Serial Intent

by Steve Bradshaw

  “I asked you to find out a few things for me. Identify and locate the sniper shooting Mr. Marcantonio’s men. Identify the contractor. Identify and locate the man caught on the video I sent you—the vacant lot, 300 block of West 27th, the South Side. My client wishes to stop all threats.

  “To identify and locate our shooter, you began with what we know. I provided the names of three sniper victims over the last six months. I saw from your reports that each of you looked into their backgrounds. You found common denominators. Then you launched an investigation. Gentlemen, I don’t intend to do all the talking tonight. Here is where each of you can chime in with your findings and thoughts.”

  “It did not take long to determine Newman, Borden, and Pender were disgusting scumbags,” Cranston said. “The three possessed a laundry list of felony charges and convictions—sexual assault, robbery, drug trafficking, and murder. All three spent time behind bars. They all demonstrated a unique talent for getting out. Each had been charged for murder two or more times. Each had been convicted at least once. And each were back on the streets within three to six years after their down-graded conviction.”

  Cranston cleared his throat and took a sip of his drink. “The three taken out by a sniper were not your typical bad guys. These people were animals. Regardless of the prosecutorial routes taken to put these people away, they beat the system. I think all of us have concluded these three have killed far more people than is captured in their sick records.”

  “And this shared success in beating the system is due to one thing—their employer,” Bert Michaels said. “Mr. Marcantonio spares no expense getting his people legal representation and manipulating the criminal justice system.”

  Fitz interrupted. “Marcantonio’s reputation for defending his people is why he has survived for decades. His people are long time and loyal. They protect him.”

  Babcock tapped his finger on the table taking it in. “So you are saying the sniper targets are what you would classify as serial predators, not your run-of-the-mill thugs?”

  “Definitely,” Cranston said. “And there are several more ‘serial predators’ walking the streets. Many work for Mr. Marcantonio. What makes his unique is their history of beating the legal system.”

  “Like the representation James Harvey Pender received,” Michaels muttered. The three PIs turned to Babcock to measure his reaction. “How does BB&B fit in this dismal equation?”

  “I’m not proud that I represented that man.” Babcock took a swallow of scotch. “For this room only, I was forced into it by my father. Jennings had an old debt to close out. He owed Mr. Marcantonio. My representation of Pender was difficult, but my father’s debt is now closed.”

  Cranston smiled. “We understand, Eldon. We’re not here to judge—we all have regrets in life. We’re working for you. Money makes us all do things.”

  Babcock nodded. “I must say I was pleased to hear Mr. Pender was terminated at the property on West 27th Street. I sleep better knowing he’s not out there. I am not proud of my involvement. The man was born with serial intent.”

  “We have another sniper victim, one not reported by Marcantonio,” Fitz said.

  “Eric Ramsey,” Babcock said under his breath.

  “Yes. Eric Ramsey got himself shot in the home of Lindsey Nolan Fetter,” Fitz said. “My people at Chicago PD confirm a headshot, same caliber, and shot from a mile away. The bullet passed through curtains into a dark bedroom on the tenth floor of a building downtown. I found those facts alone to be chilling. Clearly our sniper is gifted.”

  Eldon rapped his fingers. Heads turned. “The window was not broken. We had another cold winter night when Ramsey got shot in her bedroom. We know Mrs. Fetter lives alone. Someone opened her window in advance. If it was a pre-visit by the sniper, the opened window would have been discovered—the cold night air, the lifting curtains.”

  “I doubt the sniper did it. Nor did she,” Fitz scoffed. “Women don’t open big windows, especially on the tenth floor in the wintertime. I was told it was opened a lot—several feet—enough to allow a clear path for a headshot from a mile away.”

  “The opened window reduced the risk of projectile deflection,” Michaels said. The thick glass or metal trim could have caused a miss.”

  “My ballistics man said it would alter the path of a bullet,” Cranston confirmed.

  “Someone connected to the sniper had to be in that bedroom before Ramsey.”

  “I agree,” Fitz said. “The shooting occurred late. Fetter claims she was alone—according to the police report. I don’t believe her. She had a visitor or two.”

  “But how did she know Ramsey was coming that night?” Cranston asked. “I believe she had to take part in setting up the kill. Maybe her visitor knew Ramsey was coming.”

  “I saw in your report Fetter had a gun,” Babcock said. “If that’s true, she would have been trained to use it and not need help.”

  “She did use the gun,” Fitz said. “One shot—major miss. I think it’s safe to assume she did not know a damn thing about her gun.”

  Michaels said, “I did some checking on the gun. It was registered to her, but she did not purchase that gun. We located the store where it came from. Turns out it was purchased the day Ramsey was released, purchased by an older man—Charlie Dunn.”

  “Maybe he loaned her the gun after she found out about Ramsey’s release?”

  “Don’t know. We can’t find Charlie Dunn to ask. Apparently he moved the same day.”

  “How does this connect Fetter to a sniper?” Babcock asked Fitz.

  Cranston downed the rest of his drink and went to the bar while Fitz rubbed his forehead looking at his empty glass. “We don’t know,” Cranston said with his back to the group. He poured and turned with a full glass. “Mrs. Fetter did not appear to control anything at the crime scene except pulling that trigger one time and missing. She’s no sleuth, gentlemen. Mrs. Fetter is a victim alone in the world.”

  “The whole thing had to be managed by a third party,” Babcock said.

  “We need to get video from around her building,” Cranston said. “With some luck we may identify those connected to the sniper.”

  Babcock walked to the east window of the boardroom and looked north at the city skyline. As he contemplated Cranston’s conclusion—one not challenged by his PI brethren—he took in the dark buildings with vertical lines of lighted windows. A sniper could be anywhere at any time. Babcock did not feel the crosshairs of Norman Levitt’s scope.

  He returned to the far end of the table. “I must agree with Mark. I believe the four dead men are connected. At the moment, our route to the sniper’s identity is through Lindsey Fetter and Charlie Dunn. Mark, can you get video from around that building?”

  “I will have it to everybody in the morning.” He sent a text to his people.

  “Good. Bert, I want you to make contact with Lindsey Fetter, nobody else. We do not want to shut her down before we get what we’re looking for. Use your best methods to connect with Fetter to obtain the relevant information. Find out who was with her the night Eric Ramsey died in her bedroom. I’m looking for a fast turnaround.”

  “Why Bert Michaels,” Fitz complained. “I have people more familiar with that aspect of the case. I obtained the police report and investigated the gun. I think I should meet with the Fetter woman. It will save us time.”

  “Not your call, Mr. Fitz. I have plans for you. I want you focused on the man in the video on West 27th Street.” Babcock changed the graphic on the screen. “We need to speed things up. Mr. Marcantonio is fifteen minutes out.”

  “What do we want to share about progress on the sniper?” Michaels asked.

  “No mention of the Fetter incident. We can talk about everything else.”

  Cranston got to his feet with his empty glass. “We best make it very clear, Marcantonio needs to disappear. Based on the dots we’ve connected so far, he and several of his people are on the sniper’s kill list.”


  “I will strongly advise he go into hiding from here. I suspect he knows he’s a target.” Babcock looked down. And he knows the sniper and the why. “Gentlemen, as usual I have a client not sharing all he knows.”

  “Maybe he believes he can take care of the sniper himself,” Cranston said.

  “Maybe he wants us to cover all other possibilities,” Michaels said.

  “Marcantonio has survived a life of crime. Maybe he thinks he’s invincible,” Fitz scoffed. “The sniper seems to be working up to him.”

  “Okay. Let’s change gears,” Babcock said. “Let’s talk about the man on West 27th Street. You have the video and the biometrics. This man is frightening.”

  “Anyone who can do what he did is frightening,” Cranston mumbled.

  “In a way he is more dangerous than the sniper,” Babcock said.

  Michaels opened a file. “I have my IT people working on this. They may be able to reconstruct the face from the few data points—advanced software. They only need four topographical points in key areas of the face. The software runs thousands of calculations every square millimeter and builds. I believe we will get a face and can work on identity.”

  “That’s fascinating,” Cranston said.

  “I wish I could guarantee this will work,” Michaels said. “Trouble is the guy is different. He can’t even walk down the street during the day without being noticed. His facial deformities are difficult to reconstruct. It’s possible that video is the only time his image has been captured.”

  “I bet he has the same mission as the sniper,” Fitz said. “They both were going after Pender. Maybe the motivation is the justice system that lets animals like that out.”

  “The system’s been broken a long time,” Cranston said. “We’re all lawyers. We get it. We’re part of the problem. We all have represented guilty people and gotten them off.”

  On Cranston’s last word the elevator doors opened into the boardroom. All heads turned—it was 1900 hours. Two large men in dark suits and sunglasses entered the room with hands in their coats and heads scanning the area. One walked the perimeter. The other stood at the elevator door. After nods passed, William T. Marcantonio took a few steps into the room with a wide smile and long cigar. His three-piece black pinstriped suit shined beneath the recessed lighting.

  When he saw his reflection in the enormous tinted windows, Marcantonio paused as if for a photo-op on the red carpet. Only a great man could have controlled his complex businesses over five decades. Only a great man could have survived the countless attempts on his life, and the clandestine efforts to take what belonged to him. But no one would ever know what else William Marcantonio saw in the window. Did he see the fracture line in the glass? Did he see the small hole produced by the first bullet? Was he surprised when his bodyguard’s head exploded? Or did Marcantonio know it was his time to die?

  Babcock froze on his path to greet Marcantonio. The second bullet passed through Babcock’s right arm and entered the left eye of the second bodyguard. Both men dropped.

  As the private investigators scrambled beneath the conference table, the third bullet pelted the tinted glass creating the third fracture line that had collected the nearby city lights. Instantly, Marcantonio’s head exploded, his feathered cigar flew into the air like an injured sparrow. His empty hulk collapsed.

  From the floor, Babcock turned to the windows in time to see a large sheet of glass slip away. The cold wind swept through the boardroom like a wild ghost. No one moved. Seconds of aftermath were an eternity, but it was not over.

  Bullet number four had no window to penetrate. Its path would be the truest. Eldon heard it penetrate the wall behind him. Then he realized it had creased his scalp down the middle. The well placed projectile took his hair and his skin and left the white boney skull shining under the inset lights. Blood rolled down his forehead and dripped from his eyelids. Eldon would never forget the burn and the pain. Eldon was on the list. The sniper would be back for him.

  .

  Thirteen

  Before Aaron Wolfe got to the Chase Tower, the CPD, DEA, and FBI were already on the ground searching a four block area. The surrounding buildings and projectile trajectory had given them a good starting point, although they had no expectations of finding the shooter.

  The balcony sliding-glass door had been left open at the corner room on the fourteenth floor of the Kimpton Burnham Hotel. Staff and guests saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary. The hint of burnt gunpowder hung in room 1424. Remnants of a meal were found on the unmade bed. Furniture had been moved to the walls. Indentations in the carpet by the balcony door matched the tripod footprint of a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle. It aligned with the twelfth floor northeast corner of the Chase Tower four blocks away. There were no spent shells.

  The FBI found surveillance camera lenses sprayed black on the fourteenth floor and in the back alley of the Burnham Hotel. They would spend hours scouring the grounds for the smallest piece of physical evidence, but would find only boot prints in the snow. The DNA on the food remnants matched the DNA found at prior sites, but still no match when run through the international database. This sniper had eight kills. The time between shoots had narrowed.

  When Wolfe walked into the boardroom, the PIs flinched as if they had seen a ghost. When Wolfe stepped into the light, they relaxed—everyone knew the top Chicago homicide detective. “Hello gentlemen,” he said with a brisk but troubled tone. The three stood there in silence staring at the detective and somewhat unsure on how they would handle the encounter—their involvement had to remain secret.

  Wolfe helped them with their decision. “We can do this the proverbial easy way or hard way.” He leaned closer and smiled. “I want all my questions answered tonight, gentlemen.”

  Fitz had the worst judgement of the three. His anger management issues often got him in trouble. Wolfe was the wrong man to test. “You can’t just waltz in here and push us around like a bunch of criminals,” he spewed. “I’ll remind you we are all lawyers, Mr. Wolfe. We know our rights.”

  With outstretched arms, Wolfe turned his smile to Fitz and the group. Like an eagle going for a trout with all talons out, he backed them to the edge of the bar. His eyes burned a hole in Fitz’s forehead. “I have you with a dead drug lord, a Chicago mafia kingpin killed by a sniper at your little meeting. I wonder. Did you set him up? Are you taking over his territory—drug trafficking, gambling, prostitution? Is this a carefully planned power play?”

  Fitz turned red. “I never—”

  “A smart man stuck in this horrible situation would want me to clear the air as quickly as possible with the media. A smart man would not want time to be his worst enemy. He would not want time with no answers to be misunderstood by an underground network of paranoid drug dealers, the mafia, and a sniper on a mission.”

  “Detective Wolfe,” Cranston interrupted with a hand in Fitz’s red face. “Of course we will cooperate. We will answer all of your questions.”

  Wolfe smiled and turned to Michaels. “You on board, Bert?”

  Grabbing the Chivas bottle and a few glasses he said, “Yes. And may I suggest we move our discussion to an office without windows?”

  In the small side room, Wolfe took a swallow and closed his eyes to relish the Chivas Regal burn. “My questions are simple and few, gentlemen.” His next words were abrupt and pointed. “Eldon Babcock works for William Marcantonio. You work for Eldon Babcock. What was your assignment?”

  “We were contracted to identify and locate the sniper responsible for killing three of Marcantonio’s men over the last six month period,” Cranston said.

  “Names,” Wolfe shot back.

  “Borden, Newman, and Pender.”

  “Are those the only—?”

  “We know Eric Ramsey was shot by our sniper,” Fitz muttered. “But Ramsey did not work for Marcantonio.”

  “You know the Fetter homicide details?” Wolfe asked.

  “Yes. And the Frank Pazrro homicide—Wun
ders Cemetery,” Cranston said. “Unlike Ramsey, Pazrro had an association with Marcantonio.”

  Wolfe took another swallow of Chivas. “What else in your contract?”

  Michaels looked around as if the room was bugged. “We were to identify and locate a mystery man caught on video. He attacked Marcantonio’s people on the South Side. It’s a bizarre confrontation on a vacant lot.”

  Fitz interrupted. “Although the guy is peculiar, finding him is way less important than finding and stopping the sniper, in my humble opinion.”

  “We will save your mystery man for later,” Wolfe said. “What are the common threads connecting the sniper victims?”

  “The five dead before tonight, we know about. They’re lifelong criminals with records: multiple felony charges and convictions, assaults, murder, and rape. Each served time for murder. Each got out of prison in less than six years.”

  “That’s odd. You’re not talking murder one?” Wolfe asked.

  “In all cases, charges of first degree murder were pleaded down,” Cranston said. “The five were represented by high-priced law firms in Chicago—including Babcock’s firm. Eldon represented Pender. The rest were handled by some of the smartest defense attorneys in the country, masters in reducing charges with all the tricks—like lack of intent, lack of knowledge, insanity, tossing evidence, and/or claiming self-defense for God’s sake.”

  “The legal system is unmercifully manipulated,” Michaels muttered.

  “Give me more,” Wolfe pushed remembering the conversation he just had with Lindsey Fetter. Maybe reformation of the justice system was the mission of more than a few vigilantes.

  “The legal maneuvers used to free these people were similar,” Fitz said. “The defense attorneys did their jobs. Damning evidence against their clients was compromised and often eliminated. Tactics included application of the exclusionary rule, claims of violation of search and seizure rules, challenging the integrity of the chain of evidence, failure to give rights, and accusations of tampering with evidence, witnesses, and juries. In all five cases, the legal knots tied led to plea bargains and reduced sentences. The prosecution was backed into a corner, their cases essentially destroyed before going to trial.”