The Shooter

I know. He’s got his second game of basketball today and he was feeling pretty anxious. Told him I’d try and be there.”
“A kid you know? What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t matter. Are you going to send the text?” My defenses were up, but it wasn’t new for Casey to see me so guarded. Ever since my wife was murdered almost five years ago, I’ve avoided any deep relationships, or anything that made me feel any emotions at all.
“Relax ya slacks there. I’m on it.” I handed her my phone and there was silence while she tapped out the text and hit the Send button. The cold, clear sky had clouds beginning to knit together and I briefly wondered if I checked the weather today. Then I remembered—rain and cold were coming back, another taste of winter, just when we thought we’d left it behind.
“What’s the big secret, huh? Why won’t you tell me?”
“Maybe because we have so many other important things to talk about. Like how can theme parks take a crystal-clear picture of you speeding on a roller coaster, but bank cameras can't get a clear shot of a robber standing still.”
Casey shook her head, not pushing the point. “Please spare me your old man thoughts.”
“Alright alright. Ok, enough about me, we’ve got work to do. Call Sarah, our contact in the State’s Attorney’s office. We’ll go there first, it’s almost six o’clock now, but I think she’ll be working late. We need to look further into Anthony Waltz’s last big case. We need to talk to the victim of the sexual assault, because I can tell you, if Chesterfield wasn’t innocent, then getting a rapist off scot free is a very reasonable motive for murder.”
“Agreed.” Casey typed into her phone, searching the internet for information. Within five minutes, she had everything we needed. “Chesterfield’s victim was a girl named Jenny Carpenter. 25 years old. Engaged to a cop in Buffalo Grove.”
“Find me an address,” I took the ramp off the Interstate. “And then let the State’s Attorney’s office know that we’re on our way.”

Chapter 6


“Thanks for seeing us so late, Sarah.” I greeted Sarah Kingston with my best smile. “We’ll make this quick.”
“It’d better be. I have to be out that door in ten minutes flat.” Sarah Kingston, assistant to the State’s Attorney, smoothed her skirt before she sat behind her desk, a stack of files in front of her. She was immaculately dressed, with not a strand of hair out of place, and Casey automatically reached up and tried to fix her messy ponytail. Her small office seemed to have little protection from a cold draft sweeping through the building. The walls were brown and dull, the small window behind her desk was covered with faded blinds, and the lighting was dim. This was a place to work, to focus, and to tear apart every last piece of evidence.
Sarah Kingston was strong, smart, and undeniably attractive. Casey had begged me earlier not to completely ruin any positive relationship we had with her department as I had a history of destroying connections with my act now-think later attitude, but the State’s Attorney’s office still owed me a number of favors. I’d saved cases for them more times than I cared to count, and the department made sure they kept me on their good side. It was give and take. If they needed information about a case I had worked on, I was expected to point them in the right direction to find the evidence, and if I needed information for a case, I expected them to hint where I could find it.
“I’ve been told that I can give you an overview of the cases you sent through. I can tell you things that are publicly available but nothing more.” She rummaged through the files on her desk. “I need to be in a meeting at 7pm. So, you want to know who was really innocent and who just filled the court with enough believable stories to get them on the first train ride home?”
Sarah pulled two files off the pile and threw one across the desk. It landed just in front of Casey. Casey picked it up and began paging through its contents. Somehow the folders always seemed to open directly to the photos, almost like the universe had a way of pulling people towards the darkest, dirtiest moments of carnage, and this time was no different.
Casey tried not to see the picture of a small child, maybe five-years-old, her pink and white polka dot dress ripped and shredded from the scissors that had been continually smashed into her chest, but she couldn’t help it—her eyes pulled the information into her brain in a rush. It was difficult to know how many times the tiny girl had been stabbed. And it was impossible to know how someone could ever do it.
Casey flipped quickly over to the witness statements and glanced up at Sarah, nodding at her to continue.
“Jeffery Stone’s last client had rape and then homicide charges thrown out. Jeffery Stone used a loophole and had all the major evidence dismissed. Was the client guilty? Most likely, almost certainly, but the courts couldn’t prove it without the five main pieces of evidence. It was a disaster from the start.” She picked up the next file and threw it over to me. “This is Jeffery Stone’s second to last case. Another child abuse case, and another monumental mistake. This case was thrown out because a key witness changed their story midway through the trial. We suspect that the defense team had a hand in convincing the witness to change their story, but we couldn’t prove a thing. Unsurprisingly, the witness was able to purchase a nice holiday to the Caribbean a week after she changed her story.”
She picked up one last folder, paused for a