Wolf's Trap (The Nick Lupo Series Book 1)

by W. D. Gagliani

  She finally climbed out of the SUV, checking his mailbox and taking a stack of junk mail and shoppers’ pages to the door. She struggled with the stubborn key before letting herself into his cottage from the upstairs rear, where the bedrooms lined the hall. She headed down the stairs and added the new circulars to the heap on the rough-hewn dining room table just off the kitchen, wondering why he allowed mail to be delivered here at all. God knew, by the time he saw it, it was always outdated and somehow stale, as if it had sagged from the heat or lack of attention. This time, though, a plain white security envelope slid out from between hardware store and gun shop flyers. She wasn’t what one might call nosy, but as she put her hand on the envelope to slip it back into the pile, she couldn’t help but notice the return address. It was the same as Nick’s address, so this letter had come from—his neighbor? And it had been mailed three days earlier.

  She shook her head violently, ashamed of herself. She had pledged never to speculate about his life unless he invited her to, and how likely was that? She placed the envelope with the rest of his mail, but in the middle of the pile, so it wouldn’t look as though she’d singled it out. She chuckled at her own latent sneakiness. Why, she might as well steam it open if she knew how to cover her tracks so well.

  Chuckling, she set about her tasks—waving away the occasional cobweb, firing up the furnace and checking the temperature of the water heater, making sure the appliances were all plugged in and operational, and generally making the place seem less abandoned. She opened the sarcophagus-shaped freezer, which always reminded her of some fifties science-fiction monster movie, and peered inside through the wisps of fog. The usual packages of white-wrapped steaks and chops, separated in a dozen neat, orderly piles. A few frozen pizzas. A couple tubs of ice cream and frozen yogurt. Not much else. She wondered what he would think if he knew she had checked out his eating habits. Well, she had to check the appliances, didn’t she? She paused with the cover open—who ate that much red meat these days? Not a chicken or turkey breast in sight among the neatly labeled packages of roasts and steaks, and no vegetables, either. Talk about meat and potatoes, hold the potatoes! Maybe he bought all fresh produce at roadside stands on the way up. Whatever else she could say about Dominic Lupo, she sure couldn’t argue about his health. He was one of the most robust men she’d ever seen. He wasn’t overly muscled, but he gave the impression of quiet power and controlled grace.

  She stopped in the bathroom and carefully applied a light lavender lipstick while smiling at herself in the mirror. Why not? If you didn’t count knife-wielding weirdos and malcontents, her social life was nonexistent. She admired her new and improved look and slowly put the canister away. Damn it, there was nothing wrong with feeling a little sexy! A shower, clean clothes, and a touch-up— and then she’d pay her special tenant a visit. Meet him at the cabin as he drove up and give him a warm welcome. She laughed a cartoon maniacal laugh. A warm welcome! She’d have to plan her outfit carefully—sexy but practical.

  She hummed “Games People Play” as she dusted the paneled living room and bar area. She couldn’t help grinning like a fool.

  Buck

  Jessie Hawkins wasn’t receding from Buck Benton’s memory. Not yet. He sat in his cell, massaging the bulge in his oily jeans.

  I gotta get me some of that.

  He knew the sheriff and his dinky-doo deputies could see him if they looked through the Plexiglas window set in the door that led to the cells. He didn’t care, hoping they’d see him rubbing himself. He was totally taken with the madam doctor, yes he was. He’d have to talk some at Wilbur about her, see what could be done about her damn nice ass.

  Thinking about it now, Buck reached into his beltless jeans and hoped they’d come see him right then.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lupo

  At home, he didn’t procrastinate. He’d been doing just that, but now he needed an exorcism of sorts. He had to step back just a bit and say good-bye to Corinne, the woman he might have found—had he looked. Her death would forever be on his conscience, albeit once removed, but he would always know he’d let her down.

  So he stiffened his resolve and placed several of Vic’s Corey Diamond DVDs into his changer, skipping ahead through the “safe sex” warnings, Certificates of Compliance, and “coming attraction” ads. He skipped through the credits, launching immediately into a sex scene, but the woman was a brunette. Then a redhead and a blonde and an Asian girl. Then he clicked to the next chapter and there she was.

  Beautiful, vibrant, Corinne Devereaux. She drew the camera to her even though she wasn’t the star. She seemed to suck in the lens, which saw through the homespun qualities Lupo had always known and right into her dark corners, for where Corinne ended and Corey began was apparently a latex and leather sort of place, where rubber sex toys and genitalia mingled with oiled, sweaty bodies in every sexual permutation Lupo could imagine, and then even more. Corinne/Corey at first seemed a mere participant in the scene, but soon it became obvious that she was in control. Her voice barked orders everyone else obeyed, and she took her pleasure from a variety of acts she demanded.

  When the scene ended, Lupo’s skin was sweat-slick. The Creature stirred beneath, aroused by the animal sexuality on the screen and by Lupo’s reaction to it. He was aroused, and he felt guilty. The guilt made him blush—heating up his cheeks—and his breathing increased its tempo

  Corinne’s dominatrix scene was the only one on that DVD, so he shuffled to the next disc and located her much sooner in the mix—maybe her fame from one production had raised her casting level in the other. Here she was almost sweet, a girl-next-door type who started out naive only to be corrupted by neighbors and friends until she became wanton and predatory. Again she soaked up the camera’s attention and became the single most convincing performer, featured in all but one scene. She began as a makeup-free natural beauty, but by the end she had graduated to the made-up look of the hooker, her level of sexuality rising accordingly. Lupo sweated through the whole disc, alternately missing Corinne his neighbor and lusting for Corey the porn starlet. The paradox made his head spin. His animal instincts seemed confused, too.

  He took a half-dozen aspirin with two pints of cold water from his fridge and flicked to the third disc, which was far more hardcore. Here he watched his friend step out of herself and blossom into a supercharged erotic vixen who coupled with men and women, single and double and triple and in group settings, letting them use her like an erotic toy. When the plot line veered into bondage and domination, and the sex became increasingly raw and painful, Lupo shut it off.

  He sat in the flickering light of the blank screen, the last image one that would remain with him forever—Corey Diamond, sandwiched between three willing male partners and in the throes of lust. He knew this ritual would allow him to say his final good-bye to Corinne.

  Layers of guilt ate at him like acid.

  The traffic was light on I45, and Lupo maneuvered around what little there was, making up time before being limited to the two-lane county highways that would take him to his refuge in the North Woods. It was still early enough in spring that few people were likely to brave the cool days and frigid nights, unless their cabins were winterized. Weather was immaterial to Lupo, but he could look forward to less traffic on the roads, less hikers, no hunters and very few nature lovers. Spring up north bloomed late and often unfriendly.

  Lupo gripped the wheel with both hands, his mood grim. He’d had just enough time to throw a bag in the trunk and head for the highway, after attending the funeral he’d arranged for Corinne. It had been a stark, quick last-second service—presided over by a priest Lupo had known all his life and who was not against doing friends personal favors. Lupo had explained the situation, and Father Richard Fellows had come through, never mind that Corinne hadn’t seen the inside of a church for years. Lupo’s call to Corinne’s escort service had yielded several girlfriends and her boss, who turned out quietly dressed and clearly upset. He was sur
prised the friend who had been with Corinne at the mall, the one they had interviewed at the scene, hadn’t come. Stacey. Maybe she was still shell-shocked.

  Eileen Edwards had owned the Roxanne escort service for seven years, she told Lupo, and nothing ever happened to any of her girls.

  “Which is barely any comfort at all in this situation, I know,” she had added quickly. Her wide, clear eyes and generous mouth made her look like some famous television or movie star, maybe a few years past her prime. A Jaclyn Smith or Cybill Shepherd. She seemed genuinely distraught.

  Lupo frowned. “Was there any sign, any sign at all that she was being stalked? Did she seem afraid?” If Eileen Edwards knew about the four letters Corinne had received, she would say so now. She had been interviewed by detectives before Lupo could reach her, but he’d seen the report and she hadn’t mentioned it to them. If she hadn’t known about Lupo’s friendship with Corinne, she did now, and he hoped she’d have some information he’d missed.

  “She did seem on edge lately,” she said, her eyes unfocusing for a second before fixing Lupo squarely again, “but she wouldn’t talk about what was wrong. I thought it had to do with her family.”

  “What about her video porn work?”

  She stepped back and half-smiled, but only for a second. “You don’t pull any punches. But, then, I understand why you wouldn’t. I was fond of her, too.”

  “The porn?”

  “Yes, well, that was her side business. I had advised her against it—ask any of my girls, I always do—but people do what they want despite the advice they’re given. She hadn’t done all that much work yet, I think. Mostly with one or two production companies.”

  “Can you point me in a specific direction? Names?”

  She shook her head. “It was local, I think. Corinne hadn’t made the jump to the L.A. scene yet.”

  “But she would have?”

  Eileen Edwards smiled, and she was indeed beautiful for her age. “Oh yes,” she said with a sure nod. “She had sexuality that oozed from her like sweat. She was bisexual, you know, and I tell you—Corinne could have turned me with just a look.”

  It was more than he really wanted to know, and she smiled at his discomfort. “I hope I’ve been helpful.”

  He gave her his card. “If anything comes to mind.”

  “Of course.”

  He’d watched her walk away sadly, and then all Corinne’s coworkers headed off as a group. Lupo had spoken for a moment with Father Fellows, thanking him for his compassion, then had stood awkwardly at the foot of the open grave. Cemetery workers hovered in the background, waiting for him to leave.

  “Damn it, Corinne,” he whispered. “I could have prevented this.” He felt a tear form at the corner of his right eye and left it there to blur his vision, as if it represented some promise to his friend’s ghost.

  He sensed that someone else had approached and turned slightly. It was a young priest, head bowed, deep in prayer. Lupo was glad there’d been a few people to say good-bye. He said his own farewell under his breath. Though he’d been taught all sorts of prayers, he had learned early that they were meaningless. There were more appropriate, meaningful words in his progressive rock music collection. Lupo nodded at the priest when their gazes met.

  Then he’d walked away and taken the highway out of town. As the city gave way to farmland, he dialed his cell phone.

  “The autopsy report is due day after tomorrow, Nick,” Ben reminded him. “Or sooner.”

  “I’ll be back maybe tomorrow or the next day at the latest. You’ll just have to cover for me with Bowen. Tell him I’m working an angle.”

  “In Eagle River? What angle? Angling, maybe? I don’t think he’ll fall for it.”

  “Try.”

  “I wasn’t gonna tell you, but there’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Yeah.” There was a long sigh over the cell phone’s dead air. “We found another girl an hour ago. Different mall, same deal. Just like the guy said.”

  “Fuck!” Lupo pounded the wheel.

  “No shit. You comin’ back or you want the details?”

  “Details.”

  “Well, it’s the same guy. A real sicko—no doubting this one. Prelim shows an exact match. He did her up the same way, complete with the photo strip of him getting his blow job. She’s wearin’ a lot of hot pink lipstick in the photos, and the guy’s equipment seems to match. The lab’s comparing the two right now, but it’s the same guy.”

  “Yeah,” Lupo said. “It’s not Stacey, is it? Corinne’s friend?”

  “Nah, we’re running her ID. So he somehow gets her into the can and slices her up good. Same again, with one exception. Wrote ‘For Nick’ on her forehead with her lipstick. Everybody’s still gunning for the Satanist angle, and I let ’em. Anyway, he did her after she was dead, the fucker, and really messed up what he left behind. Locked the door and put a maintenance department Out of Order sign on it, so nobody found her. Maybe a couple days. Like maybe he did this right after the other—uh, after Corinne. He’s one lucky son of a bitch, ’cause he should have been covered with blood spatters, but nobody saw nothin’. So, you turned the car around yet?”

  “Too late. I told you, cover for me.”

  “Damn it, Nick, you know Bowen’s got a hard-on for you! And the psycho-doc hates you, too. They might get those little Nick references, they think hard enough. You’re just like your father, more than you know! Stubborn as hell and so set in your ways it’s makin’ me crazy.”

  “Don’t forget to check on those juvie records.”

  Ben growled and muttered, then clicked off.

  As he drove, Lupo pondered Ben’s outburst. He knew Lupo had issues, as they said in therapy-speak, with a domineering father whose love was difficult to express. Even long before the Andy Corrazza incident, Nick Lupo had navigated his father’s orbit with difficulty and mixed emotions.

  Taciturn and stern, Frank Lupo had seemed impossible to please Nick’s entire life. He suspected, and his mother had once confirmed, that it was a combination of a life wasted in the service of others and the loss of Nick’s sister, Carla, when she was just a baby. Nick barely remembered the sister he’d had for such a short while, but the anger and resentment and hurt caused by her death had been like an arrow through the heart of the Lupo household, and therefore the marriage.

  Lupo himself had been rebuffed when, as a young adult, he’d tried to learn the details of his sister’s death in order to clear the air. He had read that airing grievances and heartaches was best, but in his family, the way to deal with crisis and deep feelings was to shut everyone out and keep silent. In fact, he and his father had almost come to blows over the elder Lupo’s unwillingness to speak of whatever incident had claimed his daughter’s life. Frank Lupo had turned Nick’s childhood and his own marriage into some sort of silent hell. Nick had no idea how his mother had coped, but her sad eyes and weakening body told the story all too well. When Nick had challenged his old man’s behavior, a rift opened between them—a chasm that no amount of openness could heal.

  Finally, Nick had felt he had no choice but to cut off his father altogether—the result was years of bitter silence and hurt feelings, resulting in a strained relationship worsened by Nick’s decision to become a cop. Nick had learned long ago to live with the fact that for some reason he was a deep and bitter disappointment to his father. He had asked his mother outright whether he himself had been responsible for his sister’s death, but all she would say was, “Don’t talk about it. It upsets your father.”

  The frustration had driven him further and further away, until the sexy academic Caroline had come along and rescued him from the darkness of his family—and almost from the darkness of his disease, too, if only he had been able to control the wild monster that had gorged on his personality from the inside.

  Now he pulled into and out of Three Lakes, Wisconsin, only twenty minutes or so from his destination. The trees had changed from mostly deciduous to a
lmost all evergreens in the last hour and a half, but the transition hadn’t made him as happy as it usually did. Still, the smells of the woods entered his nostrils in a rush, and he knew that the Creature already looked forward to scampering in the wild. He hoped he could control the Change as he had in the service tunnel. This weekend would serve as a test; he needed to prove to himself that he could repeat it anytime. He hated leaving Ben to handle the case on his own, but he had no choice. If he could take control of the Change once and for all, then he would no longer be a slave to the Creature’s whims.

  Besides, he wondered if the Creature under his control could help his police work. If not to catch criminals, then at least to track them. The Creature’s heightened senses had helped him already, but once completely harnessed, they could rewrite his approach to investigations. It was a fantasy, perhaps, but he sensed that Caroline would have approved. Maybe Corinne, too, if he’d ever had the chance to tell her.

  Three Lakes lay behind him now. Both sides of the road were lined with sentinel-straight tall stands of spindly pines, behind which peeked the occasional boarded-up live bait shop. Too early for the fishing, but only a few weeks would turn the area into a quagmire of tourists and renegade boaters. Lupo took the snaky turns off the main road and followed the signs past dormant resorts and summer retreats behind winding wooded driveways.

  Soon he was nosing onto Circle Moon Drive, past the corner house with its aggressive Doberman—a year-round annoying resident—and past the six other neighboring homes that lined the outer edge of the Circle, three of them with channel frontage. The middle of the three was his permanent rental, a wood-sided cottage forty years old, nestled onto a gentle slope leading down to a recently rebuilt dock that jutted into the shallow channel. The narrow waterway stretched between two medium-size lakes, roughly in the center of the long chain of elongated lakes that ringed the town of Eagle River, four miles away.