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

by W. D. Gagliani

  “Sure, but I like to check some details myself,” Lupo said casually. “My case, my details, my responsibility. I’m the one who caught this, so you got to humor me, Officer Baranski. Keep me happy, I put in a good word for you down the line.”

  The kid blushed. “Thank you, sir, Detective Lupo.”

  “Cool. Actually, can you head down to the first floor and see if those other neighbors can give a statement now?” He spoke lower. “Maybe you won’t have to be back tomorrow to finish the canvass, you get those statements now.”

  The young cop nodded slowly. This was an assignment he could wrap his mind around, while standing indefinitely in front of a dead guy’s door seemed like a dead end.

  As soon as the kid started down the stairs, Lupo went up. The staircase was dingy and grimy, with here and there the exposed bare brick of the outside wall and crumbling cinderblock on the inside. A building on the wrong side of the development line. Here, the Cream City brick so valued elsewhere was just too deteriorated for restoration.

  He took the stairs by twos, finding nothing but locked doors on every landing. Gray light intruded through greasy, glass block windows that faced the back of the building. The dust on the stairs seemed to have been disturbed by one passing set of footprints. Three flights up, the dust had been kicked up in a confusion of smudges.

  But there was something worse.

  The footprints leading up to the next landing were typical of shoes. The prints that emerged from the kicked-up area were made by a wolf.

  It could have been a dog, and to the average eye it would have been easy to dismiss the marks as having been made by somebody’s guard dog. Except Lupo knew wolf’s prints when he saw them.

  A shiver worked its way down Lupo’s back like a trickle of ice water. A growl worked its way up his throat. The Creature was trying to get out. Needed to get out.

  Now.

  Lupo suppressed the growl, but in a minute he’d stripped off his clothes and tucked them onto the window ledge. He’d planned a recon already, but the wolf prints meant he had to be in wolf form—both for the Creature’s nose and in case he stumbled onto this new adversary.

  Another like him.

  Another monster.

  Lupo concentrated, visualizing his transformation from muscled, naked human to wolf.

  He was getting faster. He’d barely begun to visualize himself running on four giant paws when he felt the transition begin and complete and just like that—it’s a fact, Jack!—he was over and leaping up the same steps, his paws obscuring the other wolf’s marks.

  This territory’s now mine! the Creature seemed to say.

  The usual multitude of sharp scents was like a lancet driven through his nostrils and straight into his brain.

  Chemicals made his nose twitch—paint and thinner and glue. But there were other scents, too. Rotting food, urine, various intermixed perfumes and colognes, sweat, scorched hair, feces, semen, cheap air freshener…

  And another shapeshifter.

  Just as he had thought.

  Now that he was over, the Creature wanted full control, and Lupo felt his influence slipping as the other shapeshifter’s scent grew stronger in his nostrils. Another growl built up from down in his throat, and the Creature’s jaws opened in anticipation of a confrontation.

  It craved conflict. It was a territorial monster, after all, and this other shapeshifter whose scent was in his nostrils was on his turf now.

  Lupo considered how much easier his life had been when he was the only shapeshifter around, even though it had seemed incredibly complex to him. But only being faced with enemies like him, who knew more than him, and who outnumbered him—only now could he see how naïve he had been.

  He let the wolf have its head. Maybe the Creature would lead him to the enemy, though it was unlikely the perp would still be here. Lupo was still trying to figure out the best way to exploit his shapeshifting abilities, but he’d learned quickly they often caused as many complications as they resolved.

  The wolf nosed its way into the open loft on this floor, a wide-open space that had been gutted in preparation for a future tenant.

  The Creature’s almost involuntary growl was a signal it had caught the scent.

  The scent of the werewolf who had been here earlier, waiting for the right time to slaughter the guy downstairs…

  But why?

  Lupo couldn’t help wondering the why of the crime.

  The Creature stalked the space, checking the tall windows, sniffing the unpolished floor, catching the smells of other activity, but also the enemy wolf’s scent and letting it infiltrate its memory. If the Creature came across the same scent, it would remember.

  And that was useful. But how did it help Lupo now? There was no apparent clue as to the motive. The perp had wandered this space, then made his way down the stairs either as human or wolf, and then he’d ripped the poor, dumb, helpless bastard down there to shreds. But why?

  And Lupo had to wonder, then, whether he was the reason. Was he himself the motive? Was the enemy wolf simply raising a challenge flag, marking his territory in blood rather than in the traditional method?

  Was Lupo inadvertently responsible for the poor guy’s death?

  His murder?

  Jesus.

  Mordred

  The band around his head threatened to squeeze his brain out his ears like bloody toothpaste.

  He put his trembling hands up and tried to massage his temples. His bones felt sharp and brittle under the thin layer of skin.

  He closed his eyes and he was back in the lab.

  In the lab.

  The long, bare strips of neon lighting stabbed his pupils and made him shiver with their implied cold.

  No, it was cold.

  He heard voices behind the glass partition, the one that reflected his own distorted image. He knew they huddled back there, watching him like a freak.

  Watching…

  They watched as he reacted to the drugs and to whatever else they put in the syringes. They watched, sometimes, as he writhed on the bare concrete floor like a fish flopping on the grass after having been plucked out of a pond. They watched as he bruised his body and broke his limbs and sometimes as he bled all over their floor, always judging, measuring what their evil would do to him.

  They watched because he was a freak.

  The harsh pressure he applied to his temples started to do the trick, and he came back, thankfully leaving the lab behind. Again. But it was always there, the lab, ready to encroach on him when he was least prepared.

  But now the call of the mission took over his focus, and he knew he was back on track.

  He had left several tiny cams in place throughout the loft itself and also in the staircase, and now he paned the software across the large screen to monitor all the angles simultaneously.

  And then he was watching the cop go through his Change and then sniff the loft.

  Ah, the game’s afoot.

  He chuckled.

  He noted Lupo’s wolf form with interest. He was an oversized black wolf, definitely an aberration. His surveillance logs and videos would formulate a thorough report.

  Doctor Schlosser would be pleased.

  Lupo

  Back at Central, Lupo ripped off his crooked tie. He’d retied it too quickly. He hated those things. Choked him, and he hated to have his neck constricted.

  Maybe it was a wolf thing.

  He stuffed the silver silk tie Jessie had picked out for him into his pocket and hoped she wouldn’t find it. He’d catch hell for that.

  Now that he shared his city space with her, he was acutely aware of how often their different styles somehow managed to clash. His living style was to let things lie where they landed when he tossed them in disgust, anger, or frustration. Her living style was to obsessively pick up after him, criticize his lack of organization when she couldn’t figure out where his stuff belonged, and then nag him about changing.

  Nag?

  Did I real
ly think that about her? About Jessie?

  She’d never been a nag before, but their close proximity lately seemed to bring it out of her. And he had been alone for so long that he hadn’t quite yet managed to relearn how to diplomatically navigate around someone sharing his space for more than a few hours. Which was probably why she’d taken to being away from his place whenever she thought he might be on his way home.

  It was like being married, he figured, without any of the good parts.

  How did we get from there to here?

  She wasn’t really a nag. He chided himself for thinking these thoughts. No, not a nag, but Jessie Hawkins knew she had rights, and she used them.

  “Hey!”

  Lupo turned and shot a blank look at DiSanto, who gave him his version of the Seinfeldian raised eyebrow, pop-eyed headshake that meant What’s wrong with you?

  “What?” He tucked the last of the guilty tie into the evidence-suppressing pocket.

  “I was asking you if you found anything else worth sharing on your whatever you call it, personal canvass?” DiSanto waited for Lupo to swing into his desk chair before finishing in a whisper. “Cause the Loo wants to know what we’ve got. The Third Ward’s too ritzy for disgusting crimes like this, you know that.”

  Lieutenant Walter C. Bakke was the new guy in the homicide squad leader’s office. The last two guys had retired young. Very young. Bakke was trying to buck the trend.

  DiSanto looked around to make sure Bakke wasn’t skulking about. “I hear he’s already gotten a call from the mayor.”

  “The fuck, already?” Lupo made a sour face. “There’s gotta be a mole on the squad. How could he know to get worked up over this already?” But this explained the hurried crime scene visit, the personal interest.

  “You know the Loo. If this were the Inner City, he’d just wave us off to do our thing. But the Third Ward, that’s money. Got to keep the richies happy.”

  Lupo sighed. DiSanto’s humor was dangerous sometimes. He called Bakke “Loo” ostensibly because he was the loo-tenant, but no one other than Lupo had caught on yet that he was also riffing subtly on the boss’s initials.

  God help us the day he figures it out.

  “What about Killian, the bastard? Is he our little underground rat-mammal? He call the mayor?”

  Lupo’s dislike for Griff Killian was well known if not acknowledged, but no one other than the two of them knew the mutual circumstances. Lupo could sense Killian wanted to trap him, but the Arnow killing and its hazy culpability effectively muzzled him.

  For the moment.

  “I don’t know who the rat is,” said DiSanto, “but it doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that we’re taking heat for this thing already, and we don’t have any real leads.”

  Lupo said, “I didn’t find much of anything above or below that loft. Maybe the CSI boys have something. No report yet?”

  “Nah, they’re down a couple with the flu. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “They’re not terribly quick even on a good day.”

  Lupo glanced at Killian’s office window and tried to see through the blinds. His thoughts wandered. There was too much to keep quiet, too much he couldn’t explain. How was he supposed to keep all these secrets when they were about to blow up in his face?

  “Maybe it’s time you trusted DiSanto with your secret,” Ghost Sam said. He was sitting on Lupo’s guest chair. “Maybe it’s time you stopped carrying all the burdens of the world.”

  Lupo tried to ignore the ghostly interruption, but he stayed where he was.

  “You can’t fight them alone,” said Ghost Sam obstinately.

  Go away! You’re dead, Sam. Leave me alone!

  “We have anything new on the victim?”

  DiSanto nodded, checking a notebook teetering on top of a stack of folders. “Yeah, we were right about him being an accountant and camera operator, kind of. Lenny A. Wolf. He’s also listing himself as an independent producer. Midnight Films is his baby. And…”

  “And?”

  “And based on the recordings we found, most of their product is low-grade porn, with a smattering of really cheap horror flicks sold direct to DVD for a pittance.”

  Delayed effect. Lupo felt his ears pop as if the pressure in the squad room had changed.

  “What was that name again?”

  Chapter Four

  Killian

  The day had turned into another haze.

  It was routine by now. He could awaken clear-eyed and filled with purpose, but by noon or one o’clock the haze took over and his brain turned to mush. As if overloaded, the organ would simply refuse to keep two thoughts simultaneously in mind. No matter how many lists, journal entries, freewriting exercises, sessions with the shrink, and whispers in the confessional of the bar he attempted, the haze took over, and he became a diminished version of himself.

  The headache began as soon as he opened his eyes, banged on his temples all day long, and faded only after he drifted off into unsettled sleep. His nights were filled with images of large animals stalking him, galloping on all fours as he ran in place, their hot breath on his neck. He awoke unrefreshed every day, his eyes aching and his head beginning its normal throb. Eventually, his brain packed it in, and he set his forehead down on the desk as long as he could stand it.

  Griff Killian felt hunger as well as the haze lapping at his edges, so he selected a burrito blindly from his cold stash and groaned as he bent to give it a nuking in his tiny microwave stacked on top of his child-size refrigerator. The calories and fat were beginning to take their toll. He wasn’t quite as dashing and imposing a figure as when he had been brought here to the ailing Milwaukee PD to ramp up Internal Affairs and seek out any departmental “bad apples.”

  And he’d been successful, too.

  Maybe too successful. He’d been dubbed the Grim Reaper, and it was said when he walked the halls of the precinct he was recruiting for hell.

  He sniffed the air, enjoying the food’s plastic but somehow appealing aroma as it bubbled in the microwave. He’d had the habit for years, but now no matter how he enjoyed the smell of the heating processed food, when the haze caught him full square, he was barely able to acknowledge that in which he would normally bask.

  Yeah, he’d been very successful, taking the Milwaukee PD into the 21st Century in terms of rooting out its less motivated—or downright criminal—elements. He had become a legend, mostly respected but always with that edge of hatred because Killian’s IA went after even the most mundane corruption, the free concert ticket or occasional coffee handed over unpaid. But for the real bad apples, he was the Grim Reaper.

  Now he had made Detective Dominic Lupo—he sneered, thinking how they called him “Nick”—his pet project. Of course, the curve ball the bastard had thrown him with the Tom Arnow incident had taken him out of the game. But not for long.

  Not for long, you asshole. Not for long.

  Nobody beats Killian.

  They’d said it in grade school, in high school he’d beaten it into them, and in college he’d proven the saying right in so many ways.

  He watched from the narrow slits in his office blinds as Lupo came waltzing in and limped to his desk.

  But that was it, wasn’t it? The bastard didn’t limp to his desk. He didn’t limp at all.

  Arrogant sonofabitch. If he could only prove the mangy cop was faking the injury…

  Old Julia Barrett had been right after all.

  Killian seethed.

  But the cop seemed to have friends in high places. Despite the revolving door in the homicide lieutenant’s office as of late, Lupo just kept skating by. Who protected him? He’d have to check with David Marcowicz and see if he had any theories. He had his own session with Marcowicz, trying to deal with the shooting with which he had been saddled.

  He kept an eye on Lupo. Now the bastard seemed to remember, and he started limping.

  Start-stop, start-stop. Sure as hell not consistent.

  Killian took a bite
of his congealed burrito, and his chest seized up for a moment. This “Hot Flaming” stamp they put on there wasn’t kidding. He felt the reflux starting to happen, but swallowed down the acid bile that rose up and mixed with the beany, cheesy flavor. His belly rumbled.

  He watched as Lupo and the dipshit DiSanto hobnobbed. They didn’t seem so concerned about the gruesome homicide on their blotter, did they? The homicide lieutenant, a new guy named Bakke, was squealing like a pig about pressure, but Killian couldn’t see any of it. The pace in the squad room hadn’t picked up.

  He snagged the phone off his desk and dialed.

  “Marcowicz? It’s Killian,” he said when the whiny voice answered. “I need to see you.”

  He eyed Lupo, who was on the phone now. He hated dirty cops, and Lupo just had to be dirty. Besides what the bastard had done to Killian.

  Why couldn’t he remember exactly what Lupo had done to him? Why did he watch the scene replay itself over and over in the middle of the night, but it remained mostly a haze of indistinct images? There was a chase, a takedown, and a fight, but he simply could not put it in focus. Then suddenly the fucker Lupo shot the other cop, the sheriff, and then from that moment on Killian remembered all too well that Lupo owned him.

  Lupo fucking owned him.

  Killian had survived politically because the inquest had ruled “his” shot had been accidental. What the fuck did they know? Killian knew enough about what had happened to know Lupo had engineered some kind of wild con on everyone. Including him, because he knew he’d seen something he had since blocked. Multiple visits to Marcowicz’s office had not unlocked the truth of what he had seen, but he knew Lupo had him—that what he had seen would get him deep-sixed, dumped, psycho-labeled. Retired, if he was lucky. Otherwise, institutionalized.

  He had to find a way…

  But how to trap him without succumbing to the bastard’s blackmail? Whatever had really happened out there, Lupo seemed sure it would hurt Killian if he squawked.

  Cocksure, actually.

  He had to find a way to trip up the cop that didn’t directly involve him.

  Killian chewed the cold burrito paste thoughtfully. He felt the air build up in his chest and ignored it.