“Where was she murdered?”
“Columbus, Georgia. Married with two small children.”
“That’s awful.”
“They’re all awful, Lacy.”
“Of course they are.”
“You see, my theory is that Bannick has a real problem with sex. Probably goes back to the abuse when he was eleven or twelve at the hands of Thad Leawood. He probably didn’t get the help and support he needed. That’s not unusual with kids. Anyway, he has never recovered from it. He murdered Eileen because she laughed at him. I don’t know what happened between him and Ashley Barasso and will probably never find out. But they were at the law school together, the same class, so it’s safe to assume that they knew one another.”
“When they were murdered were they sexually molested?”
“No, he’s too smart for that. At a crime scene the most important piece of evidence is the corpse. It can and usually does reveal so much. Bannick, though, is careful and leaves behind only the rope and the blow to the head. His motive is always revenge, except for Mike Dunwoody. Poor guy just timed things badly.”
“Okay, okay. Please allow me to say something that’s pretty obvious here. You’re an African American woman.”
“True.”
“And I’m guessing that in 1985 or so the fraternity life at the University of Florida was basically all-white.”
“Indeed.”
“And you’ve never been a student there?”
“Never.”
“So, how did you manage to get the story about Bannick and Eileen? It’s all hearsay and third-hand and urban legend, all remembered and told by a bunch of drunk rich kids. Right?”
“For the most part, yes.”
“So?”
Jeri reached for a large, well-worn briefcase, snapped it open, and pulled out a book. She handed it to Lacy who took it and stared at it.
“Who’s Jill Monroe?”
“Me. It’s a book I self-published, one of several, all with different pseudonyms, all by me. The publisher is a low-end vanity press out West. It’s basically unreadable and not intended to be really read by anyone. It’s part of the disguise, Lacy, part of the fiction that is my life.”
“What’s in the book?”
“True crime, stuff I pulled off the Internet, all stolen but not copyrighted.”
“I’m listening.”
“I use these to get attention and establish credibility. I show up claiming to be a veteran writer of true crime and police stories. Freelance, of course, always freelance. I say I’m working on a book about cold cases involving young women who were strangled. In this case, I checked the listings of fraternities and sororities at UF and finally put together the puzzle. None of Eileen’s old friends would talk. It took months, even years, but I finally found a frat brother with a big mouth. Met him in a bar in St. Pete and he claimed to have known Eileen, said lots of boys did. Said he had not talked to Bannick in years, but, after a few drinks, he told me the story about his bad night with Eileen. Said Bannick was really humiliated.”
Lacy paced a bit as she tried to absorb it. “Okay, but how did you hear of Eileen’s death in the first place?”
“I have a source. A mad scientist. An ex-cop who collects and studies more crime stats than anybody on the planet. There are only about three hundred murders by strangulation each year. All are reported in various ways to the FBI’s clearinghouse on violent crime. My source studies the cold cases, looks for patterns and similarities. He found Eileen Nickleberry ten years ago and passed it on. He found the Lanny Verno case and passed it on. He doesn’t know about Bannick and he has no idea what I do with the info. He thinks I’m a crime writer of some variety.”
“Does he agree with your theory? A serial killer?”
“He’s not paid to agree or disagree and we never discuss it. He’s paid to sift through the rubble and alert me if something looks suspicious.”
“Just curious. Where is this guy?”
“I don’t know. He uses different names and addresses, like me. We’ve never met, never chatted on the phone, never will. He promises complete anonymity.”
“How do you pay him? If you don’t mind.”
“Hard cash to a post office box in Maine.”
Lacy was overwhelmed and sat down. She sipped her coffee and breathed deeply. It dawned on her how much Jeri had learned and collected in the past twenty-plus years.
As if reading her mind, Jeri said, “I know this is a lot.” From a pocket she removed a thumb drive and handed it over. “It’s all there, over six hundred pages of research, news articles, police files, everything I’ve found that might be useful. And probably a lot of stuff that’s not.”