The Judge's List (The Whistler #2)(37)

“Correct as to the year.”

“And you think he was the first?”

“I hope so, but I don’t really know. No one does but Bannick.”

“And the reporter, Danny Cleveland, wrote for the Pensacola Ledger and lived there about fifteen years ago. Found dead in his apartment in Little Rock in 2009.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

Lacy left the room shaking her head. She got the coffee from Darren and was back in minutes. Jeri ignored hers on the credenza. After a long sip, Lacy walked to the door and back and said, “In the first round of files, the stuff you gave me initially, there are two women among his victims. But you don’t say much about them. Can you tell me more?”

“Sure. When he was an undergrad at Florida, he knew a girl named Eileen Nickleberry. He was a frat boy, she was in a sorority, and they partied in the same circles. They were at a social one night in the Pike house on campus and everybody was drinking. A lot of booze, pot, casual sex. Bannick and Eileen went to his room and, evidently, he couldn’t perform. She laughed at him, had a big mouth, told others, and he was humiliated. He became the butt of a lot of jokes around the frat house. That was around 1985. Some thirteen years later Eileen was murdered near Wilmington, North Carolina.”

Lacy listened in disbelief.

Jeri continued, “The other girl was Ashley Barasso. They were in law school together at Miami, that much is certain. She was murdered by strangulation, same rope, six years after they graduated. I know less about her than any of his other victims.”

“Where was she murdered?”

“Columbus, Georgia. Married with two small children.”

“That’s awful.”

“They’re all awful, Lacy.”

“Of course they are.”

“You see, my theory is that Bannick has a real problem with sex. Probably goes back to the abuse when he was eleven or twelve at the hands of Thad Leawood. He probably didn’t get the help and support he needed. That’s not unusual with kids. Anyway, he has never recovered from it. He murdered Eileen because she laughed at him. I don’t know what happened between him and Ashley Barasso and will probably never find out. But they were at the law school together, the same class, so it’s safe to assume that they knew one another.”

“When they were murdered were they sexually molested?”

“No, he’s too smart for that. At a crime scene the most important piece of evidence is the corpse. It can and usually does reveal so much. Bannick, though, is careful and leaves behind only the rope and the blow to the head. His motive is always revenge, except for Mike Dunwoody. Poor guy just timed things badly.”

“Okay, okay. Please allow me to say something that’s pretty obvious here. You’re an African American woman.”

“True.”

“And I’m guessing that in 1985 or so the fraternity life at the University of Florida was basically all-white.”

“Indeed.”

“And you’ve never been a student there?”

“Never.”

“So, how did you manage to get the story about Bannick and Eileen? It’s all hearsay and third-hand and urban legend, all remembered and told by a bunch of drunk rich kids. Right?”

“For the most part, yes.”

“So?”

Jeri reached for a large, well-worn briefcase, snapped it open, and pulled out a book. She handed it to Lacy who took it and stared at it.

“Who’s Jill Monroe?”

“Me. It’s a book I self-published, one of several, all with different pseudonyms, all by me. The publisher is a low-end vanity press out West. It’s basically unreadable and not intended to be really read by anyone. It’s part of the disguise, Lacy, part of the fiction that is my life.”

“What’s in the book?”

“True crime, stuff I pulled off the Internet, all stolen but not copyrighted.”

“I’m listening.”

“I use these to get attention and establish credibility. I show up claiming to be a veteran writer of true crime and police stories. Freelance, of course, always freelance. I say I’m working on a book about cold cases involving young women who were strangled. In this case, I checked the listings of fraternities and sororities at UF and finally put together the puzzle. None of Eileen’s old friends would talk. It took months, even years, but I finally found a frat brother with a big mouth. Met him in a bar in St. Pete and he claimed to have known Eileen, said lots of boys did. Said he had not talked to Bannick in years, but, after a few drinks, he told me the story about his bad night with Eileen. Said Bannick was really humiliated.”

Lacy paced a bit as she tried to absorb it. “Okay, but how did you hear of Eileen’s death in the first place?”

“I have a source. A mad scientist. An ex-cop who collects and studies more crime stats than anybody on the planet. There are only about three hundred murders by strangulation each year. All are reported in various ways to the FBI’s clearinghouse on violent crime. My source studies the cold cases, looks for patterns and similarities. He found Eileen Nickleberry ten years ago and passed it on. He found the Lanny Verno case and passed it on. He doesn’t know about Bannick and he has no idea what I do with the info. He thinks I’m a crime writer of some variety.”