by Cleo Coyle
Why the sky?
Suddenly, my ears were battered as an NYPD helicopter swept over the building where we’d last heard shots fired. It flew so low the churning blades shook power lines and rattled windows and doors. Downdrafts battered the few pedestrians who remained.
Still tending Sully, I blinked against the maelstrom.
Men in SWAT team jackets hung out of the helicopter doors, searching the rooftop for the hidden sniper.
I jumped when a gentle hand touched my shoulder. Then I saw the pair of tense paramedics, here to treat Sully, and I felt a rush of relief.
The man and woman bent low to speak to me. I saw their lips move, but the hovering machines annihilated all sounds. It didn’t matter. I understood and relinquished the tourniquet, so the paramedics could begin their (please, God!) lifesaving work.
Shivering, I got back on my feet and immediately spied officers in bulletproof vests, storming the building across the street. I shouted to them, trying to get their attention. But the noise was fierce, communication impossible.
Certain I’d spotted a second shooter that no one else had, I ran along the cross street, toward the empty building, confident Mike Quinn would see me and follow.
EIGHT
AS I drew closer to the vacant structure, I heard the crash of breaking glass from somewhere above.
The building’s windows were boarded up, the front door padlocked. An empty beer bottle plunged from the top of a rusting fire escape on the side of the building. As the glass shattered on two large Dumpsters, I saw a black object above, fluttering in the wind.
A flag? No! It was a cape, flapping behind a muscular, black-clothed figure on the top rung of the fire stairs. I quickly took cover behind a parked car, watching as the figure swung out on a rope and deftly rappelled down the pitted red facade, landing with a hollow clang on one of the Dumpsters before somehow releasing the rope and yanking it down after him.
That’s when I saw the long rifle slung over one shoulder.
I turned my head, looking for Quinn, but he hadn’t followed me. No one had. I was alone, about thirty yards from the shooter.
If I run for the police, I’ll lose him.
As the only eyewitness, I refused to miss this chance to ID the perp. I felt for my mobile phone and silently cursed. I’d left it behind the espresso bar!
Standing as quietly and still as I could, I took mental pictures of the sniper as he leaped off the Dumpster and ran toward the river.
Okay. I have a basic description and a direction. I have to get back to Mike!
* * *
“WHERE the hell were you, Clare?”
Quinn’s voice was barely audible over the sirens wailing at the crime scene. “I looked around and you were gone!”
“I saw a second shooter! I saw him!”
Quinn realized I was shivering and gasping for breath after my sprint back to the Village Blend. He took off his jacket, turned it inside out, and draped it around me, with NYPD markings hidden (just in case).
“There was no second shooter,” Quinn said. “According to SWAT, the roof across from your coffeehouse was rigged with pyrotechnics, and—”
“Then I saw your sniper!”
Quinn lifted his smartphone again. “What did he look like? Tell me quickly. We’ll drop a dragnet—”
“I only got a glimpse, but I saw the rifle and watched him run toward the Hudson River.”
“Good, excellent, what was he wearing? What did he look like? Build, race, scars, features? Give me something to give to our search parties.”
Uniformed cops were gathering around me now, waiting impatiently for a description.
“He looked like Panther Man!” I cried.
Quinn stared. “Who?”
“The comic book superhero?” asked one of the younger officers. “Are you joking?”
“No! He had the cape, the mask, the build, the trick rappelling rope. I saw him plain as pudding.”
“Panther Man?”
At my wild-eyed nod, Quinn glanced at the other cops, most of whom were looking at me as if I’d been shot—in the head.
NINE
“BUT if you really saw someone dressed as Panther Man—”
“There’s no really about it, Mike. That’s what I saw . . .”
We were in a police car, siren blaring. Quinn’s hard blue eyes never left the road. Good thing, too. I didn’t think it was possible to race through Manhattan at this speed, not during morning rush.
I was sharing the front seat with him, and glad about it since one of my last trips in a cop car was a backseat perp ride to an interrogation room. (The view was much better up here.) Cars swerved, buses and taxis stopped dead, and pedestrians scrambled out of the way to give us room as we barreled east to the hospital.
“In the last sixty minutes, an army of officers found nothing, Clare. We dropped the dragnet and found no one dressed as Panther Man; no evidence of a discarded costume; no mask; no rope; no rifle. We searched the riverbank and every boat in the area. We searched buildings within the perimeter. We questioned pedestrians, frisked suspects in street clothes who fit the Panther Man build. How do you explain it?”
“I can’t.”
“Trauma can play tricks on the mind. Do you think you could have imagined—”
“I know what I saw. I’m not crazy!”
“Where are you getting crazy? I didn’t say crazy. I only meant that stress can alter perceptions . . .”
Despite the seat belt, a sharp turn threw me against the passenger’s door.
“I can’t believe you don’t believe me!”
“I didn’t say that, either!”
We were shouting over the siren’s wail—How do cops think with all this noise?!—but even I had to admit that the louder I talked, the crazier my claim sounded.
“What about surveillance cameras?” I asked.
“Detectives reviewing the area’s traffic cameras saw nothing that could help—”
“But those are limited views, aren’t they? The shooter could have found his way down an alley and into a building’s subbasement, maybe through a hidden trapdoor—”
“Like Panther Man’s Cat Cave?”
“He could have climbed a fence and hid in a private garden—”
“Up a tree, maybe?”
“Enough with the cop cracks! Your army of blue eyeballs isn’t infallible. What about St. Luke’s walled garden? Or the Chumley courtyard? There are secret places and tiny hideaways all over the West Village!”
“And our eyeballs aren’t done looking yet. They’re working to get hold of any private security camera feeds in the area and view them for clues. In the meantime, you’re the only eyewitness, and you’re going to have to provide us with more.”
“I’ll be happy to draw you a picture. Get me a pad and pen, and I’ll—”
“No. A picture is a good idea. But you’re not drawing it yourself.”
“I know how to draw, Mike. I went to art school.”
“Police sketch artists do more than draw. They’re trained interrogators, like any other detective. Besides, we need to make it official. I’ll request that an NYPD sketch artist meet us at the hospital.”
“Fine,” I said, adding a big nod in case he couldn’t hear me.
Two minutes later Quinn wrapped up a conversation with the Sixth Precinct commander, and we arrived at the hospital. Inside, I had to sprint to keep up as he pushed his way across the crowded lobby and up to the admissions desk.
“I’m looking for a gunshot victim,” Quinn said. “Sully Sullivan, NYPD.”
The woman behind the desk raised an eyebrow. “Sully, you say?”
“Finbar Sullivan,” I corrected, laying my hand over Mike’s white-knuckle fist. “The ambulance picked him up about an hour ago. Can you tell me his condition?”
“Mr. Sullivan is in the Trauma and Shock Unit. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any more information that I can—”
Quinn was off again. He didn’t ask for directions, because he didn’t need them. As head of the OD Squad, he’d been here often enough.
At the Trauma and Shock Unit, I beat Mike out of the elevator and to the nurse’s desk.
“Excuse me, can you help me find a shooting victim?” I asked in rapid-fire New Yorkese. “Finbar Sullivan is his name, and I was told he was in this unit.”
The woman in white closed the file she’d been reading and gave me a hard, bureaucratic stare.
“You’re Mrs. Sullivan?”
“No, I, uh—”
“Mrs. Sullivan is visiting her family in Rochester,” Mike explained. “Fran has been notified and is on her way back to the city.”
The nurse shifted her eyes to Quinn. “And you are?”
“I’m Detective Sullivan’s CO—commanding officer.” He flashed his badge.
“And I’m Sully’s friend,” I said, jumping in.
“Friendship has no legal status, Ms.—”
“Cosi. Clare Cosi. I treated Sully until the ambulance arrived. Now I need to know if he’s okay—”
“I can’t give you any further information. You’ll have to get it through the family.”
“But his spouse isn’t here—”
The nurse ignored my pleas and focused on Quinn. “And you, Officer—”
“Quinn. Detective Quinn.”
“Well, Detective, if you’re here on official police business, you may speak with the attending physician. But you’ll have to wait here at the desk.”
Then the nurse locked eyes with me. “There’s a break room down the hall. I suggest you wait for the detective there.”
TEN
FIFTEEN minutes later, feeling helpless and useless, I was pacing the hospital break room with the nurse’s words still echoing in my ears.
“Friendship has no legal status . . .”
She wasn’t wrong, and I didn’t blame her. But, like a badly aimed bullet, the statement continued to ricochet inside me, hurting me for reasons I didn’t want to face.
When the sketch artist finally arrived, I was grateful for something new to focus on besides my fears and worries.
All right, I thought, here’s something concrete to do. A way to help!
Not that Sergeant Barry Sitko was similarly motivated—at least not outwardly. The sergeant looked more like an absentminded academic than most law enforcement officers I’d encountered.
For starters, he wore lenses so thick I couldn’t understand how he’d passed the Police Academy vision exam. He’d totally forgotten to shave—for several days, apparently—and his graying hair hadn’t seen a comb since he’d tumbled out of bed. Sitko’s shield was buffed and shiny, but his blue uniform was rumpled and lightly dusted with powdered sugar, no doubt from a donut he’d grabbed on the way to our meeting.
As he introduced himself, he set a chair mere inches in front of me, and set down his backpack. When he took a seat, he produced a computer tablet.
“First, I need to know if you got a good look at the suspect’s face. Could you determine sex, age, and race?”
“I was crouched behind a parked car to stay hidden, and I didn’t glimpse him long, but I could tell the shooter was well-built with muscular arms, lean legs, and a strong-looking chest. He moved quickly and gracefully—like a cat. As for his face, he was wearing a mask.”
“Then I needn’t have dragged this along.” Sitko set aside the tablet. “And I don’t have to ask my next question, either.”
“What’s that?”
“If the person resembled someone famous, a celebrity, an actor, a sports figure, or a rock star.”
“He did resemble someone famous. I recognized him instantly. It was Panther Man.” When a lengthy pause ensued, I took a breath. “I know. You think I’m crazy, right?”
Sitko shook his head. “If anyone’s crazy, it’s the person running around dressed as the Caped Cat and shooting police officers.”
“So you believe me. This isn’t a waste of time?”
“It’s the exact opposite, Ms. Cosi.”
Sitko reached into the bag and pulled out an old-fashioned sketchbook and some pencils. “Why don’t we draw a picture together. You tell me everything you remember from when you spotted this person until they fled the scene. I’ll put pencil to paper and come up with a portrait . . .”
Ten minutes later, we both stared at the results.
“Yeah,” Sitko said. “That’s Panther Man. Too bad you didn’t see his face. We could have narrowed it down to Adam West, Michael Keaton, Matt Affleck, that Aussie bloke, or any of the other actors who’d played the role over the past forty years.”
“Ben. It’s Ben Affleck.”
“Your Panther Man looked like Ben Affleck?”
“No, I told you. I never saw his face. And making fun of me won’t help us find the shooter any faster.”
“I wasn’t making fun. If this person is a maniac, he likely has some kind of obsession with aspects of Panther Man, the same way the Colorado movie theater shooter immersed himself in the Batman universe before portraying himself as one of its characters.”
The sergeant sat back in his chair. “You know it’s possible that you didn’t see Panther Man, either. What if you misinterpreted what you witnessed?”
He ripped his first sketch out of the pad and tossed it into the shallow wastepaper basket. Then he gripped the pencil. “We’ll start again. First, let’s talk about this cape business—”
“I saw a dark cape.”
“Was it ribbed, like Panther Man’s?”
“No, now that you mention it.”
“It looked cheap?”
“The material did seem a bit flimsy . . . by the way it fluttered—” I paused, suddenly remembering Matt’s drenched state when he first arrived at the Village Blend. “It rained this morning. A real downpour.”
Sitko nodded. “And?”
“And, well . . . I suppose, in theory, what I could have seen was some kind of rain cape or poncho, even a garbage bag the shooter wrapped around himself to keep dry.”
Sergeant Sitko nodded enthusiastically, and then frowned. “Now what about those ears?”
“He really was wearing a Panther Man mask, Sergeant.”
“Then I’d say that fellow who poses as the Caped Cat in Times Square had better have a good alibi.”
He began sketching again. The next portrait he showed me was still not right. “You moved the pointy ears down, to where human ears normally are—”
“I actually drew noise suppressors. These devices are used in conjunction with the type of high-powered rifle you saw over the perp’s shoulder.”
“That makes rational sense. But that’s not what I saw. The long, pointed ears were sticking up, like a cat’s, out of the top of his head.”
Sitko sketched again, and showed me the result.
“That’s him.”
Quinn entered just then, and I forgot everything else.
“Mike! How’s Sully?”
“Stable, but he hasn’t regained consciousness. The doctor is hopeful, but he lost a lot of blood, so . . .”
I took a shaky breath. “Poor Fran.”
“Her plane just landed at LaGuardia. A police escort is rushing her here.”
Quinn faced the other man. “So, Barry, how did she do?”
“Great.”
“He’s being kind,” I said. “I wasn’t any help at all.”
“On the contrary. You were enormous help. Because of you, we know the shooter’s location, where we can look for forensic evidence. We know the shooter has the build of a strong man with lean legs, muscular arms, and a built-up chest, and we know he’s
athletic enough to rappel down a rope from the top of a building.” Sitko paused, then shrugged. “And we know he was wearing a Panther Man mask.”
He showed Quinn the sketch and they both shook their heads.
“If the press gets wind of this, we’re in for a citywide circus.” Quinn frowned at the door. “Reporters are already swarming outside. They know a sketch artist was consulted. With the police commissioner arriving any minute, I think it’s best if I get you both out of here.”
ELEVEN
“HAVE you seen this?” my ex-husband asked the next day.
“Seen what?”
He dropped one of the morning papers onto the coffee bar.
COPS HUNT PANTHER MAN
Witness Claims Village Sniper
Is Comic Book Superhero
I sighed. “None of the newspapers tell the whole story.”
Matt leaned one elbow on the marble countertop. “Why am I not surprised that you’re privy to the whole story? Maybe because you’re part of it?”
He opened the paper to page two.
“This blurry smartphone snapshot of the ‘Good Samaritan’ giving aid to the fallen cop—with our coffeehouse in the background—looks an awful lot like you.”
“No comment.”
So far this morning had gone a lot smoother than yesterday’s. No predawn storm. No frigid wind off the river. No stinky ex-husband. And no sniper shooting policemen in front of my coffeehouse.
It was a groomed and pleasantly scented Matteo Allegro who delivered the paper, and I was feeling calm, cool, and collected, until someone yelled—
* * *
“OPEN fire?!”
The alarming cry from barista Esther Best turned a few heads. And I nearly dived under the counter—until I realized her reference was culinary.
