by John Lutz
What really annoyed Meg was that part of her was pleased there was something in Alex for Easterbrook to home in on.
She turned her head so she was looking directly at Repetto. “I’ll say it once. There was nothing improper about my interviews with Alex Reyals.”
“You visited him three times in his apartment.”
“He lives in his apartment.”
“Meg—”
“There’s nothing improper going on.”
Horns began to blare. Engines raced.
“Light,” Repetto said.
“Huh?”
“The light changed.”
Meg goosed the car and it jerked away from a dead stop and almost ran up the back of the cab again. The cabby noticed this time. She saw him glaring at her in his rearview mirror as he increased the distance between the two vehicles.
After a couple of silent blocks: “You believe me?”
“Of course,” Repetto said.
And he did believe her, she was sure.
But this didn’t bode well. Damn it, this didn’t bode well!
“Captain—”
“Enough said, Meg.”
Repetto hadn’t asked her to stay away from Alex.
Here was Meg again, pressing the paint-clogged intercom button for Alex’s apartment, taking the elevator to Alex’s floor. Meg where she shouldn’t be. Meg sticking her neck out again. It was the kind of thing that often got Meg in trouble, and that she couldn’t stop doing.
Nothing improper. That was true. That was goddamn true, and still her ass was in a sling. Or sure felt like it was.
Alex was waiting for her with the door open, smiling when she walked toward him. He was in jeans and a blue Yankees T-shirt, and had a sharp-looking chisel in his right hand. There were tiny wood chips trapped in the hair on his muscular forearms. His smile faded when he noticed the expression on her face.
He stepped back and let her enter. “You okay?”
“Question is, are you?”
He was smiling again, amused by her anger even though he didn’t know what caused it. That was really annoying.
“You here to arrest me?” he asked.
“Just maybe. Why did you tell Easterbrook I’d been here to visit you three times?”
“Because he asked me how many times you’d been here. I couldn’t lie to him, Meg. I’m a suspect in a series of homicides.” A serious look crossed his face. “Easterbrook giving you trouble?”
“He mentioned his talk with you to Repetto.”
Alex thought about that for a few seconds. “He had no choice, Meg. Like I had no choice but to be honest with him. You know how lies are, like cockroaches. When there’s one, it always seems there are more.”
He was right and she knew it. And it was she who’d decided to keep coming here to his apartment. At least he hadn’t pointed that out to her. Lucky for him.
“I don’t blame you for being angry,” he said. “In fact . . .”
Don’t say it.
He tucked the chisel in his belt and gently placed both his hands on her shoulders, probably getting wood chips on her blazer. She didn’t move when he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips.
This visit wasn’t turning out anything like she’d planned.
She kissed him back.
Hadn’t planned that, either.
She stepped away from him, and he lowered his arms in a way that suggested hopelessness.
“I’ve been working,” he said, smiling a certain way. “Want to come see what I’m doing?”
She stared at him for a long time, into his eyes.
“I’m getting the hell out of here,” she said.
He nodded. “I have to admit it’s the smart thing to do.”
She turned away from him and moved toward the door and opened it. Turned back. “Thanks.”
“For understanding your position?”
“For not telling me I’m beautiful when I’m angry.”
“I was thinking it.”
She slammed the door on the way out, thinking her visit had accomplished absolutely nothing.
Still, she was glad she’d come.
That was the problem.
A neatly folded fifty-dollar bill got the Night Sniper into the exclusive Club Cleo on the Upper West Side. He sat alone now at a small round table by a wooden rail separating seating from the spacious dance floor. The walls were oak paneled. The music was soft rock, sometimes even romantic ballads. Sinatra would have dug it. Long red drapes hung from the high ceiling, lending the illusion there were windows behind them. The lighting was soft and there were more tables in a gallery upstairs, from which customers could look down at the dance floor. Drug transactions and usage were discreet and not done in the restrooms, where there were attendants.
Club Cleo wasn’t exactly for people on the way up. It was more for those who were clinging near the summit, a very private way station on the way up, or down, the steep mountain of success.
Connections could be made here. More than once, the Night Sniper had made them.
An exotically beautiful woman, dressed as a jockey in silks that were the brown and red colors of Club Cleo, took his drink order, and he watched the rhythmic switch of her hips beneath taut silk as she walked away. A riding crop was tucked in her belt.
The band was playing something by Duke Ellington. A raven-haired woman in an emerald-green dress was dancing with a short balding man in an expensive-looking suit. When the dance partners separated for a few seconds, the Night Sniper saw that the man’s dark maroon tie matched the handkerchief barely peeking from his suit coat’s breast pocket. Subdued elegance. The Night Sniper approved.
He was wearing his blue Armani suit, Gambino Italian loafers, and sipping sixteen-year-old Lagavulin scotch. On his wrist was an antique Patek Philippe watch that kept precise time. His neatly knotted blue tie was pure silk and cost 120 dollars. His dark hair was medium-length and impeccably styled. Only the most discerning eye would notice it was a wig.
The Ellington number was over. The Night Sniper saw the woman with the lustrous black hair talk briefly to the balding man, then turn smiling and walk away. The man seemed disappointed as he returned to a table on the far side of the dance floor and sat down with three other men. They all glanced over at the woman, who sat alone at a small table not far from the Night Sniper’s.
The black-haired woman, Mary Maureen Kopler, recently of Atlanta, had just finished her third martini. Maybe that was why she didn’t notice anything special about the man seated at the nearby table, watching her, other than that he was flawlessly groomed and almost too handsome, with kind dark eyes and smooth, tanned skin. When he turned away from her, he displayed a profile that belonged in a museum of Roman artifacts.
She thought he was interesting, even if he did seem the type that spent hours getting together an outfit every morning in order to achieve male perfection. He was almost, but not quite, beautiful enough to appear feminine. Mr. Metrosexual. Maybe he was some kind of model. She’d met such men before. Often they were rich. She looked in his direction without moving her head, then waited until he glanced at her. Even before there was eye contact, she lowered her gaze and looked away.
It was enough. She knew it would be. The men who frequented Club Cleo were aware of life’s subtleties. That was why she came here.
Drawing a deep breath, staying outwardly oblivious, she waited.
She saw the slight shift of light and shadow and knew he was there even before he spoke:
“Mind if I sit with you for a moment?”
Good start. Simple and direct. Nicely modulated voice. Educated. Mary Maureen preferred not to waste her time with simpletons.
She looked up as if noticing him for the first time. Gave him a smile, ever so slight. “Are you selling something?”
“Other than the obvious?”
Widen the smile. “I will say you’re honest. Go ahead and sit.” For more than a moment.
She liked this man. He lo
oked clean, smelled clean, and was incredibly handsome. Of course, he’d eventually reveal himself to be too good to be true. Like the rest of them.
But right now, what wasn’t there to like?
She was even more beautiful close up, he thought, as he sat gracefully in the chair across from her. “Your accent is charming. Louisiana?”
“Georgia. Atlanta. Well, just outside Atlanta, really. Rome.”
“I’ve been there.”
“Not hardly.”
Not hardly? She was playing it folksy, he knew. Trying to snag him with her southern manner.
“You’re probably thinking of the other Rome,” she said. “The big one.”
“No. That one’s full of Italians now.”
She giggled but kept it controlled, not wanting to come across as an airhead.
“I know my Romes,” he said. “I’ve been in Rome, Georgia. What are we drinking?”
“I’m having martinis.”
“Then so am I.” He turned and motioned to one of the servers.
This was working well, he thought. She’d already had too much to drink. He could smell it on her breath, see it in her labored eye movement and body language, now that he was close to her.
The woman dressed as a jockey brought the martinis. He tipped her lavishly, knowing his southern belle was watching, probably contemplating his gross income and sexual potential.
Within five minutes the Night Sniper knew he could have this woman. And he knew their relationship would be brief. He didn’t completely understand what attracted women to him in the first place. Maybe it was a beauty-and-the-beast allure. She had to see beneath his skin, what he was; nothing like that could ever be made completely invisible or was ever completely gone. But women were attracted to him; it was undeniable.
He sipped his martini and watched her sip hers. The woman would leave Club Cleo with him and they’d spend the night together where she lived or in his luxury condo. A one-nighter, whether she wanted it that way or not.
They chatted easily for another fifteen minutes, exchanging smiles and tentative touches across the table. He noticed the slight slur that had worked its way into her musical drawl. She squeezed his hand hard and gazed soulfully at him as if she owned him. No, as if she wanted him to own her.
I’m not buying, only renting.
Halfway through their drinks, they left together.
In the back of his mind he knew that someday she’d discover the true identify of the man she’d lain with, and the knowledge thrilled him even more than what he knew was to follow when they reached their destination.
27
Meg changed into sweatshirt and pants and ate leftovers from the Chinese takeout she’d had for dinner night before last. She didn’t mind the hurry-up meal. Some of that Chinese stuff tasted even better after two days in the refrigerator and two minutes in the microwave.
When she was finished, she washed and dried the stainless steel fork and the empty milk glass she’d used, then put various white cardboard cartons into each other, then into the trash. After a gentle, ladylike burp, she went into the living room and switched on the TV to watch local twenty-four-hour cable news.
There was more on the Sniper killing of Kelli Wilson, with tape of onlookers at the crime scene. A brief shot of Repetto ignoring the media types; they might as well have been parking meters standing there. Meg had to smile.
She watched the news until a piece about a dog trapped by a rushing creek in New Jersey came on the second time. She waited until the dog was once again rescued with the aid of some sort of crane and sling; then she punched the remote. The dog, a mottled black spaniel of some kind, had its head turned and was gazing forlornly at her as the picture faded. It seemed almost as if it hadn’t wanted to be saved.
In the silence wrought by the remote, Meg yawned, got up from where she was slouched on the sofa, and ambled over to her desktop computer by the window. When she switched on the lamp, she saw her reflection in the dark glass, a weary, rather grim-faced young woman lowering herself into a chair. Meg almost expected the woman in the window to give her a nod of recognition and greeting.
When she’d booted up the computer and was online, there was an e-mail from Alex Reyals:
It was my great pleasure seeing you again, despite the circumstances.
Alex
Polite. Even formal. Not at all threatening. Yet Meg sat shaken. How had he gotten her e-mail address? Did he have NYPD connections that good? Her hand went to the keyboard but her fingertips hovered half an inch above it.
She shouldn’t reply to him. She couldn’t!
Should she phone and demand to know how he’d discovered where to e-mail her? Not only might she learn more about him, it would give her an opportunity to talk with him again.
But that, too, seemed unwise, especially after her conversation with Repetto.
Finally Meg decided her only course of action was inaction. Her job, her professionalism, demanded that she let the Alex Reyals matter lie. At least until the Night Sniper investigation was resolved.
But what if he was guilty of murder?
She didn’t believe it, but the cop in her didn’t completely disbelieve it.
Nothing. All she could do was nothing, and hope she was right and Alex didn’t turn out to be the Night Sniper or a copycat killer. A killer whose advances she should have used to her advantage, to find him out and stop him from committing more murders.
Meg told herself again that Alex wasn’t involved in any way with the Night Sniper killings, or with any other murders. That was what she damned well believed.
She clung to that certainty.
Near-certainty.
She shut down the computer, watched a TV reality show so inane she muted the last five minutes, then went to bed.
It was a long time before she dozed off, and then her sleep was shallow and laced with dreams and worries. Whenever she rose to the surface of wakefulness, she tried to concentrate on practical matters and control her errant thoughts.
Thoughts about Alex.
It was my great pleasure seeing you . . .
The Night Sniper lay in bed in almost total darkness and made no sound, watching the woman from Club Cleo collect her clothes from the floor and chair and tiptoe nude into the bathroom.
As she silently closed the door behind her, he glimpsed her shapely form that was subtly highlighted by the night-light, giving it a lushness he remembered from only hours ago. He glanced again at the red numerals on the clock by the bed. It was 3:30 in the morning. A quiet time.
He lay listening to his heartbeat, the occasional noises from the street far below, and the faint sounds of Mary Maureen dressing behind the bathroom door.
Then the door opened on darkness except for the illumination of the dim night-light. She’d switched off the light above the mirror beforehand, not wanting to wake him. He lay with his eyes open, knowing he was in shadow, and observed her move silently across the room, then go out without looking back.
A minute later he heard the soft sounds of the door to the hall opening and closing.
He switched on the lamp by the bed and sat up.
Other than thrown-back sheets, and impressions in the mattress and pillow, there was no sign that the woman had been in bed with him. He climbed out of bed nude and went into the bathroom. No note, no message in lipstick on the mirror. Nothing. He padded quickly, barefoot, into the living room.
Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. The woman had simply left quietly, sneakily.
He wondered if he’d satisfied her. She’d seemed to enjoy everything they’d done. She’d stroked his face as he was fucking her, moaned unintelligible vows. Her passion had been real and transforming.
But she had left him in the night.
He knew what must have happened. She’d seen him for what he’d been, for what he was, the ugliness so near the surface , the differentness.
Some things are indelible, he thought.
Some things are f
orever.
He cupped his face in both hands, squeezing until it hurt, and he began to sob.
Over an hour passed before he stood up and trudged back to bed. But exhausted as he was, he couldn’t sleep. He climbed out of bed and began to pace, drank a glass of milk, paced some more. Tried to read. Tried to watch television. Paced.
Cleaned his rifles.
28
A problem. The shot was impossible from the roof, so the Night Sniper decided on another course of action.
The entire top two floors of the Edmont Arms Apartments were being renovated, and a series of terraces were created as the building stair-stepped down. The terrace of one of the top-floor apartments under construction allowed the Sniper to move out another ten feet toward the sidewalk. He wouldn’t be seen there, and the building’s roof could be reached without risking having to break into the apartment.
He simply took the fire stairs to the roof, then lowered himself with a rope down to the terrace. When it was time for him to go, he would simply force open one of the French doors leading inside from the terrace, and leave through the apartment’s door.
He hadn’t been noticed several nights ago when he visited the prospective sniper’s nest to make sure it would be adequate. It was no problem entering the building; one simply had to wait until the lackadaisical doorman was otherwise occupied, smoking or gossiping, then slip in through the tinted glass doors. Doormen paid a great deal of attention to people arriving, but they paid less attention to anyone leaving a building. And they had to see them leave, in order to recall them. The problem was that in leaving, there was no way to know where the doorman would be, or what he would be doing—or what he’d see and remember.
The Night Sniper had experienced no problem entering the building either time, or making his way to the roof, then the terrace. Leaving meant running a slight risk, but it would take days to determine the source of the shot, if it ever were determined. The Night Sniper knew that was all he needed, days, before the police talked to the doorman. If the doorman had happened to notice him leaving, by then memory and description would be questionable. Eyewitnesses were unreliable even under the best of circumstances.