“Jesus, half the department is here. The fuck needs this much shoe leather?”
Lupo shrugged and shook his head. “Must be a bad one. But it’s attracting more attention than if they kept it quiet, that’s for sure.” He flashed his badge at a young uniform he didn’t recognize. “Homicide, Lupo.”
The cop might have been green, but Lupo realized he was also green in the sense of being sick. The kid nodded once and waved them inside with a shivery dip of his head.
“It’s bad,” he said. His voice was shaky.
“They’re all bad, son,” Lupo muttered.
“No, I mean really bad, sir. I mean fucking Iraq bad. I did two tours there with the Guard, sir, and this is worse than anything I ever seen.”
They left him behind, shaking his head.
“Christ, what an intro,” DiSanto said.
But then they stepped into the harshly lit interior of the store.
The level of carnage was every bit as bad as the cop at the door promised. Several CSI personnel in white suits stepped in and out of the blood and alcohol lake that stretched across the floor, their faces revealing queasy stomachs. Crimson splashes painted walls and shelves. And body parts lay in heaps throughout the space. A series of severed heads adorned the counter of one of the checkout stations.
“Shit,” DiSanto said, his throat bubbling. He turned away and vomited near the door. “Sorry, Nick, this is too fucking much,” he said, wiping his mouth.
“Yeah, it is.” Lupo waved at a CSI-suit and asked a wordless question. The guy nodded and used gestures to show Lupo where he could step.
He squatted near a stack of severed arms and legs. They’d been gnawed, torn from the bodies with supernatural strength and then chewed like chicken drumsticks.
Fuck.
Another overt message.
“What the hell is this place?” he asked DiSanto, who was mopping his brow with a shaky hand.
“Huh? Liquor store.”
“No, what is it called?”
DiSanto made a face to indicate he wasn’t all that keen on doing irrelevant research for Lupo. He flipped through his smart phone’s screens. “It’s called… Wolf Liquor & Wine.
“Goddamn it!”
“What?”
“Just goddamn it, that’s all.”
“Name mean anything to you?”
“No,” he lied. “But there’s a coincidence for you…”
DiSanto looked blank, the expression intensified by the lack of color in his face. He shrugged. “I don’t get it.”
Damn it, if I tell him I have to explain it. If I don’t and he gets it—or the task force gets it—then what will they make of it? Can it be spun in some innocuous way?
“Remember our low-rent movie producer vic?”
“Lenny, uh, Wolf.” Light dawned on his face. “Ah, Wolf Liquor. You figure the same family?”
“Don’t know, but it’s worth a shot,” Lupo said. They’d bark up the wrong tree, but who would ever make the right connection other than him, anyway?
DiSanto got on the phone and read off the names. “Sandy, be a pal and run some names for us. Check any obvious connections.” He spelled out the names and clicked off.
“Maybe a family feud kinda thing? Or an OC deal?”
Lupo shook his head. “I don’t see organized crime doing this. This is more Mexican cartel sort of work, and there’s no likely connection there. I mean, we’ll check, but I doubt it.”
“Didn’t the Mafia use to cut people up with blowtorches? In the golden age, the Seventies?”
“Yeah, I read those books too. From Valachi to Mafia, USA to the Executioner novels. But it was something they did in a few cases. Call it a case-by-case basis. Not a typical policy, or a routine approach. They didn’t all go out and buy torches. Anyway, these poor folks don’t show any burn marks, and there’s no burned flesh stench.”
“Plenty of other stench, though,” DiSanto said. He pinched his nose. Fecal matter from the disembowelments had been as ubiquitous as blood, staining most of the floor space. They’d had to follow a no-contamination path marked out by the crime scene guys.
“Got that right.”
They poked around, staying out of the CSI-folks’ way, not touching much. There was little forensic evidence to be found, though Lupo would have bet they’d find some canid hair. Once again, the very slight DNA differences between canis lupus and canis lupus familiaris—the domesticated dog—would lead the ME’s staff into declaring they weren’t sure what had shed in there, but since a wolf was unlikely they’d chalk it up to being a dog. Maybe there wasn’t a dog in the family, and maybe they’d wonder about the name Wolf and the possible wolf hair, but there wasn’t much chance they’d jump to the right conclusion.
Lupo discreetly sniffed several small puddles left near the corners of the sales space. There was no doubt, it was strong-smelling urine. He bet himself that changing now would have given the Creature a good sniff of the rogue wolf who had done all this damage. He had raged, killed sales staff and several customers, and then marked his territory.
Part of the message.
But what was the message?
I know who you are?
Wolfpaw is sniffing around you again?
I’m coming for you, Lupo?
If it was Wolfpaw’s work, then why pussyfoot around? Why not just come gunning for him? What was the point of the subtle messages, flags to grab his attention? What was the point of butchering innocent people? Was it to weigh on his conscience? Was it a challenge? A plea for capture?
Jesus, were they toying with him?
And if they were, how much danger was Jessie in?
Chapter Nine
Killian
“Listen, we need to talk again.” He snorted. “No, not about me. About our friend and his woman. I’ve got somebody reporting to me, and it turns out she’s spending an inordinate amount of time and cash in the local casino. What’s that say to you?”
Marcowicz was silent as he thought about it. “Could be nothing. Maybe she just likes gambling.”
“I have it on good authority they argue about it a good deal.”
“Hm, then it could be a problem of sorts. Maybe—”
“Look, she was up to her neck in that incident up north, you know, the so-called casino robbery gone wrong.”
“Yeah, sure, I’d forgotten about that.”
“So she’s a doctor, yet she took out a couple of those thugs herself, toting a shotgun no less. Any chance for a reaction there?
“Sure, sure,” Marcowicz said thoughtfully. “I guess she could be suffering some latent PTSD. You say she’s gambling?”
“Like there’s no tomorrow. Like somebody’s putting a gun to her head.”
“Hmm, I’d have to talk with her at length to diagnose, of course—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just diagnose with me, don’t worry about her.” Killian was getting tired of talking to the psychologist, who tended to get wrapped up in his own little world and forget about the context.
“Yes, I think Post-Traumatic Stress could cause someone to go overboard and indulge in some previously uninteresting activity. The fact that gambling tends to be self-destructive might be a clue. But didn’t you tell me she was already gambling before the shoot-out?”
“Seems like it, from what I’ve been able to find out. The surviving guards all placed her there regularly, dropping good money with a gaming card.”
“Maybe, and it’s just a guess, she was already trying to process something traumatic by indulging in behavior contradictory to her usual character, and the shootings simply accelerated or exacerbated it and—”
“And made her worse?”
“Sure, possible.”
“Maybe she was already pissed—”
“Upset.”
“Whatever. Maybe she had a gripe with her boyfriend before that, and now it’s just a bigger gripe.” Killian wanted it to be clear in his head.
“I’d guess it’s p
ossible. Likely, even.”
“Maybe if she knew her boyfriend was a murderer, could that do it?”
“Is he a murderer?” Marcowicz asked cautiously. It would change everything in their conversation.
Killian gritted his teeth painfully. “Not that I can prove, yet. But it’s possible.”
He cut off the doc, thanking him. Time to see Bakke? Where did the lieutenant stand?
Lupo
He took a minute to dial up Jessie’s phone, but got her voicemail.
“Jess, it’s me, call me as soon as you get this. I think there’s a chance we’re in the crosshairs again, dammit. It’s just a feeling, but I’d like to know you’re okay.” He hesitated. If he sounded too angry, she’d ignore him. “So, wherever you are, give me a call.”
He suspected she’d gone to the casino again.
Damn it.
Maybe it was better, being in such a busy place. Maybe it would make a hit or a snatch harder to pull off.
But he figured a pro would handle it just fine, and this new enemy wolf was a pro.
“I love you, Jess,” he added just as his recording time cut him off. Did the words get recorded or not?
No way to tell now.
Heather
She stood behind the barricades hastily erected by the uniforms stationed outside the liquor store. Almost two dozen of the cops milled around or held the forming crowd at bay. A CSI van and an SUV from the ME were pulled up at the door, so she couldn’t see inside. Lupo’s damned Maxima sat farther up the street, outnumbered by enough squad cars to populate a parking lot. Would he ever spring for a ballsier car? He was a Corvette or at least a Mustang kind of guy. But she knew he’d had the Maxima’s engine swapped out for something with custom growl.
She frowned at the circus-like quality of the response.
What the fuck happened here?
The scanner chatter she had heard in the motel made it clear this was no typical store robbery. The few veiled references—soon dropped in lieu of a complete lack of details—reached across the police bands, and she heard Lupo’s call sign at some point. They used cell phones but also a dispatcher like the old days here, and she’d been able to figure out that Lupo was the lead cop on this one, and that it wasn’t the only butchery done recently here in town. Barely in town an hour, and she was already getting dragged into something bizarre. She’d have to work her sources.
She pulled wrinkled clothes from one of her bags almost without looking. Tight jeans, a black, button-down blouse, a thin gray sweater over it, and her leather bomber jacket with the Harley-Davidson logo in conspicuous prominence. Standard undercover look for her, especially here—the center of the Harley universe (after all, the Harley museum was only a couple miles back the way she’d come). She’d finished dressing with impatient little gestures.
The game’s afoot!
Then she’d found her way to the crime scene and parked a couple blocks away. Walking in, she did a double take when she saw the store’s sign: WOLF LIQUOR & WINE.
Kind of took her breath away, knowing what she did. Coincidence?
Did she believe in those anymore?
Hiding within the crowd gathering behind the barricades, she surveyed as much of the scene as she could. On her turf, she would have used and abused her press credentials, but here she was out of her new haunts, unrecognized, and she thought that remaining under the radar might be best.
Especially since her hasty retreat out of town the last time she’d crossed paths with Nick Lupo. Chances were he wasn’t happy with her. She would approach him, of course, but first she wanted to get a sense of what was what.
The hearings had opened up a new area of inquiry for her. Even though Lupo likely held a grudge against her, the fact that she hadn’t been the rogue wolf he thought her to be would end up working in her favor. She hadn’t expected to get embroiled in a case involving the reviled Wolfpaw, but having been so fortunate, she had now made the bizarre contractor group part of her life.
Not a good batch of enemies to make, now, is it?
What was it about this weird werewolf culture that made her loathe them, made her want to take them down?
Could it be that the only werewolves she’d met were all monstrous killers, especially those she had learned had killed their way through their Iraq assignments?
Or could it be that opposing Wolfpaw put her on the side of Nick Lupo?
A delicious shiver zipped through her favorite body parts and she chuckled. She figured it wouldn’t take a lot to steal Nick from that doctor chick. She was cute, no denying, but she was as dull as a ten-year-old knife. Heather figured she and Lupo could share some pretty exciting times. Maybe no more hunting the homeless—been there, done that!—and no more sleeping around…
Well, how about being more careful? When she’d taken up with that slut Erica, how could she have known Erica was actually the cop Sheila Falken—the Wolfpaw operative who was framing her for a series of murders in order to expose and kill everyone who knew about werewolves? If she were more careful, she wouldn’t get so close to one of the enemy again.
But getting close to Lupo, that she was rather looking forward to. She’d had him wrapped around her little you-know-what, until he caught a case of conscience. She could do it again.
“Hey, officer, what’s going on?” It was worth a try.
“Official police business,” the guy growled without turning around.
“But, sir, I was supposed to meet someone in there!”
The cop turned, and his eyes flicked over the people standing there. Heather raised a hand. “My boyfriend told me to meet him here. We were gonna buy some champagne to celebrate our, um, anniversary.”
His glance roved over her face and, of course, down to her breasts. She’d left her jacked unzipped, and her chest was impressive enough to make him miss a beat.
“Ma’am,” he stuttered, “are you sure this is the place? His car parked anywhere near here?”
Now that she’d engaged him, he was hooked. She batted her eyes at him, as if she were blinking hard imagining that something had happened to her “boyfriend.”
“I don’t see his car, but he hasn’t shown up, so I don’t know.” She put just enough near-desperation in her tone to hitch her wagon to his sympathy. “Maybe if I could check inside?”
He grimaced. “Uh, no, ma’am, you wouldn’t want to do that.”
He looks sick! What the hell happened in there?
“Is there anyone I can talk to?” Why not take the chance? If Lupo came out, she could just melt away before he reached her. The crowd was growing, rubbernecking and jostling her from behind.
“I’ll check,” he said, but he was shaking his head. He mumbled into his shoulder radio. “Okay,” he said. “Somebody’s comin’.”
Shit! Maybe she’d overplayed her hand. If Lupo came out, he’d recognize her.
She stood on her toes to look from behind a tall guy who hogged the front of the barricade. His crew cut looked fresh, and she could see the tip of an elaborate tattoo on his neck.
Military guy, she thought from force of habit.
Good looking guy, too. Muscles stood out on that neck. His jaw was chiseled to perfection.
She waited a minute, knowing the cop was still checking her out and pretending she didn’t notice. She did notice that the hunky military guy seemed to be watching her from the corner of his eye, too. She was ready to duck behind him if Lupo himself took the call.
Nope, she saw the door open, and DiSanto squeezed past the guard and onto the sidewalk, looking for the cop who had called in. They conferred in whispers, then DiSanto looked at her, and his eyes widened slightly.
Did he recognize me? Or was he just admiring?
“Uh, your boyfriend might be in there?”
She nodded, biting a lip. Very worried now.
“Are you the cop—I mean, officer in charge?”
“DiSanto, homicide,” he said, sidestepping the question.
�
��Homicide?” she squealed. “Oh, no!”
“Can you describe your boyfriend?”
She hesitated. Made it look good. She’d always been fast on her feet, a good actress even in grade school. She knew how to underplay a role.
“Uh, almost as tall as this guy—” she tilted her head at the guy in front of her, “—but he’s got long, dark hair and a goatee, and he wears earrings in both ears. I told him they make him look—”
“No need to worry, ma’am.” DiSanto broke into her stream of consciousness with a tight smile. “Nobody in there matches that description. Maybe he’s just late.”
“Oh, thank God! Thank you, officer.”
“No problem.” He gave the rest of the crowd a pan, then sidled toward the door again.
She was about to step back, out of the crowd, when she caught the military guy’s eye. Or he caught hers.
Undressed her.
She was used to it, but this was a little different. His intense gaze seemed to penetrate her disguise, her motive, her story. She kept going and felt his eyes on her even when she turned away. Even as she walked to her car.
Creep.
Then again, he was just her type.
She forgot about him when she started to plan how she would re-enter Lupo’s life. This wasn’t the place. He would have shoved her aside so quickly her head would have spun itself back to blonde.
No, maybe this needed a subtler approach.
But what the fuckety-fuck-fuck had gone on in there? DiSanto’s look had been grim, and he was a guy who’d eat a chilidog at an autopsy.
She checked back over her shoulder, but big Military Tattoo was nowhere to be seen.
Sigfried
He awoke with a hammering throb in his head, the result of overindulging in his best twelve-year-old single malt after the session with Margarethe.
She had stayed for a drink with him, then attended to the disposal. He had raised her pay grade in Wolfpaw, and her new “section” provided various discreet services to employees both at home and overseas. She’d been very accommodating since her takeover of the dom business, and he saw no problem with using her for other purposes. When the field commanders needed R&R packages for the men, a certain discretion was necessary, and the last people he’d had on had been prone to spilling their guts to the fucking press. It was but one reason he was called up to face those wrinkly old dinosaurs of congress.
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