Grimm - The Icy Touch

by Shirley, John

  “Where’s Rosalee at?”

  “Went to get me something to eat that’s better than hospital food. You’re lucky she’s not here, man. She’s mad at you. She blames you and Hank for this.”

  “How’s she figure that?” Not that Nick didn’t blame himself. He should’ve made sure Monroe was safely away from Salem Boulevard.

  “I don’t know, dude. But she’s pissed off. She might go all fox lady on you and give you a good nip in the ass.”

  Nick chuckled. “Sounds like you’re on some pretty good stuff in that IV. I better let you rest. We’re talking about putting a uniform on the door to keep watch on you. Got to clear it with the Captain.”

  Monroe shook his head. “That’d just call attention to the room. I don’t think the scumbags are looking for me. Question is, bro—are they looking for you?”

  * * *

  “You’re not supposed to be in here, you know,” Hank said, mildly, as Nick joined him in the observation room.

  “Just passing through the office. Captain asked me in to talk about what I could say to Internal Affairs...”

  “And what you couldn’t.”

  “Yeah. Mostly that. Waste of time. Already knew what not to say.”

  The hirsute Blutbad they’d taken into custody, who said his name was Pete Hergden, was sitting sullenly in the interrogation room on the other side of the window. Now and then he glared coldly at the mirror he knew to be transparent from the other side.

  “Furry without even being woged,” Nick observed. “He’s all beard and bushy hair.”

  “Yeah. You could make a nice coat out of the guy.”

  “Get anything out of him?”

  “Nah. He claims he was just hanging around outside, hoping to score some pot from somebody in the ’hood, buy a joint or something. Then Monroe went off on him—like Monroe was on meth, he says. Claims Monroe knocked him down and some other guy he didn’t know came along with a gun and a knife, and cut Monroe up and...”

  “Really? That’s his story?”

  “Sure. Denies being a sentry. Says he doesn’t know anything about anybody on the roof, or anybody in the building. Claims he hadn’t heard even a rumor about the girls.”

  “Not allowing polygraph?”

  “You guessed it. Prints turn up some priors. Burglary, one assault. Nothing big. Ninety days in county, nothing longer. Probation’s long done. Zip on his sheet about a connection to any cartel.”

  “Says he never heard of Icy Touch?”

  “Says he heard it mentioned, doesn’t know anything about it. I look at him, he looks at me. We both know he’s lying.” Hank shrugged. “Doesn’t get us anywhere.”

  “He tried to jump me, that count for anything?”

  “Maybe not—we were plainclothes, unmarked car. He says he didn’t see any badges. Thought we were going to rob him. No one’s going to believe he thought we were jacking him up, but, you know, once he’s in court... what’s the judge going to do?”

  “Is he lawyered up?”

  “So far just the public defender. If he gets some expensive mouthpiece out of the blue maybe we could figure out who’s paying the tab. Doesn’t look like he’ll need it, though. We don’t have much on him. And of course, he’s talking about police brutality.”

  “What!”

  “Oh yeah. Because you slammed him against the car. He says he wasn’t going to attack you, he was just trying to scare you off. And after what happened to the other guy... the DA might swallow it. As far as Monroe’s testimony— he’s kind of fuzzy on what he saw. I figured maybe he doesn’t want to testify...”

  “I get the impression Rosalee doesn’t want him to. Doesn’t want to make him a target. Considering all that’s happened...”

  Hank nodded. “Yeah. Not sure he could make much difference anyway. It’s his word against the other guy’s.”

  Nick glanced at his watch. He had arranged to have coffee with Juliette.

  “Think they’ll come after Hergden in jail, like they did the Drang-zorn?”

  “I don’t know. Hergden seems more like an insider. Maybe they trust him. And they know we haven’t got much on him. The unregistered gun, yeah—but can we really tie it to him? You found it on the other one. We can’t even prove for sure those girls were in that building. Common sense, sure. Some clothing. But—proof? We haven’t got any good DNA samples from anything. We don’t have a lot to go on.”

  Nick snorted. “Look... you could turn off the tape recorder in there, let me go in, talk to him as a Grimm to a Wesen...”

  “He knows you’re a Grimm—he saw you in action. I doubt you’re going to scare this guy. He’s much more scared of Icy Touch.”

  “Let me try.”

  Hank shook his head.

  “Can’t do it, Nick. I’m not sure even the Captain would be okay with that. Not till you get your badge back.”

  If he ever did get it back...

  Nick nodded toward the Blutbad on the other side of the glass.

  “I’d sure like to get him alone.” Then he realized how that sounded. “I didn’t mean...”

  Hank looked at him evenly.

  “Come on—you know what I mean!” Nick exclaimed.

  “I know you’re all right. But maybe you should talk to some old time Grimms. I’m serious. Get some... advice. Maybe ask your mom or something? Seems like maybe Grimms have to learn some self control. Just like a Blutbad.”

  Nick grimaced. “I guess.”

  “Just talk to her, Nick.”

  “But what’s she going to tell me? ‘Stay in control’?” He looked at the Blutbad in the other room. “I already figured that out. My gold shield is gone. I’m not a cop anymore.” He went to door, and opened it. “So yeah, Hank. I got the message.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Detective? It’s Wu. We think we found the truck they used to get the girls out of that building.”

  “Yeah?” Hank’s fingers tightened on his cell phone. He had his other hand on the door of the interrogation room. “Where?”

  Twenty minutes later he was driving up to the site of the abandoned truck in Southeast Portland.

  It was a white cargo truck, parked crookedly—it had blocked half the narrow street. A thin afternoon rain fell over the two patrol cars securing the scene. An officer started to get out of a cruiser but Wu waved him away.

  “We got this, Bill,” he said.

  Hank and Wu walked around back of the truck.

  “Vehicle’s registered to a rental outfit, in Beaverton—it was reported stolen two days ago. Patrolman found it open, empty, keys on the floor in the back. But look here...”

  The two men climbed up in back and Wu pointed at the scratched white inner wall, near a back corner.

  “You see that?”

  Hank bent to look closer. Near to the floor, someone had written what looked like, “Lilyhelp” in lipstick and makeup. It was blurred, barely visible; looked as though the makeup had been wiped from her face with a thumb that she had then used like a crayon.

  “Patrolman searching the truck noticed it,” Wu said.

  “Looks like the dope they had her on was wearing off, and she left us a message,” Hank said, straightening up. “Smart patrolman. And smart girl. Smart enough to leave it in a spot where the creeps weren’t likely to see it. But someone else might. Any fingerprints?”

  “Some in the back. None that’ve turned up in the database yet. Maybe there’s something to that idea of getting your kids fingerprinted in case someone snatches them. If I have kids, I’m going to get them fingerprinted, have their pictures on file, get their DNA taken, and maybe train ’em to use a shotgun too.”

  “Make it a Taser. You come home late sometime, they’ll shoot you dead. Anything up front?”

  “Haven’t had forensics go over it yet,” Wu said, as they climbed out of the truck. “Found some powder— could be that same stuff you guys turned up in the tunnel. Scopolamine, with the green specks in it. I sent it for analysis, we’l
l see. And... I kept this back for you...”

  He took a plastic evidence envelope out of his pocket. There was a crumpled piece of paper in it.

  “Only thing I found on the truck—it looks like they threw it out the driver’s side window but it blew back, got stuck against the cargo container.”

  Hank took some latex gloves from his pocket, pulled them on, and removed the slip of paper. Wu held his hat over it to keep the rain off.

  “Gas station purchase,” Hank said. “And if I’m reading the time right—not long after Nick chased them out of that place on Salem. I’m gonna run this.”

  He returned it to the bag, went back to his car, and called it in, with Wu standing at the open door.

  It took about ten minutes to get the data back. The credit card number on the receipt belonged to a Roger Claymore. It was used at a gas station in Northeast Portland, near the airport.

  “My guess,” Wu said, “is they dropped off the kids somewhere and had to get rid of the truck. And it was almost out of gas.”

  Hank nodded. “Sounds about right. They drove it over here, abandoned it. Neighbors see anything?”

  “No, it must have been dumped in the wee hours of the morning. Nobody but the raccoons were watching. I can never get much out of raccoons.”

  Hank looked at him and snorted.

  “Okay, I’m going out to that gas station, see what I can find.”

  * * *

  It was getting near dark by the time Hank got to the gas station.

  The Mexican guy behind the counter shrugged, said he hadn’t been there when the purchase was made and they didn’t have a working security camera.

  Hank returned to his car and drove around. He found a road that skirted the fenced off airport runways. Gigantic passenger jets flew overhead, looking low enough to scratch the paint on your car. He could smell the jet fuel. On the other side of the road were rows of warehouses, all of them shut down at that hour, and one out of business machine shop.

  Dead end, maybe. There were those warehouses. But he didn’t have enough evidence to get search warrants to go through them.

  Eventually Hank drove back to police headquarters, tired, hungry, and wishing he could talk all this over with Nick.

  * * *

  The rain had cleared up but the wind seemed to think that meant it was time for its moment on the stage, and a north wind blew piercingly across Portland, as Nick arrived at the trailer the next morning. The sky was a destruction derby of racing clouds.

  Nick looked around, to make sure no one was lurking about, before unlocking the door of the airstream trailer. When he opened it, the cold wind tried to slam the door against the silvery metal of the trailer’s outer skin. Nick winced as it angrily banged it shut behind him when he stepped inside. He’d been feeling jumpy, since seeing Monroe lying on the ground in a puddle of blood.

  He sat at the table, his hands on the Grimm books, but he didn’t open them. He was thinking about his conversation with Juliette when they’d met for coffee yesterday. He’d tried to explain why he’d been suspended—he hadn’t been quite ready to tell her just how his being a Grimm had figured into it.

  “... and Monroe was sure this kidnapped girl was in this place and I told him he had to wait till we could get a search warrant. But he went off half cocked and tried to investigate it on his own... Got nailed by one of the thugs.”

  “Nailed? Oh Nick! They shot him?”

  “They... stabbed him. But he’s going to be all right. I’m sorry, I should’ve been clear: he’s not going to die. At the time we didn’t know how badly hurt he was and I got pretty mad. I caught the guy responsible... the others got away... and I felt like I’d let Monroe down and I couldn’t find the girl... I guess I just lost it with the guy. I was trying to get him to say where they took the girls and...”

  “What did you do, Nick?”

  “I thumped his head on the ground. Kind of. And he did tell me something useful but... Hank had shot this suspect earlier, and well... The guy died—while I had my hands on him. A patrolman saw me losing it with this perp and busted me for it. Which was probably the right thing to do. I can’t say it wasn’t.”

  “Hank had shot him? Maybe the man would’ve died anyway.”

  “Maybe. Coroner’s not so sure. And it looks pretty bad, shaking a wounded man around.”

  “That just doesn’t sound like you, Nick.”

  That was his moment. He could’ve spoken up. He could’ve been honest, told her about the Grimm factor. And how it could be driven by instinct, how it could bring up powerful feelings, at times overwhelming...

  But she was already uncertain about him, after all they’d been through. He couldn’t bring himself to give her another reason to leave him.

  Maybe he should talk to his mother about all this.

  What had happened to him out there was something primordial. Almost like the Grimm version of a woge.

  He’d always thought of a Grimm as another kind of policeman. A cop for Wesen. But maybe he was just another kind of inhuman creature—as inhuman in his way as a Wesen like Monroe was in his.

  Maybe he was no kind of cop. He had failed as a detective, failed to keep his cool on the job—and he was failing as a Grimm. The Icy Touch were out there, an organization of shady Wesen—the worst of their kind. He needed to stop them. But they’d slipped through his fingers.

  And where was Lily Perkins now? What were they doing to her?

  * * *

  Hank Griffin felt somewhat jacked up after breakfasting on a double espresso and a large dark-chocolate brownie. Maybe that’s what had pushed him into driving out to this godforsaken industrial zone, and around and around these warehouses.

  No, it wasn’t that. It was Lily Perkins—and the other girls, whoever they might be.

  And it was Monroe. It was Nick getting suspended. It was how far these Icy Touch scum were pushing this town.

  He turned a corner, drove by the shuttered metal shop, then slowed, catching sight of two men get out of a blue Lincoln Continental, half a block up. One of them had a pretty recognizable silhouette.

  That beard. That bushy hair.

  Hergden.

  Hank turned left into a driveway between two warehouses. He didn’t want Hergden to recognize him.

  He stopped his car, jumped out—and shivered in the cold wind. He got a trench coat from the trunk of the car, pulled it on, then headed to the corner of the building and peered cautiously around the edge. He could see Hergden and a big bull of a man with red hair walking up to the door of a warehouse just down the street. The bigger man unlocked the door, while Hergden glanced around, to see if they were watched.

  Hank drew back and thought about calling for back up, right now.

  But he called Renard instead.

  He got straight through to his boss. “Captain? Listen, I’ve got something out here—that area where they gassed up their truck...”

  “Griffin? It better be something solid. Bloom’s been on the phone to me. He’s got word this kidnapping might be Icy Touch. He wants in on this. We need to make some progress before the feds take it away from us.”

  “This could be what we need. Did that Hergden character get released?”

  “He did. After filing a police brutality complaint. We didn’t have enough to hold him and the DA said he didn’t want to follow up.”

  “I just watched Pete Hergden walk into a warehouse out here, with a big red-haired guy I’ve never seen before. Not three blocks from that gas station.”

  “We can set up a watch, but...”

  “I need a warrant and I need back up, Captain. Right away.”

  Silence. Renard seemed to be thinking about it.

  “I’ll send out some back up. Give me the exact address. But the warrant, that’ll need to wait till you find something more. Maybe if you scout the place out.”

  Hank ground his teeth. “Okay. But Captain—tell the patrol cars to stay off the street—they need to keep their distance
till I give the word. Last time we spooked these guys and lost them.” He gave Renard the address.

  “Keep me informed, Detective. And keep your head down.”

  Hank clapped the phone shut and went back to the street. The two men had vanished into the warehouse. It was a one-story aluminum-sided place, neither big nor small, with construction material piled outside. Like someone was doing some building work inside.

  Should he call Nick? He wanted to. But he couldn’t. This wasn’t a good time to call in the Grimm. Especially when the Grimm wasn’t carrying a badge just now.

  Hank crossed the street, the wind snagging at his trench coat. He buttoned it up, mostly to hide his gun, and hurried past the front of the warehouse that the Wesen had gone into. The place was windowless on the front and there were no business signs on it that he could see.

  He sidled past stacks of empty paint cans, piles of torn out wallboard, and an aluminum ladder, and walked down the narrow concrete passage between the building Hergden had gone in and the one on his right, which bore a sign that said “North Portland Imports.”

  Hank moved as quietly as he could, listening. But he heard nothing but the wind whistling overhead.

  He looked up, and saw a long strip of narrow windows well out of reach, stretching horizontally just under the roof overhang. One of the panes was slightly broken, in a lower corner. Brown paper blocked off the window from inside, like the storefront on Salem Boulevard.

  Hank hurried back to the front of the building. He saw no one on the street, so he grasped the ladder, and, careful not to bang it on anything, he carried it back along the narrow alley. He set it up under the broken window, and climbed its rungs, trying to make as little sound as possible. When he reached the broken window, he pressed his ear to the papered-up section.

  Nothing, for several seconds. Then... faintly... voices. A gruff man’s voice.

  And then a girl’s voice. A fairly young girl.

  “Don’t, I don’t need it—don’t!” she said; her voice sounded genuinely distressed.

  Close enough for a warrant, anyway, along with the gas receipt, and Hergden’s being there.