The Judge's List (The Whistler #2)(42)
“No. We’re certain it was the man who dropped off the cell phones. Probably the killer but we’re not sure.”
“Right. Why would he drive up there to ditch the phones?”
Napier shrugged and smiled. Black said, “Now you’re playing his game. I think he was just having some fun with us, and especially with me. He had to know that we’d find the cell phones in a matter of hours and that they wouldn’t be mailed to my daughter.”
Napier added, “Or maybe he wanted to be seen driving a vehicle with Mississippi tags because he’s not from Mississippi. He’s pretty clever, isn’t he?”
“Extremely.”
“And he’s done this before?” asked the sheriff.
“We believe so.”
“And he’s not from Mississippi, is he?”
“We think not.”
18
Jeri was not prepared for the next phase of her life. For over twenty years she had been driven by the dream of finding and confronting her father’s murderer. Identifying him was difficult enough, and she had done so only with a determination and perseverance that often surprised herself. Accusing him was another matter. Pointing the finger at Ross Bannick was a terrifying act, not because she was afraid of being wrong, but because she feared the man himself.
But she had done it. She had filed her complaint with an official agency, one established by law to investigate wayward judges, and now it was up to the Board on Judicial Conduct to go after Bannick. She wasn’t sure what to expect from Lacy Stoltz and her BJC, but the case was now on her desk. If all went as planned, Lacy would put in motion the apprehension and prosecution of a man Jeri could never stop thinking about.
In the days following her last meeting with Lacy, Jeri found it impossible to prepare lectures, or do research for her book, or see what few friends she had. She did see her therapist twice and complained of feeling depressed, lonely, of little value. She fought the temptation to jump back online and dig through old crimes. She often stared at her phone and waited for a call from Lacy, and she fought the urge to email her every hour.
On day ten, Lacy called and they chatted for a few minutes. Not surprisingly, she had nothing to report. She and her team were getting organized, reviewing the file, making plans, and so on. Jeri ended the call abruptly and went for a walk.
Thirty-five days to go and apparently nothing was happening, at least not around the offices of the BJC.
* * *
—
According to the records of the Chavez County tax office, Ross Bannick purchased a used, light gray, 2009 model Chevrolet half-ton pickup in May of 2012 and owned it for two years before selling it the previous November, one month after the murders of Verno and Dunwoody. His buyer was a used car dealer named Udell, who flipped it to a man named Robert Trager, the present owner. Darren drove to Pensacola and found Mr. Trager, who explained that he no longer had the truck. On New Year’s Eve, a drunk driver ran a stop sign and crashed into him, totaling the truck. He had settled with State Farm under his uninsured motorist coverage, sold the truck for scrap, and felt lucky to be alive. As they sipped iced tea on the front porch, Mrs. Trager found a photo of Robert and his grandson holding fishing rods and posing beside the gray pickup. With his smartphone, Darren took a picture of the photo and sent it to Detective Napier in Biloxi, who eventually made the trip to Neely and showed it to the only eyewitness.
In his email to Lacy, Napier said, curtly: The witness says it looks “very similar” to the one he saw. This narrows it down to about five thousand gray Chevrolet pickups in this state. Good luck.
Further digging revealed that Bannick was quite the truck trader. In the previous fifteen years, he had bought and sold at least eight used pickups of various makes, models, and colors.
Why would a judge need so many trucks?
He was currently driving a 2013 Ford Explorer, leased from a local dealer.
* * *
—
On Monday, March 31, the thirteenth day into the assessment period commenced by the filing of the complaint, Lacy and Darren flew from Tallahassee to Miami where they rented a car and drove south through the Keys to the town of Marathon, population 9,000. Two years earlier, a retired lawyer named Perry Kronke had been found dead, beaten and strangled in his fishing boat as it drifted in shallow water near the Great White Heron preserve. His skull had been shattered, there was blood everywhere, the cause of death was asphyxiation caused by a length of nylon rope pulled around his neck so violently that the skin ripped. There were no witnesses, no suspicious characters, no suspects, no forensics. The case was still considered active and few details had been released.
Jeri’s go-to man, Kenny Lee, had been unable to obtain crime scene photos from the FBI clearinghouse.
The Marathon police department was the domain of Chief Turnbull, a snowbird from Michigan who had never gone back home. He was also the homicide detective, among other duties. He greeted Lacy and Darren warmly but with suspicion, and, like Sheriff Black in Biloxi, cleared the air immediately by establishing that the two were not cops.
“We don’t pretend to be,” Lacy said with a megawatt smile. “We investigate complaints against judges, and with a thousand of them in this state that keeps us very busy.”
Nervous laughter all around. Gotta get those crooked judges.