The Judge's List (The Whistler #2)(52)

Dear Mr. Tabor. I’m a physician in Birmingham and I need the services of a private investigator in the Mobile area. A possible domestic relations matter. You have been highly recommended. Are you available? And if so, what is your hourly rate? Dr. Albert Marbury.



Bannick sent the email, tracked it, and waited. Thirty-one minutes later, Tabor opened it and replied:


Dr. Marbury. Thank you. I am available. My rate is $200 an hour. RT



Bannick scoffed at the $200 an hour. Obviously the Doctor’s Rate. He sent back an email agreeing to the rate, and attached a link to a hotel website in Gulf Shores where he suspected his wife might be staying. When Tabor opened the email and looked at the attachment, Rafe slid through the back door and was on the prowl. He began by looking for current clients. Tabor’s record-keeping was rudimentary at best, at least for the data he entered into his computer. Bannick knew full well that a lot of PIs kept two sets of books—one for the IRS, the other for themselves. Cash was still a popular lubricant. After an hour, he had found nothing. No mention of Lanny Verno, or Jeff Dunlap, or the trip to Pensacola and Seagrove Beach a month earlier. And certainly no clue as to the identity of the client behind the investigation.

He ate ibuprofen and took some Valium to settle his nerves. He realized he was weak with hunger but his systems were raging and he was afraid to tempt his stomach with more food. He was tired of the Vault, and at the moment he wanted to get behind the wheel and just drive, just go, hit the open road and get the hell out of town for the weekend. Maybe from a distant pier or beach or mountain he could look back with an unclouded eye and make sense of it.

Someone knew. And that someone knew a lot.



* * *



—

He walked out of the Vault and went to the small room in the rear where he stripped to his boxers and pulled on gym shorts and a T-shirt. He needed fresh air, a hike in the woods, but he couldn’t leave. Not at this crucial moment. He found an orange in the fridge and ate it with black coffee.



* * *



—

Maggotz had been hiding in the shadows of the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department since the killings of Lanny Verno and Mike Dunwoody. After they were found, Rafe came to life and began nosing around.

When the orange was finished, Bannick said hello to Rafe and sent him to the files of Detective Napier, the chief investigator in Biloxi. In a daily log, Napier had entered a note on March 25: Meeting today with Lacy Stoltz and Darren Trope of the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, re the Verno/Dunwoody murders. Allowed them access to the file but nothing was taken or copied. They made a vague reference to a suspect but would provide no details. They know more than they are willing to say. Will follow up. ENapier.

Bannick cursed and walked away from his desk. He felt like a bleeding animal stumbling through the woods as the bloodhounds drew closer and louder.



* * *



—

Eileen was number four. Eileen Nickleberry. Age thirty-two at the time of her death. Divorced, according to her obituary.

He loved collecting his obits. They were all in the files.

He found her thirteen years later, thirteen years after she mocked him in his frat house bedroom, thirteen years after she had stumbled downstairs, drunk like all the rest, and broadcast to the rest of the party that Ross “couldn’t get it up.” Couldn’t perform. She laughed and ran her big mouth, though by the next morning most of the hell-raisers had forgotten the incident. But she kept talking and word spread through their circles. Bannick has a problem. Bannick can’t perform.

Six years later he found his first victim, the scoutmaster. His killing had gone as perfectly as planned. There was not one shred of remorse, not even a twinge of pity as he stepped back and looked at the body of Thad Leawood. It was euphoric, actually, and filled him with an indescribable sense of power, control, and—the best—revenge. From that moment on, he knew he would never stop.

Seven years after Leawood, and with three under his belt, he finally found Eileen. She was selling real estate north of Myrtle Beach, her pretty, smiling face splashed on every yard sign possible, as if she were running for city council. She had listings in a beachside development of forty condos. He rented one of the others for the summer of 1998, before he became a judge. On a Sunday morning, he lured her to an empty unit, one she was trying to sell, price reduced!, and the very second when she froze as if she remembered him, he splintered her skull with Leddie. As the rope cut deep and she breathed her last, he hissed into her ear and reminded her of her mockery.

Five hours passed before there was a commotion. As things became frantic and people yelled, he sat with a beer on the balcony of his rental and watched across the courtyard as first responders scurried about. The sounds of sirens made him smile. He waited a week for the cops to come around knocking on doors and looking for witnesses, but they never showed. He paid his lease in full and never returned to the condo.

The crime occurred in the seaside town of Sunset Beach, in Brunswick County, North Carolina. Nine years passed before the county digitized its records, and when it happened Bannick was waiting with his first generation of spyware. As with all the other police departments, he updated his data often, always on the prowl for any movement, always watching with the latest hacker’s toys.

The Eileen story had gone cold after a couple of years. There was never a serious suspect. The file reflected some occasional interest from crime writers, reporters, family members, and other police departments.