The Judge's List

Darren and Lacy are on their way to meet with Sheriff Black, who has something to tell them that he does not want to say over the phone or in an email. Halfway there, they receive a text from Sadelle; Bannick has canceled everything on his docket and is taking a leave of absence for health reasons.

Sheriff Black tells Darren and Lacy that the FBI has lifted a partial print from one of the phones they found in the mail drop. There must have been a tear in the killer’s glove. The funny thing is that the print has been altered; fingerprints can be worn down by things like handling rough surfaces like bricks, but this print appears to have been surgically altered.

Lacy observes that the suspect is starting to make mistakes. He was almost caught by Verno’s boss, then his truck was spotted, and now there is the fingerprint. Sheriff Black asks again for the name of their suspect, but Lacy continues to hold back. She promised Jeri that she won’t turn the case over to law enforcement until she absolutely must, and they still do not have the evidence needed to get an arrest warrant.

Bannick receives another letter, this one referencing Jeri’s father. That night, he flies to Santa Fe, rents a car, and sets out for Houston to kill his next victim. As he drives, he wonders what was his mistake that put Jeri Crosby onto him. For years, he believed he was so skilled he could never be caught. He was so sure of himself he thought he would never have to plan an escape.

His target in Houston is Mal Schnetzer, an ambulance chaser who cheated Bannick out of a court settlement by stealing his clients. Schnetzer eventually went to jail for cheating clients, and when he got out, he wound up working as a “consultant” in Houston.

Two months earlier, Bannick rented a trailer in a trailer park near downtown Houston. In the present, he lures Schnetzer to the trailer, pretending to be a potential client. When Schnitzer arrives, he is carrying a gun, and Bannick finds this thrilling. When Schnetzer walks past him, Bannick clubs him several times, shattering his skull and spattering blood all over the trailer. He finishes him off with the rope and then cleans the trailer. Bannick leaves the blood but carefully vacuums the floor and wipes down all the surfaces.

Since the trailer is rented to him and he is not expecting any visitors, Bannick puts his laundry in the wash and sits down in the kitchen in his underwear to wait for his clothes to wash and dry.

Putting his used cleaning supplies and Schnetzer’s gun in a grocery bag, Bannick pulls into a truck stop to switch his license plates and toss the bag with the gun, cleaning supplies, and the fake license plates in a dumpster. Finally, he stops to eat in the truck stop diner.

Jeri flies to Detroit to visit her daughter Denise. The two of them talk about Jeri’s life. Denise has been in contact with her uncle Alfred, Jeri’s brother. Jeri’s obsession with tracking their father’s killer has driven her and her brother apart. He thinks the crime will never be solved and does not want to talk about it; Jeri can hardly talk about anything else.

At dinner, Jeri tells Denise she has finally found the killer, and authorities are investigating him. Their case is still far from ironclad, but with any luck, he will be caught and convicted.

Denise is troubled by the fact that her mother is still attractive and has so much to give, but instead of relationships, she has chosen to pursue justice—and vengeance.

Lacy and Allie drive to Tallahassee to meet with Mr. Gray, a retired FBI Behavioral Analyst. They go over the case with him, walking him through each of the victims and crime scenes. Mr. Gray concludes that they probably have not found all the victims, and that there will be more if they do not stop Bannick. He also reassures them there is no reason the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) would turn down the case. They are perpetually understaffed, but they never truly give up on a case even when it has gone ice-cold. In addition, they do not need to solve all of the murders. They only need to prove one. When Lacy tells him about Jeri’s 20-year search for her father’s killer, Gray asks, “Is she looking for a job? I think the Bureau needs her” (260).

The murder of Mel Schnetzer appears in the Pensacola Ledger. When Jeri sees it, she is too tired and broke to follow it up herself. She assembles her files on Bannick’s other murders and sends them to the reporter who wrote the Schnetzer article. The story about the other murders appears in the paper the next day. Jeri knows that Bannick will see it, but she cannot guess how he will react.

When Bannick sees the article, he realizes that someone out there knows about his other kills and is on his trail. He is particularly surprised by the inclusion of Theo Leawood in the list. He believed that no one knew about the scoutmaster who abused him.

When Lacy sees the article, she realizes she cannot put off talking to Jeri any longer. Getting in contact with Jeri, she explains that they can no longer keep the case quiet; they will have to turn it over to the police, but they will keep Jeri’s identity out of it if they can. Jeri warns Lacy that she should be careful, too. Their quarry is smarter than they are, and he has ways of watching them that Jeri does not fully understand.

In Harrison County, one of the officers involved in the Verno-Dunwoody case forgets to encrypt an email that refers to a meeting with the FBI and to the partial thumbprint found on one of the phones Bannick sent to Sheriff Black. The officer realizes his mistake immediately, deletes the email, and tries to erase it from the server, but it is too late. The worms that Bannick planted in their computer system have already detected the email.

Bannick is still in Santa Fe after the Schnetzer killing. Once home, he goes on a cleaning spree, wiping his entire house for prints, washing every dish, cup, and glass and hauling out several bags of things that he intends to discard. He does the same thing in his office at the courthouse and his hidden office in Pensacola.

He goes next to the university where Jeri teaches and plants a tracker on her car.