John Lutz - Fear the Night

“Rich clientele?”

He grinned. “I do okay, though it was slow at first. I started doing it for artistic satisfaction. Then it became profitable. And it’s good. . relaxation.”

She thought he’d almost said therapy.

He sat down on the sofa and gave her his smile again. It was one that stayed with you, that smile. She saw now that his hands were callused as well as powerful, the nails clipped short on blunt fingertips.

Meg warned herself not to be taken in by Alex Reyals, a charmer who might be a killer. She vaguely remembered some kind of deadly snake that mesmerized its victims by swaying gently and soothingly before striking. Charm was in the arsenal of so much that was deadly.

Reyals crossed his legs, laced his fingers over one knee, and assumed a waiting attitude. She could tell he was appraising her, and not as a cop. Oddly, she almost blushed.

“I’m here-”

“To talk to me about the Night Sniper murders,” he finished for her.

“What makes you think it’s not about all those unpaid parking tickets?”

“I don’t have any unpaid tickets. I do have an NYPD background as a sniper, and you are NYPD.”

“That’s what I told you. How do you know for sure who I am? I never showed you any identification.”

He grinned. “Hell, you don’t have to. We’re talking cop to cop here, Detective. When I saw you, I knew you were real.”

Meg felt more complimented than was comfortable.

Reyals continued to appear completely relaxed, but for his eyes. “I assumed that sooner or later you or somebody like you would be here to talk to me, follow up on my conversation with the uniform who came around a few days ago. I don’t object. It’s logical that you’re tracking down former military and law enforcement snipers in the area, checking and double-checking them. From what I’ve read in the papers and seen on TV news, the Night Sniper’s a hell of a shot.” His expression changed to one of sudden concern. “Can I get you something to drink, Meg? Coffee, water?. . I know you won’t accept booze while on duty. Hey, I’ve got soda, straight and diet.”

“Nothing for me, thanks.” He called me Meg, and I let him get by with it. Too late to correct him now. “I went over your statement and have a few questions.”

“I would imagine. A couple of my alibis for the times of the shootings are pretty thin. I can’t help that. When a man lives alone, he doesn’t tend to have witnesses to his every action.”

“You were married. . ”

“My wife left me two years ago. You know why.”

“No,” Meg said, “I don’t.”

“After I shot that woman, I changed. My relationship with my wife changed along with me. She finally had enough of my brooding and temper tantrums and left. I don’t blame her.”

“Temper tantrums?”

“Not directed at her, if that’s what you’re wondering. And it is.”

Meg smiled and nodded.

“I’d be wondering, too. I don’t hate anybody except maybe myself. I’ve got no reason anymore to shoot people from hiding. In fact, these days the thought of it makes me physically ill.”

“Everything I’ve learned about the shooting on the bridge suggests it was accidental.”

“I notice you didn’t say it wasn’t my fault.”

“But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t kill the woman deliberately.”

“No, I didn’t. It was more. .”

“What?”

“Never mind. You’re a cop, not a psychiatrist.”

“Are you in analysis?”

“I was until about six months ago.”

Meg scribbled on her notepad.

“Jesus!” Reyals said. “You’re writing that down, getting me to hang myself. Sniper leaves analysis and turns into serial killer.”

Meg didn’t know if he was serious. “Mr. Reyals, you know how it works. I don’t think anything at this point.”

“I do know how it works, and it’s bullshit. And call me Alex.”

Meg was beginning to like this guy too much. “Alex, I’ve gotta say, some of your alibis aren’t worth diddly. People who thought they saw you taking a walk near the time of a murder that happened on the other side of town. A waiter who thinks he served you spaghetti in an Italian restaurant when a different murder was being committed.”

“I’ve got the charge card receipt for the spaghetti dinner.”

“Which proves somebody used your card and signed your name.”

“Forged my signature perfectly, too.”

“Our experts aren’t so sure that didn’t happen.” Meg didn’t know that. A little lie sometimes greased the skids.

Reyals stood up and paced over to the CD player. For a second Meg thought he might switch it on. Then he turned and came back to the sofa, but he stood beside it instead of sitting down. The way the light hit his eyes, they had the same haunted sadness in them she sometimes glimpsed in Repetto’s eyes. The two men were a lot alike, both in their own ways victims of bullets.

“You said I knew how it worked, Meg, and you’re right. We both know you have no solid evidence that I might be the Night Sniper, but that doesn’t matter. What you’re really here for is to size me up, to see if you get a feeling about me. It’s a kind of test.”

Meg closed the cover of her notepad and sat back. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Do I pass, Meg?”

She stood up also. “You get an incomplete.”

He shot her his beautiful tragic smile. “That’s the best I could hope for. It means you might come back and we’ll talk some more.”

“That’s not the game we’re playing, Alex.” Isn’t it?

Still smiling, he said, “Well, I’m not going to go out and shoot somebody so I can see you again.”

“That’s reassuring.” She gave him one of her cards. “Call if you think of something that might help.”

He surprised her by reaching into his shirt pocket and producing one of his own cards. On it was his name, street address, phone number, and e-mail address, along with a red, artistic rendering of a handsaw. “And you call me if you think of something. Anything.”

She couldn’t help returning his smile. Responding. How can he see into me? What does he know about me? She tucked his card in a pocket.

When she moved toward the door, he went ahead to show her out. She noticed for the first time that he gave off a curiously appealing scent, as if he’d just taken a fresh shower and dried off in a steaming room. Meg knew she had to get out of there without looking into his eyes.

Christ! I don’t want this! I don’t!

“Good luck nailing this guy,” he said.

Without thinking, she looked.

She carried what she saw all the way downstairs and back to the car, where she sat behind the steering wheel and thought about what an idiot she might make of herself.

Meg didn’t glance up at Alex Reyals’s window as she drove away, afraid he might be watching. Afraid she might look back and this time turn into a pillar of mush.

She was sure he wasn’t the Night Sniper, but it had nothing to do with evidence. It was how she felt about him.

Maybe it was how he wanted her to feel.

Charm was definitely part of his arsenal.

New York, 1989

Dante sat on the edge of the sofa in the living room, smelling the onions his mother was cooking on the stove. He listened to the buzzing coming from the kitchen. That was how it sounded to him when his mother and father argued, how he wanted it to sound. He didn’t want to hear the things they said to each other.

But sometimes, like tonight, the words worked their way through the buzzing:

“. . sold or pawned everything we owned!” His mother. Her hopeless voice, the one with fear in it. Dante recognized it because it was the same fear he felt. How a boat might feel breaking up on a vast and violent sea. Soon the protective shell would be gone and every fierce and terrible thing that lived in the wild ocean would have its way.