6. Walker
Chapter six
Walker
“What do you think, Agent Bennett?” Her tone and presence are commanding, even on a video conference. The question causes everyone in the conference room to turn and look at me. Special Agent in Charge, Isabelle Chavez, is our supervising agent in the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Division. I have immense respect for everything she has accomplished in her career, but I know she terrifies some people in this room.
The task force was formed when an analyst at headquarters noticed a pattern developing among open murder cases committed by a long-distance kill-shot from at least eight hundred meters away. Previous investigators were unable to find any matching forensic data, other than the bullets, nor identify any significant leads. I was selected to lead the task force because of my reputation of solving cases on the verge of being transferred to the Cold Case Unit. As a decorated sniper with the US Army Rangers, I also bring a unique perspective to my team.
I tap my pen on the table as I think out loud. “I don’t believe in coincidences. I agree with Agent White that the cases are all related, but we aren’t seeing the link. It doesn’t mean it isn’t there, it just means we haven’t found it yet.”
Chavez nods in agreement. “I want your team to go through the eight cases that were identified as the cleanest kills. The killer, or killers, had to have made a mistake somewhere and I want you to find it—and soon. ”
What Special Agent Chavez doesn’t mention, but we all understand, is we may not get a solid lead until the killer strikes again. I have already poured over those eight cases, along with multiple others that could potentially be related. This killer is good, almost too good. They are not only professionally trained and experienced, he or she is precise and skilled, and the reality is that the list of people that can accurately make these types of distance shots should be small. Not only that, but Uncle Sam should have been the one that trained them if they are this good, assuming that they were trained in the US. For better or worse, one thing about me is that I cannot and do not make any assumptions about whomever an unsub is or what is motivating them until the facts lead me to a solid conclusion. But I also am a big believer in listening to my gut.
“Harlow, did you get anything useful from that colleague of yours in the Cyber Division?” Special Agent Tara White asks. Tara is another member of the task force and is currently the fastest runner on our team. I only know that because she and Agent Kelly Shannon have been comparing each other’s timed miles for the last few weeks, and so far, Tara has beat him every time.
“Yes, I spoke to a profiler colleague of mine over there,” Dr. Harlow Lane responds. The first time I met Harlow, I mistakenly thought she was an intern from a local college or maybe shadowing someone for the day. If someone didn’t know her impressive role and academic accolades, they would never assume that the upbeat, easy-going woman who barely stands five-foot-four can probably tell someone more about themselves within fifteen minutes of meeting them than they even know. It’s helpful to have a genius on our team, and it is much more enjoyable when that genius also has great people skills. “She gave me a few theories to work through, and I agree we’re close, but I haven’t seen anything in the other databases that align quite right with what we are dealing with here.”
The killer is smart. The shots are from far enough away it allows them plenty of time to leave the scene before authorities figure out where the shot originated from, and they have left the authorities without any obvious connections between the cases. Each victim was killed by a single bullet from a long-range rifle. The eight victims are from different cities: Philadelphia, Boston, Milwaukee, Miami, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas City. The cities are interesting to me though because they inherently have a historical connection.
“What did Organized Crime say when these cases were run through their database?” I ask the room.
Agent Mason Dunn raises his hand at the end of the table. He is the youngest agent on the task force and looks like he should still be in the academy. I nod to give him the floor.
“Sir, they didn’t see a correlation with any of their open cases but said they would notify us if that changes.” Tara discreetly rolls her eyes without Chavez seeing. Of course that was Organized Crime’s response; how very typical of them. That division is notorious for wanting to keep their cases in-house and if another division crosses into their territory, they have a tendency to take over the entire case.
“Right, well I think they’re wrong. I don’t know what it is exactly, but my gut says there is some kind of organized crime connection here within these cases. Agent Dunn, I want you to expand on what we have on the victims with a demographic forensic investigation. I don’t care if they had the same coffee order, shopped from the same websites, or went to the same summer camp as a child, I want to know anything and everything these eight people have in common.”
Mason nods enthusiastically. “Yes, sir, of course. I’m on it, sir. ”
“Keep me in the loop, Agent Bennett. Let me know if any other divisions aren’t playing ball and let’s find where this unsub messed up. If it’s one person or one group, we need to stop them before they add even more names to that growing list.” Chavez wraps up the video call and our meeting is adjourned.
I head down the hall to my new office and its views that overlook the heart of Nashville. I haven’t had much time to explore my new city, but Ghost and I have enjoyed discovering new running routes each morning. I sit at my desk and start flipping through the case files for the millionth time. What am I missing? There has to be a tiny string I can tug on to unravel the whole thing.
Fourteen months ago, in the middle of the day, Jim O'Malley was killed by a single shot to the forehead. O’Malley was a seventy-year-old man who was married for forty years and had his own plumbing business in Boston. His wife said they were happily married and didn’t have any enemies. Everything in his case makes it seem like a random shooting, except for the fact it was a long-distance kill-shot from an abandoned building’s rooftop.
Three months later in Miami, Diego Garcia was shot in the chest while on his nightly walk along the beach a few blocks from his home. The kill-shot was later identified to have been fired from the balcony of a condominium development. Garcia was a widowed sixty-five-year-old Cuban immigrant that had lived in Miami for over forty years.
Just two weeks after Garcia’s death, Kimberly Nguyen was killed in Cleveland, Ohio. Nguyen was a forty-two-year-old single mother. She worked at a locally owned bar as a waitress for years and was also killed by a lone bullet to the head from a distant rooftop. These all seem so random, but my gut says they are somehow connected.
Retired mechanic Mark Fisher was killed in Detroit while walking home from the liquor store two months after Nguyen was murdered in Cleveland. Fisher was sixty two years old, had a history of gambling on the ponies, and was divorced three times. The ballistics of the bullet from his murder also matched the one used the following month to kill thirty-two-year-old Cynthia Vega in Milwaukee. Vega had a history of petty crimes and lacked a steady job, but most recently had been working as a bartender at a strip club in Milwaukee.
Almost two months later in December, two victims in two different cities were added to the growing list of cases with matching ballistics. A forty-six-year-old tattoo artist, Kenneth “Kenny” Scott was shot in downtown Kansas City, just eleven days before twenty-eight-year-old Nicole Robins was killed during the busy morning commute in Philadelphia. She was a receptionist at a massage parlor and occasionally waitressed at a local sports bar.
The most recent kill was almost three months ago in February, when a cardiologist in Chicago was struck by a single .300 Winchester magnum shot from a M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle, just like the other victims. The victim in Chicago was shot in the chest at 6:04 a.m. in front of the Plaza Hotel on a busy Chicago street. Dr. Trent Stone was an award-winning surgeon, married, and had a young daughter. Stone’s murder is slightly different due to his profession not being blue collar, but it was another long-distance kill-shot with ballistics matching the other sniper cases.
I open Stone’s file and start skimming through the notes from the detectives in Chicago again. Why does this one feel different to me? What are we missing? I remember reading the detectives’ notes stating Stone was outside the hotel after coming from a tryst with his mistress, a Dr. Bianca Bishop of Boston.
Boston.
There is a vague connection to the O’Malley case as it happened in Boston, but I’m not sure it’s enough to lead to anything else. I need to call these Chicago detectives and ask them about what’s not in the report to see if there’s anything they think could be relevant to the case. Sometimes detectives are so focused on the case in front of them, they don’t realize that minor details in their case could connect them to a bigger case somewhere else.
Did the wife know he was cheating? I scroll to another page in the file to read about Dr. Stone’s widow Vivian. She’s a part-time corporate attorney for a big firm in Chicago, but the case notes indicate she claims to have been unaware of the affair until Stone’s death, which the detectives believe to be true. Clicking on the attached image, her photo knocks the breath out of my chest.
Holy shit, she’s beautiful.
Vivian Stone is a classic beauty—kind of reminds me of a movie star from the 1940s. There isn’t much else about the wife in the notes, which seems odd to me. I add it to my list of things to ask the Chicago detectives when I call them.
“Hey Christine, could you coordinate a call with the detectives in Chicago on the Stone case for me as soon as they are available, please? There’s a list of things I want to talk to them about,” I call out to my assistant sitting just outside of my office. She tells me she will get right on it and I thank her as I take a sip from my third cup of coffee this morning. My new assistant Christine has been a lifesaver since moving to Nashville. She helped make my move as seamless as possible and she has pointed me in all the right directions whenever I need something in my new city, from the best restaurants to doggy daycares. Christine and her fiancé are getting married at the end of the year and at this rate, I’m going to have to get her a very nice wedding gift for making my life easier.
“Agent Walker, I have Detective Johnson on line two. His partner is out today but he said he can answer whatever questions you may have about the Stone case,” Christine tells me as she appears in my doorway. She gets things done so quickly; I’ve never had an assistant help my life run so smoothly.
“Thanks Christine.” She nods, pulling my office door shut as I pick up the phone. “Detective Johnson? This is Special Agent Henry Walker Bennett with the FBI. Thanks for taking my call so quickly,” I greet the detective and know he has already talked to other agents about this case, but he hasn’t talked to me about it yet.
“Sure thing, anything for our fed friends, right?” Detective Johnson replies.
“I appreciate it. I’m looking through your notes regarding the murder of Dr. Trent Stone.”
“Yeah, that was an odd one. As I’m sure you know, we see our fair share of murders in the city but a doctor getting taken out by a sniper on the street? That was a first for me.” Detective Johnson huffs on the phone. “Honestly, it’s a frustrating case for us. The guy was a squeaky-clean heart surgeon and someone kills him? We can’t figure out a motive to lead us to any suspects, other than maybe his affair, but that hasn’t led us anywhere.”
“It says in your notes that his mistress was also married. Could her husband have been involved in the murder? I can’t imagine any man would be thrilled if they find out their wife is sleeping with someone else,” I ask.
“We looked into Dr. Bishop’s husband as a potential suspect and from what we can gather between our investigation and our friends over at Boston PD, he isn’t our guy. Dr. Bianca Bishop and her husband Dr. David Bishop were both cheating on each other, but only the husband was aware they were both stepping out on their marriage. My sources in Boston said the husband has multiple current affairs with at least three women in Boston. I got the impression he didn’t really care if his wife was sleeping with someone else, as long as they stayed married for appearances and all that, if you know what I mean,” Detective Johnson implies .
“But even though she was cheating as well, Bianca didn’t know about her husband’s affairs?” I ask.
“Prior to Dr. Stone’s death, I don’t believe so, but after gossip about the confrontation at the funeral spread like wildfire, David decided he no longer needed to hide his indiscretions.”
“What confrontation? I didn’t see anything about one in your notes.”
“I was trying to look out for the widow and didn’t think it was necessary to officially have it anywhere, especially when I didn’t witness it, but Mrs. Stone allegedly slapped Dr. Bianca Bishop at Dr. Stone’s memorial service but no charges were ever filed in that incident.” The widow slapped the mistress? It sounds like they should have served popcorn at the funeral. “However, I did have an arrest alert pop up for Dr. Bianca Bishop on charges of misdemeanor assault,” Detective Johnson says.
“She was arrested at the funeral?”
“No, this was six weeks after the funeral. Dr. Bianca Bishop was arrested in Boston after an altercation between her and one of her husband’s mistresses one evening during a hospital fundraiser.”
“Hmm. Interesting. You mentioned in your notes you don’t believe that Dr. Stone’s wife knew about the affair prior to her husband’s death.” I want to know what he didn’t put in the report about the wife and why.
“No, I really don’t think she knew. Mary and Joseph, that woman was devastated, Agent Bennett. They have a little girl too. Did you see in my notes the murder occurred on the daughter’s fourth birthday? The same damn day. No little girl should have her birthday ruined by her father’s murder.” Johnson curses under his breath.
I pull up a photo of Dr. Stone with his wife and daughter from the Christmas before his death. With arms wrapped around each other and the little girl perched on his hip, they appear to be the picture-perfect family. The daughter’s vibrant, toothy smile reminds me of my youngest niece. “Yeah, that’s really terrible for that little girl. She and her mama deserve justice for everything they’ve been put through. Speaking of her mama, there’s not much in your notes about her though, is there anything you left out or maybe didn’t realize until after you submitted your notes?”
“She was a grief-stricken young lady who also seemed very pissed off when the affair was exposed. She found out about the affair just after her husband was pronounced dead from text messages on his cell phone, can you believe that? My heart really broke for Mrs. Stone. Whenever we interviewed her, she seemed to be shell-shocked and totally blindsided by the affair. Her friends and work colleagues all spoke very highly of her, and we didn’t see any obvious motivation for her to be involved. There was no indication she knew anything about the affair until after her husband’s death, and we couldn’t find any other motive for her.”
“Did you or your partner do any follow-up interviews with the wife since the initial investigation?” I ask.
“Well, we can’t just stop by to see her in person anymore. Mrs. Stone moved back to her family’s hometown in Tennessee around mid-April. From what I gathered, she wasn’t doing so well after her husband’s death, and I think she needed support from her family.” It’s not uncommon for widows with children to need family and friends but a big move is slightly out of the ordinary so soon after a murder. Maybe she really was just shocked and lost, or maybe she is a really good actress and knows more than she let on.
“Where in Tennessee did she move to?” I ask.
“Her hometown of Forrest Falls, some small town just over an hour west of Nashville,” he answers. What are the odds of that? It looks like I’ll get to follow up with Mrs. Stone in person easier than I expected .
Detective Johnson continues, “I haven’t had a chance to update the case file notes yet outside of my handwritten ones in my street file, but Mrs. Stone just called us the other day. This is another peculiar thing though, Agent Bennett. She was sent some weird poem at her sister’s place in Tennessee referencing her husband’s death. We had the local sheriff pick it up and they’re running it for prints. We’re waiting to hear back from them to see if anything matches in any of the databases.”
Bingo. I knew there was going to be a loose thread to pull on in this case. “Tell me more about this poem.”