John Lutz - Fear the Night

Melbourne was behind Repetto’s desk, seated in Repetto’s chair. Bulky as he was, he didn’t fill the chair the way Repetto did.

“You wanna know what we know,” Repetto said.

“That,” Melbourne said, “and I want you to know about this.”

Repetto saw that Melbourne was talking about a sheet of white typing paper on the desk.

“This is a copy,” Melbourne said. “Lab’s got the original and the envelope, but already they’re saying nothing’s coming out of them. Same cheap stationery, same postmark, same typewriter. That’s about it.”

At first Repetto thought the copy paper was blank, but when he leaned closer he saw the brief message: 7-F.

“That’s it?” he asked.

Melbourne nodded. “An apartment number, would be my guess. Our sniper wants you trying to find where he shot from, because he knows all that’ll happen is we’ll get more frustrated. That’s his game.”

“There’s that word again,” Meg said. “Game.”

“Here’s something else,” Melbourne said. He reached into a pocket and laid a small cassette on the desk. “Tape of the killer’s phone calls. Voice sounds disguised. None of these calls were traced to any phone that meant anything.”

“Male or female voice?”

“Can’t say for sure, but probably male. These calls won’t tell you much more than I told you about them.”

Repetto picked up the cassette and carried it to a recorder on top of one of the file cabinets. “Does this relic work?”

“Sure,” Melbourne said. “Sometimes the job calls for relics.”

Repetto ignored him and inserted the cassette into the old recorder.

The voice was disguised, as Melbourne had said, and was most likely male. There was something in it that created a cold spot on the back of Meg’s neck. Especially the last thing the killer said:

“I want Repetto and Repetto only. A man is judged by the quality of his enemies, and Repetto is to be my opponent. Repetto, Repetto, Repetto. I repeato, Repetto.”

“Jesus!” Meg said. “He has a sense of humor.”

“Most born killers do,” Melbourne said. “They’d just as soon see somebody die as see them slip on a banana peel. Same thing to them.”

“He seems to have switched from phone calls to notes now that Repetto’s on the case,” Birdy said.

Melbourne nodded. “His game, his rules.”

“So far,” Repetto said.

“Only so many apartment seven-Fs the killer could have fired from and hit Mestieri,” Melbourne said, turning his attention again to the note. “Thing to do is check them out.”

Repetto nodded, putting aside for the moment the canvassing of gun dealers and collectors.

“How many uniforms can you give us?” he asked Melbourne.

“Five. And they’re already down on the Lower East Side doing their jobs. They need you to supervise them.”

Repetto doubted it. The hunt for the Night Sniper wasn’t the kind of case that prompted standing around jerking off when there was work to be done.

Melbourne gave a wheeze and heaved himself up out of Repetto’s chair. “You want your desk?”

“Not now,” Repetto said, on his way back out the door. “You fly it for a while.”

Meg and Birdy followed, not glancing back at Melbourne.

Two apartment 7-Fs were found that provided clear shots to where Vito Mestieri had fallen with a sniper’s bullet in him. One was owned by an eighty-year-old retired woman who needed an oxygen bottle to breathe and hadn’t left the place in months. The other 7-F was in a steel and glass postwar monstrosity that had windows that didn’t open.

Repetto, Meg, and Birdy had spent another futile day. If this was a game they were playing, the Sniper was winning.

At dinner that night at Mama Roma, a neighborhood Italian restaurant that was one of their favorites, Repetto watched Lora ignore her favorite pasta and stare idly into the wine she was swirling in her glass. She was taking Dal Bricker’s death hard, as was Repetto. Dal, who had been like a son to them, and if dreams could come true, a son-in-law. For some reason Repetto thought Lora would emerge from her grief sooner than he would. He should have known better; she didn’t have as much opportunity as he to act on her pain and hunger for revenge.

“Did you see your client about the condo near Gramercy Park?” he asked.

“Canceled the appointment,” she said. “Somehow coordinating drapes and carpet doesn’t seem so important now.”

Repetto knew what she meant. “Dal?”

She stopped the swirling motion with her glass and looked at him. “Of course.”

“We’ll get his killer.”

“That sounds like a line from an old B-movie.”

“Maybe it does, but it’s true.”

She didn’t insult him by pointing out what they both knew: apprehending the Night Sniper wouldn’t bring back Dal. “Can you promise?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I know I won’t quit until we do get him.” When she showed no reaction, he said, “How’s Amelia taking Dal’s death?”

“Not well. But she’s losing herself in her studies. She’s strong and can cope.”

“Hard work as therapy.” That was something Repetto believed in, so why not his daughter?

“Maybe she’ll start seeing-”

“Someone else?” Repetto interrupted, almost angrily.

“She never did see Dal quite the way we would have liked.”

“No,” he admitted, “she didn’t.”

Lora artfully twirled a few strands of angel-hair pasta on her fork into a small tangle, put it in her mouth, and chewed. A sip of wine. “I had lunch today with Zoe Brady.”

After Zoe’s initial visit, Repetto was surprised when Lora had told him the two women had met, at a police banquet, and through an unexpected encounter in an antique shop when Lora was searching for a particular piece of furniture for a client. He was equally surprised they’d met for lunch. They didn’t exactly strike him as soul sisters.

“I called her,” Lora said. “I wanted to talk to her about the Night Sniper.”

“Why?”

“I need to know what’s going on. I need … to do something. To help. For Dal.”

“For you, you mean.”

“That’s true. Dal’s gone.”

“You’re a decorator, Lora, not a cop. For that matter, Zoe’s not a cop either.”

“Zoe can help me understand. She can tell me about the man who killed Dal, the man my husband is trying to kill.”

“Catch,” Repetto corrected her. “It isn’t my job to kill him.”

“I wasn’t talking about your job.”

“I was only talking about my job.” He took a large swallow of wine, dribbling some of it on his tie.

“Red wine,” Lora said. “It’ll stain.”

“We changing the subject?” Repetto asked, dabbing at the stain with his napkin.

She smiled sadly. “Sure.”

“I don’t want to have to worry about you, Lora.”

“This isn’t 1890, and I’m not some wilting flower who’s going to swoon under stress.”

“I know that. It’s the twenty-first century, and life is cheaper.”

“Are you going to forbid me to help?”

He had to grin. “I wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t work anyway. The thing is, I don’t know any way you can help.”

“Maybe there isn’t one, but I can at least help myself. It makes me feel better to talk with Zoe.”

“Not me,” Repetto said. “I don’t have as much faith as you do in profilers.”

“Still, she’s making the killer real to me.”

“Somebody to disturb your sleep.”

“Somebody I can hate.”

Repetto understood how hate could supplant grief. He poured some more Chianti and took a sip, being more careful this time.

“I’ll take the tie to the cleaners,” Lora said. “We’ve got some other things that need to go.”