“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” Jenny snapped. Her jaw clenched and her fists tightened into balls as they slapped the arm of her chair. It caught Casey and me by surprise. There was anger in her voice. Furious anger. “He didn’t have anything to do with Waltz. He was with me the whole time.”
“When?”
“Whenever these things happened.” Her teeth ground together, and her tone was devilish. “My fiancé had nothing to do with it. He has always been by my side. I don’t care when it happened. Matthew was next to me.”
I didn’t know what to say in response, and by the looks of Casey, she was also too shocked to respond.
Jenny stood abruptly. The chair wobbled behind her. “Leave us alone.”
Casey looked at me. My phone buzzed. I ignored the call a third time.
“We’re going to investigate this case.” I stood as well. “We don’t want to hurt you, and we understand that you’ve been through enough.”
Jenny’s mouth twitched at the sides. She looked like she could explode into a rage at any second.
“Leave us all alone.” Jenny growled in a deeper voice than I expected. She turned and marched to the door before turning back to us. “Or you’ll be sorry.”
The door slammed as she walked out. The tension she left in the office lingered for a few moments, both Casey and I were unsure of what to say next.
After a minute, once we were sure Jenny was gone, Casey turned to me, eyebrows raised. “She’s got an angry streak.”
I nodded. I didn’t expect that. Not at all.
My phone buzzed again. It was a message.
I turned the phone over and I had a number of missed calls and a message from Detective Williams:
I’ve got something. Something big.
Chapter 17
In the Angry Friar, I waited at the far end of the bar, watching the television in the distance. Jeopardy was on. An old guy continually yelled out incorrect responses with conviction, missing even the most obvious of answers. I ignored his attempts as my mind was on Jenny Carpenter. She was only a small woman, but none of the murders required strength. The men were all shot through the throat. It made sense that the bullet had entered lower. She couldn’t have reached their foreheads to shoot them in the head. She could’ve used her innocent girl routine, and gained their trust, and then turned on them. But I still couldn’t explain the other lawyers. Anthony Waltz, yes, but I couldn’t come up with a theory about why she would’ve attacked Jeffery Stone or Clarke Hudson. She had no connection to them.
The door to the bar opened, sunlight flooding into the deliberately dim room, and I turned to face the light. Detective Williams walked in, scratching his nose. The door swung shut behind him and the lighting returned to a more respectful murkiness.
“Smells like this place hasn’t had fresh air through it since last night, Jack. This place still smells like vodka shots.” Williams approached me, then placed his hand on my shoulder and sat next to me. “I’m going to admit something that I don’t usually admit.”
“That you’re going bald?” I quipped.
He stared at me for a long moment. “I still have hair.” He self-consciously patted down some of his thinning hair and then ordered a Miller Lite. “What I was going to say was that I might admit that you’re right. That’s something I never thought I’d admit.” He continued to pat down his hair. “Why’d you have to make this about my hair? Going bald is a sign of higher testosterone, you know?”
“What was the big news?” I questioned.
He shook his head, and continued to pat down his hair.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Your hair looks great. And you’re tall enough that most people wouldn’t even see the top of your head.”
He grunted and thanked the bartender for the beer, and then turned back to me. “I’ll start with the small stuff that I’ve found, and then I’ll get to the big news. I’ll build you into it. I wouldn’t want to give you a heart attack.” Williams made an attempt to jovially insult me, but it missed the mark. We were both the same age, and I was in a lot better shape. Still, I humored him with a smile.
“My heart is doing ok, Williams. What’ve you got?”
“I’ve done some digging into those case files. Quietly, of course. And everything you said was right—all three of those deaths were via gunshot and the second bullet was found in the wall nearby. None of the families, nor any of the friends, reported seeing these people as suicidal in the past. Not one of these suicides was expected. Every single one of the people’s suicides you mentioned came as a shock to everyone.”
I drew a deep breath. Usually, I liked to rub the cops’ nose in it, but I didn’t want to be right this time. Being right meant that there was a serial killer picking off victims with ease and without retribution. I turned back to my beer and swirled the half-filled glass.
“So, we’re onto something,” I said. “And this looks dangerous.”
“The killer seems to be targeting intelligent people, so I think you’re safe.”
I smiled genuinely this time. That insult was better. “What else do you have?”
“Jonathon DiMarco was known to have threatened each of these lawyers in the weeks before their deaths. All the information is online.” Williams leaned closer to me. “DiMarco runs a website called Death to All Lawyers, D-TAL, where he talks about the failings of our legal system. A week
