Digging even deeper convinced him, as he had become convinced at the academy, that a certain con artist named Josip Bronsky, a.k.a. Joey Bronze, was responsible.
Born in Odessa Sector, Bronsky’s mother had deserted him soon after. His father, Mikhail, was a con man and brought Josip up in his footsteps. They left the sector when it got too hot, and Mikhail was killed by an angry mark when Josip was in his teens. Josip landed on Wollaston.
As a young man in the Estvian-controlled city of Savanna on Wollaston, Bronsky had started off as a small time crook, but had shown a certain skill for the con; while they knew he was running the cons, no Imperial investigator could ever find enough evidence to nail him. And given the political environment on Wollaston, it proved easy for the sharp-witted youth to play both ends against the middle, sometimes scamming Sintaran supporters, sometimes Estvian, carefully walking a tightrope between the two and never taking sides himself.
So he had quickly moved from small-time, penny-ante stuff into the big leagues, conning richer and richer victims, sometimes alone, and sometimes with the help of one or more skilled – or unskilled – cronies, usually attractive females that went with Bronsky to various nightclubs and parties. Speculation among those trying to apprehend him varied on whether they were also his lovers, and if they knew they were taking part in a con.
And business – and life – had been good for Bronsky.
Until one of those cons had gone wrong.
Johnston Eustace Petticord, who had emigrated from elsewhere in the Empire of Sintar, and who was a strong supporter thereof, had not fallen for Bronsky’s scam. Somehow, he had figured out that his friend Mia was not a young billionaire heiress from Travers World, ripe for marriage; it never even occurred to Bronsky that someone might check to find out that there were no heiresses of significance on Travers World – it was far too rural in general, and had too few inhabitants, for anyone as wealthy as that. For that matter, Bronsky himself hadn’t bothered to check…which taught him a significant lesson: Don’t just wing your con, make sure your background story is good enough to withstand scrutiny.
More and worse, however, was the fact that Petticord had friends in powerful places; if he turned Bronsky and his lady compatriot over to the police, it would have meant a sure conviction and many, many years of imprisonment.
But at least on Wollaston, Petticord also had powerful enemies due to his political stance. And he traveled in, and on, a world where men and women were not afraid to take what they wanted…or hire it taken. Given the political intrigue rampant on Wollaston, and the fact that he was a major political player for one side, Petticord had had a price on his head for over a year from the other side; he had simply been fortunate so far, in that he could hire better bodyguards.
So when Petticord had immediately realized there was a scam going down as soon as Bronsky told him about “Bambi’s” purported background, he looked into the con artist’s past and learned the truth. Then Petticord had summoned Bronsky and confronted him. He had subsequently been stupid enough to draw on Bronsky, evidently planning to hold him for the authorities to take into custody.
Bronsky had responded in kind. And proved faster.
Slipping the desired proof of Petticord’s death – an hereditary signet ring; the Petticords were an old, well-pedigreed, and very wealthy family from Adonar, on the Earthside of the empire – from Petticord’s finger and tucking it into the secret pocket of his jacket, Bronsky executed the escape plan he always developed when working a new con, thankful that Mia wasn’t with him to slow him down. He made it out of the house and off the grounds before the alarm was raised.
From there, he headed straight for the house of Albert Armstrong, an émigré from the Kingdom of Estvia who had come to Wollaston expressly to restore the Wollaston system to that star nation, and the mortal enemy of Petticord. There, Bronsky showed the ring to the guard at the gate, then to successively higher members of Armstrong’s staff, until he finally reached the man himself.
The reward had been substantial, more than enough to offset the loss of the con.
Not that Mia ever knew.
But it had done something to Bronsky that he didn’t expect. Only in the aftermath, when he walked out of Armstrong’s house alive and considerably richer, did Bronsky experience the adrenaline rush, the surge of endorphins.
Bronsky discovered he enjoyed killing.
The police suspected Bronsky at first; he had been a known associate in the weeks leading up to Petticord’s death, and a known con artist. But he was not known for murder. And when the signet ring turned up missing, suspicion fell on Armstrong’s people. However, while the rumor was well known, Armstrong was not stupid, and had been careful to leave nothing that could be traced to him or his staff of enforcers. Further, his Estvian sympathies were largely shared by the police force in Savanna, and there was no serious desire to point a finger at such a staunch supporter of the “Wollaston for Estvia” movement.
The fact that Mia had gone missing did not help the development of any case against Bronsky.
