The Shooter

“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