Fear the Night (5 page)

7

Homicide Detective Meg Doyle steered the unmarked police car onto the exit ramp and watched for the turnoff for the service road. Beside her sat her partner, Bert (Birdy) Bellman. They’d left the city half an hour ago, after Meg had picked up Birdy at his house in Queens, and they’d had a quick breakfast of doughnuts and coffee as they drove. Cops eating doughnuts. Life imitating art, Meg thought. Blame it on Krispy Kreme.

They were up early and on the road because Dal Bricker’s funeral was in New Jersey. His graveside service, anyway, for friends and family. He was already buried, after a full-dress NYPD funeral complete with dignitaries, bagpipes, and rifle salute. Today was the quieter, more private good-bye to Sergeant Dal Bricker. Immediately after the service, Meg and Birdy would be introduced to Repetto.

Meg was looking forward to meeting Repetto. He was something of a legend in the NYPD, and she wasn’t surprised that the higher-ups would call on his expertise. That Repetto was also the Night Sniper’s choice simply made it unanimous. Stories still drifted around the department about Repetto, how he’d personally cornered the Midnight Leather Killer and traded shots with him before the suspect leaped to his death from forty stories up. About how two Mafia thugs had been sent around to intimidate Repetto and found themselves outmatched. Afterward, in their hospital beds, they’d been charged with assault, and their rights were read to them by Repetto.

Meg found the cemetery road and turned onto it. She was a diminutive woman of thirty-nine who would have risen higher in the NYPD by now if she’d been able to control her tongue. Not that she had a temper; it was more that her words were out and doing harm before she could stop them. Since her divorce from Chip she tended to say what she thought, what she knew, what was the truth—a dangerous habit and hard to break. Her figure was trim, her eyes a dark brown, her features elfin. Her dark, short-cropped hair grew in a cowlick that made it stand on end in front in a way reminiscent of a rooster comb. When she’d been a uniformed cop she’d kept her cap on as much as possible. Now aerosol hair spray battled her cowlick, not always successfully.

Birdy Bellman, on the other hand, was bald except for a few lank strands of hair plastered in a grid across his gleaming pate. His eyes were hooded and his face a series of vertical planes that made him always appear somber. He got tagged with the Birdy nickname because he often made silent pecking motions with his head when he was tense, which was almost always. Tense on the outside, anyway, while his brain was placidly and relentlessly working. Meg thought that if Birdy really
was
a bird he’d be a vulture. One that ate bad roadkill that had given him indigestion.

Some part of Birdy was always moving, fingers tapping, a foot bouncing in frantic rhythm, a hand clenching and unclenching, releasing the frustration and excess energy that plagued him. Sometimes Meg thought Birdy should see a shrink.

“There it is,” he said beside her, drumming his fingers on his knee.

The car had reached the yawning iron gates to the cemetery. Meg slowed and made a left turn, noticing that the hinges on the gates were rusted over. The cemetery was an old one and encroached upon by commerce, the dead being crowded by the living.

Because they’d been doing duty, neither Meg nor Birdy had been able to attend yesterday’s ceremony. Meg had never visited here. Glancing around, she thought it must have been a peaceful place before the highway was widened. The grounds were reasonably well kept, and tall poplar and maple trees lined the blacktop road that wound among pale tombstones and statuary.

Meg saw a knot of mourners up ahead and slowed the car, then parked it at the end of a line of vehicles strung out behind a shiny black Cadillac. She got out of the dusty unmarked Chevy and slipped into her lightweight black raincoat that was in keeping with the event. Birdy had worn his dark suit with a maroon tie that had some kind of spiral pattern. He looked halfway presentable. Birdy’s wife had suffered a stroke two years ago and since then had been bedridden. Meg thought he’d done a pretty good job of dressing himself.

The service was under way, so Meg and Birdy edged up to the fifty or so mourners and stood politely and silently. Assistant Chief Melbourne, in his full-dress uniform, noticed them and nodded.

An extremely thin priest in dark vestments was standing beside the freshly filled grave and a simple tombstone bearing Dal Bricker’s name. He was reading a eulogy that Meg was too far away to understand. Not far from him was a huge array of floral displays that had been used in yesterday’s public ceremony. Not far from the flowers stood Vincent Repetto.

Meg stared at him, fascinated. He was a big man, over six feet, with a boxer’s weighty shoulders and long arms. His hands were huge and rough looking beneath white cuffs that showed below the sleeves of his well-tailored dark suit. She thought his eyes were blue but couldn’t be sure. The wind ruffled his iron-gray hair and he looked incredibly sad.

A blond woman next to Repetto moved closer to him and gripped his arm as if for support. Probably his wife. Not far from her stood a young woman, late teens or early twenties, with incredibly long, braided blond hair; she bore a resemblance to the blond woman. Meg knew Repetto had a daughter. Did this woman look something like him, too?

Repetto must have sensed Meg staring at him, because he glanced up at her and the moment was electric. It wasn’t so much sadness she saw in his face now. It was the kind of set, placid immobility she’d seen on the faces of truly dangerous men just before they acted. They were still and silent before they exploded. They were already committed, so there was nothing left other than action. It was only a matter of when.

Meg thought in that instant that the Night Sniper might have made a big mistake; then she looked away.

Halfway up a hill on the other side of the highway, the Night Sniper sat on the cool, hard ground beneath a maple tree. He was concealed in a small copse of trees, with a clear view of the cemetery and Dal Bricker’s graveside service. At first he’d used his scope, which he’d brought with him in his backpack. Then he decided he was close enough to recognize people without it, and if he happened to be seen by someone while he was focused on the cemetery, it might attract suspicion. Cops almost always attended the funerals and memorial services of murder victims, the theory being that sometimes the killers were compelled to observe their handiwork and be among the mourners.

Not among them this time. Not quite.

The service appeared to be over now. The fifty or so mourners were turning away from the grave and milling around almost as if they were in a trance. They were repelled by death but didn’t want to rush away and insult it, provoke it.

There was Repetto, and alongside him the woman who must be his wife, Lora, and possibly their daughter. They were talking to a woman in a hat with a flat black rim. She touched Repetto’s upper arm gently and hugged Lora and the younger woman; then the three women left Repetto and walked together toward the parked cars. Captain Melbourne approached Repetto, along with a man and woman.

Cops in plainclothes. The Night Sniper could spot them even from this distance, and it was made easier because he knew who they were: Detectives Meg Doyle and Birdy Bellman. Research was the Sniper’s specialty. He’d done his homework and knew about both of them. Doyle was a loose-tongued, sometimes insulting young woman made cynical by a recent divorce. Bellman was a middle-aged, frenetic little man who couldn’t sit still very long in one place. The Night Sniper knew something about many of the NYPD homicide detectives. There were plenty of ways to learn, in this high-tech information age when everybody—even homicide detectives—claimed or were thrust into their fifteen minutes of fame. The NYPD liked to brag about its personnel, on the Internet at official and unofficial sites, and in small-print publications that chronicled the world of law enforcement. It was good public relations.

Now the Night Sniper would learn even more about Doyle and Bellman, as he had about Repetto. The intrepid Repetto had experienced great tragedy in his youth, then had fallen into kind hands. The loss, in a sense, had ended, the torn heart partially healed. The Night Sniper had experienced no such luck. Not in time to save him from the streets, and from the demons of the dark.

Luck was the difference. Luck was what defined and separated most people, no doubt including Doyle and Bellman. The Night Sniper would be even more familiar with them soon enough.

To fully experience and appreciate the game about to be played out on life’s stage, the grand theater of death and vengeance that had only begun, it was best to know the players.

His fellow actors, who were about to play the roles of their lives.

8

Meg, Repetto, and Birdy stood loosely side by side. Repetto raised his old .38 Smith & Wesson revolver and fired six rapid shots at the target twenty yards down the range. They were at the outdoor shooting range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, on a peninsula jutting into Long Island Sound. Repetto had insisted they come here in the unmarked directly from the cemetery, after only a brief stop so he could get some things from his car before his wife and daughter drove it home. The other shooters at the range wore casual clothes. Meg and Birdy had removed their jackets, and Birdy had loosened his tie. Repetto remained fully clad in his dark suit, his tie knot neat and severely bound. Blasting away in his mourning clothes.

He reloaded.

Repetto’s handsome but worn features were set and hard with grief and determination. Meg had been told Bricker was like a son to him. Looking at Repetto, Meg couldn’t prevent a lump from welling up in her throat.

“You don’t look so good, Captain,” she said. “We can wait till tomorrow if you want to discuss this, or even later today—”

“I’m okay,” Repetto interrupted. “And time’s important. Otherwise I’d be home with my wife and daughter serving cake to well-wishers.”

In answer, Meg got off two careful shots at her target. It hadn’t felt right; despite taking her time, she hadn’t set herself.

Repetto lifted an old pair of oversize binoculars he’d brought from his car.

“Two in the middle,” he said. “Not bad.”

She felt immediately better.

Birdy used the point and shoot method, firing quickly and relying on instinctive aim. He’d learned it was the best method of shooting if you didn’t have the steadiest hands. When he lowered his 9mm Glock, Repetto peered through the binoculars and said, “Uh-hm.”

He let the binoculars fall on their leather neck strap and turned away from the range to look at Meg and Bellman. Meg felt Birdy shift his weight slightly beside her. Repetto’s eyes, blue and with the cold spark of diamonds, had the same unsettling effect on him that they’d had on her. Here was a man in the thrall of a mission larger than his life. If the Night Sniper wanted a worthy opponent, he’d sure found one.

Meg holstered her gun. She hoped Repetto hadn’t noticed her hand was trembling.

He said, “Two things. One is, despite the temporary rank, I’m on unofficial status, so call me Repetto.” He wasn’t quite ready to be on first-name-basis familiarity. “Two is we are going to nail this son of a bitch!”

Meg surprised herself by smiling slightly. Adrenaline, maybe. “I’ll remember both of them.”

“And I will,” Birdy said beside her in his gravelly voice. Meg saw that his index finger was nervously twitching where it was extended along the barrel of his Glock.

Repetto had apparently had enough shooting. He slipped his loaded revolver into its belt holster, then led the way back to where the car was parked. From the backseat floor he retrieved the scuffed, black leather briefcase he’d brought with him. He opened the briefcase and drew out two brown cardboard packets with their flaps tied with string wrapped around metal grommets. He laid them on the sun-warmed trunk lid of the car. “These are the murder files on all the Night Sniper victims, copies for both of you. When we leave here, take yours with you and study it.”

“Study it some more, you mean,” Meg said. “When Birdy and I knew we had this assignment, we went over all the material and talked about it.”

Repetto smiled at her through the grief and cold purpose that possessed him. “Good. Come to any conclusions?”

“He likes to play,” Birdy said, slipping back into his suit coat he’d carried slung over his arm. “They all do to some extent, but the game is a big part of this one’s sickness.”

“That’s more or less what Zoe Brady says,” Meg added.

Repetto was surprised. “The profiler’s already talked to you?”

“Not personally. It’s what she wrote in a summary of her findings. Also, he’s a sadist.”

“Aren’t they all?” Birdy said, drumming his fingertips on the trunk.

Meg momentarily rested her hand on his to quiet the drumming fingers. They’d been partners long enough that she could do that and neither of them thought much of it. “For the most part, they are. But if our killer was driven primarily by sadism, he’d want to get up close and see the effects on his victims, instead of shooting them with a long-range rifle from far enough away that he can’t see and feel their shock and fear.”

Repetto looked at her. “But I thought you got from Zoe Brady’s material that she thinks this guy’s engine is sadism.”

“She didn’t exactly say that,” Meg told him. “I surmised that’s what she thinks.”

He gave her a look that bored into her. Somebody on the range got off a long volley with something large-caliber, overwhelming the staccato reports of smaller firearms. “You put much stock in profiling?”

“Some, is all.” Meg shrugged. A cloud moved away and she squinted against the sun. “Science, applied to a nutcase with a rifle, I don’t know how accurate that can be.”

“I’ll take a good cop’s hunch any day,” Repetto said. He nodded toward Bellman. “What Birdy said makes sense, about the game playing, the challenge. It means a lot to our sniper.” He reached again into his briefcase and removed a folded sheet of white paper. “This’ll make Birdy’s view of the Sniper seem even more accurate.”

The paper was a copy of a typed note sent to Repetto, care of the NYPD. It said simply,
Now the Game begins.

There was no letterhead and no signature.

“Plain, cheap white paper and envelope,” Repetto said, before they could ask. “Sold in office supply stores and even drugstores. Same typewriter used on the envelope as on the note, probably a forty-year-old Royal manual. Mailed at the post office at Third and Fifty-fourth Street.”

“Busy place,” Birdy said.

“Latent Prints couldn’t lift anything from the paper or envelope, and there’s no thumbprint on the stamp. Not even DNA on the back of the stamp.”

“Careful guy,” Meg said.

“One who plans.”

“Profilers call the planners organized serial killers,” Birdy said.

“Fuck profilers.” Repetto realized as soon as he’d spoken that he’d overreacted. “Well, not really. We need to factor in what they say.”

“What Zoe Brady says,” Meg told him.

“Right. Let’s concentrate on our killer, not Zoe Brady.”

Meg and Birdy glanced at each other.

“He doesn’t use a sound suppresser,” Meg said. “He’s obviously an expert shot and must know something about firearms, so why doesn’t he use a silencer?”

“Maybe he can’t afford one,” Birdy said.

“He’d steal one. I think he knows that here in New York sound bounces around the buildings, and it’s impossible to know exactly where a shot came from. In each of the murders the sound of the sniper’s rifle echoed off all the hard surfaces so witnesses not only had no idea of the shot’s origin, some of them weren’t even sure if only one shot was fired.”

“He’d still be safer with a silencer,” Birdy said.

“Maybe,” Meg said. “But the rest of us would
feel
safer, and he doesn’t want that. We wouldn’t jump every time a car backfires or somebody drops something that makes a sudden sound like a gunshot. Our sniper likes the echoing crack of his rifle. It adds to the fear factor. He wants everyone to be on edge, afraid of him.”

Repetto cocked his head as if listening to the rattle of gunfire from the range, then looked at Meg. “You’re probably right that he’s primarily interested in gamesmanship and evoking a general kind of fear, rather than in sadism.”

“Only probably,” Birdy pointed out. “And he might be interested in a general kind of sadism.”

Repetto nodded. “We know about the game playing because of his contacts with the police, his insistence on me as an opponent, and the typed note. The rest of it’s speculation, but it’s worth keeping in mind.” He focused again on Meg. “What you surmise about the reason he doesn’t use a silencer fits in. Our man not only enjoys the fear factor, but it’s a strategic plus. It’s exactly the kind of thing I was hoping might come out of rereading the murder files.”

Meg felt a flush of pleasure at his approval.
Why should I feel this way? I hardly know this guy. He’s not my father.

The shooter with the high-powered weapon opened up again. Meg thought she could smell gunpowder, though she knew they were too far away from the range unless the breeze was just right.

Repetto closed his briefcase and buckled a strap. “Let’s get to work revisiting the crime scenes and talking to witnesses, see if something new clicks. We do the grunt work. The
we
is you two. I’ve still gotta study these files.”

“So you’re the official Captain Repetto sometimes,” Meg said with a grin, trying a joke.

“All the time, actually,” Repetto said, not smiling. “But usually we’ll pretend otherwise.”

Jesus!
She felt her insides shrivel.
Make it better? Tell him I was kidding? No. Shut up. Don’t make it worse. The man’s virtual son was murdered days ago and he’s in mourning. I shouldn’t have played it light.

Or maybe he was amused and joking back. Possible ...

“The work’ll keep us busy while we wait,” Repetto said, opening a rear door of the unmarked and tossing the briefcase far enough inside that he’d have room to sit.

“Wait for what?” Birdy asked, as he and Meg moved to get into the car.

In a nanosecond he realized it had been a dumb question.

They all knew what.

Vito Mestieri owned and worked long hours in Vito’s Screwdriver, his small appliance and TV repair shop on the Lower East Side. He’d gotten out of the army thirty years ago after Vietnam and inherited the shop from his father. Now Vito, slowed by age and hindered by rheumatic fingers, was considering selling the shop. He wished he had a son of his own to hand down the business to, but both his marriages had been bitter and childless.

He had friends, fellow Nam vets who met once a week to play poker and tell lies. But the Vietnam vets were gray and potbellied now, like Vito, and were slowly fading from the earth they way the World War Two guys had done. Vito knew that someday soon the
Times
obituary page would make a deal out of the last Nam vet dying. Maybe he’d be the one, but he doubted it. One thing was for sure: he wouldn’t read it.

Vito flipped the sign in the door from
OPEN
to
CLOSED
and stepped outside. He unclipped the ring of keys from his belt and by feel found the one that fit the dead bolt lock on the door.

The lock gave a satisfying metallic click. No one had broken into the shop for over a year, since Vito had changed the lock and had the alarm system installed.

He clipped the ring back on his belt and stepped away from the locked door, and felt a sudden, sharp pain high on his side, near his armpit. At first he thought a bee or wasp had stung him. Then he took a few steps, experienced a different, deeper pain, and felt for the source of the first stinging sensation.

His hand came away bloody and he was back in Nam. He knew he’d been shot.

Had to get help!

The narrow side street was deserted except for some people up near the intersection. Vito raised a hand, tried to call out. The pain stilled his voice.

Back inside. Call 911!

He turned back toward the door and felt an overpowering weakness.

Then from the corner of his eye he saw a car turn the corner and start down the street in his direction.

Someone to drive me to a hospital!

He turned back away from the door and staggered out into the street, trying to scream for the car to stop, trying to wave his arms. Helpless, bubbling gasps were the only sounds he made, and his arms, which he thought he was waving, were hanging limp at his sides.

The car had been picking up speed. Now the driver saw Vito and stomped on the brake pedal. Yanked the steering wheel to swerve around Vito.

Rubber screamed as the car skidded sideways. Vito tried to get out of the way but fell. The car did a 180-degree turn and the back wheels rolled over him.

The driver, an eighteen-year-old Hispanic kid, was slumped on the curb weeping when the police arrived.

He felt somewhat better a few hours later, when he learned that when the car had rolled over Vito, he was already dead from a gunshot wound.