Chapter Two

Wolf whistles greeted Nick as he walked into the bullpen the next morning.

"Looking good, Nicky!"

"You can take me out anytime!"

Pink dusted the tips of Nick's ears as he headed to his desk. He and the other detectives didn't typically wear suits, preferring to leave the more formal dress to their captain, but the prosecutors at the DA's office refused to allow anything else.

"Hey Nick," Wu greeted, dropping a stack of folders on Hank's desk before doing the same to Nick's. "I think you took a left on Gresham instead of a right."

Nick snorted, pulling open one of his desk drawers and rifling through it. "You're a riot," he teased. "Don't worry, I'm heading to the courthouse next. I forgot something here yesterday."

He closed the drawer, then began shuffling through the folders slowly taking over his desk.

"For court?" Wu asked, unable to fully mask his surprise.

Nick found the thin folder nestled between a background check and an expense report. He grabbed it, waggling it successfully at Wu with a grin. "For after court." He glanced at his watch. "Gotta go or Kaplan'll have my head. See you later!"

Turning, he strode quickly back out of the bullpen, quickening his pace without actually running. He had only been half-joking about the district attorney, but the woman's fiery temper was legendary among the police force. The last place Nick wanted to find himself was on her bad side.

"Ow! Please, you're hurting me!"

Nick came to an abrupt halt just twenty feet shy of the exit, his head turning towards the sound of the pained whimper. Sharp gray eyes fell on a tall, husky uniformed officer all but dragging a reedy teenaged boy towards their lockup. The boy's hands were cuffed tightly behind his back, unable to help him catch his balance as the forceful pace had him tripping over his own feet to keep up.

The officer's grip tightened on the boy's arm; Nick wouldn't be surprised if bruises appeared later, marking their place.

At another gasp of pain from the boy, the officer roughly shook him. "Quit your crying. If you don't like it, don't harass upstanding citizens."

"I wasn't," the boy choked out.

"Sergeant Arnold!" Case forgotten, Nick turned on his heel and walked towards the pair. His eyes traced over the boy, Arnold's grip, and to Arnold's eyes. "Do you need a hand?"

Arnold's blue eyes narrowed in suspicion at the offer. He looked Nick up and down, the corner of his mouth curling ever-so-slightly into a sneer. "Thanks, Detective, but I wouldn't want you to get your clothes dirty."

"Oh, it's no trouble," Nick said, affecting an air of helpfulness. "You looked like you were having a hard time handling this kid here."

Arnold's jaw clenched. His features rippled into those of a Bauerschwein, and his lack of reaction to Nick told the detective that his identity as a Grimm was already known.

The boy's pleading eyes jumped between Nick and Arnold, his very human features remaining just that. His gaze settled on Nick, clearly seeing a savior in him.

"Please," he said. "I didn't do anything! I was just waiting for my friends!"

"Waiting for them so you could trash the store again," Arnold snapped, yanking the boy closer.

"No!" the boy cried.

"That wouldn't be the Blakely Book-tique on Seventh, would it?" Nick asked.

Both Arnold and the boy looked at Nick in shock.

Nick looked Arnold in the eyes. "The one your sister owns?"

Arnold was practically radiating fury, but to his credit he held onto his temper. He glanced over towards the intake section where several uniformed officers were milling about. "Kerry!"

A tall, thin man rushed out into the hall at the sharp bark. Arnold shoved the teenager at him.

"Get started processing this dirtbag," he ordered. "I'll be in after I finish up with Detective Burkhardt."

Kerry nodded, eyes flickering over to Nick. Nick was gratified to note that Kerry took more care in guiding the trembling teenager away.

As soon as they were alone, Arnold stepped closer to NIck, using his height in an attempt to intimidate the detective.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but you'd be smart to mind your own business," he stated, practically growling out the words. "I don't care that you're a Grimm. In here, I outrank you, and I'll thank you to stay in your lane."

"See, the thing is, there have been some complaints about abuse of authority in the wesen community," Nick stated calmly. "Not to mention the warnings your sister has been issued for unfair discrimination in her shop. So while in here you outrank me, out there I don't answer to you."

Arnold seemed to swell with his rage. "You might want to be careful, Detective," he hissed. "Not everyone around here was happy with how things went down between you and Lieutenant Orson. He still has friends here; it would be a shame if the next time you called for backup, they got held up in traffic."

Nick's eyes glittered in anger. "That would be tragic," he agreed blandly. "About as tragic as being found out as a dirty cop."

Arnold bristled and crowded closer to Nick, who stood his ground and met the posturing head on.

"Is there a problem here?"

If there was anyone who could defuse an explosive situation with a sharp tone, Nick absently reflected as he and Arnold stepped back from one another, it was Sean Renard.

Renard's eyes swept over both police officers, sharp eyes taking in expressions and body language and missing nothing. Arnold shifted his stance to face Renard but kept Nick in his line of sight.

"No sir," he stated, his spine straightening. "Detective Burkhardt was just offering his assistance with a perp."

"Really." Renard's gaze pierced Arnold's. "Well, I'm glad to hear about inter-departmental cooperation among my officers. This job is hard enough as it is."

"Yes, sir," Arnold agreed. Nick's tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth, sensing more to Renard's bland comment.

"Which is why I would be very disappointed to hear about backup not responding to anyone's call," Renard continued.

Arnold paled.

Nick felt his own gut churn, wondering just how much the captain had overheard.

"I hope that is something that I never have to hear about again," Renard stated, his tone promising dire consequences. "Have I made myself clear?"

Arnold nodded stiffly.

"Good," Renard said. "Dismissed."

Arnold immediately turned and headed towards intake, unable to resist tossing Nick a glare on his way.

Nick watched Arnold disappear among the throng of uniforms before dragging his eyes back to his boss, who was giving him a considering look, "Sir-."

"I know that you are not the sort of person to throw out unsubstantiated accusations, but allegations of dirty cops is a very serious matter," Renard told Nick. "I trust that, should evidence of something like this arise, you would bring it directly to me first?"

Nick nodded. "Yes, sir," he said, feeling recalcitrant for having flung the accusation at Arnold, vague as it had been.

Renard nodded. "All right." He quirked an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be in court today?"

Nick's eyes widened, and he checked his watch. "Damn! I'm late!"

"Then I suggest you hurry," Renard stated lightly.

Nick tossed an apology at Renard, jogging out of the building and towards his car. He tossed his folder onto the passenger seat, mentally calculating routes to the courthouse and coming to one final conclusion.

Kaplan was going to kill him.


"I don't think that I've ever seen anyone survive a five minute dressing down from Violet Kaplan on a tear. But ten solid minutes? The name Nick Burkhardt is going down in the annals of history after this morning."

Nick groaned, face flushing as his head dropped down. He looked back up as Frank Rabe slid into the chair across the table from him, a sly smirk on the lawyer's face.

"Didn't you have a court case across town?" Nick asked. "There's no way you could have heard about it already."

"Never underestimate the ability of law clerks with juicy gossip," Frank advised. "I'm pretty sure every law firm between here and San Francisco has heard about it."

Nick's head dropped down again. "Oh God."

"In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to find out the news has spread all over the west coast by dinner time," Frank continued, his smirk growing into a full smile.

"Please, stop," Nick pleaded, covering his reddening face with his hands.

Frank chuckled, signaling for the waitress. "Okay, okay," he said. "But seriously; is it true she dragged you out of the gallery by your ear during recess?"

Nick's hands dropped, eyes wide as his head snapped up. "What? No!"

"So what did our illustrious Grimm do to incur the wrath of the most feared prosecutor west of the Rockies?" Frank asked, thoroughly enjoying Nick's discomfort.

The waitress chose that moment to appear beside their table. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," she greeted warmly. "The usual today?"

"Yes, thanks Sarah," Frank answered. Nick nodded.

Sarah's gaze lingered on Nick, her expression a mix of awe and amusement.

"If I may ask, Detective?" she said. "Is it true that DA Kaplan threatened to cut you up and feed you to her fish?"

Frank burst into laughter as Nick hung his head in defeat. Sarah was confused at their reactions, but hurried away to put in their orders.

"Can we please change the subject?" Nick pleaded wearily.

"Okay, okay." Frank wrestled his amusement back under control. "I guess I'll just have to get the full story from my friends in the DA's office."

The Jagerbär was completely unconcerned by the weak glare the young Grimm sent his way.

"All right," Frank finally conceded. "Did you look into the file I gave you?"

"I did." Grateful that their conversation was finally moving away from the . . . incident at the courthouse that morning, Nick slid the folder he had collected from his desk that morning across the table. "I'm going to be honest; this one's a little trickier than the Morgan case. The evidence declared by both sides are properly processed and documented, there's no signs of witness tampering, and the suspect's alibi is questionable."

"But you agree that Woodlawn is innocent?" Frank asked, picking up the folder and sliding it into his briefcase.

Nick hesitated. "I agree that there's enough circumstantial evidence that warrants a second look," he allowed. "The alibi is the biggest thing."

"At the time, Woodlawn couldn't exactly tell investigators that the reason he was in the woods when the body was discovered was because he was fully woged and stretching out his wings," Frank said wryly. "I'll have another talk with him; maybe one of his kettle was with him." He gave Nick a thoughtful look. "You know, I have to say that I've noticed a decline in these kinds of cases ever since your abilities awoke."

Their conversation paused as Sarah brought the two their 'usual' order- a burger and fries for Nick and a Reuben sandwich with chips for Frank. The two thanked Sarah as they both shook out their napkins and placed them in their laps.

"That doesn't seem right," Nick said, picking their conversation back up. "I've arrested plenty of wesen, though I do wonder if there were that many before I could see them."

"I didn't mean that," Frank said. "I meant the number of cases with innocent wesen being arrested, either because they were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or with them being unfairly profiled by wesen in authority simply for being the type of wesen they are."

Nick shook his head ruefully. "With everything wesen have to go through, it still astonishes me that they can still be discriminated against for something like that."

Frank popped a chip into his mouth and chewed. "At the end of the day, we're all people with our upbringing informing our actions. Racism isn't unique to humans."

Nick nodded and took a bite of his burger, the two lapsing into a companionable silence as they worked on their lunch.

A stray thought tugged at Nick's memory. "Hey, Frank; you haven't heard any rumors recently about there being a new Grimm in town, have you?"

Frank's eyebrows shot up, and he swallowed his bite of sandwich thickly. "A new Grimm?" he repeated.

Nick nodded. "Monroe- my friend? He mentioned it last night." He popped a French fry into his mouth.

Frank set his sandwich back on his plate. "Did he tell you anything else?"

The intensity coming from the Jagerbär caused Nick to still, abandoning his own meal. "No, he didn't hear anything except that there was a Grimm." He frowned. "What's the big deal?"

Frank nudged his plate aside and folded his arms on the table, leaning closer. Nick unconsciously mimicked the pose.

"I know I teased you earlier about gossip, but one thing wesen take very seriously is news of a Grimm in the area," Frank said, his tone low. "While most wesen never meet one in their lifetime, Grimms are notorious for bringing destruction and death with them. No wesen will risk the wrath of the Wesen Council or the Prince for inciting a panic by crying 'Grimm'."

Nick's frown deepened. "I haven't noticed any large-scale panic when I became a Grimm," he pointed out. "And my Aunt Marie has visited me several times. There weren't any reports of riots in the streets or an increase in unusual deaths."

"First of all, you wouldn't notice because you were the Grimm in question," Frank pointed out. "Once word got out about you, there was a panic. The Prince had to intervene and assure the community that law-abiding wesen had nothing to fear from you." He shook his head. "It helped curb most of the panic, but it's hard to fight centuries of conditioning. The longer you go as the so-called 'catch-and-release Grimm' that behaves exactly as the Prince said you would, the more at ease the community gets. Everyone is still wary, but nowhere near as scared."

Nick scowled down at his plate.

"Second, your Aunt Marie requested permission to enter the canton in order to visit you," Frank continued. "She had to agree to limit her Grimm business and only act if provoked and she had a guard keeping an eye on her at all times within the city limits."

Nick's head snapped back up, eyes wide. "What?"

Frank nodded. "It's proper protocol for entering a territory claimed by a Royal. And it's also how I know that there have been no petitions from Grimms to enter Portland since six months ago. If a Grimm has entered the city, it won't mean anything good."

Nick's head was spinning with new information, questions branching out in his brain from each item. "I . . . Aunt Marie knew the Prince?"

Frank nodded. "She's met him."

"She never . . ." Nick trailed off, another thought popping into existence. "Wait; how do you know?"

"I'm on the Prince's council," Frank admitted.

Nick's eyes widened almost comically. "You're . . ."

Frank nodded.

"You never mentioned that before," Nick accused.

"It's not generally something that you go around announcing," Frank pointed out. "The people who need to know, know."

"And I need to know?" Nick asked.

"You've come a long way since awakening," Frank told him. "I had some . . . reservations before, but I've come to trust you. You're ready to know."

Nick felt humbled at the show of faith.

"How sure is your friend about this Grimm?" Frank asked.

"Sure enough to bring it up," Nick replied. "Not sure enough to swear to anything."

"I'll start reaching out to my contacts to see if anyone else has heard of anything," Frank stated. "Will you do the same? And let me know immediately if you hear anything else, no matter how insignificant you think it is?"

"Of course," Nick replied easily.

Frank's eyes traced Nick's expression carefully. "Speaking of Grimm-related rumors, Barry mentioned one that one of his friends down at the youth center shared. Evidently there's a challenge going around some teenage wesen to take out the Grimm to build their 'street cred'. You might want to watch your back for a while."

"Will do," Nick agreed. "Thanks for the heads up. How is Barry, by the way? He's just about finished with his court-mandated rehab, isn't he?"

Frank's expression softened at the mention of his son. "He is, but he's thinking about continuing to volunteer at the youth center. He's really liked working with the kids there, being someone for them to look up to."

"That's great news!" A sincere smile spread across Nick's face.

"I know I've said this before, but thank you," Frank told him. "I am so grateful to you for sparing my son's life. For testifying on his behalf, for advocating for a rehabilitation program for him and his friends. My son has a future, thanks to you."

Nick blushed at the heartfelt words. "Barry did the hard work," he said. "He made it happen for himself."

"Thanks to the second chance you offered," Frank insisted. "For that, I am in your debt."

"You don't owe me anything," Nick protested as his phone began to ring. He reached into his pocket. "I didn't do anything special; just what any other cop would have done."

Pulling out his phone, he glanced at the screen. Seeing Wu's name, he grimaced apologetically at Frank. "Sorry, I have to take this."

Frank nodded.

Nick accepted the call. "Wu, hey. What's up?"

Frank signaled Sarah for the check as Nick listened to what Wu was telling him. Sarah held out a thumb's up and moved to the register.

Nick ended the call and pocketed his phone. "Duty calls," he announced.

Sorry to eat and run."

"I need to get going as well," Frank said, pulling out his wallet. "I want to get the ball rolling on this rumor as soon as possible."

Sarah joined them, passing each man their check. "Do you need any to-go containers?" she asked. "Any dessert?"

Nick pulled out some cash and handed it over to her. "Not for me, thanks. I gotta run." He glanced at Frank. "Same time next week?"

"Sounds good," Frank replied, handing his credit card to Sarah. "Don't forget to let me know if you hear anything."

Nick stood. "You got it. See you next week."


Wu had ended the call with a particularly vague 'it's a bad one', but Nick had learned in his relatively brief time in Homicide that the vast majority of murder cases were pretty bad. Even more so in the last several months since Nick started taking on cases involving wesen. Wu's warning had barely registered.

Now, however, as Nick was forced to park his car near the police cordon that was three full blocks away from the address Wu had given him, Nick was forced to reconsider the warning.

Winding through the slowly growing crowd of gawkers and press, Nick flashed his badge at the uniform assigned to hold the perimeter and ducked under the caution tape.

"Bit far back," he commented to the uniformed officer.

The officer nodded. "Captain's orders."

Nick gave him a double-take. "The captain's here?"

The officer jerked his head further down the road. "All hands on deck with this one. He ordered us to push the perimeter back as soon as he saw the scene. Didn't want to risk any chances of it being seen, including with telescopic lenses."

"Nick!"

Nick and the officer turned back to the crowd in time to see Hank appear, ducking under the tape to join them. Like Nick, the older detective was still clad in his court suit.

"Didn't make it home to change?" Nick asked.

"I feel fortunate enough to have had time to eat," Hank replied. "My deposition ran over; turns out recess ran late because the judge lost track of time gossiping about the detective who survived one of Kaplan's most epic rants."

Nick felt his cheeks heat up, but managed to keep a straight face at his partner's knowing scrutiny. "Yeah?" he said, keeping his tone even. "Sounds like this detective's pretty tough."

Hank started walking away from the cordon, drawing Nick with him. "Sounds like this detective should've listened when his partner warned him not to be late," he countered.

"Technically, I wasn't late," Nick pointed out. Up ahead, more officers were coming into view, swarming around something behind strategically placed squad cars.

"Running into the gallery thirty seconds before court was called to order isn't exactly on time," Hank stated.

"But it was before we were called to order," Nick replied as they moved around the squad car in their way.

"That may be, but if you pull that shit again, Kaplan might actually cut off your head," Hank warned.

The two slowed down and stopped when the crime scene came into view. They stared at the macabre sight in silence for a long moment.

"Okay," Hank finally said. "That was a poor choice of words."

The victim's body was sitting slumped in a pool of blood, propped against the side of a dry cleaners. His head had been cleanly severed from his body and was placed upright in his lap. The expression of abject terror on his face, forever frozen there, sent chills racing up Nick's spine.

"ID on the victim is one Darrien Woods," Wu announced behind the. His sudden arrival startled Hank and Nick. "Cause of death, well, you can see for yourself."

"Any witnesses?" Nick asked.

"None that are speaking up," Wu answered. "The woman on shift at the dry cleaners found him when she went to take some trash to the dumpster. She managed to call 911, but she had to be sedated and taken to the hospital. We won't be getting anything out of her today."

Hank winced as Nick crouched down carefully beside the body. "God, can you imagine? Going about doing your job and stumbling over something like this?"

"It's . . . clean," Nick mumbled.

"Uh . . ." Hank looked at his partner, then pointedly at the blood splatters surrounding the body.

Renard chose that moment to join them. "Where are we?" he demanded.

"The cut." Nick gestured at the stump of a neck. "It's clean. No jagged edges, no hesitation marks that I can see. Whoever did this had to have done this in a single slice."

"How?" Wu asked. "A murder weapon capable of that isn't exactly subtle, and the evidence collected so far confirms that Woods was killed here."

Nick rose to his feet. "I'm sure that Harper's report will give us more specific information, but I can't think of any other explanation. The cut's too even for anything else."

"What else do we know about the victim?" Renard asked.

"Not much." Wu consulted his notepad. "Darrien Woods, age thirty-one. Married, but no kids. Worked as a mechanic at a garage on fifty-second avenue. No criminal record, not even a parking ticket."

"Doesn't exactly sound like someone who would end up with his head parting ways with his body," Hank commented.

"Everyone has their secrets," Renard stated, almost as if to himself. "Let's see if Mr. Woods has any of his own lurking in the background. Start with interviews; wife, neighbors, coworkers- I'll have forensics put a rush on their results. I want whoever is responsible for this in lockup before they get the chance to try again."

"You think they will?" Hank asked.

Renard stared down at the body. "A murder as cold-blooded and remorseless as this? Something tells me that this guy is just getting started."


end chapter two