by J. C. Fields
“Let’s hope so. A mistake I made six years ago has cost innocent individuals their lives. There are at least three we’re sure of. I assume the woman they found in the Chattahoochee River was killed by Bishop, and we can’t find the body of Stephen Blair. Who knows how many he killed while overseas. I have to live with that knowledge, Joseph. I need to find him and put him away before more people pay for my mistake.”
Joseph was silent as he looked at his long-time friend. He put his hand on Kruger’s shoulder, smiled, and then walked back into the conference room.
Chapter 27
Aurora, CO
Bishop sat in his rented Dodge Charger on the street in front of a ranch-style home on Newark Street in Aurora, Colorado. The exterior was red brick with a large picture window between the front door and the garage. The landscaping was mature and in bad need of trimming. The owner was currently at work. She was an associate professor at the University of Denver nine miles west of the house. If she followed her normal schedule, she would be arriving within the next fifteen minutes.
His dark gray suit was from a local Men’s Wearhouse store and the Aurora Police Department IDs were as fake as his Gary Yates passport and driver’s license. The occupant of the home was the woman who claimed to be FBI Agent Sean Kruger’s ex-wife. She had shared numerous Facebook posts about their past relationship after his successful thwarting of a terrorist plot in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her name was Christine Daniels, the former Christine Kruger.
The black Dodge was parked so she would see the car as soon as she pulled into the driveway. Ten minutes later, she did. As soon as she drove into the now-open garage door, Bishop exited the Dodge and walked toward the woman, who was now standing behind her car watching him approach.
“Can I help you with something?” Her tone was sharp and distrustful. She was a tall woman, slender, with short stylish blond hair and dark roots. She wore a gray pantsuit with a silk blouse. Her blue-gray eyes were narrow as she stared at the man approaching her.
Bishop smiled, held up the fake badge and ID. “Detective Barry Miller, Aurora Police Department. Ms. Daniels, may I have a word with you?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s this about, Detective?”
“It’s about your ex-husband. May we step inside?”
“I haven’t seen or spoken to my ex-husband in over twenty years, Detective. No, we may not step inside. You can tell me what this is about out here.”
Bishop frowned, turned around and quickly scanned the neighborhood. Seeing no one, he slipped his hand inside his suitcoat jacket and pulled a Sig Sauer P224 from its holster on his belt. He returned his attention to Christine Daniels. Pointing the pistol at her chest, he smiled. “Get in the house, bitch.”
***
“When did you last speak to your ex-husband?”
Christine was duct-taped to a wooden chair, moved from the dining room to her bedroom. She shook her head and stared at the floor. “I’ve told you over and over, I haven’t seen the man for twenty years. Can’t you get it through your head?”
Bishop slapped her harder and bent over. Getting close to her face, he screamed, “I don’t believe you.”
Frustration overcame her fear, and she stared into Bishop’s eyes. “Believe what you want. I don’t have contact with the man.”
Bishop straightened and pointed at all the pictures on the wall of her bedroom. “Then who is that?”
Christine sobbed, “My son.”
Bishop stood perfectly still. He stared at the woman, than back at the pictures on the wall. There were a few pictures of a young boy, but the rest of the pictures were of a tall slender man. The pictures appeared to be natural, without the subject posing. “He looks remarkably like his father.”
She nodded and took a deep breath as she sobbed. “They look more like twin brothers than father and son.”
“Where does he live?”
She shook her head.
Bishop slapped her hard. She screamed, but did not answer his question.
“You don’t know, do you?”
She shook her head again. “I hated being a mother. I left when he was less than a year old. I haven’t spoken to him since he graduated from high school.”
“But you have feelings for him.” Bishop walked closer to the wall and examined the pictures more carefully. Each was an eight-by-ten taken with a telephoto lens from a distance. Closer to the picture, he could tell the man was younger. “Obviously, you know where he is. You took these pictures, didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer.
He stopped at one picture in particular. It showed the man walking with a young woman on what appeared to be a college campus. The couple was holding hands. “Who’s the girl?”
She remained quiet.
“You might as well answer me. I’m going to find out eventually.”
Christine stared at the floor.
“Answer me.”
She shook her head.
Bishop took a switch-blade from his pocket and flipped it open. He held the knife to her blouse and cut the first button off.
She took a sharp breath.
He cut off the next three buttons, exposing her bra.
“I would rather find out where your ex-husband is. You’d spare your son and his girlfriend a lot of pain. Tell me Christine.”
She shook her head harder.
Bishop slipped the knife between her chest and the middle of her bra, turned it and cut the fabric holding the two cups together. With her breasts now exposed, she gasped and started to cry.
“I don’t know where Sean lives. He used to live in Kansas City, but when he got married, they moved. How many times do I have to tell you I don’t talk to him?” Tears ran down her cheeks as she looked at Bishop. “What do I have to say to make you believe me?”
Bishop grinned as he cut the rest of her clothes off.
***
Sitting in front of Christine Daniels’ laptop, Bishop searched her Facebook account for any clue to the location of her ex-husband. He learned her son’s name was Brian from several letters she kept in her nightstand. The letters were written in a child’s handwriting on lined notebook paper, now yellowed with age. After an hour of searching, he found what he was looking for. It was a PDF file with an engagement announcement for Brian Kruger and Michele Brickman. The announcement was from the Columbia, Missouri, Daily Tribune. The announcement mentioned Brian was the son of Sean and Stephanie Kruger, Springfield, Missouri. No mention of the owner of the house he now occupied. She did tell him the truth. She was completely and totally out of the lives of her ex-husband and son. Sad.
Bishop stood and went back to Christine’s bedroom. He stared at the body lying on the bed. “You could have saved yourself a lot of anguish by just telling me. Plus, you might have had a chance to reconcile with your son.”
Christine was no longer able to respond to Bishop. Her unseeing eyes stared at the ceiling. He shook his head. “Sad. You made poor choices, Christine.”
He shrugged and closed the door to the bedroom.
***
It was an hour before dawn. The neighborhood was quiet and the surrounding houses still dark when Bishop walked out to the rented Dodge Charger. He placed the GPS unit from Christine’s car in the front seat and walked back into house. He wiped down all the surfaces he remembered touching with anti-bacterial wipes he found in her kitchen. After turning the air conditioner down as low as it would go, he locked the front door and returned to his car. Once the GPS unit was attached by a suction cup to the front windshield, he requested the unit to guide him to Springfield, Missouri. After the route was calculated, he pulled away from the curb.
It was a little under eight hundred miles to Springfield. Glancing at the clock on the dashboard, it would take eleven hours to make the drive. He would be there just after dark. Plenty of time to do what he needed to do.
Chapter 28
Springfield, MO
Kruger’s cell phone vibrated j
ust as the conference call ended. He hesitated, pulled it out of his pocket, stared at the caller ID, and accepted the call. “I haven’t spoken to you in a while, Alan, what’s up?”
“It’s not good, Sean.”
Kruger didn’t say anything. He stood and left the conference room, shutting the door behind him.
“Okay, what’s happened?”
“Your ex-wife didn’t show up at the university this morning. She had a full class schedule and didn’t call in.”
Walking toward the staircase on the far side of the room, he sat down in an empty cubicle. Taking a deep breath, he was afraid he knew where this was going.
“Christine has a history of abandoning her responsibilities, Alan. How does this concern me?”
“Her department chair was concerned; she’d never done this before. They sent a university security unit out to check on her. Temperature was in the mid-forties outside when they got there, and the house’s air conditioning unit was running. They thought it strange and requested an Aurora patrol car to join them. Using that as probable cause, the police broke in.”
Kruger was silent for several moments. “He found her?”
“Looks that way. Our agents were called once the police entered the house and found her. The agents on scene described it as unpleasant.”
“How bad?”
“From what I was told, not as bad as Brenda Parker, but it was bad.”
“When?”
“Sometime last night. Denver police have been there since mid-morning, and we have two agents still on the scene consulting. Both of them read your memo several weeks ago about Bishop, realized what was going on, and asked their SAC to call me.”
“Do I need to go out there?”
“I think you should. If nothing else, see if you can determined what he learned while there.”
“There are direct flights from here to Denver. I can probably be there before dark.”
Alan was quiet for a few moments. “Sorry about this, Sean.”
Kruger didn’t answer right away. “As much as I’ve resented what she did to Brian, no one deserves their last hours on earth to be with Bishop.”
The call ended and Kruger sat there, deep in thought. Joseph walked up to him, stood quietly for several moments and asked, “Bad news?”
Kruger nodded. “Bishop found Christine.”
Joseph closed his eyes and leaned against the desk in the cubicle. “Oh, no. When?”
“Sometime yesterday. That was Alan on the phone. She didn’t show up for work this morning and the University sent a couple of security people out. They didn’t like what they saw, called the cops and the cops called the field office after they entered the house. I’ve seen Bishop’s work...”
“I’m sorry, Sean.”
Kruger glanced at his watch. “I need to get to Denver today. You want to come?”
Joseph straightened up from the desk. “I have a charter service available; I’ll call him. Get to the airport as soon as you can.” With a grim smile, he headed toward the staircase.
Kruger walked back to the conference room and told JR and Knoll he was leaving and why.
Knoll stood. “Anything you need me to do?”
Taking a deep breath, Kruger stared at the large man for several seconds. Letting the breath out slowly, he nodded. “Yeah. Can you drive up to Columbia and keep an eye on Brian and Michelle until I get this figured out?”
Walking over to Kruger, Knoll reached into his pocket and extracted a plastic Zip-lock bag with two cylindrical objects. He handed it to him. “I originally planned to give these to you in private. As an agent with the FBI, you’re not supposed to have stuff like this. But if you need them, you have them. Trust me, you might need them.”
Staring at the plastic bag, he looked back up at Knoll, accepted the bag, placed it in his back jeans pocket, and smiled.
“You never know, Sandy. Thanks for keeping an eye on my son.”
“No problem.” Knoll nodded. “Happy to do it. I’ll leave from here. My go-bag’s in the car.”
After Kruger left, Knoll started gathering up the files he was working on. JR turned to the large man. “When you get back from Columbia, I need you to re-qualify me on a Remington.”
Chuckling, Knoll smiled. “From what Joseph has told me, you’re the one who needs to teach me a few things.”
JR shook his head. “I’m rusty.”
The smile left Knoll’s face. He stared at JR for a few moments, and then nodded.
***
“Why don’t you and Kristin visit your sister for a few days?”
Stephanie looked at her husband and blinked a couple of times. “Do you think we need to?”
“It would make me feel better. I don’t know how long I’ll need to stay in Denver.”
“I’m sorry about Christine, Sean.”
Kruger didn’t say anything but turned and walked toward a bedroom window, staring out into the backyard. He remained quiet for several more moments. “Six years ago I let this monster get away.”
He paused and turned back to look at Stephanie.
“I knew he was guilty of murder. I just didn’t have enough proof to arrest him. So…” He took a deep breath. “I taunted him one evening, daring him to say something or take a swing at me. Anything, it didn’t matter. I needed an excuse to arrest him and throw his ass in jail. At least until we could get positive proof he’d murdered those four women.”
Stephanie remained quiet.
Kruger shook his head and turned back to gaze out the window. “Bishop was on the verge of taking a swing at me, I could tell. There was fury in his eyes, but just as quickly, it was gone. I watched him get into his car and drive away. He disappeared along with six million dollars he’d embezzled from his company. Now four innocent individuals are dead. Plus, I’ve put you, Kristin, Brian and Michelle in jeopardy. All because of that one mistake.”
“Sean, it’s not your fault. He’s the one who killed those people.”
Kruger shook his head. “But I could have prevented their deaths.” He turned to his wife. “If I had left the guy alone, he would have showed up for work the next morning. We received the results from a DNA test early the next day. A match from one of his victims.” He closed his fist and held it up for emphasis. “We had him. We could have put him away for life. Except I warned him.”
“You didn’t know he would vanish.”
“No, I didn’t know. But I let my ego get in the way and I…” He didn’t finish. He put his arms around Stephanie and hugged her. “I need to correct my mistake.”
***
Kruger scrolled through crime scene photos on a Samsung tablet. FBI Special Agent Marcie Kincaid stood next to him while he looked at a photo, then the room. He repeated the process with the next photo. Stocky and several inches shorter than Kruger, with medium-length brown hair tied back in a ponytail, Kincaid was a ten-year veteran of the Bureau. She stood silently with her hands behind her back as she waited for Kruger to finish.
“Thanks for having the body removed before I got here, Marcie.”
She nodded her head. “We were informed about your relationship to the victim.”
“Her name was Christine, and the relationship ended twenty years ago. Still, I appreciate your concern.”
Marcie nodded again, her demeanor not changing.
Charlie Craft walked back into the bedroom. “We’ve found a lot of DNA and a few fingerprints. Looks like he tried to wipe most of the prints, but missed some.”
Kruger looked at Charlie. “Can you confirm it was Bishop?”
“Officially, not yet. But, yeah, it was Bishop.”
Kruger nodded. “Can I look at the laptop in her office?”
“Sure. We checked it first. We didn’t find Christine’s or any fingerprints on it, lots of cleaning residue from being wiped within the last twenty-four hours.”
Sitting down at the laptop, Kruger turned it on. As he waited for it to boot up, he stared around the office. Pic
tures of Brian were everywhere. On the wall, on her desk and when the computer opened, her desktop background picture was a long distance shot of him on stage accepting his bachelor’s degree diploma. Kruger was at the ceremony, but did not remember seeing his ex-wife. He shook his head. The sadness of her decision not to be involved in her son’s life now even more apparent.
The computer was not password protected, so it indicated Bishop would have been able to access any of the files on the computer. He called Charlie into the room. “If I wanted to look at the most recent files accessed, what would I do?”
Charlie explained how to do it and stood with his arms folded across his chest as he watched his old mentor work the keyboard.
“Oh, shit.” Kruger stared at an open PDF file displayed on the computer screen.
“What?”
Kruger pointed at the screen showing the last file Bishop looked at before closing the computer. It was a scanned copy of Brian and Michelle’s engagement announcement from the Columbia newspaper.
“He knows Brian lives in Columbia, and I live in Springfield.”
***
On the drive back to the airport, Joseph drove while Kruger spoke to JR on his cell phone. “Sandy Knoll is in Columbia with Brian and Michelle. They’re safe. How easy will it be for Bishop to find my house?”
“He won’t be able to find yours, Joseph’s or my address online in any search engine. I made sure of that when you moved here.” He was silent for a moment. “Uh, oh. I forgot about something. Let me check.” Kruger heard the clicking of JR’s keyboard and then silence. “I was afraid of this. All he would need to do is access the county assessor’s webpage and search local property records. They’re public records so there isn’t much I can do about it.”
“Can he do it online?”
“Yeah, I just did. Type in your name, and it gives the address of real property in the county.”
“Do you think he would know to look at the website?”
