by John Lutz
“Of course,” Amelia said in an unemotional voice. “I’m not suicidal.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Then you are fooled. I want to live, just like anyone else. Any of the other victims.”
He watched her throat work as she swallowed. A pale shadow seemed to move across her face, and for the first time he saw fear.
But beneath the fear, the courage.
He pulled her to him and hugged her tight.
“I admit I’m afraid,” she said. “Okay?” As if she were admitting getting home past curfew.
He kissed the top of her forehead. “Anyone would be. Will you at least not attend classes for a few days, stay here out of sight? For me and your mother?”
“Of course. I don’t want to cause either of you any pain. And I really don’t want to die! I don’t! More than that, I don’t want you to think that’s what I want. It’s just that I’m an adult. I have to make my stand here or I might regret it for the rest of my life.” She stared up at him so much the way Lora did sometimes. “Please try to understand, Dad.”
“I understand,” Repetto assured her. He knew she was wrong, that she wouldn’t always regret leaving, that this wasn’t her young life’s Waterloo. There would be plenty of other crises, other battles. He also knew he could never explain this to her so she’d believe it.
He held her tighter and waited until her sobs had quieted and her body had stopped shaking. The longer he held her the more he hated the idea of her staying here, in this street-level apartment. He wished Dal were still alive. He wished—
Fuck it! Dal was dead, and Repetto wanted Amelia to remain alive.
“I’ll have Birdy and Meg guard you in shifts, along with some uniforms outside.”
She nodded. The admission of fear had at least made her that compliant.
“Follow their instructions,” Repetto told her. “In the meantime, if you insist on staying here, don’t go near the windows, and of course make sure everything stays locked. Promise?”
“Promise.”
“I’ll call Birdy, then talk to Melbourne and get things set up. While we’re waiting for your angels to arrive, I’ll make sure the apartment’s sealed tight.”
“Angels?”
“The ones with guns who’ll be protecting you.”
“I’ll try hard to believe in angels,” Amelia told him. She almost managed to smile. “Better guns than wings.”
Repetto already had his cell phone out and was contacting Birdy. He explained the situation and told Birdy he couldn’t rule out another change of tactics by the Night Sniper. Maybe he’d start killing at close range, indoors, during daylight hours, with a handgun. Nothing seemed beyond him. Repetto told Birdy to stay inside the apartment with Amelia, not even to go out for food.
“This is my daughter,” he reminded Birdy.
“Then—if you don’t mind my asking—why don’t you get her out of there?”
“I would if I could and be sure she wouldn’t return. She considers this her date with destiny. Leaving isn’t what she wants. And she reminds me she’s twenty-one.”
“Ah, they do keep reminding you when that happens, whenever the shit gets deep. The good ones, anyway. Her father’s daughter.”
“Goddamned right.”
Repetto told Birdy he could have food delivered, or help himself to whatever was in the refrigerator.
He was to eat with his 9mm beside his plate.
51
“Look at this,” Meg said.
She was standing at the window of a high suite in the Marimont Hotel, pointing outside to the roof of a setback in the tall building.
Repetto looked. He saw shorter buildings beyond the parapet, and blue sky beyond buildings off in the distance.
“I mean look at the roof,” Meg said, noticing where he was staring.
At first Repetto didn’t see it. Then he noticed an irregularity in the tar and gravel roof, something small protruding. Another, identical object. Four in all, arranged as if marking the corners of a rectangle.
“So what are they?” he asked.
“We’re not sure. One of the uniforms noticed them and told me about them. He came up here to check the windows, to make sure they didn’t provide a view of the plaza and podium even though they’re three blocks away.”
“Be a hell of a shot,” Repetto said, “even if the mayor was visible from here.”
“C’mon out on the roof,” Meg said. She grinned when he didn’t reply immediately. “It’s only a three-foot drop.”
She opened the window, gracefully sat on the sill, then swiveled to step outside. Repetto followed, bumping his head on the window frame.
Meg led him to the four objects on the roof. Repetto stooped low and saw that they were metal painted a dull black so they weren’t very visible. Stubby, hollowed, and rectangular. Brackets of some kind.
He looked up and squinted in the direction of Rockefeller Plaza. The podium and lectern hadn’t been disassembled. From where he squatted, it appeared that part of the podium and about half the lectern were visible, but he couldn’t be sure from this distance. But they were what he was looking at; he could see them far beyond the corner of a building two blocks away.
“An impossible shot,” he said. “Even if the Sniper got it just right and barely cleared that building corner, he’d have to be unbelievably accurate.”
“And lucky,” Meg said. “But he wasn’t lucky all the way. The mayor is still alive.”
Repetto straightened up and stared at her. Then he glanced back at the building on which they stood. The window they’d exited was the only one that looked out on the setback’s roof, and only blank brick wall towered above. Where he and Meg stood, they were invisible from anyone else in the Marimont or from the surrounding shorter buildings. A perfect sniper’s nest. One that had to have been carefully scouted by an expert.
And they were dealing with an expert.
Still, so far away . . .
Repetto breathed in the high, clean air above the traffic-clogged street. They were high enough that not even much sound reached them from below. “You’re thinking the brackets were used to support a tripod or something to steady the rifle.”
“Something steadier than a tripod. There are four brackets. Some kind of brace might have fit into them, and after the shooting, the Sniper disassembled it and took it with him.”
Repetto squinted again toward the Plaza and held his hand in saluting position over his eyes to shield them from the sun. “It still doesn’t seem possible, Meg. Did you ask anyone from the hotel what those brackets were?”
“I described them downstairs to some of the maintenance crew. Nobody seems to know what they are. No one could come up with any possible use for them.”
Repetto folded his arms and stared toward the Plaza. “You’re theorizing that the Sniper broke into this suite—”
“Or got a key somehow. I examined the lock, and there’s no sign it’s been forced. He didn’t lower himself from the roof above. The hotel restaurant’s up there, the Pot-O-Gold.”
“So he must have sneaked into the suite somehow and gained access to this roof. If it were two blocks closer to the podium, it would have been a perfect place to shoot from, but then it would have been checked out and covered by us.”
“That might be exactly what appealed to him. It would have been written off as a threat. And this far away, it would’ve been easy for him to slip out of the hotel and disappear after firing the shot.”
“But how could he be sure we wrote it off? Simply the seeming impossibility of the shot?”
“That, or maybe he has a contact in the NYPD.”
Always possible, Repetto knew. “Suppose he did have a key, Meg? How could he know he wouldn’t open the door and be face-to-face with a guest?”
“He might work for the hotel.”
“It would have to be in a capacity where he could control who stayed in which room or suite. That’s the only way he could plan on this
suite being unoccupied during the time he needed it. Did you check at the desk and see if anyone was staying in it at the time the mayor was shot?”
“Yes. It was registered to someone, but there’s no guarantee the guest was in the suite at that time. In a busy hotel like this, people come and go unnoticed.”
“Has anybody stayed in the suite since the mayor was shot?”
“No. It’s expensive and isn’t occupied as often as ordinary rooms.”
Repetto shook his head. “Even if the Sniper did manage to get in here, then out on the roof and use something to help brace his rifle, it still looks like an impossible shot.”
“The Sniper’s the sort who might enjoy the challenge.”
“Now you sound like Zoe.”
He was beginning to make Meg doubt. “Zoe’s not always wrong.” She was becoming argumentative, she knew, sounding petulant. But damn it . . .
Repetto went back inside, careful not to bump his head this time, and Meg followed.
“Expensive suite, all right,” he said, looking around at the tasteful furniture and wall hangings. He could imagine celebrities and political dignitaries staying here.
Repetto glanced at his image in a gold-framed mirror across the room and saw that his hair was mussed from the breeze out on the roof. He smoothed it back so he didn’t look so much like a wild old cop. It stuck back out. Stubborn as Meg.
“Maybe the Night Sniper himself registered and stayed here,” he said, watching her in the mirror.
She looked surprised, then grinned. “That I kinda doubt.”
“Zoe would say he’d see it as a challenge, taunting us.”
“We’d have his fingerprints.”
“He’d be careful ahead of time, use only one or two rooms, then wipe them down carefully before going out on the roof to take his shot.”
“He does wear rubber gloves,” Meg said.
“Did the maid say the guest slept here?”
Oops! “I didn’t ask. Didn’t imagine—”
“We’re here,” Repetto said. “Let’s go find out.”
It didn’t take them long to locate the maid who’d cleaned the suite that morning. She was a heavyset Hispanic woman with strong, beautiful features and graying hair. Fifteen pounds and years beyond being a beauty queen. In an accent that was pure Brooklyn she told them the bed had been slept in, probably by two people.
“It was registered as a single,” Meg told her.
The maid stared at her as if she were unbelievably naive. “Uh-huh. Single male, what I was told. Sometimes they find company, y’know?”
“You clean the entire suite?” Repetto asked.
“Sure. Even though most of it didn’t need it. Did my usual thorough job. Only room that was really a mess was the large bedroom. Bedsheets all tangled like there’d been some heavy action there.”
“You sure he wasn’t alone?”
“Not ’less he tossed an’ turned all night an’ used two pillows. Sheets had a certain kinda stain and smell about ’em, too, if you know what I mean.”
“You change the sheets?” Meg asked.
“Now whaddya you think?”
“They been laundered yet?” Repetto asked.
“Long time ago. Just like them towels.”
“Towels?”
“There was a lotta damp towels piled in the bathtub. Like somebody took a bath or shower every couple hours.”
Repetto and Meg looked at each other. Both understood the towels might have been used to wipe the suite clean of prints.
“You happen to see the suite’s occupant at any time?” Repetto asked the maid.
“Never. He had the do-not-disturb sign out mosta the time. The kinda guests we get, we gotta pay attention to those signs.”
They thanked the maid and let her return to work. She pushed her linen cart along the hall, appearing to be leaning hard on it and deliberately making one of the wheels squeak.
“Woman’s got a burr up her ass,” Meg said.
“Some do,” Repetto said, giving her a look. “Let’s check at the desk and see if anyone remembers the suite’s occupant.”
Meg felt her heartbeat quicken. Repetto suddenly seemed to be taking seriously the possibility that the Sniper was a registered guest. He was making Meg a believer. She had to walk fast to keep up with him on the way to the elevator.
They got lucky. The same desk clerk was on duty who’d checked in the suite’s occupant.
“Here’s where he signed in,” the clerk said. He was a small man with dark hair combed straight back and shiny as patent leather, a narrow nose too long for his face. He swiveled a large black registration book for Repetto and Meg to read.
“Not many hotels still use those,” Meg said.
“We don’t usually, because most of our guests pay with plastic and that creates its own record. But some still use old-fashioned cash.”
Meg and Repetto glanced at each other. “He paid cash?”
“Certainly did.”
Repetto and Meg looked at the registration book as the clerk touched a manicured finger to the correct line. The man’s name was neatly printed: Ott Eperrepinsi.
“Sounds foreign,” Meg said. “Maybe Ott’s a nickname for Otto. Maybe he’s from one of those Balkan countries that’re so hard to pronounce.”
“Or his German mother married an Italian,” Repetto said. To the desk clerk: “Do you recall what he looked like?”
“Vaguely. About average size. Dark hair. Well groomed and very fashionably dressed in suit and tie. He was rich, I’d say. Not to be crass, but we develop a feel for that here, being able to guess at net worth. We can come pretty close.”
“I’ll bet. Anything unusual about his appearance other than his wealth?”
“Wealth isn’t unusual here at the Marimont. He was a handsome man, women would say. Had a bold bearing about him. Something else about him that isn’t that unusual here. He was wearing a topper.”
“Topper?”
“A toupee. I can spot them easily because I used to wear one myself, before I got my hair transplant.” He absently touched his luxurious dark hair.
“That’s really something,” Meg said, genuinely impressed.
“Science,” said the desk clerk.
“Did you happen to see him with a woman?” Repetto asked.
The desk clerk stroked the bridge of his narrow nose, giving that one some thought. “No. I only noticed him once or twice more after he checked in, going or coming. He didn’t check out. Not that it was necessary, since we use electronic card keys and he paid in advance and with cash. But usually our guests stop by the desk.”
“You’re sure he didn’t?”
“Oh yes. I was on duty that morning from early morning until past checkout time.”
A man and woman arrived at the desk with a flurry of luggage wielded by an eagerly helpful bellhop. Repetto nodded to the clerk so he could move to the opposite end of the desk and check them in.
“Doesn’t feel right,” Meg said.
Repetto got out his wallet and removed one of his cards. “I wanna write down this guy’s name before I forget it.”
He leaned over the open registration book and used one of the hotel’s ballpoint pens to copy the guest’s name on the back of the card, then suddenly stopped writing, staring at what he’d done.
“Get some uniforms and freeze that suite,” he said. His features had become hard.
Meg was too surprised to move right away.
“Asshole and his games,” Repetto muttered. He finished writing on the card and looked up at her. “Zoe was right about this guy.” He handed her the card.
Meg stared at it and felt a chill ripple up her back. Beneath his first writing of Ott Eperrepinsi’s name, Repetto had written it again, only backward, adding comas:
I, Sniper, Repetto.
52
“My professional opinion,” Meg said to Amelia, “is that you should get out of the city until we catch this guy.”
They were in the Amelia’s West Side apartment. Meg had caught a few hours of sleep earlier and come in to spell a haggard-looking Birdy. Though it was still light out, the blinds were closed and lamps and fixtures supplied most of the illumination. The cheaply furnished living room, with its mismatched furniture, museum posters, and shelves and stacks of books, mostly paperback, seemed smaller to Meg than when she’d first entered, more a trap than a refuge. Along one wall was a narrow table with an Apple computer on it. There was a stereo on one of the sagging bookshelves, with speakers so large they were unsettling. At least Amelia didn’t have the damned things on.
“I’ve been informed of the dangers,” Amelia said, “and my dad and I agreed to the precautions.” She was sitting in a gray wing chair, her face sidelighted by a reading lamp so she was even more beautiful than usual. Her hair looked like the spun gold of fairy tales. What a shame, Meg thought, for somebody so young, vital, and attractive to die when it wasn’t necessary.
It kind of irritated Meg, the way people who decided to place themselves in this kind of danger always seemed to agree only grudgingly to protection, as if they were being put out, as if a few cops or more weren’t laying their lives on the line to keep the intended target alive. Still, this was a kid, too young to have developed good survival skills.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Amelia said, “that I’m a lot of unnecessary trouble. But I’ve got a right to live where I choose.” Something in her voice was like her father’s.
“So you’re sticking,” Meg said. “You know what that makes you?”
Amelia smiled sadly. “Stubborn?”
“Well, that too. It also makes you an easy target.”
“So I’ve been told,” Amelia said. She knew the neighborhood was flooded with cops, in uniform and plainclothes, and of course there was protection right here, inside the apartment. “I feel safe, Meg, with what’s outside, and with you inside.”
“I know how your dad feels about this,” Meg said. “What about your mom?”
“She hates it, but she knows it’s my decision.”
“She try talking you out of it?”