John Lutz - Fear the Night

“You’re not being fair to her.”

Repetto reached for the wine bottle and replenished Lora’s glass, as if urging her to drink more and forget more. Forget about Zoe. About Dal, at least for a short while.

“Zoe’s a professional,” Lora said.

“So are palm readers.”

“According to the information I found, profilers are more often right than wrong.”

“Yeah, the killer is usually within a certain age group, is male, athletic enough to do whatever it is he does, is the product of a lousy childhood, and the neighbors would describe him as a nice, quiet person. It doesn’t take a professional to figure that much out, and usually the profiler has everything else wrong.”

Lora pushed her wineglass away, miffed now. “Like I said-unfair.”

Repetto drew a deep breath and let it out slowly before taking another sip of his own wine. “You’re right. I’m being unfair.” He smiled. “But I don’t take back what I said about profilers in general. Zoe’s better than the average, and you can tell her I said so, but I’ve seen too many investigations go down wrong roads because of profilers. I don’t have much faith in any of them.”

“Any investigation in particular that bothers you?” Lora asked. “That went down that wrong road because of a profiler?”

Repetto waited a few seconds before answering. “The Midnight Leather Killer.”

“You caught him.”

“Two months later than we should have. Because we acted on information a profiler gave us and wasted those months.” The old anger was creeping into him, slowing his breathing and tightening his throat. “Three women were killed during that period.”

“And you blame the profiler?”

“I blame myself, for listening to him.”

“But you shouldn’t.”

Repetto didn’t answer, staring past her out the restaurant’s window at the street. There was no point in telling Lora that shouldn’t didn’t have much to do with it. She hadn’t spent years dealing with the world of random heartbreak and evil that shadowed the orderly, civilized one. A cop walked in both worlds, had to survive and keep his sanity in both of them, and it could eventually become a high-wire balancing act without a net.

He made himself relax. It was unreasonable of him to think she should understand. You had to be there.

“It’s going to be dark soon,” he said, still staring out the window.

A young guy in a jacket like Dal used to wear passed the window. Even looked a little like Dal. Repetto felt a pang of grief that made him gulp. The conversation with Lora had touched a nerve. If Dal hadn’t been killed, probably the three of them would be here together tonight.

Lora said, “Do you think there’s a cop anywhere who doesn’t feel guilty about something?”

Repetto poured them both more wine.

They both knew the answer to Lora’s question. And they knew that guilt wasn’t static. It was like a river with a powerful current that could drown you.

Or carry you to where you dreaded going.

Candy Trupiano ran smoothly, breathing evenly through her nose, her strides long and even. Her faint footprints on the path described a straight line. She ran with no wasted arm movement or side-to-side hip motion. Every muscle in use powered her forward.

She was tired, feeling the ache in her lungs, the burning sensation in her thighs, but she was in a groove where she could stay a long time. Where, if she had to, she could run forever.

Her heart told her that, and right now she wasn’t listening to her brain. There was doubt in her brain, and apprehension, and none of either in her heart.

Candy felt a sharp pain in the fronts of her lower legs. First her left leg, then her right. Within a few more strides, the pain was like needles penetrating deep into her bones. Shin splints.

Damn!

Her stride faltered; then she slowed and stood bent forward at the waist, her hands cupping her knees.

She waited, catching her breath, impatient for the sharp pain in her shins to abate. This had happened before. Every runner sooner or later experienced the debilitating pain of shin splints. It had to do with diet, and improper training. Overworking. Candy knew she’d pressed herself too hard, trying to get home before dark.

That wasn’t going to happen now. She straightened slowly and glanced around at the lowering sky and shadowed trees. Then she began to walk, slowly at first, testing her legs awkwardly as if she were a newborn colt.

The pain had let up. Within fifteen minutes she was walking almost at normal stride, gaining confidence in her stricken legs. Soon she’d be able to jog again, but at a much slower pace. She knew that she shouldn’t press; waiting long enough was the trick here. If she began jogging too soon, the pain would return and be even worse. Why this had to happen tonight, when she was in something of a hurry, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was wearing those damned high heels at work all day. They compressed the calf muscles.

That had nothing to do with shin splints, she told herself.

Footsteps sounded behind her, and she moved to the side of the path.

A tall man wearing blue shorts and a gray sweatshirt padded past, glancing her way but saying nothing. He had on earphones, and a wire led to an MP3 player at his waist.

A few minutes later an older, incredibly thin woman with short gray hair smiled as she jogged past Candy. A small brown dog with a bushy tail ran effortlessly at her side, without a leash.

Then Candy was alone on the path.

Through the trees to her right she could glimpse traffic streaming past, and she knew she could easily leave the park. She could walk out through the trees and use the twenty-dollar bill in her shoe pouch for cab fare.

But shin splints or not, she hated to waste a workout. And she had only a mile or so to travel before she arrived again at the Seventy-second Street entrance to the park.

Candy Trupiano finished whatever she started. That was important to her. It was how she saw herself.

It was how she wanted to continue seeing herself.

Slowly, carefully, she began jogging again, increasing her speed in small measures.

There was pain in both legs, a slight ache that wouldn’t go away, but she thought she could monitor and control it.

She’d make it to Seventy-second Street, because until she got there, she’d make Seventy-second Street the focus of her existence.

Candy was determined to live her life in such a way that there wasn’t room for debilitating pain or uncertainty. She was convinced that if she finished what she began, good things were sure to follow.

The Night Sniper had no problem with the lock.

This was the second time he’d visited the vacant apartment. The first time, it took him a while to slip the latch on the knob lock with a piece of thin plastic. He’d used a knife to shave the door slightly so that now even a credit card could be inserted between door and frame and used to unlock the door. Fortunately, the dead bolt above the doorknob hadn’t been thrown on his first visit. He’d jammed paper wadding into the keyhole with a penknife to make sure it wouldn’t be locked tonight. The auxiliary inside locks, of course, were unfastened, including a flimsy brass chain lock, because the tiny efficiency apartment was vacant.

He’d searched the real estate classified ads for quite a while before coming across this apartment: Ef, pk vw, vcnt, rsnble . Without contacting the leasing agent, he’d gone to the address, found that the apartment was on the fifth floor in an expensive but older apartment building that was being renovated, and employed no doorman. Many of the units were vacant, and no one had seen him take an elevator to the fifth floor, locate the apartment, and make his way inside.