The meeting room was dim, with closed blinds, dark furniture, and lighting that created shadows in the corners. The indoor plant near the door did little to lighten the mood. But it was the way I liked to focus—closed off from the outside world, shut away from distractions, my attention narrowed to the information in front of me. It was here that I could see the small piece of information that I might’ve missed before. It was here that I could solve a puzzle that previously seemed impossible.
“Are you sure it’s the same MO as our guy?” Casey circled the table. She was shocked by the information Williams had told me over the phone, but not surprised. “Did Detective Williams confirm that a second bullet was found nearby?”
“Larry Fittler was shot in the neck sometime last night,” I grunted. “His cleaner found him in the bedroom of his apartment. He was sprawled out on the bed, gun in hand, and you guessed right—a second bullet was found in the wall nearby. This isn’t a coincidence, Casey. The killer knows we’re close and he’s moving faster.”
“Or she.”
“Or she.” I nodded. I leaned on the table pushing two pieces of paper apart. “Detective Williams called me this morning and gave me as much information as he could. He said that the investigating detectives are going to write it up as suicide because there’s nothing else to raise questions. There’s no evidence that suggests anyone else was there. No witnesses. No video footage. No complaints of arguments from the neighbors. This was as clean a suicide as they can get. If I was a cop, looking at this case alone, I’d also write it up as a suicide.”
“Are they even going to investigate the links to the other suicides? They have to acknowledge the correlation with the other cases now. They have this information. They know that these guys are all lawyers who defend sexual assault cases. That evidence is too hard to ignore.”
“Suicides are known to be contagious. The action is known to be catching. The police will say that Fittler saw his colleagues commit this act, and he thought it was a viable option. But Fittler didn’t even look close to killing himself when I talked to him last week. He was so arrogant, and so far from suicide. I warned him, but he didn’t listen.”
I stared at the profile we’d built on Jenny Carpenter. We had a social media profile photo of her, and under the photo was the file we’d built. Casey had spent the morning gathering information on the failed case fifteen years ago when Jenny was only ten. It made for terrible reading. There was evidence of the abuse, witnesses, and even a video of Jenny being groped by her abuser at gymnastics training, but the evidence was thrown out because it was discovered that a police officer gathered the information outside the rule of the law. The key witnesses were dismissed when the defense lawyer presented evidence to show that they’d received money from the Carpenter family. The Carpenter family said it was a thank you, not a bribe, but the judge wouldn’t hear it. All the witness statements were dismissed. Jenny’s first abuser walked free without justice—that had to leave a mark on a person, no doubt about it. A simmering, murderous mark.
“Surveillance footage near Larry Fittler’s home? Maybe something down the street?”
“Williams said the investigating detectives weren’t even going to look down the street. They’ve got footage of the front door, and there’s no movement on the night of his death. No one in or out.” I tapped my finger on the table. “But we’ll look around. We’ll canvas the area and see if a neighbor had another angle on the house. We might get a lucky break.”
“What about Matthew Wilkerson, Jenny’s fiancé? He’s a cop, he could pull this off.” Casey pushed a file across the table. “He’d want the best for his future wife. Maybe they’re a team? A Bonnie and Clyde type of couple. What could be more passionate than teaming up against a common enemy? They might even be taking it in turns. One did Waltz, and the next did Fittler.”
I nodded at the possibility. It made sense. A bond over a common enemy was a common connection for couples. I’d even heard that some marriage counselors were deliberately terrible at their job in an effort to bring a warring couple closer together. What could be more bonding than an attack on the people that tore your life apart? I started to pace the room. It was my way to think, my way to move through the ideas that fueled my investigations.
“And perhaps DiMarco is the one inspiring them. Perhaps he’s pulling the strings.” Casey sat down at the end of the table. She crossed one leg over the other and swiveled gently on the chair. “They could be all in this together. DiMarco is the ringleader, with Jenny and Matthew acting as his minions. In her vulnerable state, DiMarco could be taking advantage of Jenny. She’s clearly got a fiery streak and a lot of unresolved anger.” She leaned forward and opened a file. “This is all we have on DiMarco, and there’s a lot of information, but there’s not a lot that helps us. All the information we have leads to dead ends, and I can’t find anything that might help us. There are no other witnesses that
