The Judge’s List
- Автор: Гришэм Джон
- Серия: Lacy Stoltz #2
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Doubleday/Random House
- ISBN: 978-0-385-54602-7
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Judge’s List». Краткое содержание книги:
Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.
Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.
He is a judge, in Florida — under Lacy’s jurisdiction.
He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?
The Judge’s List is by any measure John Grisham’s most surprising, chilling novel yet.
Herman shook his head in disbelief. “Well, I’m not a print guy, but I know that’s virtually impossible, without extensive surgery.”
Lacy said, “He can afford it, and he’s had plenty of time.”
Allie said, “I’ve checked around, talked to some of our experts. There have been a handful of cases where the prints were altered.”
“If you say so. I have my doubts.”
Lacy said, “So do we. If we can’t get a match, then the case looks hopeless. There’s no other proof, other than motive, and that’s not enough. Right?”
“I don’t know. I suppose there’s no way to get his prints, his current ones?”
“Not without a warrant,” Lacy said. “We have suspicion, but that’s not enough to convince a judge to issue one.”
“We need advice, Herman,” Allie said. “What’s our next step?”
“Where does the guy live?”
“Pensacola.”
“And the print is in Mississippi, right?”
“Correct.”
“Will the authorities there call in the Bureau?”
“I’m sure they will. They’re desperate to solve the murders.”
“Then you have to start there. Once our boys are involved, it’ll be easier to convince a federal magistrate to issue a search warrant.”
“And search what?” Lacy asked.
“His home, his office, anyplace there might be prints.”
Allie said, “There might be a couple of problems with that. The first is that this guy is capable of leaving no prints anywhere. The second is that he might disappear at the first whiff of trouble.”
“Let our boys worry about the prints. They’ll find ’em. No one is capable of wiping clean their home or office. As for the disappearing act, that’s a chance you take. You can’t arrest him until there is a match with the prints, right? No other proof?”
“So far, none,” Lacy said.
“There might be another problem,” Allie said. “Is there a chance the Bureau will decline to get involved?”
“Why?”
“The slim chance of success. The first six crime scenes yielded zero evidence. Those cases are ice cold and have been for years. You know the politics at Quantico. And you know how perpetually understaffed the BAU is. Is it possible they could take a hard look at this and pass?”
Herman waved off the idea. “No, I don’t see it. We’ve tracked serial killers for years and never found them. Some of the cases I worked on thirty years ago are still unsolved, always will be. That will not deter the BAU. This is their meat and potatoes. And, keep in mind, they don’t have to solve all of the murders. You just need one to put this guy away.”
Herman put down his pen and folded his arms across his chest. “You have no choice but to bring in the Bureau. I sense some hesitation.”
Lacy told the story of Betty Roe and her twenty-year quest to find her father’s murderer. Herman interrupted with “Is she looking for a job? I think the Bureau needs her.”
“She has a career,” Lacy said after a laugh. “She filed a complaint with the Board on Judicial Conduct. That’s where I work. She’s very fragile, and frightened, and I promised we would not bring in the police until we finished our initial investigation.”
Herman didn’t like this and said, “Too bad. She’s no longer a factor. You have a very sophisticated killer still at work, and it’s time to bring in the Bureau. The longer you wait, the more bodies they’ll find. This guy will not stop.”
32
On Tuesday, the Pensacola Ledger ran a brief story on page 5 of its news section. Mal Schnetzer, a local lawyer from years past, had been murdered the previous Saturday in a trailer in Sugar Land, Texas, west of Houston, where he had been living. The police gave the barest of details, saying only that he had been strangled in a trailer rented by a person who had yet to be found. The story recalled his days as a well-known plaintiff’s lawyer in the Panhandle, before he was disbarred and sent to prison for robbing his clients. There was a small photo of Mal in his better days.
Jeri saw the story online and read it with her morning coffee. She immediately pulled together the other stories: Danny Cleveland, the former Ledger reporter, who had been strangled in his apartment in Little Rock in 2009; Thad Leawood, strangled in 1991 near Signal Mountain, Tennessee; and Lanny Verno, murdered in Biloxi the previous year. Schnetzer, Cleveland, and Leawood had been known in Pensacola and the Ledger reported their deaths. Verno had been passing through and was not known; thus, there was no local coverage. She found the stories of the murders from the local newspapers in Little Rock, Chattanooga, Houston, and Biloxi, and arranged them all neatly in a file that she sent through a new email account to a reporter named Kemper, the woman who had written about the Schnetzer murder. She attached a cryptic note: Four unsolved strangulations of people with close ties to Pensacola. Verno lived here in 2001. Do your homework!!
She had not heard of the Schnetzer murder and wasn’t about to start digging. She was exhausted, and virtually broke, and simply couldn’t muster the energy for another investigation. As always, she suspected Bannick, but someone else would have to worry about the case.
The following morning, on the front page beneath the fold, was a sensational story about the four Pensacola men who had been murdered in other states. The local police wouldn’t comment and deflected all questions because they knew nothing. The killings were not in their jurisdiction. Likewise, the state police wouldn’t comment.
Jeri read it gleefully and immediately sent it, encrypted as always, to Lacy Stoltz. Minutes later she texted her the encryption key.
Lacy was at her desk reading assessments of other complaints when she saw the email and opened the file. There was no message. Who else would send her a private email, and then the key? Who else would have the old stories from the Ledger and the other newspapers? Once again she marveled at Jeri’s research and tenaciousness, and managed a chuckle at Herman Gray’s comment about her being needed by the FBI.
She closed her door and for a long time reread the reports of the old murders, and the new ones. She tried to gauge the impact of the morning’s story and finally concluded there was no way to predict what might happen. There was little doubt, though, that it would change the landscape. Bannick would see it, probably already had. Who in the world could guess his next move?
Judge Bannick was in a hotel room in Santa Fe when he saw it. As always, he scanned the Ledger online for all the news from home, and when he saw it he began cursing.
The only other person who could possibly link Lanny Verno to Pensacola was Jeri Burke. Maybe the ex-cop, Norris Ozment, but he was not in the loop.
A few of the older lawyers could link him to Schnetzer and their fee dispute, back in 1993. Perhaps a reporter at the Ledger might remember Danny Cleveland and his muckraking article about Bannick when he first ran for office, though this was doubtful. Cleveland had gone after several shady developers. No one to his knowledge was still around to link him to Thad Leawood. There had been no criminal charges and the frightened victims hid behind their parents, who had no idea what to do.
He was thirteen years old and had achieved the rank Life, with eighteen merit badges, including all the required ones. His goal was to make Eagle by his fourteenth birthday, something his father encouraged because after that the high school years arrived and scouting would become less important. He led the Shark Patrol, the finest in the troop. He loved every part of it — the weekends in the woods, the training for the mile swim, the jamborees, the challenge of making Eagle, the search for more merit badges, the awards ceremonies, the community service.