William Bradford Bishop, Jr: Let's Meet
Hey Brad,
Since I haven't heard back from you, I wanted to let you know that I just had this awesome brainstorm: Let's meet. Here's the deal. Chances are better than even that you're still hanging out in Europe, very likely in Italy. Guess what? I've got stuff to do in Europe next month. And you won't believe this, but I'll be in your old stomping grounds: Italy and Croatia, as well as in Greece, France and Spain. I'd love to get together for a macchiato con panna (or a stiff strega, if that's your poison of choice) and bring you up on Foreign Service scuttlebutt as well as my proposal to write a fair and honest book about you. How about it? If you contact me via the arrangements I spelled out in my previous dispatch, I'll get back to you with the specifics of my itinerary in July and we can take it from there.
I know, I know. You fear this is some kind of trap. And I completely get that. So, in true Foreign Service fashion, I have a "fallback position." Let's take off our diplo hats and put on our inteloff hats. If you really don't want to meet faccia a faccia, let's do a dead drop op. Alternatively, we could also do a brush pass, or you could send a cutout agent my way. Once I get the green light from you on your preferred tradecraft in accordance with the coms specs laid out in my last post, I'll relay back to you the cities I'll be in and the dates. You can then specify an exact dead drop location where I could pick up your written account explaining your mindset, emotional state and life since that fateful day of March 1, 1976 when you massacred your entire family with a large hammer. I'll then see to it that it's published, just like the Unabomber did.
Since my last post, I've come across even more things we have in common. You have two master's degrees and so do I. You're an avid canoeist, and so am I. And get this: my house was just blocks down from your place in Bethesda. Amazing. We're almost hoodies.
Seriously though, let's look at the mutual shared interests in a get-together, or some other form of contact:
Brad:
You, at 77, get to atone, explain, come clean, whatever, before you depart this life.
You come to terms with your own conscience.
You face the souls of Annette, Lobelia, Brad III, Brent and Geoffrey squarely and make your peace.
Jim:
I get the scoop on Brad Bishop, family man/family killer.
I'll report honestly and fairly so that the world can fully understand you.
I get to finally figure you out after all these years of puzzling over why a guy much like myself would go dark and succumb to unspeakable evil.
I'll be honest with you, Brad. I don't have purely altruistic motives here. I'm as meretricious as the next writer. I want a good story. I want a New York Times bestseller. I'm going directly from the International Thriller Writers convention in New York to Europe in July. I'm all fired up and ready to go, to have contact with you and to write "The Brad Bishop Story."
Annette, Lobelia, Brad III, Brant, and Geoffrey also want an answer. They deserve one.
See also:
An Open Letter to William Bradford Bishop, Jr.
Calling Brad Bishop! Calling Brad Bishop!
"CHASM" Lands on Another Bestseller List: Monsters in Our Midst