around almost as if they were in a trance. They were repelled by death but didn’t want to rush away and insult it, provoke it.
There was Repetto, and alongside him the woman who must be his wife, Lora, and possibly their daughter. They were talking to a woman in a hat with a flat black rim. She touched Repetto’s upper arm gently and hugged Lora and the younger woman; then the three women left Repetto and walked together toward the parked cars. Captain Melbourne approached Repetto, along with a man and woman.
Cops in plainclothes. The Night Sniper could spot them even from this distance, and it was made easier because he knew who they were: Detectives Meg Doyle and Birdy Bellman. Research was the Sniper’s specialty. He’d done his homework and knew about both of them. Doyle was a loose-tongued, sometimes insulting young woman made cynical by a recent divorce. Bellman was a middle-aged, frenetic little man who couldn’t sit still very long in one place. The Night Sniper knew something about many of the NYPD homicide detectives. There were plenty of ways to learn, in this high-tech information age when everybody-even homicide detectives-claimed or were thrust into their fifteen minutes of fame. The NYPD liked to brag about its personnel, on the Internet at official and unofficial sites, and in small-print publications that chronicled the world of law enforcement. It was good public relations.
Now the Night Sniper would learn even more about Doyle and Bellman, as he had about Repetto. The intrepid Repetto had experienced great tragedy in his youth, then had fallen into kind hands. The loss, in a sense, had ended, the torn heart partially healed. The Night Sniper had experienced no such luck. Not in time to save him from the streets, and from the demons of the dark.
Luck was the difference. Luck was what defined and separated most people, no doubt including Doyle and Bellman. The Night Sniper would be even more familiar with them soon enough.
To fully experience and appreciate the game about to be played out on life’s stage, the grand theater of death and vengeance that had only begun, it was best to know the players.
His fellow actors, who were about to play the roles of their lives.
8
Meg, Repetto, and Birdy stood loosely side by side. Repetto raised his old.38 Smith amp; Wesson revolver and fired six rapid shots at the target twenty yards down the range. They were at the outdoor shooting range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx, on a peninsula jutting into Long Island Sound. Repetto had insisted they come here in the unmarked directly from the cemetery, after only a brief stop so he could get some things from his car before his wife and daughter drove it home. The other shooters at the range wore casual clothes. Meg and Birdy had removed their jackets, and Birdy had loosened his tie. Repetto remained fully clad in his dark suit, his tie knot neat and severely bound. Blasting away in his mourning clothes.
He reloaded.
Repetto’s handsome but worn features were set and hard with grief and determination. Meg had been told Bricker was like a son to him. Looking at Repetto, Meg couldn’t prevent a lump from welling up in her throat.
“You don’t look so good, Captain,” she said. “We can wait till tomorrow if you want to discuss this, or even later today-”
“I’m okay,” Repetto interrupted. “And time’s important. Otherwise I’d be home with my wife and daughter serving cake to well-wishers.”
In answer, Meg got off two careful shots at her target. It hadn’t felt right; despite taking her time, she hadn’t set herself.
Repetto lifted an old pair of oversize binoculars he’d brought from his car.
“Two in the middle,” he said. “Not bad.”
She felt immediately better.
Birdy used the point and shoot method, firing quickly and relying on instinctive aim. He’d learned it was the best method of shooting if you didn’t have the steadiest hands. When he lowered his 9mm Glock, Repetto peered through the binoculars and said, “Uh-hm.”
He let the binoculars fall on their leather neck strap and turned away from the range to look at Meg and Bellman. Meg felt Birdy shift his weight slightly beside her. Repetto’s eyes, blue and with the cold spark of diamonds, had the same unsettling effect on him that they’d had on her. Here was a man in the thrall of a mission larger than his life. If the Night Sniper wanted a worthy opponent, he’d sure found one.
Meg holstered her gun. She hoped Repetto hadn’t noticed her hand was trembling.
He said, “Two things. One is, despite the temporary rank, I’m on unofficial status, so call me Repetto.” He wasn’t quite ready to be on first-name-basis familiarity. “Two is we are going to nail this son of a bitch!”
Meg surprised herself by smiling slightly. Adrenaline, maybe. “I’ll remember both of them.”
“And I will,” Birdy said beside her in his gravelly voice. Meg saw that his index finger was nervously twitching where it was extended along the barrel of his Glock.
Repetto had apparently had enough shooting. He slipped his loaded revolver into its belt holster, then led the way back to where the car was parked. From the backseat floor he retrieved the scuffed, black leather briefcase he’d brought with him. He opened the briefcase and drew out two brown cardboard packets with their flaps tied with string wrapped around metal grommets. He laid them on the sun-warmed trunk lid of the car. “These are the murder files on all the Night Sniper victims, copies for both of you. When we leave here, take yours with you and study it.”
“Study it some more, you mean,” Meg said. “When Birdy and I knew we had this assignment, we went over all the material and talked about it.”
Repetto smiled at her through the grief and cold purpose that possessed him. “Good. Come to any conclusions?”
“He likes to play,” Birdy said, slipping back into his suit coat he’d carried slung over his arm. “They all do to some extent, but the game is a big part of this one’s sickness.”
“That’s more or less what Zoe Brady says,” Meg added.
Repetto was surprised. “The profiler’s already talked to you?”
“Not personally. It’s what she wrote in a summary of her findings. Also, he’s a sadist.”
“Aren’t they all?” Birdy said, drumming his fingertips on the trunk.
Meg momentarily rested her hand on his to quiet the drumming fingers. They’d been partners long enough that she could do that and neither of them thought much of it. “For the most part, they are. But if our killer was driven primarily by sadism, he’d want to get up close and see the effects on his victims, instead of shooting them with a long-range rifle from far enough away that he can’t see and feel their shock and fear.”
Repetto looked at her. “But I thought you got from Zoe Brady’s material that she thinks this guy’s engine is sadism.”
“She didn’t exactly say that,” Meg told him. “I surmised that’s what she thinks.”
He gave her a look that bored into her. Somebody on the range got off a long volley with something large- caliber, overwhelming the staccato reports of smaller firearms. “You put much stock in profiling?”
“Some, is all.” Meg shrugged. A cloud moved away and she squinted against the sun. “Science, applied to a nutcase with a rifle, I don’t know how accurate that can be.”
“I’ll take a good cop’s hunch any day,” Repetto said. He nodded toward Bellman. “What Birdy said makes sense, about the game playing, the challenge. It means a lot to our sniper.” He reached again into his briefcase and removed a folded sheet of white paper. “This’ll make Birdy’s view of the Sniper seem even more accurate.”
The paper was a copy of a typed note sent to Repetto, care of the NYPD. It said simply,
There was no letterhead and no signature.
“Plain, cheap white paper and envelope,” Repetto said, before they could ask. “Sold in office supply stores and even drugstores. Same typewriter used on the envelope as on the note, probably a forty-year-old Royal manual. Mailed at the post office at Third and Fifty-fourth Street.”
“Busy place,” Birdy said.
“Latent Prints couldn’t lift anything from the paper or envelope, and there’s no thumbprint on the stamp. Not
