by J. C. Fields
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 just 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-lengt
h 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. Pictures 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?”
“I wouldn’t bet against him. Bishop has proven to be adaptive and elusive in the past.”
“Yes, he has.”
“Sean.”
“Yeah.”
“Assume the worst.”
Chapter 29
Springfield, MO
As Joseph and Kruger walked through the parking lot at the Springfield-Branson National Airport’s General Aviation Terminal after returning from Denver, Kruger’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the caller ID and saw a 928 area code. Thinking it might be one of the agents from Las Vegas, he accepted the call.
“Kruger.”
“Agent Sean Kruger?”
“Yes.” He paused briefly, not recognizing the voice. “Who is this?”
“I’m surprised you don’t remember me.”
Kruger’s heart froze. He stopped walking and stared at Joseph. “Sorry, I’m getting old, my memory isn’t what it used to be. Please, tell me who you are.” He snapped his fingers, pointed to the phone and mouthed, “It is Bishop. Call JR.”
Without hesitating Joseph turned his back to Kruger, took out his cell phone, and punched in one of JR’s numbers only he knew. It was answered immediately. Joseph’s voice was low. “JR, Bishop is calling Sean. Trace the number.”
“Got it. You wanna stay on the line?”
“Yeah.” He turned, looked at Kruger and nodded.
Kruger stared at Joseph, waiting, the caller silent. “Are you still there?”
“Yes, trying to decide what to tell you. I think you know who this is, so I won’t say it out loud.”
“I could be wrong.”
“You have a nice house, Agent Sean Kruger.”
Kruger closed his eyes, took a breath and let it out slowly, thankful Stephanie and Kristin were in Kansas City.
“What do you want, Bishop?”
“Good, you do know who it is. Let me explain something to you, Agent Sean Kruger. I will always be one step ahead of you. Try to understand that…”
“I’m not going to play your game, Bishop. Why are you calling?”
The phone was silent again. Kruger frowned, glanced at the phone’s screen to see if the call was over. It wasn’t. Finally he heard, “It’s really a curtesy call, more than anything. Maybe a warning. Yeah, I’m calling you with a warning. Return the money. If you don’t, you won’t like the consequences.” The call ended abruptly before Kruger could respond.
He took the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen. Joseph walked closer. “JR says the call was made by the phone purchased in Flagstaff. He couldn’t pinpoint the location, but he said it was local.”
“I know. He told me I have a nice house.”
Joseph stared at Kruger. “I’ll call the police, they can meet us. Maybe he’s still there.”
Kruger turned and started walking toward his car. “No, he’s long gone. I wonder if he found what he was looking for.”
Three patrol cars and a detective’s car—their light bars rotating—were parked outside Kruger’s house when they arrived. Yellow tape was being strung around Kruger’s yard. Joseph knew the detective who was sitting in his car talking on a cell phone. The car’s door was open, and both of his feet were on the ground. When he saw Joseph approaching, he stood and extended his hand, but did not stop his phone conversation.
Joseph shook the man’s hand and waited for him to end the call. “Yeah, I need someone from the crime lab here immediately.” He paused as he listened. “The owner just showed up.” Another pause. “Okay, I’ll call you back after I talk to him.”
The detective ended the call and smiled. “Good to see you, Joseph. Wish it was under better circumstances.”
Joseph nodded. “Bob, this is Sean Kruger. Sean, this is Detective Robert Morris.”
Kruger shook the man’s hand. “What’s going on inside, Detective?”
Morris looked at Kruger. “You used to be with the FBI, right?”
Kruger nodded. He didn’t feel like getting into details concerning his status.
“You think someone from your past was here?”
Again, Kruger nodded.
“There doesn’t appear to be anything missing. All the electronics and stuff burglar’s normally take are still there. But someone tore the place apart looking for something.”
Kruger looked at his house, took a deep breath. “May I go in? I might see something you don’t.”
Morris nodded, “Your house.”
Walking through the rooms of their home, Kruger noted the systematic method Bishop used to search for whatever he was looking for. He kept his breathing steady, controlling the rhythm, fighting the inner turmoil. Files were scattered in his home office, so determining if anything was missing would be difficult. Storage boxes in one of the spare bedrooms were dumped on the floor, the contents strewn about. Kristin’s room was ransacked, for no apparent reason other than
he was there and could do it. Finally he walked into Stephanie’s and his bedroom where the chaos intensified. Pillows were cut and ripped apart, and the bedding wadded up and thrown into a corner. Lamps were thrown against the walls and shattered. As he surveyed the room, he noticed several objects missing.
Turning to Morris, his voice in a barely controlled whisper, “Stephanie’s tablet is missing, as is a picture of her and Kristin I keep on my nightstand.”
He returned his attention to the nightstand and walked closer. On the floor, under a ripped pillow case, he saw broken glass and the twisted remains of the frame he kept the picture in. Kruger pointed to it. “He took the picture, left the frame.”
Morris bent over and using the tip of a pen lifted the pillow case. “I’ll have them dust it for prints. I’ll need yours for elimination purposes.”
Kruger nodded. “There is a bottle of facial cream on her side of the vanity. It doesn’t look disturbed. You can get her prints off it.”
Morris smiled slightly. “Good, thanks. Sorry you had to see this, Sean, but we appreciate your help.”
Remaining quiet, Kruger turned, walked out of the bedroom, and returned to his car outside on the street. He leaned against the hood, closed his eyes, bowed his head, and crossed his arms tight against his chest. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Joseph walked up and leaned against the hood next to Kruger. “How bad?”
“Not as bad as Brenda Parker’s house, but bad enough.”
Joseph nodded. “I called Sandy. He’ll be calling in four more members of his team. They’ll fly into Columbia and take over protecting Brian and Michelle. More boots on the ground, so to speak. Sandy will be back early tomorrow morning. He’ll be at your disposal.”
“Thank you, Joseph.” Kruger looked up. Dusk was turning to night and the street lights of the neighborhood were starting to glow. “I need to go back in there and get something. Then I’ll stop at JR’s before I drive to Kansas City. I’ll feel better when Stephanie and Kristin are with me.”
