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

by W. D. Gagliani

December 15, 1971

  Classes are just about done—only finals left to study for—and already I’m obsessing about going “home.” I can’t really explain it, but I don’t want to see anyone. My aunt and uncle are nice people, but there’s just too much history… God knows, all this psychology I’ve been reading seems to be right on target. I’m nothing but a case history! Hell, my entire family is made up of case histories…my brother’s never likely to get out of that “institution” he’s in (and thank God for that!), and I’m never going to get out of therapy—I’m fucked up enough that I want my classes to teach me how to be normal! If they weren’t closing down the dorms for a month, I’d stay here. Donna did invite me to stay with her family, but even though we’re pretty close as roommates go, I’m not sure that it was a sincere invitation. A nice gesture though. I’ve talked a little about my family, usually after a couple of pitchers at The Gasthaus, the pub in the basement of the Student Union—it’s dark and the booths seem kind of anonymous, and the beer seems to bring out an urge to spill all my deepest secrets. If only she knew how much I’ve left out! She would definitely not invite me to share in her Currier & Ives Christmas…

  I may just take a little vacation on my own. My job at the library brought in enough that I can probably manage to spend a decent month at a motel off the freeway. I may have to diet, but I can stand to lose fifteen pounds anyway—the dorm cafeteria food is outrageously fattening! The more I think about it, the more I like it. Even if I will look like some tramp, staying at a motel by myself, I’ll have my psychology textbooks, and who needs anything more? Ha!

  February 20, 1973

  It’s nuts that the more I learn, the more I would like to psychoanalyze my brother, the creep, to find out what made him the way he was. Sure, part of it was my father’s abuse. I didn’t know how bad that was until much later, but that was because I was too busy dealing with what my father was doing to me. Of course, my father blamed my mother for his “urges” (that’s what he called them), but that was just his excuse. Still, why did my brother become murderous, when all I did was withdraw? What made his wiring go all berserk while mine held up so much better? I mean, I know I’m fucked up, but I don’t want to kill anybody. I wouldn’t even have killed my father, even though I hated him. And my mother, well, I blamed her when I was little, but I know she was just another victim, really. I think the males in my family got the bad genes, that’s all. All this psychology I’m taking is really opening my eyes, and it’s helping me. I’m sleeping better than ever now, and I’m not taking Uncle’s prescriptions anymore. Hey, and I’m learning to relax and have a good time. Last night I said the hell with studying and Donna and I went bowling in the Union. I don’t like bowling, but I had fun anyway! Maybe there’s hope for me yet…Brother Martin, though, I don’t think there’s any hope at all for him.

  August 17, 1979

  Office hours loomed long and boring today. After all, it’s almost the end of the summer session, and barely a half-dozen students have ever broken the silence here at Johnson Hall. I guess the weather’s just too nice to worry about grades. Maybe if I didn’t have to be here I’d be down at Bradford Beach, too, taking in the sun. Most of the students think summer sessions are more relaxed because they’re compressed, but they’ll be surprised to find out that the test next week is no different than the test I always give at the end of a semester, and if they haven’t kept up on their own, well, I’ll be seeing them again in the fall.

  One of the few students who has bothered to come in and discuss his grades and his problems showed up again today. He’s an earnest young man, and intense—though I sense he’s what I might be tempted to describe as “distant” in his intensity. It’s almost as if he’s afraid to get close to people, and I mean physically as well as socially. Dominic Lupo is one of the few who seems truly interested in the subject matter—not just for the sake of filling out a major, but because there’s something he’s seeking. He told me so today, though he was evasive as to what he’d like to find. I confess that he actually scared me a little, coming in as he did with a three-day stubble and unkempt hair. But he spoke well, and softly enough, and he seems to understand the course material well—better than his classmates, the majority of whom sit with wide-eyed glazed expressions through my lectures and appear to awaken only when the minute hand approaches the hour of dismissal. I guess I wasn’t too much different from them myself just a few years ago, but this Lupo kid is so different that he threw me for a loop (ha ha, no pun intended).

  I admit, I found myself inviting him back to discuss his interests during my next office hour—I hope I wasn’t too obviously coming on to him (was I? maybe I was!). It’s a cliché to say he had haunted eyes, but there’s no other way to describe the look. Like a deer caught in the headlights, I guess. Actually, I know the look well since it took me years to get away from it myself. I have no doubt that during my first couple years of college people saw that haunted quality in me, and if they only knew how much, they would have crossed the street to be away from me—as I did with my own past.

  I’m rambling now, but it’s not often an interesting student comes along. And I might as well say it—a good-looking one, too. Maybe I’ve been teaching too long! Or maybe it’s just been long enough since they tried to take my soul—now that it’s mine, I can choose to give it to whomever I please.

  More on Mr. Lupo later, as I learn more. IF I learn more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lupo

  He held the door for Ben, who hustled past him and across the hall to the detectives’ squad room.

  “You sure you don’t want those headache pills, Nick?”

  “Nah, you go ahead in. I’m gonna hit the can.” Lupo pushed into the men’s room and leaned over the counter, into the mirror. He stared at his own eyes, wondering. Wondering how things might have been different if his friend Andy had just not—

  No, not this again. Some things you can’t change. Things go to hell on their own. Andy got something from some wild animal and he bit you and you caught it. It’s that simple. Corinne was a hooker, for better or worse, and was targeted because of me, but if she hadn’t been an escort, he wouldn’t have had it so easy. Corinne had also splashed herself across videotape and DVD. Just one more thing you can’t change, no matter how much you try. There’s no going back, Nick Lupo.

  He’d always wondered about his name. Lupo. Wolf. Had he somehow been destined to become what he was? Could he have changed that destiny, perhaps by leaving home earlier, at a younger age? By changing his name? Not that it mattered—like Corinne, it was too late now.

  Lupo felt the hairs on his hands prickling. It was a sign that he needed to head north, out of the city. He needed space, woods to roam in. He needed to let his true nature out for a walk. He felt this way just before the full moon, but the feeling intensified because of Corinne’s death. She had been more than a friend, more than a lover might have been. The nagging sense that he should have been able to deduce the killer’s identity haunted him. It was someone familiar, someone who knew him—the bloody message on the wall made that clear enough, even if no one else got it. But should Lupo know him? How many petty crooks and crackheads had he put behind bars? Had he pissed off any mobsters lately? Whoever it was, he had a twisted sense of humor as well as a huge shoulder chip and a tub of pent-up rage.

  What connection was there between the gruesome murder of Lupo’s friend and his past? Or between her death and his true nature?

  A toilet flushed behind him and he jumped. He hadn’t noticed anyone in the washroom, but now a stall door swung open and a young cop named Keeler came out.

  “Hey, Nick, how’s it hangin’?”

  “Okay.” Lupo looked at Keeler in the long mirror. “You?”

  Keeler didn’t bother to wash his hands, but he did slick back his hair and check out the results.

  “Everything’s cool,” he said. “Hunky-dory, know what I mean?”

  Lupo nodded and turned away. Keeler
wasn’t very well liked. Maybe the kid spent too much time looking at himself, or maybe he was just too hip. Most likely it was because he seemed to have gotten his street-smart attitude from watching too many gritty cop shows.

  “Hear you got another homicide?”

  Keeler was a day late and a dollar short, as always. Lupo turned and fixed him with a stare. “The Devereaux murder was yesterday, Keeler. Get with it.”

  The cop smiled widely. His teeth were uneven, like kernels on a corn cob. “You get with it, Lupo. I ain’t talkin’ about the hooker. Haven’t you heard about the gunsmith?” He shook his head and made a face. “Where you been all day, anyway?”

  As the door slammed behind Keeler’s bulky body, Lupo added today’s encounter to his list of reasons for not liking the jerk.

  When he stepped out of the washroom, he was cornered by Ben.

  “They assigned us another one, Nicky. The bastards. But we’re not gonna cut back on Corinne, don’t worry about that. We can head over there—the lab boys are still at the scene.”

  “A gunsmith?” Lupo snorted, pointing at Keeler’s back. “The stock’s probably been depleted by a hundred percent. Like we need more damn guns on the street.”

  Ben handed him his coat. “Funny thing is, the way the beat guys reported it, it looks like a couple things are missing, but there’s still a shitload of stuff on the racks.”

  Lupo raised an eyebrow. “So they were interrupted. Cash?”

  “Plenty there, I gather. They’re not sure what to make of this one.”

  “Maybe working on something else will shake something loose on our other guy.”

  “Pretty soon we’ll get a fix on the possibles. Probably wake up with it, at some point.”

  Lupo stopped in the doorway. Ben bumped into him.

  “What did you just say?”

  “I said we’ll be sleepin’ and it’ll come to us. Happens to me all the time.”

  Lupo felt that something, something important had just happened. A clue? No. More like a feeling or hunch.

  Something that should have set off alarm bells, but instead it was just a little irritating dinging. He shook his head and led the way back out into the afternoon’s chilly springtime air.

  Rag’s Gunshop was sealed off with a length of yellow tape, though there were no crowds to keep away from the doors and windows—in this neighborhood, regular citizens would cheer Rag’s sudden closing. Anything to keep a few guns off the streets. Though businesses such as this had once formed the backbone of American society they now seemed to hide in the dark—abandoned by everyone but the very dedicated. Lupo wondered if there’d been any legit business for old Rag at all lately, or if he just sat around with his friends and reminisced, toasting the good old days.

  The photographer’s camera flashed as they walked past the door guard, and the first thing Lupo saw—illuminated as it was by the brief light that banished the natural cave-like appearance of the back of the store—was the wall- mounted rack crowded with high-powered bolt-action rifles, semiautomatic military style assault rifles, shotguns, and the occasional war relic.

  In a corner stood one sorry-looking piece Lupo could have sworn was a Mannlicher-Carcano identical to the one found in the Dallas Book Depository. M-16s, Russian AK-47s and Chinese copies, an older M-14, a WWII BAR, a gangster-style Thompson, complete with 100-round drum magazine, and other historical pieces shared space with several fine Weatherby sporting rifles, as well as a dozen standard Remington deer rifles.

  It was a true arsenal, with plenty of ammunition nearby, and it was all still in place, apparently untouched. The thief or thieves must have been disturbed. Unless there were a few high-dollar pieces missing and it was a quick job, the place having been cased first.

  Ben and Lupo donned latex surgeon’s gloves and made for the camera flashes. Lupo peered over the counter to where the photographer crouched, reloading his camera.

  “If you want to take a look, Detective,” he said to Lupo, “go ahead before we flip ’im.”

  Lupo nodded. He came around and held the door panel for Ben, who stepped behind the counter and frowned.

  Lupo felt dizzy; the blood smell clogging his nostrils. And maybe something else? His head began to ache, as if—as if what? he asked himself. The dull throb had begun as soon as they came within sight of the victim’s body. It was bad, that was certain. It was as bad a mess as Corinne, except that here the guy had not played games with the victim’s blood. But it had been a messy hit. Lupo could see Ben’s reaction. No matter how often… Still, Lupo wondered as he pressed a hand against his right temple, why the sudden headache? Blood aroused many different feelings and senses, but never pain.

  “Who is this?”

  “The uniforms say it’s Rag Johnson, the owner.” Ben shook his head. “Somebody did a number on him, all right.”

  Rag—if it was indeed the gunsmith himself—had suffered a gunshot wound to the head so massive that the top of his head had caved in on itself when the bullet and everything else had exited.

  “Geez, Nick. Looks like a .357, or a .44 Magnum. Not much left of the guy.”

  Lupo nodded. “I’d say .44, close. Very close. Powder burns on the skin of the right temple, all around the entry wound. Guy put the piece right on him, maybe even touched the bastard’s skin, then blew him apart. This was no kid looking for a quick score. He’s done this before. Or visualized doing it for a long time.”

  “He likes it.”

  “Maybe.” Lupo examined the rear of the counter.

  “How about the interruption theory, though. Kid comes in, wants some guns, Rag here says no, kid panics and puts the gun up to his head. Not knowin’ how bad it’ll look, you know. Then, when he offs the guy, the kid freaks at all the blood and shit and takes off. He took the piece with him, so that mostly rules out a pro hit. Mob pro, anyway.”

  “Yeah, that could swing.” Lupo was leaning over Rag’s right hand now, as if he was following a bug. “A pro shooter wouldn’t use such a cannon. This is just too big a piece.” He brought his face even closer to the right hand. “There’s some shiny stuff under his fingernails.”

  “What is it?”

  Lupo was about to answer when his hand began to throb, then suddenly shooting pains traveled up his wrist and forearm. He had almost touched the victim’s fingers, but even from inches away the pain was acute. He knew what it was, and he moved his hand away, feeling the pain recede like a soothed burn.

  It was silver.

  Pure silver, from what he could see, in the shape of filings or slivers or particles under the gunsmith’s nails. Lupo’s neck hair bristled ever so slightly. He felt dizzy.

  He raised his head and shrugged. “Before they bag his hands or move him, I want an extra series of shots of his fingertips,” Lupo said to the photographer. “And make sure the lab takes an extra look at his fingers first thing.”

  The photographer nodded and got to work.

  Lupo rocked back on his haunches, sweeping the area with his well-practiced gaze. The dizziness diminished and faded.

  “Anything else?” Ben said, shielding his eyes against the flashes.

  “Another piece missing out of the display case.”

  “Yeah? How’d you figure?”

  “There’s a space where a handgun would have been, middle of the top shelf.”

  “That’s good, I see that.” Ben nodded. “But maybe that’s the gun does the hit, right?”

  “No. That whole shelf is either 9mm or .380 semiautomatics. Piece that did this was a revolver, .44 like we said. A 9mm wouldn’t have made this much of a mess.”

  “Could have been one of those old Auto-Mags,” Ben sniffed.

  “Could be, but how many of those have you actually seen since Sudden Impact? Aren’t that many around.”

  “Okay, so the guy takes a piece off the top shelf, a semi- auto. Before or after the hit?”

  “After. See the blood on the outside of the glass door— the one our guy left open? The gu
y pops Rag, then he slides the door open, blood and all, and takes the one piece. Maybe another 9mm.”

  Ben sighed. “So we got a shooter armed with a .44 and a 9mm. Great, Nicky, just great.”

  “Maybe more.” Lupo straightened and nodded at the photographer, who stepped back as a technician moved in with two uniforms and started to flip Rag over. The smell of Rag’s last bodily function wafted up to them and Lupo turned away. “There’s a big footlocker down here. Looks like it’s been moved recently. Tracks in the dust.”

  “Prints?”

  “We can only hope.”

  With the latex gloves covering his fingers, Lupo lifted the locker’s cover and held it open.

  Ben looked inside. “Whew.” It was halfway between a whistle and a sigh.

  Lupo lifted out a half-dozen UZI submachine guns, all coated with heavy grease for long-term storage. He wiped off the breech of one and pointed to its markings. “Israeli issue. These are full-auto. No import tax, no FFL, no paper of any kind.”

  Ben was reaching in and coming up with a homemade wooden rack and the four tiny weapons it held. “Old but very well-kept MAC l0s. Why’re they still here and not on the street?”

  “Good question. But let’s count our blessings.”

  The rest of the weapons included two dozen exotic military pistols, including Russian and Chinese makes, and spare magazines for them. At the bottom, among several belts and cartridge cases, was a rounded object. “Yow,” Ben said as he held up a live grenade. “Whole new ball game.”

  “Damn it, there were probably more in there.” Nick took the grenade from his partner’s hand. “Probably stolen from an armory. Something we can check, anyway. The question is, how many did our guy lay his hands on?”

  “And what else?”

  “We’re ready here, Detectives.” The uniform’s voice interrupted them, directing their attention to Rag’s body, which had been turned over. The photographer was taking additional pictures. Then the hands were bagged in paper, the better to preserve any clues. Plastic bags didn’t breathe and could cause alteration of evidence, besides speeding up putrefaction.