The Judge's List (The Whistler #2)(95)

At times Jeri was emotional, and at times inconsolable. Her life’s work had come to an abrupt and unsatisfactory end. Dead as he was, Bannick was walking away practically unscathed. The kidnapping charge, if and when it was ever reported, would only add confusion and prove nothing. The details behind it would never be made known. He had not been arrested for anything. His name would never be linked to his victims.

But there were also moments of visible relief. The monster was no longer on her trail. She would no longer inhabit the same world as Ross Bannick, a man she had loathed for so long that he had become a part of her life. She would never miss him, but how would she fill the vacancy?

She had read somewhere that we often grow to admire, even love, the very thing we so obsessively hate. It can become a part of our life, and we grow to rely on it, to need it. It defines us.

At two thirty, an FBI agent knocked on the door and informed Lacy that her little security detail had been called back to the office. The danger was now gone, the coast was clear. She thanked him and said goodbye.

Jeri asked to spend one more night. It might take some time to completely relax, and she wanted to go for a long walk, alone, through the neighborhood, the campus, and downtown. She wanted to taste the freedom of moving about without glancing around, without worrying, without even thinking of him. And when Lacy came home from the office, she, Jeri, wanted to get in the kitchen and cook dinner together. She had stopped cooking years earlier, even decades ago, when her evenings became consumed with her pursuit.

Lacy said of course. After she left, Jeri sat on the sofa and kept repeating to herself that Bannick was dead.

The world was a better place.





44


Diana Zhang had never given a thought to serving as the executrix of someone’s will and estate. In fact, as the secretary to a judge, she knew enough about probate to know it should be avoided when possible. Now that she had been victimized by her former boss, and saddled with an unwanted task that gave every indication, at least initially, of being complicated and burdensome, if not impossible, she struggled to find a good attitude toward her new role.

The fourth page, the one with the list of assets, kept her in the game. She had never thought about Judge Bannick’s death—he was so young—and she had certainly never thought about being included in his estate plans. Not long after the shock of his death began to wear off, she couldn’t help but think about her windfall.

Frankly, she didn’t care if he was cremated or where he was buried, especially with the FBI breathing down her neck. They asked her to hold off on any burial plans, and everything else for that matter. There was no hurry. He was being iced in the county morgue far away, and if the FBI wanted her to take things slow, then she had no qualms with that. They had agreed not to tamper with the body as long as she agreed to allow them to extensively photograph the hands and fingers.

She was quoted at length in Wednesday’s edition of the Ledger. After some glowing comments about her old boss, she said that he had been ill for some time but was too private to discuss his health. The entire office was “shocked and saddened,” as were his colleagues and members of the bar. The story covered the entire bottom half of the front page, with a fine photo of a younger Bannick. There was no mention of the arrest warrant for kidnapping.



* * *



—

By noon Wednesday, the FBI had seized and searched the SUV he left behind in the long-term lot of the Birmingham airport, as well as the Avis rental they tracked to Pecos Mountain Lodge. Not surprisingly, both had been thoroughly wiped and there were no prints. The FedEx envelope sent to Diana was covered with prints, but none matched the partial found on Verno’s phone. The cabin at Gantt Lake was combed through and yielded nothing useful. Every square inch of his room at the lodge, and every surface he could have possibly touched, had been examined twice over, without success. A steward said he had seen him several times, always with gloves.

A team of the Bureau’s top fingerprint experts hurried down and examined the fingers and thumbs. All were cooked and corroded to the point of being thoroughly destroyed. Since the body was to be cremated, Vidovich made the decision to remove the hands and take them to the lab. He mentioned this to Diana Zhang, who was at first horrified. However, as Vidovich leaned on her and made it plain that the hands and fingers, along with the entire body, were about to be ashes anyway, what was the harm? When she still hesitated, he threatened to haul her before a federal magistrate.

Diana was already tired of her new job. The longer he was in the morgue, the more problems he was creating. She would never see his body, with or without the hands. It was a thousand miles away and that wasn’t far enough. She finally said yes to the amputations, and the hands were removed and rushed to the forensics lab in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

What was left of Judge Ross Bannick was hauled to a crematorium in Santa Fe, properly reduced to ashes, and stuffed in a plastic urn that the mortician put in storage until further orders.



* * *



—

Lacy spoke to Vidovich throughout the day and relayed the developments to Jeri, who was suddenly eager to gather her things and get home.

The FBI had searched her car and found no useful prints, but did find the GPS monitor next to the gas tank. They sent it to Clarksburg for examination.

Somehow, somewhere in the horror and chaos of the kidnapping, Bannick had taken her pistol and small carry-on bag, but had left behind her phone and laptop. She assumed he did not want to risk being tracked with her devices. He also left behind her purse and keys. He didn’t need the small amount of cash, nor her credit cards, and he was driving his own vehicle, though Jeri never saw it.