Fear the Night

by John Lutz

  Repetto smiled. “You think he might be smarter than we are?”

  “Only in stretches.” She returned the smile. “And never more arrogant.”

  Repetto was tired of her verbal jousting and kept the conversation on business. “We eliminated most of the SWAT snipers as suspects,” he said. “The military cooperated and we tracked down half a dozen former snipers who live in the New York area. Three are Vietnam age and not suspects.”

  “True,” Zoe said. “Men over fifty usually aren’t serial killers. But there are exceptions.”

  “The other two former military snipers are Middle East vets, and both have tight alibis for at least one of the Night Sniper murders. We can get around to the exceptions over fifty later, if it’s necessary.”

  She gave him a look, and Repetto knew he’d been short with her again. He wondered why that kind of impatience had crept into his tone. He started to apologize, but she interrupted:

  “You said most of the SWAT snipers.”

  He found himself intrigued by the way she arched one eyebrow when she asked a question. It made her seem maybe more intelligent than she was. He nodded. “There are two former NYPD snipers, Sergeants Lou Mackey and Alex Reyals. In 1978 Mackey was shot in the side and had to have one of his kidneys removed. He’s in his fifties now, but may be one of those exceptions. Reyals is thirty-seven. He left the NYPD with disability pay three years ago. I haven’t been able to get a straight answer as to why.”

  “I know both of them. I interviewed Mackey once, and I was one of the consulting psychiatrists in the Reyals matter.”

  It was Repetto’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Reyals matter?”

  “Four years ago a fleeing holdup man was crossing the Queensboro Bridge in a stolen car. It got in a minor accident that caused a bigger accident that closed the bridge in both directions. The holdup man, a teenager named Joe Mustang—his real name—took an elderly woman hostage, held a gun to her head, and tried to walk with her off the bridge.”

  “Not much chance of that,” Repetto said, knowing how quickly the police would converge in that part of town.

  “Alex Reyals was one of three SWAT snipers who scoped in on Mustang and Iris Beadier, the hostage. Iris was a squeeze of the trigger away from dying from a bullet fired by Mustang’s gun, and the snipers had orders to fire if they got a clear shot at Mustang. If the aim of his gun momentarily strayed from Iris.”

  “And Reyals got the clear shot.” Repetto remembered the incident now, though not all the details.

  “He thought it was clear,” Zoe said. “He was in a window, near the ramp to Second Avenue. Something caught Mustang’s attention and he turned away from Iris for a moment, and the gun wasn’t pointed at her head. Reyals took the shot, as he’d been instructed. The bullet didn’t hit Mustang. It struck Iris in the ear and entered her brain. When she dropped, Mustang threw his hands up and surrendered without a struggle.”

  Repetto looked at Zoe. She’d told the story without emotion. He wondered what she thought of it. What she thought of Reyals. “Those guys almost always hit what they shoot at,” he said. “What made Reyals miss?”

  Zoe smiled sadly. “He doesn’t know. That’s his problem.”

  “He has a problem?”

  “He doesn’t think he should have missed. He thinks it’s his fault Iris Beecher is dead. So does Iris Beecher’s family. They let him know it. Then there were rumors that Reyals had been drinking when the call came in for him to go the bridge.”

  “Had he been drinking?”

  Zoe shrugged. “He says no. What happened is, he missed his shot. If it had happened on the target range, he would have walked away from it not knowing why he missed and not needing to know.”

  “This was a different kind of shot.”

  “That’s what Alex Reyals thinks. It’s why his nerve went. He was pensioned off with a mental disability. Last I heard he was in private analysis.” She sighed and ran her hands over her thighs. “It wasn’t, you know.”

  “Wasn’t what?”

  “A different kind of shot. It was simply one he missed. Maybe his eyelid twitched, or a gust of breeze altered the course of the bullet, or Iris moved in front of his target. He simply aimed at something and missed. It happens all the time, but he can’t think of it that way. He can’t forgive himself.”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t. A woman is dead.”

  Zoe stared at Repetto, her blue eyes amazingly steady. What a poker player she must be.

  “You think it’s a male thing,” he said.

  She smiled. “I know it is.”

  “What happened to Mustang?”

  “He went to prison and was killed a year later, in a fight with another inmate.”

  “Justice,” Repetto said.

  “I knew you were thinking that. You might be interested to know that so was I. Because of him a good woman was killed and a good man is living in agony.”

  “The kind of agony that could make him a serial killer?”

  Zoe stood up. She paced to the window and peeked out between two vertical blinds. Repetto still couldn’t see what was out there.

  When she turned around and faced him, she said, “It doesn’t add up. Reyals hates himself more than he could hate other people.”

  “You don’t know what else went on in his life.”

  “Some of it I do. From the hearing. From my interviews with him.”

  “Is this where you claim doctor-patient privilege?”

  “Don’t be such an asshole, Repetto. We’ve got a serial killer in this city. If there were anything in our sessions, or in Reyals’s past, that might have the slightest bearing on that, I’d tell you in a second. There isn’t. So I don’t have to worry about doctor-client privilege.”

  “This means you’ll tell me all about him?”

  “Means I can’t, because it has nothing to do with the Night Sniper. I can give you general information. Reyals grew up in rural Illinois where he hunted and became a crack shot. He went to college on a football scholarship but hurt his knee after his second year and dropped out, worked at a series of jobs, went back to school, and got his degree. He worked for a financial firm in Chicago, was transferred to New York, then got downsized. That’s when he joined the NYPD. He had a great record until the incident on the bridge.” She crossed the office and stood near Repetto. “You could find out all that in his personnel file.”

  “I already have.” He stood up and, comparing his height to Zoe’s, was surprised to find that she was taller than she appeared seated behind her desk or stalking around the office. “Did you like Reyals?” he asked.

  “That didn’t enter into it.”

  “Yeah, but did you like him?”

  “Yes, I did. He struck me as a good and kind young man who had something terrible happen to him.”

  “Nothing happened to him. He did something to someone else. He acted and there was a consequence. He squeezed the trigger, and now he has to live with the result.”

  “For God’s sake, he made a simple mistake! His skill and his luck deserted him when he needed them most. It could happen to anyone.”

  “No argument there. Can you tell me for sure that Alex Reyals isn’t the Night Sniper?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Because you don’t want to wind up with the same kind of agony Reyals is suffering.”

  She glared at him, then relaxed and gave him her thin, irritating smile. “You’re right. Once I tell you he’s not a suspect, whoever else he kills, if he is the Night Sniper, the murders are partly my responsibility.”

  Repetto nodded somberly and walked to the office door. “See?” he said, as he opened the door. “It isn’t a male thing.”

  Zoe almost shot back an answer before the door closed behind him, but she realized she didn’t have a good one. At least not one she should utter. Not yet.

  She knew Repetto was right, and she knew why he thought as he did. He felt he was partly responsible for what had happened to Dal Bricker, fo
r someone else’s death.

  He and Alex Reyals had something in common.

  17

  Repetto was uneasy, as he often was after talking with Zoe. He wasn’t sure why, and he shied away from trying to figure it out. He had other things on his mind.

  He left her office and took a cab through the hazy morning to Penn Station, where he met Meg and Birdy at the Starbucks inside the terminal. Over coffee, he filled them in on his conversation with Zoe.

  When he was finished, Birdy said, “Sounds to me like our profiler doesn’t think either Reyals or Mackey are prime suspects.”

  “I’d like to think she’s right,” Birdy said, “considering they’re ex-cops. And we all know there’s really no such thing.”

  “She might be wrong.” Repetto used both hands to play with his coffee mug. “Profilers are wrong a lot.”

  “Mackey doesn’t sound likely,” Meg said. “Mostly because of his age. It almost rules him out.”

  “Almost.” Repetto looked out at commuters striding along the wide passageway from the tracks. Their ceaseless movement made a steady, rushing sound, but if you listened closely, you could hear the scuffing of hundreds of soles punctuated by the tapping of high heels. People in a hurry, turning the treadmill of the business world he’d never wanted to take part in.

  “But I don’t know why the profiler’s cool on Reyals,” Meg said. “He’s the right sex, the right age, lives in Manhattan, and has a sniper’s background. Also, some of his alibis for the times of the Sniper murders are thin.”

  “He lives alone,” Birdy pointed out. “I used to live alone and not see or talk to anyone for days. I had no alibi for anything. Somebody coulda shot the pope, and I woulda had time to fly to Italy and back. That wouldn’t make me a solid suspect.”

  Meg looked at him. “You don’t like the pope?”

  “I don’t think we’d like each other.”

  “But you wouldn’t shoot each other.”

  Birdy shook his head and stared into his coffee. “I guess not, unless he learned about some of my confessions.”

  Meg turned her attention back to Repetto. “I wouldn’t be so fast to step over Reyals.”

  “I dunno,” Birdy said beside her. “He’s ex-NYPD.”

  “That doesn’t put him above suspicion. A minute ago you were thinking the pope might take a shot at you.”

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” Repetto said. “Since Meg likes Reyals at least a little for the Night Sniper, she gets to interview him. You get Mackey, Birdy. I know he’s not likely as the doer, but serial killers don’t always run true to type—except in Zoe Brady’s mind.”

  “You’re being kinda hard on her,” Meg said. “She’s got a good reputation for accuracy.”

  Repetto shrugged. Maybe Meg was right. And maybe he was being hard on Zoe Brady for another reason. What might really be irking Repetto was that Zoe seemed to understand that very private part of him where he harbored and nurtured his grief.

  “You got addresses on these guys?” he asked his detectives. Mind on business.

  They both nodded.

  Repetto tossed down the rest of his coffee and stood up.

  “What about you?” Birdy asked. “What are you gonna do?”

  Repetto stared at him. “I get the pope.”

  Meg found Alex Reyals’s apartment near Washington Square. The old brick building wasn’t fancy, and the foyer had a cracked and stained tile floor. The walls might have had half an inch of enamel on them. At least the latest coat, a kind of putrid green, appeared fresh. A couple of mashed cigarette butts lay close together on the floor, and a faint scent of tobacco smoke hung in the air.

  There was an intercom button above each of the tarnished brass mailboxes. Some of the names suggested many of the units were occupied by college students, men with not very clever nicknames, like Boozemaster in 4-C, and young women trying to hide their gender with simple first initials. There was always hope that a determined stalker would think B. Tuttle was a big hairy guy named Bart, instead of little Beth or Brenda. Meg saw that Alex Reyals lived in 3-E and gave his intercom button a hard press. It was difficult to know if the button moved in the dried mass of aged paint.

  When she identified herself as the police, he buzzed her up immediately. Expecting me?

  The building had no elevator, so she had to trudge up flights of narrow, creaking stairs. On each landing was a small, dirty window that made faint inroads against the gloom. The glued remnants of rubber treads clung stubbornly to each wooden step and provided unpredictable traction. A radio talk show that had been audible on the first floor faded to silence, and Meg heard her own breathing as she climbed.

  Reyals was standing waiting for her with his door open.

  He appeared younger than she imagined and looked more like one of the building’s college students than a serial killer. Maybe Boozemaster. What she thought when she saw him was average: no hard edges or lines to his features, dark hair cut almost scalp short, military style. He was wearing loose-fitting faded jeans and a gray pocket T-shirt, brown moccasins.

  He smiled pleasantly and held out his hand. “Alex Reyals.”

  “Detective Meg Doyle.” She shook his hand briefly, noting he had a firm, dry grip, gentle but with contained strength. Noting also, now that she was closer, that his brown eyes were pools of agony.

  He was taller than she’d first thought. At a distance, the bulk of his shoulders and perhaps thighs made him seem at a glance shorter than he actually was. It was the kind of build Meg had seen on powerful and athletic men. He stood back so she could enter, then followed her in and closed the door. When she turned, he was next to her. He motioned for her to sit on the sofa, his arm tight and corded with muscle.

  The room’s furnishings were a mix of old, new, and flea market. On one wall were shelves holding books, a stack of magazines, and what looked like an expensive sound system built around a CD player. A small TV and a lineup of ceramic vases sat on one of the upper shelves. Near a window was a spectacular wooden desk, modern and asymmetrical. There was a phone and answering machine on it, a small brass lamp, a folded New York Times, and a black notebook computer. Lighter, polished wood was inlaid in an angular design on the desk drawers, and the sturdy legs were capped with brass. This was some piece of furniture.

  Meg lowered herself into a gray leather armchair instead of the sofa, not letting Reyals control the interview, and pretended to glance around for the first time.

  “Nice room. Wonderful desk.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you like it. I made it.”

  “Made it?”

  “Upstairs in my shop. I rented that apartment and use it for my woodworking. It’s on the top floor, directly above this one and pretty much soundproof.”

  “Why soundproof?”

  “I hit my thumb with my hammer now and then, use terrible language.”

  “I suggest you take this interview seriously.”

  “Okay. My woodworking tools. Power tools. Some of them make noise and the neighbors might complain.”

  Meg was still disbelieving. “You make desks like that and sell them?”

  “Not like that. And not all desks. The furniture I make is half functional and half art. Every once in a while I show it in galleries, and decorators buy it for choice clientele.”

  “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 s
o 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?”