Fear the Night

Quickly he recovered from his surprise and regained his stride to cross in front of the oncoming train.

But he knew his timing wasn’t so precise now.

Repetto saw the Sniper twist his torso to get off a quick shot in his direction. He ducked instinctively, then raised his head in time to see the Sniper almost freeze and stop running.

The moment froze with him. Then the Sniper lowered his rifle, tucked in his chin, and sprinted hard to cross in front of the train.

But he seemed to be the one in a different, slower time frame now.

The decelerating train struck him squarely and he halfway disappeared beneath it.

Steel wheels, and something else, screamed on the rails as the train dragged what was left of the Night Sniper past Repetto, past Bobby, and another hundred yards down the tracks.

Repetto strode faster and faster toward the front of the stopped train, stepping around or over people who were just beginning to sense the end of danger and starting to rise. The dead Sniper was acting as a vortex, drawing everyone to converge at the same point. Even the wounded cop had made it to his feet and was trudging in that direction.

Everyone was moving that way except for a raggedly dressed man limping slowly in the opposite direction, toward the exit to the street.

Repetto noticed him and dismissed him from his mind.

He no longer mattered.

65

The Night Sniper murders were ended.

The city began to breathe again at night.

Dante Vanya was the lead item in the news for weeks before receding to the inside pages of the Times. Then he dropped from mention to join fabled serial killers like the Night Spider and Son of Sam in the city’s lore and history, the subject of scholars rather than of the NYPD.

Repetto returned to active retirement and a deepening relationship with Lora. They both became closer to Amelia. Almost losing her had jarred them into a different perspective and appreciation for a present that would too soon become the past.

A month after the Night Sniper’s death, Meg moved in with Alex and began a tentative relationship that was a healing process for both of them. She’d thought it was her task to teach Alex how to live and trust again, and was learning every day that she needed his help as much as he needed hers. It was for both of them a sometimes troubled and painful relationship well worth the effort, because they both knew what could be on the other side of the pain. A price for everything in life. Meg believed it. She saw it every day in her job. She saw too many people who didn’t believe it, who didn’t live it, slowly drowning. The parallel world of the cop. She could live in it now. With Alex, she’d found understanding. They’d both found understanding.

As a reward for her diligence and initiative, Officer Nancy Weaver was promoted and honored in a public awards ceremony and assigned to the Detective Bureau’s Special Investigation Division’s Major Case Squad. Her future in the NYPD appeared bright enough to blind.

The mayor recovered fully from his gunshot wound, affected a slight limp even though he’d been shot in the chest, and basked in his new status as the most heroic figure in New York.

Bobby Mays, who was the first to suspect the Night Sniper and try to alert the police, became a local, then a national celebrity. As he granted interviews and became the subject of TV and radio talk shows, public sympathy for him grew. After his national appearance on the Today Show, a fund was established to finance his medical expenses. Public sympathy would guarantee him the help he needed. A chance.

On a warm fall evening, Repetto and Lora were dining at an outside table at an Upper West Side restaurant across from Central Park. They were on the way to the theater, so they were eating light, knowing there would be a snack later that night. Repetto had declined desert and was sipping decaffeinated coffee, while Lora was working on a latte.

“Isn’t this where that young stock wizard and author was shot and killed?” she asked.

Repetto placed his cup in its saucer and glanced around. “My God, it is. Lee Nasad! I’d forgotten. Am I getting old, Lora?”

“Of course you are. We both are.”

“Everybody is,” Repetto said.

“Not Dante Vanya and his victims.”

“Point taken,” Repetto said, and raised his cup to sip.

“I called Zoe Brady yesterday to see if she wanted to meet for lunch. She put me off. She did mention she was resigning from the department.”

Repetto wasn’t surprised. He watched a young couple across the street, both in sweatsuits and wearing bright white jogging shoes. The man was pushing one of those baby strollers that held two infants side by side.

“You didn’t ask me why Zoe was quitting,” Lora said.

“Uh-uh, I didn’t. Why is she?”

“She said she’s going into private practice. She’s done enough public service and decided to earn more money. Thought she owed it to herself.”

“Maybe she does.”

“The way she was talking, my impression was we were never going to lunch together again.”

“Clean break,” Repetto said. “Good for people sometimes.”

Lora tilted back her oversize glass cup and took a sip of her latte. The remaining white froth on its surface left a filmy mustache above her upper lip. “She seems to have that attitude.”

“Don’t blame her,” Repetto said.

“I shouldn’t? Or you don’t?”

“Huh?”

“Blame her.”

“Zoe?”

“Jesus, Vin.” Lora looked depressed. “Our conversations are deteriorating. We are getting old.”

Repetto smiled at her. “Not you. You somehow cancel out time.”

She didn’t look any happier, but he knew she was pleased by the compliment. While she attempted to sip without leaving more foam on her lip, she stared across the table at him as if he were a puzzle she couldn’t quite fathom.

“One thing about Zoe,” she said, putting down the cup and daintily swiping the back of a finger across her lip, “she was good at her work. She really had the Night Sniper figured. His approximate age, the way he looked and thought, how he went about his murders, like they were moves in some kind of sick chess game.”

Some chess game. “I’ll give her that,” Repetto said.

He hadn’t reminded Lora, nor would he remind anyone, that a search of Dante Vanya’s apartment hadn’t turned up a red wig. Not even a red hair.

Some things you never knew for sure, or shouldn’t know even if you could.

“That Detective Weaver, too,” Lora said. “She’s another one who knows her stuff.”

“Uh-huh. She’s a good cop.”

“More than that. She understands how to deal with people. She’ll be a high-ranking officer someday.”

“Weaver will go far in the department,” Repetto agreed. “She knows how to keep a secret. And how to play chess.”

He raised a hand to signal the waiter. “Check.”