The Shooter

but the woman changed her testimony after a month, and soon purchased a new home. It was clear that she’d been bought off with Waltz’s money.
Not only were these guys defending scum, they were defending each other too.
After a long day of combing through different websites, Casey called it a day. I didn’t want to go home yet. There was still too much to do. As the clock ticked past 10pm, I continued to gather material, searching through the different databases for all the information on the case that I could find. After compiling complete files on the deceased men, I turned my attention to the main suspects. My eyes were heavy as I stared at the screen, but I was determined not to waste a second.
Our main catalogue, the My Tracer database, has more information than the internet. From there, we can access a person’s social security details, their driver’s license, their addresses, their phone numbers, and email contacts. It was useful sometimes, especially when trying to locate a person, but a lot of it was background information that served little purpose.
There was a lot of information on Jonathon DiMarco, all the way from his childhood address through to his current shopping purchases. When people buy items from a store and use a store card, that information is collated by the store and sold to the highest bidder. Usually, that information goes to advertising companies in an attempt to target items to the individual, but sometimes, it goes out to other groups. It was information, but not really that useful for our current investigation. Knowing the soap brand that DiMarco purchased wouldn’t prove anything in this case.
Wilkerson had less information on the database. There were the basics, but nothing too deep.
Social media accounts were next. They often pieced the puzzle together. I had data about the suspects, I had information, but I had nothing that showed their personality. That’s where social media accounts became important.
Wilkerson’s profiles were public, meaning anyone could access them. I searched through his photos, posts, comments, and updates. Before his fiancé was raped, the pictures and profiles were the standard set—lovely photos of the couple smiling at holiday destinations, pictures of him getting ready for work, and celebrating Valentine’s Day at a restaurant.
I could almost pinpoint the day of the rape by his Facebook profile alone. The tone of the posts changed. Gone were the nice photos, gone were the lovely updates, replaced with aggressive and angry statements about the failings of the legal system.
Even though he was a cop, he made numerous posts that named David Chesterfield, the man that was charged with the rape of his fiancé, and he’d posted numerous comments attacking Anthony Waltz. He called Waltz a degenerate loser, scum, and trash. He wrote that Waltz belonged in prison with his clients. He stated that people like Waltz were the reason that the legal system was failing.
I was surprised that his accounts weren’t monitored or reported to his superiors at the Buffalo Grove police station. It was certainly biased information. If he was ever called to testify in a trial, this type of information could be used against his testimony and demonstrate clear bias against the legal system and defense lawyers.
But I doubted whether that would ever happen. Wilkerson didn’t appear to have a lot of career prospects within the police force. His file showed that he’d barely finished high school, he struggled through the police assessments, and he’d been employed in the same role for the last five years. I couldn’t find one arrest warrant with his name on it. It appeared to be as far as he would go in his police career.
His spelling on social media was also abysmal. There were some statements where I couldn’t even understand what he was trying to say. I took screenshots of Wilkerson’s posts about Waltz, and kept scrolling through the internet, looking for anything that might strengthen our case.
After another fifty minutes of scrolling through his social media posts, I felt my eyes starting to droop. It was late, almost midnight, and it was time for me to turn in.
I closed up, and locked the office.
As usual, once on the street, I checked for any movement, but when I saw none, I turned up my coat collar to the damp air, and proceeded to walk towards my truck, parked a block away in a parking lot.
I’d only walked five steps into the multi-level parking lot when I heard something behind me.
I went to turn around, but it was too late. Something hit me at the base of the neck. Hard. I flew forward, crashing into the concrete sidewalk.
I rolled to my left, and sprung to my feet. My world was spinning. My head was thumping. My vision was blurred. My fists were clenched.
I heard another noise and turned again. I saw the shadow jump over a nearby fence. I started to run after the shadow, but I was unsteady. I stopped and regained by bearings, leaning my hand against a nearby car.
I looked up and down the dimly lit parking lot. There was nobody else. Not a soul. Not a movement.
I doubted whether it was just a thug looking to punch someone. The nearest bar was two blocks away, and nobody would’ve just stumbled into this lot. It could’ve been that I’d arrived at the exact moment someone was looking to steal a car, but I also doubted that. I looked around the lot—there were five cars left in the fifty-odd space lot. None of the cars looked like they’d be targets for car thieves. Car thieves preferred particular types of cars, the easiest targets with the least security. They knew which ones to try and which cars to avoid. None of the cars left in the lot looked like easy targets.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I moved