Wolf's Edge (The Nick Lupo Series Book 4)

by W. D. Gagliani

  “We need to have a little talk,” Lupo snarled, barely controlling the growl that threatened to erupt from deep inside. Rage brought the Creature much closer to the surface than he was usually comfortable with.

  “Take your hands off me!”

  Lupo increased his grip and yanked the big cop off-balance, twisting him around in a tight circle that took him back into his cubbyhole office.

  “What did you do?” he growled. “How did you put the pressure on Bakke?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Killian tried to shrug his way out of Lupo’s grasp, but the cop’s hands were like steel bands. “Get the fuck—”

  Lupo’s grip tightened and fabric tore. His face was inches from Killian’s.

  “You have connections with the mayor’s office. You always did, you bastard. And you pulled strings to get me assigned to this murder, and then you turned around and put the wringer on Bakke.”

  “No, I—”

  “Shut up. Why would you do it when you know what I am, what I can do to you?”

  “What you are? Besides a crooked cop and a killer? I saw you kill Arnow—”

  “I said shut up.”

  Lupo’s hands had steadily traveled up Killian’s clothing, and now his grip cut off the IA cop’s breathing. Killian started to choke. Lupo shook him like the proverbial rag doll.

  “I wondered why we got pressure so quickly. Usually takes a day or two to get the mayor’s office in a tizzy, but they were on us like glue in less than two hours. I wondered about that, Killian, about who’d benefit most if we got our hands tied before we could even start. And it’s you—you can’t stand me, you want to get rid of me—”

  Killian’s ruddy face was turning from red to blue as Lupo’s grasp cut off his air. Killian’s hands batted weakly at Lupo’s chest, then down and against the flimsy wall behind him.

  “It’s what you saw, isn’t it?” Lupo sputtered. “You could leave it alone, but you choose not to.”

  The Creature hovered close to the surface, barely one or two layers below. Conflict tended to grant it greater control.

  Which Lupo knew was dangerous.

  If he didn’t relent, Lupo would change right here and now. He knew it, but he went on, cutting it close.

  “Plus you been talking to the shrink, Marcowicz, right?”

  Killian’s eyes were bulging, his hands still trying to beat a tattoo rhythm on Lupo’s chest but faltering fast.

  “What did you tell him?”

  He shook Killian easily even though the IA cop was bigger. If his hands turned to claws, he’d be ripping Killian’s chest cavity open, tearing out organs and steaming entrails. Lupo knew he was on the brink, and yet it was getting him nowhere. Killian’s eyes had seemed confused and unfocused even before the choking had begun. This was just his fury being released, focused on Killian because he didn’t know where else to focus it. Not yet, anyway.

  Lupo loosened his grip and Killian sagged, gasping for air and starting to cough violently. Lupo let him, giving just enough to let the cop realize he still meant business. Then he shook Killian again.

  “What. Did. You. Tell. Him?”

  Killian wheezed and coughed, his face scarlet. “Nothing!”

  “Tell me the truth,” Lupo snarled.

  Then hands grasped his arms and tore him off Killian so suddenly that he was thrown off-balance and Killian fell back into the wall.

  “Nick, what the hell?”

  DiSanto’s hands on Lupo angered the Creature. The growl that erupted from Lupo’s throat was made of raw animal rage and, for a second, Lupo felt control slip away.

  Under his clothing, he knew tufts of stiff hair sprouted up his arms and back.

  He knew he’d start to ripple in a second.

  DiSanto must have seen the kaleidoscopic changes in Lupo’s eyes, because he recoiled and released his arms. And stepped back.

  “What— what’s the problem?” he said, blinking rapidly and retreating further from the animal he saw reflected in his partner. “Killian, you all right?”

  Killian was still in the middle of a coughing fit, but he nodded. His face was bleached white, like chalk.

  Lupo turned his angry glare from DiSanto, who tried hard to ignore it, to Killian. He thrust a sharpened fingernail at Killian’s chest, hard enough to leave a bruise.

  “Better hope I don’t find out you’re lying. I’ll finish this if I do. You and the Doc better be on your guard.”

  “Threatening me?” Killian was recovering color and dignity.

  Lupo almost gagged on the smell of cheap burritos that pervaded the office.

  “Yeah, matter of fact.” He was coming down off the Creature high. Miraculously, because things had almost gotten out of hand.

  DiSanto looked from one to the other. “We good here? We done?”

  Lupo glared at Killian one last time. “For now.”

  Outside the office, DiSanto whirled on Lupo. “What the fuck, Nick?”

  Lupo sighed, the Creature having retreated back to wherever it rested between changes. He knew the hair had retreated, too. How much to tell DiSanto? His partner had no idea what had happened outside the casino before he’d shown up. No idea what Killian had seen.

  “Look, Killian’s the reason we’ve got heat on this case already. The stiff’s barely cold, and we’re getting the heater routine? Had to be instigated from within. Think about it.”

  He remembered to limp slightly. Didn’t help that he tended to forget he was supposed to be wearing a prosthesis. He did, but it was a fake one designed by his special effects wizard friend. His forgetting to limp probably reminded Killian of the cover-up every day. Something had been building up in the IA cop since the incident, and he’d figured out a way to hassle Lupo—through his cases. There was no way he could know about Lupo’s suspicions that Mr. Wolf’s murder might have been a message to him after all.

  DiSanto was nodding. “Sure, I believe that. I’m not, uh, aware of what exactly went down at that casino, but since then he’s been actin’ like a dog with a chew-bone, working it around and around. Figure he had to crush it sometime.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Lupo sighed. His hands and feet tingled. A sort of foiled-wolf adrenaline letdown, maybe. The Creature’s disappointment at not being given the chance to rip apart something warm and bloody. “What are you doing here so early?”

  “Got the ME’s autopsy report on Lenny Wolf. Got more info on Wolf’s video business, too.” He smirked.

  “Start with the autopsy,” Lupo said, knowing there was little chance the business angle was relevant. They reached their own corner desk area, a wide, shared cubicle where they could sit back to back, several computer displays spread out next to them showing various law enforcement database log-ons ready for input.

  “Funny stuff, Nick.”

  “Yeah?” Shit, he just knew where this was going.

  “Yeah. Seems that Wolf’s body remains are full of teeth marks. The large enough parts, anyway.”

  “Teeth?” He knew how to play the game, he’d had enough practice. But it was a pain. “Whaddya mean, teeth?”

  “Not human teeth. Animal. Dog or dog-like.” DiSanto raised an eyebrow. “Remind you of anything?”

  Lupo frowned. “Not off-hand.”

  “Not that long ago, the frat-boy bike gang, remember the one you collared, got his ticket punched later on? Remember, he said he was attacked by a giant dog the day of the bust. ME concurred. Found some weird DNA. He called it an error. And…”

  “And?”

  “Those animal attacks in Wausau? You worked those with that cop, Falken?” He shook his head. “Damn, she was somethin’. Too bad she had to get killed by those casino robbers. Anyway, the animal attacks. What’s going on, Nick?”

  Christ, the facts were closing in on him.

  He sighed. “I don’t really know, but I’ve noticed those connections too. Seems like, lately, half the stuff we do is connected.”

  “What did
you and Falken find out about the animal attacks?”

  “Unfortunately, nothing. We dropped them when the casino robbery came along. Then Falken got killed, and I hadn’t seen any more obvious animal attacks since then. It seemed we were done with those.”

  “What about wolves?”

  Lupo’s head snapped sharply around. “What?”

  “You know, the reintroduction went too well. Wolves are thriving. The packs are growing in size. Lots of farmers want them off the protected lists, especially if they have to choose between the wolves and their livestock.”

  “I’m against hunting them,” Lupo said, his voice hoarse. “Unless I can get a sick individual in my cross-hairs. That one I’d take out, just to put him out of his misery. Plus it might have been a sick wolf who attacked humans.”

  “Here in town?” DiSanto said incredulously.

  “No, DiSanto,” Lupo snorted. “Not here. Here it’s a whole other deal.”

  Lupo’s phone buzzed and he snatched it off its cradle. “Yeah, homicide. Lupo.”

  Crap.

  He met DiSanto’s eyes and nodded once.

  Killian

  He resisted the urge to go home and shower.

  The bastard had almost killed him, cut off his air.

  Strong. He’s a lot stronger than he looks. And pissed off. Out of control.

  Detective Lupo had to be stopped. Killian rubbed his neck where the other cop’s hands had almost crushed his larynx. The bruise would be embarrassing.

  Actually, Killian was embarrassed about the fact that he had some sort of hazy memory of having seen something, having been part of something, but he couldn’t remember it.

  That was one reason he had started to see Marcowicz. The police psychologist had already given him some dirt on one Dominick Lupo, but now Killian also needed the shrink’s help. At least, he thought he did. He’d always been solidly pragmatic, his feet on the ground, however you wanted to wrap it, he had taken for granted his own lack of stress-related mental problems.

  But now Marcowicz was telling him just that. He theorized Killian had suffered some kind of trauma, and now he’d blocked it—mostly, if not completely—from his memory. Marcowicz had expressed surprise it was Killian’s shooting of Tom Arnow he did remember. Of course, Killian couldn’t cop to the truth there—that he hadn’t shot the sheriff…

  Isn’t there some song about shooting the sheriff?

  …because Lupo had done it, using Killian’s Glock, and he seemed to believe whatever else Killian knew would get him a section-eight—or whatever cops did to ease out the mental cases.

  Well, fuck that, Killian thought. I’m gonna figure out what I saw and why it’s so important to Nick Lupo, and then I’m going to roll the dice.

  In the meantime, Killian would stick with Lupo like a virus, apply heat whenever possible, and try to prepare for his ultimate revenge—serving up the crooked cop to a review board that would strip him of his badge, and hopefully of his freedom.

  He closed his office blinds, leaving only a tiny slit through which he could survey Lupo’s domain. His phone buzzed and he scooped it off the desk.

  “Yeah?”

  He listened, grunting. Then he hung up, thought for a second, and dialed quickly. He said very little. Then he pushed the phone away and sat back to wait, closing his eyes and smashing his hands into his eye sockets until he thought his head would burst from the pressure.

  Heather

  She pulled off I-94 and skirted the downtown exit, choosing to head west through the Marquette interchange and head for the western suburbs where she could find one of the few remaining mom-and-pop motels.

  At the wheel of an anonymously sensible black Hyundai Sonata, she regretted having disposed of her beloved silver Lexus SUV—but it was too recognizable, especially by people she was most likely to run into here. She’d never be able to do surveillance in that distinctive vehicle, and she’d decided to make herself match the unflashy sedan. She had dyed her signature honey-blonde mane a convincing shade of black, changing her make-up and clothing to go with the new, more serious look.

  A while back she’d considered a nose job to change the planes of her face, but frankly her “condition”—as Nick Lupo would say—made her quite nervous to go under the knife. Who knew what might happen while under general anesthesia? No, she had resorted to the more simplistic methods of disguise, and so far it had worked in various situations—some more interesting than others.

  She’d just sat in on the first congressional hearings on Wolfpaw and its crimes in Iraq, and no one in the Washington crowd had recognized her even though she had worked for two New York television stations since ditching her old job and haunts in Wausau, Wisconsin. It was amazing what little alterations could to make one look completely different.

  But she was still an imposing figure, an Amazon with patrician features and a figure to drive men—and women—wild, and an enthusiastic interest in indulging herself and experimenting with both whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  She smiled tightly as she followed the traffic flowing past the Miller Park baseball stadium. She clearly remembered the threesome she’d had with two hometown baseball players not so long ago, and later she’d slept with the wife of one of them. Well, there’d been very little sleeping, as the wife had clearly meant to exact some payback on her unfaithful husband but had found in Heather such a responsive playmate that all thought of revenge had left her pretty little head—mostly while receiving head! Heather recalled.

  She remembered another sports urban legend she had personally researched. Someone had once told her (with a smirk) that in the “old days,” women who sat in the front row at the famed Lambeau Field, where the beloved Green Bay Packers practiced their craft, would sometimes go commando and spread their legs to give the hunky football players a show. With the intention, of course, of advertising a certain interest in playing another kind of game altogether.

  Intrigued, and certainly tingled, Heather had wielded some of her considerable influence to wangle such a seat at the perennially sold-out Lambeau for a late summer game. She’d researched the seating chart and found several areas where the tactic could still be employed, which was difficult because over time the front row had been masked with colorful rubber matting (perhaps as a response to the unofficial entertainment, which increasingly could be caught on network cameras now that technology made it easier).

  She had enjoyed the game very much, and flashed her wares at every opportunity—lining up players as well as coaches and assistants and new fans who gawked unabashedly at what she allowed them to see. A new “Brazilian” had given her the weaponry to decimate any competition that might have shown up in one of the few other potential hot seats.

  Reaching down to slap-five with passing players and others after the game was won, she had found her hands filled with scraps of white wrapping tape with phone numbers and autographs Sharpied on. What a series of unbridled sexual adventures that experiment had led to, she recalled now, feeling the heat creep up on her. She had worked her way through the list and kept the autographs to this day in a bound memory book along with promotional photos of her conquests. A couple of them still emailed her, though they had moved on from Green Bay.

  Ah, memories! She turned down the car’s heater. She didn’t need it, suddenly.

  In the suburb of West Allis, she was able to locate a run-down motel of Sixties vintage. Not quite a Bates Motel, but certainly heading in that direction. A U-shaped two-story building with outdoor balcony access wrapped around a dingy pool area covered for the approaching winter. A burned-out sign advertised low rates, perpetual vacancies, and free HBO. A satellite dish, apparently from the early twentieth century, took up a quarter of the tiny concrete lawn. Two semis and a smattering of outdated cars indicated the clientele was sleepy truckers and adulterous liaisons.

  Within minutes, Heather had a key card and directions to her new temporary abode, both issued to her new identity. The door to 113
displayed the same poorly done retro-fit of the electronic key system, a window covered from the inside by a thick sheet of plasticized rubber curtain, and a protruding air conditioning unit that probably let in more cold air now than what it kicked into the room intentionally in summer.

  Now it was time to reconnect with some of her old friends.

  Oh, they’d be real happy to see her again, that was for sure.

  Well, maybe Nick Lupo would be, if he was free of that do-gooder Jessie Hawkins by now. Heather tingled at the thought of her seduction of the homicide cop. They shared a condition, so they would always be more closely connected than he was with the doctor lady.

  Connected, heh.

  Heather smiled. She did indeed hope to connect with Lupo again.

  First to make a couple phone calls, then she would get the lay of the land. She’d only spent a small amount of time in Milwaukee, and while it was no metropolis, at over a million people in the metro area, it wasn’t exactly Wausau, either.

  She plucked a TracFone out of a bagful she’d picked up from a series of vendors while on the road. She pulled a portable police scanner set from her shoulder bag. An old-fashioned tool of the trade, but still a valuable one, especially when most if not all of her sources here were dried up or shut down. It was a whole new world, a blogger’s world, and she felt her beloved journalism career sliding out from under her. In any case, she’d probably be doing an on-line newscast someday soon. She wasn’t sentimental—she’d adapt. And lately she’d adapted a lot.

  Hell, I gave up almost everything…twice.

  This time, I’m getting something out of it and I’m not letting go.

  She flicked on the scanner, locked the door, and went to use the dark-streaked shower. Twenty minutes later, dripping with water as hot as she could get it and wrapped in a stiff towel, she stepped back onto the blue carpeting and heard the squawking coming from the scanner.

  Lupo

  When they walked past the phalanx of uniforms dispatched to keep the neighborhood crowd at bay, it was only after navigating the maze of a dozen police squad cars parked throughout the barricaded street. All the action was in front of a liquor store.