The Judge’s List

23

The orange stayed down. He tried to nap but was too wired. He grabbed his gym bag and walked around the corner where he spent two hours spinning, rowing, lifting, and pounding the treadmill. When he was beyond exhaustion, he stuck his head into the steam room. When he was certain he would be alone, he stripped and entered and stretched out on his towel.

It was a mistake to call Norris Ozment, but he’d had no choice. Ozment could now link him directly to Verno, the same way Tabor had linked him. But it was unlikely that the authorities in Mississippi would ever find Ozment, and even unlikelier that he would bother to go to them. Why should he?

The judge massaged his temples and tried to breathe slowly as the steam soothed his lungs. The person who filed the complaint with BJC did so anonymously and with the understanding that nothing would be entered into a digital file. Everything would be kept offline. The person who hired Rollie Tabor to pose as Jeff Dunlap and snoop through the old court case did so with the agreement that Tabor would store nothing online. The person who mailed the two anonymous letters went to great lengths to remove all possible clues.

The person knew about Eileen Nickleberry.

All these persons were the same. There was simply no other explanation. The evidence was far too coincidental. It was imperative to find this person.

And if he found him, what would the good judge do? He could certainly kill him, that would be easy enough. But was it too late? Did Ms. Stoltz at BJC have enough damning evidence to go to the police? He told himself the answer was no, and he believed it. Accusing and indicting were easy enough, but convicting would be impossible. He presided over murder trials, studied forensics and knew more about the science than the experts, and, most importantly, he knew how much evidence was needed to convict. A helluva lot! Beyond a reasonable doubt. Far more than any low-paid cop had been able to find along his graveyard trail.

There were a dozen on his list, give or take. More or less. Ten down, two to go. Maybe three. Dunwoody didn’t count because he was never on the list. His timing was bad, and he was one victim that still troubled the judge. He didn’t deserve to die, like the others. Troubled as he was, though, there was nothing he could do about it.

And now there were far more serious troubles.

A killer can’t help but look over his shoulder, and for years he had feared this reckoning. In fact, he’d had so much time to think about it that he had pieced together several possible reactions. One was to simply go away, vanish, before being subjected to the humiliation of an indictment, arrest, and trial. He had plenty of money and there was a big world out there. He had traveled extensively and been to several places where he could easily blend in and never be found. He preferred those countries beyond the reach of U.S. extradition treaties.

Another strategy was to stay and fight. Declare innocence, even persecution, and lawyer up for a big trial. He knew precisely who to hire for his defense. No jury could convict him because no police department had the evidence. It was his firm belief that no prosecutor would ever indict, for the same reason. No sitting judge had ever been put on trial for murder in America, and to do so would cause a media circus of epic proportions. Even the most ambitious prosecutor would shy away from the horror of losing before such an audience.

Which of his murders would be the easiest to prove at trial? It was the great question that he toyed with almost every day. Because of his cunning and brilliance, he was of the lofty opinion that none of them could survive past the indictment phase. Staying and fighting was the most attractive option.

Staying would allow him to finish his list.

The last strategy was the easiest. He could simply end the game himself and take his crimes to his grave.

Judge Bannick allowed himself a martini late on Friday afternoons, usually with another judge or two, and there were several preferred bars in the area. One favorite was at a club on the oceanfront with the Gulf stretching in the distance. On this Friday, though, he was in no mood for socializing, but he did need the martini. He mixed it in the back room and sipped it in the Vault, and as he did so he asked himself the obvious question: “Who is this person?”

A cop would not bother with anonymous mail. Why waste the time? Why alert the suspect? Why play games? And the cops weren’t looking. He had hacked his way into all the police departments and he knew how cold the files were. The sheriff in Biloxi and his detective Napier were still working the case every day, but that was only because there were two victims and one was local. They had nothing to show for their efforts and now, after six months, they were following the same pattern as the others.

A private investigator would cost too much money. Regardless of the hourly rate, there was simply too much labor involved to link the murder of Eileen in 1998, in North Carolina, to the murder of Perry Kronke in 2012, then to Verno and Dunwoody in Biloxi last fall. No one could afford such a project. He knew his victims and their families well. Perry Kronke was by far the wealthiest of the lot, but his widow was in poor health and probably reluctant to spend a fortune trying to find his killer. His two sons were Miami businessmen of modest success.

Bannick stepped to a corner and pulled back a rug. With a key he unlocked a safe hidden under the flooring and removed a thumb drive. He stuck it into his computer, pecked here and there, and within seconds a file labeled kronke appeared. Since he had researched and written everything in the file, he knew it by heart, but the constant review of his past was part of his life. Constant vigilance was just as important as meticulous planning.

Kronke’s estate had been probated in Monroe County, Florida, four months after his murder. His older son, Roger, was named executor of his will and was so appointed by the court. Inventories of assets were filed on time. There were no mortgages and no debts other than routine credit card charges. At the time of his death, Kronke and his wife jointly owned their retirement home, appraised at $800,000, two rental homes at $200,000 each, a stock portfolio valued at $2.6 million, a money market account with a balance of $340,000, and various bank accounts that totaled $90,000. With his cars and boat and other smaller assets, the inventory added up to $4.4 million.

The estate file was public record. Hacking into the probate judge’s office email had been a breeze because of Maggotz and its familiarity with the entire Florida court system. Rafe was also spying on Mrs. Kronke and her finances as a new widow. He watched her bank records and knew that she drew a Social Security check of $2,000 a month, a retirement check from the law firm for $4,500 a month, and $3,800 from a 401(k).

The bottom line was that she had plenty of cash but there was no indication she was writing big checks to private investigators. She didn’t email much, but there was correspondence between her and the two sons. She was contemplating selling the house and moving into an expensive retirement village. Emails between the sons indicated the usual worries about Mom spending too much and screwing up their inheritances.

There had been no chatter about devoting time and money to search for the killer.

Bannick convinced himself that “the person” was not stalking him on behalf of the Kronke family.

At the other end of the economic ladder was Lanny Verno. Having no estate, nothing had been probated. He left behind no assets, no children, no close family, nothing to hack, nothing but a live-in lady who’d come and gone and had shacked up with plenty. Verno was the last person on his list who might send in the investigators.

Bannick jumped to another file, labeled eileen nickleberry.

Her family was just as doubtful. She had died sixteen years earlier with no will and few assets. Her mother had been dragged into court to serve as administrator of her estate. Her condo and car were hocked and sold to satisfy the loans and pay off her credit cards. After all debtors were satisfied, her parents, who were divorced, and two siblings split about $4,000.

Interestingly enough, her father hired a lawyer to explore a wrongful death claim against the owner of the condo development where she was murdered. Rafe watched the emails for a year or so as the lawsuit fizzled. Bannick was intrigued by the idea of lawyers, not cops, digging through the murder. The police were baffled from the start, as were the lawyers, and the investigations went nowhere. Other than a handyman with no criminal record and a solid alibi, there had never been a suspect. Another perfect murder.

The last one mentioned by “the person” was Mike Dunwoody. Bannick went to his file, certain that his family had not hired private investigators. His murder was only five months old, and Sheriff Black and Detective Napier were doing and saying all the right things to convince the public they were making progress. The family seemed content to mourn in private and trust the authorities. Dunwoody’s will left everything to his wife and named her as executrix. Five months on, she had yet to begin probate. According to their bank records, personal and business, the company fell in line with most home contractors — up one year, down the next, successful as a whole but no one was getting rich. It was impossible to believe they were in a position to spend tens of thousands on their own investigation.

The person was not a cop and not a private eye. However, he was clearly using people like Rollie Tabor to snoop around. Who would hire an investigator from Mobile?

Someone looking for a story, a reporter, a freelancer, a writer, would not have the patience to pursue such a project for so long. Money was their motive, and who could survive decades without a payoff?

He mixed another martini and took it to the front room where he sat on the sofa in the dark. He sipped it slowly and felt the gin work its way into his muddled brain. For a few moments the pain subsided. He was sick of the place but felt safe there. No one could see him. No one in the world knew where he was. For a man who had stalked his prey for most of his adult life, he found it terrifying that there was now someone out there watching him. His victims, though, never had a clue. He, on the other hand, knew the awful truth that someone was on to him.

He had lost track of time and his cell phone was in the Vault. He stretched out on the sofa and fell into a deep sleep.

As he slept, Rafe went about his work rummaging through the sparse and disjointed network of the Atlas Finders, otherwise known as the small office of Rollie Tabor, PI. He wormed his way into the computer of a part-time secretary named Susie, and there he found some photos. One was of her and her boss, Mr. Tabor.

Hours later, Bannick looked into the smiling face of Rollie and easily matched the photo with the one taken by Norris Ozment’s security camera and also the one from Dunlap’s fake driver’s license. It confirmed what he already knew: Rollie Tabor, a run-of-the-mill private dick in Mobile, had been hired by someone to dig through Bannick’s quite dirty laundry.

But Rafe could find no other clues with Atlas. It would be necessary to hack into Tabor’s cell phone, a task Bannick was not quite up to. With diligent study and plenty of practice, he had become an accomplished amateur hacker of computers, but the smartphones were another story. He was still learning but wasn’t quite there.

It was still dark when he finally ventured from his bunker at just minutes before 6:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. The twenty-four-hour gym was deserted, as was the parking lot. He was eager to get home and left in a hurry, the only car on the road. Turning onto the street, he caught himself glancing into the rearview, then he almost laughed at the absurdity.

Twenty minutes later he drove through the gates of his well-protected community in Cullman and parked in front of his garage as the sun peeked through the clouds in the east. He turned off the engine, took his smartphone, turned off the security system, and checked the surveillance cameras and recent footage. Assured that all was safe, he finally got out and went inside where he flipped on lights and made a pot of coffee. He watched it brew and tried to shake off the cobwebs from the martinis. He poured a cup and slowly walked through his den to the front door. He opened it, took a step onto his porch, looked up and down the street, then reached into the small mailbox mounted beside the door.

Another plain white envelope, no return address.