Confusion was the intended result. The crime scene would be a mess. Suicide? Murder? Murder-suicide? Unlawful entry, or fakery? The man whose body lay slumped against the wall would be blamed, and they’d stop looking for the rest of the story. Small-town cops would never go beyond the obvious in this one. There was plenty of the obvious on which to concentrate.
The intruder left the premises undetected. Two hours later—and a fair number of miles away—the time he knew was needed to fill the enclosed space with gas, he sent the text message.
Imagining the fireball, he smiled slightly.
In his trunk lay the wooden case he had removed from the scene.
Endgame: First Day
Chapter One
Lupo
The bitter breeze blowing off the lake cut through his leather jacket and, instinctively, he dug his large hands into the pockets. He made fists, but he wasn’t aware he had.
The usual clanking of small boat rigging was down to a dozen or so stragglers still in the water of the North Point Marina. Lupo stood with his back to the old roundhouse, which was boarded up for the season. Wistfully, he recalled warm days on the lake, playing dominoes and drinking overpriced canned beer from the roundhouse deli, getting greasy with chips and sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper. Across the weathered picnic table in his memory was Caroline Stewart, laughing as they struggled to play the old man’s game they had somehow both enjoyed picking up.
Lupo’s fists started to hurt from the pressure, and then they started to itch.
It was strange, after all these years, having such clear memories of Caroline. She’d been his professor, confessor and confidante, and then lover.
And then he had killed her.
“Jesus, Nick, could you just let it go?” The voice from behind him startled him, but he pretended otherwise.
“You’ve beaten yourself up for too many years. You have good reason to move on now, and accept the past and what you are and what you will always be.”
Lupo wanted to stifle the raspy voice, but he already knew the old man would have his say.
He had killed Caroline Stewart, and that act of violence, while not completely his fault, had damned him forever, as far as he could tell. It had confirmed his suspicions—he really was a monster.
“Get over yourself,” said the old-man voice.
He resisted for a few moments, then whirled around.
There was no one there. Ghost Sam liked these surgical strikes, making his point in as bloody a manner as possible, then disappearing…wherever he disappeared to. Most likely Lupo’s head, which was definitely not a healthy place to be.
He was a monster, Ghost Sam’s platitudes notwithstanding.
How could a werewolf not be a monster?
“You’ve faced real monsters. I know monsters. You’re not much of a monster.”
“Christ, Sam, you still have a sick sense of humor even after death, you know that?”
“Laugh away, cop boy. But will you ever listen to me? No, you won’t. Apparently you inherited that stubbornness you always accuse your dad of having.”
Actually Lupo listened to Ghost Sam fairly often, both when he saw him and when he didn’t. But there had to be an end to it, a line he could draw.
His mind wandered back to Caroline, and what the Creature had done to her. The guilt was still tangible. She had backed his decision to become a cop, and he’d been on his way to being a good one when the most traumatic incident of his life took place. The Creature had done it, he knew it intellectually, but he couldn’t stop thinking that the Creature was still part of him, or that he could have controlled its rage. Miraculously, he had managed to evade suspicion, though he’d lived in fear for years, and then he’d climbed the ranks of the Milwaukee Police Department, all the way to Homicide Detective.
Until his past—and his secret—had come back to torment him and endanger the woman he now loved. He had managed to protect her so far, when she wasn’t protecting him, but he had a lousy record when it came to women who became attached to him.
He stifled what he had to admit was a sob.
Jessie.
Things weren’t so smooth now, and it was all his fault.
Again.
He’d tried to get her some help, but she was either at her meeting right now or at the casino. He couldn’t quite grasp why a woman as successful, intelligent, beautiful, and perfect in every way had succumbed to a strangely warped version of the same gambling addiction he saw manifested in old folks who flushed their life savings away while standing blank-eyed at slot machines.
What the hell was he supposed to do, lock her up? Keep her out of the casino?
He snorted in spurious laughter. He remembered when he was the one who needed to be locked up, when he feared the full moon would take him and force him to commit murder after grisly murder. In fact, the moon had indeed caused him to do some bad things, but he’d learned to beat the moon’s influence.
Usually.
He had a lot on his mind today. It wasn’t just Caroline’s memory, or Jessie’s gambling. It was the look in Tom Arnow’s eyes as he’d died, after Lupo had flicked that damned dagger squarely into his chest. And it was what he’d done even later.
That damned cursed dagger.
He turned away from the gray water, his fists itching like a delicate torture. He wished he could flay the skin off his hands.
His iPhone buzzed in his pocket. Damn it, somebody always interrupting his life. He dug it out with an itchy hand.
“Yeah?” he barked.
He listened for a minute, verified the address, and clicked off. Third Ward, crime scene. He was practically there already. Just a hop down Lake Drive and then a few blocks south of downtown. DiSanto was meeting him there.
He turned and half expected to see Sam Waters standing nearby, his gray hair gathered in its usual ponytail and his small but somehow still imposing frame tucked into a too-large leather parka. But he was alone.
He crossed the deserted parking lot between the boarded-up roundhouse and the yacht club and climbed into the slightly battered Maxima he clung to stubbornly. Rich DiSanto, his partner of two years, hounded him ceaselessly about the car. As a homicide detective, Lupo had the choice to drive his own vehicle while on duty, and he preferred comfort to style.
“At least get a Mustang or a Camaro, one of those new ones,” DiSanto had a habit of nagging almost weekly.
“If I did,” Lupo usually reminded him, “you wouldn’t be very comfortable.” It was true—the Maxima had the horsepower he wanted, thanks to some custom work, and the leather seats were comfortably worn. DiSanto’s long legs needed the ample space below the seat.
No way would he confess to the childish DiSanto that he’d been, in fact, tempted by the recent Mustangs.
Lupo sat for a minute. A strange tingle centered on the back of his neck made him turn and scan the rest of the lot. A couple cars in slots near the yacht club and a minivan toward the beach side were his only company. They were deserted, probably people who worked maintenance at the club. He shrugged.
Paranoia strikes deep.
He’d given Wolfpaw Security Services—or whatever they were calling themselves these days—enough to chew on for a long while, and right now the congressional hearings were gearing up in D.C. He had to be the last thing on their minds at the moment.
He shrugged, then started up and zipped onto Lake Drive, heading south along the coastline. The trees that dotted the parkland around the pond beside the curvy road were already half bare. He chafed at the thought of another case, on top of the half dozen he and DiSanto still had pending. It was just that kind of fall season, he mused, with people losing their cool after having lost their money or their house, or their family. Tended to make people a little crazy, as did the weather, which had been gray and drizzly or downright cold for three weeks already.
Lupo knew, because the Creature within also wanted out. The depression that had set in to harass his human side had begun
to affect the Creature, too. Bleed-through had started to increase a year ago, and Lupo wondered if it was an age thing.
The shitty fact of it was that he didn’t know, and he couldn’t ask, because all the other shapeshifters he had met so far he’d had to kill. There was no asking for fatherly advice in his world. He hadn’t even realized there were others like him until they showed up and started killing people he cared about and trying their damndest to kill him, too.
He checked again the address they’d texted him as he passed under the U.S. Bank building, Wisconsin’s tallest skyscraper at a conservative 601 feet, and headed for Water Street, which would take him into the heart of the Third Ward a few blocks south.
He had ambivalent memories of the Third Ward, since his friend Corinne had been involved with a porn outfit that had set up shop in a loft in one of the renovated warehouses there. She’d been murdered by Martin Stewart and a long nightmare had begun to unfold, the only positive aspect of which was his new and sudden relationship with Jessie Hawkins, whom he’d known for years but hadn’t realized he had fallen in love with until they were both targeted by the serial killer.
First she’d been his landlord Up North, where he went a few days a month to distance himself from people he might hurt when the moon turned full. They had certainly been friends for years, since she’d first taken over her family’s properties near Eagle River. In that time she had begun her practice inside the reservation, tied to it and its people because they were her own people, too. Jessie Hawkins came from a mixed marriage, her father having been a prominent physician and surgeon and part-time coroner, and she’d followed his footsteps in all the best ways. But neither Jessie nor Lupo had realized their attraction until the killer Martin Stewart began targeting everyone Lupo knew, including Jessie.
Now Lupo was hip to the fact that she was beautiful, a sort of earthier version of a famous model, as he had been told. Her flaming, highlighted chestnut hair either left to bounce off her shoulders in a controlled blaze or harnessed in a ponytail still made him want to comb it with his fingers. Her dark eyes were limpid, light-reflecting pools set above a long, straight but slightly upturned nose and a generous, smile-ready but sensuous mouth.
She had moved in with him recently, after he had brought them more trouble by kicking the sleeping wolf that was Wolfpaw Security Services.
Just thinking of them and what they had done—and almost managed to do—to everyone he cared about brought a rage so severe he worried about his own self-control. He shook his head.
“You’re right to worry,” Ghost Sam said, speaking from the passenger seat. He was translucent.
Lupo was used to the sudden appearances. “Damn right. But I almost took care of it, didn’t I?”
“If running away is taking care of it, then yes, you almost did.” Ghost Sam had a way of speaking sarcastically that made Don Rickles look like a comedian for children.
Damn it, Sam, I miss you.
“I know. I miss those Bloody Marys we used to have Up North,” the apparition said wistfully. “I miss the better Bond movies…Daniel Craig’s good, but they’ve sacrificed character for non-stop action.”
“It’s a reboot,” he pointed out.
No answer.
The passenger seat was empty again.
Shit, talking to myself again.
Except he always felt slightly better afterwards.
He was almost there.
He zigzagged, taking Buffalo east, then Jefferson south, a stone’s throw from the Italian Community Center. Three squads were parked in front of a not-quite renovated warehouse with a couple furniture stores on the first level, more or less blocking the street with their light-bars’ strobes reflecting onto the tall windows. A Coroner’s wagon stood open near the main door, and on the other side of the street he could make out DiSanto’s late-model Charger pulled up at an angle facing the door. A uniform stood outside, and Lupo nodded at him as he climbed out of his car and headed inside.
“Up on three, detective,” the cop said.
Lupo thanked him and took the decrepit stairs up.
It was an eclectic building with several suites listed on the cracked board in the lobby and several floors in various stages of being gutted. Suites might have been a bit pretentious. At the door of suite 301, with a fading hand-painted sign proclaiming it was Midnight Studios, Lupo found another uniform.
“Hey,” Lupo said. “In here?”
“Yeah, but it’s not pretty.” The cop shook his head. “Thought I’d seen it all.”
“We all do,” Lupo said, “until we see more.”
“Fuckin’ degenerates…”
Lupo patted the guy on the arm. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Thought I was. But not this shit.”
Lupo nodded and stepped through the paint-flecked doorway. It was clearly a low-rent movie studio with a wooden floor reception area leading to a series of office rooms at the far end, and an arch leading the other way to the floor’s main space, a gutted loft with random mountains of crappy furniture piled up throughout. He stood for a second wondering which way to head, and then DiSanto came out of one of the office doors to the left, and Lupo saw that the other cops were in there, too.
“It’s a nice one, Nick. The meatwagon guys are just waiting for you before scooping up the vic.”
“Gee, thanks, it’s so thoughtful of them.”
“Aim to please,” said DiSanto.
“What’s the deal?” Lupo said quickly. His partner would head into total cliché-mode if not stopped.
“Looks like a low-budget movie outfit. The guy’s apparently an accountant and camera operator. We’re checking on the name. He might have interrupted a robbery, or at least an intruder. But it looks like he was punished way beyond what would have been necessary.”
“Witnesses?”
“Uniforms are hittin’ the other tenants, but except for the stores on the first level, these other places are fly by night. Nobody home most of the time. Doesn’t look like anybody saw a thing.”
“Who called it in?” Lupo was at the door by now.
DiSanto rolled his eyes. “Anonymous phone tip.”
“I hate those,” Lupo growled.
“Yeah.”
Anonymous tips always meant an agenda.
Lupo waved him off and stood looking at the doorjamb and the open door itself. It was one of those industrial loft doors, covered in riveted sheet metal panels and painted with sloppy, white brush strokes. There was no sign of tampering that he could see. The lock’s bolt was simply open, retracted into the door. Inside, a dead bolt stood open. Lupo backed onto the landing and down the top few stairs, searching carefully for any recognizable signs left by the deadly visitor. Gravel, dirt, grass, twigs. But there was nothing.
Surreptitiously, Lupo sniffed the air. He was learning more and more about scents, honing an ability to catch, separate, and memorize them. This skill had helped with the Martin Stewart case, but not at all with identifying other shapeshifters. Perhaps it was an innate defense mechanism—if they could sense each other too easily, they’d tear each other apart on meeting.
The stairs held a mélange of scents he could identify. Paint and thinner and wood varnish were foremost. Then there was a layer of rotting food, maybe salads and rancid Chinese takeout. He figured the people who worked on the films, whatever they were, probably ate nothing but boxed food. He figured there’d be a barrel of trash inside the gutted space.
Of course he smelled people smells, but they were normal and nondescript. Normal in that he caught notes of sweat and hair spray, cologne and aftershave, rancid breath, urine, and probably flatulence. And even semen, like maybe some trysts had taken place inside the film studio offices. A casting couch? More porn?
Whatever. It was meaningless. Probably dozens of people had trooped up these stairs. Film folks, actors, extras, friends of friends, and at least one murderer.
Lupo grinned mirthlessly. Maybe if he forced a Change the Cre
ature inside could detect something he’d missed. Maybe he’d come back later, after hours, and try it. His mentor and lover Caroline had nurtured his experimental fugues. But he needed quiet and no interruptions.
His control was still limited and the Creature cranky. It was just too risky to jump into recklessly.
He heard more footsteps on the stairs below and snagged a certain scent—Lieutenant Bakke—surging toward him.
Shit.
“Who caught the squeal?” he barked upward.
The lieutenant was nothing if not a people person. He was all business, everyone knew that, but what was he doing at a crime scene?
“DiSanto and I got it,” Lupo said, making way for the short, wide-bodied cop. “What’s up?”
“I hear this is pretty disgusting. Came to see for myself.”
“Feel free,” Lupo said. Knock yourself out, he wanted to say.
The older cop bulled his way inside. Lupo glanced at his watch.
“Jesus!” Bakke said, edging out the door.
Two minutes twenty. He’d lasted longer than Lupo thought he would.
Bakke’s hand shook as he fumbled out a cigarette and struggled with a lighter. Then he saw Lupo’s look and realized he wasn’t supposed to smoke at a crime scene and put the cigarette away, crushing it in the process. His hand shook as he finally got the lighter back in his pocket.
He sighed. “Now, that’s why I got off the streets.”
“Yes, sir. It’s a bad one.” You don’t know the half of it.
“I hadda check it out. Somehow this has filtered up the ranks, and I got some probing questions from—” He straightened suddenly. “Well, no matter. I checked it out. You guys have it in hand?”
“Scene’s secure. The lab guys have been through. Coroner’s van is on its way. Clean-up’s gonna be a bitch. We’re sifting through stuff, figuring ID, possible motives, you know the drill.”
“Yeah, Lupo, I remember,” Bakke said. “I ain’t been flying a desk that long.”
“No sir.”
“Carry on, then. But keep me in the loop.” He stared at Lupo, his eyes narrowing. “And I mean that. No whitewash. Except with the press. Keep sordid details out of any statements. In fact, don’t make any. I’ll take care of it.”
Wolf's Edge (The Nick Lupo Series Book 4) Page 2