The Shooter

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