The Shooter

by Peter O'Mahoney

  I parked on the street, took off my leather jacket, and leaned over the front seat of my truck. Hanging in front of the back window, I always kept a sports jacket, for moments when I tried to blend into the surroundings. Exactly for occasions like this.

  The Carpenter’s home looked nice, almost the picture-perfect American dream house, if only a little small. They had a garage, a neat lawn, and a freshly painted fence. Clean roofing. A spotless driveway. A row of bulbs was beginning to shoot up the modest path that led to the plain front door, white and clean.

  Casey pressed the doorbell, and we listened to the tune ring throughout the house. We waited patiently as we heard muffled sounds—voices, footsteps, slow movements—and then slowly the door was cracked open, and a sliver of a face appeared in the space.

  “Yes?” The voice was soft, timid, searching for a reason to close the door and resume a life of hiding.

  I took a small step back and let Casey take the lead, sensing that my imposing size was not going to work to our advantage here. Casey smiled softly, kindly, the way she would like to be smiled at if the safety of her world was rocked by seemingly untouchable forces and unthinkable terrors.

  “Hello, my name is Casey May. I’m here with my business partner, Jack Valentine. We’re sorry to intrude but we spoke earlier on the phone and I was hoping to take up just a small bit of your time. It would really help us out,” she kept her voice low and friendly, and, after what seemed like a long pause, the door opened just wide enough to make out a small woman, dressed in a clean skirt and blouse—perhaps her Sunday best—hair neatly combed and makeup freshly applied, looking bewildered by Casey’s kindness and gentle approach.

  “I’m Mary-Louise Carpenter. We were expecting you. Please, come in.”

  The house was small, and the hallways were narrow, but the home was filled with love. The walls were covered with family portraits—Mary-Louise, a husband, and two girls—and what could be grandparents, aunties, old family dogs, birthday parties. A man stood at the back of the living room, dressed in slacks and a faded pin striped shirt, buttoned up to the collar.

  They’ve dressed up for us, I thought, momentarily humbled.

  “Andrew Carpenter.” The man’s voice was deep, and he held himself tall, shoulders back, and after he looked both Casey and I in the eye, he shook our hands, before his gaze fell quickly back to the floor.

  There was still a lot of pain here.

  “Please, sit. Jenny’s… Jenny’s not feeling well, she’s lying down in bed. I can go and see if she’s ready to come out yet.” Mary-Louise offered. Casey nodded.

  The carpet was worn—there was not a lot of money here—but it was immaculately kept. I noticed there was not a speck of dust on any of the old sports trophies that lined the back wall. There was a small sofa and two armchairs, covered in a faded green plaid, and in the corner an upright piano stood, solemn and quiet, and in the opposite corner, a humble TV sat waiting for its moment to stir to life.

  As Mary-Louise slipped from the room I sat on the edge of the sofa, hunched over and trying to shrink down and make myself seem smaller in the tiny living space. Casey looked over to me and I could tell that we were both having the same thought: Don’t let it be these people.

  Not these people with their warm home and family pictures and a feeling of sadness hanging over everything. These people who are good and whole and deserve the life they’ve worked so hard to build.

  Don’t let it be them.

  Mary-Louise returned and behind her was a waif of a girl, her hair pulled back, her eyes sunken with dark circles, her sweatpants loose and hanging off her small frame.

  “This is Jenny,” she said.

  Jenny nodded her greeting. She was in her early-twenties, petite, and delicate. It looked like the wind could knock her over, and she looked like she hadn’t left the house in days.

  Everyone sat except for Andrew, who stood behind his wife, staunch and silent. I made a mental note of the fact that Jenny and Mary-Louise were far too small to have taken on a man of Waltz’s size.

  “We’re sorry to open all of this back up again. We know you’ve been through a lot over the last twelve months,” Casey started. Jenny refused to look up. “We’re not sure if you’ve heard yet, but Anthony Waltz is dead.”

  At the sound of his name, Jenny flinched, and she gripped her fists tightly. Mary-Louise’s eyes widened slightly but Andrew didn’t flinch.

  “I heard on the news on my way home from work,” he said, his voice flat.

  “What?” Mary-Louise whipped her head around to look at him. “Why didn’t you… you didn’t say anything.”

  Andrew looked at his wife. “I didn’t want Jenny to hear. She doesn’t need any more reminders.”

  Jenny moved one hand to her mouth and started to bite on the skin around the nail.

  “What happened?” Mary-Louise asked, her eyes still on her husband.

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Casey replied, and smiled again to put the room at ease. “We wondered if you could tell me the last time you saw him?”

  “Well, it was during…” Mary-Louise struggled, the name of the man accused of assaulting her daughter just wouldn’t pass her lips, “his trial. We needed… I know they call it closure. We wanted justice. I think that’s what we were hoping for. But to be honest, it didn’t feel like it closed anything at all. Jenny didn’t come. Jenny hasn’t really left the house after dark since… well, for quite some time. She won’t even see her friends, but she’s engaged now. She just doesn’t like to be away from the safety of the house.” She turned around and looked up at Andrew. “That was the last time we saw Anthony Waltz, representing that awful, vile man. Wasn’t it, Andrew?” She waited a beat for a response but received nothing from the man behind her. “Andrew?” she asked again, and reached up to place her hand over his.

  “Actually, Mary-Louise, I saw him after that. A few days ago.” The confession came as a surprise to Mary-Louise and she physically recoiled. “The detective on the case, he called me, to apologize about everything that happened, and said that the DNA evidence they’d collected wasn’t as good as the forensic analyst had declared. They’d misrepresented the facts to make the evidence seem to fall heavier against the defendant and Waltz had blown it wide open, negating all the forensic evidence on the case. The detective called me, out of guilt maybe, to say sorry…” At this, Jenny slowly rose from her armchair and left the room without a word or a glance to anyone. Andrew’s shoulders slumped. “And so, I got all stirred up. I went to see him. I went to see Waltz, I wanted to appeal to him, man to man. Father to perhaps future father, tell him that I no longer had two daughters, I had lost one. She may be here physically, but she isn’t the same Jenny. I wanted him to reverse all the wrong that he’d done.” The sadness was replaced with a quiet, simmering anger. There were veins at his temple now that were not visible earlier. It was helplessness mixed with resentment.

  “I understand, Mr. Carpenter,” I said, finally choosing my time to be a part of the interview. “There’s no job on this earth more important than being a parent. I can’t say I’ve had the honor, but I can only imagine the responsibility that comes with it. The burden you must have to carry for the rest of your life that it’s your job to keep your children safe. It must weigh heavily during times like these.”

  Andrew nodded, encouraged. “I thought Waltz would be on our side, and he’d turn over everything he’d done. I thought he’d understand. I thought he’d understand our quest for justice. I actually thought he might be a decent human being. I just thought he’d appreciate my appeal… but I was so wrong.”

  “What happened when you went to see him?” I asked.

  “Oh, Anthony Waltz tried to act like he cared, he tried to placate me, and tell me all this cock and bull about it being his duty to uphold the law. I mean, the law? He actually said that. But shouldn’t the law be protecting the innocent? Shouldn’t the law protect my Jenny, whose only sin was to use th
e fire escape instead of the elevator during her break because she was on a fitness regime?” Andrew’s hands clenched the back of the sofa. “I got angry. I got really angry, and I threatened him. His whole office would’ve heard that. I’m not proud of what I said, but I can be honest about it. I’m sure others will tell you anyway. I told him his day of reckoning would come. Karma would get him. I told him he was a revolting human being for what he’d done to my daughter. I told him that he would not be forgiven by the Lord, even if he did repent.” Mary-Louise’s eyes had widened to double their normal size and Andrew turned to face away from both her and us. “I was asked to leave the building by security, but really, I was more than happy to go. I couldn’t have looked at his face any longer.”

  “Andrew, why didn’t you tell me?” Mary-Louise got up and stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder.

  “You had enough to worry about. You had enough.” The anger left him, and his shoulders sagged again.

  He was a broken man. They were a broken family. I doubted they’d be able to put themselves back together and I felt saddened by the hollow future I saw for them.

  “I have to ask, Andrew. I’m really sorry. But I need to know where you were three nights ago and who can verify it.” I was still moving slowly, treading cautiously. I needed to take them off the suspect list.

  “He was here, with me,” Mary-Louise was defensive now, she saw the hurt in her husband, and she came out growling like a terrier, protecting its own. “He worked a late shift, he’s security for a number of corporate offices, and got home about 11pm. He came to bed, I was already asleep, but I woke briefly when he came in, and he left again for work this morning at 10am.”

  “Is that true, Andrew?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I didn’t have anything to do with Anthony Waltz’s death, but I’m sure thankful he’s gone. He was no better than the man who attacked Jenny.”

  “I’m glad he’s gone as well.” Mary-Louise added. Her body language told us she had no more hospitality for them.

  Casey touched me on the knee, and then stood up.

  “Thank you for your time.” Casey said. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

  Mary-Louise jerked her head in a nod, and then put her arm around her husband, leaning her whole body into him, two lonely, grieving parents only just keeping it together.

  Chapter 9

  “It’s wrong, it’s really wrong, but we have to consider it.” Casey said as we drove out of Buffalo Grove, away from the pain locked inside its own little frozen snow globe. “If it was one of them, would we even follow it through? I couldn’t blame them for wanting justice. They could’ve delivered karma to Anthony Waltz. And would we even tell Daley? That doesn’t seem fair. I understand their anger and their rage, I would even feel the same. I would’ve done both the lawyer and the rapist in.”

  I weaved in and out of traffic on the Interstate, trying to work out the answer to Casey’s question. As we drove back towards Chicago, the clouds had filled the sky, covering us like a dirty grey blanket. The temperature was dropping and Casey braced herself, pulling her coat tighter and turning up the heat in my truck.

  “I’m not sure it’s them.” I responded after a few minutes of silence. “It doesn’t fit with the theory of linking all of the other deaths. If Andrew Carpenter’s wife is covering for him, if he spent part of the last week shooting a man in the neck, then there’s no connection to the other lawyers. So where does that leave us? One murder and two suicides, I don’t know if that theory works. And Jeffery Stone and Clarke Hudson were killed before Waltz.” I drummed my finger on the steering wheel. “We have to work the evidence. Just like always. We find the facts, we discount the parts that don’t work, we skip the emotion, and we find the evidence. Let’s not get caught up in whether we’d like Andrew Carpenter to be innocent.”

  “What about the fiancé?” Casey replied. “Matthew Wilkerson. He’s a cop. He’d have the ability to cover something like this up.”

  “Same issue—it doesn’t link the other cases together.” I weaved in and out of the slow-moving traffic. “But we should still look into the fiancé and see what we can find. I’m not sure it links anything together, but it might be a start.”

  As we drove through heavy traffic for the next fifty minutes, we discussed our options, throwing together wild theories and then debunking them. Nothing was off the table yet, but we had to pick and choose the right targets. Discussing a number of possibilities, we drove towards the offices of the Washington and Daley Law Firm. Housed along the famed Magnificent Mile, the law firm was difficult to drive to. From five blocks out there were five lanes of slow-moving cars, honking and beeping, trying to reach their particular destination. Traffic annoyed me at the best of times, but when I was trying to get somewhere, my frustrations increased ten-fold. Patience had never been my strong suit.

  After I’d used my horn too many times, I parked in a nearby lot, and we walked along the Magnificent Mile, under the shadow of the building formerly known as the John Hancock building, stepping through tourist groups on their way to one of Chicago’s best shopping districts. The offices of Washington and Daley Law Firm were housed on the twenty-fifth floor of one of the many skyscrapers along the Mile. After a quick elevator ride, we stepped out and were greeted by a long reception desk that acted as a barrier to the offices behind it.

  Although the location was impressive, although the offices were clean and crisp, there was an air of dishonesty around us. I could feel the sleaze the second we stepped in. We were in the heart of capitalism, in the heart of the money-machine, deep amongst the drive to make more and more and more money for the sake of making money. I never understood that. I always thought that people should just make what they need and not accumulate excessive wealth. Casey talked to the receptionist, who provided us with coffee, before she guided us to Daley’s office five minutes later.

  I didn’t like this building at all. It was a place full of suits fulfilling the needs of the corporate world, wheeling and dealing, bargaining and haggling.

  “Jack. Casey.” Daley stood behind his desk as we entered his office. “Good to see you. What have you got for me?”

  As I expected, Daley’s office was enormous. There was enough space to play half-court basketball, but the space was filled with a long couch, an enormous Oakwood table, and a treadmill tucked to the side of the room. The carpet was white but spotless, the walls were light blue, and the natural light was flooding in the large window to the side of the room. The lawyers’ world of excess was becoming clearer for me to see by the day. It was a competition to them—who had the best office, the best view, and the best-looking secretary.

  Casey and I sat on the two comfortable office chairs in front of Daley’s desk, and only after Casey had sat down, Daley lowered himself into his large leather office chair. He rocked back and forth a little, clasping his hands in his lap.

  “We wanted to come by and give you an update on what we have. We’ve got some interesting leads.” I said. “There are three defense lawyers who took their lives in the same distinct way, all in the last fifteen months, and Anthony Waltz was the latest one to do it. We’re working on finding a link between them.”

  “Who are the others?”

  “Jeffery Stone and Clarke Hudson,” Casey said.

  “Coincidence?” Daley raised his eyebrows. “We’re under a lot of stress in the job and they say this sort of thing can be contagious. One guy takes this way out, and then other people start seeing it as a viable option. It’s quite the phenomenon. You see clusters of suicides in places like schools and small communities.”

  “I don’t think so.” I responded. “The three lawyers were working on similar cases—sexual assault cases where the accused escaped any charges. All these cases were thrown out on legal technicalities, and then a few weeks later, the lawyer is dead with a bullet in his neck.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.” Daley crossed one leg over the other. “Why would a kill
er go after the lawyers and not the accused? Surely if someone had something against rapists, they’d take it out on the accused, not the lawyer. Why would they kill the lawyer?”

  “Serial killers do weird things,” Casey added. “A person like this can harbor great pain from their past—perhaps the same thing happened to them. Perhaps they were the victim of sexual assault and saw the lawyer get their rapist off the charges and that’s what motivates them to even the balance.”

  “Interesting,” Daley said. He barely reacted to the news of a killer, not even asking further about Stone or Hudson, almost like he was expecting it. “Who else have you got on this serial killer hit-list? Does anyone else fit the profile?”

  “We’ve talked with our contacts and a recent case fits the profile,” Casey continued. “And we think the next candidate could be Larry Fittler.”

  “Fittler? Good. The man’s an arrogant prick.” Daley paused for a long moment, staring at nothing. “Any evidence that could prove this theory?”

  “Nothing yet,” I said. “But we’re getting closer.”

  “Suspects?”

  “We have one.”

  “And that is?”

  “As you can understand,” Casey explained. “We’re playing this close to our chest. We don’t want the person to catch wind of what we’re investigating. We’re not saying that you’d release any information, however, the fewer people that know about our suspect, the better. It’s the way we always work.”

  Daley paused for a few moments, before tapping his finger on the desk. He didn’t like to be told no. He was used to being the most powerful man in the room, and he was used to people doing exactly as he said. He looked at me, testing me with a stare. I didn’t flinch, holding his eye contact until he stopped.