building across the street from the side of the lot, a disreputable looking automotive shop.

Of course. He’s interviewing potential witnesses over there
.

Pausing, Hank took out his cell phone. Two bars—now one. Poor reception, but he speed-dialed Nick and waited through the static-filled ringing until the phone bounced to voicemail. He hung up. Dropped the phone in his jacket pocket and hurried across the lot.

Like a hobbled mother hen
, Hank thought.
Probably worrying over nothing
.

Still…

* * *

Nick blocked Ron Swartley’s right wrist with his left forearm, avoiding the slashing razor blade in the utility knife. Almost in the same motion, Nick drove his fist into Ron’s gut, staggering him. Before the other man could recover, Nick gripped his knife hand and forearm and drove the limb against his knee, knocking the blade loose. Then he drove a shoulder into the Reinigen and shoved him hard.

Ron stumbled backward and banged into the wheeled tool chest, clutching a few of the drawer handles to stop himself from falling.

Nick moved forward to press the attack but heard Ray charging from behind him. He only had time to turn around halfway—enough to see that Ray was unarmed—before the rat-faced Reinigen leapt onto his back.

Spinning, Nick caught Ray’s right arm and flung him toward his brother, using the man’s own momentum to hurl him forward.

Ron had pushed himself away from the tool chest at the same moment his brother collided with him. In a tangle of flailing limbs, they both went down, one of them pulling the tool chest down on top of them with a crash of metal tools, clanging and pinging all around them like a rain of hardware hail.

The spilled collection of metal created many potential weapons, either handheld or projectile, so Nick decided, for the moment, to postpone fishing his Glock out from under the tire changer.

He was a Grimm. He could handle two obnoxious Reinigens.

As Nick strode toward them, the brothers pushed and pulled each other, shoving the overturned tool chest out of the way. Ray climbed to his feet first, and bolted toward the back door of the garage bay. Rather, he tried to bolt. Nick caught him by the collar of his coveralls and hauled him back.

“Not so fast.”

Ron sprang up from hands and knees and threw himself bodily against the back of Nick’s legs. Falling suddenly backward, Nick lost his grip on Ray, who, given a second opportunity, slipped out the back exit. A moment later, Nick heard a dirt-bike engine roar to life, a shower of gravel pelt the back wall of the shop, and the engine whine into the distance, fading away.

But Nick had more immediate concerns.

Looming over the detective in full woge, flashing his enlarged incisors, Ron had a long stainless steel wrench clutched in his hand. Impatient, he lunged forward.

Nick planted the sole of his shoe in the Reinigen’s gut and shoved hard. Ron’s body whipped backward, falling over the tumbled tool chest, and the back of his head whacked against the wall.

Nick pushed himself up on his elbows.

Ron groaned, tightened his grip on the wrench and tried to rise up from the tool chest.

“Freeze!”

Stone faced, Hank stood on the threshold of the open bay, balanced on his crutches, pointing his Glock at the sprawled Reinigen.

“Drop your weapon!”

Wincing, Ron let the wrench slip from his hand. It clanged against the concrete floor.

“You okay?” Hank asked Nick.

“Fine.”

“Your head’s bleeding.”

Nick raised his hand to his scalp, just above the hairline where the end of the crowbar had caught him, and felt a laceration. Not too deep, but he’d probably need a few stitches.

“Flesh wound,” he said with a shrug.

Rising, Nick felt a little lightheaded, hoped he hadn’t sustained a concussion, but wasted no time cuffing Ron Swartley and dragging him to his feet.

“Reinigens,” Nick said. “Brother Ray escaped out back, on a dirt bike. This one is Ron.”

“I’ll call it in,” Hank said. “Got enough patrol units in the area. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“What’s this?” Nick said, staring down at the overturned tool chest. Amid all the tools, screws, bolts and other metal paraphernalia, he noticed a baggie stuffed with pills. He crouched down and lifted the tool chest upright, then staggered back in a moment of dizziness.

“Nick?” Hank said, concerned, as he wrapped up his call and put his phone away. “You don’t look okay.”

“I’m all right,” Nick said, while attempting to blink away a few spots in his vision. Blood had run down the side of his face, and big drops splattered on the floor. Scalp wounds tended to bleed a lot. He backed away from the stacked evidence to avoid contaminating it. “Looks like the Swartley Brothers had a little side business.”

From one of the large bottom drawers of the tool chest, several other baggies had fallen out, along with bundled stacks of cash.

“Jackpot,” Hank said.

Nick pushed the mound of baggies apart with the tip of a ballpoint pen from his pocket to examine the collection of pills.

“We got oxycodone—a
lot
of oxy—and, for variety, some Vicodin and Xanax. Different baggie for each dosage. What’s oxy go for these days, Ron? Dollar per milligram?”

Hands cuffed behind his back, Ron looked away.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said.

“Got some buddies in Vice would love to hear about this,” Hank said.

Nick lined up the stacks of cash with the tip of the pen. Mostly tens and twenties.

“Hey, Ron, maybe you can expedite my paperwork. How much cash should I report we’re confiscating today?”

Ron shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know,” he said softly, after swallowing several times with the effort to disavow ownership of the money. “Never saw it before.”

Nick crossed the garage area to retrieve his sidearm from under the tire changer. He picked up a rag that looked as if it may have been laundered within the last calendar month, folded it twice and pressed it against his scalp to help stem the bleeding.

“Controlled substances are the least of your worries, Ron,” Nick said. “We don’t mind throwing Vice a bone. They can have this haul. We don’t care. Because we’re
homicide
detectives.”

“What?” Ron asked, for the first time worried.

“Bad move,” Hank said, shaking his head dramatically. “Burying the bodies across the street from your place of business.”

“Vacant lot right there,” Nick said. “Gotta be convenient.”

“I got nothing to do with murders,” Ron protested. “Not one damn thing.”

“You can tell us all about it back at the precinct.”

On the way to the precinct, the detectives changed plans. Instead of taking Ron Swartley in for questioning together, Hank drove the Land Cruiser and, after insisting his Grimm partner have the scalp laceration treated, dropped Nick off at the emergency room. While Nick waited for a doctor, Hank would continue to the precinct to interrogate the suspect alone.

Sitting in an uncomfortable chair in the ER, Nick pressed a wad of clean medical gauze to his wound, having traded in the unhygienic rag to a solicitous nurse shortly after his arrival. To kill some time, he reviewed the events leading up to his injury, Ray’s escape and the confiscation of the pills and cash.

Even though the brothers were Wesen and criminals, Nick had begun to doubt either of them was the bare bones killer. Ron’s suspicious behavior around a large police presence could be explained by the stash of drugs and money he had on the premises. Ray’s unwarranted sneak attack raised the suspicion bar a little higher but, again, Nick thought the brothers were probably acting out of fear of the discovery of their side business.

Of course, given enough time, Nick could make the case the other way. Maybe the murder victims were involved in drug deals gone awry. Or maybe the brothers took their money and killed them. With luck, Hank would get Ron to talk, offer him a deal—assuming the prosecuting attorney cooperated—and let Ray, who had abandoned him, take the fall.

The ER nurse eventually returned and led him to a private area where a doctor could sew up his scalp. She warned him the doctor would probably advise overnight observation at the hospital.

Nick had no intention of staying overnight. True, he’d had some momentary dizziness, but he’d had no other concussion symptoms. His only concern was the injury itself, a lacerated and bleeding scalp. He’d trust in his Grimm abilities to get him through a minor head injury.

By the time the doctor saw him, Nick sensed the laceration was smaller than it had been back at the garage. Or maybe he’d imagined the improvement. Regardless, he only needed eight stitches and, once the nurse had cleaned blood off his face and hands, his injury was barely visible. His shirt and trousers, however, told a different story. The copious bloodstains made him look like an extra on the set of a zombie apocalypse movie.

Hank had contacted Juliette to apprise her of Nick’s injury and ER visit. When she called Nick to tell him she was on her way, he asked her to bring a fresh shirt. As soon as she came through the emergency room, she voiced a dozen concerned questions, all of which he deferred until he had a chance to put on the fresh shirt in the nearest restroom and stuff the bloodied one in a plastic bag. Feeling a bit more human, he asked her to give him a ride home.

“Nick, you probably have a concussion,” Juliette said. “Listen to your doctor. Stay here overnight.”

“Juliette, I’m fine,” Nick assured her. Then, in a lower voice, “I’m a Grimm.”

“And Gr—they don’t get concussions?”

“Hard heads,” Nick said. “One of the perks.”

Lips pressed together, Juliette stared at him for several moments, a mixture of admonishment and concern, before deciding she couldn’t change his mind.

“Well, you’re staying with me,” she insisted. “I’ll observe you at home. And wake you every few hours. To make sure your head is as hard as you claim.”