Deathtrap (18 page)

Bing pushed to his feet.

Villon shifted on his chair. “Can I leave now?”

“You’ll stay until you’re cleared. If you’re cleared,” Bing told him before he closed the door on the man.

He headed to his office and returned some calls at last, then had to deal with a mother turning her kid in for shoplifting. Age ten, first-time offender. No father in the picture. The kid had been getting into trouble at school too, fighting. And smoking behind the gym.

Bing gave him a tour of the holding cells and had a man-to-man talk with the kid. Then he asked him what he knew about horses.

Luke shrugged, trying to play it cool, but he couldn’t keep the interest from his eyes. “I rode one at a friend’s place once.”

He had short-cropped blond hair, blue eyes, his chin scarred. Bing had a feeling the kid got into his share of scrapes. His ripped jeans certainly told a story.

“How would you like to learn to ride better? I happen to know some horses that need daily exercise. After school. If your mom agrees.” The best way to keep a kid out of trouble was to keep him busy.

The mom agreed, so Bing gave her the phone number of the guy who rented his stables and fields and told her to let Jason know Bing had sent her.

And that brief interlude was the best part of his day. Joe came back to tell him Villon’s alibi checked out this time, so they had to let him go. Then Bing had to deal with two teenagers who caught a disabled student behind the library and touched her inappropriately. In between dealing with that, he was going through his files on the Haynes case and Stacy’s murder, trying to put the puzzle together.

He could almost see a picture emerging, but he kept feeling he was missing a big piece somewhere. He needed new information, but information wasn’t forthcoming. He was stiff with frustration by quitting time. He planned on going home to take care of Mango, then heading over to Sophie’s place. Until he figured out who had been inside her house, he wasn’t going to leave her alone at night.

But her safety wasn’t the only reason he wanted to spend the night. He’d missed her the night before. Whether it was right or wrong, he wanted her in his arms again.

He had his hand on the mouse to turn his computer off when a new e-mail pinged onto his screen—the fingerprint analysis on the bullet from the gun that killed Stacy.

He forgot about everything else as he opened it.

Greg Bruckner. Age thirty-nine. Petty criminal. Professional scam artist.

His gut tightened so fast, so hard, he thought for a second he might throw up. He drew a long, slow breath. Then he stared into the face of the man he’d been hunting for the past two years. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen or heard the name before. What in hell connection did Greg Bruckner have to Stacy?

The registered address had been in one of Bing’s own apartment buildings, on the other side of Broslin. His blood raced with adrenaline. Would that be the connection? Was Bruckner mad at him for some reason, rent, whatever, and had come to his home, and spent his anger on the landlord’s wife?

He was rising from his chair, ready to go out and pick up the bastard when he caught the next line on the screen.

DOD. Date of death.

He had to read it again to be able to accept it. The bastard was dead. And then the date registered fully. Greg Bruckner had died the same day he’d murdered Stacy.

He blinked hard at the screen, read the date over and over again. No mistake. Exact same day.

A car accident, right here in Broslin, the scene processed by Officer Mike McMorris. Bing brought up the record in a separate window and started reading it even as he punched Mike’s extension and put him on the speaker.

“I need the circumstances of death for Greg Bruckner, dead in a car accident two years ago.” He gave the date. April 27th.

“Hang on for a second, Captain.” The keyboard clicked on the other end. Mike too would be bringing the screen up to jog his memory.

Barely a minute passed before he found what he was looking for. “Traffic accident, head-on collision. Hit-and-run. His skull was busted. I remember it. I swear I saw the guy’s brain. And he was still alive. He died in the hospital, later. Damn nasty business. Witnesses described a black sedan speeding away from the accident. Driver, white male. Generic description, not even enough for a police sketch. We put the word out to body shops, but nothing ever turned up.”

His jaw tightened. “Anything else you remember?”

“Being frustrated. Knew from the beginning the case wasn’t going to go anywhere. You know how I feel about hit-and-runs.”

The same as they all did. “Thanks.” Bing hung up and stared at Greg Bruckner on his screen, the mug shot taken three years before his death when he’d been picked up for petty larceny. The bastard was grinning into the camera, cocky as anything.

Bing ran down the arrest record, reading every line carefully, hoping something would jump out at him. Nothing did. Bruckner had made a living from temporary jobs, never missing a chance to swindle someone. A real winner.

The idea that the man had been dead these past two years, had died in a stupid car accident on his way home from killing Stacy, that Bing had been chasing a ghost all this time and would never get answers, was unacceptable. He couldn’t process it.

His hands clenched into fists. This was not how it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to catch the bastard, get his answers, get the man convicted. He was supposed to be in the room behind the glass when Bruckner received his lethal injection. He was supposed to hear the last beep of his heart on the monitor and see as the line went flat.

He was due that. It was his right, dammit.

Part of him wanted to go straight to the apartment building, Creek Corner, and search the place. He was part owner. The super would do whatever he asked.

The place was run by a property management company. So were the other three properties that he’d bought on his own. Working a full-time job, working shifts, didn’t leave him much time to run around fixing leaky pipes and track down late checks, so he left that to professionals. He still managed to turn a profit.

He could have driven over to Creek Corner and gotten into the place. But he wanted to do everything right, dot every i, cross every t. So he put in for a warrant. Time was not a factor at this stage. Bruckner had died two years ago, his apartment rented to others since. And Bing had other things to do. He wanted to learn everything there was to learn about the man. He wanted the damn motive.

He printed all the reports on Bruckner, tossed them into an empty manila folder, then into his bag, next to Stacy’s case file. He didn’t expect to get much sleep tonight.

He almost asked Joe to watch Sophie’s house—he wasn’t fit for company—but then changed his mind on his way out. Seeing her, just looking at her and all her sunny optimism, might do him good. He wanted to lose himself in the softness of her body. He wanted to talk to her. Because he trusted her. Because she was smart and caring and brave. She could be the voice of reason, because at the moment he sure couldn’t. He needed her, and that truth shook him. What they had between them was moving toward something pretty big, perhaps way too fast.

He drove thinking about Bruckner, rage and disappointment swirling inside him. And something else…

If Bruckner had gone to the house because he was mad at Bing over something that had to do with the apartment, then he didn’t go there for other reasons—like an affair with Stacy. Bing didn’t want to believe that about his wife, not even if their marriage hadn’t been the best toward the end.

The thought of an affair had occupied a dark, hidden corner of his mind these past two years. He’d pushed it aside, but it was always there. The coroner recorded signs of intercourse before the death but couldn’t be sure whether it was rape. She’d been shot through the heart—which could be consistent with a crime of passion.

He didn’t want to believe that, but neither could he rule it out. He’d been telling himself all this time that it’d been a burglary. The burglar was caught by Stacy, and he raped her, then shot her. Then he had to run in case the shot had been heard. Not an unreasonable theory.

Bing had worked too much overtime. And maybe things weren’t as good between them as they had been at the beginning. But he didn’t want to think that Stacy might have had a lover.

Greg Bruckner was young and, all right, good-looking in a swarthy kind of way. But he was also Bing’s tenant and a petty criminal who was used to taking what he wanted. A more likely connection. Bing drove, his mind cycling through a jumble of questions.

Bruckner had a criminal record. Why in hell hadn’t the property management company run a check? He’d have to have a talk with his partners about that. Maybe they needed to hire a new outfit.

His head was hurting from trying to figure it all out. By the time he rang Sophie’s doorbell, he was ready for a break, ready for the sight of her, for that smile that could light up the room.

And she brought it too. The sheer excitement and exuberance on her face when she opened the door couldn’t have been in starker contrast to the way he felt. She was practically floating above the floor, vibrating with cheer.

He stood there for a moment and soaked it all in. “Hey.”

“I have it!” She squealed like a teenager and threw her arms around him.

He held on to her, needing this, needing her. He breathed in her fresh, soapy scent and let her cheerful presence seep into all his dark and miserable places.

“What is it?” She pulled back to scan his face. “Bad day at the office?”

“Let’s hear about your day. Mine can wait.”

Her smile just kept spreading. “I got the donor files. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for them,” she enthused as he followed her in. “I cooked a huge celebratory dinner. Steak and wine. Technically, I can’t have red meat. Alcohol either, because of the drugs. But you can do that for me, and I’ll be living vicariously through you, which is the next best thing.”

He moved forward on autopilot, telling himself to snap out of his bad mood and not ruin her special day.

“You were right, it wasn’t Stacy. Okay, I know it’s stupid, but part of me was still worried about that. I want what we have to be real. And now I know it is. The donor isn’t even a woman.” Her eyes went wide. “A guy! How weird is that? Well, he was a good guy, that’s all I need to know, right? I mean he was an organ donor. He was killed in a car accident right here in Broslin. How is that for a coincidence? I didn’t even know about Broslin when I got the heart. I feel so guilty for being this excited about this. But some of his organs were good, and they were donated.”

A car accident right here in Broslin. Something cold and heavy reached for Bing. “Do you have a name?”

“Greg Bruckner.” She beamed.

The room spun with him.

He shook his head, feeling as if he’d been punched in the face.

She moved to take his hands, but he pulled away. “No,” he groaned the single word. This couldn’t be true.

Her smile didn’t dim, her eyes kept sparkling. “What is it?”

He backed away another step. “I have to leave. Lock up tight. I’ll send Joe over.”

“I made dinner. Bing?”

He shook his head again, wishing he could shake away the last three minutes, erase them and restart. But he couldn’t. “This is not right.”

Her brows furrowed, worry coming into her eyes. “What isn’t?”

He tried to fill his lungs, but he couldn’t. A dull, heavy ache filled his chest. “I got the fingerprint report back today. Greg Bruckner. He murdered Stacy.”

She turned white, her eyes going wide with utter horror. “The killer? I have the heart of the killer?”

His mind swam in a cold haze. “Don’t think of it like that. It’s a pump. It’s just a pump.”

The devastated look on her face twisted his guts, but he couldn’t help her.

“I have to go.” And then he turned and practically ran from her, from everything that could have been.

Chapter Twelve

Sophie sat in her kitchen, hyperventilating as the mouth-watering scent of steak she wasn’t going to eat filled the air. She’d tried to call Dr. Pratt, but he was in emergency surgery, something complicated that was expected to last hours, according to the nurse.

Wendy was taking her son to Florida to see her parents. Sophie glanced at the clock. They’d still be in the air.

She sobbed. She’d waited for the heart forever. Prayed for it. Obsessed endlessly over whether or not she’d get one in time. Her new heart was a blessing, a miraculous thing, the best thing that had ever happened to her. That was what she was supposed to feel. But at the moment she just felt trapped, tied to something dark and unimaginable.

How could she escape, when the thing she wanted to run from was inside of her?

“I’m okay,” she told Peaches between two gasps of air as the dog looked at her, worried, whined and licked her knee. “I’m okay.”

But she needed somebody else to tell her that, because she wasn’t sure if she could convince herself, not about this.

She didn’t want to call Jeremy. Jeremy wasn’t what she needed. And not her mother either. She had no idea what her mother would make out of this, and right now she couldn’t deal with more grief.

She wanted Bing, but Bing was done with her, she was pretty sure about that. The rejection hurt so much it took her breath away.

She could think of only one place where she might find some true understanding: the transplant support group at the hospital. She glanced at the clock on the oven again. She might just make the Monday night meeting.

She hurried into the bathroom to wash her face, then grabbed her car keys and put Peaches outside. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You take care of the place, okay?”

Peaches gave a quick bark as if answering in the affirmative.

She tried not to cry on her way over to the meeting. She needed to see traffic. Think about something else. She couldn’t. She hoped the first, terrible shock would wear off a little by the time she walked into the room. It didn’t.