She paused and took a sip of lemonade. They were hanging on every word and seemed thoroughly overwhelmed. She almost felt sorry for them.
“The judge in question is Ross Bannick, from the Pensacola district. We suspect he was responsible for at least ten murders over the past twenty years, including Mr. Kronke. Three weeks ago, he committed suicide in an addiction treatment facility near Santa Fe. A thumb print links him to the two killings in Biloxi, but there is still no evidence that he killed Mr. Kronke. All we have is motive and method.”
Jane Kronke wiped her eyes as Guff patted her arm.
“What’s the motive?” Roger asked.
“It goes back to 1989 when Bannick worked in your father’s firm as a summer intern. For reasons unknown, he was not offered an associate’s position upon graduation. Your father supervised the interns that year and wrote Bannick the letter denying him a job. Evidently, he took it hard.”
“And he waited twenty-three years to kill him?” Guff asked.
“He did. He was very patient, very calculating. He knew all of his victims, and he stalked them until the right moment. We’ll never know the details because Bannick destroyed everything before he killed himself. Records, notes, hard drives, everything. He knew the FBI was finally closing in. He was extremely thorough, quite brilliant actually. The FBI is impressed.”
They absorbed this in disbelief and said nothing. After a long pause, Chief Turnbull said, “You mentioned method.”
“They were all the same, with one exception. A blow to the head, then strangulation with a rope. The same type of rope every time, secured with a seldom-used tie-off called the double clove hitch. It’s sometimes used by sailors.”
“His calling card.”
“Yes, his calling card, which is not unusual. The FBI profilers believe he had no desire to get caught but wanted someone to know of his work. They also believe he had some type of a death wish, thus the suicide.”
“How’d he kill himself?” Roger asked.
“Drug overdose. We’re not sure of the drug because there was no autopsy, at his instructions. One was not really needed. The FBI examined his thumbs and fingers, but they were too damaged to yield any prints.”
“My father was killed by a judge?” Guff asked.
“That’s what we believe, yes, but it will never be proven.”
“And he will never be exposed?”
“The thumb print was left behind in the Biloxi murders. The sheriff there plans to meet with the victims’ families and decide what to do. There is a chance they will release the information that the murders have been solved and that Bannick was the killer.”
“I certainly hope so,” Roger said.
“But no prosecution?” Guff asked.
“No. He’s dead and I seriously doubt they will try to convict him in absentia. The sheriff believes the families, at least one of them, will not want to pursue the matter. Any prosecution will be complicated, if not impossible, because Bannick will not be around to confront his accusers.”
Jane Kronke gritted her teeth and said, “I don’t know what to say. Are we supposed to be relieved, or angry, or what?”
Lacy shrugged and said, “I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”
Guff said, “But there will be no report, no news, nothing to let the public know that our father was killed by this guy. Right?”
“I can’t control what you might say to a reporter, but, without more evidence, I’m not sure anything can be printed. It might be problematic to accuse a dead man with insufficient proof.”
Another long pause as they struggled to make sense of it. Roger finally asked, “These other victims, who were they?”
“People from his past, people who had aggrieved him in some way. A law school professor, a lawyer who screwed him out of a fee, a couple of old girlfriends, a former client who filed a complaint, a reporter who exposed a shady land deal. A scoutmaster. We believe that Bannick was sexually abused by his scoutmaster when he was twelve or so. Maybe that’s where it all started. We’ll never know.”
Guff shook his head in exasperation, stood, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and walked around the deck.
Jane asked, “If he was so brilliant, how did you catch him?”
“We didn’t. The police didn’t. Chief here can attest to the fact that there was almost no evidence left behind.”
“So how?”
“Well, it’s a long story, and an unbelievable one at that. I’ll skip the details and cut to the chase. His second victim, or at least the man who we think was number two, was Bannick’s professor at law school. He has a daughter who became obsessed with her father’s murder. Eventually she became suspicious of Bannick, and she stalked him for twenty years. When she became convinced, and when she mustered the courage, she brought the case to us. We didn’t want it, but we had no choice. It didn’t take long to get the FBI involved.”