The body looked like a train wreck. Literally; like a train had run over it. Even Nick was surprised to see blood spatter eight feet up the platform pillars. The CSU team scrambled around the scene, putting bloody q-tips and … bits …into plastic bags, taking picture after picture. They must have developed strong stomachs in the past few years. Swallowing his own nausea Nick stepped over the CSU tape for a closer look.
There wasn't much to see really. The clothes were so torn up, soaked in blood and mingled with tissue. But two long impact tracks clearly ran diagonally across the body up from left to right—across the left elbow to right shoulder and again from the left knee, just below the right hip and then through the right wrist.
"Damn," Hank said heavily. He put a hand up to his mouth and glanced up to the ceiling. "Damn! There's blood up there, too. Why do we get the ugly ones these days? This is messed up, man."
Nick squatted next to the body. The wounds weren't slashes or cuts, but looked more… crushed. And all the more disturbing. The head was turned to the right, also slightly crushed, but nowhere near as damaged as the rest.
"Any idea what did this?" Nick asked the ME.
"Huh, you got me. That's your job, thank goodness," she replied. "The entire chest cavity is crushed, so there's your cause of death, though blood loss would have done it as well."
"And the wound pattern?"
"That's an odd one. You can see the lines here and here. Nearly two, two and a half feet apart. It suggests that the victim was run over by something with wheels or rails, and very heavy and fast."
"Any ideas what?" Hank interjected.
"That's the funny thing," she replied. "It's similar to a train, if a train ran across the platform and did no other damage whatsoever."
"What about the head?" Nick asked.
"Also odd. I'll need to confirm this with an x-ray, but from the shape and depth of this indentation and the bruising pattern, this was not a high energy impact, just a really heavy one."
Nick filed that away. Two different kinds of wounds. "And what do we know about the victim?"
A CSU uniform squatting near the victim's feet replied without looking up.
"Male. 32. Tech service industry. Likely a recent immigrant. He has a green card issued just last month. Also most of his clothes are not made or sold in the US."
"Where'd he come from?" Hank asked.
"Japan according to the green card."
"Do we have any witnesses?" Nick asked, looking around. Some uniforms were holding three people in a corner of the platform near some vending machines. Two of the uniforms were talking with the people one at a time a little removed from the group.
"Hey, guys," Drew huffed as he jogged up to the edge of the tape. "Security cameras are a bust. Well, sort of—"
Suddenly a disturbance broke out from the vending machines. Two men were looking intently at Drew and trying to get past the officers. One was talking loudly in an Asian dialect.
Sir! Sir! We saw it! The demon!
Nick stood up and jumped over the tape. "Officer, are these our witnesses?"
"Yes, sir. Though they don't seem to speak English."
The Tengu! You can tell them for us. The man was peering around Nick still looking at Drew.
"Any of you speak English?" Nick said loudly.
All three shook their heads. The man who had been speaking turned to Nick. "Ingurish no. japan." He pointed at Drew.
Drew stepped up. "Oh, sorry, not Japan! Home grown ingurishu."
The man's face fell and he turned to his companions, an older man in a very comfortable—and therefore unfashionable—sweater, and a woman who was probably his wife. Both had recently been crying. Chigau! He's a foreigner. This is not good. We need to tell them what happened.
The old man replied. They wouldn't believe us anyway
But we have to try!
"Excuse me," said another woman from behind the officers. "I'm sorry, but I really have to get to work. Can you take my statement now?"
"Of course," said Drew stepping past the immigrants with a sympathetic nod. "I'm Sargent Wu. Tell me what happened?"
"Aint nothing happened!" said a man from deep in the corner. "I dunno what the damn Chinese are all excited about. The man was crazy. Drugs or something. He started talking to the air like a crazy person, waving his arms around like he's trying to hold somebody off him, then BAM! Must 'a been some messed up shit he was taking, to end up like that. Heart attack or something. Man, tha's it. Can we all f*****g leave now?"
A few other witnesses grumbled. Nick looked at the officer in charge and nodded over this shoulder. They stepped aside. Sargent Wu and the other officers went back to taking statements.
"What have you got so far?" Nick asked quietly.
"Pretty much what the bum said. Not much to go on. They were all a group," he gestured to the immigrants, "quiet, then the victim starts talking to no one in Japanese I guess, waving his arms around like it's an argument of some kind. They all said he had his hands out like he was trying to calm someone down, then he falls to the ground and… explodes."
"So, no one saw what actually killed him."
"Well, no one we can talk to."
"We need an interpreter. "
Back at the police station 45 minutes later
Captain Renard exited his office like a king coming to his court; with a dignity approaching nobility. The man gave 'stature' a new meaning.
He glanced at the witness room. Three people were settled into chairs but only one was drinking the coffee.
"Where do we stand, people?"
Griffin leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. "Well, sir, we have a big mess and a lot of body parts and witness statements have been anything but helpful."
"Security footage?"
"Nada." Burkhardt replied. "It corroborates our statements; that the vic was just talking to the air, and bam! No indication what hit him."
Renard's brows furrowed. "And our visitors?"
"They don't speak English. We found an interpreter at the University of Portland and she's on her way. We are guessing they're family of the victim."
"How did you get them to come to the station?" the captain asked.
"We got the interpreter on the phone."
"Ah. Burkhardt, do you have any—"
"kokodeshitayone, shikarishiro!"
Renard turned to see that Sargent Wu stepping up on his left. He had only a second to be truly confused—I could have sworn that man spoke nothing but English, cretin—and a women stepped smartly around the Sargent and gave a small, sharp bow. Now Renard truly had reason to be surprised. Though the voice carried a flawless Asian accent, the neatly coiffed hair–held in place with a pencil crossing a lacquered chopstick (from which a dangling charm sparkled)—was as blond as they come. When she looked up, her eyes were blue as well.
"Please pardon my tardiness. I am Mira Speigel." Her English was as warm as her Japanese had been lilting. "I understand you have need of a Japanese interpreter?"
"Excellent," said Burkhardt, rising. "Detective Burkhardt. If you'd please follow me."
"Thank you!" the interpreter chimed.
Renard spent a few more minutes getting a full briefing from Griffin and Wu before heading back to his office. Clearly this was another wesen attack. With Burdkhardt on the case he wasn't worried, though they did seem to be coming up more frequently since the Grimm's powers had manifested.
Quick banter was flowing in the witness room. At least that was going well.
"Sugoi! Dono yō ni anata no kami o someru nodesu ka?"
"Kore ha shizen no iro desu, someranaindesu.
"Honto desuka? Demo nihon-jin deshou?"
"iie, watashiha Amerika-jin desu. Rokunenkan Nihon ni sundeitandesukedo…
"toriaezu, kyou no ken ni modorimashou? 見たものは２メートルの高さだったでしょう？ほかの特徴はありましたか？
Based on her voice, you would have guessed the interpreter was Japanese herself, but she was just as blonde as Adalind. Hmm. Surely there had been a charm on that chopstick in her hair? Irrelevant.
Suppressing a heavy sigh Renard began searching for information on invisible wesen with train wheels for legs.