Fear the Night

melon.

“Sorry to interrupt your melon squeezing,” he said with a great smile, “but I already tested that one.”

“I don’t resent a kind gesture,” Zoe said, scrambling to maintain her mental balance. “Kindness is what makes the world go round.”

“Don’t we all wish?”

“Should make the world go round,” she amended. This was a fish she didn’t want to swim away. “What I was really looking for was arugula. I’m going to a dinner party and I promised the hostess I’d buy some for the salad. I was too ashamed to tell her I didn’t know what it was. Do you have any idea what it looks like?”

He studied her with steady, calm eyes, so appraisingly, the way he might size up the produce.

His smile again, wider. “You know perfectly well what arugula is.”

Huh? She shifted her weight from leg to leg like an embarrassed schoolgirl. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“That’s not to say there’s nothing I could teach you,” he said, still smiling.

Zoe was grinning now. She knew this drill. “Aren’t you the bold one?”

“The realistic one. Maybe the simple one.”

“Simple?”

“When I see a woman as desirable as you, I try to get to know her better. Simple as that.”

“Suppose I’m attached, maybe married?”

“You’re not. I’ve seen you shopping in this grocery store before.”

“Alone, you mean?”

“I don’t want you to walk out of here and out of my life,” he said, ignoring her question.

“That isn’t likely,” she said.

“I didn’t think so,” he said.

Now Zoe sat at her dresser, brushing her long red hair. She wanted to finish with her hair, get it just right, before slipping into the black dress she was going to wear tonight. She was sure she could work the dress over her head without having to rearrange her hair, and this way there wouldn’t be any brushed-out hair on the dress’s shoulders.

The last date she’d had, with an intellectual type who was an out-of-work museum curator, hadn’t developed into anything near the kind of relationship she sought. Zoe didn’t give up. Single women living alone and working in New York didn’t lose spirit easily, or they wouldn’t live in New York.

This man she’d picked up (or maybe he’d picked her up) at her favorite hunting grounds, the neighborhood grocery store, was an exception. Maybe the exception. Of course, she’d thought that before about men she’d met in the produce aisle. There had been more than a few such men. She wasn’t sure why the produce aisle was such a good place to meet men, but she sensed it had something primal to do with the juxtaposition of women and raw food. At least in the minds of men.

Zoe knew little about this one other than that he was smooth, extremely handsome, and if his clothes were any indication, very rich. His pickup patter was intelligent and charming, and disturbingly knowing. Definitely a guy worth taking a chance on, since he seemed harmless.

She smiled at the thought of her dinner date also dressing to impress her before coming to the apartment. If he wasn’t married, gay, or terminally ill, he had to be one of the most eligible bachelors she’d ever met. Handsome, rich, and intelligent. The trifecta. Now if only he was honest and had a kind heart. Something about him made her think he might have both those attributes.

She did suspect that he might wear a toupee, but nobody was perfect.

30

Nothing came easy. Working from diagrams and the autopsy report, Meg, Birdy, and half a dozen uniforms took almost a week to locate the sniper’s nest.

It was Officer Nancy Weaver who found it. At least, she was the one who called Meg on her two-way.

When Meg and Birdy got to the address, Weaver led them upstairs to the top two floors of the building, which were being renovated. At the end of the hall on the top floor was an apartment with the door standing open.

Weaver stepped aside so they could enter.

No furniture. A newly drywalled, unpainted living room. There was old padding, but no carpet on the floors. The place smelled like plaster dust. More than smelled. Meg sneezed. Birdy hoped God would bless her.

“They’re renovating all these places,” Weaver said. Another uniform, who’d been securing the apartment, nodded in somber verification. The light streaming through bare windows didn’t shine on anything that would reflect it other than steel staples in the carpet pad.

“Looks like work stopped some time ago,” Birdy said.

“Four months,” Weaver confirmed. “The manager told me the owners ran out of money. They’re trying to get refinancing now.”

Meg walked back to the hall door. “Lock looks okay.”

“Not this one,” Weaver said, and led them into a bedroom.

Meg saw what she meant. The locking latch on one of the French windows leading out to a terrace had been forced. There was some furniture in the bedroom, an abandoned dresser without drawers, a wooden headboard with the veneer peeling off. The furniture was dusty and hadn’t been touched in a long time. Carpet padding in here, too, prevented any footprints.

“Looks like he fired from the terrace,” Weaver said. “Out there at the corner.”

Meg went out onto the terrace and imagined herself lining up a shot at someone in Peru Norte’s outdoor dining area. She leaned forward slightly and could barely see the restaurant. The sidewalk table area had been cleaned up but was still closed. The table where Lee Nasad and his fiancee had sat was visible.

Backing away from the terrace’s low parapet, Meg shielded her eyes from the late afternoon sun and looked straight up. Had to be.

Weaver had been watching her figure it out. “I’ve been up there,” she said. “The Night Sniper lowered himself from the roof to the terrace, then let himself into the apartment so he could make his getaway. Probably just took the elevator down and left without anybody seeing him.”

Meg thought about it. Uh-huh, it would work. The Sniper was probably out of the building before anybody at the restaurant fully realized what happened. Shock played hell with logic. Eyewitnesses, too.

“Reminds me of that Night Spider case,” Weaver said, “where the killer dropped from the roof on a line, like a spider, and entered the victims’ bedrooms through their windows.”

“Sort of,” Birdy said. “But looks to me like the Sniper was just following the easiest course of getting into firing position without attracting attention.”

“He was probably here before the night he fired the shot, too,” Meg said. “Figuring out where he wanted to shoot from. And he didn’t want to walk away leaving a sign that one of the apartments had been broken into.”

“Say what?”

Repetto had arrived. He nodded to Weaver, then listened while Meg and Birdy filled him in.

“Nice work again, Weaver,” Repetto said.

“Thanks. But there’s more.” She walked carefully across the carpet padding toward a spot near the French doors. Meg and Birdy exchanged looks. Weaver had obviously waited until Repetto had arrived to spring her big find. The woman wanted a promotion. Meg had to smile. She begrudgingly admired Weaver at the same time she resented her ambition and manipulation. Reminded her of someone a few years ago, before that someone had wised up.

Or maybe after.

They followed Weaver until she stopped and pointed. “See? Look careful and there’s a muddy footprint.”

They did look.

“About size ten,” Repetto said.