Grimm: The Chopping Block (17 page)

“Well, theoretically, maybe—in hindsight—but not in a premeditated way. But I think you’re splitting hairs. What’s your point?”

“I’m on the outside, looking in,” Decker said. “You wake up in the morning and see another day to stay reformed. But me? I look at each day and ask myself how I can stop being—unreformed.”

“One bite at a time.”

Decker chuckled. “Trying to figure out that first bite is the killer.”

“What about meditation?” Monroe said. “Ever try it? No straining, no awkward postures, no slow motion. Just sit and relax and focus. You need to find a way to stay calm within yourself.”

“No stupid stuff?” Decker asked. “Sitting still? That’s it.”

“As far as the physical aspect, yes,” Monroe said. He tapped his temple. “The rest is up here.”

“No more classes with a bunch of posers?”

“We could meditate in my house,” Monroe said, not quite believing he hadn’t shut the door on his involvement in Decker’s life once and for all. “No outsiders.”

“Okay,” Decker said, slapping his knee. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Great,” Monroe said, while inwardly cringing at his inability to admit enough was enough. But he could accelerate the process. “I have some errands to run, but let’s meet later. How about meditation and dinner? I’ll cook. A zero-stress evening will make for a good start.”

“Fantastic, brother.”

Lacking Decker’s enthusiasm, Monroe’s thoughts skipped ahead to the inevitable disappointment to come.
Three strikes and I’m officially out. If meditation fails to make an impression on Decker, I’m the wrong mentor. One way or the other, after tonight, I’m done
.

Then, strangely, Decker’s words intruded on this feeling of impending release.
“I love it, you know. The thrill of it… Theoretically, you could cheat. And that would be okay.”

Monroe had the disturbing notion that the seeds of his own corruption had been planted: self-doubt, temptation, rationalization. And a more unsettling thought followed. Who was mentoring whom?

His grip on the steering wheel tightened.

* * *

Nick returned to the precinct and updated Renard and Hank on the coroner’s findings. As Nick suspected, Renard embargoed the word ‘cannibal’ when dealing with the press.

“That’s a theory,” he’d said. “No more than that. We don’t speculate on the reason for the murders.”

Not that Nick or Hank planned on making any statements to the press. That was the captain’s prerogative and he was welcome to it. But reporters sometimes bypassed official press conferences in favor of a well-timed ambush interview. So Renard made sure the detectives knew the party line.

Back in the conference room, Hank asked, “So, we dealing with a Wesen cannibal or a human cannibal?”

“Does it matter?” Nick said, thinking only of the end result.

“Speaking as a non-Grimm,” Hank said, “yes, it matters. Wesen play by different rules. Don’t want to bring a knife to a gun fight.”

“Smart money’s on the Wesen,” Nick said, but didn’t elaborate as he spotted Wu veering toward the conference room, case folders tucked under his arm.

“More dental record matches?” Nick asked the sergeant.

“No,” Wu said. “This is something else.”

“Go ahead.”

“The rash of disappearances got me thinking,” Wu said. “When did the uptick start?”

“A month ago,” Hank said, glancing at Nick for confirmation. “About the time our vacant lot victims started disappearing.”

“Right,” Wu said. “But the trend actually began a little before that. I noticed something weird in the files from five weeks ago.”

“How weird?” Nick wondered. After all, they had reports of at least two people coming back from the dead and a Cracher-Mortel on the loose. Weird was relative.

“A delivery man disappeared,” Wu said. “Hauling industrial-grade restaurant equipment to a new place opening in Portland. The shipment never arrived. Truck was found lying on its side at the bottom of a ravine, abandoned and empty. No sign of the driver.”

“Hijacked?” Hank asked.

“That was the theory at the time,” Wu said. “Nothing else indicated. Restaurant supplier assumed the driver was killed offsite, or that the hijacking was an inside job.”

“Restaurant equipment,” Nick said. “Even if he split a black market sale with a single accomplice, how much could he have netted? Ten thousand? Twenty?”

“Hardly enough to retire in luxury,” Hank said.

“Driver have any gambling debts?”

“Nothing that turned up,” Wu said. “Financially stable, retirement accounts, manageable credit card debt.”

“So back to option one,” Hank said. “Hijacker murdered the driver, dumped the body elsewhere.”

“Industrial restaurant equipment,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Can’t be easy to move that kind of stuff. And it comes back to the money. Something doesn’t add up.”

“Unless it does,” Hank said. “Cannibal killer. New restaurant opening. Don’t make me do the math.”

Nick turned to Wu. “You have a name and address for that restaurant?”

“Yes, it’s in the file,” Wu said. “But they never received the shipment.”

“Maybe not,” Nick said. “But they knew it was coming.”

Unfortunately, Roxy’s test results came back as Juliette had expected, showing the six-year-old labrador back in kidney failure. She’d had a remarkable twenty-four-hour reprieve after the aggressive IV treatment, but that’s all it had been. For one day the Bremmers had had the illusion of a miracle cure. In a way, that had made the obligatory phone call to Melinda Bremmer even crueler. To nurture hope and to have that hope rewarded, only to see it snatched away just as abruptly… Juliette wondered if it would have been kinder on her part to not have suggested the IV treatment. She’d done nothing more than postpone the inevitable heartache. Now, after throwing the Bremmers’ emotions in a blender, she’d called Melinda to recommend euthanasia for the dog.

Melinda tearfully asked for a few hours to round up her husband and son. She knew they’d want to say goodbye to their dog one last time, to witness the end.

Of course, Juliette gave her that time. How could she not? But sitting around waiting for them to arrive was more than Juliette herself could handle. She told Zoe and Roger she’d be back after lunch and to keep an eye on Roxy while she was gone. Roger said, “No problem,” without looking up from his computer display, but Zoe, more attuned to Juliette’s mood and the ongoing situation with Roxy and the Bremmers, asked if Juliette wanted company for lunch.

“Thanks, Zoe,” Juliette said, “but I’m meeting someone. Rain check?”

“Sure,” Zoe said with a bright nod.

In truth, Juliette hadn’t called Rosalee about having lunch together, and doubted she’d have someone available to cover the spice shop, but she hoped the other woman would make some time for her. Juliette thought talking to a fellow healer might help her ride out the dismal day. While Rosalee wasn’t a doctor, per se, she certainly had experience healing Wesen of various non-human maladies. Plus, she had cured Juliette’s memory loss and the unnatural obsession she’d shared with Nick’s captain. Rosalee’s specialty was healing that for which traditional medicine had no answer, let alone a cure.

When Juliette entered the Exotic Spice & Tea Shop, she saw the portly, grandfatherly gentleman—she remembered Rosalee had said his name was Oscar Cavendish—in one of the aisles, but no other customers. Juliette made her way to the counter, offering a little wave when Rosalee glanced up from a magazine she’d been skimming.

“Oh, hi, Juliette!” Rosalee said. “This is a surprise.”

“Sorry about not calling ahead.” She raised a large white paper bag. “Didn’t know if you could get away, so I brought veggie wraps and salads—hope that’s not too redundant—and some bottled water. Thought we could share a stand-up lunch.”

“Nonsense,” Rosalee said. “I’ve got a spare stool around here somewhere.”

Rosalee disappeared for a moment in the back room and came back with a three-legged stool, tall enough for her to sit comfortably behind the counter.

“So, what brings you down my way?”

“A really awful day,” Juliette said. “I had to call a family and give them some bad news.”

“Oh, no, not the lab.”

Juliette nodded as she reached into the bag for the wraps and plastic containers of salad.

“One good day, then they brought her back in again this morning, almost worse than before. It feels worse.”

“I’m sorry,” Rosalee said, accepting a water bottle from Juliette and setting it beside her portion of the food. “There’s nothing else you can do?”

Juliette shook her head, dejectedly. She had her food laid out before her but no appetite.

“I ran the tests again. Same result. Kidney failure.”

The older gentlemen approached the counter, carrying several jars of spices.

“I don’t want to disturb your impromptu lunch, so let me pay for these and be on my way,” he said.

“Find everything you need?” Rosalee asked as she stepped over to the cash register.

“Yes, thank you,” Cavendish said. “I’m experimenting with different flavor combinations. With delectable results.”

“Good for you,” Rosalee said. She placed the jars in a paper bag and read him the total amount due.

As he removed a billfold from his jacket pocket, he said, “I’m curious, Ms…?”

“Calvert,” Rosalee said.

“Yes, Calvert,” he said, handing her two twenties. “I had heard that a Frederick Calvert owned this shop.”

“Freddy was my brother.”

“I note the past tense…?”

Rosalee nodded, and gave him his change.

“Yes, he—he’s no longer with us.”

“I am sorry for your loss, Ms. Calvert.”

“Thank you,” she said, passing his bag over the counter. “After his passing, I inherited the shop.”

“Ah,” the portly man said, nodding. “Well, you have a wonderful place.” After she thanked him, he leaned forward and spoke softly, clearly intending that Juliette not overhear. “I’ve heard rumors, about certain… exotic items for sale.”

Rosalee glanced awkwardly at Juliette before replying. “After Freddy’s death, we stopped carrying… those particular items.”

“Very good,” Cavendish said. “Of course, I understand why you’d rather not follow in those footsteps. And I’m not personally in the market for such things. But some rumors provide a person of my advanced age a certain vicarious thrill to hear about.”

“I understand,” Rosalee said, but her body language had become stiff. “Have a great day, Mr. Cavendish.”

“Thank you,” he said on his way out. “Enjoy your meal.”

After the door clicked shut, Juliette asked, “What was that about?”

“Freddy had a little side business going,” Rosalee said. “Selling… controlled substances. Having that kind of thing in the shop resulted in his death.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Rosalee said, jabbing a plastic fork into her lettuce. “I hadn’t pictured Mr. Cavendish as the type who’d—maybe he was only looking for some juicy gossip.” She took a bite of her wrap and a sip of water. “You were talking about the dog. Kidney failure. You made the call…?”

“Yes,” Juliette said. “The whole family is coming in later. I had to get out of the office. To try and stop thinking about it. But they were so upset, I can’t think about anything else.”

“You’ve done all you can. Right?”

Juliette nodded. “I don’t understand the sudden recovery. I think that bothers me the most. It seems so… cruel.”

“Life isn’t always fair,” Rosalee said. “Sometimes it’s the opposite of fair.”

“I know,” Juliette said, taking a bite of her own wrap and finding it flavorless. “But I have this feeling…” She groaned. “I don’t know. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch.”

Rosalee took a bite of lettuce, then pointed the empty tines of the fork toward Juliette. “Maybe there’s something there that you can’t see from the test results, but subconsciously you know it’s… off.”

Juliette raised her eyebrows. “Like what?”

“It’s definitely kidney failure?”

“Yes,” Juliette said, shrugging. “All the classic symptoms are present. And the tests confirm it.”

“Both sets of tests were the same?”

“Yes—well, mostly the same,” Juliette said. “They wouldn’t be exactly the same. Some indicators were different.”

“Different how?”

Juliette had read the results several times and they were imprinted in her mind. Closing her eyes, she could see the odd numbers again: sodium 128, potassium 6.9, blood sugar 56mg/dL.

“Sodium very low, potassium very high, and blood sugar quite low. Those results were new.”

“And what do these different results tell you?”

“Well, there’s no chance that anti-freeze ingestion was involved, which was our original concern. And there’s no sign of infection.”

“That part sounds good,” Rosalee said. “But what does it all mean?”

“It means I’m stumped,” Juliette said. “It’s a bit odd, but doesn’t change the outcome.”

“Unless it does,” Rosalee said, before taking another bite of her wrap.

“But I keep coming back to kidney failure. That’s terminal.”

“Juliette, what am I?”

“You’re a friend. Rosalee Calvert. Shop owner. Entrepreneur.”

“And?”

“A Wesen,” Juliette said, smiling. “A Fuchsbau.” That revelation had been such a huge moment in Juliette’s Grimm and Wesen enlightenment. And here they were, having lunch together, as if none of that mattered. And, truly, it didn’t.

“Everything isn’t always what it appears to be on the surface,” Rosalee said. “How long did you know me before you knew that about me? And you might never have known…”

A hidden nature beneath the surface
, Juliette considered. Could Roxy have a condition that presented as kidney failure but wasn’t?

“I need to do some research.”

“That’s a good idea,” Rosalee said and finished her wrap. “I wish I could help, but that’s way outside my area of expertise.”

“You may have helped more than you know,” Juliette said. “I need to go.”

“Thanks for lunch!” Rosalee called as Juliette hurried out of the shop.

On the way to her car, Juliette called Melinda Bremmer on her cell phone.