The Shooter

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “How about that coffee, Robbie?” I questioned.

  “Uh? Sure. Yeah. Coffee.” Robbie stood and made his way down the hallway.

  After he’d walked into the kitchen, I walked over to the cupboard that was squashed into the back corner of the living room and paused. When I was sure that Robbie was preoccupied, I opened a drawer, careful not to make a sound and alert Robbie to my snooping. I looked through the first drawer, found nothing, and then the second drawer with the same result.

  But when I opened the third drawer, the final pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.

  Chapter 31

  In the third drawer of the wooden cabinet, there were newspaper clippings, with curled edges and a slight jaundiced yellow fading into tea-stained brown. I reached in to touch one lightly and I could feel the stiffness of it. I read the top page—page five of the Chicago Tribune, dated May 15, 2005. The first headline on the page was about a local council dispute over building permits, but it was the second headline that caught my attention.

  Defense Lawyer Stands Trial for Sexual Assault of His Stepson

  I read the first few lines and felt my adrenaline spike as my heart began to beat faster.

  Today in court, a lawyer, whose name has been suppressed to prevent the identity of the stepson becoming public, had a case thrown out due to a legal technicality. The unnamed defense lawyer was represented by Attorneys Clarke Hudson and Anthony Waltz. The stepson testified in court and was ruthlessly cross-examined by the defendant’s attorneys. During his testimony, the stepson repeatedly named his attacker and explained the horrifying abuse he experienced. However, the defense attorneys showed that there were many inaccuracies in the stepson’s testimony, and after five witnesses, including the arresting officer, failed to testify, the judge granted the motion to dismiss.

  My heart sank. Robbie was that kid. There was no doubt in my mind now. His stepfather had sexually assaulted him and the defense lawyers, Clarke Hudson and Anthony Waltz, walked him out of court, but it was only half the story.

  The next article in the drawer was smaller, and from a local gazette. It was dated fifteen months ago. The headline and the first few lines were highlighted in yellow pen, with a smiley face drawn next to the article.

  Lawyer’s Death

  The body of lawyer Jeffery Stone was found in his home. At this time, it is reported as a suicide. Jeffery Stone was a well-known defense lawyer, and represented clients in high-profile cases, including the recent defenses of an actor, a politician, and a millionaire businessman. Stone had recently come out as gay, and said he was in a relationship with a man…

  I didn’t read the whole article. I glanced towards the hall and could still hear the coffee machine churning. Robbie was in the kitchen, no doubt trying to think of a way out of the current situation. I turned back and looked at the other articles. The next gazette article had a smiley face over the whole piece.

  Lawyer’s Suicide

  The body of lawyer Clarke Hudson was found in a gym earlier this week. He died as the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The death is not being treated as suspicious. Clarke Hudson was survived by his wife, two ex-wives, and three children. Funeral arrangements are being organized.

  I continued to look through the collection of newspaper clippings. There were further news articles, feature pieces, and magazine clippings, all of people claiming to have been abused but whose attackers got off on technicalities in court.

  I noticed Jeffery Stone’s name in several articles, along with Anthony Waltz, Clarke Hudson, and Larry Fittler. This was a death drawer—notes full of information on the targets. Why he targeted Waltz and Hudson became obvious, but Jeffery Stone was the first death, and I still didn’t have the connection.

  I heard the coffee machine stop churning in the kitchen. Robbie was beginning to move. I closed the drawer slowly, careful not to make another noise. By the time Robbie entered the room holding two cups, I was pretending to study one of the pictures on the wall.

  “You’ve certainly got talent. I love this guy.” I pointed to one of the pictures. “This guy fighting off the large birds. What sort of birds are they?”

  “Uh, yeah. They’re just your average large birds. I didn’t think about any bird in particular.” Robbie stared at the mug before he handed it to me. “I added cream and one sugar. I hope you like it that way.”

  “Thanks, Robbie.” I leaned forward and took the mug, before blowing the steam off it, still looking at the picture. “They always say that artists bring a bit of themselves to their work. Is there any of you in this hero?”

  “I guess so,” he shrugged, but avoided eye contact. “I like defending those defeated by the system. I like sticking up for the little guy. Sometimes…” he shrugged. “Sometimes the system is designed to protect the rich and powerful, and the vulnerable need a defender.”

  “I like that.” I sipped the coffee and agreed with him. “I think the same way. Sometimes, people can buy the results that they need. It shouldn’t be like that. People shouldn’t have the ability to buy their way out of punishment. Don’t you agree?”

  “I guess so.”

  “The last time I was at the Five-Five, I talked to the homeless guy on the street, the former veteran with a cardboard sign that likes to sit near the far corner of the building. He said that you looked after him.”

  Robbie lifted his eyes to look at me. “Someone has to stop all those snobby people walking all over the vulnerable. They already have too much power, and they think they can step on others? No. I won’t stand for that. That was a lesson that I learned a long time ago.”

  “From your father?”

  “My father died when I was little.”

  “Perhaps your stepfather then?”

  “My stepfather is dead.”

  “Really?” I said. “You said he was a lawyer?”

  “He was. His name was Jeffery Stone.” Robbie stared at me, emotionless. “But I don’t like to talk about him.”

  “I get it.” I nodded, trying to suppress my surprise. I turned back to the picture on the wall, taking a moment to gather my thoughts. “I met Jeffery Stone once. I worked with him, many years ago. He employed me to look into one of his clients, not much work, just a little bit of background information.” I lied. “Didn’t he come out as gay? That must’ve been hard for you and your mother.”

  “His sexuality is none of my business. His whole life was none of my business.” He gripped his mug tighter. “My mother divorced him many years ago, and I hadn’t kept in contact with him. He was a nasty, nasty human being. My mother only married him for the money, but it wasn’t worth it.”

  “Killed himself as well, didn’t he?”

  “Like I said, his life was none of my business.”

  “But he was your stepfather. You must’ve at least heard about his death.”

  “I heard about it.” His expression remained cold. “Why are you asking about my stepfather, Jack?”

  “I like to know the people I work with.” I shrugged and sipped the coffee again. “You’ve got to know a person if you’re going to trust them. If you help me with this investigation into Jonathon DiMarco, I have to be able to trust you.” I moved away from the picture, moving back towards the sofa. “Can I trust you, Robbie?”

  As Robbie went to respond, his eyes were drawn to the cabinet, where I was previously standing. I turned. The third drawer was left slightly ajar. Damn it.

  I turned back to Robbie, but in one quick movement, he threw his large coffee mug at me. I ducked, turning my shoulder, but I didn’t move quickly enough.

  The mug caught the side of my temple, and I dropped to one knee, holding my face.

  Before I could straighten back up, with my hand reaching around to my holster, Robbie lunged at me.

  And then I saw his large, closed fist swinging towards my head.

  Chapter 32

  I blinked once, twice, and I could smell sugar and coffee, wondering if I was at home o
n a relaxed Sunday afternoon. Then, the pain shot through my jaw, and I remembered the dark, dirty basement apartment. My eyes jolted open, and I sat up straight, feeling a brief dizzy sensation. I lifted a hand to my cheek, and felt the puffiness around my eye.

  “Don’t move one single muscle, Jack.”

  Robbie was sitting on the sofa, pointing a gun in my face, his face a mixture of panic and rage. I was on the ground, against the brick wall, near the small television. I moved my hip against the wall and realized my gun was missing from the holster at my hip.

  “Good to see that you don’t die easily.” Robbie’s hand seemed unnervingly still and steady as he held the gun. “At least you’re not a soft one. I respect that.”

  “I’m feeling good, Robbie.” I groaned as I moved to sit up. “Just a little scrape. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Don’t sit up any further, Jack. Just stay right there.”

  “Robbie,” I started, but was interrupted when he bared his teeth and growled at me. “Robbie,” I said again, slowing my speech pattern. “I’m not sure what you think I have against you. I’m not sure what this is about. All I wanted to know is whether you could help me with Jonathon DiMarco.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot and you’re some hotshot negotiator, Jack. I’ve seen the TV shows; I’ve read the comics; I’ve heard the stories. I know you’re trying to make a connection with me. I just want you to shut up. I’m not done.”

  “Not done with what, Robbie?”

  I considered charging at him, getting the gun out of his grip, but he was too far away, and without backup, things could go south quickly.

  “That!” Robbie waved the gun, pointing to the drawing I had been admiring only five minutes earlier. Without warning, and without the direction of his gun wavering, he stood and took several quick strides across the room.

  “‘Dead on Arrival’? C’mon, man. How stupid are you?” Robbie walked around the back of the sofa, eyes still on me, gun waving in the air. “You really think that’s what his name stands for?”

  “What’s his name then, Robbie? I want to know,” I winced. I tried to sit up straight again.

  “Defender of All. Look at him. You couldn’t even see it. That’s me, Jack. That’s me in the picture. I’m the Defender of All. I was going to call him Death to All Lawyers, but I thought that might not go down well with the publishers.”

  “Death to All Lawyers. Just like DiMarco’s website.”

  “Jonathon DiMarco’s website?” He laughed. He moved around the sofa and came closer. “DiMarco is my puppet. I run the website, DiMarco provides the content. That’s my website. That’s my handy work. That’s what I do when I’m sitting in that security office—I make sure that website runs smoothly so that DiMarco can put his content up and influence the public. The people of America have to know how bad the system has become. They have the right to know how far the system has strayed from being fair.” Robbie walked to the end of the sofa, the handgun now focused on me, not even five feet away.

  “All because of what happened with your stepdad when you were little, right? That’s what this is all about?”

  Without warning, I felt the gun barrel crack down on the side of my head. I felt a blinding pain and doubled forward, scrambling to stop the world from blackening and spinning all at once.

  Reaching up, I felt the warmth of blood in my hair. Out of the corner of my eye, next to my hip, I spotted a large piece of broken mug. I picked it up, covering it in my fist as I sat up slowly.

  When I looked up, Robbie was in front of me again, sitting on the stained sofa. This time there was no panic in his eyes, just pure anger. He sat on the edge of the couch, elbows resting on his knees, gripping the gun so tightly that I could see the veins in his hands.

  “It’s time to shut up, Jack. Keep your mouth shut and stop making stupid decisions that are going to get you killed. You and I could work together. I could use your help. You and I are the same. We’re cut from the same cloth.”

  “But my stepfather wasn’t a pedophile.”

  Robbie’s face changed again, this time there was sadness and regret in his boyish eyes. He sighed. For the first time, I saw the gun sway.

  “So, Anthony Waltz was to blame for your stepfather getting off?”

  “Of course he was! Those selfish pricks ruined my life!” He stood. The anger had returned. “And they all had to pay. These lawyers think they’re God’s gift to the planet. They play with people’s lives every day. Guilty people should end up in prison. Guilty people shouldn’t have the chance to watch their kids grow up. The lawyers should be there to show the world the truth. But they don’t! They use the system to make money, and lots of it. Where’s the moral fiber? Where’s the sense of right and wrong?!”

  “So, you think it’s your job to set the record straight?”

  “Someone has to defend the vulnerable. All of them. Someone has to protect us against the vultures.” Robbie paced in front of the couch, then stopped to look at the picture on the wall again—the child, the vultures, and the defender—all playing their roles as Robbie felt they should. “This legal system, this system that we revere, is built on evidence. You need evidence to prove someone is guilty. And with most crimes, that works. But in cases of sexual assault, there rarely is solid evidence, unless you go to the police straight away. If you wait a week, if it takes you a month to gain the bravery to report it, then there’s no physical evidence. But does that mean the crime didn’t happen?” He looked at me. “I’m asking you, Jack. Does a lack of evidence in a sexual assault case mean the crime didn’t happen?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that.”

  “Of course you don’t! Nobody does. How can our legal system convict people of a crime where there is little evidence? I’ll tell you—it can’t. If you wait a week, a month, a year, to report it, the system fails. It becomes ‘he said, she said.’ One person’s word against another. Is that fair and just?” He continued to pace the room. “No! No, Jack, it’s not fair and just. Our system fails when it deals with sexual assault. It fails me, it fails you, and it fails all of us.”

  “But people lie. If you just believe the accuser, you open everyone up to bribery. I could say anyone sexually assaulted me, and then take a pay-off to prevent the case going to court. How do you change that, Robbie?”

  “What?” He turned sharply to look at me. “You don’t think I’ve thought about that? You don’t think I’ve tried to change the system? You don’t think that I’ve campaigned to force all sexual assault attackers to take a polygraph test? Because that would work. There’s your evidence. That’s what’s needed. It would no longer be on the word of a victim, it would be on the word of the attacker. Force them to take a lie detector test. The issue is easy to solve. But do the legislators want that? Of course not. The powerful want to protect each other. Just like Waltz, Hudson, and Fittler. They all had each other’s backs.”

  He came back to the sofa and slumped down. I had to keep him talking.

  “Did DiMarco know what you were doing?”

  “DiMarco? No. He had no idea. And why would he? We’ve met a few times, but I’m just a security guard that supports his cause. He doesn’t even know that I run the website. All that’s done via email. But I spoke to him the night Waltz died. He introduced me to Wilkerson. I could tell that Wilkerson had a hole in him that was never going to be fixed. Just like me. Exactly the way I felt. Just because some scummy dirt-bag with a legal degree had messed up his whole world.” Robbie’s frustration was growing with a new level of hostility. “Just because a good defense lawyer destroys one testimony, a case is thrown out. How is that fair? Don’t answer that, Jack, because I know the answer—it isn’t fair. It isn’t just. Our evidence based system doesn’t work for crimes where there is little evidence.”

  “That’s a good point, Robbie.” I had to keep him talking until I saw an opportunity to attack. “How did you convince Anthony Waltz to shoot himself?”

  �
�Waltz was supposed to look like an accident, like the others. He was supposed to accidently shoot himself whilst cleaning his gun. But he knew. Somehow, he guessed why I was there that night, even though I told him I was doing a check because there were reports of a suspicious person in the building. I asked to see his gun, you know, told him someone had been breaking into people’s gun safes. Well, as soon as he had the safe open, I tried to grab him. He was quick and I wasn’t expecting it. He ruined everything. I had no choice. The stupid mess!”

  “Ok. So that one got messed up. But what about the others? Jeffery Stone, your stepdad didn’t commit suicide, did he?”

  “Of course he didn’t commit suicide! He was the first, so I gave him a chance. I gave him the opportunity to tell me the truth. I just wanted him to own the truth, you know? I wanted him to say he was sorry. I wanted him to own what he did to me.” Robbie softened. “I wanted to hear him say that he was sorry. But he wouldn’t say it. Jeffery Stone was a true villain. A true vulture. The world is a better place without him.”

  “You were a little boy. You didn’t deserve to be raped.” I looked at him, trying to break through the anger and appeal to the broken child inside. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Of course it wasn’t my fault! That heartless prick.” He stood again. He was struggling to contain the anger, rage, and fury that was inside him. “He raped me, Jack. He did things… he did things to me that broke my soul… And then he got away with it. Not even a day in prison. Not even a day! He deserved to die. And so did his lawyers. All of them. They sat there while I testified and they laughed at me. It was one big defense lawyer get together, and they laughed at me. I was a boy. How could I be expected to testify? How could my evidence be expected to hold up against their intellectual power? Those men had years of experience in the courtroom, and I was just a boy. I couldn’t match them. They asked me so many questions that I became confused.”