The Judge’s List

28

The information was too important to exchange by email or phone. A face-to-face meeting would be better, Sheriff Black explained. He was four hours away in Biloxi and offered to split the difference. They agreed to meet at a fast-food restaurant beside Interstate 10 in the small town of DeFuniak Springs, Florida, at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 16.

Leaving Tallahassee, Darren asked Lacy to drive because he needed to finish editing a report. Evidently it was not well written and put him to sleep before they had traveled twenty miles. When he awoke after a solid thirty-minute nap, he apologized and admitted that he had stayed out a bit too late the night before.

“So what’s this big news?” she asked. “Too important to whisper over the phone or put in an email.”

“Don’t ask me. You’re the sleuth these days.”

“Just because I’m reading books about serial killers doesn’t mean I’m a sleuth.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty frightening stuff, really. Some really sick puppies.”

“Do you put Bannick in their category?”

“There is no category. Every case is so different, every killer demented in his own way. But I’ve yet to read about one as patient as Bannick or who’s motivated purely by revenge.”

“What’s the normal motive?”

“There’s no such thing, but sex is usually a factor. It’s shocking how perverted some of these guys are.”

“These books you’re reading, do they have photographs?”

“Some do. Lots of blood and mutilation. Want to borrow them?”

“I don’t think so.”

His phone pinged and he read the text. “Interesting,” he said. “It’s Sadelle. She checked Bannick’s docket today and everything has been canceled. Same yesterday, same tomorrow. She called his office and was told that His Honor is taking a leave of absence for health issues.”

Lacy allowed this to sink in and said, “I like his timing. You think he’s watching us?”

“What’s to watch? Nothing is online and he has no idea what we’re up to.”

“Unless he’s watching the police.”

“I suppose that’s possible.” Darren scratched his jaw, deep in thought. “But even then, he wouldn’t know anything because we don’t know anything, right?”

They rode in silence for a few miles.

An unmarked sedan was the only other vehicle in the parking lot. Inside, Sheriff Black and Detective Napier were sipping coffee, watching and waiting, in plain clothes. They were seated as far away from the counter as possible. There were no other customers. Lacy and Darren got coffees and said hello. The four huddled around a small table and tried to give each other room. No one had bothered to bring a briefcase.

“This shouldn’t take long,” Black said. “But then again, it might.” He nodded a go-ahead to Napier, who cleared his throat and glanced around as if some nonexistent person might be listening.

“As you know, there were two phones taken from the crime scene by the killer, who then dropped them off at a small post office an hour away.”

“Addressed to your daughter in Biloxi, right?” Lacy asked.

“Right,” Black said.

Napier continued, “Well, the FBI has had the two phones in its lab for the past month, running every possible test. They are now certain that there is a partial thumb print on Verno’s phone. Several oddities, one of which is that there are no other prints, not even from Verno, so the killer was careful enough to wipe down the phones. Mike Dunwoody’s has no prints at all. Again, the guy was being careful, which is not surprising given the crime scene. How much do you know about the fingerprint business?”

Lacy said, “Let’s assume we know next to nothing.”

Darren nodded, confirming his ignorance.

Expecting this, Napier said, “Okay. About twenty percent of the people in this country have been fingerprinted, and most prints are stored in a massive data bank kept by the FBI. As you might guess, they have the latest souped-up software with all manner of algorithms and such, stuff that’s a bit over my head, and they can check a print from anywhere in a matter of minutes. In this case, they began in Florida.”

The sheriff leaned in a bit and said, “We’re assuming your suspect is from Florida.”

Brilliant, thought Lacy, but she nodded and said, “Good assumption.”

Darren, eager to speak, said, “You have to get fingerprinted before you’re admitted to the bar. Same in every state.”

Napier indulged him and replied, “Yes, we know that. So do the FBI analysts. Anyway, they found no match in Florida, or anywhere else for that matter. They’ve run every possible test on this print, and they’ve come to the conclusion that, well, it’s been altered.”

Napier paused and allowed this to sink in. Sheriff Black took the handoff and said, “So, the first question, the first of many, is whether or not your suspect is capable of altering his fingerprints?”

Lacy struggled for words, so Darren asked, “Fingerprints can be altered?”

“The short answer is yes, though it’s almost impossible,” Napier said. “Stonemasons and bricklayers sometimes lose their fingerprints through years of hard labor.”

Lacy said, “Our guy is not a bricklayer.”

“He’s a judge, right?” asked Black.

“He is.”

Napier continued, “Over time it’s possible to wear down the skin on your fingertips, they’re called friction ridges, but that’s extremely rare. It would take years of constant scrubbing with sandpaper. Whatever. That’s not what we have here. With this print, the ridges are well defined, but they do indicate the possibility of being surgically altered.”

Lacy asked, “Could the print be from Verno’s girlfriend or someone else he knew?”

“They checked. Not surprisingly, she has a few arrests and her prints are in the data bank. No match. We’ve spent hours with her and she knows of no one else who would have touched Verno’s phone. She couldn’t even remember the last time she touched it.”

All four took a drink from their paper cups and avoided eye contact. After a moment, Darren said, “Surgically altered? How does one do that?”

Napier smiled and said, “Well, some experts say it’s impossible, but there have been a few cases. A few years ago, the Dutch police got a tip and raided a small apartment in Amsterdam. The suspect was a real pro, a slick criminal who’d had quite a career stealing contemporary art, some of which was found hidden in his walls. Worth millions. His old fingerprints did not fully match his new ones. Since they caught him red-handed with the loot, he decided to cut a deal and talk. Said there was an unlicensed cosmetic surgeon in Argentina who was known in the underworld as the guy to go to if you needed a new face or a fresh set of scars. He also specialized in altering the friction ridges of fingertips. Just for fun, go online and type in ‘Fingerprint alteration.’ Keep typing and you’ll find some ads for the work. Actually, it’s not illegal to alter your fingerprints.”

Lacy said, “I was just thinking of a face-lift.”

“Why?” asked the sheriff with a smile.

Napier said, “At any rate, it’s something that can be done, over time. How patient is your suspect?”

“Quite patient,” Darren said.

Lacy added, “We suspect he’s been active for over twenty years.”

“Active?”

“Yes. Verno and Dunwoody are probably not the only two.”

The two cops absorbed this with more coffee. Napier asked, “Would he have the money for surgery like this?”

Both nodded. Yes.

Lacy said, “I suppose that over a long period of time he could chip away at the project and eventually do all ten fingers.”

“That’s quite a commitment,” Black said.

“Well, he’s committed, determined, and very intelligent.”

More coffee, more thoughts rattling around. Could this be their big break after so many dead ends?

The sheriff said, “It makes no sense, really. I mean, if this guy is so smart, why not pitch the phones in a lake or a river? Why get cute and drop them off in a postal box to be sent to my daughter’s apartment? He had to know that we’d track them and find them within hours. This was a Friday. There was no way the two smartphones would sit undiscovered until Monday.”

“I’m not sure we’ll ever understand what makes him tick or what he thinks about,” Lacy said.

“Pretty stupid if you ask me.”

“He’s making mistakes. He almost got caught by Mike Dunwoody. Later, his truck was spotted at the post office when he dropped off the phones. And, it looks like one of his gloves slipped or maybe tore a bit and now we have a thumb print.”

“Yes we do,” the sheriff said. “So now the question is what do we do with it. The next step is obvious — get some prints from your suspect. If there’s a match, then we’re in business.”

Napier asked, “What are the chances of getting his prints?”

Lacy shot a blank look at Darren, who shook his head as if he had no idea.

“A search warrant?” asked the sheriff.

“Based on what?” Lacy asked. “There is no probable cause, as of right now. Our suspect is a judge who knows forensics as well as he knows criminal procedure. It would be impossible to convince another judge to issue a warrant.”

“So they’ll protect him?”

“No. But they’ll want to see a lot more proof than we currently have.”

“Are you going to give us his name?”

“Not yet. I will, and soon, but I can’t say any more.”

Sheriff Black folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. Napier looked away in frustration. She continued, “We’re on the same team, I promise.”

The cops barely kept their cool as they stewed for a moment. Napier finally said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Lacy smiled and said, “Look, we have an informant, a source, the person who brought us the case. This person knows far more than we do and is living in fear, has been for years. We made promises about how we will proceed. That’s all I can say for now. We have to be extremely cautious.”

Sheriff Black asked, “So, what are we supposed to do for now?”

“Wait. We’ll wrap up our investigation and meet again.”

“I want to get this straight. You have a solid suspect in a double murder, though you admit that you don’t investigate murders, right? And this guy is a sitting judge in Florida who has committed other crimes, correct?”

“That’s right, though I did not refer to him as a solid suspect. Before today, we had no physical proof of his involvement in any crime. There’s still a chance, gentlemen, that our suspect is not the man. What if the partial thumb print doesn’t match?”

“Let’s find out.”

“We will, but not right now.”

The meeting ended with forced handshakes and smiles.

Lieutenant Ohler with the Florida state police called with the expected news that the envelope had produced nothing interesting. Two prints were lifted and traced to the man who delivered the mail each day around noon.