Fear the Night by John Lutz

smiled and nodded to him. She was an attractive brunette with a certain look in her eye that drew the wrong kind of man. Over and over. Repetto knew she’d been married to the right kind, a guy named Joe, who finally got tired of her shenanigans and ran away with a woman who’d been runner-up in a Miss Portugal competition. He heard it made Weaver mad if you spoke Portuguese around her. No problem.
    The breeze was strong on the roof, causing a lock of dark hair that had escaped from beneath Weaver’s cap to do a dance on her forehead. Repetto thought it must tickle, but she seemed unaware of it.
    “What’ve you got?” he asked.
    “The door,” Weaver said. “I didn’t have anything other’n my notepad to wedge it open.”
    Repetto’s gaze went to the small wooden wedge lying nearby on the roof. It looked like it had been there for a long time. “What about that?”
    “Didn’t want to touch it.”
    Repetto nodded.
    “But I don’t think it was used so somebody could get back in off the roof,” Weaver added. “The door’s the kind that locks automatically if you let it close. It’d trap you out here. But look at the latch.”
    Repetto did, and saw a faint rectangle. He touched a corner of it gently with the back of a knuckle. “Sticky.”
    “That’s what I thought. It looks to me like tape was put there to keep the door from clicking locked. That way it wouldn’t be wedged open and maybe attract attention. Then, when whoever was up here left, they removed the tape. Could be they left a fingerprint.”
    “More likely a glove print.”
    Weaver smiled again and nodded. “Our guy’s smart, isn’t he?”
    “Smart and evil go together all too often,” Repetto said. “Anything else?”
    “Yes, sir. I found where the shooter mighta sat or kneeled.”
    “Got an ejected shell casing?”
    “Never that lucky,” Weaver said over her shoulder, as she led Repetto toward where a billboard was mounted near the roof’s edge. “He had a good view from there,” she said. “Mighta fired through an opening in that rusty iron support gizmo. There’s a clear shot to where Evans was killed, and look how the gravel’s been disturbed.”
    Repetto looked. Weaver was right. The gravel that wasn’t embedded in the blacktop roof appeared to have been recently shifted around, perhaps by someone finding a comfortable shooting position.
    “Of course,” Weaver added, “we can’t be sure.”
    “True,” Repetto said, “but it’s something.”
    He went back to the service door and looked again where the door frame might have been taped so the spring latch couldn’t protrude and do its job. “I’ll get the techs to look at this,” he said. “Nice work. Keep an eye on the scene and don’t let anybody else up here.”
    “Yes, sir.” Weaver was staring at him, her head cocked to one side, the wind whipping the errant lock of hair.
    “You look good in uniform,” Repetto said, “but you look even better in plainclothes. I’ll see you get credit for finding this.”
    As he exited the roof, Weaver gave him her biggest smile.
     
     
    By that afternoon they had the lab information. There were no discernible foot- or handprints on the disturbed roof surface or on any part of the billboard or its support frame. The service door’s lock had been blocked at some point with a common brand of duct tape, but the only print on the doorjamb near the tape’s adhesive residue was a partial finger, wearing a rubber or latex glove. The small wooden wedge yielded nothing other than that it was pine and didn’t figure in the investigation.
    There was no way to prove it, but Repetto was reasonably sure they’d found the killer’s shooting position.
    He got Meg and Birdy, and with three uniforms they concentrated their efforts on the building’s tenants.
    No one remembered seeing anything unusual. Most had heard the echoing sound of the shot, but they weren’t sure what it was and weren’t concerned. Obviously it had come