The Shooter

of place. New couch, new table, the latest computers. Even the receptionist looked like she’d been pulled from the pages of a fashion magazine. I sat on a chair in the reception area, trying not to break anything. The brown leather couch looked inviting, but it was much too firm. As I waited, I was careful not to move suddenly in case I damaged what looked to be a very expensive artwork hanging behind me.
Following Sarah Kingston’s advice, Casey and I reviewed Fittler’s profile online, and decided he would react better to a male presence, than a female one. Casey chose to investigate Jenny Carpenter’s background while I talked to Fittler. Jenny Carpenter could provide the lead we were after, and even with the files from the State’s Attorney’s office, we still had many questions about Anthony Waltz’s last case. Could someone had been so angry on Jenny’s behalf that they killed Waltz? I didn’t know the answer, but from her photos, Jenny Carpenter appeared to be a vulnerable angel, the type of woman that provoked a protective response from most red-blooded males.
Larry Fittler’s media presence over the last few years had been hard to ignore. If he could get his face onto television, his name in the papers, or his voice heard on the radio, he was there. There were too many appearances to even count. He loved controversy, loved playing the bad guy, and loved arguing with anyone about anything. One of his most memorable interactions was with a female reporter who dared to suggest he got where he was because he was a white male. He tore the poor woman to shreds, not allowing her to even get a word in for the next five minutes. He said nothing of substance, but he said it with conviction.
“Mr. Fittler will see you now.” The receptionist yelled at me, not even looking up from her computer. She was pretty enough to be a model, and by her lack of customer service skills, I thought that was the only reason she was there. “It’s the door at the end of the hallway.”
I nodded my thanks and walked down the hallway. There were five senior lawyers in the firm, each with private offices on the fiftieth floor of the building in the upmarket neighborhood of the Gold Coast.
“Mr. Fittler.” I smiled as I walked into the room. “Thank you for seeing me.”
The private office was as I expected—massive and flashy, filled with recently purchased items, and completely and utterly soulless. There was a large desk in the middle of the room, a long leather couch to the side, floor-to-ceiling windows behind that. The view was impressive, although I doubted Fittler ever took the time to appreciate it. The largest picture on the wall was of Larry Fittler’s own smiling face, a cheesy grin wiped across his jaw. He had a number of photos with other people, but each photo had his face as the centerpiece.
“Are you looking for work?” He didn’t even greet me, remaining seated behind his desk, staring at the computer screen. “Because I’ll stop you there if you are. I’ve already got an investigator. One of the best. And I’m not willing to pay you for whatever information you think you can sell to me. If it’s information for a case, then I’m sure my investigator has already found whatever it is you want to sell.”
“I’m not after work. I have more work than I can handle,” I said. “These are busy times for private investigators in Chicago. Crime certainly pays my bills.”
He stopped and gestured towards the chair in front of his desk. “Alright. So, you’re not selling something. Sit down, and tell me what you want. Just don’t get comfortable because I’m a busy man. And no small talk. I don’t want to talk about the photo on the wall with the President.” He gestured behind him. I hadn’t noticed that picture, but Fittler wasn’t going to let me miss it. “So, Mr. Valentine, get straight to the point.”
“I’ve been investigating Anthony Waltz’s death—”
“Why would you need to investigate a suicide?”
“Because I’ve been paid to.”
He squinted and then leaned forward. “And who is employing you to do that?”
“A friend of Anthony Waltz’s.”
“Friend? You’re joking. I don’t believe that.” He scoffed. “Waltz didn’t have many friends. In fact, I’d be surprised if he had any. The only people at his funeral are likely to be colleagues and perhaps some distant family members. He certainly wasn’t the sort of guy to go to the bar with his buddies. He just didn’t have a friendly personality. So, tell me, what do you know that I don’t?”
“That man’s greatest hero should be the guy that created the tradition of a groom not seeing the bride in her wedding dress before the big day, because it’s saved husbands everywhere from hours and hours of dress shopping.”
He smiled at the joke. The ice was broken. “Alright, Mr. Valentine. How can I help?”
“It’s not so much what you can do for me, but more what I can do for you.” I started. “We’ve identified a pattern with defense lawyers in Chicago over the last year, and Anthony Waltz’s death is the latest to match the same pattern. There have been three dead lawyers in the past fifteen months who were all managing the same type of cases. It could be a complete coincidence, it could be nothing more than a quirk of misfortune, or it could be something more. I’m investigating if it’s something more.”
“Anthony Waltz, and who are the other two?”
“Jeffery Stone and Clarke Hudson.”
“Sad cases, all of those guys. I’d worked with Jeffery Stone recently, actually. We’d worked together in the past. He was a charmer. Smooth. Charismatic. He even had hopes of running for council one day. He’d just come out as gay, so I guess it all was