Her Final Breath (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 2) (41 page)

As David Bankston rushed forward, Tracy timed his approach. She pivoted sideways and swung with her right arm. Bankston absorbed the blow with his forearm and crashed into her, hurling them both backward. The pain in her shoulder exploded upon impact and again when she hit the floor, but she kicked and scratched and beat at Bankston until he yanked the piece of railing from her grasp.

Straddling her, breathing heavily, glasses askew, with blood flowing down the side of his face and beard, Bankston raised the club.

Kins rushed through Tracy’s bedroom and bathroom, didn’t find her, then hurried back to the stairwell, passing Faz and the other officers entering the house. Something crashed below them. Kins limped quickly down the stairs, his hip burning, Faz close behind. In the gray-black light, he saw two silhouettes. A man sat atop Tracy, his back to them, arm raised, something in his hand.

Kins raised his Glock, feet separating naturally into a blade stance, left hand rising up to meet the right, arms forming a triangle with the gun at the tip. He sighted the tiny red dot. “Freeze,” he yelled. The man spun. David Bankston. “Drop whatever is in your hand, David.”

But David Bankston didn’t.

“Don’t!” Kins yelled.

Bankston hurled what he’d been holding. Faz raised an arm to deflect the blow, but Kins didn’t flinch. He slowly exhaled, and squeezed off three shots.

The noise was deafening, and the three shots lit up the room in bursts of silver-white light. The smell of gunpowder quickly permeated the air. “Call it in,” Kins told one of the officers. “We’re going need an ambulance and the ME. Tell them to send a CSI team.”

He moved first to where Bankston lay on his back, eyes open. Bankston had been propelled backward by the impact of the bullets. Kins dropped with effort to a knee and felt for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. He turned his attention to Tracy. She sat holding her left arm close to her body. “I think my collarbone is broken.” Her voice sounded like someone had rubbed the inside of her throat raw with sandpaper, and even in the dull light he could see a red line on her neck.

“We have an ambulance coming,” he said.

Tracy pointed. “You better check on Faz.”

Faz remained on one knee, hand pressed to his forehead, bleeding from where the piece of wood had struck. “I’m all right,” he said. “I absorbed the blow with my face.”

“Can you walk?” Kins asked Tracy.

“I think so. Help me up.”

He helped her to her feet. “How’d you know?” she asked.

“We saw the news report. And you weren’t answering your phone.”

“News report?”

“Let’s get you some medical attention, and I’ll fill you in.”

“I should have told you about Stinson.”

“Water under the bridge,” he said.

“Can you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Call Dan. Tell him I’m okay.”

“No problem.”

She turned to one of the officers still there. “There’s a can of cat food and a spoon on the floor somewhere. Take it out back and bang on it. My cat’s still out there.”

CHAPTER 53

T
racy sat in the back of the ambulance, her left arm in a black sling. Her throat burned when she swallowed, and she was also having trouble taking a full breath; her ribs hurt each time she inhaled.

The CSI and medical examiner vans had further congested her cul-de-sac, drawing her neighbors out of their homes. They mingled on lawns and sidewalks. Someone had set up a police line well down the street. Behind it she saw the glare of television crews’ lights.

As a paramedic looked for a vein in Tracy’s arm for an IV drip to administer painkillers, she watched two members of the ME’s staff carry a gurney out the front door with David Bankston’s corpse zipped into a body bag. They dropped the wheels on the patio tiles and guided the gurney out the gate to the back of a blue van. Kins and Faz followed the gurney across the patio, Faz now sporting a large medical patch.

“How’s the head?” Tracy asked.

“They say I’ll need a couple stitches. Who knows, could be an improvement. How’re you doing?”

“Feels like somebody stomped on my throat.”

Faz smiled. “You sound like me now, Professor.”

“Thank that dumbshit Nolasco when you see him,” Kins said. “They moved on Bankston’s house without first taking him into custody.”

“Why didn’t they wait?” Tracy asked and grimaced in pain.

“I suspect because he wanted the arrest to air live. Vanpelt was there. Front and center, Kins said. Some coincidence, huh?”

“He tipped her,” Faz said. “He cut us out, and then he tipped her. He’s the damn leak.”

“Sure as shit,” Kins said.

“He brought in the FBI so he can take the credit,” Faz said. “He becomes the detective who caught the Cowboy, and we look like assholes.”

“What did they find?” Tracy asked. “What did they find at Bankston’s house?”

“I don’t know,” Kins said. “I suspect they’re still processing it, but from what I saw on the television and what I’ve been told, they found a coil of polypropylene rope and every news article on every murder, along with dozens of photographs of you.”

“What about the noose?” she asked, knowing the distinct knot would be important.

Kins shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“I meant the one here, downstairs.”

“Oh. CSI is processing it, but it looks like the noose left at the shooting range.”

“Tracy!” She recognized Dan’s voice. He stood behind the barricade, waving to her.

“Can you get him in?” she asked Faz.

“I’m on it.”

Tracy looked to Kins. “We need to try to find some connection between Bankston and Beth Stinson.”

“Bankston might not have killed her, Tracy. No match on the DNA.”

“He had to have, Kins. Too many similarities.”

“Maybe that’s where he first got the idea,” Kins said. “Maybe he read about it, saw it on the news.”

“Then why did he wait so long?”

“He was away. He was in Iraq. When he came back, he got married and had a kid. It’s like Santos said. These guys can go years without killing. But when they start, they have trouble stopping.”

“We need to look into his background anyway.”

“We will. Right now you need to get to a hospital and take care of yourself.”

Dan hurried to Tracy’s side. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “This is getting to be a bad habit.”

“What happened to your voice?”

“This is my sexy voice.” She smiled, then grimaced again.

A paramedic stepped forward. “We need to get you to the hospital and get you looked at, Detective.”

“I’ll follow you,” Dan said.

Tracy looked at her house, CSI detectives going in and out the front door. “I’ll make sure things get locked up here,” Kins said.

“Did they find Roger?” Tracy asked.

“Police officer said he was hiding in the bushes. The cat food worked to get him to come out. I’ll lock him inside.”

“Feed him and you’ll have a friend for life,” she said.

“That means he’s Italian,” Faz said.

CHAPTER 54

T
racy spent the next week recovering in Cedar Grove, her arm immobilized in a sling. She had indeed cracked her collarbone, though it wasn’t dislocated. Her ribs were bruised but not broken. The noose had damaged her vocal cords, and the doctors told her to keep her talking to a minimum.

“I kind of like the quiet Tracy,” Dan had said.

“Don’t get used to it.”

Being laid up and having Dan take care of her had given her time to think again about a return to Cedar Grove, and the thought no longer brought up the anxiety she’d felt when she’d gone back to identify Sarah’s remains. She could imagine herself living here, getting to know everyone again. She thought of returning to Cedar Grove High, warming to the idea of challenging young minds and making a difference in their lives. She’d have to renew her teaching license and get up to speed, but she could do it. At this point she felt as though she could handle just about anything. And while Cedar Grove might never again be the home she’d known as a young girl, she was developing a sense that it could be home again, with Dan and Rex and Sherlock, and Roger, of course. Maybe it could even be a place to raise a family. She was only forty-two. She knew women who’d had children later in life. There were disadvantages to being older, but also advantages. She was more patient and had a better sense of her priorities, and she’d have more time to devote to raising children. Still, she thought it best to wait to broach that subject with Dan. She sensed that all of this was happening fast for him also.

The following Monday she returned to the Justice Center. Kins, Faz, and Del—and Mayweather, who’d taken her spot as Kins’s partner—made a fuss over her, but she was still on administrative leave, assigned to a desk at the back of the floor with the administrative staff. Now, however, she didn’t mind. Tucked in her cubbyhole, she was away from the questions and the looks. She’d managed to avoid the OPA investigation while she was out, but her attorney had called bright and early that morning to tell her that Detective Sergeant Rawley was eager to reschedule her hearing. She told him she was on painkillers and would need at least another week.

In addition to OPA, the City Budget Office had called. They’d started an investigation into Tracy’s unauthorized inquiry into the Wayne Gerhardt case and the possible misuse of public funds. She had no doubt Nolasco had instigated that investigation. It seemed as if Chief Clarridge would also be hard pressed to retain his job. Pressure was building on him to resign. Articles in the
Seattle Times
were critical of him and his administration. Editorials opined that he’d lost institutional control of the department and the respect of his officers.

Nolasco, on the other hand, had come out smelling like a rose. He was saluted and honored for bringing the Cowboy to justice. He’d been interviewed on local and national news shows, and word was he’d be featured in a law enforcement magazine. One rumor circulating was that the mayor would capitalize on Nolasco’s notoriety and appoint him interim police chief while a search committee interviewed other candidates. Faz said Nolasco was so puffed up and full of himself he wondered how he fit his head in the elevator every morning. That was the only thing truly bothering her now, the knowledge that Nolasco had gotten what he’d wanted. It had taken him twenty years, but she’d finally be gone. She wanted to hate the man, but she saw him as small and petty and sad.

Maria Vanpelt ran an hour-long special report about the Cowboy investigation on
KRIX Undercover
. Tracy didn’t watch, but according to Faz, Vanpelt said the investigation had taken a turn for the better when Nolasco took charge. She also hadn’t missed an opportunity to promote herself: Faz had counted no less than nine times during the hour-long program that Vanpelt made a direct reference to herself as ‘the reporter who broke the story’ and ‘the reporter at the scene’ when the Cowboy’s home was searched and the incriminating evidence discovered.

In the aftermath, everyone seemed to want to focus on the positive. Little discussion was given to the fact that Nolasco had screwed up, big-time, by not making sure David Bankston was in custody before moving on his home, or that his mistake had nearly cost Tracy her life.

Kins had remained in Seattle until OPA cleared him for the use of his firearm in David Bankston’s death. Then, fed up and frustrated, he’d taken Shannah on a much-needed vacation to Mexico, where he hoped they could rekindle their relationship.

“Send me a postcard with palm trees, white sand beaches, and brilliant sunshine and I’ll pull your eyebrows out next time I see you,” Tracy said.

Friday of her first week back, Tracy was thinking she’d dodged a bullet, having not run into her boss all week, when his assistant called to tell her that Nolasco wanted to see her in his office. As she made her way through the Violent Crimes Section, she heard the familiar sounds of phones ringing, animated conversations, and Faz’s inimitable voice. “Who took my mug? It’s got my face on it for a reason, people!”