The Shooter

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “Ok. I understand. If that’s your process, then that’s your process.” He sat forward, pulling a sticky note from the side of his desk. He scribbled a name and number on it. “Talk to this guy. He’s a cop, but not a strict cop. Some might even say he has some dirt on his hands. He works for various people, so to speak, and he owes me a number of favors. Tell him that I’ve asked you to talk to him. He can get you any inside knowledge on the previous cases. He might even be able to point you in the right direction.”

  I took the sticky note and looked at the name. Stan McMillian. I knew him. Most people on the street did. He was one of the most corrupt, ruthless, and cunning people I’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.

  Daley leaned back in his chair again. “The security guard from the building, Robbie McAdams, has been calling me every day, wanting an update and seeing if he can help. Talk to him as well. Give him your number and get him off my back. I don’t want to deal with those sorts of people. My assistant is talking to him now. He keeps calling here saying he’s got new information, but it turns out to be nothing.”

  “We don’t give out our direct numbers.” Casey said.

  Daley paused for a moment, then scoffed. “I’m paying you to investigate this case, which means I want you to handle it. This security guard, Robbie McAdams, is part of that deal. Handle it.”

  Casey nodded. Daley was right—he was paying us, and paying us well. And it was never a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

  “Any luck on the video footage outside his building?” Daley asked.

  “Nothing yet.” I said. “We’re canvasing the area, seeing if we can get footage of the back entrance from the nearby businesses, but we haven’t had any luck. We’ve still got a few other businesses to talk with, so we might get lucky.”

  “If you find anything, bring it straight to me. I don’t want anyone else finding out that I’m investigating that prick’s death.” Daley referenced Waltz with a distain we hadn’t seen before. “His funeral is tomorrow. I don’t expect many people to be there. Maybe five, or ten, people at most. He was hated for most of his life, and rightly so. That selfish prick was an ass to most people. If anyone does show up, then they’ll probably be there to celebrate.”

  “We have to ask…” I leaned forward and let a pause hang in the air for a long moment. “Where were you the night he died?”

  “Here. And then home.” He responded without thinking and then squinted as he realized why I’d asked that question. “Do you really think I’d pay someone to investigate this if I was involved?”

  “Better us than the police.” I said. “And you said you had contacts with the PD, so the question is, why employ us when you could’ve used your contacts to persuade the cops to look deeper?”

  There was an air of unease in his next statement. “I’ll tell you this—I pay you and that means I own you. You find anything, you bring it to me. You don’t take it to the cops, and especially that lowlife Stan McMillian. He’d set up his own grandmother for fifty bucks. I’m employing you because, to me, this didn’t look right. Something was wrong. I might not have liked the guy, but that doesn’t mean I wanted him murdered. He was a colleague and I’d expect that if my colleagues were suspicious about my death, they would do the same for me.”

  I held his glare for a long moment, before I nodded and stood. “We’ll talk soon.”

  He didn’t respond as I led Casey out the door. Casey and I walked to the elevator in silence.

  “What did—” Casey began, but I put my finger to my mouth.

  She understood. We were silent for the rest of the way out of the building, and remained that way until we entered my truck.

  “Did you get a different vibe in there today?” Casey broke the silence as we drove out of the parking lot. “It seemed like he already knew some of the information we gave him.”

  “A very different vibe.” I nodded my agreement.

  “I think they were almost killer vibes.” Casey continued. “And he employed us to make sure that he covered his tracks.”

  “If that’s so, what would be his motivation to kill the lawyers?” I questioned.

  “Maybe all these other lawyers have a connection tying them back to Daley? Maybe there’s bad blood between them all.”

  “We have to look into it,” I replied. “If I was a serial killer, I’d like to know how close the investigation was. It’s a feedback loop. Every time we give him information, then he learns how to get better for the next time. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.”

  “Makes sense. But if he’s done it before, I’d imagine he would’ve hired investigators to look into it.”

  “I’ll make some calls.” The truck roared to life as I blasted through a red light. “Let’s talk to McMillian. He’s going to be our next lead and he’d be the right person to give us information on Daley. We might be closer to this killer than we thought.”

  Chapter 10

  Stan McMillian was a short man with, it seemed, an equally short attention span.

  He seemed in a hurry to rid himself of any extra work, including re-opening a closed case. His brown suit, at least 15 years old, was crinkled and looked thread-bare at the elbows. He was a heavy drinker. That was clear from the moment I first met him five years ago. He was overweight, his words slurred, and his face had an unhealthy red glow.

  When I called McMillian and dropped Kenneth Daley’s name, he arranged to meet us at a bar at five o’clock in the afternoon. By the time we walked into the bar in Logan Square, it was clear that he’d already spent a couple of hours ‘waiting’ for us inside.

  “I’m doing intel.” McMillian said after he greeted us. “This place is known to be frequented by lots of wannbe mobsters. I’ve got to blend into the surroundings and listen to their conversations. A lot of information is given away when people have a few too many drinks under their belt. This is my chance to expose it and use that information to set up drug busts. Important work, this intel gathering.”

  If intel meant finding the bottom of a whiskey bottle, then McMillian was succeeding with flying colors.

  Jumping Joe’s Top Bar was dirty, poorly lit, smelled like trash, and was not at all welcoming. The regulars turned and stared at Casey far too long after we entered. As soon as Casey saw that, she grabbed my wrist and shook her head. She knew what I’d do to those men.

  We sat in the booth at the far side of the bar, away from any eavesdroppers. The table in the booth was sticky and stained, but McMillian couldn’t have looked more comfortable. He draped his arms across the back of the red vinyl seat, stretching out and trying to assert his dominance.

  “What can you tell us about the Clarke Hudson death investigation?” I didn’t mess around with small talk. I went straight to the point with McMillian, mostly because I felt if we waited any longer, I doubted he would be sober enough to tell us his own name.

  He shrugged, and then opened the briefcase next to him on the seat. He removed a manila file, perhaps fifteen pages thick, and placed it on the table.

  “Clarke Hudson. That was a sad one, if you can be sad about dead lawyers.” He slid the file across the table. “Yeah, he had a wife and a kid on the way. She was a mighty fine-looking woman. Real toned. I looked her up—she’s a former swimsuit model. But she was crying all the time I was there, so I gave her a hug. I held on tight too, if you catch my drift.” He smirked and then caught Casey glaring at him. His face instantly changed. “It was sad. That’s what I was saying. Nothing suspicious about it though. Just another rich guy who did himself in.”

  I could smell the nicotine gum that McMillian had been chewing loudly and noticed he automatically began turning his wedding ring around at the mention of Clarke Hudson’s wife. The gum squelched and popped between his teeth. How could anyone stand this guy’s presence long enough to stay married to him? My guess was that McMillian didn’t see his wife much, and when he did, she would most likely be shouting at him.

  Casey opened the f
ile on Clarke Hudson. There was that phenomenon again—opened straight to the photos. Not nice photos either. The guy barely had a neck left. Even I had to look away.

  “Not a nice scene for the wife to find,” McMillian continued. “She heard the gunshot and then walked into the pool at the exercise club and found him like that. I’d say that scene is going to be burned into her head for the rest of her life. Not even sure if a lobotomy would clear those memories.”

  Casey passed the file across to me. I flipped to the pages on the death report, scanning my eyes over the information.

  “How long was Clarke Hudson alone in the pool?” Casey questioned.

  “He was there an hour. The wife was working out in the gym next door. She couldn’t see the entrance, but said there was nobody else in the gym. The pool also had an outdoor entrance, but there wasn’t much need for an investigation. It was a pretty clear-cut case.”

  “Why does a fit, healthy forty-five year-old shoot himself in a pool at an exercise club?” I looked at Casey and could tell the sound of him chewing the gum was working on her nerves as much as mine. “Why not do it at home? Or in the office? The pool sounds like a very strange place to do this, especially with his pregnant wife in the gym next door.”

  “It just got too much for him.” McMillian answered. “I investigated this one. He was alone and shot himself. It happens to those arrogant defense lawyers. And if you ask me, I wish it happened to more of them.”

  “But who takes a gun to a private swimming pool?”

  “Listen, the wife said he was crazy stressed over some big cases and wasn’t sleeping well. And this was late, nearly midnight. We figured everything just caught up with him. He might’ve walked out to the car, removed his weapon, and then walked back into the pool. Perhaps he took it with him in the first place. Who knows? The only thing we know was that he shot himself.”

  “No witnesses? No cameras?” Casey asked.

  “Nothing in the pool, but we had video of the wife in the gym. You could clearly see the moment she heard the gunshots. Two of them. She was freaked out. I guess she thought it was outside the gym because it was late at night. Just before midnight. The gun was in Clarke Hudson’s hand, and there was gun residue on his fingers. Really there was nothing to suggest anyone else had anything to do with it.” McMillian’s hand went back to spinning his wedding ring around. “I saw she had the baby, about five months later. A little boy. Hopefully, the boy doesn’t grow up to be a lawyer like his father. But some of the defense lawyers are ok, I suppose. The ones that don’t chase the money are alright in my books.”

  “And Clarke Hudson had no enemies that you thought might’ve helped him with the gun?” I continued pressuring McMillian, hoping he could answer all my questions before he passed out.

  McMillian snorted and shrugged his shoulders, showing contempt towards us across the table. “Are you kidding me? The man had enemies galore. He wasn’t in the cake decorating business, buddy, he was a criminal defense attorney. What do you think? Of course, he had enemies. But we didn’t pursue it as there hadn’t been any real threats and, like I said, there was zero evidence of a struggle.”

  “And Jeffery Stone’s case?”

  He reached into his briefcase and removed another folder. He placed it on the table and slid it across. This file was bigger. “Jeffery Stone. Much the same sort of scenario. Nothing the cops could do. And they got it right. Completely. These guys shot themselves. Not worth a second investigation, I can tell you that.” He narrowed his eyes at us, trying to appear threatening, but he was only succeeding at looking more drunk. “Got it? Or should I spell it out more clearly for you?”

  “Your name is on one of these files,” I read the name at the top of the report. “You’re saying that there’s no chance that you made a mistake?”

  “None.” McMillian finished another pint of Goose Island Pale Ale and lifted the glass, indicating that I should buy him another one.

  “I’ve got it.” Casey said, and picked up the glass, unable to stand his presence any longer.

  McMillian’s eyes lingered on Casey’s behind as she walked away, and he made a small whistle sound. He looked back at me with a sleazy grin. I responded with a deathly stare. He understood my expression and put his hands in the air.

  “What can you tell me about Kenneth Daley?” I pressed. “Why would he ask us to look into the death of Anthony Waltz?”

  “Daley? Well, who knows? The guy could be suspicious or maybe he got a tip-off somewhere. Daley’s got a lot of connections around the city. And some of these connections might be a little bit dangerous.” McMillian drew a long breath. “Daley didn’t get along with Waltz, but they were fellow alumni from the Chicago Law School, I think. I’d met Waltz a few times, and he wasn’t a good guy. Super arrogant and a bit of a sleaze. Just the same as a lot of those guys.”

  “If you suspected Waltz was murdered, would you think Daley was involved?”

  “Daley? Maybe.” He shrugged. “But if any lawyer was murdered, I’d look at Jonathon DiMarco first.” He chewed harder on his gum. “DiMarco’s a dangerous man. We didn’t have anything that looked like a connection to Jeffery Stone’s death. Not at the time anyway. I mean, yeah, there was—what d’ya call them things? A Vlog? —on his freak show website, where he totally ran Stone’s reputation into the ground. That was only a week before Jeffery Stone shot himself.”

  “What’s the website called?”

  “D-TAL. It means ‘Death to All Lawyers.’ Look it up. DiMarco doesn’t run it, I’m not even sure if he’s a part of it, but his face is all over it. Every time DiMarco makes a video about defense lawyers, it’s on that website.”

  Casey returned with one pint of ale and placed it down. She stood at the end of the table. She’d had enough.

  I stood up, shutting the folders and tucking them under my arm. “We’ll be in contact with you if we need you again.”

  “You’re not joining me for another one?” he pleaded. “Come on. At least the pretty girl should stay. Keep me company. We could have a great evening together, sweetheart.”

  McMillian grinned and winked at Casey, before he looked her up and down, and licked his lips. Casey raised her eyebrows, and her fists clenched.

  “We’re busy today,” I said and ushered Casey out the door of the bar.

  We walked to the parking lot, leaving the stink of McMillian behind us. Casey was silent until we reached the truck, where she leaned against the door and looked at me. “Tell me we don’t have to deal with him for long? I hate guys like that. They think that women are their property to use.”

  “Good luck if he tried to use you.” I smiled. A number of men had tried to take advantage of Casey, but she was tougher than most. She was a brown-belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and had spent time as a mixed martial arts fighter. The size of her opponent never mattered. She could choke most people out in a matter of seconds.

  “So, what did the sexist pig tell you?” Casey asked.

  “When you went to buy the beer, he said that Jonathon DiMarco has a website with videos where he talks about defense lawyers.”

  “Whoa. That’s big. What’s the website called?”

  “D-TAL. Stands for ‘Death to All Lawyers.’”

  “There’s no mixed message there.” Casey began typing on her phone. Her eyes almost popped out of her head as she brought up the website and began reading. “And it looks like we’ve got a prime suspect.”

  Chapter 11

  Our office was quiet. The darkness outside was kept at bay by the yellow bulbs and flickering fluorescents, and desk lamps boosted the light over our desks. I could feel Casey’s energy levels begin to ebb as the second day of the case refused to end. In the midst of an investigation, long days were to be expected. It was part of the territory—some days were slow, some days were lazy, but when the pressure was on, the days never seemed to end.

  Casey and I were both searching through the website that uploaded all of Jonathon DiMarco’s rant
s about defense lawyers. None of it was pretty. I hated even being on the site, but it was what the investigation called for. For hours, I read through pages of information about how DiMarco wanted to hang defense lawyers. All the information was suspicious, but nothing that pointed to his guilt.

  “Look what we have here.” Casey swung her computer monitor around to face me. “Jonathon DiMarco in all his glory. He doesn’t have his name on the site, that’s why it didn’t come up in our earlier searches, but there’s no doubt it’s him. Look at his picture.” She shifted in her seat and turned the computer screen slightly so that I could get a better look. The home page had a huge head shot of DiMarco, staring sternly down the lens of a camera with the title of the page splashed across the top in large black lettering with a patriotic American flag waving at the end. His dark eyes seemed cold, almost as lifeless as the marbled gaze of the deer above his fireplace. “‘Justice for all, and not just the rich.’ What a catchphrase, albeit a bit somber. I like how he’s underlined the ‘all,’ a lovely touch that is,” Casey mused as she reached over and dragged the website page upwards to see more of the information. She clicked on a link to Testimonies of Truth and the page filled with thumbnails of short video clips.

  “What’s this?” Casey asked, selecting one of the frozen frames and clicking the play button. A woman’s face we hadn’t seen before, elderly and frail, was standing outside the courthouse as the wind whipped her short grey hair around her face. The time and date were stamped at the bottom, showing the filming had taken place five weeks prior.

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Chapman. Can you describe what’s happened for you today?” DiMarco’s voice coaxed from outside the camera shot. The woman, perhaps for dramatic effect, reached up and dabbed a tissue in the corner of her eye and began to speak.

  “I’ve witnessed a travesty of justice. My daughter’s rapist has walked free. Did you hear that? My daughter’s rapist has walked free. That’s not justice. How can that be justice? How can that even happen?” Her voice became angry. “I’ll tell you why it happened—because the lawyer, a scumbag named Larry Fittler, outsmarted the prosecution. That’s all it was. Larry Fittler had evidence, real evidence, thrown out on a technicality. That evidence proved the CEO of her company raped her. It proved it, and the lawyer had the evidence thrown out on a technicality! Technicalities shouldn’t matter when you’re a criminal. This isn’t fair. The whole system isn’t fair. How can this happen? How can a rapist walk free? Money shouldn’t buy results!”