52 pages • 1 hour read
The Judge's List
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
Judge Bannick goes to the evidence warehouse in Pensacola where he asks Sergeant Faldo for the Verno file. He also asks if anyone else has looked at it lately. Faldo tells him about the investigator and gives him the copy he made of the detective’s driver’s license. Bannick asks him who crossed out the name of the complainant in the file. Faldo remembers Bannick coming to the warehouse a few years ago and looking at that same file. He suspects that Bannick must have done it himself, but the question is strange enough that he claims he does not know.
Leaving the warehouse, Bannick goes to what he calls his “other chamber,” an office concealed in a building of a shopping mall that he owns. This is his real office. The police could seize every file and computer in his home office or at the courthouse and find nothing.
Bannick opens the computer and uses his own customized spyware to prowl through government files until he finds the BJC. No cases have been opened with his name. He still has no way of knowing who filed a complaint or if the sender of the letter was even telling the truth. Then he finds his way into the state police files and finds a memo reporting that Lacy Stoltz and Darren Trope from the BJC had asked questions about the Kronke murder. They said that might have a suspect, but Chief Turnbull in Marathon was doubtful and does not expect to hear back from them.
Bannick is stunned that the BJC might consider him to be a suspect. Yet he dismisses the idea that low-level bureaucrats like Stoltz and Trope could know anything. The real threat is whoever sent him the letters.
Chapter 22 Summary
Ozment has just arrived for his shift at the Pelican Point resort when he receives a call from Judge Bannick asking about the Lanny Verno case 13 years ago. Ozment tells the judge he remembers the case; Bannick issued a warrant on Verno, and Ozment arrested him. Bannick conceals his displeasure that Ozment remembers the connection between him and Verno. Ozment tells him he only remembers because a private detective was asking questions about the case. He gives Bannick the license plate number of the rental car the detective drove.
Back in his secret office, Bannick traces the car rental to a detective named Rollie Tabor. Bannick emails Tabor, saying he needs to hire a detective. Tabor agrees to the job, and Bannick emails an attachment with all the details. When Tabor opens the attachment, Bannick uses his custom spyware to dig through Tabor’s files. He finds no references to Verno or the client who hired Tabor.
Bannick goes back to check the Harrison County Sheriff’s files and finds a note stating that Lacy Stoltz and Darren Trope accessed the Verno file and made references to a suspect but gave no details. An officer in that department, Detective Napier, thinks they know more than they are saying.
Bannick checks on the cold case file for his fourth kill, Eileen Nickleberry. The last time anyone accessed the file was three years earlier; the inquiry was from a reporter or someone claiming to be one.
Chapter 23 Summary
Bannick concludes that a single person must have hired Rollie Tabor, investigated Eileen’s case file, and sent Bannick the two letters. He must find whoever it was. The BJC could not possibly have enough evidence to convict him, but if he is indicted and arrested, he will have to stop killing, and he still has two or three people on his list. He has killed 10, not counting Verno’s boss, Dunwoody. Dunwoody does not count because his murder was unplanned. Bannick is still a little troubled over killing one person who did not deserve to die like the others, but this concern is not enough to stop them.
Bannick debates his next moves. He could relocate to a country that has no extradition treaties with the US, or he could stay and fight. No law enforcement agency could possibly gather enough evidence to convict him, and without the evidence, no prosecutor would indict him, especially given the fact that no sitting judge has ever been accused, much less convicted, of anything like what Bannick has done. No prosecutor would want to risk losing such a prominent case.
Having prowled the state police files with his spyware, Bannick has confirmed that the police are not looking for him. Even if they were, they would never risk alerting him by sending the taunting letters. That leaves the families of his victims. He had hacked the emails of each family after the kills and make sure that none of them had made any efforts to find the killer.
Leaving his spyware to continue prowling the Internet, Bannick returns home to find another letter containing a poem referencing the journalist he killed for exposing his links to the crooked land developer.
Chapter 24 Summary
Early Saturday morning, Lacy receives a call from Jeri. Annoyed, she reminds Jeri that, as she said before, Saturday is her day off. Jeri warns Lacy that the judge is so smart and canny that he might already have figured out that the BJC and Lacy personally are on his case. She does not tell Lacy that she has been taunting Bannick, trying to get him unnerved enough to make a mistake. After Jeri hangs up, Lacy feels guilty for having been so abrupt with her. She knows how much the strain of the last 20 years must have worn the other woman down.
Ten minutes later, Lacy’s brother Gunther calls. He bought a new airplane and wants to fly down and take Lacy to lunch. Lacy knows there is no way to dissuade him. She is both dreading and looking forward to seeing him. When Gunther arrives, he fulfills her expectation; he disapproves of everything in her life: her car, her job, and her boyfriend. As usual, he nags her, talks her ear off, and flies back to Atlanta.
Chapter 25 Summary
Judge Bannick has a night out with one of his “girlfriends,” an older woman who is not interested in romance. Bannick himself has never been interested in women—nor anyone else for that matter. They spend an evening at the country club, but Bannick is preoccupied with his problems.
Chapter 26 Summary
After dropping off his date, the judge returns to his secret lair where he continues his search for the stalker who sent the letters. Going through the relatives of his victims, he works his way down to Alfred Burke and finds that he has a daughter, Jeri Crosby, in Mobile, Alabama—the same city where Rollie Tabor lives.
Bannick’s next move is to track down Dave Addison, a former frat brother who was around when Eileen humiliated Bannick. Bannick tells Addison a tall tale about one of Eileen’s old sorority sisters telling him about an investigator asking about Eileen. Addison says that he got a call from a woman claiming to be a crime writer. The fact that the investigator is a woman makes Jeri Crosby an increasingly likely candidate to be Bannick’s stalker.
Chapters 21-26 Analysis
Rising action continues in these chapters. The judge escalates his pursuit of Lacy and Jeri, and at the same time, he begins to make an increasing number of mistakes. For the moment, protagonist and antagonist seem to be evenly matched.
Sergeant Faldo’s realization that the judge is the most likely person to have changed the file is arguably one of these mistakes. Later, the judge will observe that most killers make an average of ten mistakes with each crime they commit. Bannick bears that out as he makes more and more errors, any one of which could expose him. For the reader, Sergeant Faldo’s suspicion raises hope that this will be the one that finally leads Lacy to Bannick. That anticipation will be dashed, however. The author repeatedly tantalizes the reader with similar mistakes.
Chapter 21 introduces Bannick as a computer genius who designed his own custom spyware. Bannick’s ability to hack his way into law enforcement files that should be sealed makes him a more formidable opponent and raises suspense as it becomes evident that Lacy and Jeri are being hunted, even as they are hunting the judge. For every mistake he makes, there is an equal and opposite vulnerability on the other side.
The chapter showing Bannick’s social life illustrates his ability to maintain a typical social façade. For the moment, he is still a controlled and organized killer, which makes him harder to catch than the disorganized type, who is likely to make more errors. He is now distracted, however, losing track of his environment as his mind wanders from the present.
Jeri and Lacy’s relationship continues to be awkward. Jeri’s single-mindedness causes her to telephone Lacy at inappropriate times and to pressure her with demands for time and energy that Lacy is not comfortable committing. Jeri is also using Lacy by setting her on Bannick’s trail and staying in the background, and then alerting him that he is under investigation.
Gunther’s reappearance in the story reinforces Lacy’s dissatisfaction with her life. He puts his finger on everything that frustrates Lacy but that she is too stuck to change. The scene also foreshadows Gunther’s involvement in the climax of the story. His first appearance in the story might have been a one-off. His second appearance tells the reader that he will make a significant contribution to the climax.
Unlock all 52 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By John Grisham
