Fear the Night n-5

by John Lutz

  After leaving the office and subwaying uptown, she set out walking the three blocks from the stop to her apartment on West Seventy-second Street. Candy wouldn’t have been able to afford the apartment except for her roommate, Annette, an American Airlines flight attendant who was away most of the time. It was an arrangement Candy could live with easily. Annette was working the international flights now and was somewhere in Europe, where she’d remain until later this month. Living with Annette was almost like living alone, only with a DVD collection Candy couldn’t afford.

  Candy was moving fast, taking long strides in her jogging shoes that didn’t go well with her businesslike gray skirt and blazer. Her gray high heels were in her baggy black denim attache case, along with the bulky manuscript for The General’s Lover, which was on a fast-track production schedule. She was supposed to finish editing and get the novel back to the author by the end of the week. Not an easy task. It helped that she liked the novel a great deal, the World War Two story of a German general in Paris who fell in love with a French woman he knew was spying for the resistance.

  Candy took the five concrete steps to her building entrance with an ease and grace that caused three teenage boys across the street to gawk at her. One of them shouted something she didn’t understand. Just as well.

  As she keyed the door to her second-floor apartment and pushed inside, she raised the arm carrying the attache case and glanced at her watch. She should still have time to get in her run in the park before it became dark.

  Whenever she got the opportunity, instead of running in the neighborhood, Candy walked the few blocks to Central Park and jogged along the path that followed the park’s perimeter. The distance was 6.1 miles, exactly right for a runner of Candy’s ability to stay in tune, if she ran it often enough. She was proud of her body, of her athletic ability. She’d entered the New York Marathon twice, finishing well back both times, but finishing.

  She removed The General’s Lover from the attache case and placed the manuscript on her desk, where she’d work on it later that evening. Then she carried the case, along with her business shoes, into the bedroom.

  As she changed into her sweats and training shoes, she glanced at the window. It seemed that the light was already failing, but that was because it was an overcast day.

  Still …

  For a few seconds she paused. The park could be dangerous after dark; there were people who saw female joggers as prey. Just last month a woman who lived in the next block, over on Seventy-third, was shoved to the ground and robbed at knifepoint near the jogging trail. She might have been killed or raped, if someone hadn’t come along and scared away her assailant.

  “Screw it!” Candy said, and continued dressing for her regular run.

  She was young and strong and trained in hand-to-hand combat. There was no reason she should be afraid of the dark or anyone it might conceal. And she sure as hell had a perfect right to jog in the park-her park-whatever the hour.

  When she was dressed to run, she tied back her long dark hair in a ponytail, then went into the kitchen and got a plastic bottle of water to sling in a holster at her waist. She went through the living room, then out into the hall, locking her apartment door behind her. Bending gracefully from the waist, she slid her apartment key into a small, Velcro-flapped pouch attached to her right shoelace. The pouch also contained a tightly folded twenty-dollar bill and a slip of paper with her name and address on it. She would have money in an emergency, and she could be identified, if anything happened to her. An oxygen deficiency or low blood sugar crisis might cause her to lose consciousness for a while.

  It was wrong to be afraid, she thought, but right to be careful, as she jogged through lengthening shadows the three blocks to the park entrance.

  Not far away, at Columbus Circle, Bobby Mays sat on a folded blanket with a chipped coffee cup before him. He hadn’t eaten since wolfing down half a doughnut this morning, but that wasn’t what was bothering him. He was plenty used to being hungry, and if he got hungry enough he could make his way to one of the shelters and take his chances on being assaulted or robbed in his sleep, in exchange for a genuine meal.

  What Bobby needed was his medicine, his Xanax-that was what was working now. Working better than the rest of his meds, anyway. He glanced down at the few bills and change in the chipped cup. Not enough for his purposes. Not yet.

  He didn’t want to go to illegal drugs, and the last thing he wanted to become was an alky. But now and then he smoked a joint, or found what was left of a bottle and had to drink it. It turned off the pain machine for a brief period.

  It would be dark soon. He examined the cup’s contents more closely-three one-dollar bills, two dimes, and a couple of quarters. Not nearly enough to get his prescription filled.

  Bobby was afraid that if he had the opportunity, he might forget about begging enough money to pay for the Xanax and steal some of it. From a hospital, pharmacy, doctor’s office, anywhere. That would be a last resort, and just thinking about it bothered him, because in another life, in another city, he’d been a cop, and a good one.

  He’d been a husband and father, too.

  Maybe not such a good husband or father, because he’d been driving when the accident happened. He’d gotten his family killed. He killed his family. His family—

  Margie dead beside him with her mouth and eyes so wide, little Midge swimming in blood without aStaring at him, but that was impossible.

  Don’t think about this! Don’t go there! Stay away!

  Impossible.

  The oil dripping. The blood? He couldn’t be sure. Dripping and ticking as if it were meting out time, only time had run out.

  Not his time, though. That wasn’t fair to anyone.

  What the fuck’s fair got to do with it? Fair’s in another world, on another planet. Not where I am.

  “You oughta think about it, Bobby. Work it out so you can understand.”

  My voice?

  He rubbed his forearm across his eyes. Gotta think about it.

  No!

  He tried to shake his mind loose from that trap but couldn’t quite do it. He was stuck there again, as he was so often, while being eaten away from the inside. Guilt was like acid. It was more like acid than acid. Drip. . drip. . drip. .

  A coin clinked in the cup and he automatically muttered a thank-you.

  New York, not Philadelphia. What the fuck was I thinking about?

  The man who’d spared the change didn’t look back.

  When people did look at Bobby-which, as any of the homeless would tell you, was rare, the homeless being invisible-they sometimes remarked on how young and handsome he was, and how presentable he’d be if he cleaned up, on what a shame it was, a young man like that. Ruined. No more. He knew by their eyes what they were thinking, that he was no longer human.

  That was how it felt to Bobby to be homeless. He was other than human now. And it was what he deserved.

  Bobby worked his way to a kneeling position on his blanket, then managed to stand, the bunched blanket in one hand, the chipped collection cup in the other. He didn’t have enough money for the Xanax, or for a joint he could buy-thought he could buy-to help him through the coming night. He realized he didn’t know where to go to buy the joint, though he remembered who he should see. He had a cop’s memory for faces, just not times anymore, whole days.

  Sometimes yesterdays simply didn’t exist for Bobby. The head injury from the car accident, the headaches that came with memories, the guilt, the guilt. All of that was real and never went away for good.

  “Jesus!” he said softly.

  But he’d tried Jesus and hadn’t found the answer. He thought there might not be an answer.

  No yesterday for Bobby. No help for tonight. Enough money for a subway card, though. He could get it from one of the machines and ride the lines, steal some sleep, and hope none of the violent ones would steal what little he had, or kill him because he had so little and was a disappointment.

 
He took a few shuffling steps, then stopped.

  There was something about the man on the other side of the street, another of the homeless, judging by his clothes-his ragged long coat too warm for the weather, his faded backpack that probably held all he owned-and his demeanor.

  There’s a word I haven’t used in a long time. Demeanor. .

  Demeanor!

  That was what was wrong. The man on the opposite sidewalk looked like one of the homeless, one of Bobby’s lost brotherhood, only he didn’t look like one. Bobby had been a Philadelphia cop long enough to be brought up short when something didn’t look quite right. And this guy-he was gone now, turned a corner-was walking too fast, with a stride too confident. As if he had some place to go.

  None of the homeless had some place to go.

  Well, the man was gone.

  If he’d ever really been there.

  Bobby was beginning to wonder. Some of the things that had happened to him lately made him wonder. It could be the man hadn’t been real.

  Forgetting the man, Bobby ambled slowly and painfully toward the subway stop up the street. People passing in the opposite direction glanced at him, through him, this shambling young man with the shock of unruly curly hair, the five-day-old beard, the dirt-stained face and lost eyes. Sometimes people whispered, making sympathetic or cruel remarks. Bobby continued on his way, not paying attention to them, not hearing them, not remembering if he had heard them. Bobby with yesterdays too slippery to grasp, losing his todays. Tomorrow was his birthday, but he wasn’t at all aware of it. Bobby didn’t know what month it was, much less what day.

  He’d be thirty-one years old.

  Repetto and Lora were in Mama Roma’s, having salad and house Chablis while they waited for their pasta. The dinner crowd was at its peak, and every table was occupied. The aromas of the kitchen, dominated by garlic, were in the air.

  Lora sipped her wine, then stared over the rim of her glass at Repetto. “You look pensive. What are you thinking?”

  “How we used to eat here with Dal.”

  Lora finished her wine in one swallow. “That’s what I was thinking. Zoe says she’s learning more about him all the time.”

  Repetto knew that by him, Lora didn’t mean Dal. He pushed away his irritation. He didn’t come here to grieve Dal, or to think about the Night Sniper. “Either that or she’s learning more about somebody she’s invented who doesn’t exist.”

  “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.

  21

  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 glim
pse 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.